James Lovelock Quotes

People have freaked out when I tell them that my dragons are scientifically based... what else can you call a genetically engineered life form?

In the last century, as we learned more about genes, we were able to devise ways of accelerating evolution.

Every orchid or rose or lizard or snake is the work of a dedicated and skilled breeder. There are thousands of people, amateurs and professionals, who devote their lives to this business. Now imagine what will happen when the tools of genetic engineering become accessible to these people.

With the advent of genetic engineering the time required for the evolution of new species may literally collapse.

Genetic engineering is a result of science advancement, so I don't think that in itself is bad. If used wisely, genetics can be beneficial, but they can be abused, too.

Genetic pollution is considerably more dangerous than oil spills. You can’t just go out there and put a boom around it and put it back in.

We've been modifying the biological world at the level of DNA for thousands of years. Somehow there is this new fear of what we already have been doing and that fear has limited our ability to provide real solutions.

It used to be thought that our genes were historically immutable and that it was not possible to imagine a conversation between culture and genetics.

I mean, we're really making a quantum change in our relationship to the plant world with genetic modification.

When you do cross-breeding of plants, you're doing this blind experiment where you're just mixing DNA of different types of cells and just seeing what comes out of it.

No one really has the guts to say it, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?

During this period, I became interested in how the new techniques of cloning and sequencing DNA could influence the study of genetics and I was an early and active proponent of the Human Genome Sequencing Project.

Modern genetic engineering makes producing GMO food products relatively easy. GMOs can improve crop yield and greatly enhance the nutritional value of those same crops.

It's possible that we could change a human gene and double our life span. I don't know if that's true, but we can't rule that out.

Now, there is always a tremendous fear of science and progressing forward into areas of the unknown and it is a valid fear. Some of the genetic alterations of food are a little edgy.

All the food we eat - every grain of rice and kernel of corn - has been genetically modified. None of it was here before mankind learned to cultivate crops. The question isn't whether our food has been modified, but how.

What the public needs to understand is that these new technologies, especially in recombinant DNA technology, allow scientists to bypass biological boundaries altogether.

We discuss the potential drawbacks of genetic testing or genetic modification of crops. We do not discuss the suffering and environmental damage that will be caused by holding back innovation…. The debate is unbalanced here because it is complacent about the imperfect present.

Most research and investment in this area [genetic engineering] is carried out by the private sector, which has little incentive to consider threats to public safety.

Surely, if we are going to be better at producing food of the right value, then we have to accept that genetic technology... is going to be part of that.

Mother Nature has been the best bioengineer in history. Why not harness the evolutionary process to design proteins?

When the correct tests are done, GM products are as safe as their non-GM counterparts.

Only engineers would do something like random mutagenesis.

Human beings have been manipulating the biological world for thousands of years without understanding how DNA codes function.

No one may have the guts to say this, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?