Agricultural Practices Quotes
This quotation illustrates a very interesting historical fact about white understanding of Native American concepts of property and ownership. Here is a Scottsman before the American Revolution who is writing about American Indians and their communal concept of property. The “purchases” of Indian land from individual Indians therefore has even more doubt cast on the propriety than if the whites were acting in good faith. Furguson had personally visited North America for a brief visit.
Some opponents of genetic engineering and Xenotransplantation (creating new animals by combining parts of different animals or adding parts of one animal species to another) cite this Biblical passage in their efforts to stop these new technologies. Yet both are well established and most people, including the opponents often do not even realize instances of it. For example, a large proportion of heart valve repairs in humans is accomplished by Xenotransplantation—replacing the defective heart valve with a pig heart valve. An entire line of biological research is being conducted by splicing the genes of a jellyfish that glows green under UV light into monkeys and worms to study the methods of genetic transmission.
Many developing counties have much of their population whose livelihood depends on use of resources and methods which are damaging to the environment, and the majority of the citizens of the country would rather damage the environment than not develop. Some leaders observe that the United States and most affluent nations historically developed in large part by destroying much of the environment, and they have a right to develop also.
