Environmental Selection is a very complicated subject to talk about in terms of ethics because it is hard to choose whether it has been more positive or negative for life on earth. By definition Artificial Selection is the selection of desired traits in plants and animals that ultimately benefits society. Artificial Selection has been used to modify certain plants and animals to make them into better mediums of agricultural purposes.
Artificial Selection allows for the intentional multiplication or increased frequency of certain traits or a mixture of traits. Now we ask, “Under what circumstances should humans be artificially selecting plants or animals, if any?” Personally I don’t agree with the cultivation of selected characteristics for our own gain. What can we do though? How can even we help it now anyways? Nonetheless, I don’t think we should have introduced the idea in the first place.
Artificial Selection does have benefits for agriculture and it does let us choose what traits we would like to have in plants and animals but there are hazardous effects that come with these “beneficial” traits. Just because it helps humans with their lives doesn’t mean it is ethically right to encourage this practice either. For instance, there are cows that produce more milk and more beef, Persian cats with flatter faces, and dogs that are bred to be less violent. These certain modifications come with issues that not only cause us an inconvenience but also hurt the animals and plants in question. These cows may produce more milk, but the alterations with their DNA also causes increased infection and fertility problems; the Persian cats that we would like to see with flatter faces often develop respiratory issues and can’t breathe properly; and changing the appearance of Dobermans to become easier on the eyes has created a defect and given most Dobermans narcolepsy. These traits cannot further be helped because they are now a part of the species and cannot be weeded out by natural selection. If most Dobermans have narcolepsy then natural selection would not do very much because the majority have narcolepsy and it cannot be eliminated through the course of nature.
The same goes with plants. Have you ever wondered where corn came from? Some people think that corn is an entirely man-made species that is incapable of reproducing without the intervention of man, and others say that it is entirely Mother Nature who brought us this valuable vegetable. Now ask yourself. If corn cannot reproduce itself, then how could it have been on earth for all this time? Obviously it had to have evolved from deviations of a specific ancestor through Artificial Selection. It hasn’t necessarily had a negative impact on the world but it isn’t natural, so in other words it is a mutation of a natural substance that was changed by weeding out certain undesired traits. This is happening everywhere, from meddling with animals to form fatter pigs, faster horses, and more elegant breeds of dogs; but there are just a few examples. Based on our needs we are changing nature which is not always for the better. Also there is a difference between species and breed.
A species is a group of individuals that can reproduce with one another. A breed is a group of domestic animals that have altered appearances and have been changed by artificial selection over many generations. An individual of a breed will be able to reproduce with an individual of another breed properly, although both of the distinctive characteristics of the two breeds can be lost limiting biodiversity. This also makes a mixed breed animal.
Well originally we were trying to change plants and animals to produce greater yields. The simple wild mustard plant that they cultivated numerous times for desired traits has now become many things like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and more. These are now part of many people’s every day lives. What about other things that have evolved because of people tampering with their genetic makeup? There are certain health risks that have popped up because maybe a person could be allergic to any new mutations that contain a mash up of things and become one substance. With this possibility, there are numerous health concerns and allergy risks for people.
With the selective breeding of any species there are increased risks on the limitations of biodiversity. Plant breeders are experimenting with favourable features in crops. Naturally we want the best conditions and features in our plants so weeding out certain traits so many times and only keeping those will eventually eliminate the existence of unwanted plants. This will create the scare that if something comes along that could eliminate the new desired plant, and then it would take out the whole species at enormous rates. If this diversity is not kept, there will be a removal of an essential element in life called variation and render it ineffective and thus useless. This we must take into consideration because if we continue to implicate processes like these with nature, there will be increased expenses as well. The huge costs and efficiency of the process complicates life for humans too if you think about it. We will have to create our own food when there are no more animals to do it for us.
Look at this cow (above). It was breeded in order to serve one purpose. It was to give us more meat at a cheaper price. It was not ever supposed to just live and even be accepted for it's physical properties. Humans have altered it's DNA so that it now has a huge burden to carry. It has to satisfy the agricultural needs of humans,supply more affordable meat, and it has to live with a demented body, which probably causes it pain or discomfort. This Belgian Blue Bull probably also suffers from a lack of myostatin inhibitors. Myostatin is a protein produced in the body that controls muscle growth. This abnormality is very rare to find in other animals, though it still exists, it is mostly found in Belgian Blue Cows.
We know that Artificial Selection brings ethical problems, money problems, health concerns, and mutations. What’s next? What if we never started it? Well if people hadn’t developed this procedure we would probably have been better off although we wouldn’t have such diversity in animals and plants on earth. We wouldn’t have those things but we would still find a way of living and meeting our needs head on because we are always looking for easier processes to reach our goals.
Therefore I conclude that even without artificial selection we would prosper and we would find our way around other things that come up. Things will no longer be natural and the balance of naturally occurring instances will be overpowered by the artificial means of doing things. If it does, human kind will have to work harder and create ways of artificially supplying ourselves with resources in the absence of animals and plants (It is like if we run out of bees because of cell phone abuse killing them all and we’ll have to make our own honey and pollenate all the plants and fruits). We would be without these things so we need to come up with alternative ways of popularizing trends in desired traits, but then… wouldn’t it still be a step backwards? That is the question.
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