Analysis Of Barbara Kingsolver's A Fist In The Eye Of God

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Barbara Kingsolver discusses genetic manipulation through generations of different species in her essay A Fist in the Eye of God. These genetic manipulations occur due to the species acclimating to their environment. Diversity in genes is nature’s survival of the fittest. Only the strongest survive and they pass on their strong traits. With today’s technology, we have the capability of altering genes within a species DNA. This paper examines the detrimental repercussions that GMO 's cause to the environment and insects necessary for the progression of crops. A substantial percentage of the work on the ethics of genetically modified food has primarily centralized on its potentially nocuous effects on human health and on the rights to label …show more content…

In a good year all or most of them will thrive and give you wheat. But in a bad year a spate of high winds may take down the tallest stalks and leave standing at the harvest time only, say, the 10 percent of the crop that had a “shortness” gene. And if that wheat comprises your winter’s supply of bread, plus the only seed you’ll have for next year’s crop, then you’ll be almighty glad to have that small, short harvest. Genetic diversity, in domestic populations as well as wild ones, is nature’s sole insurance policy. Environments change: Wet years are followed by droughts, lakes dry up, volcanoes rumble, ice ages dawn. It’s a big, bad world out there for a little strand of DNA. But a population will persist over time if, deep within the scattered genetics of its ranks, it is literally prepared for anything. When the windy years persist for a decade, the wheat population will be overtaken by a preponderance of shortness, but if the crop maintains its diversity, there will always be recessive aspirations [i.e., recessive genes] for height hiding in there somewhere, waiting to have their day (97-98).
Kingsolver indicated that these wheat crops are undergoing natural selection. More specifically, there are four conditions that must be legitimate for natural selection to engage in a given …show more content…

Wheat grown by traditional farming methods assuages the fundamental conditions for natural selection and is thus able to withstand environmental shifts in the future. However, wheat that is genetically uniform doesn’t satisfy the required circumstances for natural selection to occur. Therefore, it cannot survive prospective advancements. It is innate that a genetically diverse crop will be better able to subsist than a genetically engineered uniform crop. Kingsolver’s argument influences beyond intuition to exemplify why genetic diversity is preferable when compared to genetic uniformity with recognition to food

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