Genetic engineering and biodiversity
Quinn pointed to an article by Barbara Kingsolver from Kingsolver's new book of essays. It has an interesting perspective on genetic engineering. Among other things, it criticizes genetic engineering for its supposed disregard of the important of biodiversity. Allegedly, engineers want to create one true variety of any given organism, and then have people raise only that particular variety, at the expense of all others.
I don't think most genetic engineers have conscious ambitions anything like that, but on the other hand, that impulse is very real among technology enthusiasts. It is difficult for us to believe that a technical problem like adaptation can't be solved directly by Engineering effort. Diversity as a virtue is not very deeply ingrained (heh!) in technical culture. At least, you wouldn't think so if you heard people talk about operating systems. :-)
