Wednesday, March 3, 2010

SBI3U1 U8

What is artificial selection? Artificial selection is the process of changing the characteristics of plants and animals by artificial means. It's a scientific term used to describe the breeding of plants and animals for desirable traits and not necessarily those that would allow the offspring to better survive in the wild. Artificial selection is relatively easy to accomplish. A specific plant of animal is chosen because it has a specific heritable genetic trait that the breeder desires. The plant or animal is then bred with another of its kind with a similar trait, resulting in offspring with a higher potential to display the specific trait. The cycle can be repeated with the offspring until the specific trait is achieved at the desired level.

Artificial selection has generated untold diversity in both plants and animals. Animal breeders are often able to change the characteristics of domestic animals by selecting for reproduction those individuals with the most desirable qualities. An example would be when we choose dogs with certain traits and breed them together to accentuate the traits we desire. The domestic cycle of dogs (canines) being bred by their owners in order to emphasize less-aggressive traits has gone on for thousands of years, and has resulted in hundreds of different breeds that look almost nothing like their grey wolf ancestors. Over the years, the plants with desirable characteristics are grown by man and their numbers increase. Meanwhile, plants without these characteristics are less likely to survive as they are not provided with fertilisers and pesticides by man. The Brassicas (a genus of plants in the mustard family) is a great example of artificial selection. Gardeners have cultivated flowers such as roses and orchids, carefully manipulated heredity to produce the perfect hybrid. Artificial selection is slowly effecting plants and animals.




I believe that artificial selection is not right on plants and animals. We as humans should be leaving all plants and animals the way they should be, the way they're supposed to grow and evolve. Humans shouldn't change the characteristics of plants and animals because the way they're supposed to grow, the reason why they're made, goes against how the natural order of things should be. If we do effect plants and animals by changing their characteristics, we as humans make it seem like we don't accept the way they are. Artificial selection on plants and animals, I believe, can be related to the transformation of baby's before they're born. Adjusting the characteristics and abilities of baby's before they're born isn't right because it makes the parent's of the child seem like that they don't accept the way they're child would grow, as if they wouldn't love the child because they aren't a certain way. This goes to show that allowing artificial selection on plants and animals would make us seem like we don't like something because it isn't the way we want it to be. If we do follow through with artificial selection, it wouldn't allow us to explore other things, to discover other things. We would take advantage of artificial selection, it wouldn't allow us to research things that would help us instead of just changing things in order to get what we want. If artificial selection isn't right for unborn babies, then it isn't right for plants and animals either.


Artificial selection is modification of a species by human intervention so that certain desirable traits are represented in successive generations. Another word to sum this all up is inbreeding. Inbreeding is the mating together of closely related animals, for example mother/son, father/daughter, sibling/sibling-matings, and half-sibling/half-sibling. It is the pairing of animals which are more closely related to the average population. In my opinion, artificial selection on plants and animals isn't right. I believe that change isn't always good, especially on the way things that already know how to grow on their own. By using artificial selection on plants and animals, it may effect us too because we would choose to change things just because we don't like they way something is going to turn out. But if we know how something is going to turn out, instead of resorting to transforming it, we can explore and discover other things that could help us.
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