text: There are many beneficial aspects of genetic manipulation. These include: the erasion of identification of harmful hereditary genetic disorders and the development of hybrid high-yield crops. There can be no doubt that genetic manipulation and genetic engineering have had highly beneficial effects on many areas of society.
  	However, many people dislike or are prejudiced against, genetic manipulation. Partly this is a 'Fear of the unknown'; something which tampers with the intrinsic components of plant and animal life is beyond comprehension for most people, and therefore provokes fear. What people have also become aware of, is the immense power which genetic manipulation can give to certain individuals. This has been very good to feed popular culture (the film 'Jurassic Park' being an obvious reference point). There is also however, the very real possibility that the power of genetic manipulation could become the possession of uncontrolled unregulated individuals who could use it for `evil' purposes. This then, is an argument against scientists bearing moral responsibility for their work.
  	Anything in life can be misused. Whether it be a kitchen-knife used to stab someone, a car used to run someone over, or something as harmeless as a pillow used to suffocate. Everything in life, if misused, can have harmful effects and genetic engineering and genetic manipulation are no exception. Though the possible effects of genetic manipulation may be far larger than a kitchen-knife or car, this is purely a subjective view by present-day standards. Certainly we would not hold the makers of a car or kitchen-knife responsible for their misuse, and there is no reason why scientists should bear the major burden or responsibility if genetic manipulation is put to misuse.
  	The fundamental flaw in saying scientists must bear the major burden or moral responsibility for their work, is that if this had been applied universally for centuries, scientific research would never have taken place, and mankind would be without electricity, radios, quite simply, anything above the mud hut' existence. Scientific research is not a corrupt, but an essential and natural part of the human condition for bettering itself. The other fundamental flaw is assuming that individual scientists have responsibility, Science is a process of discovery rather than creation, ie. no-one created genetic manipulation, the power of it was there to be discovered. If one scientist does not make a discovery then another one will. It is unfair to hold responsible the scientist on the fore front of human knowledge, who discovers something when another scientist in another part of the world may make the discovery independently afterwards.
  	The only argument for making scientists responsible for their work, is that quite often, and particularly in the case of genetic manipulation, it would need a scientist to misuse knowledge, and therefore they should be responsible. While genetic manipulation is relatively new, it takes a scientist to carry it out, and therefore an individual scientist could be held responsible. But, once genetic manipulation becomes common-place in the future, and it is not only the domain of scientists, the originals scientist who discovered genetic manipulation cannot be held responsible for other's misuse of it.
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