AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Well, if it was a female goat, they'd be more... Visible?

This.

Is.

Gross.

I'm sorry, I must be infecting you over the internet with my furriness.

Unnecessary use of language.


Careful.

The whole point is that it's way too difficult to get silk from the spiders. And there's no reason the silk-producing goats would ever become the majority. Even if they did let them breed freely with normal goats (which I don't see why they would), there is no environmental pressure that would select towards goats that produce silk.

I'm sure the entire population of goats doesn't suffer, but what about our poor spider-goats?

I used to be in favor of genetic technology. If you can make a tomato taste better, grow larger, and it has no negative affects, then more power to you. But things like this kind of piss me off*.

I figure that science is about knowledge, not manipulating our world to our favor, but that isn't right either. If I were to go by that observation for the rest of my life, I could never buy anything remotely eco-friendly.

I don't know where the line is, and I don't even know if there is one. But I do know that there are people who think this is acceptable, and people who don't, and at least I know where I stand with that.

*I honestly considered saying, "get my goat" instead of this. What is wrong with me?

Well, I honestly don't know anything about the process used to create these goats, so I can't say if it's ethical or not.

If I remember tenth grade Biology (which I don't), it involves simply breaking into the nucleus of the cell (which I guess would be the impregnated zygote of the goat*), and using some sort of catalyst to replace one strand of DNA with another. The process itself doesn't hurt the subject.

*Zygoat? Somebody slap me. Right. Now.

*SMACK*

Thank you.

If humans were looking after the goats, depending on which gene was dominant, there'd be a higher chance of either silk-producing or milk-producing goats. But considering how expensive always going through the plantation and fertilization of the silk-producing DNA eggs inside of goats, I can imagine people would eventually get fed up with that, as they have with gathering the silk from the spiders, and instead decide to breed the silk-producing goats with normal goats, to produce more. It's like farmers breeding only the cows that produce the milk they want; if people want the silk, they will breed the silk-producing goats to get it. And like I already said, that would lead to the silk-producing goats being in the majority because of the demand for them. These goats are not wild goats, their environment is the environment we provide for them. We can change and affect them however we want, to get what we want. If we want silk, it will daisies well happen.

That's why I have a problem with it. It's all about the demand. Even if it's difficult to get the silk from the spiders, that is how we are supposed to do it. But they are making goats do something they weren't designed to do instead in order to get the silk. What does this mean to the spiders? What purpose do they have now, besides eating bugs? I guess it's all just a matter of moral. Personally, I think this is disgusting. If it were just an experiment, I guess it wouldn't be so bad, but considering how much silk they need to meet their demand, I don't think it's just going to be something small scale.

Well, spiders weren't designed to make silk for humans...they were designed to catch food with it. So I imagine if we get it a different way, they won't care much.

Hm, true. But that is how we were supposed to get silk, if we needed it at all. Or from silk worms and stuff. Not from goats. Unless there is a actual species of goats that has not been changed through scientific experiments and instead actually produces silk on it's own for some.. reason.

Goats spinning webs is another scary mental image.

I find it hilarious.

I'm going to try and find a picture of it.

Somehow, just somehow I will not be surprised for Rule /34/ of this. If not, I just got a fucking brilliant idea.

Well if you're going to talk about how we're "supposed" to do things, then we shouldn't be getting milk from goats or cows, either. It's only a mutation that even allows us to digest lactose through adulthood anyway.