Biotechnology

Your series (~In Our Own Image: Life in a genectically engineered world,” April 27-May 1) on biotechnology clearly demonstrates:

* That the hyperactivity in this area is singularly driven by greed and profit-motive--thinly disguised as altruism in the name of better nutrition and health.

* That biotech research and tinkering with the foundational fabric of life is entirely predicated on the dangerous and arrogant notion that humans can improve upon nature.

* That our relationship to nature is as dysfunctional as ever. Case in point: transgenic pigs that have human genes so as to make them better organ donors for people.

To do this important and controversial subject proper justice, your series really needed an addendum discussion around the following:

* Bioethics. There is a sizable population of biologists, politicians, ethicists, etc. who are either opposed to this type of bio-intervention, or admonish us to look carefully before we leap. Time and time again, technologies wildly pursued as beneficent have come back to harm us and our ecosystem.

* Global corporatism, the true engine of biotechnology. With trade mechanisms like the World Trade Organization clearing the way, gene hunters are fanning across the world to commodify and privatize genetic traits of plants, animals and human beings for no other reason than financial gain of multinational corporations.

BRUCE BIGENHO

Santa Barbara

* It’s a pretty sick society that resorts to cruelly (and with often inhumane results) rewiring animals in a desperate attempt to save humankind’s own future, when what we should really be doing is rewiring our own behavior in terms of population control, conservation and recycling of resources, and non-animal medical testing. The longer we perpetuate the denial of human responsibility by trying to change other species for our benefit, the worse things will get.

MIKE LASKAVY

North Hollywood

* The list of “Thoughts on the Self” quotations compiled by Tracy Thomas (April 28) was wonderful, but she forgot to include my favorite: “I yam what I yam,” from Popeye.

JON LOVE