Original scientific paper

ATTITUDES TOWARDS GENETIC ENGINEERING

Krešimir Kufrin ; Faculty of Philosophy, Zagreb

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a research of attitudes towards genetic engineering (GE), carried out in the beginning of 1997 on the student sample (N=685) on the University of Zagreb, Croatia.
The importance of GE is considered to be moderate (more important fields: environmental protection, treatment of AIDS; equally important: computer technology, nuclear energy, gen–therapy; less important: in vitro fertilization, biotechnology, agricultural pesticides). GE is viewed as a highly hazardous technology (negative effects and misuse): only nuclear technology is estimated as more hazardous.
The application of GE on humans is acceptable only in case of discovering and treating genetic deformations and diseases, while eugenic operations of "mending" people are rejected.
The transfer of human genes to animals is unacceptable for a great majority of respondents. The transfer of genes from animals to plants is also perceived mostly negative, while the transfer animal–animal and plant–plant is somewhat more acceptable – there are more advocates than opponents of such intervention.
Attitudes about readiness towards personal use of GE products show the following: when it comes to foodstuffs of animal and vegetal origin and medicines, the proportion of those who would not use them at any cost is bigger than the proportion of those who would use such products without concern. The proportion of those who do not refuse the use of these products in general, but who have some concerns thereof, is even bigger.

Keywords

attitudes on genetic engineering; biotechnology; genetic engineering; risk; science; technology

Hrčak ID:

141527

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/141527

Publication date:

15.5.1997.

Article data in other languages: croatian german

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