Mad cow is caused by prions.
Also you fail genetics forever.

>>2320
...I'm going to try and address your points one by one to the best of my ability.

>human genes being spliced onto animals we use for food

Are we even doing that? I've heard of using human DNA to give pigs organs that can be transplanted into humans, but I've never heard of human DNA being used for food animals. What would the point be? People don't just mix DNA for the hell of it: they're trying to achieve something specific. Animal DNA is mixed into plants to increase their resistance to cold. DNA is added to low-nutrition-yet-easily-grown plants like rice to make them more nutritious. Yeah, occasionally you get a crazy example, like Monkeys being given jellyfish DNA to glow, but most of the time there's some sort of practical benefit in mind.

>as well as other human cell parts being mixed with theirs' during their "conception", especially when 1 of the results in 1 of the species this is done with is the brains becoming more like human

...What the fuck are you talking about? Are you insinuating people are adding human cells to pig fetuses for some reason? I'm like 90% sure genetic engineering is more complicated than you think.

>After years of being told how much our dna is the core of what we are, suddenly we're okay with significant amounts of it being mixed with the animals we eat?

Our DNA is hardly the only factor determining who we are. Look up epigenetics. Also, all DNA for every organism, plant, animal, or microbe, consists of the same chemicals. Genetic engineering is just taking a specific code of chemicals and adding it to another animal in a way that will express itself meaningfully.

Of course, that's all just how I understand it.

>>2323
yeeeaaaah, all I'd heard of the matter, organ pigs were going to be kept religiously separated from food pigs. It's not like they'd just breed by accident either, animal husbandry is such a science there is no genetic material being passed between animals without explicit intent on the farmer's part. Especially with expensive livestock full of heart transplants.

>>2323

>What would the point be?

To use more of the animal. With the normal animals, most countries almost always throw most of those organs out.

>>2324

Well, you see, I never read that in any of the articles on it or heard it in the tv news report. In fact, they were acting so oblivious about it, it was scary.

>>2323
>Are we even doing that?

I haven't read or heard that we aren't and now I've stated in this post why it would be the case.

>...What the fuck are you talking about?

They use human cell membranes too.

It wouldn't surprise me if they were using another part or 2, also, but lets not dwell on this sentence the way the guy who posted >>2322
fixated on the last sentence of my previous post enough that it's likely even most people with severe OCD would go:OH, WOW! after reading his reply.

It doesn't concern me at all. Don't think of an organism's genome as a box that contains every piece necessary to build that organism. Think of it instead as a box of standardized tools and a couple sheets of instructions about when to use those tools.

When we insert a gene into another organism, odds are that organism already possessed a gene that was either functionally equivalent or demonstrably analogous. Much of the variation in life comes from differences in when genes are activated or how strongly they're expressed. For instance, there's a group trying to recreate features of a species of dinosaur by changing how genes are regulated in chicken embryos. They're not messing with the protein-encoding genes at all, just with how they're expressed.

Inserting a human gene into an animal doesn't make that animal human any more than lending your neighbor a screwdriver makes whatever he builds your property.

Also, most of the times when we DO insert a gene that's human-specific, it's because it's needed for medicinal purposes, not for food. And that's only necessary because biological systems can be hideously specific when it comes to medicine.

>Also, isn't Mad Cow initially caused by animals eating things that contain genes of their own species?
No, not at all. Prions, the things that cause mad cow, are bits of protein that aren't folded correctly. What makes them dangerous is that their folding provides a sort of platform that allows correctly folded to bind and irreversibly convert to the incorrect conformation. The misfolded proteins build up and interfere with cellular function.

>>2326
And why is that way of looking at it any more valid than others?

>>2327
How do you mean? Do you mean the different metaphors? If that's what you mean, it's more valid because it's more accurate. There's not enough information to directly specify every aspect of complex organisms.

Take arabidopsis. These plants have about twenty thousand genes, and between forty and sixty percent (depending on the type) of the protein encoding genes are homologous to human genes. However, the percentage of regulatory genes that are similar is less than fifteen percent. That's why I brought up the toolbox metaphor; the genes an organism has makes less of a difference than you'd think, because organisms generally use very similar sets of genes. The real difference is in how those genes are used.

If you want to say that inserting a human gene into an animal makes that animal a little more human, then any animal or plant you eat is partially human. About 45% of the pig genome is a match for the human genome.

If you really wanted to make another organism more human, you'd have to insert entire suites of genes. I don't think that's likely. It's difficult to get even a handful into the easy models like arabidopsis, which has a six week generation time and can still take almost a year to get even five mutations into the same line.

cannibalism is not an unnatural practice. The stigma is purely a social construct.