One of the commercial  applications of gene  science is biotechnology.  Biotechnology companies use the ability of scientists to transfer genes between organisms to create new and marketable products.  Corporate scientists develop products by identifying a gene with desirable traits in one organism and assuming that if they transfer that gene into another organism those desirable traits will appear in the new organism. This commercial application of gene science concentrates on the little scientists know about genes – namely how to identify and transfer them – but ignores the vast number of fundamental questions which are unanswered about genes – for example how they behave before and after being transferred. 

The faultline at the core of the theory of gene transfer as practised by the biotechnology industry is the ‘absence of knowledge’.  Scientists do not yet fully understand how genes behave in the organisms from which they originate, and therefore cannot predict how they will behave when transferred into new organisms. 

“The theory of gene transfer makes the simplistic assumption that when we transfer a gene from one organism into another the transferred gene will perform exactly the same function in the new organism as it did in the original and will replicate without change through many cells and over many generations.”

“The biotechnology industry has consistently relied upon the assumption that the transgene (a gene transferred from one organism into another) will do precisely in the new host what it does in its own species, and therefore that the methods used to produce genetically modified crops are particularly specific, precise and predictable.”

(A. Massey, ‘Guide to Biotechnology’, in Biotechnology Industry Organization, Washington D.C. (10^th May 2000).)