What is "Genetic Engineering?"

Merriam-Webster defines genetic engineering as "the science of making changes to the genes of a plant or animal to produce a desired result" (1). Or, if you want the "full definition," genetic engineering is "the group of applied techniques of genetics and biotechnology used to cut up and join together genetic material and especially DNA from one or more species of organism and to introduce the result into an organism in order to change one or more of its characteristics" (1).

However, I would argue that these two definitions are not the same at all. The first definition is rather vague because "making changes to the genes" does not necessarily mean "cut[ting] up and join[ing] together genetic material," as mentioned in the second definition. These two definitions are not even the only two variations out there on the web. There are many other definitions, which I would argue to not convey the same meaning of "genetic engineering," that I found. This seemingly widespread confusion regarding what genetic engineering actually means is evident in an article from Scientific American about "the real truth about GMOs." The third paragraph of the article discusses the history genetically modified plants and argues that mankind has been experimenting with genetic engineering for years, but "almost everyone believes we've never fiddled with plant genes before" (2). 

So what is the difference between the genetic engineering of the past and that of today? One, the methods we use today are safer and better than they were in the past (2). Two, people are more skeptical of genetic engineering practices now than they were in the past. Does this make sense? I would love to hear your opinions on this in the comments (perhaps an explanation of why this contradiction happened).

Let's take a quick break with a humorous (in my opinion) pictorial representation (3) of some reductio ad absurdum related to genetic engineering.

What some people think genetic engineering results in

I believe that the reason for the debate over whether genetic engineering is ethical or not stems from the rather large variation in the overall public belief of what the true definition of genetic engineering is. If we can't agree on what "genetic engineering" is, then how can we be expected to agree upon whether it is ethical or not?

In my opinion, genetic engineering is ethical. So far, mankind has only used genetic engineering to improve existing organisms (ie. larger fruits and vegetables). To me, this is comparable to natural selection, just at a much faster rate thanks to our scientific knowledge. I understand that the other side argues that we shouldn't be tampering with DNA at all and just let nature develop as it would if humans didn't exist, but the fact of the matter is that we do exist. As long as we are improving things, I think that justifies any alterations we make to nature.

Sources:
1 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genetic%20engineering
2 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-trust-monsanto-with-our-food/
3 http://funny-captions.livejournal.com/1415.html