> It would be surprising if glyphosate turned out to be toxic, because it straightforwardly targets a metabolic pathway that plants have and the entire kingdom

> It would be surprising if glyphosate turned out to be toxic, because it straightforwardly targets a metabolic pathway that plants have and the entire kingdom of Animalia lacks. Biochemistry is not that simple. My favorite example is n-hexane, the linear hydrocarbon with 6 carbon atoms. It is more toxic than any of the other small alkanes; about 3 times as toxic as n-pentane, with 5 carbons, but also less toxic than n-heptane, with 7 [0]. Why? I don't know if anyone knows, but seems like it must have something to do with the exact size of the molecule. Maybe it's just short enough to fit someplace and just long enough to cause a problem when it's there. The point is, so much of biochemistry is about how molecules fit together in 3-D space. This is not something that's easy to predict. Your line of reasoning here is just not valid. [0] https://books.google.com/books?id=e4_S46UcI2AC&pg=PT286&lpg=PT286&dq=butane+pentane+hexane+heptane+octane+toxicity&source=bl&ots=oxB0vMzbYG&sig=hDSh0EeBiymeo1SNWV3xbiKkfhg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiH85GgoL7VAhWJqFQKHboRBNsQ6AEIVTAL#v=onepage&q=butane%20pentane%20hexane%20heptane%20octane%20toxicity&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=e4_S46UcI2AC&pg=PT286&lpg=...