3 ms·

So what? The current, non-genetically modified plants are not holy in any sense. They evolved and the during the evolution, their genes were altered countless t

by vlasta2 14y ago

So what? The current, non-genetically modified plants are not holy in any sense. They evolved and the during the evolution, their genes were altered countless times. Every day, an unique, genetically modified plant is born, because a gamma ray from the outer space hit its DNA and altered it in a non-predictable fashion. 99.99999% and maybe more of these mutants are harmless and probably simply die. The alteration of genes can happen on your very own garden and without any safety measures. Some of these natural mutants may even be dangerous and nobody cares. Is this randomness and total lack of safety better than a scientist armed with knowledge and a place to conduct experiments?

warech 14y ago
You have the order wrong. Gene alteration + reproduction -> evolution, rather than evolution causing gene alteration. You're right about the rate and general harmlessness of plant evolution, but the gamma ray from outer space is a bit far-fetched. Wikipedia has a nice overview of genetic alteration in plant developmental biology here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_evolutionary_developmental_biology#Mechanisms_and_players_in_evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_evolutionary_developmenta..., with a more academic discussion of the effect of polyploidy here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22540042 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22540042 That being said, I think the fear is that scientists potentially have the motive to create dangerous/unhealthy strains of plants - a motive which miRNA and transposons (god-willing) do not have.
EthanHeilman 14y ago
I agree with this and generally I am not against GM crops in theory. I think that: 1. Monocultures are bad. GM crops don't have to be monocultures but they generally are for a number of business reasons that have nothing to do with food production. 2. GM crops cross-pollenate thereby spreading patented genes to non-GM fields. The owners of these non-GM fields are then sued and forced to switch to GM crops. 3. GM crops business models are often built around vendor lock-in. Historically vendor lock-in has been bad for software development and I think we can extrapolate these results to farming. 4. Cross pollination to wild-type is generally disruptive to the environment short term (for example consider what happens when wild plants produce pesticides from a GM gene). The effects are probably no different than introducing an invasive species. Generally people see this as a bad thing (snakes in Hawaii for example) and create laws to prevent it from happening. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species 5. There is a big difference between point mutations and transgenic plants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgene I think GM crops can be developed, used in a safe manner and provide a great benefit to humanity, but that is not the current state-of-affairs. There are good reasons the EU regulates GM crops as much as they do.
- vlasta2 14y ago
  Well, I agree that there may be dangers. Eco-activist groups should focus on forcing and helping the scientists and corporations to do more thorough testing. They should not destroy crops or attempt to stop the research. Thinking that they can stop it is naive. If it does not happen in US or EU, it will happen elsewhere (and possibly with less effective safety precautions). The patent thing is a separate problem. Patent law in many areas is pretty bad.

by vlasta2 14y ago

warech 14y ago

You have the order wrong. Gene alteration + reproduction -> evolution, rather than evolution causing gene alteration. You're right about the rate and general harmlessness of plant evolution, but the gamma ray from outer space is a bit far-fetched. Wikipedia has a nice overview of genetic alteration in plant developmental biology here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_evolutionary_developmental_biology#Mechanisms_and_players_in_evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_evolutionary_developmenta..., with a more academic discussion of the effect of polyploidy here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22540042 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22540042 That being said, I think the fear is that scientists potentially have the motive to create dangerous/unhealthy strains of plants - a motive which miRNA and transposons (god-willing) do not have.

EthanHeilman 14y ago

I agree with this and generally I am not against GM crops in theory. I think that: 1. Monocultures are bad. GM crops don't have to be monocultures but they generally are for a number of business reasons that have nothing to do with food production. 2. GM crops cross-pollenate thereby spreading patented genes to non-GM fields. The owners of these non-GM fields are then sued and forced to switch to GM crops. 3. GM crops business models are often built around vendor lock-in. Historically vendor lock-in has been bad for software development and I think we can extrapolate these results to farming. 4. Cross pollination to wild-type is generally disruptive to the environment short term (for example consider what happens when wild plants produce pesticides from a GM gene). The effects are probably no different than introducing an invasive species. Generally people see this as a bad thing (snakes in Hawaii for example) and create laws to prevent it from happening. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species 5. There is a big difference between point mutations and transgenic plants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgene I think GM crops can be developed, used in a safe manner and provide a great benefit to humanity, but that is not the current state-of-affairs. There are good reasons the EU regulates GM crops as much as they do.

vlasta2 14y ago
Well, I agree that there may be dangers. Eco-activist groups should focus on forcing and helping the scientists and corporations to do more thorough testing. They should not destroy crops or attempt to stop the research. Thinking that they can stop it is naive. If it does not happen in US or EU, it will happen elsewhere (and possibly with less effective safety precautions). The patent thing is a separate problem. Patent law in many areas is pretty bad.