On 19 Jul 2003 11:01:41 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

Moosh:] wrote:
On 19 Jul 2003 04:34:37 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

In sci.med.nutrition Moosh:] wrote: On 19 Jul
2003 04:05:43 GMT, Brian Sandle wrote:


And if you don't want to catch an illness, keep away from the source,if
you know what it is.

How far away is labelling of GM ingredientsin corn chips, herrings in
tomato sauce, chocolate &c &c?

Logically, as far away as labelling that a random mutation happened in
the corn field.

No because the sorts of mutations which nature has learnt to allow to
multiply are ones beneficial to itself.

Well of course. The lethal mutations die out

The ones lethal to themselves, Moosh means.

But that is a very simplistic, outdated view, that neo-Darwinism.

That lethal mutations aren't lethal? Hookay....

Bacteria for example swop and store genes which help them survive.

And so? How does this not show that "Nature" only allows mutations
beneficial to the organism? As if anything is needed to show this
self-evident phenomenon.

It is now being found that drug resistance to several antibiotics
can be selected by applying only one of them.

Was this the Mexican finding that was shown to be invalid?

The `junk' genes which can later
help the plant relate to stress are tested over the thousands of years.

If they last that long. I would guess that every combination and
permutation has been "tried" over the millions of years.

Many reactions to stress have been tried and their results saved in
the junk DNA.

But they are generally irrecoverable, except for splicing into the
right area by genetic engineers. In the junk DNA there is just about
everything that has been tried, if it hasn't been harmlessly corrupted
over the aeons.

Nature has learnt to keep a strict order in the genome.

Rubbish. There is no control over this other than "what works persists
and what doesn't dies out". It's all chemistry.

The GM process
defeats that.

Again, rubbish. If a man-made mutation (and man has been artificially
mutating things for a long time) works to the advantage (or no effect)
on the organism it will survive. If it does harm to the organism, it
will die out.

Outdated.

What, that man has been genetically engineering organisms for
centuries? Or that lethal mutations are lethal, or that beneficial
mutations are beneficial? Your one word reposts are uninformative.

Many people are saying that drug resistance markers should
have ceased being used, or never started.

The natural mutations of bacteria are breeding drug resistance every
moment of every day. That's life.

It is very seriously wrong to provide them with extra tools to do
it.

Like unnecessary applications to the environment of sub lethal doses
of antibiotics? In the short term, I agree, but in the long run, it
probably makes no odds.