In sci.med.nutrition Jim Webster wrote:
: "Walter Epp" wrote in message
: "Moosh:]" wrote:

: Mutations and cross pollinations go on constantly every minute in
: every corn field in the world.
:
: So? Natural populations have millions of generations of experience doing
: this and figured out how to maintain their genetic integrity and minimize
: unpleasant surprises long before human beings came into existence.

: anthropomorphic rubbish. Did they hold committee meetings while they did
: this figuring out, or just hold a township meeting?

Such language is common is biology.

Biologists refer to genes as selfish - for example.

They /could/ constantly explain that yes, this is a metaphor - and no, they
don't mean it literally - but after a little while that gets pretty tedious.

Mutations that arise in nature tend to be systematically different from
taking genes from one organisms and transferring them into an unrelated one.

The latter technique is more powerful.

As a consequence of the greater power, there is more scope for things going
wrong.
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|im |yler http://timtyler.org/