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Old 05-10-2003, 11:44 PM
Franz Heymann
 
Posts: n/a
Default A Danger to the World's Food: Genetic Engineering and the EconomicInterests of the Life Science


"Oz" wrote in message
...
Bob Hobden writes


Bob Hobden's note to which Oz replied here has not shown up in my mail, so I
am replying to Bob here, slightlu out of sequence.

"Franz wrote in message

Can't you understand the difference between natural mutation and the
insertion of a completely foreign gene, one that would not get there
naturally?

Can't you understand that here is no gene more foreign than one which
results from a random natural mutation? The damn thing did not even

*exist*
before.


Are you sure on that? I though a mutated gene was one that simply changed
not came into spontaneous existance.


Yes, I am quite sure of that. A mutated gene is a gene which is not the
gene which existed at that spot before the mutation occurred. It is
therefore a new gene which exists at that spot after the mutation has
occurred. It may express itself in a way which bears no obvious
relationship to the gene which originally occupied that spot.




Eh? What is the difference between that 'changed' to give RR resistance,
and a gene added to give RR resistance?

Doubling of genes is not at all unheard of, in fact it's quite common.

And you don't seem to get to grips with the fact that around 999999
out of 1000000 natural mutations are deleterious and most of them are
removed by selection in subsequent generations.


Will that happen with GM then? No,


Yes. It's a gene like any other.
Only continual selection keeps the genes as you want them for a crop
plant.

so why mention it.


Just to point out that mutations are as common as muck, and always have
been. That is unpredicted and unpredicatable changes have been the
normal course of events for life from at least 1,000,000,000 years.

Strangely the world hasn't ended.


Franz (in reply to Bob, not to Oz)