Franz Heymann wrote:
[Snip]

I don't know why you are shy of indicating who you are, but what I do know
is that Mother Nature has been modifying the genes of all living objects
since the beginning of life, and Homo sapiens has been doing the same at a
vastly increased rate for the past three thousand years or so.

Franz


Bully for you. What has that got to do with it?

Peter Ashby wrote:
In article ,
bigboard wrote:


Franz Heymann wrote:

[Snip]

I don't know why you are shy of indicating who you are, but what I do know
is that Mother Nature has been modifying the genes of all living objects
since the beginning of life, and Homo sapiens has been doing the same at a
vastly increased rate for the past three thousand years or so.

Franz



Bully for you. What has that got to do with it?


What it means is that if you think eating GM might be bad for you then
stay away from all conventional crop varieties since we don't know what
genetic changes happened to yield the required characters, unlike GM.
Also don't eat cauliflower, Brussel sprouts or broccoli, all mutant
cabbages. Who knows what genetic sequences caused these? some may have
happened because, gasp!, a virus went haywire and disrupted some vital
genes. Oh and also stay away from organge carrots, nature meant carrots
to be green.


I don't think that eating GM crops is necessarily bad for you, so the
above paragraph is irrelevant. 1/10 for the patronising attitude, I've
seen it done much better.

GM is simply the application of extremely selective, controlled genetic
change in place of non selective, uncontrolled genetic change which
characterises conventional crop breeding. We could argue about dubious
benefits for some particular applications of the technology, but that
does not mean all uses of the technology are bad.

Never said it did.

Peter Ashby wrote:
In article ,
bigboard wrote:


Peter Ashby wrote:

In article ,
bigboard wrote:


Bully for you. What has that got to do with it?


What it means is that if you think eating GM might be bad for you then
stay away from all conventional crop varieties since we don't know what
genetic changes happened to yield the required characters, unlike GM.
Also don't eat cauliflower, Brussel sprouts or broccoli, all mutant
cabbages. Who knows what genetic sequences caused these? some may have
happened because, gasp!, a virus went haywire and disrupted some vital
genes. Oh and also stay away from organge carrots, nature meant carrots
to be green.


I don't think that eating GM crops is necessarily bad for you, so the
above paragraph is irrelevant. 1/10 for the patronising attitude, I've
seen it done much better.


Well since you think that then the first sentence indicates the above
was not aimed at you ;-)

Your first mistake was expecting me to read your post carefully!

Franz Heymann wrote:
"bigboard" wrote in message
...

Franz Heymann wrote:

[Snip]

I don't know why you are shy of indicating who you are, but what I do

know

is that Mother Nature has been modifying the genes of all living objects
since the beginning of life, and Homo sapiens has been doing the same at

a

vastly increased rate for the past three thousand years or so.

Franz


Bully for you. What has that got to do with it?


It appears to have escaped your attention that this thread has to do with
the genetic modification of plants.
Read before you write.

Franz

It appears your comprehension skills are non-existant. Please practice
before you write.

I suppose I'll have to spell it out for you. Natural and non-natural
evolution also produce non-desirable effects. These effects cannot
always be predicted. Genetic modification of any kind *can* be
dangerous, and we should be careful before releasing any GM organisms
into the wild. *Very* careful.

Franz Heymann wrote:

Yes.
So??


I think we are probably in complete agreement on this Franz, just
arguing at cross purposes! My view, and I think probably yours, is that
genetic modification isn't intrinsically bad, but the implementation of
it's results can have deleterious effects.

I am extremely worried however, that the current regime of testing and
certification is far too lax.

Franz Heymann wrote:
"bigboard" wrote in message

I think we are probably in complete agreement on this Franz, just
arguing at cross purposes! My view, and I think probably yours, is that
genetic modification isn't intrinsically bad, but the implementation of
it's results can have deleterious effects.


I agree entirely with that.

I am extremely worried however, that the current regime of testing and
certification is far too lax.


I agree that it is not a very well thought out procedure.

Good! Let's get back to the gardening.