Comments on: I want to know what I should know about GMO http://www.flett.org/2009/10/15/i-want-to-know-what-i-should-know-about-gmo/ Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:11:36 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Alien http://www.flett.org/2009/10/15/i-want-to-know-what-i-should-know-about-gmo/comment-page-1/#comment-6637 Alien Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:11:36 +0000 http://www.flett.org/?p=66#comment-6637 In principle genetically modified crops (and therefore food) can be good. But I don't think we are nowhere near the level of knowledge that would let us do that safely. I think it should all still be handled in the laboratory. First of all the current technology of genetic modification can be described as shooting a bunch of biomaterial with a shotgun at another blob of biomaterial and seeing what happens. The second problem is that nature and all living things in it (including us) is intertwined in incredibly complex ways. We don't see how it all fits together. So even if our technology gets perfect and we only change very explicit properties of organisms, we still don't know how that is going to affect the system as a whole. In principle genetically modified crops (and therefore food) can be good. But I don’t think we are nowhere near the level of knowledge that would let us do that safely. I think it should all still be handled in the laboratory.

First of all the current technology of genetic modification can be described as shooting a bunch of biomaterial with a shotgun at another blob of biomaterial and seeing what happens.

The second problem is that nature and all living things in it (including us) is intertwined in incredibly complex ways. We don’t see how it all fits together. So even if our technology gets perfect and we only change very explicit properties of organisms, we still don’t know how that is going to affect the system as a whole.

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