Hybridizing is genetic manipulation.
Doing anything with an end result in mind is engineering.
The problem that people have with it to be making vehement distinctions
with is that gene "splicing" does not limit the engineer to existing limits
and we don't trust engineers who don't have limits.
..and not without reason.
But consider the possibility, one that's not without scientific and
historic, yes, even Biblical evidence, that most of our domestic farm
animals and crops WERE gene spliced thousands of years ago by beings we
called "gods". [including ourselves]
Then our problem becomes, who are the gods today and how wise are they.
What we don't know is what the effects were then, how many developed
allergies or whatever as humans adjusted to changes, what species of plants
died back or became rampant as modified pollen spread around in ancient
times, what whole races of humans had yesterdays equivalent of sickle cell
anemia or some genetic weakness bad enough to wipe them out.
Why is it that people are STILL allergic [and whatever] to some things.
Perhaps we all didn't ever quite adjust...failed to hybridize for durability.
Who were the gods then...and how wise were they.
Time told us they were very wise, but it may have exaggerated by todays
*adjustee* standards...as we don't want to adjust...again?
But now, we have a choice. [Or, at least, believe we do. ]
Choice is always between cost and benefit, underlined with risk.
What risk for whom, is a bone of contention.
What doesn't kill a species makes it stronger?
In the mean time, individuals die off.
Not everyone who eats that recalled produce dies or even gets
sick...relatively few, actually.
[Maybe the gods did it! ..attempting to hybridize us into a better them.]
BTW Plants and animals grow up *bathed* in radiation.
Out there in the field and pasture, the surfaces are constantly being
sterilized as they are also being constantly infected.
Growing repairs radiation damage as it happens...usually.
Nature splices genes too. Sometimes that's called cancer, sometimes just
a wart...or a case of the flu.
Many Sci Fi stories have been written about an engineered virus evolving
entire species in mere months and not always into warty monsters.
We always resist change.
Ode
At 11:30 AM 8/25/2008 -0500, you wrote:
Food spoils eventually, there are always problems and sometimes mistakes.
When this happens, it is not always someone's fault. As a nation, we need
to get over it. Things happen, life is not without risk. Once again, when
the public, or significant interested parties, like a large business,
demand a no risk situation, it leads to more regulation, more pesticides,
which can lead to worse problems than the one they are meant to solve. As
Ode says, it is not always a foreign country with lax standards or no
oversight.
Many of our small organic farmers were deeply hurt by the floods last
year, probably all the small farmers.
I also read the other day some woman who said that hybridizing was the
same as genetic engineering, which is a bald faced lie- she is a
biologist, and works for GE, so I guess you could expect her to
disseminate such disinformation, but it still angers me. When people such
as she say such lies, it really muddies the issue for the lay reader. I
really don't blame them for being so ignorant- one really must spend time
to find out what is going on. It also does not hurt to have a good
education, and to be taught to think for yourself- which is a fast
disappearing quality in the schools, what with the push for national
standards which by their very nature turn out test taking graduates,
instead of people that can think independently. <sigh> rant over for now.
Kathryn
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