I find that when you do find one of these people there is no depth to their thinking. They don't even know what GMO is, or why it's done, or why it's not so different from every other crop that was selectively bred for sometimes thousands of years.

And even when you do find someone who does they are making arguments like "the modified genes will break loose" ... which is absurd ... and that was a very smart individual, perhaps not where it comes to biology, but it's not like this requires much debt. (GMO is about transplanting genes, so any gene used has already "broken loose" before it is ever transplanted into any GMO crop).

"It's not natural". There is nothing behind that.

The same accusation of shallowness can be leveled at the opposite camp. Including your comment.

Yes, GMO is a refinement of crop modification techniques humans have employed throughout history. So the argument is that since those were "good", this can't be otherwise. But it's not that simple, a lot of the consequences of these modifications are at a closer inspection not that beningn. For example, the transition from hunter-gatherer cultures to agricultural ones came with severe detrimental impact on the health of those populations.

There is such a thing as something being more or less natural, that's why we have this concept. It's just that it's not easy at all to formalize. Maybe even impossible. But it won't go away, because it actually correlates to an essential aspect of reality.

>GMO is about transplanting genes, so any gene used has already "broken loose" before it is ever transplanted into any GMO crop

you can however transplant genes across species, which just doesn't happen in nature. The fear that these improved crops would outcompete native grasses outside the farm wouldn't be unjustified if it weren't for Monsanto doing everything they can to prevent farmers from replanting their harvest.

Gene transplantation across species does occur in nature (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfers). Apparently our genome contains traces of viral DNA, and species of bacteria can swap genes using plasmids.

While that's correct, it doesn't alleviate any of the fears. Virus->Something transfer isn't relevant unless Anything->Virus transfer is also common (which doesn't appear to be the case?). Plant->Plant or Bacteria->Plant transfer are really the ones relevant to GMOs, and neither seem to be common. So we really can't say that genetic modification is just like what nature does, except for uncommon edge cases.

I'm no expert here but from what I've read bacteria can be used as vectors in genetic engineering. I think this is an important point to mention since GMOs are sometimes seen as playing god, while I'm not sure if they are really so different from traditional selective breeding techniques. In the end, we should evaluate these techniques based on how safe they are, rather than thinking about "naturalness".

Whilst this is recent enough knowledge to not be included in what most people here would have learned in high school, we have found many genes that have been transplanted laterally. We are technically not sure this was by viruses (perhaps it was by bacteria or even somehow directly).

Genes do spread without procreation. This is a certainty at this point.

This is the sort of scientific illiteracy and ignorance masquerading as "reasoned response" that makes this whole exercise futile. Literally NOTHING in your comment was true. Not one single bit of it.

You are correct, but the way you wrote that deserves the downvotes you are getting.

It's often the other way. The GMO doesn't need to be sprayed with pesticides. That is the case with Bt corn for example. Bt corn has a protein that stops caterpillars from eating.

Organic stuff is normally grown on industrial scale monocrop farms, with pesticides. Yes, really. All sorts of toxic pesticides are on the list of chemicals permitted for organic labeled foods. Many of them are worse. Go read the list if you doubt this. Simply put, "organic" is a marketing ploy, and the certification is a racket.

Yes ,@knaq is correct. Organic production systems _do_ spray chemicals and oftentimes those chemicals are clearly more dangerous than the chemical applied to modified crops.

Its been mentioned in this thread but Roundup is actually safe compared a whole host of chemicals we were spraying in the <1970s. There is currently not a world where crop production doesn't use herbicides (but it is coming thanks to drones and autonomous robots that can manually remove weeds)

What I tell people that are railing against Roundup ready crops and other GM crops is this: say we decide to stop using these types of crops today--pick the millions of people that get to starve in the upcoming year. Just point to an Indian state or an African country and say 'those people get to starve' and we'll stop using GM crops.

That's just because we didn't drive the pests to extinction and we didn't make the massive long-term investment in greenhouses. Had we done either, all-natural crops would be able to feed the world.