Re:CRISPR gene-editing breakthrough opens door to treating b...
by pas on Monday June 28, 2021 @02:15AM
(#27658665)
With enough time that trait would show up by simple selective breeding too. GMO does it faster. (Of course so much faster that there is an argument that it's qualitatively not the same as good old breeding. And if someone comes up with some kind of killer trees that release anthrax in the spring that too counts as GMO too, but they are unlikely to be deterred by labeling requirements or GMO bans.)
This is often said in defense of GMO, but surely cross-breeding and hybridization - a farmer or gardener attempting to combine the entire genetic entity of one plant with another one (which must therefore be naturally compatible), to increase the potential utility of the result - is totally different to inserting a single gene from a totally arbitrary source (which can therefore be a completely separate life-form)?