h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Good article, but although it tries ever so hard to be balanced, the conclusion fails slightly in that respect.

Ethics was hardly mentioned, which I think is the thing most people (in the UK anyway) are worried about; the "playing god" or "it's unnatural" arguements. Big business did get a deservedly rough ride in the article, which was good (personally i think that is the biggest concern about GM stuff: $$$). I don't think it's possible to write an article on GM anything without devoting a good chunk of it to morality.

What do other people think? Is GM ok?, evil? It seems like this is one of those topics where everyone is black and white, either yes or no. Can there be more gray areas?

hmmm...

On thsi subject I feel that science (In this case Genetic modification) is neutral, as usual its how we use it that will make it bad or good.

I suppose if you belive that God created Heaven and Earth, and that our genetic heritage is a pre-ordained legacy from Him to be treasured in its unadulterated state for ever (save for the troubling effect of Darwinism), then GM goes against the will of God and is therefore evil.

If you believe, as I do, that life arose through the trial and error process of evolution, and that our complement of genes happen to be a less-than-perfect, but functional, product of the Blind Watchmaker's fumbling in the dark, then there probably is room for improvement: ask someone with Usher's syndrome or cystic fibrosis. The question then is not one of good or evil, but whether we have the wisdom yet to attempt such changes with impunity, and whether there are more effective and less risky means of achieving the same ends. One thing is for certain: wisdom comes only with experience, and experience only by allowing investigators the latitude to make occasional mistakes.

It is precisely that sort of neutral language that makes foes of GM (and admittedly I am one) pause. When life itself (be it a grain of rice, a tomato, a germ, or a fetus) is equated with "experience" and "mistakes" the ethical implications of genetic modification come to the surface. Thanks to science our lives have been made much easier--of that there is no doubt. But because of that, should we allow science and its "investigators" to disrupt and harness evolution for their own purposes, good or bad? Evolution is a natural process whereby life reacts and modifies itself to the surrounding environment over a period of time. Genetic modification cannot be compared to it in any ethical way. I don't know that humans have the wisdom to use GM indiscriminally or ethically just yet.

Er...that would be "indiscriminately" I think....

What really REALLY annoys me is when groups of people cry out for more testing, and then those same people take it upon themselves to break into a University field experiment and destroy the crops. And, at the same time destroy several students' years work. I've heard of professors refusing to accept GE phd students because the risk of people coming in and destroying their experiment.

That just really annoys me. It is a typical case of "What I dont understand, I fear, and what I fear I destroy." How can we hope to learn anything if people just go around sabotaging the testing?

Anyway, that's just my $0.02 worth.

I suspect that those disruptive people who destroy trials realise that there is a lot of mileage in scaremongering, and are afraid that the truth might be that GM crops are no more harmful to the environment than others. Think about it: what possible evolutionary advantage could a 'superweed' have in the wild? Their position is that science and the process of experimentation is fundamentally flawed and can yield no meaningful results. So from their viewpoint, there's no harm , and possibly a lot of good, done by destroying three years of someone else's work.

The "possible" evolutionary advantage would be propagation at the expense of other species--evolution at it's most basic level. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the damage non-native species inflict on native plants can tell you that. A "superweed" is nothing more than a non-native specie created in the lab. I've noticed, Felonious, in this forum and the other on GM that you like to accuse GM foes of "scaremongering". Not all of us are peasants with pitchforks, and we understand that the large majority of scientists are not Dr. Frankenstein in his castle. It's just that (and this is speaking from my personal perspective, mind you) we feel GM is ethically wrong. And that's aside from using fish DNA to make tomatoes resistant to cold or anything else...blech! There is a great deal of difference in using science to fight disease (such as stem cell research to fight Parkinsons) and using it to create a blue-eyed baby boy. That's called eugenics, and it's popularity soared during the first half of the twentieth century. Thankfully we know better now.

I know you've probably heard this said before, but I'm going to have to say it: We've been modifying farm crops and animals for centuries, millenia even. If mankind never took the steps to genetically modify wild crops by selective breeding all those years ago we'd still be nothing more that smart hunter-gatherers. In my opinion you cannot ethically distinguish selective breeding and direct gene-modification. The only real difference is the method in which it's done.

And personally I don't think the "Yuk factor" should be a factor in deciding whether a biotechnological breakthrough should be used or banned. In the future we are going to see some far, far more wierd stuff than fish genes in tomatoes.

If left in it's natural environment (i.e., no weedkiller) the 'superweed' would have no selective advantage. The gene or gene complexes that it has been modified with would more likely be simply energy consuming and cumbersome, with no net gain for the plant. Hence an actual selective disadvantage.

If parents were given a choice if they could make their potential offspring more intelligent, beautiful and tall do you think they would refuse? I don't think they would, it's perfectly "natural" for parents to want the best for their kids. I think there was a survey on the matter that confirmed this (but don't quote me on it).

It's also interesting to note the term "natural selection" came about because Darwin noticed nature was automatically doing what man deliberately does to improve/modify the properties of domesticated animals and crops; i.e selection.

Err, I'll stop now.

It doesn't seem to me that GM crops can be harmful to people. Unless there's actually a toxin present how can it. If you eat baked potatos you don't turn into a potato, and I don't really see how a GM potato would be different.

GM crops spreading into the environment is a different problem though...

Yeah, but a GM superweed with a resistance to say, glyphosate will not have any particular evolutionary advantge in the wild, and the genes will become rapidly diluted. And those who feel that GM crops are 'ethically' wrong might care to reflect that their position is a moral, and therefore highly personal, one (unless they want to be regarded as crusading zealots). Perhaps they'd care to detail the nature of their ethical objections as opposed to just stating that they have them? Or perhaps they are happy to insist we drive at 5 miles an hour while they wave a red flag, without feeling that they have to explain why?

I see strong parallels between this issue and another, long forgotten one. Around the turn of the last century, vaccination became a viable means of combatting disease. Then, amazingly, a whole 'ethical' backlash erupted, on the basis that it was 'unnatural' and dangerous to introduce a biological material cultured in another living organism into a human body. The reactionary element advocated the use of sanitation and 'clean living', a return to 'Nature' as it were. Now nobody pays any attention whatsoever to this viewpoint, and have generally no qualms about the origin of the biological material in the serum when they take their holiday jabs. And I suspect that in a hundred years time, nobody will give a damn to the equally fatuous viewpoint that ethics are being compromised in introducing genes from other species into a food crop.

FM

Some good points Felonious, but could you argue a little less agressively? You have some interesting things to say, there's really no need for it

Personally I thought the vaccine thing is particularly fascinating, I'm going to remember that one.

Isn't it strange for those who are on the side of "natural", nature has taken on a different, almost religious meaning. "Nature" is their god, and anyone who goes against it is a heretic. I think this is where all these strong feelings are coming from. In my opinion, arguing against GM because it's unnatural isn't good enough. Flying in planes is unnatural, so is driving cars, using computers, the list is endless. What is natural is living a miserable, disease ridden, hungry life until you're 40, then dying. We've moved past that.

As Jeremy Hardy said once 'Science brought us hospitals, incubators, video recorders and chocolate vending machines. Nature brought us earthquakes, volcanoes, stinging nettles, pain, death and Quorn.' We can only indulge our new-found respect for Nature and her works because we have recently tamed her so successfully. We now have the cheapest food we have ever had, mainly because of efficient modern agriculture. No potato famines or crop failures now. It's rather like the affection one feels for a domestic pussycat, rather than the fear of a tiger.

I suppose my forceful tone comes because it seems recently like we're forever exposed to the shrill and pious tones of the anti-GM lobby, and I'm sick to my stomach of this quintessentially British response towards science and scientific progress. It's about time we heard the other side of the argument, but one has to shout to hear oneself about this cacophonous Jeremiad. This is something I feel very strongly about and for me to moderate my tone would be disingenuous of me.

It only seems to be when *science* gets involved that we hear these voices. No-one objects to the 'eugenics' (for that is exactly what it is) of conventional plant breeding, mainly because they are or choose to be ignorant of it, but that is far from risk-free. GM in particular makes transparent a direct causal link between a human action (modifying a genome) and a result (weedkiller resistance). There is *no* avoiding the resulting responsibility incumbent upon us if we choose this route of feeding people. I think on the whole the benefits will vastly outweigh the risks, but science in particular doesn't allow us to ignore the risks or shirk responsibility for the outcomes. Nature of course is easy to blame: 'acts of God' and all that. Remove the influence of Nature, and you finally shut off any boltholes from culpability for our actions that we have as a race. This makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

Zealotry runs both ways. I certainly have no interest in taking part in a discussion where opponents are personally ridiculed. Perhaps more people would support modern scientific agriculture if it's supporters would take opponents' concerns seriously.

*unsubscribe*

Well, I'm sorry if you think I ridiculed you, Fraulein, but I see it as mounting a robust defence of a pilloried area of agriculture. And anyway, it's the first time my views have ever been criticised for being too 'neutral', so I decided I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb . Whatever people think of what I have to say and how I say it, it's a still damn sight better than vandalising people's work simply because one doesn't agree with their ethics.

Shame she didn't have the stomach for a good fight, I'm always interested in why people choose to criticise this technology...

I don't suspect you'll get much from them in the way of detail. Especially over ethical objections that they don't really understand themselves. I think their criticisms have less to do with 'ethics' than 'proprieties'.

My problem with GM is that there is always the unexpected. A tomato-something(aubergine?) cross produced a really poisonous relative of the deadly nightshade. Things like that.

One gene can control many many different functions, sometimes completely unrelated, and they wouldn't show up in testing if you weren't looking for them. Would anyone have expected that the gene for sickle cell anaemia in humans also cause resistance to malaria? Similarly in plants, if conditions change some other aspect of a new gene might come into effect and viola...instant mayhem.

Scientists don't like to take responsibility for what they make. They leave that to someone else. Like their bombs and whatever else, they just made them. It's the person who used them who's evil.

That sounds like science bashing. Sorry. What I meant to say is that scientists dont' always worry about the safety of their creations, so maybe when other people so it's a good things?

I grow a garden on a 4 by 8 foot balcony ( about 1.3 by 3 meters for you Brits) Because of this, I cram everything as closely together as they will possibly grow. One plant strongly affects the next, and one fertilizer or spray affects other areas of the garden, if only in overspray. Nothing on my balcony is 'natural'.

Patented plants are more expensive than propagated ones, but many available gardenworthies in my adverse conditions are hybrids and therefore do not breed true, or even make viable seed at all. Because they are more likely to survive in my intense garden, I buy them anyways.

When I first read the word 'superweed' in this article, it never occured to me to think about what it would do "in the wild". I don't consider myself a scientist or a 'green' in this argument, but as a gardener. Here is how a paranoid gardener like me thinks:

If I were a peasant, on a tiny paddy that had never been wild in thousands of years, and I had planted patented GM seed from a First World country because it would be more sure to feed my family than the grain I grew last year (even though I must pay for the weedkiller to get it to properly grow, it's yield is still high enough and sure enough to pay for the weedkiller), and it had one superweed seed in it, and if that superweed outgrew my rice, I'd (eventually) starve.

If I switched back to 'ordinary' rice, I'd starve-the superweed'd still be there, and I'd be in debt for the cost of weedkiller I didn't need before.

Fortunately, I am not a peasant, I don't *need* any of the things I grow.

Regarding the unexpected, one gets that with all forms of plant breeding. There is a recent story (true) about a strain of vegetable, I think celery, which was produced by conventional breeding means. It caused nasty blisters on the skin of gardeners tending it, and so was canned.

I think that GM is far *less* likely to produce such results, as one is inserting one gene, as opposed to a desired gene plus twenty-odd undetermined hangers-on. Regarding the possible risk, the point I have made before is that it is silly to be preoccupied by risks when other certainties stare us in the face, such as the horrendous death toll suffered by tobacco smokers each year. Yet no one seems to be complaining about this too much, so I think I'm right to suspect such anti-GM sentiments as they tend to be applied rather selectively.