But they're unnatural!!111oneeleventy
Bit like the whole organic food thing. When you you think of it on the global scale, the one thing we need to do in the world today is improve crop yields, not reduce them by throwing away a century of agricultural progress.
Ah yes, but then there's the moral dilema. Do I really want dog genes spliced into my grapes so that I get twice the grape I would if I lived in the 17th century? I think not. You know why? Because I never asked for dog (or anything else) in my grapes except grapes, damnit, nor do I appreciate the idea of snacking on any such thing. It's downright unethical, or some such. And as far as none-gene splicing problems, what about health problems related to artificials? Like monosodium-glutamate? That eats ayway your stomach lining. Yellow 5 is said to have negative effects on the brain, and *ahem* elsewhere. The drugs they inject into cows are--well, point being, there's a lot of information to point in either direction.
(As for dog genes being spliced into grapes, I've merely heard rumors. The rumors weren't about dogs necessarily, anyway.)
How the hell did I get onto this subject anyway?
And, thank you for the welcome, Grug! Much appreciated.
Firstly, worth noting non-organic != GM food.
Secondly, worth noting what GM food is for; increased yields through disease resistance, improved growth in poor environments, faster growth, decreased greenhouse gas (from farming machinery), etc. GM food is primarily through use of genes from other plants - very similar to cross-breeding, this. There is already not enough food being grown in the world to feed everyone; and organic food reduces crop yields whilst that global population grows. Whilst I'd agree that the world is getting overpopulated, I'd rather not reduce that population through mass starvation, and GM-modifying food (for example, wheat that can thrive in more arid conditions) can be the key weapon in preventing famine in the 3rd world.
It's also worth considering what DNA
is. A section of DNA does not remain 'dog' outside of the genome; at the heart of it all DNA is, is a set of chromosomes that act as 'addresses' for pairs of bases (guanine -cytosine, or adenine-thymine), which code some instruction such as building a protein. There's nothing that says 'be a dog', it's just that the consequence of putting all these parts together results in a dog.
But, we're only taking a few instructions in any case, so we're really only taking the 'grow fast' part or so and adding it in place of a 'grow slow'. Additionally, it's worth bearing in mind there is a
massive commonality between DNA; the fruit fly and human, for example, share 60% of their DNA in common. It's not like the over-used 'frankenstein foods' analogy.
Incidentally, AFAIK side-effects of monosodium-glutamate only occur in an intolerant/allergic sector of the population; this is why it is regarded as generally safe but must be specifically identified on packaging. Plus, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater, here; any technology (additives or GM food) is susceptible to misuse.