Stardate 20010809.0936 (On Screen): In the discussion about genetic engineering of food crops, some of the opponents are really beginning to reach in order to find doomsday scenarios they can use aganst it. This group claims that there's a danger of genetically-engineered traits moving out of food crops into closely related weed species. But that danger has been with us as long as we've been genetically manipulating crops (i.e. thousands of years). The key phrase here is "closely related". In actual practice, the weeds which grow in a given area are unlikely to be sufficiently closely related that this would actually happen. The example given was domesticated and wild radishes, Obviously those are sufficiently closely related to be able to crossbreed if insects (or humans) carry pollen back and forth. But a wild radish won't do anything interesting with pollen from GM corn or rice or cotton or potatoes. And even in cases where domesticated crops are grown near wild relatives (i.e. canola and rapeseed, corn and teosinte) it's not clear that movement of genes into the wild stock would really be an issue. It's not, after all, as if we use a domesticated version of kudzu yet. This is yet another smoke-screen, another opportunity for hysteria. Look out! There's a 40 foot tall dandelion and it's trying to eat my dog!
(discussion in progress)
