A vasta cavalcade of opportunities for humankind to injure itself further.

(ie:genetic mod crops have been central to weird accidents like mass Monarch butterfly die-offs, and incident involving sheep dying from ingesting them, etc etc...but Monsanto and other groups keep buying politiciancs faster than we can fire them, thus this crap becomes legal.)

And for those who tout it as a cure for world food prices and shortages...those problems could be solved with hi efficiency farming techniques, better land management...and distribution of supplies in ways to reduce waste...but these techniques don't hold the same sales appeal top people who wear suits and have Swiss bank accounts, so I'm not holding my breath on any of them happening.

Peaces!

Personally I think of it as a means to explore not only the very essence of humanity, but perhaps the foundations of life as we know it.

Besides, who knows what we could learn?

There are other reasons why monarch butterflies might be dying off, including illegal destruction of protected habitat. The studies that found that gmo corn pollen can prove fatal to monarch caterpillars was intrinsically flawed in the way that it was carried out; the amount of pollen on the leaves that they were fed was applied consistently for days on end and at higher quantities than would be present in the field.

Part of working with high-efficiency farming techniques involves the use of genetically modified crops that can produce higher yields, as well. If crops can be engineered to be resistant to some parasites and weeds, they might be worth using, even though they present a certain amount of danger.

That's not to say that I love genetically modifying crops, especially the way it's being done as of now--to a certain extent, they're being produced as a convenience product that ups the sales of roundup and other herbicides, and provides more and more profit to big agribusiness. But I think that if approached carefully, it can be done right and help humanity in the long run.

Lab studies aren't the same as the actual circumstances in which the butterflies died. I will add that, in the aftermath of a mass inexplicable die off (in a feild of GMO corn), the reasearch to determine the cause hinted that it might have been a toxic reaction. What remains certain is that in the naturally occuring incident, they flocked, landed, ate...and promptly died. There is no extinction risk or any link to dwindling population...you cite correct answers for those...habitat loss is much more related to population. The die off was an incident that raises alarm bells about unpredictable reactions to genetic level changes in produce.

In the end, I would even consent to limited use if I felt that the research was unbiased and careful to consider long term risks/consequences, so I do agree.

It's just that, at present, our agribusiness and FDA are very very poor custodians of people's health and well being, so my distrust remains.

(Excellent points tho! You've done your homework! )

Peaces!

well...in terms of exploration...in a lab...I completely support the science. No question that as a learning tool we should undertake these things.

I'm just hypersensitive because the approval process for determining the safety of food in the US is to see if it kills something in a few months, and if it doesn't (very often) we permit it to be sold to people. We don't don't do studies that measure a change in foodstuffs over a lifetime. This is why 'weird' accidents happen. We don't look for answers that corporations might not like, and we generally hide the answers we do have rather than face change.

That said, the science must go on. I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping to not be accidentally given genetic damage or an opportunistic infection because of a single spliced gene in a peice of corn that had an unintended side effect. I'd rather they stuck to the labs and didn't try to feed us their experiments in order to make money.

(PS...the Hadrion Supercollider should have afew things to tell us soon. I'm very excited about that. No real money to be made, just information to be gained...that's the best way for science to stay clean and well conducted. Can't wait to see what they have to say after a few tests! Also...the Mars mission is in gear and doing its job. I wish they'd had the guts to include a means to detect bacteria/DNA etc...and I suspect the only real reason they didn't...or didn't admit to including...is because it would freak people out so badly. Religious lunatics would fall apart at the seams over that kind of revelation. Still...so much potential knowledge to be gained...I'm all aquiver!)

Same here... I've heard tons of horror stories about hormonal problems with livestock feed and issues of gods only know what.

I'm just looking forwards to what might turn out to be a new break through. Hells, maybe we'll figure out how to not only combat some disease, but make it completely obsolete.

*cackles* Oh yes, the religious many. I can see the horrible CNN newscasts, the Dateline banter, the Prime-time viewings... Bah to them. I thought religion was supposed to be a belief, so if suddenly their beliefs are becoming shattered by bacteria found on another planet, isn't that just their own lack of faith?

*Shrugs.* Don't really know what to feel, I live in the UK and everything, but I'm open to new things. Would be interesting to see what they might come up with.

PS: Aren't they turning the Hadrion Supercollider on this year? Not sure, but someone, somewhere is gunna turn something on this year.

I strangely wish to do as they did in XKCD and give a helicopter cancer....

... I don't really understand that. o.o Sounds interesting though.

http://xkcd.com/401/

Ahhh, I see. =p