Assume olllllllllllllld earth / traditional science perspective to 
make arguments meaningful to most :-). [Arguments work in most 
frameworks].

> Hmmm. Frankly I think the danger of nuclear/biological weapons in 
> the
> hands of politicians seem much more dangerous to me.

All nukes used at once in worst case manner would kill most people on 
earth - but vvvvv likely not all and vvvv likely would leave 100's of 
millions alive. A worst case event would require all nuclear powers 
cooperation and the cost to develop this capability has been and 
continues to be "large".

GM ***could*** kill all humans on earth and the cost to do this could 
be utterlytrivial on a 'cost benefit' basis. Mons[a/t/c/g]n[a/t/c/g]o 
may yet do it for us for free :-). My daughter could possibly do it 
for you if you could persuade her to (you couldn't).

> Yes, there is a chance that GM could cause some major problems. 
> However,
> nature has been doing GM for, well, ever since there was nature.

No.
No no no.
No no no no no.
This, alas, is the lie that 'they' tell over and over and we have all 
largely accepted it gullibly.

Nature has been doing *safe* GM since forever. safe GM consists of 
burying or destroying the problems and blockading the genetic 'mine 
tunnel' the problems live in. Darwin award class events are carefully 
stubbed out and buried in unused backwaters. BIG ring fences are 
erected around things that need them. if they break out the fences are 
made bigger for next time. Many really bad 'experiments' lie buried 
deep withing the wonderful machine.

GM comes along and leaps over the ring fences, and/or drags mareial 
from its enclosures and stuffs it willy nilly into othe rplaces where 
it looks like it may do something useful. Sometimes it does. We have 
NO idea about the majority of what is going on in there. Most of the 
time nature has done enough GM already that it handles it all pretty 
well. Sometimes we get the pea/bean/baaaaad allergy result. Nature 
says - why goodness me, who could have put that in there - I'm sure I 
TRIPLE ring fenced that one off about 200,000 years ago after the last 
disaster. So, I'll have to ... . In the mice/pea/bean case the 
researchers noticed and shut things down and no harm may have been 
caused, and the worst case harm may not have been bad.

But imagine eg a really really nasty one that not only causes immune 
system responses in people but also in many other animals at all 
levels and then some. Now imagine that the proteins are produced in 
the crop byproduct and are plowed back into the soil. Inagine it 
occurs in eg Alfalfa (world's largest crop) or maize or wheat or ... . 
Imagine the protein lies happily in the soil and interacts with 
organisms at various levels and animals and insects and ... . And 
people who eat it.

What sort of nonsense is this. How bad can a bit of bad protein be 
after all. How importang could this possibly be. Google anaphylactic 
shock / and peanut allergy / and ... . Sure smells nice out there 
today Mable, I think I'll .... Splat. // This new cultivar gives more 
yield than ... / We can now make bread that ... / Dead? What do you 
mean dead? All of them? Are you mad?!, I ... /

Of course, Murphy and nature don't make things simple. It may take a 
certyain mix of rainfall and temperature profile plus a bit more 
acidityin the  rain than usual before the ancient doors creak open and 
the protein monster sallies forth to battle in the cereal packets and 
bread products of you nation.

Probable? No. Possible? Of course. When? - ask the mice.

> After looking at the numbers it seems that the chance of reward (and 
> I'm
> not thinking of finances here) is much greater than the chance of 
> disaster.

That's certainly what the numbers 'they' publish say.
GM is balancing someone's prfits against life on earth, or millions 
crippled, or 100's of millions damaged, or just a few kids (probably 
not in your family) dead.

> Imagine produce that doesn't go bad as fast. People die in the US of
> bad produce.

True risk / benefit is
- not attempted
- not possible so
- not attempted

> Of course, we could do the same thing easier with irradiating the 
> food
> products,

A whole other issue.
Irradiation doesn't offer a small fraction of the potential benefits 
of GM.
Itdoes have its own risks. and advantages.
Some products are almost unusable without it (eg certain bug-prone 
spices which have re probably been illicitly irradiated if you see 
them for sale )

>but Americans seem to have a strong irrational tabu against
> anything nuclear.

Indeed.
And some strong rational ones as well :-)



>> It would be really fun to get a mutation that was say strongly 
>> dominant, and
>> made the corn indigestable by spinning some sugar or protein the 
>> other
>> direction.   Great for making diet food, but you might want some 
>> REAL food.
>
> The chance of this happening is almost ridiculous. If something like 
> this
> could happen the chances are that it would be rather poisonous.

The mice agree :-)
But with GM anything is possible.

Doom doom ... :-)



            Russell McMahon. 

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