Olin Lathrop wrote:

>> By comparison we are scatter-gunning GM products across the fields of
>> earth which is *certain* to ultimately produce utter catastrophe.
> 
> This kind of emotional and unfounded assertion only serves to undermine
> the credibility of real science.

What is "real science" for you? Popper's model with experiments and 
falsification certainly does not apply to ecology. We (and that includes 
Monsanto) don't have the means to experiment with ecosystems in the way we 
experiment with semiconductors. So how reliable are all the estimates they 
pull out of their hats? I know how far off estimates and predictions about 
relatively simple systems like electronic circuits and semiconductors can 
be. And that despite /many/ experiments in /very/ controlled environments. 
Now take away the experiments and controlled environments and multiply the 
complexity by several degrees -- what's left in terms of certainty? I doubt 
any 9 in that number will survive a close look. 


> The benefits are real and much easier to measure.  

I think that's the point. The benefits are here, now, easy to see. The 
disadvantages are there, in the uncertain future, difficult to imagine. So 
where's the problem? We go with the benefits, of course.

Any clue why the USA, being one of the richest nations on earth, supposedly 
having one of the highest living standards, has one the highest indices of 
allergies? That's quite possibly one of the difficult to imagine effects 
that only appear in the distant future and usually are not easily linked to 
a single cause.


> I think the risks are largely overstated. 

I believe that (that you think this). But you only /think/ this... hard
numbers nobody has, because all the numbers are mostly based on beliefs. I
OTOH think such high risks should only be undertaken if necessary or at
least well known. Not based on the hunches of a few. 


> There are checks and ballances in nature that pretty much guarantee a
> pathogen can't be both highly virulent and easily spread at the same
> time.  

That may be, but now we're about to work our ways around the checks and
balances. A pathogen that killed everything around it couldn't have spread
very far, in nature's scheme; it would have killed everything (in a local
environment) and then died. Now we can create it and spread it around
before we realize that it does this. Nature works with long "local tests",
we don't. 


> In the mean time we do know and can measure how many people die of
> starvation every year.  It's a cost/benefit tradeoff, and you can't
> ignore the benefit side to get a good picture.  

I really don't know many cases where starvation could be eased by GM crops. 
In all scenarios I heard about, this was always a rosy picture of some 
company selling GM seeds (that can't be used to saw the crop of next year, 
that need special fertilizers and herbicides, that need special technical 
knowledge to be used successfully) to 3rd world governments, they give that 
to their rural population (that mostly can't read, and if it can, doesn't 
read English (and of course all the documentation is in English), that 
doesn't understand that it won't be able to use the crop for seeds next 
year, that doesn't have access to the technical infrastructure necessary to 
use these crops, that doesn't have money to buy the right fertilizers and 
her and that doesn't have the specialized knowledge needed to use these 
crops successfully), and all of a sudden everybody swims in corn or wheat. 

I don't really buy that... the real problems usually are elsewhere, and 
without solving them, no wonder crop will work.


> In the end human overpopulation of the planet seems like a bigger threat
> to me, and is partly to blame for the starvation toll.  If you really
> want your kids to inherit a better world, have fewer of them. 

I can agree to that, in a way, but then... what's the point in GM crops? 
Their only selling argument is to make more food so that more people can be 
here. And we don't really have a shortage of food on this planet, we have a 
lousy distribution of food (and most everything else) and vastly 
inefficient social processes. The "care potential" is so much higher than 
the "GM potential" -- and without risks. Of course there's less money in 
it, and that's the catch (and the only reason for GM crops so far).

Gerhard

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