Yangja Isuko

i think genetically engineered food is fanfuckingtastic.

impious

Bingo, the thinking atheist and also Cheers

impious

Sorry this is simply unfunny, might have looked better when you typed it

impious

Sorry No, it dosnt

And in regards to the rest of your post I did specify insufficient testing

GunnerJ

Well, there's no accounting for taste.

QitALL

Ha Ha. I thought for a minute that by GM you meant "General Mills." I have no problem with most of their products. But since I'm not an "evolutionary atheist" or whatever, I guess I had no right to respond...

Happy Wonderer

One can question whether GM foods are a good idea based upon mankind's long history of screwing up the environment with the best of intentions. It is not unique to GM foods, but the technology is much more powerful than what we have had in the past and thus our potential for causing harm is greater.

Luther Burbank cultivated a marvelously hardy version of the blackberry and released it into the wild. This is the Himalayan variety that although much beloved for blackberry pies also chokes off pastures and is nearly impossible to kill a large infestation of. It is a major problem for ranchers and of course has had an effect on native wildlife. Scotch broom, although a natural variety, is a foreign species that was used for ornamental plants and erosion control. It has had a devastating effect on biodiversity.

Roundup-ready plants worry me a bit because plants so easily transfer genes; roundup resistant crabgrass would be a problem.

Anyway, just examples of concerns that a person may have about GM foods other than inadequate testing. The foods may work exactly as intended (like the blackberry) and still have udesireable and unplanned effects.

Certainly no GM supporter could argue that the technique is intrinsically safe; one could intentionally engineer weed species to be resistant to herbicides and use it as a weapon if one so desired. Although that may in theory be possible with selective breeding it is much easier to do if you play with the genes directly. Although I don't think anyone has plans to do such a thing, my point is that we have more ability to control a plant's genome than we do to predict the results of that new species.

And add me to the list of people who are still confused about why this is an 'athiest' versus 'theist' issue. I could see maybe that a theist would complain that we were 'playing God' but I think that is a very minor part of the concern about GM foods.

HW

My position on GM foods is that at the moment they are not a great idea -- we just do not know enough about how the genome works, nor do we really have that good an understanding of the ecosystem to be introducing radically new stuff into it. Eventually I think it will be a good idea.

judge

I don't know that in practice there is that much difference.

The idea that jesus is about to come back probably engenders apathy WRT environmental issues.

Probably the most sensible theistic viewpoint WRT the environment were in Solzhenitsyn's 1993 address to the International Academy of Philosophy

scombrid

Ah no worries, just bring back paraquat.

"Weed" species need not even be plants. Escape of engineered atlantic salmon is a potential cause for concern. (aside from what huge rafts of net pens do to water quality and parasite loads in confined waters).

Hieronymus

I have a question I hope someone can answer for me.

If you were to say take some genes from a shellfish and put them into a tomato, could the tomato cause an allergic reaction in someone allergic to shellfish?

I'm afraid I don't know enough about allergies and GM foods to know the answer myself.