Re: [cg] What's Up in Biotechnology, Genetic Engineering

**b*@ix.netcom.com**

On 03/23/99 17:23:21 you wrote:
>
>The website below links to a slide presentation on biotechnology done by
>the University of California - Berkeley
>
><http://plantbio.berkeley.edu/~outreach/WHATIS.HTM#16>
>
>It gives a quick overview of biotechnology, genetic engineering 
>

This appears to be a paper of dubious financial background!
This man is calling the acts of hybridizing crops and interfering with and manipulating DNA the 
same thing!
What genetic engineering multi-national corporation funds this guys department?

" Genetic engineering, a term frequently used in the popular press, in strict terms refers to 
intervention in the process of genetic exchange among organisms. By this definition, humans have 
been genetically engineering their foods for thousands of years, and so have bees!!

What we are talking about today is an extension of these time-honored technologies - the new 
methods of gene exchange that are still referred to in the popular press as "biotechnology" or 
"genetic engineering". Classically, however, methods of gene exchange in plants and animals have 
been limited to interchange between very close relatives and are perpetrated by a breeder's 
careful hands and eyes. With the new technologies, the methods are more precise and the so-
called "molecular breeder" can control what information is exchanged and from what source the 
information comes."

Oh, so Creator's design of plant relationships wasn't good enough? It's necessary to "control" 
everything? Because we CAN do something doesn't mean we SHOULD.

Furthermore, the first step we as humans really need to take is to help the soils to regenerate 
themselves from decades of poison and erosion (notice I don't suggest that WE regenerate the 
soil. It will do so with or without us). GMOs are hardly the answer to a need for food; they are 
an ego trip stumbling in greed.

I do hope, Lucy, that you did not post this for the purpose of propagating such a mentality.

Read "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. We ought not ignore the early history of agriculture.

In faith of Nature's seeds,

Happy Gardening,

John Edward Verin
Senior Apprentice
Ecosystem Farm
Accokeek, MD

BTW, if you don't know how to grow your own food you don't really have any clout, Y2K or not, so... LEARN!
How many millions of Americans live in poorly made, over-priced houses built on farm land, race twice daily at deadly speeds to and from a toxic city to do a job they don't really like in a plastic office so they can get money to give to someone else in order to eat food?
Food is power... are you in control of yours?
Food is power. Where is yours?

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