Re: Terminator Seeds.....Voices can be heard! (long!)

 

Meum71@aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 1/29/99 2:24:06 AM Central Standard Time,
gctranslations@ibm.net writes:

<<
 I am afraid this statement is false. Recently it has been proven
scientifically
 that leaking of genetic material from one species to other species (even of
 different species) does take place in nature. >>

I will bet that 90 percent of the plants in your yard are the result of this
"genetic leaking."
I am afrais you loose in advance this bet

 
<<So now we might make a real plague for ourselves.>>

What are you talking about?
I cannot see were this comes form except irrational misunderstanding.
 

Thanks for this statement. I might have misjudged the theme of the discussion. But i referred to genetically modifying organisms in general and not knowing what the consequences will be on the long run taking 'natural' effects on the neigbouring plants.
This might end up with hard to controll pests we have created ourselves (as rabbits in Australia, Colorado beetles in certain European area's,....I am afraid the list is very long with USA examples only)
 
<<What about nature and ecology??>>

Humankind has been playing around with genetic recombination for 10,000 years.
I relies that those that are afraid of this technology in relationship to
plants have come by this fear by not understanding genetics. It is easier to
fear something than it is to understand it.

Thanks for telling this to a trained person.
I am afraid that recombinant DNA techniques are much more different than using the basic genetical potential of a living organisms buy trying to use this potential to its maximum. (I agree this is also discussable in certain cases)
Of course by stating that certain leaking of material might occur in nature too and giving the same end result is probably correct, exept for the time schedule and that a lot of leaking would be impossible because of the geographic and ecological barriers of these organisms...
So you are looking to raise superorganisms that do the job you think they should do
(did our fathers or grandfathers not have to fight a war because some people tought they had found some 'uber' thoughts...).
So please do not only think on the short self satisfaction a lot of us scientist get with what they do, also do think of consequences human acts can lead too...
(even human invented automated systems fail, so why would nature we only start to understand would not trick us sooner or later...)
 
Lets be clear-they are not making New genes, but taking genes from other
plants and using them to produce a different plant. It is the same as any
breeding program except faster and it over comes genetic incompatibility
between different plant taxon.
 
So you admit we are playing God. One way because we are 'altering' plants (previously we were 'selecting' or 'hybridizing' plants (or animals) and we overrule certain safety systems that are locked away in the genetical material (what you irronically call overcomes genetically barriers of these organisms...)
 
99% of our food crops are the result of this genetic recombination, breeding
or slicing a gene in using what ever method is used to produce an altered
plant results in the same type of product.

The gene used for the terminator seeds is not an uncommon gene, If I remember
correctly the gene they are working with came from a common garden plant
Saponaria.

Again I. State I am not in favor of this technology or against it.( I am open
to both arguments for and against it) . But what I do not like is hysteria
generated from fearmongering and erroneous information.  This seams to be one
of the major down sides to the Internet.

I think these topics are out of the scope of this list, but maybe not, no one
has complained yet.
The reason I am making any response at all to this is that when this type of
misinformation is dumped on people, they do not have the time or the access to
information to find out if all the hype is true.  Someone has to present a
balanced view to "chicken little" fears.
Will man destroy "nature"-- not by recombinant DNA in plants, Greed - maybe!

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PROPAGATION

Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index