Neil deGrasse Tyson Tells GMO Critics to "Chill Out"

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27. my concern about gmos is more of an engineering one: testing time.

old-fashioned modification of plants and animals through selective breeding and such is simply a more gradual process, so that as people eat the food, we have real-life experience as to the long-term safety of such foods, never too far removed from the current generation.

the modern gmo technology allows for foods to be introduced that are quite a bit different than previous generations, and the long-term effects are not yet fully appreciated.

20 years from now, assuming no great health problems in the gmo-eating public, i'll have no objection to whatever is being introduced to the food supply today, though i'll still have the same objection to whatever's being newly introduced 20 years hence.

i'm just not an early adopter of food technology, i guess.


so maybe it isn't really an engineering concern after all; observation and confirmation are key parts of science, after all.