A challenge to all GMO supporters.

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233. Equating selective breeding with modern genetic engineering is not a valid proposition.

Modern genetic engineering, such as recombinant DNA techniques that use biological vectors like plasmids and viruses to carry foreign genes into cells, as well as other sophisticated techniques for creating transgenetic organisms, is comparable to traditional selective breeding only in the most general sense. Genetic engineering is substantially different from selective breeding. It doesn't take a wild imagination to come up with serious potential risks.

There's no law that says we have to blindly accept every new technology without discussion of it's possible consequences. Not only is it rational and reasonable to question new technology, but there is an established conventional view that we have an ethical responsibility to do so, for cripe's sake.

Yes, selective breeding has altered the environment on a massive scale. But that doesn't in any way argue against taking seriously the unique risks posed by genetic engineering, it has the opposite effect.