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In reply to the discussion: Total Ban On GM Corn in France Follows Popular Opposition [View all]FarrenH
(768 posts)I took the time to learn various modification techniques at a cellular chemistry level . You're just posting shit you don't really understand, and I don't think you even understood what I was saying. Given two pieces of unknown DNA, you cannot identify one as genetically modified and one as natural. There is no qualitative difference.
DNA is made of 4 bases, adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine. All DNA is made of these bases, including genetically modified DNA. So there is no qualitative difference between genetically modified DNA and natural DNA that you can identify from the chemical composition of the DNA itself. It's just genetic letters in different orders. Furthermore, virtually any sequence we arrive at can be arrived at by natural selection.
Natural selection can arrive at any DNA sequence that will produce a viable phenotype and any variation that is one mutation away from a viable phenotype. So any organism that is created by direct human intervention can evolve naturally. For thousands of years conventional plant breeders have selected natural mutations that are discovered to have some desired property for humans in the phenotype and deliberately bred them more than other plants, thus increasing the incidence of that genotype in the plant population and ensuring the mutation becomes dominant rather than dying out as most such mutations would. AKA genetic engineering. Plants like the banana are the result of tens or even hundreds of artifical selections, so they are in effect the result of extensive genetic engineering. They bear little resemblance to their wild cousins as a result.
This form of engineering involves changes that are, in fact, vastly less precise and less well understood than those in modern GMOs, because breeders were working with the gross characteristics of the phenotype rather than the genes and an understanding of cellular chemistry. Several global staples - potatoes, bananas et al, were only bred and eaten in particular places and were spread all over the world during the European colonial era, with no consideration of possible intolerances among people who had not co-evolved with them over thousands of years, as was the case in their countries of origin. And to date, none of the demands for safety testing that have been made of modern genetically modified organisms have been made of them. Despite this, GMOs undergo more rigorous testing than all of the old staples, with the average time for a new GMO to reach the market being around 10 years.
Some of the mutations in modern GMOs are highly unlikely to arise over a short period of time by pure chance. That much is obvious. It's why we do it in the first place. Because we don't want to grope around blindly for thousands of years hoping nature will throw us a series of softballs. But it is perfectly possible for those mutations to arise naturally.
Even more bizarrely, many mutation-bred plants are staples of organic farming. Most people are quite clueless about the fact that mutation-bred plants are not classified as GMOs, but represent a far more random process of mutation. Breeders realised at the early half of the 20th century that seeds exposed to certain chemicals or bathed in radiation produced a far higher incidence of mutations, so this became a popular way of randomly exploring the space of possibly beneficial mutations. Many plants that are grown organically and sold as organic produce were bred in this fashion, so that putzes who think "teh GMOs are full of teh toxins!!!111one" can feel superior about their food choices while they nom on mutants that were produced by bathing seeds in poisons and radiation.
And you, sir or madam, still don't know what the hell you're talking about. Take the time to learn something rather than Googling for sciencey-sounding stuff that seems to bolster your firmly held and fact-free convictions.