1. How are these scientist be so sure that these modifications will not have some unintended side effect?
Software engineers can't predict every side effect of modifications to code that they created.
I read that some of these GMO products have only been on the market 10 years and have not existed more than 20. So it is impossible for these "scientist" to know the long term effects.
It is also impossible to be sure that non-GMO products are safe. No amount of testing makes anything 100% guaranteed to be safe, it's all about where you draw the line on how much evidence is sufficient. That's simply how science works.
By any reasonable measure, we have plenty of evidence to declare GMO products to be completely safe for human consumption. So far none of the GMO products available to the consumers show any sign that they would be at all more dangerous than the equivalent non-GMO products. Drawing the line at GMO is completely arbitrary, since there is no evidence that GMO would in any way make food less safe to eat.
Or you can think of it this way: you are at least hundred times more likely to choke on your food and die rather than to get ill from the effects of GMO.
Well, by this time we have plenty of evidence to declare "electronic products" to be completely safe. But each individual product still requires separate UL testing.
That is, you can't say anything about the safety of GMO organisms. You can only say something about the safety of the ones that have been created and studied so far.
(For that matter, Russia had a bioweapon laboratory that, IIRC, was doing something like adding smallpox toxins to anthrax. Does that count as GMO?)
"How are these scientist be so sure" <- Not how science works. There will never be a point at which anyone will be able to accurately state with absolute certainty that any food is "surely" without danger or side effect, GMO or otherwise.
"Software engineers can't predict every side effect of modifications to code that they created." <- So? We still fly to the moon, Mars, even Pluto on software. We save and improve so many lives every day with software written by engineers who can't "predict every side effect".
This is not a standard you live by, and not a standard anyone actually uses. It's ignorance, and honestly this kind of "HOW CAN WE BE SURE" argument that should embarrass anyone making it.
Exactly my point. They are saying. I am a scientist and I know that GMO is safe.
but they are lying because
> There will never be a point at which anyone will be able to accurately state with absolute certainty that any food is "surely" without danger or side effect
what scenario are you imagining?
People done this kind of "manipulations" with plants and animals.
Why did you quote the word "scientists"? Are those authors not real scientists with diplomas and education on biology? Would you better belive some person that will get paranoid if he finds our the water is polluted with hydrogen?
They can be sure there are less unintended consequences with GMO than with mutagenesis, which has been used longer and nobody seems to be complaining about.
I'd like to hear the rational for trusting food which is produced be massive amounts of random mutations through radiation, is somehow more inherently safe than GMO.
Smart phones have only been on the market for 10 years. How do we know that the evil cellar non-ionized radiation isn't slowly killing us? It is impossible to know!
> Farmers have been doing genetic modification to plants and animals for thousands of years
Not with a gene gun, they didn't. Genetic modifications through hybridisation and other traditional methods are protected by cellular mechanisms that are bypassed in GMO.
We'll only see the problems after the corporations make their buck, just like when they gave Thalidomide to pregnant women, blood products with HIV and hepatitis C to haemophiliacs and baby bottles with endocrine disruptors to parents who believed in the magical power of science.
> If they actually are bypassed, the modifications wouldn't give rise to any viable organisms.
Prove it and I bet Nature or Science will publish your proof.
In the mean time, we artificially introduce whole genes in a system made to deal with single nucleotide mutations. It's not like we completely figured out gene overlap, control sequences, that which looks to us like dead code, etc., but we'll fire the gene gun anyway and see what sticks. Meanwhile, the consumers are imagining CRISPR/Cas9-like techniques done by people who understand exactly what and where they are modifying...
Software engineers can't predict every side effect of modifications to code that they created.
I read that some of these GMO products have only been on the market 10 years and have not existed more than 20. So it is impossible for these "scientist" to know the long term effects.