Not sure what either of those articles has to do with the safety of food, other than "omg genetics". Are these bacteria on the market as a food product? I find their conclusion that the bacteria would kill off ALL terrestrial plant life to be pretty tenuous too.

Oh, look. It was. They apologized for it. And cited papers that don't exist.

What would warrant the extra caution for a GMO plant that contains one extra, well known gene that has been safety tested to regulatory satisfaction over and beyond the same plant that lacks that gene but is still subject to the same evolutionary selection pressures and random mutations? Obviously they do seem to carry huge benefit to someone (farmers), or they wouldn't be priced higher yet still purchased.

[citation needed]

Food is not a drug. Drugs are specifically designed to interrupt or change normal metabolic pathways and processes, whereas food is not. That drugs take years to make it to market and food does not is to be expected.

It's misinformation and scare words like "tainted" that help fuel the anti-GMO propaganda machine. Obviously, that machine is working pretty well.

Because even conventionally grown foods aren't "safe", such as potatoes that contain solanine and apple seeds that contain cyanide. Conventionally grown foods are subject to random mutation and yet are not checked for safety, yet genetically modified foods that we know precisely how they are modified are tested because genetics = scary.

Why don't you develop one, sell it for less than the Nest or Honeywell and tell Slashdot to fuck off while you laugh all the way to the bank? :D

Next time you want to reply to a post with your genius logic, do it using the technology that was around when the first amendment was written and save yourself the embarrassment.

When you attempt to bake insecticides into a plant destined for human and animal consumption, the question is pretty damned valid.

Only to someone whose entire knowledge of the subject is "insecticide", rather than BT-produced Cry proteins, which we know an awful lot about, such as how insects react to them (explodes their alkaline guts, which is why they're used) and how humans react to them (which is to say, not at all, since the proteins are digested in mammalian acidic guts that both renders them inactive and lacks the appropriate receptors for them to bind to, causing the insect explosion).

Seriously, there are people who actually know this stuff. No one is just making this shit up willy-nilly.

They say people won't buy GMO-labeled food when what they mean is people won't buy GMO-labeled food at the same price as already-familiar food.

No, what they mean is that people won't buy GMO-labeled food in the face of the anti-GMO FUD machine of propaganda and lies perpetrated by the organic food industry telling people that GMO foods cause cancer and a hundred other diseases despite evidence to the contrary. Also, the cost of massive changes in labeling and packaging to accommodate that kind of labeling mandate will probably cause the price of food to go up by a not insignificant amount. It's not as easy as just slapping a sticker on something that says "may contain GMOs".

Because the public is so willing to listen to scientists, right? *cough creationists cough*

At least in the US, there's an underlying sentiment of anti-intellectualism and "my opinion is just as valid as your knowledge", and a lot of people who just straight out don't trust scientists because of their own self-ignorance. This is why we have things spreading like creationism, anti-GMO activity, climate change debate, etc. If it were that easy, these things wouldn't exist. You can lead a horse to water....

"Is the decision determined by the inputs alone, or does the person making the decision change the outcome?"

If you count the internal feedback loops of the neuronal wiring (generated through previous experiences) also as "inputs" to the final decision making process (which I feel is justified), then the answer to both halves of the question would be "yes". No two humans will do the same thing because no two humans have exactly the same subjective experiences that shape their neural topography.

"Are peoples' actions determined purely by physical processes, or is there something ineffable that has to be considered to explain how people behave?"

Just because we lack the ability to sufficiently track and understand the underlying physical wiring due to the massive complexity that it creates doesn't mean that those physical processes aren't sufficient to answer the question. I think the question IS answerable, theoretically if not currently in practice.

I think it's more subtle than that: it's not that you know the choices that someone will make, it's the fact that you CAN know the choice someone will make in the future means that it is guaranteed to happen and is thus not actually a choice but already pre-determined. You could say it is deterministic...

Monsanto does label their products as GMOs. Their customers see them all the time. That's specifically why they purchase them.

Their customers are farmers. Not you. Monsanto doesn't sell corn to supermarkets. They sell seeds to farmers. There would be no fear if not for the organic industry's obviously successful anti-GMO propaganda smear campaign.

This is false. Monsanto doesn't produce any deliberately made sterile products. It's amazing how often this blatant lie is repeated as fact.