Comment Re: An endless supply of nuclear waste. (Score 2) 101
No, it isn't any of that. You guys keep changing your argument like you change underwear, and the reason for that is quite simple: You fear what you don't understand.
Some modifications causes the plant to produce its own pesticide, which clearly has a potential for harm if it ends up in the edible parts
That's called Bt, which is a protein toxic to invertebrates. Bt crop has an abundance of it, and you've probably eaten plenty of it already, even if you've never been within 1,000 miles of any GMO food. With the exception of rsilvergun, most people aren't invertebrates. Humans in fact gain nourishment from it, much like any other protein. I already know where your head is going, "OMGWTFBBQ pesticide bad! It's not safe until at least 1,000,000 years has past since it's discovery to evaluate safety!" That's more "I don't understand, therefore bad!" thinking. Just because chocolate is highly toxic to dogs doesn't mean it's going to kill you, and you're way more related to dogs than you are any invertebrate. This has been studied to death. Bt has been known about since the 1910s.
Greenpeace keeps changing their argument against Bt crop. First they said it contains too much Bt. After they handily lost that argument, now they say it doesn't produce enough. There's no good reason to engage with them on this or any other topic really. Greenpeace should be treated the same as any other religion.
Moreover, our understanding of genetics is pretty limited at this time so it's not possible to predict all of the side effects of any particular change.
I'm going to be pretty blunt: This is a very dumb, incredibly uneducated take. This is so false that almost the exact opposite is true. Proteomics has advanced a lot in the last 5 years alone, nevermind the last 25 when this whole debate began. Moreover, if you make a single, specific, known change to a nucleotide sequence and observe exactly what protein it yields, how is that unknown? It's just total nonsense.
But you know what yields an incredible amount of unknown mutations... Every. Single. Time? Natural reproduction. It's honestly mind bogglingly stupid that you guys even make this talking point.