Originally Posted by charleski
Not really.
I think it's silly to reject genetic modification out of hand. It's a technique with enormous power that promises results which would be too hard, dangerous or simply impossible to produce by other means. But that very power means it must be used in a very judicious manner, and I don't think the current crop of GM companies are anything like the right entities to be doing this.
Cross-pollination is a quick and obvious method of gentic dispersal, but there are others. A retrovirus jumps a stop codon and incorporates a new gene into its RNA, which then gets cut out into a plasmid and jumps ship across a range of bacteria. This is unlikely, very unlikely, but all you need is time and numbers, that's how Nature works. I think we need more time and a lot more large-scale controlled experiments to work out what we're actually doing here.
That's why I have sympathy for those opposing large-scale commercial GM crops, but nothing but contempt for the self-regarding 'activists' who go around tearing up controlled experimental farms.
Finally, I have major doubts as to the commercial manner in which gentic engineering is being performed. I just don't think these companies are competent to perform this function, and I think their actions in the third-world are a clear indication of this.