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"Top" British scientist on GM food

"many types of food eaten today would not exist without changes introduced
by humans" 

This remark bears looking at, doesn't it?  Couldn't he have acknowledged
the efforts of the birds and the bees? or of other insects?  And surely
there is a huge difference between selective breeding - which seems (to
me) to be grounded largely on systematic observation - and GM.  The
selective breeder of strawberries is not very likely to pick out plants
which contain fish genes, is she ?

MichaelP

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     Top British scientist backs genetically made food
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        LONDON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - A leading British scientist on Friday
   dismissed fears over genetically modified food as irrational and said
   engineering new crops was no different from the selective breeding
   farmers had carried out for centuries.
   
        Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins, an award-winning
   science author, said in a letter to the Independent newspaper that
   many types of food eaten today would not exist without changes
   introduced by humans.
   
        A fierce debate is raging in Britain over the merits of
   genetically modified (GM) crops.
   
        Protesters have dug up a number of fields testing GM plants,
   causing extensive damage, and in June heir to the throne Prince
   Charles accused scientists of playing God by genetically engineering
   food.
   
        ``The other thing you can say to Prince Charles is that, if you
   look at a maize cob, it is hugely different from a wild maize cob and
   that has been achieved not by introducing foreign genes but by
   artificially selecting genes,'' Dawkins wrote.
   
        ``When one uses rhetoric like 'Frankenstein's plants', you could
   call a maize cob a Frankenstein plant, but every one is quite happy to
   eat maize cobs.''
   
        He added: ``There's a general feeling that these foods are almost
   radioactive. The reaction has been as if people believe genetically
   modified plants are poisonous, or they give you cancer or they degrade
   your immune system. Well anything can do that.''
   
        Genetic engineering can introduce genes from one species of plant
   or animal into the genetic make-up of another species of crop plant,
   but ``the fact that you are importing them from another species does
   not inherently make it bad or good,'' Dawkins said.
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