Re: Cognotive Dissonance
In my mind there's a difference between borrowing genes from related plants to confer characteristics like different taste or color, versus adding genes for stuff like resistance to herbicides so you can soak the plants in them. I doubt that there are any harmful effects from consuming a GMO plant with a Roundup resistant gene, but consuming a plant that's been exposed repeatedly to Roundup is a different story.
Banning all GMO plants is the easy way around the quandry of trying to define which uses of GMO are "OK" versus those that should be prohibited. Given a large enough budget and number of years, I'm sure scientists could crossbreed yeasts to give them these hoppy genes instead of using science to insert them. However, you might end up with other genes you don't want coming along for the ride, or losing desirable genes from the yeast, since crossbreeding is not an exact science. So in some ways GMO may be superior to the old world way. The problem is that it can easily be misused by companies like Monsanto.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
