From: Jonathan Reeves (JonathanR@mail.iclshelpdesks.com)
Date: Wed Jun 02 1999 - 02:03:08 MDT
Anders Sandberg writes:
> Sure, if everybody is using (say) bacillus thuringensis-based
> gm crops, then the evolutionary pressure for resistant pests will be
> very high and we can count on them appearing - parasitic relationships
> force both parts into a co-evolutionary spiral, and we humans better
> be a part of it for the species we like.
What about the species we dont like ?
If a species natural parasites can no longer successfully feed off it,
they will adapt in 2 ways - 1 to overcome the gm plants defeneses and 2
into any other ecological niches they can.
This will lead to a spiral of new gm crops and new parasites (which is
fine if our labs can keep up) - but there will also be a spill over of
the new resistant parasites onto plants which are not genetically
modified. How do you protect the wild plants in this scenario ?
> It is likely better to have several different forms of pest
resistance, so that no
> single resistant pest can take out all the plants and the pressure
towards resistance > will be weakened. How to promote this diversity
economically is an interesting
> extropian question.
Agreed. This would help a lot, but I'm not sure that commercial
companies would be so willing to promote the necessary diversity.
On a related topic the EU looks to be moving to ban antibiotics in
animal feed and sprayed onto fruit for similar reasons.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:03:56 MST