So-called “terminatorâ€? plants, for example, aren’t dangerous despite their scary name. What they do is become sterile when the plants they grow are ready for harvest…Though perhaps, over a long enough time period, these types of plants would take over and plants able to reproduce themselves would go extinct.

If you can’t reproduce on your own, you will never really take over other species. These plants cannot grow in the wild, so they actually have LESS of a chance of becoming invasive species. You are right however in identifying profit as the main motive behind these strain’s development. Luckily, patent laws are pretty hard capped at 20 years, so they can’t stay proprietary for that long.

I think your right though about the TYPE of GM which is used. Many GM product attempt to simply return naturally occuring genes found in other varieties of the plant which have been removed due to the old human method of GM called selective breeding. This seems to me to by benign because we can already demonstrate that these are biological modes which can co-exist perfectly fine within an ecosystem.

What seems to be a bit more controversial in my mind is when GM is used to create arbitary compounds, such as pesticides. These plants certainly need more study, but even they can be a good thing, as smart placement and control of pesticides can actually reduce the ammount of pesticides which are used in the processes, lowering contamination of runoff.

So-called “terminator” plants, for example, aren’t dangerous despite their scary name. What they do is become sterile when the plants they grow are ready for harvest. This protects the interests of the seed-producing companies. Though perhaps, over a long enough time period, these types of plants would take over and plants able to reproduce themselves would go extinct. But in the shorter run, this is a question about patent law.

I know nothing about patent law. But as a guy who likes to read, I know a little about copyrights. Twain, Dickens, Tolstoy–all the great 19th century contributors to human culture (and, for that matter, all the not-so greats as well) are in the public domain, easily available. But the greats of the early 20th century–Hemingway, Faulkner, pick your favorite–are locked up by laws that protects the Disney Company’s ownership of Mickey Mouse. I realize that there are lines that need to be fairly drawn to promote scientific as well as cultural innovation. But should the interests of Disney–or Monsanto–trump the interests of the larger culture?

There are also scientific problems. Any genetic innovation that improves the defenses of a prey species is going to put selection pressure on the predator species to produce offspring capable of overcoming those defenses. This is not to suggest we give up, but we have the benefit of experience in this matter that previous generations lacked. For example, there’s been a war on headlice for 100 years. Every time we cooked up a better way to kill them, they overcame it. Current treatment is to slather the hair with mayonaise and then cover it with swimming cap–to pin them down and cut off their oxygen. The day headlice become anaerobic, life as we have known it is over.

I am actually in favor of genetic modifications that make food more nutritious. Probably there is no nation on Earth that has benefitted more than India from scientific improvements to agriculture. And fiddling with agriculure to improve flavor, hardiness, yield and our own wealth is an ancient human tradition. But greed and shortsightedness are also ancient human traditions.