[Labyrinthos]

Many on the left -- including a few of my fellow libertarians -- are paranoid about genetically modified organisms. These are crops that have DNA altered to make them grow faster or be more pest-resistant. The left calls that "playing with nature" and worries that eating GMO food will cause infertility, premature aging and a host of other problems.

The fear makes little scientific sense. There is no reason to think that precise changes in a plant's genes are more dangerous than, say, the cross-breeding of corn done by American Indians centuries ago or a new type of tomato arising in someone's organic garden. Nature makes wilder and more unpredictable changes in plant DNA all the time.

The obvious difference is that GMO food that originates in a laboratory is engineered by a fallible human; whereas genetic modifications that occur in nature are engineered by an infallible God.

[nathanbedford]

Unless, of course, in the likely event that God is omnipotent and omniscient as well as infallible in which case he will have anticipated and fully accounted for human intervention.

[Mr. Lucky]

Naturally occurring genetic mutations are infallible? Really?