Genetic Modification is not natural. Does that make it morally wrong?

    First things first, I think it's important to define what I mean by 'natural'. If I was feeling suitably philosophical, I could try to argue that anything done by man is natural. After all, humans beings are living creatures and all of our decisions and actions are the results of biological processes in our bodies. However, I suspect that when most people hear the word 'natural', they don't immediately think of such human creations as aeroplanes, factories and skyscrapers, so I shall treat 'natural' as denoting something that would occur by itself - without human intervention.

    By this definition then, genetic modification of crops by people is not natural. My question, however, is this: what's so great about  'natural' anyway?

    It seems to me that there is a general consensus in society that we can become better, healthier people if we only consume things that occur naturally.

    The fact is however, if people had only ever done that most of us wouldn't even be here.  Pretty much all the food we eat is unnatural.  Agriculture is unnatural. Fields full of the same plant all growing in neat little rows are not a naturally occurring phenomenon.  The crops themselves are not even natural. They have all been subject to processes of artificial selection by humans for hundreds of years - we select the ones that have characteristics that suit our needs. Take the potato, for example, which has been bred to reduce the levels of poisonous glycoalkaloids. In fact most plants make poisonous chemicals, partly to stop them from being eaten and these poisons are all natural.

    Does this mean agriculture is evil? No, of course not. It may have its problems, just like any technology, but the fact is we wouldn't be able to sustain anything like the world's current population if we'd never applied science and technology to food production.

    GM is just the next stage of this. It is just a more elegant and precise way of manipulating plants for our own needs - just like we have been doing for millennia. You may disagree with GM because you are concerned about its safety or usefulness (I wouldn't agree with you, but I'll save that for another post), but saying that we should abandon GM because it is unnatural is wrong. Even without GM, we would still all eat unnatural food every day.