GM artbitrary line

Apparently, and I cannot find a link so you can believe I'm lying if you like, certain pointy heads have managed to grow veggies with higher levels of antioxidants. We are told that is a good thing. The boffins were at pains to tell us the veggies were not genetically modified, or GM, but the boost had been achieved by selective breeding.

Excuse me? Isn't that just a bit of arbitrary line-drawing? My cocker spaniel is a forever infantile, neurotic dullard but very pretty. That is because similar looking pretty dogs have been selected to hump in order that the cocker spaniel results. Seems pretty dogs are also stupid, a bit liek humans. Dogs would all be mutts were it not for us. I guess there is a chance that the cocker spaniel could have evolved, maybe if mid sized pretty dogs were left alone in, say, Iceland. Unlikely though.

What about fine wine? Plenty of wine varieties come from vines that have had others grafted to them. That is stretching evolution just a little bit. I guess there is an outside chance that one vine may, in a storm break and fall on another also broken vine in order that a new one may form. Unlikely though.

I do understand a lot of the fears and scaremongering that goes with GM, and I'll admit that crossing a fish and a tomato (yes, it has happened in order that toms will tolerate lower temperatures) does not sit quite right with me. But come on, we've been genetically modifying all and sundry for centuries. Why stop now, just when we're about to get really good at it? There are far more important things to be concerned about, like habitat destruction and energy security. GM is not the bogeyman the hippies have you believe it is.

In my humble.