> Men have been modifying the genes of plants
> since they started agriculture 50 000 years ago.
This is utter Lysenkoism. Human breeding modifies the chromosomes of plants, not the genes. If mutations have played a role in the selective breeding process (and, probable though this may seem, there is absolutely no evidence of it) they came about by pure accident, not design.
Alteration of genes by deliberate manipulation of DNA is, as far as we can know, a completely new event in the evolutionary history of this planet, with absolutely unforeseeable consequences if allowed to proceed with no control except that by monopoly capitalists and their agents in the councils of government. An absolute moratorium on genetic modification of plants and (nonhuman) animals outside the laboratory, until political and economic institutions have been revolutionized to permit rational social deliberation and control over the process, should be an essential minimal demand for any radical movement worthy of the name.
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64