..."It wasn't so long ago that Scottish scientists stunned the world with Dolly, the fatherless sheep cloned directly from her mother's cells: these techniques have now been applied, unsuccessfully, to human cells. ANDi, a photogenic rhesus monkey, recently was born carrying the gene of a luminescent jellyfish. Pigs now carry a gene for bovine growth hormone and show significant improvement in weight gain, feed efficiency, and reduced fat. Most soybean plants grown in the United States have been genetically engineered to survive the application of powerful herbicides. Corn plants now contain a bacterial gene that produces an insecticidal protein rendering them poisonous to earworms"...

..."Despite the biotechnology industry's assurances that genetically engineered soybeans have been altered only by the presence of the alien gene, as a matter of fact the plant's own genetic system has been unwittingly altered as well, with potentially dangerous consequences. The list of malfunctions gets little notice; biotechnology companies are not in the habit of publicizing studies that question the efficacy of their miraculous products or suggest the presence of a serpent in the biotech garden"...

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0209-01.htm

http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/GEessays/gedanger.htm

Not unknown issues to most workers in the field, but still important enough to be constantly reminded of. It's such a big and complex area that most practical scientists don't have time to maintain a critical or philosophical approach outside of their day to day work. Especially when, as the articles indicate, an acceptance of the issues means some serious U-turns.

Then they need to amend their deficiencies as human beings.

24 hours in a day, a big boss and decorating to do (poor salary) ..........

Just joking. I agree with you Rick, there are no excuses.