@ The sharmat - First of all, i appreciate your apology. Now onto the topic at hand...
I have indeed a very good basic knowledge of mathematics
And i can tell you that the science of counting and probability is not on your side. I am sure you have a better knowledge of biology as i do (i hope so, you studied it after all) but do you work in the actual field of genetics and the manipulation of genes etc.?
I admit i haven't updated myself in a longer time, but last i checked scientists working in the field admited that they more or less know nothing about the details. They have just decoded the genom but have no real idea how it works in detail or what would happen if they modified this or that. With that in mind i really hope they do not try it.
As a sidenote (and i know it's a bit offtopic) - how do we know that some harsher viral stuff (like for example swine or bird flu and the pandemics that loom on the horizon) is indeed not of our own making?! I mean it kind of already is our own fault that those viruses and bacterias ever get more resistant to our medications as we feed our animals with antibiotics or that a lot of people just take antibiotics willy nilly when it wouldn't even be necessary. On top of it, i am still holding to the opinion that this work you're praising so high can as well be our end as it can be our salvation. Most of the time, what happens in science is that the military will use developments first. So gene manipulated super-viruses on the loose are a real posibility (as i am sure all bigger western nations have their very own labs where they manipulate viruses and bacteria).
Oh and please understand that i am not a particularly religious person...so my "playing god" is just an expression. What i meant is that i don't think we humans have the clearheadedness and oversight necessary to play with the basics of life...if we screw up there, its aftermath will be beyond anything that anyone can imagine.
As a last remark, the ever so often used "there is no real evidence..." line is not the same as "there is no evidence". These manipulated foods are way too young to have big enough data about it and so we can not say if it is safe or not. That goes for both ways. So to say it is safe for humans is just as wrong.
But as food is broken up into basic pieces during digestion and then built into our own dna, i am really not comfortable with the knowledge that now i will just have to accept that there will be artificially produced and/or manipulated material built into my own data. And that without proof that this has no side-effects. I think humankind should have waited with this until we could have shown that this is safe.
On top of it, in the foodindustry, this is not used to make better food or food for the hungry in the world, no, it's used to be able to patent natural resources because now they are produced by your firm. And i get sick to the stomach everytime i think about it. In the not so far future you'll have to ask Nestle or other big players if you are allowed to plant corn or potatoes and stuff....this is the peak of hubris.
Edit: Btw, the die out comment was not meant as a question to the effect of one person and if this person wants to live or not. I meant it in a greater perspective. I for one think the human race is doomed to die out sooner or later. And we will have no one to blame than ourselves. And to be honest, if it is natural selection, i am fine with it too. That does not mean that i am not cherishing life to the fullest! And i think it is totally normal that almost everyone does and wants to do it as long as possible. Just to clear this up.