And it has no bearing to this discussion, and even undermines your point, because waving something off as just sped-up nature is a standard trick to make the unsafe look safe. Climate has changed a lot over millions of years, so a large change in a century will be fine. Tons of oil has seeped into the gulf over the centuries only to be eaten by bacteria, so surely a giant spill all at once will be taken care of. And so on.
So yes, there has been a fair amount of horizontal gene transfer over millions of years and the world has adapted, and no, it doesn’t speak to the safety in rolling out lots of newly-modified plants on an industrial scale. What’s strange is that this case is different: there is evidence that does speak to the safety of that, at least with something close to the current level of caution.
So why do people feel the need to bring out the obviously-specious it’s-all-so-natural argument again and again? It’s really off-putting.
