Needing Assistance writing a scientific case study

[ma junior]

I have never posted here before but i found this area which i never knew existed, but now that i do know it exists i see it as a godsend.
anyways i need help please. how would you write a scientific case study on wether genetic modification is harmful to us. i need help on how to structure it and/or five disadvantages for genetic modification. and the catch is it has to be for a year nine student i have done a good half of it but my lecturer and professor say its too advanced. thanks in advance.

[Adar]

Are you a grade 9 student?

I would probably go postal if I got those instructions from a professor. Writing a scientific paper about the positive and negative things with GMO could -at best- be a social science project. Becuase from a scientific point of view it is more meaningful to discuss difficulties and possibilities rather than harmful effects. The economical and environmental issues are generally better explained as social issues than scientific ones.

But Wikipedia got an excellent collection of articles on the subject. My suggestion is that you discuss the possibility of "gene pollution" and examplify with the migration of Africans to Europe. Basicly people like to claim that genetic diversity is threatened by the introduction of new genes. The problem with this arguement is that it only is a problem if the gene offer a significant advantage compared to plants without the gene. In the case of African migration to Europe (after the first immigrants to Europe) we have seen no examples of native genes being wiped out by immigrant genes.

[ma junior]

adar, thank you so much, 1000 times thank you. you didnt just write meaningless crap or something you actually helped me, i wont forget this thanks so much, im sorry theres nothing i can do to say thank you but thanks for everything.

i ask you just to go that little deeper into your explanation, ive almost done it im almost there, please.

oh and by the way im not a year 9 student, i was three years ago though

[Adar]

What part do you want to go deeper with?

Basicly I can see three significant areas of work:

The issues of introducing new genes into plants (basicly you have to add several genes to facilitate the transfer of the gene that you actually want).

The risk of gene migration (the stuff I talked about in the first post)

The socio-economical effects of herbicides and farmers being forced to buy new seeds each year (i.e. social stuff caused by the misuse of the technology.

I have added a PDF article to my post. It might be hard to read but it should be manageable (I started to read scientific articles when I was 14 and debated alot with creationists).

Otherwise you probably have to rely on Wikipedia. There is alot of crap pseudoscientific stuff written by groups who are militantly pro/against GMO so make sure that you use proper source criticism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic...#Gene_transfer

I also find this summary by WHO that might be interesting.

[Wild Bill Kelso]

I would like to help you with this topic (I am a PhD candidate in soil science), however I would need to know a few things in order to give any decent advice. From your first post it appears that your teacher may have asked you a question that is way to open ended for even the most highly qualified researcher to write a decent article.

1. What exactly does your teacher mean when they say "scientific case study"? Are there specific objectives/topic areas?
2. What kind of genetic modification are you supposed be studying?
3. What kind of organisms? plants? animals? Bacteria?
4. Are you approaching the assignment with the presumption that GMO is bad and looking for specific examples for support? (btw this would be a very unscientific approach to the topic!)