In conventional breeding you're always mixing, you're always crossing species that are more closely related than what they are now. You know now you can basically make artificial combinations of genes, and cross species barriers that you've never imagined you could cross. However, GM scientists point out that even in nature the same genes are often found in very different species. So, for example, around thirty five percent of the genes found in humans can also be found in plants. Indeed we humans share around fifty percent of our genes with fruit flies.
Different species share so many genes in common because all life on Earth has a common ancestry.
This has been criticised because some people say that it's not acceptable to have animal genes in plants and that this might offend a number of people who oppose this, for instance people who are vegetarian, and they don't want to eat animal products. So when this plant contains now animal genes, they feel offended. But they should know that about sixty percent of the plant genes have very similar copies in animals. So having one more gene, which has some similarity with an animal gene, won't actually change anything. If people don't want to change anything, which resembles animals, they won't find anything to eat.