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humans are natural, can something we engineer or produce be unnatural?
you could possibly call it evolution.
im for and against gmo labelling. on one hand its nice to know whats in your food.
on the other hand, gmos cannot be considered all bad in a blanket statement.
if you labelled gmo foods, ignorant people would just avoid all of them with the assumption that its just terrible for their health or ethically wrong.
this will hurt businesses who use certain genetically modified ingredients that may or may not be harmful at all.
I would also argue it is a "1st world problem" about banning GMO (not to mention selfish).. if you are a farmer farming where there is severe drought due to climate change no matter it is near Sahara Africa (eg Ethiopia) or Afghanistan. They would all want GMO seeds which are more drought resilient.
I think it shows how disconnected we are from our food supply. Honestly all the low hanging fruits in farming (fertilizing, water etc) have been tapped out. Yes to understand GMO in detail requires you to take 3 and 4th year genetics because all the simpler methods of improving farming had already been used! In order to feed the world with the current existing farming infrastructure we have, we have to move to GMO and vertical farming.
We should be freaking grateful we have plenty of food and have the choice to pick whether we want to eat GMO or not.
if you labelled gmo foods, ignorant people would just avoid all of them with the assumption that its just terrible for their health or ethically wrong.
this will hurt businesses who use certain genetically modified ingredients that may or may not be harmful at all.
I see where you are coming from, but I am not sure I fully agree...
People will still buy it much like people still buy a pop and a bag of chips. We all know this stuff isn't healthy or "bad" for you, but people still eat it.
People still eat at McDonalds, still buy beef from some factory in South America, and still consume fried chicken, chips, pop, candy, etc...when there are alternatives to all.
Will non-gmo foods be more expensive? most likely.
If organic bananas are suppose to be "better", why do people still buy non-organic bananas....because either they don't care or because they are $.50 cheaper.
I am very much in favour of labeling as i I think it is our right to know what we are eating. If we are buying products from companies to consume, we should be aware of what it is we are consuming. You wouldn't feel comfortable eating a mystery bag of food blindfolded, would you? I think it is similar.
If these companies that utilize GMOs start to notice a financial hit, maybe they need to evolve as well. Take a look at what Galen Weston Jr. is doing for Real Canadian Superstore's President's Choice lines. Its amazing! He has taken essentially a "no name" brand at a grocer that sells products at a budget level and has begun a transition away from cheap shit food to quality organic non-additive locally grown foods at a consumer friendly price. On a logistics level it is a fucking mess having to do this, but he sees the long-term benefit and where the trend is moving.
I would also argue it is a "1st world problem" about banning GMO (not to mention selfish).. if you are a farmer farming where there is severe drought due to climate change no matter it is near Sahara Africa (eg Ethiopia) or Afghanistan. They would all want GMO seeds which are more drought resilient.
I think it shows how disconnected we are from our food supply. Honestly all the low hanging fruits in farming (fertilizing, water etc) have been tapped out. Yes to understand GMO in detail requires you to take 3 and 4th year genetics because all the simpler methods of improving farming had already been used! In order to feed the world with the current existing farming infrastructure we have, we have to move to GMO and vertical farming.
We should be freaking grateful we have plenty of food and have the choice to pick whether we want to eat GMO or not.
Agreed.
It's like going back to early nuclear technology, without reactors around these people would be still plowing fields with steers and using candles for light
The people who GMO food are going to help are the people who..uhhh....Don't have food?.. Posted via RS Mobile
We play God all the time.. eg one of my grad studies was the laser out neurons of little worms to help create mathematical models so we can understand the brain more. In fact I would argue, basic research (ie research that doesn't have any immediate tangible results eg CERN's LHC) we are all trying to be God.
The thing about injecting "fish genes" into tomato.. they still need to conform to the ATGC construct, the way I think about it is cutting and pasting instead of typing in an a Shakespeare play by hand.. which way would you think would cause more errors? Some of the rice we eat every day are cross bred with wheat (so they require less water).. in nature that would not happen too... much like salmon genes in tomato. You can't really pick and choose because just because it is salmon genes it doesn't smell fishy.. it still follow the ATGC rules.
Studying to play God? j/k lol. Wouldn't your study be more geared towards the pursuit of knowledge, as opposed to playing god. I mean, when you were doing your research, did you ever feel like you were playing god, or more like you were trying to learn something. Same with the LHC, I think it's more geared towards the pursuit of knowledge, instead of having the power to create, take or give life.
IMO, selective breeding has a higher probability of happening in nature, compared to copying and pasting genes into different species. I mean, there was a dog study within the same species that allowed the fastest to breed, and since the fastest would breed, it would evolve the dog into a totally different animal. However, the dog was domesticated.
It could also be said that the strongest male deer, walrus, whatever animal competes for breeding rights would be able to pass on selective genes by the same pressures of dominance. This happens in nature.
Can you say that copying and pasting genes from different class of animals (mammals, reptiles, or birds) would happen like that? Maybe it doesn't matter if genetic modification is natural or not, for all we know, we could be accelerating evolution.
OK, not by speed but by tameness.
About 12 minutes in.
Another, well known study.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Konstantinovich_Belyaev
About the copy and pasting thing, I've copy and pasted material into different revisions of reports, only to proof read it later and having the report make no sense unless revision is done. This doesn't happen with ATGC constructs? I suppose it's like comparing apples to oranges, the report writing and genetics metaphor.
Honestly all the philosophical tangents you want to go off on.. the results are the same.. worms / creatures in the lab get destroyed for our knowledge.. then in our modern (Western and Asian) universities.. the IP is then licensed via the IP department of the universities to the highest bidder or benefactor.. Like it or not that's how modern universities operate especially at these tight budget times and most people are just not that interested or want to spend time to learn about it.
Some people ask whether "garage" type research is possible. I would say it is highly unlikely, not so much of lack of will and brain power, but money. The machines required for genetic research are highly precise and very repetitive and is just out of the price range of most "backyard innovator". A microscope I used was a quarter of a mill, that needs a few thousand to calibrate every 50 hours. You can do some of the science at the backyard garage.. but not even at the same magnitude of speed at a properly equipped lab unless you have the backing of likes of Nathan Myhrvold. Since we are a automotive forum, I will use a car analogy, in the past to improve yield, we used fertilizers, selective breeding to gain a great deal of advantage in yield, so think of then as the time of the 70s muscle car era, "no replacement for displacement".. GMO is the tweaking of the degree of cam and changing the mapping of the engine.. unless you know the ASIC of the ECU of how to reprogram it or desolder it to understand it.. you can't improve it.. even if you can improve it, the gain is very very minimal. You just can't use a set of socket and minimal knowledge of science to do that kind of work.
One fun fact about DNA is even between different classes of animals we still share a great deal of genetic material... because on the basic level all creatures goes through mitosis, generate power through mitochondria etc etc.. the basics are the same. If you want to really differentiate you should concentrate your argument on the proteonomic level rather than straight DNA... Not to mention, things plants and fish, they also experience simliar evolutions pressures and have simliar adaptations like bioluminescence etc. Like it or not plants and animals are not as dissimilar as you think especially on the DNA level, the difference comes with how the DNA is expressed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DragonChi
Studying to play God? j/k lol. Wouldn't your study be more geared towards the pursuit of knowledge, as opposed to playing god. I mean, when you were doing your research, did you ever feel like you were playing god, or more like you were trying to learn something. Same with the LHC, I think it's more geared towards the pursuit of knowledge, instead of having the power to create, take or give life.
This thread is for serious, mature discussions and if needed points/ bans will be awarded Posted via RS Mobile
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Originally Posted by saucywoman
Skinny pupp why do you have to act all high and mighty like your opinion is the only one that matters, you sound like such a cocky arrogant asshole. Posted via RS Mobile
To totally, and completely derail this stupid thread...seriously?
No. Seriously.
I so love it when people start whipping out their mod dicks.
I don't quite get your analogy. Not to mention with DNA there are quite a good deal of error correction built in during the replication process. You can make gibberish, but the replication process can self correct (to a degree).. or the organism just doesn't live. As I say splicing DNA saves time because you know the trait you want exist at that location, you just cut that portion and put it in the target DNA and hope for the best. Usually you go through a few thousand tries before you get the splice to work correctly.
I would say if you want an easy to understand analogy: DNA splice is more like a .reg file in Windows, the creature is the Windows registry and the replication process is the parser. You can import a reg file about Photoshop, but if Photoshop is not installed on the machine, Windows will do weird things. DNA itself is not a report, it doesn't have any meaning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DragonChi
About the copy and pasting thing, I've copy and pasted material into different revisions of reports, only to proof read it later and having the report make no sense unless revision is done. This doesn't happen with ATGC constructs? I suppose it's like comparing apples to oranges, the report writing and genetics metaphor.
^ That was pretty much what I was trying to say. Since there was a lot of talk about cutting out a ATGC piece of DNA and pasting it into another sample of DNA, wouldn't you come out with something that doesn't really make sense. In other words, not live.
So my next question is, how well do we know how these genetics work? It sounds like we're taking a shotgun approach and trying thousands of different combinations to get desired results. I guess if we REALLY knew how our genes worked, gene therapy would be a success.
Does anyone else think of Cloud Atlas when we're talking about this stuff? I mean getting genetics down to the point where we can create clone slaves and recycle themselves to each other in the name of efficiency. Even though that was a movie and this is real life, Just a thought.
As with everything, there are probability of things go wrong. I would say "spoilage" of a lab experience is about 30%. Considering IVF procedure is about 20% it is not that bad. Remember these things are VERY SMALL. That's why I said it is very repetitive and detailed work.
We mechanism of how DNA works is well understood. The issue is there are a lot of possibilities not on the DNA level but on the transcription and protein level. It is the interaction of combination of the millions of active sites that require some major computing power.
Honestly for people who really want to do something about GMO, dedicate yourself 3 years to go to take genetics at a university and get some wet lab experience.. Instead of blowing smoke on a forum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DragonChi
^ That was pretty much what I was trying to say. Since there was a lot of talk about cutting out a ATGC piece of DNA and pasting it into another sample of DNA, wouldn't you come out with something that doesn't really make sense. In other words, not live.
So my next question is, how well do we know how these genetics work? It sounds like we're taking a shotgun approach and trying thousands of different combinations to get desired results. I guess if we REALLY knew how our genes worked, gene therapy would be a success.
Does anyone else think of Cloud Atlas when we're talking about this stuff? I mean getting genetics down to the point where we can create clone slaves and recycle themselves to each other in the name of efficiency. Even though that was a movie and this is real life, Just a thought.
As with everything, there are probability of things go wrong. I would say "spoilage" of a lab experience is about 30%. Considering IVF procedure is about 20% it is not that bad. Remember these things are VERY SMALL. That's why I said it is very repetitive and detailed work.
We mechanism of how DNA works is well understood. The issue is there are a lot of possibilities not on the DNA level but on the transcription and protein level. It is the interaction of combination of the millions of active sites that require some major computing power.
Honestly for people who really want to do something about GMO, dedicate yourself 3 years to go to take genetics at a university and get some wet lab experience.. Instead of blowing smoke on a forum.
Hmm, using a computer you can simulate what may or may not work, or rather, that trying to simulate the interactions on a computer is so intense that it's not feasible?
If I were to go back to university for three years, it would be to learn how to modify the shit out of these organisms to suite my needs. Will these genetics courses give me the skills to operate these machines that can modify genetic material? I'm serious about wanting to learn how to modify plants to produce higher yield of crop with a high resistance to environmental pressures, but that's not for awhile later when I get some other things in order.
I'm playing devils advocate. Didn't mean to hit a nerve. Blowing smoke is all I can do for now about the subject.
Given the limited amount of arable land, the rapid growth in population, the soaring cost of fuel and cost of production, it's naive to believe that organic food will be sustainable in the long run.
100 years from now, a 3 course meal will be a luxury. Our daily nutritional needs and hunger for food will come in the form of a pill.
Given the limited amount of arable land, the rapid growth in population, the soaring cost of fuel and cost of production, it's naive to believe that organic food will be sustainable in the long run.
100 years from now, a 3 course meal will be a luxury. Our daily nutritional needs and hunger for food will come in the form of a pill.
I really don't agree with this and I think this attitude is a result of fear mongering.
Western nations are fearful of losing options, not basic nutritional needs.
It is not not feasible but just a waste of computing power.
You don't have to take those courses to just use those machines, you just can just read the manuals. Taking those courses might give you the chance to interact with the scientists who might give you access to those machines. Unless you are very brillant, no lab will give you a $50k DNA chip to just to try on your first time out.
Also lot of the mutagenic materials are restricted, so if you want to modify the DNA and grow the organism yourself, you need to get a license from the gov. (it is less restrictive in the US). As I have said, unless you have backing from the likes of Nathan Myhrvold, you are not going to go far.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DragonChi
Hmm, using a computer you can simulate what may or may not work, or rather, that trying to simulate the interactions on a computer is so intense that it's not feasible?
If I were to go back to university for three years, it would be to learn how to modify the shit out of these organisms to suite my needs. Will these genetics courses give me the skills to operate these machines that can modify genetic material? I'm serious about wanting to learn how to modify plants to produce higher yield of crop with a high resistance to environmental pressures, but that's not for awhile later when I get some other things in order.
I'm playing devils advocate. Didn't mean to hit a nerve. Blowing smoke is all I can do for now about the subject.
As another lefty and sciency person, I've had this frustrating conversation with probably half my friends by now. I think the fear of it stems primarily from a lack of understanding of what GMO actually is/does, so it's become a conversation around basic intro-level education more than anything else. It reminds me a lot of having to explain the concept of evolution to someone who fought against it but didn't understand what it actually claimed. At this point it goes basically like this:
GMO is a form of technology which allows scientists to take small segments of genetic code from one organism and insert them into the genetic code of another organism. These segments of code are responsible for producing certain characteristics in the original organism which it evolved naturally over millions or billions of year. This is a technology which could be used to create organisms that would then be used for good purposes, bad purposes, neutral purposes, etc. In this way it's no different than any other technology, in that it can be harnessed for the purposes of the user.
We have in fact been modifying plants and animals to suit our needs since the dawn of agrarian civilization, by selecting for agriculture which randomly mutates in a direction we find beneficial (bigger produce, more pest resistance, etc). The difference is that in the past we had to rely on the random nature of mutation and then pick the best, while with GMO we can intentionally grab genetic code which has already evolved in other ecological niches and use it wherever it makes sense.
So, what can we do with GMO?
* Create healthier agricultural products. Inserting genes that code for the retention/production of nutrients like Vitamin A, β-Carotene, Iron, Iodine, etc would allow us to turn staple calorie-rich foods into healthier "superfoods".
* Create more robust agricultural products. This could take the form of natural pest resistance (to drastically reduce the use of pesticides, which have harmful side effects), resilience in the face of droughts and temperature extremes (reducing waste), and longer lasting produce (reducing spoilage).
* Boost yields in every dimension. More produce per land used, more produce per fertilizer used, more produce per water used, more food per CO2 expended by farming equipment, etc. To be clear, this is a green initiative. More food with lower footprint.
So, why do people fight against it?
* Mansanto. This company gets a terrible name due to their business practices (creating expensive dependencies, suing farmers, aggressive IP litigation, etc). Unfortunately this negativity has bled over to GMO as a general technology, because they are such a huge name in the industry today. Think of it like cable companies... everyone hates their cable company, but it's not because we hate cable or internet, it's because we hate the poor customer service and obnoxious business practices of our company specifically. Today Monsanto is the big name in GMO, and they suck. But that doesn't mean GMO sucks.
* Fear of unforeseen consequences. One common claim is that crop blights would do more damage resulting from lack of genetic diversity (the claim is often made that GMO crops will all be the same so they might all get killed off at once if the right disease hits). This one is particularly misguided in my mind because GMO is creating genetic diversity faster than we've ever had it before, and because it gives us tools to target and fight blights we've never had before. If we have to rely on the arduous and random process of natural mutation to increase genetic variance in our products, we are approaching the danger of crop blights with one hand tied behind our back.
* Argument in favor of customer choice. The "natural living" idea is big and growing in western culture, and along with it things like all-organic, vegan, paleo, etc diets. One of the arguments against GMO from this side is that it will reduce their ability to chose a "natural" lifestyle as GMO products proliferate and become commonplace.
* GMO as a technology could be intentionally used for nefarious purposes (engineering of more effective biological weapons, for example). This is completely separate from agriculture, though you will find some people that argue against researching GMO technology at all out of fear. This is not a viewpoint I hold.
The bottom line? GMO as a technology is not intrinsically good or bad. It has the potential to do very many good things and to avoid every one of the bad things depending on how it is implemented. It also has the potential to do just the opposite.
So, why do I support the concept of GMO? Besides all of the potential benefits of developing GMO agriculture I already listed, ultimately we live in a global society, which means we certainly aren't going to stop companies and governments around the world from developing and harnessing this technology whether we like it or not. So what do we do to prevent the Monsantos of the world from screwing us over? Throw ourselves into it head first and foster an environment of competition, innovation, and oversight/regulation. Embrace and invest in developing this technology for good, so that we can be healthier, feed more people around the world (not just empty calories, but nutrients as well), and do it all with lower impact to the environment.
As another lefty and sciency person, I've had this frustrating conversation with probably half my friends by now. I think the fear of it stems primarily from a lack of understanding of what GMO actually is/does, so it's become a conversation around basic intro-level education more than anything else. It reminds me a lot of having to explain the concept of evolution to someone who fought against it but didn't understand what it actually claimed.
Actually, it sounds a lot like the anti-Smart-Meter debate, as a lot of the fear in both cases comes from a distortion of the terminology. The anti-Meter side likes to use terms like "electromagnetic radiation", because well, everyone knows radiation is bad for you, and "electromagnetic" is just a big scary word that makes it that much worse. For a lot of people, I expect the term "genetically modified" conjures images of a mad scientist hunkered away in his lab plotting the overthrow of humanity with his mind-control grains.
Quote:
* GMO as a technology could be intentionally used for nefarious purposes (engineering of more effective biological weapons, for example). This is completely separate from agriculture, though you will find some people that argue against researching GMO technology at all out of fear. This is not a viewpoint I hold.
The bottom line? GMO as a technology is not intrinsically good or bad. It has the potential to do very many good things and to avoid every one of the bad things depending on how it is implemented. It also has the potential to do just the opposite.
And this sounds a lot like the recent anti-nuclear-power hysteria that's been flitting around since Fukushima. Nuclear power and research, similarly, are neither good nor bad in and of themselves, but of course, incidents like this trigger fear, which some people are more than happy to fuel with mis-/dis-information, including equating the safe, peaceful use of nuclear power directly to the abuse of nuclear weapons.
In the end, with ALL these topics, a lot of it comes down to laziness of people not wanting to bother REALLY researching things for themselves, but instead going in with pre-conceived fears, and then merely finding whatever they can that supports those fears.
__________________
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Originally Posted by Godzira
Does anyone know how many to a signature?
..
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Originally Posted by Brianrietta
Not a sebberry post goes by where I don't frown and think to myself "so..?"
Actually, it sounds a lot like the anti-Smart-Meter debate, as a lot of the fear in both cases comes from a distortion of the terminology. The anti-Meter side likes to use terms like "electromagnetic radiation", because well, everyone knows radiation is bad for you, and "electromagnetic" is just a big scary word that makes it that much worse. For a lot of people, I expect the term "genetically modified" conjures images of a mad scientist hunkered away in his lab plotting the overthrow of humanity with his mind-control grains.
And this sounds a lot like the recent anti-nuclear-power hysteria that's been flitting around since Fukushima. Nuclear power and research, similarly, are neither good nor bad in and of themselves, but of course, incidents like this trigger fear, which some people are more than happy to fuel with mis-/dis-information, including equating the safe, peaceful use of nuclear power directly to the abuse of nuclear weapons.
In the end, with ALL these topics, a lot of it comes down to laziness of people not wanting to bother REALLY researching things for themselves, but instead going in with pre-conceived fears, and then merely finding whatever they can that supports those fears.
Within the typical process for these things...heard a lot about smart meters 6 months later after the bugs were worked out of the system?
or count how many SSIDs and signal bars are there when you walk around places where there are signs for "i wearz tin foil hatz, no smart meters!".
Again to understand the mechanics and impact of GMO, the best way is still to take genetic courses at 3rd and 4th year level. You will realise it is not as easy as it looks.. also remember DNA is freaking small. You usually not sure you have really splice to the correct target area until you start the transcription process.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gridlock
Within the typical process for these things...heard a lot about smart meters 6 months later after the bugs were worked out of the system?
Again to understand the mechanics and impact of
GMO, the best way is still to take genetic courses at
3rd and 4th year level.
Well we know I won't be doing this. I just think that until we know more about this on humanity and the environment we should have labeling and do further long term studies.
We have the right to know what’s in the food we’re eating and feeding to our families. we deserve an
informed choice.
THE ETHICS OF EXPERIMENTATION
Genetically engineered foods have not been adequately tested; it’s unethical to be putting an experimental technology into the food we feed our families.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not require safety assessments of GMO foods and does not review all GMO products hitting the market. FDA guidelines are entirely voluntary and the patent holders themselves determine whether their products “warrant analytical or toxicological tests.”
According to the National Academy of Sciences, GMOs may carry new toxins and allergens. There has been only one human feeding study and it found things the biotech industry said would not and could not happen. Government regulatory agencies are not even tracking GMO foods for problems. We have a moral obligation to resolve safety issues surrounding GMOs for our children and for the generations to come.
UNITED STATES & CANADA LAG BEHIND THE REST OF THE WORLD
Nearly 50 countries require labels on GMOs, and many of these also have severe restrictions or bans against GMO food production or sale. We deserve the same level of protection and information as citizens in other nations around the world.
Countries with mandatory labeling include Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, Russia and all of the countries in the European Union. Some of the countries with severe restrictions or bans against GMO food production or sale are Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Ireland, the Philippines, Australia, Peru and Japan.
The U.S. and Canada are two of the only developed nations in the world without GMO labeling. Posted via RS Mobile
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