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oh first world problems.. I live in china now and everything i eat, touch, breath is genetically modified/chemical induced/carcinogenic lol. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, I haven't died yet
BTW if you didn't bother to watch this because of the length, I urge you to check it out. It speaks not only on the idiotic fight against GMO, but how following such conspiracy theories blindly can be really damaging to the world.
The "selective breeding" you mentioned that occurs in nature, gives the specific bred a natural advantage over others, and that specific genes tends to spread throughout the whole species.. eg breeds of dogs we get would not occur in the wild.. eg Great Danes or Pugs. While humans bred animal for their own amusement and needs.
I still awaits what the OP defines as GMO etc first.
At this stage, we know method of raising organism affect taste (organic, greenhouse etc) of the food more than GMO.
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Originally Posted by DragonChi
But the method of selective breeding occurs in nature. With a broad definition like that, it would seem like every organism is GMO.
There are other methods of altering DNA, for example, with a virus.
I kind of figured that's what you were implying with that question.
Organic food is great but comes at a price. Land is scarce, we are expanding, we need cheap food.
Speaking from a purely scientific background, unless the genetic modifications make the plant over-produce some natural carcinogen (none that I can think of right now) or toxin, all that's really happening is overproduction of the reproductive organs/fruiting bodies -- don't see a problem with that.
I'm curious, is there any argument against GMO aside from the supposed negative effects on humans (i.e. wiping out native plant species by successfully competing for resources)?
If I give someone a genetically modified tomato and an organic tomato, the body's processes to break it down will be the same -- the only difference being one will simply have more plant mass. As a consumer I'd be more worried about the soil conditions and fertilizers used to grow a plant than its genetic make-up. Plant DNA/cellular material is all going to be destroyed/broken down by the time it reaches the stomach anyways.
Not native per se, but Monsanto seeds are more resistant to weeds.. so they can crowd out traditional seeds at extreme conditions.
The thing is there is nothing truly "natural" about being agrarian ie farming.
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Originally Posted by dhillon09
I'm curious, is there any argument against GMO aside from the supposed negative effects on humans (i.e. wiping out native plant species by successfully competing for resources)?
Mark Lynas was a founder of the anti-gmo movement and recently apologized for it. About a three trillion GMO meals served worldwide and no hard evidence of negative side effects. Following the footsteps of Patrick Moore... UBC grad who founded Green Peace and left the group when they became anti government. I recommend Youtubing his speeches and interviews as well.
Mark Lynas used to be the kind of fire-breathing activist who sneaked onto test farms and destroyed genetically modified (GM) crops. Today, he’s one of Britain’s most respected science writers and an influential voice in the battle against climate change—winner of a coveted Royal Society Prize for his 2008 book, Six Degrees. In January, Lynas sent shockwaves through environmental circles by publicly apologizing for his role in launching the anti-GM movement. (GM is also referred to as to GMO, for “genetically modified organisms.”) “The GM debate is over,” he told Oxford University’s annual farming conference. “Three trillion meals eaten and there has never been a single substantiated case of harm.” Video of his speech went viral, and he’s been living with the backlash ever since.
Q: You’ve disavowed a cause you were identified with for decades. How are you feeling about your decision?
A: It’s been traumatic, but it’s also been something of a liberation. I’ve obviously been inconsistent in my life, but so are we all. In my view, it’s better to be inconsistent and half-right, than to be consistently wrong. Even the pope doesn’t claim these days to be infallible, yet that’s what most environmental groups do.
Q: Still, you’ve offended your former allies, a lot of whom are now trying to discredit you. Some say you exaggerated your part in founding the anti-GM movement to start with. What’s that been like on a personal level?
A: My whole social scene has been characterized by my environmentalism. I’m in a situation where I can go to a party and I don’t know who’s currently not speaking to me.
Q: On Twitter, Vandana Shiva, a prominent environmentalist in India, likened your calls for farmers to be able to plant GMOs to saying rapists should have the freedom to rape.
A: That was simply astonishing, and frankly, hurtful to people who have actually suffered the trauma of rape. Look, these attacks on me are obviously done in the interests of damage limitation. It’s sort of an emperor’s-new-clothes thing. I have helped expose the fact most people’s concerns about GM foods are based on mythology. Once you can get past the idea that there’s something inherently dangerous about GM foods, it’s a whole different conversation. We actually can tell whether GM foods are safe. They have been extensively tested hundreds and hundreds of times, using different techniques. Many of the tests were conducted independently. The jury is entirely in on this issue.
Q: Why did you choose this time and place to make your mea culpa?
A: I live in Oxford and I was invited. It wasn’t choreographed or preplanned in any way. I just got some ideas together and was asked to speak in a slot that emphasizes some freedom of thought and is meant to be provocative. It wasn’t as if I had a road-to-Damascus conversion, either. I have been developing these themes for several years, and I think this caught media headlines around the world because people [outside the U.K.] hadn’t heard of me before.
Q: You say this wasn’t an epiphany. Describe the intellectual and moral process that brought you to this point.
A: The process was really about familiarizing myself with the scientific evidence, and in fact, with an evidence-based world view in general. I got to that point by becoming less an environmental activist and more of a science writer through my work on climate change and having written two books on global warming. I’d been involved in countless debates with climate skeptics where I would be saying scientific evidence has to be the gold standard. Well, you don’t have to be a complete genius to figure out that scientific evidence is not with the anti-GM lobby. There is this mischaracterization of science, a sort of circular myth-building, at the heart of the anti-GMO cant.
Q: People are going to ask, though: if you admit you were massaging the truth then, how do we know you’re not massaging it now?
A. What I’ve done is difficult, and it’s why so few political leaders ever admit making a U-turn. They need to build up an aura of invincibility, and people’s belief in other people as leaders depends on this mirage. Fortunately that’s not something I’m interested in. This isn’t about me. It’s about the evidence and the truth.
Q. You argue that opposing GMOs is actually anti-environmental.
A. That was the realization that changed my mind. That recombinant DNA is actually a potentially very powerful technology for designing crop plants that can help humanity tackle our food-supply shortages, and also reduce our environmental footprint. They can help us use less fertilizer, and dramatically reduce pesticide applications. We can reduce our exposure to climate change through drought and heat-tolerant crops. So the potential is enormous.
Q: But even if one accepts that GMOs pose no threat to human health, is it not reasonable to worry about unintended consequences? If you make a crop that can’t be choked off by other plants, what might be the impact on the crop land or ecology of a given area?
A: It’s not reasonable, because all of those concerns would apply to any crop plant developed by humans—whether it’s done by genetic modification or conventional breeding. What’s so natural about mutagenesis, which creates a higher level of mutation of the genome through exposure to gamma radiation or mutagenic chemicals—then selects the mutations that confer a cultivation advantage? Conventional [plant] breeders have no idea what the impact is on the rest of the genome, or what allergens might have been created, because the results are not tested. They go straight into the food supply.
Q: You draw an interesting parallel between the denialism over global warming and denialism as it relates to GMOs. Both causes had been close to your heart. Did you reach a point where you had to choose between the two?
A: My overall effort has been to try to crash out an environmentalist perspective that is fully supported by evidence where there’s a scientific consensus. It’s interesting: the GM denialism seems to come from the left, and is particularly motivated by an anti-corporate world view; the climate-change denialism tends to come from the right and is motivated by suspicion of government.
Q: It strikes me that this is very much a story about the power of ideology—how it can blind people to the facts.
A: I agree, but you have to look at where the ideology is coming from, and why it’s so powerful and self-supporting. To my mind, anti-GM is a backward-looking, reactionary ideology, where you have a mythological, romanticized view of pre-industrialized agriculture being taken as the ideal. GM is seen as the opposite of that because it’s the epitome of technological and human progress in agriculture. So you have this collision of world views, where people who are fixated on doing things the old way simply cannot accept that you can even understand DNA, let alone work with it precisely and intentionally.
Q. The organic movement has staked a lot to anti-GM. Can it survive if the global public embraces GMOs?
A. The organic movement itself should embrace GM. The best applications of it mean that crops can be entirely pest-resistant by working in harmony with nature, which is after all what the organic movement is supposed to want. I don’t see any a priori reason why the organic movement accepts mutagenic crops and not GM crops. Ultimately it comes down to an aesthetic or even spiritual preference. We’re beyond a conversation where you can employ logic and science.
Q: So how do you think the organic movement should respond?
A: It’s a key test for them. Remember that most of what the organic movement has claimed is not true. Their food is not more nutritious. It’s not better for the environment. It’s not safer for human health. So what is left? You’re paying a premium for foods which, as Nina Fedoroff said on my blog, is a massive scam. That’s the recent board chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science talking.
Q: Maybe it’s just a matter of time before you have a splinter group of organic farmers willing work with GM crops.
A: I don’t know. My father is an organic farmer in north Wales and has been asking the Soil Association, the U.K.’s organic certification body, why he can’t grow a blight-resistant GM potato. It wouldn’t need to be sprayed with fungicide, and he could grow potatoes in wet years and not lose the entire crop. They can’t come up with any logical reason why.
Q: Do you eat organic food?
A: I try to avoid it, but my wife keeps buying it.
Q. Why do you avoid it?
A. Partly through bloody-mindedness. Partly because I object to paying more for something that is worse for the environment. And partly because I was shocked about the food contamination and health impacts—you know, the E.coli outbreak in Germany in 2011. I wouldn’t eat organic bean sprouts without giving them a thorough boiling.
Q. It would be easy for you to become a poster boy for genetically modified agriculture.
A. I’m no one’s poster boy, and I’m very careful about distinguishing myself from any industry lobbies. I don’t even speak on the same panels as industry people. For me this is a much wider struggle to reconcile environmentalism, which has so much good about it, with the reality of scientific evidence.
What do you do when "leader" changes his mind? lol
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"Damn fine car Dodge... Ran over me wife with a Dodge!", Zeke
What do you do when "leader" changes his mind? lol
Actually real leaders are those who change their minds based on facts vs ideology and fess up. Horrible leaders are those who insist the world is flat even if the facts tell them otherwise. One of the problem I see with the modern leadership / world is every leader is on the pedestal and are not allowed to admit they are wrong.
These are all good points I've listened to everyone of them as this thread was created to get discussions going.
Until their are long term studies that are done by others with no vested interested on what this does to humans I'm going to try and eat non gmo when I can. I just became aware of what a gmo was not too long ago so still in the infancy stage in knowledge about and limiting them in my diet..
I did think this episode was good. Even the tv doctors admit no one knows what this does to humans and that peanut allergies are on the rise and could potentially be in part thanks to gm. Video Library
It's good that you looked more into it, and while I think there's no reason to avoid it in terms of health, it doesn't harm anyone or spread misinformation to do so.
The main thing I guess is, that you realize that lumping together shitty corporations with a method of growing food is not a good idea. If you ever decide to protest or march against Monsanto, leave GMO itself out of it.
I used to think that GMOs were the worst things you could put in to your body. Over time, I did more reading (intentional and non-intentional) on the subject. and came to realize that GMOs aren't necessarily bad. I mean a fair percentage of the food we've been eating for the past couple of decades have had some sort of GMOs in them (soy and corn being the top two), yet we as humans are hitting all time highs for lifespan.
My opinion on the topic is that GMOs have helped us a lot more than it has harmed us (if it has at all). The main purpose of creating GMOs has always been to improve the original. GMOs crops are easier to harvest, are more resistant to pests and other natural annoyances, and in some cases, are even more beneficial to our health by including nutrients it wouldn't naturally possess.
It's just that Monsanto is linked to GMOs, and as stated by others in this thread, their unethical practices has sort of painted a bad light on the subject.
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Originally Posted by 89blkcivic
Did I tell you guys black is my favourite colour? My Ridgeline is black. My Honda Fit is black. Wish my dick was black........ LOL.
Although i am not a fan of GMOs, i think they are here to stay. I am concerned about longterm use and exposure and i don't like the idea of people messing with natural food.
The only thing i would like to see is proper food labels. This way the consumer can avoid these products should they choose.
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. This was a thread for discussion about this topic, not for you to jump in like you do among many other threads and act like your way is the only right way
Putting fish genes into a tomato, putting genes in that will repel rodents from eating them or putting genes in that will make foods resistant to pesticides needs further studies on long term effects on humans... There is one long term study out that there that shows large tumors on rats.. If this is true and gmos cause cancerous tumors, infertility, other health problems, wreck havoc on the soils and environment then I don't want this around... My biggest points are that it should be labeled so people can choose whether or not they ingest this and more studies done by people other than the biotech corporations Posted via RS Mobile
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. This was a thread for discussion about this topic, not for you to jump in like you do among many other threads and act like your way is the only right way
Putting fish genes into a tomato, putting genes in that will repel rodents from eating them or putting genes in that will make foods resistant to pesticides needs further studies on long term effects on humans... There is one long term study out that there that shows large tumors on rats.. If this is true and gmos cause cancerous tumors, infertility, other health problems, wreck havoc on the soils and environment then I don't want this around... My biggest points are that it should be labeled so people can choose whether or not they ingest this and more studies done by people other than the biotech corporations Posted via RS Mobile
I didn't say my opinion is the "only one that matters" I said that I dismiss religious arguments when it comes to science.
Don't get all upset about this, it has nothing to do with you or anyone else here. All I have been doing is posting the argument that it makes no sense to be against GMO just for the sake of being GMO. If you want to do this however, go for it!
You're the one who is coming across as not accepting arguments, calling me names and getting all upset. So because my opinion differs from yours, I am a "cocky asshole"?
You posted this to make a discussion about the topic. However when people discuss it, you resort to getting all upset and calling names. There is no 'right way' to believe something. There is logical and illogical. If you want to be illogical, fine. Like I said, it's not going to hurt anyone if you illogically decide not to eat GMO food. My only point was ever that you should not lump in a technology with a shitty company that everyone knows is shitty.
As for banning GMO itself, the world is changing, and we are going to have to change things to accommodate. If we hold back those changes because some people think it's immoral and everyone should live by their morals, we are doomed.
I think this here ^^ set the thread off on a negative foot.
I think that most people who ventured into this thread don't need to be warned before we post. We all get the rules of RS...we don't need it constantly slapped in our faces.
I agree with that sentiment.. it strikes me as Michelle Bachmann/ Tea Party esque.. where one want to press a point based on one's own belief rather than scientific facts. I still wait for the OP to respond with her definition of "altered" DNA.
I also find it ironic that a mod is having a spat with the programmer who made the board possible.
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Originally Posted by dinosaur
I think this here ^^ set the thread off on a negative foot.
I think that most people who ventured into this thread don't need to be warned before we post. We all get the rules of RS...we don't need it constantly slapped in our faces.
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.
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Originally Posted by DragonChi
I think what added to the fear were things like injecting fish genes into a tomato. I would liken it to playing god, and stem cells research.
No one knows what'll happen, but there's only one way to find out. It's good that over time nothing has gone wrong.
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