GMOs Don't Hurt Anyone, But Opposing Them Does

Professor Baxter said:
I do not eschew organics. We had a long discussion between myself and pmp on promising organic techniques about a year ago. I simply pointed out that there are drawbacks. There are! I eschew stupidity, cynicism and propaganda, which is what most of the argument against golden rice here has been.



The science is in enough for us to move forward. There are hundreds of papers showing GM to be safe and nothing showing they are harmful. There are reasons to be cautious but golden rice is a no-brainer. The anti GM forces are opposed because they fear it's success.
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Rice is not grown in either South America or the vast majority of Africa so how can the indigenous peoples of those continents eat this golden rice? There is only one way and that is to import it from where it is grown, seems simple enough to me.
 
Darla said:
That there are things in this world to be feared. Some of them are even worth getting emotional about!

Obviously Tom is a climate science denier and therefore anything he posts is suspect, because I have seen how he excels at finding propaganda. String is apparently one of those who eschews organics, which to me indicates stupidity, cynicism, or propaganda. You may know that the Libertarian pin-up boy, John Stossel, has spread a lot of horseshit about organics. He has a hard-on about them, and I'm sure that can be traced back to some corporate agenda or other, but I have never bothered to look into that idiot to find out.

The anti-organic movement has acolytes on the left as well. I am always bemused by people who spitefully eat non-organic food as if they are somehow getting me. Honestly, in taste alone the difference is huge, so sure, go ahead and "spite" me.

Personally, from what I can discern the science is not yet fully in on GMO's, in some ways. But there are enough other alarming problems with GMO's and their practices that they are not something I am comfortable with. And the bottom line is, someone on this thread said we can feed the world but the will isn't there. Well, that's true. And it says everything.
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I never have understood the term "organic foods".....A. What food isn't organic? and B. Dioxin is organic.

Though I do know what you mean about organic foods. It's about quality. Most "organic" foods do have a higher quality worth paying for.

But back to the original topic. Fear is no substitute for fact. The facts on GMO foods safety are pretty substantial as the link I posted on my response to BAC indicates.

But as I said earlier, I see the fear on GMO's as being misplaced. The risk of catastrophe are far greater with monocultural agricultural methods of which genetic modification/hybridization are central too. It would only take one major crop failure, which has historically happened, like corn or wheat and your talking about famine on a continental scale.
 
Rune said:
False equivalency. Commercial hybrids do not create the same kind of genetic modifications.
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That's nonsense. Of course they do. In either case you're isolating a specific allele frequency for a specific genotype and then artificially reproducing that genotype. The only difference is methodology. One method is in vitro the other is in vivo.
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
Here is an excellent article about Monsanto and how it goes about threatening people with lawsuits. To have the US by the balls is one thing, it's yours to do what you want with, but we don't want it over here. Monsanto also sells artificial bovine growth hormone and wants the EU to take US beef, we don't want that either.


http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805
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Hey I'm no apologist for Monsanto. I find their business practices appaling but that's not relevent to the issue about the safety of GMO foods. There is a large body of evidence indicating that they are and that the risk are well managed. That evidence is pretty solid too. GMO's are ubiquitous in the US and have been for 20 years and there has been no major safety or ecological disasters.

Again, I want to emphsise.....that to focus on GMO is missing the forest because of the trees. If our agricultural practices are changed away for the resource intensive monocultural system to a more modern "organic" system then GMO technology automatically becomes absolete. GMO's are the symptom and not the problem.
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
Vendana Shiva studied Quantum Physics to doctorate level but you insist on characterising her as a 'philosopher' in an attempt to rubbish her. As I have said before, we won't have anything to do with GM in Europe if you want to do so in the US then good luck with that. We also do not want your growth hormone injected beef.

I took the trouble to look at the UNICEF website, it would seem that they are already doing a huge amount to combat VAD without resorting to GM rice. Looking at the map, not surprisingly Africa figures highly. Apart from some parts of West Africa, rice is not grown and no doubt the Golden Rice would have to be imported from, surprise, surprise, the USA.

This is the current strategy of UNICEF and I frankly cannot see anything wrong with it.



vitamina_challenge_2010_2.jpg


http://www.childinfo.org/vitamina.html
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Her MA is in the philosophy of science and her PhD thesis claimed that hidden variables and locality in quantum theory were explained by philosophy.

Your map shows percentages of the local populations. Any data on raw numbers? I am curious if the problem might look different then.

If we can eliminate VAD in those regions where rice is grown, including West Africa, then other efforts can be concentrated in other parts of Africa.

The US accounts for 2% of rice production. The fact that you are basing your position on whether it might deny some benefit to the US is again a sign or your own motivated thinking.
 
Darla said:
Mott the Hoople said:
Why not? Peer review is peer review. If the results are not independently verified, regardless of what the initial source is, then it's not true science. Commercial centers for R&D are some of the most productive centers for science research and they afford scientist, materially speaking, a higher standard of living than academia typically does. What is wrong with that?[/QUOTE]

You're kidding right?
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No I'm not kidding. You do know what peer review and independent verification are, don't you?
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It's easy to demonize them. They're doing things and saying they're safe when they have no fucking clue. These new substances they're creating may or may not cause unforeseen consequences.

Monsanto is fucking evil for making it so that vegetables and fruists yield nonviable seeds, so that farmers must buy seeds each year from monsanto again. Destroying the natural viability of seeds is evil. Sorry. They're a fully bad corporation.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
That's correct. Though the penalty for doing so at the animal level is losing the ability to sexually reproduce.
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Or greatly diminishing it anyway. It seems to me we can handle many of the problems of gene flow through artificial selection and farming practices we have been using for thousands of years. There are pitfalls, but nothing we can't handle. These visions of apocalyptic doom are ridiculous and seem to be artifacts of religion and naturalistic fallacies.
 
I know this will seem out of character for me because I have a very deep respect for science. But it is not science of which I speak. Science can be like God - man interprets it. Which men is the issue. And so one of my favorite quotes ever is from The Russia House. I had to go dig it up, years ago it was my signature. But I did find it, John le Carre

"Experts are addicts. They solve nothing! They are servants of whatever system hires them. They perpetuate it. When we are tortured, we shall be tortured by experts. When we are hanged, experts will hang us. Did you not read what I wrote? When the world is destroyed, it will be destroyed not by its madmen but by the sanity of its experts and the superior ignorance of its bureaucrats."
 
Mott the Hoople said:
That's nonsense. Of course they do. In either case you're isolating a specific allele frequency for a specific genotype and then artificially reproducing that genotype. The only difference is methodology. One method is in vitro the other is in vivo.
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Try taking the genes from a snail and putting that into wheat using traditional techniques. To my mind, the issues of bio-diversity, patents and corporate control of seeds and crops are central to this debate. People in the US have essentially been guinea pigs for the last twenty years and I am surprised with all your talk of being free and protected by the Constitution that you have all been so docile.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I never have understood the term "organic foods".....A. What food isn't organic? and B. Dioxin is organic.

Though I do know what you mean about organic foods. It's about quality. Most "organic" foods do have a higher quality worth paying for.

But back to the original topic. Fear is no substitute for fact. The facts on GMO foods safety are pretty substantial as the link I posted on my response to BAC indicates.

But as I said earlier, I see the fear on GMO's as being misplaced. The risk of catastrophe are far greater with monocultural agricultural methods of which genetic modification/hybridization are central too. It would only take one major crop failure, which has historically happened, like corn or wheat and your talking about famine on a continental scale.
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There is a concise definition of organic according the the FDA.

Regardless, organic food is grown without chemical fertilizer, (oil) and without pesticides or poisons of any kind.
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
Try taking the genes from a snail and putting that into wheat using traditional techniques. To my mind, the issues of bio-diversity, patents and corporate control of seeds and crops are central to this debate. People in the US have essentially been guinea pigs for the last twenty years and I am surprised with all your talk of being free and protected by the Constitution that you have all been so docile.
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:hand: Thankyou Tom.
 
Professor Baxter said:
Her MA is in the philosophy of science and her PhD thesis claimed that hidden variables and locality in quantum theory were explained by philosophy.

Your map shows percentages of the local populations. Any data on raw numbers? I am curious if the problem might look different then.

If we can eliminate VAD in those regions where rice is grown, including West Africa, then other efforts can be concentrated in other parts of Africa.

The US accounts for 2% of rice production. The fact that you are basing your position on whether it might deny some benefit to the US is again a sign or your own motivated thinking.
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There are many people in India that are against huge corporations trying to take over the agricultural sector. I doubt you have been to India but I can tell you there is huge bio-diversity there, so why the fuck should they hand that over to a company like Monsanto with its aggressive business tactics? As for most anywhere in Asia there is absolutely no reason why VAD should be rampant as fruit and leafy vegetables are abundant. People in S.E. Asia which I know very very well may be poor but they are not starving and they get all the vitamins they need from their food. In Africa that rice would have to come from somewhere and I can guarantee that it will not be given away, so how will it be funded and why is that better than providing vitamin A supplements?
 
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Mott the Hoople said:
Hey I'm no apologist for Monsanto. I find their business practices appaling but that's not relevent to the issue about the safety of GMO foods. There is a large body of evidence indicating that they are and that the risk are well managed. That evidence is pretty solid too. GMO's are ubiquitous in the US and have been for 20 years and there has been no major safety or ecological disasters.

Again, I want to emphsise.....that to focus on GMO is missing the forest because of the trees. If our agricultural practices are changed away for the resource intensive monocultural system to a more modern "organic" system then GMO technology automatically becomes absolete. GMO's are the symptom and not the problem.
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Monsanto practically owns US agriculture these days, especially wheat, soya and maize. Leaving aside any considerations of safety that alone ought to put the fear of God into most people.
 
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