Support GMO foods

[bilby]

DNA is DNA, regardless of how it is assembled.

If I start with:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogs​

and end with

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs​

what difference does it make whether I deleted the letter 's' with the backspace key, and then typed 'ed'; or whether I copied the word 'jumped' from another text using Ctrl+C, and pasted it over the word 'jumps' using Ctrl+V?

The technique by which a given DNA base pair sequence is assembled has exactly NO effect on the resulting sequence. There is no way to tell how a given sequence was assembled; Two identical sequences made using different techniques cannot produce different results.

Of course, you probably don't recognise the above as science; but frankly, neither I nor reality give a shit what you believe.

Wow, that has got to be the stupidest argument to ignore the dangers of genetic engineering I've ever encountered.

Your detailed and specific rebuttal is unarguable.

 

[tupac chopra]

You cannot just claim this to be true. You need to back this up with science. You might have faith that this is true, but you believing it doesn't make it so.
Do you have any science to back up your belief?

DNA is DNA, regardless of how it is assembled.

I've pointed this out previously many times for you. DNA is not Lego. DNA is not "assembled" in the way you misrepresent it to be. Someone else here pointed it out too.
Portions of DNA interact with other parts on the DNA and DNA interacts with the environment too.

You can't just assume that you can take some DNA from bacteria and insert it into a plant genome and not effect a whole lot of things.
You need to present some science if you want to back up your belief

; but frankly, neither I nor reality give a shit what you believe.

Why even mention that you don't care what someone believes? It's hardly relevant to this discussion.

 

[tupac chopra]

delete

 

[bilby]

DNA is DNA, regardless of how it is assembled.

I've pointed this out previously many times for you. DNA is not Lego. DNA is not "assembled" in the way you misrepresent it to be. Someone else here pointed it out too.
Portions of DNA interact with other parts on the DNA and DNA interacts with the environment too.

You can't just assume that you can take some DNA from bacteria and insert it into a plant genome and not effect a whole lot of things.
You need to present some science if you want to back up your belief

; but frankly, neither I nor reality give a shit what you believe.

Why even mention that you don't care what someone believes? It's hardly relevant to this discussion.

Because your position is one of pure faith, with no basis in reality.

Hmmm. Who should I trust on this one? The authors of my textbooks on Molecular Biology, and the many professors, researchers and lecturers who contributed to the coursework; or some random guy on the Internet with no known qualifications and an obvious agenda, who is 'pointing things out'?

It's a tough call; But I think I am going to go with the experts on this one.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

DNA is DNA, regardless of how it is assembled.

If I start with:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogs​

and end with

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs​

what difference does it make whether I deleted the letter 's' with the backspace key, and then typed 'ed'; or whether I copied the word 'jumped' from another text using Ctrl+C, and pasted it over the word 'jumps' using Ctrl+V?

The technique by which a given DNA base pair sequence is assembled has exactly NO effect on the resulting sequence. There is no way to tell how a given sequence was assembled; Two identical sequences made using different techniques cannot produce different results.

Of course, you probably don't recognise the above as science; but frankly, neither I nor reality give a shit what you believe.

Wow, that has got to be the stupidest argument to ignore the dangers of genetic engineering I've ever encountered.

Namecalling without a rebuttal is generally an indication that you have no rebuttal.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

DNA is DNA, regardless of how it is assembled.

I've pointed this out previously many times for you. DNA is not Lego. DNA is not "assembled" in the way you misrepresent it to be. Someone else here pointed it out too.
Portions of DNA interact with other parts on the DNA and DNA interacts with the environment too.

You can't just assume that you can take some DNA from bacteria and insert it into a plant genome and not effect a whole lot of things.
You need to present some science if you want to back up your belief

A sequence of DNA produces a protein. Period.

With proteins that normally occur in the body some of those proteins will have other effects on the body but when it's an alien protein it's not going to interact because there won't be anything sensitive to it.

 

[Jarhyn]

I've pointed this out previously many times for you. DNA is not Lego. DNA is not "assembled" in the way you misrepresent it to be. Someone else here pointed it out too.
Portions of DNA interact with other parts on the DNA and DNA interacts with the environment too.

You can't just assume that you can take some DNA from bacteria and insert it into a plant genome and not effect a whole lot of things.
You need to present some science if you want to back up your belief

A sequence of DNA produces a protein. Period.

With proteins that normally occur in the body some of those proteins will have other effects on the body but when it's an alien protein it's not going to interact because there won't be anything sensitive to it.

While I agree that DNA is DNA (if I didn't, I'd be a massive idiot), and that all that really matters in DNA is the resultant proteins that it produces, alien proteins can still have large and profound impacts. This is why organisms are generally exposed to the proteins in question before they are modified to produce them: to find out what kind of life cycle changes exposure to a protein produces. It is why after the modification happens, there are studies to test the impacts and efficacy of the modification.

That said, there are no such studies done on the mutations that happen in the wild on non-gmo hybrids, whose proteins are unmapped, unknown, and unregulated.

It is not on the GMO industry to prove that there is no secondary or tertiary effects caused by their modification techniques, particularly when there are no reputable studies which show any such effects being measured, and several reputable ones showing that there aren't any that we have been able to measure to more than expected levels of pure chance.

 

[ZiprHead]

Wow, that has got to be the stupidest argument to ignore the dangers of genetic engineering I've ever encountered.

Namecalling without a rebuttal is generally an indication that you have no rebuttal.

Who called someone a name?

 

[arkirk]

Still at it huh? Insult does not pass for argument.

This is true.

I have a very minimal carbon footprint...internet and all. The RATE OF CHANGE IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE IS ACTUALLY FAR GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE. In the last 100 years we have done more to our environment than we did in the last 8,000 years. You are not acknowledging that 8,000 year old attitudes are not appropriate in the world of today. Your cock sure attitude is a symptom of a special kind of faith you have in techniques, and technologies that have already seriously altered our environment and made human life on this planet a tenuous affair. You seem like you are willing to move on with this mass destruction and pollution regardless of whom or what gets destroyed, so there is no sense in arguing with you. You will just bury me with your epithets and accusations all the while saying 'we gotta push on.' The late Pete Seeger had a song about you and those like you...it was a song about a sergeant who marched his troops into a swamp to drown. You have no sense of how serious the conditions are and how rapidly they are deteriorating. You accept no responsibility...oh well, I guess that is some people's idea of "freedom." Freedom to fuck other people over and take them with you down a path to potential horrendous failure. We have to stop getting all gushy about modern wonders. They usually end up shitting on us and the environment if we are hasty deploying them worldwide. I ask you again to try to understand. You and your fellow faithful are not qualified to be the commanders in chief of the world.

The class distinctions which you secretly acknowledge to yourself are extremely harmful to those you refuse to allow input in world affairs, instead placing yourself and others in the hands of unscrupulous and often megalomaniac industrial leaders. So you want a dam, the indigenous dwellers in the lake bottom just have to get the fuck out of the way. You want gold or coal or natural gas...get those fuckers out of the way! You want profits...then screw any little people who might get in the way of the great technological armies hired to rearrange the planet for profit. We are losing our heads over a miracle that is a chimera.

And this is a very good example of a series of insults that do not pass for argument. You don't even mention GMOs, which, in case you forgot, are the topic under discussion.

Just because I disagree with your position on GMOs does not mean that I must therefore disagree with your position on everything. Your rant is misplaced, and makes you appear foolish, as well as hypocritical.

I am confident that GMOs are not harmful, because I have taken the time to study the science behind the techniques that you deride. That doesn't make me an authority on such unrelated topics as mass destruction; pollution; class distinctions; word affairs; megalomania amongst industrial leaders; dams; indigenous affairs; gold; coal; natural gas; profits or technological armies. But that's OK, because those things have FUCK ALL TO DO WITH IT. The only connection is an apparent persecution complex on your part that renders you incapable of even imagining a person might oppose your view on one topic while agreeing with you on others.

Your silo based, hyper-political, polarised worldview is becoming truly tiresome. You are right about some things, and wrong about others, and it harms your cause to accuse every person who opposes you on topic 'A' of also opposing you on topics 'B' thru 'Z'.

You haven't paid attention to what I am saying. I in no way am deriding gene splicing research and devlopment. I am pointing to the fact that this activity can have purposes determined apriori which can be extremely harmful from an environmental point of view. It is the nearly planet wide deployment of these GMO's to facilitate monoculture. YOU HAVE NOT ADDRESSED THIS. I have never been opposed to GMO's because they themselves are dangerous, though perhaps some could be. I am opposed because some of the industrial agricultural applications they have spawned have profound effects on the environment. Monsanto and other industrial farming market giants' products are a one-two punch. The first punch...the resistant organism...is just a light tap. The utilization of the roundup resistance is the big punch....widespread persistent pesticide distribution. The second punch is really just more of the same old industrial chemical pollution we already have...only expanded with abandon. It is Monsanto's corporate behavior, not just some possibly harmless (in itself) plant. I don't know why I bother trying to discuss this with you when you keep saying "I don't give a shit." You need to take this attitude and put it on the scale and see if it is appropriate for people who indeed care about our future.

I would also be opposed to the manufacture of high firing rate machine guns designed to deliver cyanide tipped bullets. It is the purpose of a thing like this that determines if there should or should not be a lot of these things. The same with roundup or anything else-ready soy, corn, etc.

 

[bilby]

This is true.

I have a very minimal carbon footprint...internet and all. The RATE OF CHANGE IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE IS ACTUALLY FAR GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE. In the last 100 years we have done more to our environment than we did in the last 8,000 years. You are not acknowledging that 8,000 year old attitudes are not appropriate in the world of today. Your cock sure attitude is a symptom of a special kind of faith you have in techniques, and technologies that have already seriously altered our environment and made human life on this planet a tenuous affair. You seem like you are willing to move on with this mass destruction and pollution regardless of whom or what gets destroyed, so there is no sense in arguing with you. You will just bury me with your epithets and accusations all the while saying 'we gotta push on.' The late Pete Seeger had a song about you and those like you...it was a song about a sergeant who marched his troops into a swamp to drown. You have no sense of how serious the conditions are and how rapidly they are deteriorating. You accept no responsibility...oh well, I guess that is some people's idea of "freedom." Freedom to fuck other people over and take them with you down a path to potential horrendous failure. We have to stop getting all gushy about modern wonders. They usually end up shitting on us and the environment if we are hasty deploying them worldwide. I ask you again to try to understand. You and your fellow faithful are not qualified to be the commanders in chief of the world.

The class distinctions which you secretly acknowledge to yourself are extremely harmful to those you refuse to allow input in world affairs, instead placing yourself and others in the hands of unscrupulous and often megalomaniac industrial leaders. So you want a dam, the indigenous dwellers in the lake bottom just have to get the fuck out of the way. You want gold or coal or natural gas...get those fuckers out of the way! You want profits...then screw any little people who might get in the way of the great technological armies hired to rearrange the planet for profit. We are losing our heads over a miracle that is a chimera.

And this is a very good example of a series of insults that do not pass for argument. You don't even mention GMOs, which, in case you forgot, are the topic under discussion.

Just because I disagree with your position on GMOs does not mean that I must therefore disagree with your position on everything. Your rant is misplaced, and makes you appear foolish, as well as hypocritical.

I am confident that GMOs are not harmful, because I have taken the time to study the science behind the techniques that you deride. That doesn't make me an authority on such unrelated topics as mass destruction; pollution; class distinctions; word affairs; megalomania amongst industrial leaders; dams; indigenous affairs; gold; coal; natural gas; profits or technological armies. But that's OK, because those things have FUCK ALL TO DO WITH IT. The only connection is an apparent persecution complex on your part that renders you incapable of even imagining a person might oppose your view on one topic while agreeing with you on others.

Your silo based, hyper-political, polarised worldview is becoming truly tiresome. You are right about some things, and wrong about others, and it harms your cause to accuse every person who opposes you on topic 'A' of also opposing you on topics 'B' thru 'Z'.

You haven't paid attention to what I am saying. I in no way am deriding gene splicing research and devlopment. I am pointing to the fact that this activity can have purposes determined apriori which can be extremely harmful from an environmental point of view. It is the nearly planet wide deployment of these GMO's to facilitate monoculture. YOU HAVE NOT ADDRESSED THIS.

THAT'S BECAUSE IT IS NOT RELEVANT.

Monoculture farming has been increasing since at least 1773, when the Inclosure Act was passed in the United Kingdom. By the 1920s it was ubiquitous in the whole of the developed world. The first GMO crops were not grown commercially until the 1990s; assuming that causes have to happen before effects, there is no way that GMOs played a significant role in the adoption of monoculture farming.

I have never been opposed to GMO's because they themselves are dangerous, though perhaps some could be. I am opposed because some of the industrial agricultural applications they have spawned have profound effects on the environment. Monsanto and other industrial farming market giants' products are a one-two punch. The first punch...the resistant organism...is just a light tap. The utilization of the roundup resistance is the big punch....widespread persistent pesticide distribution. The second punch is really just more of the same old industrial chemical pollution we already have...only expanded with abandon. It is Monsanto's corporate behavior, not just some possibly harmless (in itself) plant.

Herbicide resistance is just one of many traits that have been applied to GM plants. Are you saying that you have no problem with crops engineered for improved shelf life, disease resistance, stress resistance, pest resistance, production of useful goods (such as biofuels and insulin), the ability to absorb toxins, and for use in bioremediation of pollution? Your only concern is with herbicide resistance? If so, you should be aware that if genetically engineered herbicide resistance did not exist, there would still be widespread use of Roundup and other glyphosate based herbicides, if only because these are far safer than the herbicides previously used. Indeed, the use of Roundup as a herbicide pre-dates the first commercial GM crops by a number of years.

I don't know why I bother trying to discuss this with you when you keep saying "I don't give a shit."

I don't "keep saying" any such thing. I did say "neither I nor reality give a shit what you believe.", which is not the same thing at all. Appeals to blind faith can be, and should be, dismissed as the empty rhetoric they are. I don't give a shit what people believe; I give a shit about what can be demonstrated.

You need to take this attitude and put it on the scale and see if it is appropriate for people who indeed care about our future.

Well if we are telling people what they need to do, you need to read more carefully for comprehension before responding, because what I said, and what you appear to have understood, are very different things.

You do not have a monopoly on caring about the future.

I would also be opposed to the manufacture of high firing rate machine guns designed to deliver cyanide tipped bullets.

So would I, but again, this is COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO THE TOPIC.

That you seem to think that these two things are remotely comparable suggests that you really don't understand what GM herbicide resistance actually implies; or that you really don't know anything about toxicity; or both.

Yes, it is really scary to think that there might be traces of poisonous chemicals in our food; but as any biochemist can tell you, all of our food has always contained traces of poisonous chemicals. The dose makes the poison, and different chemicals have differing toxicity. Glyphosate is one of the least toxic chemicals used in agriculture, and the quantity of it remaining on food is minuscule. The naturally occurring toxins in fresh produce are more of a concern, on a biochemical basis, than Roundup is. But becasue those toxins are not made by Monsanto, nobody seems to worry about them.

Rational people use science to determine which of the risks in their lives are important, and which can safely be ignored. Using fear instead of science leads to less optimal outcomes; People have actually died as a result of eating organicly farmed produce. Nobody has ever died from eating produce with glyphosate residue on it. Switching from GM to Organic actually increases your risk of being poisoned by your food significantly and measurably. Neither are very risky; and nothing is risk-free; but GM is observably less risky than Organic.

It is the purpose of a thing like this that determines if there should or should not be a lot of these things. The same with roundup or anything else-ready soy, corn, etc.

Arguing against all GMOs because you oppose the use of herbicide resistant crops is like arguing against the manufacture of all metal cylinders because you oppose the arms industry, and gun barrels are metal cylinders. As a pacifist, do you oppose the existence of metal water or gas pipes?

Wheat is resistant to 2,4-D, which was widely used as a herbicide in wheat crops long before anyone developed a GMO. Can I take it that you were, and are, equally opposed to that practice? Or is it only GM herbicide resistance that is bad?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Namecalling without a rebuttal is generally an indication that you have no rebuttal.

Who called someone a name?

You're calling it the stupidest argument.

 

[ZiprHead]

Who called someone a name?

You're calling it the stupidest argument.

And that's calling someone a name?

Apparently we have another stupid argument.

 

[Axulus]

You're calling it the stupidest argument.

And that's calling someone a name?

Apparently we have another stupid argument.

The tone of your post was that only a stupid person would try to use such an argument. Maybe you should try changing your tone if you don't want to be misinterpreted.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Great article on NPR, psychoanalyzing GMO opposition: The Danger Of GMOs: Is It All In Your Mind?. It is about essentialism and preference for "natural," which isn't news to someone with passing contact with the anti-GMO community. The ungenerous opinion that they are anti-science is misleading, as it is actually about delusions of the science driven by confirmation bias and myths. Because there is a 50% gap between the opinions of the public and the opinions of scientists about the health risks of GMO foods, the scientists feel like voices in a wilderness of lunacy. When I searched on Google Scholar, it was surprising to me how many articles I found that analyzed how and why the public is so irrational about GMO foods.

 

[arkirk]

Bilby: You are a full fledged technological fundamentalist as blind to our ecological realities as any religious fundamentalist. You are saying ridiculous things and asking ridiculous questions about my personal beliefs and things that for me have no exact and final answer. Your choice between Monsanto and caution is clearly on the side of the monopolist whether it is in our economy or in the world environment. I have to laugh when you diverge into talking about gun barrels and water pipes. You are not acknowledging that agriculture has changed extremely in the last 50 years and so has the number of extinctions of both flora and fauna. The change is all in the direction of monoculture and also in the direction of ever increasing environmental damage. Being as you don't care about the rising rate of extinctions, would it be fair to say you could welcome DDT back into your life. That was an EFFECTIVE PESTICIDE. I spent 25 years in the municipal wastewater treatment business and have done loads of receiving water testing. I can tell you our current course of pollution is ever increasing and the extinctions also are.

We are not managing our natural resources well and one of the major problems is something called NON POINT SOURCES....ie. agriculture.

 

[bilby]

Bilby: You are a full fledged technological fundamentalist as blind to our ecological realities as any religious fundamentalist.

No, I am not.

You are saying ridiculous things

Then feel free to indicate hat those 'things' are, and to provide evidence that they are ridiculous.

and asking ridiculous questions about my personal beliefs

Not at all. Beliefs are completely irrelevant.

and things that for me have no exact and final answer.

If you don't have the answers, it would be wise to find them out before expounding an opinion

Your choice between Monsanto and caution is clearly on the side of the monopolist whether it is in our economy or in the world environment.

I am making no such choice. Monsanto is not synonymous with GMOs, and even if they were, what you present is a false dichotomy that arises only from your faith. I am not making choices that exist only in your head.

I have to laugh when you diverge into talking about gun barrels and water pipes.

I am glad to hear you got a laugh out of the analogy. I hope you also thought about it, and how it highlighted the ridiculousness of your equally laughable analogy

You are not acknowledging that agriculture has changed extremely in the last 50 years

No, I am not; because I am not psychic and have no idea what odd tangent you might want me to acknowledge. If you want to talk about the overall state of agriculture in the last 50 years I can; but as GMO is a tiny part of that story, it would be off topic in this thread.

and so has the number of extinctions of both flora and fauna.

Feel free to provide an example of any extinction caused by GMOs.

The change is all in the direction of monoculture and also in the direction of ever increasing environmental damage. Being as you don't care about the rising rate of extinctions,

You at not psychic either; please refrain from making guesses about what I care about; you are clearly very bad indeed at it.

would it be fair to say you could welcome DDT back into your life.

Actually, in the case of DDT, yes, it should be still used in malaria areas; banning DDT outright was almost certainly a bad thing that resulted in millions of needless deaths.

That was an EFFECTIVE PESTICIDE.

Yes, it was.

It has fuck all to do with GMOs though. So why you think it is relevant is beyond me.

I spent 25 years in the municipal wastewater treatment business and have done loads of receiving water testing.

And in all those years, did anyone ask you to focus on the topic at hand, rather than rambling off on weird tangents?

I can tell you our current course of pollution is ever increasing and the extinctions also are.

But apparently you can't tell me how this relates to GMOs, or why you are going on about it.

We are not managing our natural resources well and one of the major problems is something called NON POINT SOURCES....ie. agriculture.

So, not GM agriculture? Just agriculture in general? I can see why that's a worry, but not how it is relevant to this thread.

It seems to me that you associate all these things that are only related by the side of politics they come from; and that this habit is so ingrained that you cannot imagine that they might not be scientifically related.

It is possible to support GMOs while still supporting a wide range of environmentalist positions. I choose to support that for which the evidence indicates the benefits outweigh the risks - and I do not care what the environmentalist dogma might be.

I know it is hard for you to grasp, but just because I think you are wrong on this topic - GMOs - that doesn't imply that I must oppose your position on, for example, pesticides in groundwater. The two things are not linked. I know you really really want them to be, so that it is easy for you to pick sides. But they really are not; and there are not just two 'sides'; there are more than twice as many sides as there are topics.

Ecological questions are not a battle between good and evil. They are a series of skirmishes between not too bad and a little bit worse; or between almost good enough and a touch better. And the only side to be on is the one supported by scientific studies. Because there is no other way to match expectations to reality.

There are no shortcuts; following dogma from people who were right the last five times is no guarantee of being on the right side of the sixth question. To be reliably right more often than not requires both education and reason.

 

[scombrid]

The change is all in the direction of monoculture and also in the direction of ever increasing environmental damage.

Trend precedes GMO crops and I don't see how blaming GMO crops addresses this issue.

I spent 25 years in the municipal wastewater treatment business and have done loads of receiving water testing. I can tell you our current course of pollution is ever increasing

GMOs are exacerbating this? Data? Around here the biggest new chemical contaminants of surface waters are not coming from GMO farming practices.

We are not managing our natural resources well and one of the major problems is something called NON POINT SOURCES....ie. agriculture.

I'm a fishery biologist in Florida so I'm certainly aware of this. Again, how is GM crop technology exacerbating this?

I'm also from the lower Chesapeake Bay and the eutrophication that is a nightmare up there is not caused by GMO.

The algae blooms on the Indian River Lagoon, lakes, and St. Johns River where I live do not result from GMO.

GM crops applied according to label should reduce chemical inputs into the environment. That is why farmers like them. Well timed Roundup applications on round-up ready The whole monoculture issue exists with or without GM crops. It is the industrialization of food production.

And I'll go off on a tangent and ask why it is always MONSANTO! Bayer makes seed that is probably killing bees.

Also, you'd crap yourself is you knew how much glyphosate family herbicides are used on surface waters in Florida so control invasive weeds. But the municipalities that are withdrawing and treating that surface water for consumption aren't complaining about it contaminating their supply. The bigger worry for drinking water down here is what people put on lawns and golf courses and into septic tanks that goes right through our sandy soil and porous limestone into the shallow aquifer.

 

[Perspicuo]

CONGRATULATIONS to those who have referenced online research and panel sources.

The last 5 pages have been an intersting read--interesting only for the references.

OTOH, the bickering is ZERO interesting and I skim through it if at all,
so take this reader's opinion into consideration, guys.

 

[Will Wiley]

It is not on the GMO industry to prove that there is no secondary or tertiary effects caused by their modification techniques, particularly when there are no reputable studies which show any such effects being measured, and several reputable ones showing that there aren't any that we have been able to measure to more than expected levels of pure chance.

Which studies are you referring to?

 

[fromderinside]

CONGRATULATIONS to those who have referenced online research and panel sources.

The last 5 pages have been an intersting read--interesting only for the references.

OTOH, the bickering is ZERO interesting and I skim through it if at all,
so take this reader's opinion into consideration, guys.

So I scrolled up this page and found zero citations. Is that why you're complaining?