4 ms·

Why does it matter what would or wouldn't happen "naturally", though?

by eivarv 10y ago

tomp 10y ago
The point is, we know pretty well (based on millions of years of "natural" mutation and evolution) what can and cannot happen in "nature". If you introduce mutation based on human engineering, you could easily (even inadvertedly) develop something very dangerous, e.g. move a gene from a bacterium to a plant, but now all of a sudden this plant becomes as resistant/dangerous as the bacterium was, on a much larger scale! Compare this with nuclear weapons - humans have in a few decated managed to engineer something way more dangerous than millions of years of "natural" permutations/combinations of atoms.
- daveguy 10y ago
  > If you introduce mutation based on human engineering, you could easily (even inadvertedly) develop something very dangerous, e.g. move a gene from a bacterium to a plant, but now all of a sudden this plant becomes as resistant/dangerous as the bacterium was, on a much larger scale! This is 100% False. There is essentially no risk of accidentally transferring a bacterial protein to a plant. The molecular machinery involved in transfection is complex and fragile. The transfer process is gated and specific. Even if there was a transfer of the wrong gene the result would be a dead organism, not a super-organism. Eukaryotes do not tolerate random prokaryotic genes in their genome in place of a functioning gene. The introduced gene has to be specifically designed/selected to be compatible with the target organism. Whoever is telling you this is doing the exact fear mongering these Nobel laureates are advising against. It is so much the opposite of easy to do what you describe that it is essentially impossible.
  - tomp 10y ago
    Thanks for making a reasoned argument.
  - deskamess 10y ago
    While not a bacteria to plant situation could you comment on the example by dekhn below [1] (Link or search for Brazil Nuts in this page). He references a paper with an NIH link. The gist of it was protein from one plant transplanted into another and causing allergies. Is this kind of situation not a concern? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016159
    - daveguy 10y ago
      Yes, thank you for pointing that out (upvoted it and yours). GMOs should certainly be regulated for safety and transparency, which is part of the job of the FDA in the United States. Dekhn's statement in the comment about the allergenicity was this: A gene from Brazil Nuts that coded for a protein high in methionine was cloned into soy plants; soy from the resulting plant caused allergic reactions in subjects. An important missing part of that ...in subjects with an allergy to brazil nuts. In otherwords they found some allergic reaction to the brazil nut protein in people allergic to brazil nuts. It did not create an unknown or novel allergen (although allergenicity should be a standard test for GMO food products). For 8/9 subjects it was not the primary allergen (and for one it was the allergen that causes a dangerous reaction). Regardless an allergen is present and it is good that it was identified. The paper concludes with this: "It is prudent to assess the allergenicity of proteins in transgenic foods if those proteins have been derived from sources that are commonly allergenic. The use of currently available animal models alone to predict allergenicity in humans does not produce accurate results. Techniques such as radioallergosorbent tests, SDS-PAGE with immunoblotting, and skin-prick testing can identify IgE-binding proteins that are probable allergens in transgenic foods derived from sources known to be allergenic. This strategy will not be useful in assessing the allergenicity of transgenic foods in which the allergenicity of the source of donor genetic material is unknown. Most current applications in the field of plant biotechnology fall into the latter category." There is no doubt (in my mind) that GMO needs to be regulated and reported. If there is any protein from an allergic source that source needs to be listed on the food product specifically as "contains material from X" -- in this case X = brazil nuts. The fact that the source donor material could be unknown (proprietary secret) is completely unacceptable. The FDA should have full regulatory control over GMO and they should be treated with a scrutiny closer to drugs rather than food. There should be absolutely no "proprietary secrets" regarding the source material or process used to make the modifications. There should be complete transparency and rigorous testing for allergic potential. Maybe increased regulatory control is all that GMO doomsayers are after, but I think the hyperbole hurts their argument when there are sound scientific arguments for increased transparency and regulation. tl;dr: This is a legitimate concern that should be included in a regulatory framework that supports safety and transparency.
- scott_s 10y ago
  That's not how genetics works - moving a gene from a bacteria to a plant will not make that plant bacteria-like. Please consider that the vast majority of scientists who work in this area disagree with your logic - that is what the entire NYT piece is about.
- eivarv 10y ago
  No, we really don't. What we know is what has happened in "nature", and while we can try to extrapolate from that, we really have no clue as to what is possible. Even though you grossly exaggerate how genes work with regards to resistance/danger, the possibility of phenotypes that could lead to negative effects in human consumers is just as real by "natural" means. I don't really think your comparison with nuclear weapons works though; for one, there is no such thing as a "natural" nuclear weapon - not to mention that a "natural" (objective) concept of "weapon" (irrespective of any subject making/wielding/using/thinking about/whatever) would have to exist if we were to compare apples to apples.
  - tomp 10y ago
    > I don't really think your comparison with nuclear weapons works though The idea behind my comparison is simply, that we can engineer things much more dangerous than nature can, that would never appear in nature by themselves.
    - smspiff 10y ago
      We're still a long way from being able to engineer things that are more dangerous than what nature has figured out. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      In this case, dangerous literally equals useful. Anything capable of working with vast amounts of energy is dangerous by the very virtue of humans being very fragile. Whether something is dangerous or useful is a function of how we handle/apply it. But, generally, that's what we do. With brains, we can do in a few months what would take natural selection millions of years to "discover". Doing that, using our brains, seems kind of like the whole point of being a human.
- drakonandor 10y ago
  It 100% has happened in nature, to everything.. http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/404198552/natural-gmo-sweet-potato-genetically-modified-8-000-years-ago http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/40419855...
drakonandor 10y ago
It can and has. http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/404198552/natural-gmo-sweet-potato-genetically-modified-8-000-years-ago http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/40419855...

Why does it matter what would or wouldn't happen "naturally", though?

by eivarv 10y ago

Why does it matter what would or wouldn't happen "naturally", though?

tomp 10y ago

The point is, we know pretty well (based on millions of years of "natural" mutation and evolution) what can and cannot happen in "nature". If you introduce mutation based on human engineering, you could easily (even inadvertedly) develop something very dangerous, e.g. move a gene from a bacterium to a plant, but now all of a sudden this plant becomes as resistant/dangerous as the bacterium was, on a much larger scale! Compare this with nuclear weapons - humans have in a few decated managed to engineer something way more dangerous than millions of years of "natural" permutations/combinations of atoms.

daveguy 10y ago
> If you introduce mutation based on human engineering, you could easily (even inadvertedly) develop something very dangerous, e.g. move a gene from a bacterium to a plant, but now all of a sudden this plant becomes as resistant/dangerous as the bacterium was, on a much larger scale! This is 100% False. There is essentially no risk of accidentally transferring a bacterial protein to a plant. The molecular machinery involved in transfection is complex and fragile. The transfer process is gated and specific. Even if there was a transfer of the wrong gene the result would be a dead organism, not a super-organism. Eukaryotes do not tolerate random prokaryotic genes in their genome in place of a functioning gene. The introduced gene has to be specifically designed/selected to be compatible with the target organism. Whoever is telling you this is doing the exact fear mongering these Nobel laureates are advising against. It is so much the opposite of easy to do what you describe that it is essentially impossible.
- tomp 10y ago
  Thanks for making a reasoned argument.
- deskamess 10y ago
  While not a bacteria to plant situation could you comment on the example by dekhn below [1] (Link or search for Brazil Nuts in this page). He references a paper with an NIH link. The gist of it was protein from one plant transplanted into another and causing allergies. Is this kind of situation not a concern? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016159
  - daveguy 10y ago
    Yes, thank you for pointing that out (upvoted it and yours). GMOs should certainly be regulated for safety and transparency, which is part of the job of the FDA in the United States. Dekhn's statement in the comment about the allergenicity was this: A gene from Brazil Nuts that coded for a protein high in methionine was cloned into soy plants; soy from the resulting plant caused allergic reactions in subjects. An important missing part of that ...in subjects with an allergy to brazil nuts. In otherwords they found some allergic reaction to the brazil nut protein in people allergic to brazil nuts. It did not create an unknown or novel allergen (although allergenicity should be a standard test for GMO food products). For 8/9 subjects it was not the primary allergen (and for one it was the allergen that causes a dangerous reaction). Regardless an allergen is present and it is good that it was identified. The paper concludes with this: "It is prudent to assess the allergenicity of proteins in transgenic foods if those proteins have been derived from sources that are commonly allergenic. The use of currently available animal models alone to predict allergenicity in humans does not produce accurate results. Techniques such as radioallergosorbent tests, SDS-PAGE with immunoblotting, and skin-prick testing can identify IgE-binding proteins that are probable allergens in transgenic foods derived from sources known to be allergenic. This strategy will not be useful in assessing the allergenicity of transgenic foods in which the allergenicity of the source of donor genetic material is unknown. Most current applications in the field of plant biotechnology fall into the latter category." There is no doubt (in my mind) that GMO needs to be regulated and reported. If there is any protein from an allergic source that source needs to be listed on the food product specifically as "contains material from X" -- in this case X = brazil nuts. The fact that the source donor material could be unknown (proprietary secret) is completely unacceptable. The FDA should have full regulatory control over GMO and they should be treated with a scrutiny closer to drugs rather than food. There should be absolutely no "proprietary secrets" regarding the source material or process used to make the modifications. There should be complete transparency and rigorous testing for allergic potential. Maybe increased regulatory control is all that GMO doomsayers are after, but I think the hyperbole hurts their argument when there are sound scientific arguments for increased transparency and regulation. tl;dr: This is a legitimate concern that should be included in a regulatory framework that supports safety and transparency.
scott_s 10y ago
That's not how genetics works - moving a gene from a bacteria to a plant will not make that plant bacteria-like. Please consider that the vast majority of scientists who work in this area disagree with your logic - that is what the entire NYT piece is about.
eivarv 10y ago
No, we really don't. What we know is what has happened in "nature", and while we can try to extrapolate from that, we really have no clue as to what is possible. Even though you grossly exaggerate how genes work with regards to resistance/danger, the possibility of phenotypes that could lead to negative effects in human consumers is just as real by "natural" means. I don't really think your comparison with nuclear weapons works though; for one, there is no such thing as a "natural" nuclear weapon - not to mention that a "natural" (objective) concept of "weapon" (irrespective of any subject making/wielding/using/thinking about/whatever) would have to exist if we were to compare apples to apples.
- tomp 10y ago
  > I don't really think your comparison with nuclear weapons works though The idea behind my comparison is simply, that we can engineer things much more dangerous than nature can, that would never appear in nature by themselves.
  - smspiff 10y ago
    We're still a long way from being able to engineer things that are more dangerous than what nature has figured out. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    In this case, dangerous literally equals useful. Anything capable of working with vast amounts of energy is dangerous by the very virtue of humans being very fragile. Whether something is dangerous or useful is a function of how we handle/apply it. But, generally, that's what we do. With brains, we can do in a few months what would take natural selection millions of years to "discover". Doing that, using our brains, seems kind of like the whole point of being a human.
drakonandor 10y ago
It 100% has happened in nature, to everything.. http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/404198552/natural-gmo-sweet-potato-genetically-modified-8-000-years-ago http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/40419855...

drakonandor 10y ago

It can and has. http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/404198552/natural-gmo-sweet-potato-genetically-modified-8-000-years-ago http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/40419855...