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We’re Scientists, Moms, And We Avoid Non-GMO Products

• spopejoy 10y ago
  News Flash: Genetic Scientist Thinks GMO foods Are OK. What a shocker, a booster for GMOs who works in ... gene sequencing.
• oxide 10y ago
  A couple I know who avoid GMO products have a few things in common with others I've seen saying the same things: Ignorance of what a GMO really is, a deep distrust of corporate interests/government regulators and a strange, unearned trust placed in those selling "organic" products. It costs them a premium, but they say they're doing it for their children. I can't argue against it to their faces, but quietly I wonder if they wouldn't be more financially free if they weren't so willingly chained to 7 dollar gallons of milk.
  • botexpert 10y ago
    Buying organic animal products and doing it for their children. I don't think that's long-term planning for children welfare.
  • 6DM 10y ago
    I eat GMO food all the time, but organic milk is so damn delicious. It's the one thing I'll splurge on. Even 1% tastes as good as normal whole milk imo. The rest tastes the same to me shrugs
    • chriskanan 10y ago
      My understanding is that this is partially due to different pasteurization processes. Organic milk is heated at a higher temperature and for less time, than the pasteurization process used for non-organic milk. This carmelizes the sugars in the organic milk, making it sweeter. The process is also the reason why organic milk lasts longer on the store shelf. See this article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-organic-milk-lasts-longer/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-organic-m...
    • ravenstine 10y ago
      Dairy products are highly variant, depending on what the cows are fed. If it's organic, it's possible that it's also grass-fed or something along those lines.
      • 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
        This one tastes like it the cow got into an onion patch.
        • stcredzero 10y ago
          That sort of thing is a major concern for selling goat's milk. Bad things can also happen with hormonal changes when the billy and nanny goats are allowed together.
        • hx87 10y ago
          That's an intentional product in central Europe, believe it or not.
      • douche 10y ago
        You can always tell when the cows switch between grass and silage in the spring and fall. Milk tastes like garbage for a week or two until they get sorted out.
    • bbddg 10y ago
      I try to almost exclusively eat organic products. It's not really about the taste or even much about my own health. The real benefit is to the environment where the plants are grown. The overuse of herbicides, pesticides, and antibiotics can destroy the natural ecology of an area.
      • BinaryIdiot 10y ago
        You do realize organic farming uses significantly more pesticides, right? [1]. [1] https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~lhom/organictext.html https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~lhom/organictext.html
        • bbddg 10y ago
          Interesting link, I'm admittedly not that educated on this. However, not all organic farms use more pesticides. Some hardly use any pesticides at all. What is the most sustainable and ecologically friendly way to get food then? Local farms, farmers markets, or growing your own food seems like the best but I don't think that's sustainable for the whole population.
          • BinaryIdiot 10y ago
            > Some hardly use any pesticides at all. Citation? I can't imagine they would use little or none unless they were farming something specific, like rice, which can grow under water or if it's grown indoors. > What is the most sustainable and ecologically friendly way to get food then? Local farms, farmers markets, or growing your own food seems like the best but I don't think that's sustainable for the whole population. So I'm having trouble finding the study I read a few years back but it essentially found that large, centralized farms are the most efficient because our transportation has gotten so good and many plants grow better in specific climates versus growing everything locally. So if you have enough scale then centralized, huge farms seems to be the way to go. However that's using today's farming. I've seen many write-ups calling for entire buildings with hundreds of floors for farming. If we can get those energy efficient then we should be able to create the perfect climate for each plant and we'll be taking up vertical space so it'll be better land usage too. Though that would suck if power died from, say, a solar flare and all of our food was in these towers...heh
    • gohrt 10y ago
      It's actually for the same reason that a placebo is good: a but more sugar.
  • enraged_camel 10y ago
    >>It seems like folks buying into the GMO conspiracy are often the same folks who buy into any conspiracy. I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. Just like the right-wing has their anti-government extremists, the left-wing has their anti-corporate extremists. However, the latter group is interesting in the sense that they actually think science is on their side.
    • oxide 10y ago
      I axed that a few minutes ago, it seemed a little harsh. sorry to anyone who was confused by my edit.
    • dmoy 10y ago
      Non-GMO or pro organic may have most of their stuff sourced from big corporations. I don't know about you, but most of the organic food in my grocery store comes from massive corporations...
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  • no_wave 10y ago
    You cite "ignorance of what a GMO really is" - what do you think they're misinformed about?
    • mi100hael 10y ago
      Not OP, but I get the impression a lot of anti-GMO folks think that GMO crops are synthetic, irradiated, mutant organisms when in fact they are still just conventionally-grown, chemically-organic plants. In other words, nutters think GMOs are Spiderman when they're actually just Batman.
      • dragonwriter 10y ago
        Moreover, irradiated mutant plants (and those produced by exposure to chemical mutagens) are not GMOs, and qualify for organic labelling.
    • BinaryIdiot 10y ago
      Almost every person I know who is on the organic bandwagon are very insistent, despite the evidence I have provided them, that organic food uses no pesticides and is better for you because it's "natural" whereas GMOs are made by companies who only care about money and are not tested enough and even if they were tested enough they could still do something bad because "you never know". Ultimately it comes down to an ignorance in how the farming process works and an ignorance in how genetics work when modifying plants either in a laboratory or though breading. I've also never met a person who supports organic who also knew about the practice of using radioactivity to cause random mutations in organic farming.
      • utternerd 10y ago
        All of the above reasons are why I stopped engaging with the aforementioned "natural fallacy" folks long ago. It's painful, and seems to get nowhere regardless of how many facts are throw at them.
        • grzm 10y ago
  • holri 10y ago
    As a members of a CSA (Community supported agriculture) I trust my supplier of my organic food, because I am part of it. I do not pay a premium compared to traditional supermarket products. But I enjoy a superior quality. But, since I am a prosumer the whole food supply process is quite different.
    • gnicholas 10y ago
      > I do not pay a premium compared to traditional supermarket products Is this comparing with organic products, or also non-organic? What is a "prosumer" in the food/grocery sense? I'm not familiar with the term in that context.
      • holri 10y ago
        It is hard to compare, since the distinct food item does not have a price. You pay the farmer collective a slice of their yearly budget in terms of money or work and get a slice of the yearly production. Furthermore the CSA produces food / varieties that are not even available or comparable in terms of quality in the supermarket. But one member weighted the outcome of one years production and compared it to typical supermarket prices of similar products and found out that the CSA was actually cheaper. The community is sharing their money or work to keep the agriculture running. They are actively engaged in their food production and therefore prosumers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-supported_agriculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-supported_agricultur...
        • gnicholas 10y ago
          So "prosumer" is a portmanteau of "producer" and "consumer"? Just want to clarify because in most/many contexts, it's "professional" and "consumer". Sounds like price comparison is an open question, unless there are more definitive/rigorous comparisons out there. At the very least, it sounds like there's a tradeoff between quality and selection (when you walk into a supermarket you can choose to buy whatever you want, whereas a CSA is limited to what's currently being harvested at a particular farm). I'd certainly be open to making this tradeoff for some of my food, though when I've had CSA deliveries redirected to me by neighbors on vacation, I found that much of the food (even oranges, which I think of as moderately durable) went bad within just a few days.
  • dasil003 10y ago
    The tricky thing is it's very hard to really be on top of all the evidence, so we rely on some signaling. The "granola" crowd tends to place unearned trust in organic or non-GMO products, but the "science" crowd tends to place unearned trust in methodologically suspect corporate studies with a clear conflict of interest. I'm pretty much right down the middle on this stuff, but I tend to regard the latter as a bigger problem simply because the amount of money and lobbying involved. Think of the amount of money to be made by increasing grain yields by 1%, can we really expect industry to determine objectively that a higher yield grain is nutritionally equivalent?
    • drvdevd 10y ago
      Your comment gave me an interesting thought: how would a labeling system that describes exactly which modifications were made to the organism in question work?
      • thefalcon 10y ago
        And where does it end? What if the main product isn't GMO, but some small part of the additives in the product were GMO?
        • drvdevd 10y ago
          To be quite clear, personally I'm 100% pro-GMO. But that's because I believe the benefits that can be realized outweigh the risks. However, in this case I'm simply curious from both a packaging/product design and regulatory point of view: how would this work? I agree it would have to stop somewhere. Part of my biggest issue is that a company can patent the gene modifications they make and then say, "You're eating our proprietary cucumber now." I understand their business model, but I think if anything should be "open source", it should be our food.
          • sampo 10y ago
            > Part of my biggest issue is that a company can patent the gene modifications they make Also the results of non-GMO breeding can be, and have been patented.
  • johnchristopher 10y ago
    There are organic and local small tomatoes and white raisin in my house and when I have people coming by and eating them they always are amazed how it tastes much better than anything they ever bought at the super market(?). I live in Europe though and we don't seem to suffer yet from the hostility of anti-organic people.
    • fl0wenol 10y ago
      I'd wager that the reason for the difference in taste is in the freshness. It is difficult to farm at scale and sell produce year round across a continent; time to consumption is a luxury beaten out of it at that scale and food often suffers under it. Only the varieties of tomatoes, etc. that can withstand changing temperatures and conditions, make it to market weeks later, and still look good enough to sell will be used, and these are often not as flavorful both initially and after several weeks.
  • harryWalders 10y ago
    A deep distrust of corporate interests and government regulators is not only healthy, it's the only sane position to take if you look at even recent history. People have already forgotten about the lead scandal in Michigan.
  • kafkaesq 10y ago
    ...and a strange, unearned trust placed in those selling "organic" products. Why is it "strange and unearned"? In many states / countries there are specific regulations that qualify what can be labelled "organic" or not (having to do largely with whether certain classes of pesticides or fertilizer were used in their production or not, for example). Are you saying that pesticides in the food chain are complete red herring, and that any concern about them is "strange and unearned"? I'm not sure I quite follow you, actually.
    • AngrySkillzz 10y ago
      Pesticides are used on organic food too. Often they use much larger volumes of less effective pesticides to compensate.
      • a_bonobo 10y ago
        The non-use of pesticides can be a problem too - there was an outbreak of a dangerous E. coli strain in Germany 2011 due to a contaminated organic farm. (Interestingly, the E. coli in question had acquired a few extra genes encoding for the toxin from another E. coli strain, natural GM) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_o...
        • kafkaesq 10y ago
          Just because the outbreak occurred on an organic farm... doesn't mean it was "caused by" the lack of pesticide use (or any other cultivation practices, per se). In fact, as to that particular outbreak, the very WP page you cite says: Using epidemiological methods the outbreaks in 2011 were traced to a shipment of seeds from Egypt that arrived in Germany in December 2009. Citing as a source: http://phys.org/news/2012-02-insight-whole-genome-sequencing-europe-coli.html http://phys.org/news/2012-02-insight-whole-genome-sequencing...
  • matt4077 10y ago
    You're conflating a few issues. Organic food is more than just GMO-free. With regards to milk and meat, I can easily understand that people would want to avoid the hormones and antibiotics used excessively in conventional farming. I know there is scant evidence for these to be harmful to the consumer of the product. But at the very least you're helping a bit to avoid the coming super-resistant bacterial infections. From what I've observed, people buying organic may be wrong about organic food specifically, but they pretty obviously have something else figured out. They cook fresh food every day, they eat together as a family (often with friends), none of them are overweight. For them, cooking and eating are a social activity and O can't escape the observation that they're happier than those families eating a 20pc chicken nuggets box in front of the TV.
• hammock 10y ago
  There may be a lot of ignorance around GMOs. Dismissing the category altogether as being dangerous may be premature. But there are also some educated people who selectively avoid GMOs because they are well-informed of the risks. For example, the avoidance of food grown from Roundup Ready seeds because of its likely contamination with harmful herbicide.
  • kevinnk 10y ago
    Avoiding Roundup Ready seeds because of "harmful herbicide" (presumably glyphosate) is like avoiding using microwaves for cooking. Sure, there is some minute amount of risk involved, but it's hard to believe that someone who avoids either is actually making an informed choice.
    • harryWalders 10y ago
      There is no comparison between glyphosate and "microwaves for cooking". The World Health Organisation believes glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans[1] and the EU is still wavering on banning it. It's (very) far from conclusive, as the report states, but to suggest that people only avoid glyphosate due to ignorance is simply not true. There are warnings which warrant more research and it's perfectly understandable why people are uncomfortable. [1] http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVolume112.pdf http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVol...
      • kevinnk 10y ago
        I'd encourage you to read this[1] article as it seems you are confused about what the phrase "probably carcinogenic" means in the context of the IARC report. In particular, the report does not assess risk which is what you care about when making a (rational) choice to avoid/not avoid particular substances in your diet. Interestingly, the WHO does report on risk and in their evaluation they found "glyphosate unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet"[2]. [1] https://www.wired.com/2016/05/monsantos-roundup-herbicide-cause-cancer-not-controversy-explained/ https://www.wired.com/2016/05/monsantos-roundup-herbicide-ca... [2] http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1 http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1
• anthonybsd 10y ago
  > More generally, a recent report from the National Academy of Sciences showed that herbicide tolerant and pest resistant GMOs have reduced insecticide use and have allowed farmers to use less toxic herbicides There's been some serious doubt cast on that assumption recently: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/business/gmo-promise-falls-short.html?smid=fb-share http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/business/gmo-promise-falls...
  • terravion 10y ago
    There's been quite a bit of shade cast on that article as well. It compares yield growth rates (not absolute yield or cost) across country level data and ignores issues with European production like really high levels of fungicide use. Most people who are in agriculture think that this article was sensationalist crap that exploits several common statistical fallacies. For more in depth criticism of the NYT article: http://weedcontrolfreaks.com/2016/10/the-tiresome-discussion-of-initial-gmo-expectations/ http://weedcontrolfreaks.com/2016/10/the-tiresome-discussion... http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/09/01/492091546/how-gmos-cut-the-use-of-pesticides-and-perhaps-boosted-them-again http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/09/01/492091546/how...
    • anthonybsd 10y ago
      Interesting. Thank you for this.
• wehadfun 10y ago
  1. How are these scientist be so sure that these modifications will not have some unintended side effect? Software engineers can't predict every side effect of modifications to code that they created. I read that some of these GMO products have only been on the market 10 years and have not existed more than 20. So it is impossible for these "scientist" to know the long term effects.
  • danielrhodes 10y ago
    Farmers have been doing genetic modification to plants and animals for thousands of years, so go ask your ancestors how everything turned out.
    • gmac 10y ago
      This argument is so commonly made, and such awful bilge. Farmers have not spent thousands of years crossing e.g. potatoes with frogs[1]. [1] http://www.scidev.net/global/gm/news/gm-potato-uses-frog-gene-to-resist-pathogens.html http://www.scidev.net/global/gm/news/gm-potato-uses-frog-gen...
      • terravion 10y ago
        But they have spent ten thousand years crossing them with unknown bacteria: 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...
    • stefantalpalaru 10y ago
      > Farmers have been doing genetic modification to plants and animals for thousands of years Not with a gene gun, they didn't. Genetic modifications through hybridisation and other traditional methods are protected by cellular mechanisms that are bypassed in GMO. We'll only see the problems after the corporations make their buck, just like when they gave Thalidomide to pregnant women, blood products with HIV and hepatitis C to haemophiliacs and baby bottles with endocrine disruptors to parents who believed in the magical power of science.
• mschuster91 10y ago
  > Many vitamins and nutrients used for enrichment are derived from genetically modified microorganisms. Others are derived from crops, such as corn, that are genetically modified. The Non-GMO Project bans the use of micronutrients derived from these GMOs. As such, there are documented instances of foods that have lost their vitamin content after changing their manufacturing process to meet the Non-GMO Project’s certification requirements. I believe that many people are not against using GM bacteria/fungi/... to produce stuff (lots of medicine is manufactured that way, for example), they just don't want GMOs in the fields because: 1) they are (rightfully) afraid that unexpected side-effects happen when modified organisms are able to spread beyond the field 2) they do not like the stranglehold that Big Ag can impose on farmers (which is more a socio-economic issue, but nevertheless valid given the actions of e.g. Monsanto https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/12/monsanto-sues-farmers-seed-patents https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/12/monsanto...)
• Symbiote 10y ago
  The article doesn't mention my objection to GMOs: I would refuse to buy GMO products because I don't want multinationals to "own" genomes. That requires far more trust than I'm willing to put in a corporation, especially a foreign one.
  • terravion 10y ago
    There are plenty of university/public domain GMOs as well. Your stance is analogous to not using any software because you don't like Microsoft's closed source model.
    • wehadfun 10y ago
      Yea you can live without SQL server and Microsoft Word.
    • gmac 10y ago
      Not really. We know MS is closed, we know Linux is open. I have yet to see a GMO product that specifies the licencing of the relevant genome.
      • BeetleB 10y ago
        Because the license doesn't apply to you - it applies to farmers, etc. It's like creating a video using licensed/patented technology and then complaining that the video doesn't specify the license information.
        • tedunangst 10y ago
          Or refusing to read a book because the author wrote it in MS Word.
    • nommm-nommm 10y ago
      Which specific GMOs are public domain?
• eip 10y ago
  Population reduction only works if everyone does their part. Have some Monsanto GM sterilizing corn today.
• Alex3917 10y ago
  I have no problem with GMO, but will only feed my children food that is certified AI-free. "Sky, not Skynet." "Google is not the Creator."
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• ozy 10y ago
  I find it hard reading articles like this. I agree with its main premise, but it fails to mention the valid points of the other side. And there are two: 1. Some GMO has a plant produce extra chemicals, specifically, pesticides 2. There is a unknown side to GMO, perhaps it can lead to super species that we can never get rid of in the future and will destroy bio diversity. (1) are banned in the EU for human consumption, a reasonable choice I think until we have more data. (2) is a much lower risk than most would thing. But it is one of those things where the naive/amateur answer is far from reality, and that naive answer is scary. (Like nuclear, or more rules vs more responsibility.) When done responsibly, GMOs are fine. And even necessary if we want to feed 8 billion people and more in the future. But an article that fails to mention valid (remember the eu) downsides, and discuss the tradeoff, will have a polarizing effect: Those pro GMO will think score and think anti GMO is stupid. But anti GMO will see their biggest concerns not mentioned, and will declare fail and conclude their position is well grounded.
  • searine 10y ago
    >But an article that fails to mention valid (remember the eu) downsides, Except that the bans in the EU aren't based on scientific data, and are thus not valid in a scientific discussion.
  • mikeash 10y ago
    Is 1 really a valid point of the other side, when it applies just as well to many non-GMO plants we consume?
    • Bartweiss 10y ago
      Yes. The difference is between applying and producing pesticides. Several GMO crop strains are specifically designed to produce pesticides or fungicides themselves, which offers more powerful effects and saves the effort of applying those chemicals to the growing plants. This is generally valuable for crop yields and profit margins, but it's appreciably different from external application. The main concern is that producing these pesticides/herbicides inside the plant may include the chemical inside the parts we consume - you can't just stop application prior to harvest or wash off the surface before consumption. There's a lot of conflicting data here: the GMO designers have generally concluded that the chemicals are only produced in leaves/stalks and not the edible parts, but other studies have suggested that the chemicals might be getting passed on at levels which could be relevant to pregnant mothers.
• colordrops 10y ago
  Layla Katiraee, scientist at Integrated DNA Technologies - hardly a disinterested party. It's in her direct interest to trash non-GMO everything.
  • 09bjb 10y ago
    Good spot. A lot of my skepticism of this industry revolves around the repeated, rampant careerism within it.
  • madamelic 10y ago
    Everyone who proclaims themselves to be a scientist should trash non-sense 'science'. GMOs are perfectly safe and beneficial. There is no dispute about the safety of GMOs as a class. Feel free to pick apart the corporations and individual crops though.
    • r00fus 10y ago
      Why should we not focus on the vehicles of these corporations' avarice, though? It's like saying "hey don't diss DIVX [1] but instead those who created it". No, products and production methods that are questionable should be critiqued. Also, follow the money. It seems to work almost every single time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX
  • idanman 10y ago
    This article smells of astroturfing (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing)
• guelo 10y ago
  GMOs don't increase crop yields and don't reduce the use of pesticides http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/business/gmo-promise-falls-short.html http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/business/gmo-promise-fa...
  • searine 10y ago
    Current GMOs aren't designed to create higher crop yields, and have massively reduced harmful broad-spectrum insecticide use. They have also replaced harmful broad-specturm herbicides like atrazine. http://geneticexperts.org/national-academies-report-looks-at-30-years-of-ge-crops-advocates-changes-to-regulation/ http://geneticexperts.org/national-academies-report-looks-at...
• arca_vorago 10y ago
  I worked in a big ag company with a genetics lab and in a DNA sequencing lab later (as a sysadmin), so I feel like I have a decent amount of insight into this issue. My two primary (I have more) objections to GMO are: 1) Lack of rigorous testing, especially long term testing. Many of the GMO products in production spent a minimal amount of time in the lab before being selected for production, with little to no long term testing being done. (to find any number of potential issues and side chain-effect issues that can happen.) For example, while at the sequencing company, I learned that it's not just about the genome of the thing itself, but it's surrounding microbiome, which of course is almost an after thought to the big-ag gmo producers. 2) The way in which the pro GMO big ag has essentially corrupted the bodies set up to regulate itself. Monsanto is a perfect example of this, but only one of many. They have a supreme court justice who has refused to recuse himself on cases with obvious conflicts of interest. They have a massive online pr (read: propaganda) operation to keep these things out of the limelight or at least remove them quickly. They have basically taken over the most prominent FDA positions. They abuse K-street beyond what even most of the K-Street abusers do. It's this kind of systematic corporate corruption that makes me sympathetic with those who are anti-gmo. I also have a huge issue with the whole patent system when it comes to genomes, the system is broke enough for normal tech, but there have been some dangerous precedents set that I don't have the time to get into but they will have major consequences as sequencing costs and manipulation costs are reduced and therefore it becomes a more prevalent tech. Now, all that being said, I see a ton of FUD on the anti-gmo side that is easily refuted, but the problem is that I far too often see the illogical/irrational FUD of anti-GMO being the strawman used by pro-gmo people against the more reasonable and scientific anti-gmo arguments, which seems to be intellectually dishonest, very much like I find articles like this. I could go on, but just wanted to offer a quick two-cents. Oh, and don't even get me started on the horrible state of peer-reviewed science. As a layman with a huge interest in science, I held the process up on a pedestal, that is until I saw it from the inside. Bad science abounds and is rarely challenged, which only gives fuel to the anti-intellectual/anti-science movements which is the last thing we need as a species!
  • 09bjb 10y ago
    > but the problem is that I far too often see the illogical/irrational FUD of anti-GMO being the strawman used by pro-gmo people against the more reasonable and scientific anti-gmo arguments, which seems to be intellectually dishonest, very much like I find articles like this. My thoughts exactly, just better crystallized.
• colordrops 10y ago
  On a tangential note, there seems to be a large amount of propaganda and astroturfing regarding GMOs, and to question them often leads to being unfairly attacked. Be weary when reading comments as to what interests might be served by various sides of an argument. Nothing is beyond inquiry.
• 09bjb 10y ago
  I have a degree in Molecular Biology and the utmost respect for good science. I avoid GMO products for a variety of reasons: 1. They're absolutely more likely to be harmful to the environment based on the general behavior of the companies that make them (Syngenta, Monstanto, etc.). There shouldn't really be any debate on this. 2. They have massive potential for global-scale, subtle, negative externalities. I say this as someone who knows a bit of the history of science and has seen how many times we don't understand the full effects of something new until many years later (see most of the fun and variegated chemicals we came up with in the 30s-50s). In science, the burden of proof is on the new thing to unequivocally prove itself true...not 'harmless until proven harmful.' The U.S. is very pro-business and one of the only countries in the world where you can get away with 'harmless until proven harmful.' Obviously GMOs are not going to kill you overnight and seem to have no acute ill effects. I'm a fan of having a choice in this matter and not being forcibly blinded. 3. Most of the studies declaring them safe have industry funding at their root. Most of the studies with "impartial" funding sources declare them potentially unsafe or are inconclusive. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" Careerism and loose morals in this field give me plenty of reason to at least be skeptical of a Pro-GMO general consensus...and of overly enthusiastic new science in general. 4. I'm morally opposed to supporting products that support mucking with an already perfect product, namely real, clean, unadulterated food. To feed the world, we need better distribution and smarter farming practices, not the sort of "solutions" that Monsanto et all have peddled (see what's happened in India where adoption of GMO seeds was widespread). Edit: spelling.
  • selimthegrim 10y ago
    Seconding this - look what happens to the weed monocultures around the GMO fields and the resulting collapse of insect diversity
    • sliverstorm 10y ago
      What about GMO leads to more monoculture than ordinary farming, which has been guilty of plenty of monoculture?
• shkkmo 10y ago
  I take a very different stance on GMO products than most people I've talked to. I am a support of GMO products and think they are critical to protecting the food supply. I also think that any GMO food sold should be required to release the genome with a FOS license. I think that our food supply is a common heritage and rights to use and work with it should not be restricted to a few corporations.
  • Obi_Juan_Kenobi 10y ago
    Publish the transgene construct, or assemble the entire genome? De novo assembly? What about for species that only have draft genomes?
• droopybuns 10y ago
  I have two reasons for avoiding GMO: Flavor Local small farms don't embrace it. If local farms did embrace it, I'd still be stuck with the flavor problem.
  • madamelic 10y ago
    >Local small farms don't embrace it. Yeah, I think that is largely my big worry about "GMOs". It isn't about the crops themselves but the corporations making them. Even if you don't buy from them, if a seed of "theirs" drifts to your land (which, anyone with a basic understanding of biology will know, will happen), you have to pay them. If not, they will tie you up in a lawsuit till you go broke. GMOs: Fine Greedy Corporations: Baaad.
    • amyjess 10y ago
      You're probably thinking of Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser where Monsanto sued a farmer who claimed that the seeds had just drifted onto his field. Monsanto won the suit because they demonstrated that the seeds didn't just drift there by accident: he knew what they were, and he went out of his way to plant them. He intentionally concentrated the seeds and planted them for a new crop in commercial levels. Of course the sensationalist media had to treat Schmeiser's defense as gospel, but here's a quote covering the ruling: > "The court record shows, however, that it was not just a few seeds from a passing truck, but that Mr Schmeiser was growing a crop of 95–98% pure Roundup Ready plants, a commercial level of purity far higher than one would expect from inadvertent or accidental presence. The judge could not account for how a few wayward seeds or pollen grains could come to dominate hundreds of acres without Mr Schmeiser’s active participation, saying ‘...none of the suggested sources could reasonably explain the concentration or extent of Roundup Ready canola of a commercial quality evident from the results of tests on Schmeiser’s crop’" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmei...
• ardit33 10y ago
  While some of the points are valid I'd take this with a grain of salt. This piece was written by a Staff Scientist at Integrated DNA Technologies. She might truly believe what she has written, but she is clearly economically vested into people consuming more GMO products.
  • Fomite 10y ago
    I'll note that (from personal experience in other areas of science) nearly any scientist whose passionate enough to be both an expert on the topic and care about writing something for the public can be dismissed with similar logic.
• stratigos 10y ago
  Smells a lot like the same industry propaganda over and over...
• sebleon 10y ago
  Despite Monsanto and Syngenta's marketing about "saving starving children", there's good reason why developing countries are actively fighting GMOs. Giving centralized control of food production to a handful of American corporations is a precarious position. In practice, GMO agriculture creates a trade imbalance. Instead of simply exporting produce, many countries will find themselves importing huge volumes of proprietary products from the likes of Monsanto. This includes buying new breed of patented seeds every year, fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, etc. And of course, once a farm goes GMO, soil damage makes it almost impossible to go back to organic farming. High level of lock in. http://sustainablepulse.com/2015/10/22/gm-crops-now-banned-in-36-countries-worldwide-sustainable-pulse-research/#.WCDVNTv_1II http://sustainablepulse.com/2015/10/22/gm-crops-now-banned-i... GMO seeds have been modified to create plants that won't make new seeds, great for recurring revenue
  • Obi_Juan_Kenobi 10y ago
    That's not an argument against transgenetic modification, it's an argument about intellectual property and economic practices. As for terminator seed, this is a valuable technology that addresses concerns that transgenes could spread into the environment. It's also quite irrelevant to any crop that relies on hybrid vigor for yield; F1 seed must be specifically developed from inbred parents, thus no seed saving is possible. In this context, a terminator line would only serve to protect the environment.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • gohrt 10y ago
      > That's not an argument against transgenetic modification, it's an argument about intellectual property and economic practices. That's not a refutation, that's a goalpost shift. In the real world today, you can't separate transgenetic modification from intellectual property and economic practices, when the intellectual property is technologically enforced in the transgenetic modification.
      • 10y ago
• Obi_Juan_Kenobi 10y ago
  Wow, there's a lot of reactionary downvoting in this thread, specifically for comments that are critical of any anti-GMO sentiment.
• EpicWaves 10y ago
  Down vote enough data to actually know? I believe who ever down voted is confusing science with profits.
  • icebraining 10y ago
    Please don't blindly attribute disagreement to unscrupulous motives. It's disrespectful and destroys dialogue. Not to mention that, for all we know, some people downvoted it because they consider it too low.
    • EpicWaves 10y ago
      How much data do you think is required?
      • icebraining 10y ago
        I have absolutely no idea.
  • adwn 10y ago
    Maybe people downvoted your post because you threw around a nice, round number without any reason or rationale.
    • EpicWaves 10y ago
      The average lifespan is around 75 years, with some living over 100. It's designed to track the entire lifespan of thousands of life's. How is this a nice round number? Other than base ten.
  • sctb 10y ago
    We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12893674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12893674 and marked it off-topic.
    • EpicWaves 10y ago
• Gatsky 10y ago
  GMO science gets a hard time because it precisely documents the changes made to nature. It seems illogical to regulate GMO so heavily but let farmers use antiobiotics, pesticides, herbicides etc (which have actually been proven to be harmful in a myriad of ways, and alter genetic material in the ecosystem). There also needs to be a sense of magnitude when it comes to harm. The amount of human suffering caused by alcohol, tobacco and refined sugar is far far greater than even the most apocalyptic GMO safety disaster, but we don't demand 10 years safety data for eg. a new Mountain Dew flavour, or e-cigarettes. It's also disingenuous to claim that GMO isn't needed if we adopt sustainable farming, when the economics and scale of industrial farming make this fantasy impossible.
• entwife 10y ago
  I don't trust this author because the claim to be a scientist does not speak of her credentials, publication record, field of work. A data scientist does not have the same range of expertise and credibility as a biochemist. Furthermore, actively avoiding a label that one finds meaningless is non productive. Shod non Jews avoid Kosher labelling, or non Muslims avoid halal labels? Surely there is a devout athiest somewhere who does, the rest of us just ignore.
• idanman 10y ago
  It sounds suspiciously odd that people want to boycott information. I understand if you don't care about whether a product is a GMO but to prevent other people from finding out and dictate to them what they can and cannot eat sounds elitist to me. I want to know where my food came from and make my own decision. This article smells of astroturfing (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing)
  • Fomite 10y ago
    They want to boycott the non-information that the "Non-GMO" label comes with. It's hugely deceptive at times, and applied to food where there's no GMO-equivelent.
    • cies 10y ago
      Agree, volutary and for-cost non-GMO label does not do much good -- likely more harm as they are keen to point out. The, IMHO, obvious fix is a mandatory "contains GMO" labeling. Which they obviously do not mention.
      • hx87 10y ago
        IMHO, "contains GMO" isn't particularly useful either. If I'm going to be notified that something is GMO, at least tell me what modifications were made. If it takes up too much space, then slap on a QR code or something.
        • cies 10y ago
          > IMHO, "contains GMO" isn't particularly useful either. Well I think it is our right to know. Doctoring with DNA? At least let me know. Period.
      • idanman 10y ago
        Its there [1] but if you read you can see that there are options that are really confusing the consumers and seem to be designed to obscure the truth. Using a QR code is a hassle to consumer trying to buy groceries. I want to see the pertinent information on the label. At the end of the day if you buy organic than you know its GMO free plus other benefits (if that's important to you). But that put some non-GMO sellers at a disadvantage because they don't want to go through the extra cost of obtaining an organic certificate. [1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/23/senate-lawmakers-reach-deal-labeling-foods-containing-gmos/86302456/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/23/senat...
• cwp 10y ago
  I do this too. If somebody helpfully labels themselves as anti-science, I'll make sure not to give them my money.
• lumberjack 10y ago
  If you are three scientists why are you publishing this on medium? Make your "science" credentials more visible at the least. If you google their name you find out that they work at Biology Fortified. >Biology Fortified, Inc. (BFI) is an independent educational tax-exempt non-profit organization incorporated in Wisconsin. Our mission is to strengthen the public discussion of issues in biology, with particular emphasis on genetics and genetic engineering in agriculture. Biology Fortified is independently run on a volunteer basis, and is not supported by any funding from any companies or government entities. So they are paid to have this particular public (!) opinion.
  • Fomite 10y ago
    "Biology Fortified is independently run on a volunteer basis, and is not supported by any funding from any companies or government entities." "So they are paid to have this particular public (!) opinion." One of these things is not like the others...
    • cies 10y ago
      Good point. But the fat that they do not disclose they work at the same non-profit that has a goals that is much related to the topic they address, this does not seem "transparent science-y" to me.
      • hx87 10y ago
        I'd argue that in a time when everybody has a LinkedIn account, putting your name on the article is a form of disclosure.
        • cies 10y ago
          Then acting so "scientific", and "we're just some mommies", just to find out that they work for the same organisation. Yr not just some mommies, your colleagues, and it would not surprise me your got paid to write this.
  • cies 10y ago
• sova 10y ago
  She works at "Integrated DNA Technologies". Not to suggest she has a bias, but her main source of income is producing GMOs. Just something you may want to keep in mind.
• StanislavPetrov 10y ago
  Any time your argument boils down to, "we have to keep information from people because they are too stupid and it will confuse them", you should be opposed. The same garbage argument was trotted out (successfully) by the beef producers and testing for mad cow disease. If you don't want to test your meat for mad-cow, then don't! But don't tell me I'm not allowed to test mine because you say there is no risk. If you don't think GMO's are an issue, then saturate your body with them. Go ahead and mutate every cell in your body as far as I'm concerned. But don't tell other people they don't have the right to information because you say they don't need it. Sickening hubris.
• Glyptodon 10y ago
  I avoid GMO products to a certain degree, but not because I'm concerned that they may be unhealthy or dangerous. A food crop could be modified to be dangerous I'm sure. And likewise I'm sure one could be selectively bred (over enough generations) to be dangerous. If someone engineers Sarin-secreting corn or something we'll figure it out pretty quickly and the issue won't be it being GMO, it will be human malevolence. But I really couldn't care less about that. Rather, I like seeing GMO labels because it's the closest analogue for determining if my food is proprietary. I am incredibly against reproducing organisms that are a living patent violation, and I don't want to support such things if possible. Above so said, I would much prefer to see marking indicating that none of the product was patented, copyrighted, licensed, or otherwise encumbered. Another thing I think that perhaps gets (erroneously) mixed into the GMO debate is biodiversity. Many people have concerns that monoculture is dangerous and somehow mix and/or conflate non-GMO with heirloom/native varietal foods. Obviously the shadow over all of the above is the "organic" label, which blurs things a little but further. But the primary consumer for organic overlaps with the primary consumer for non-GMO which overlaps with the primary consumer for local/heirloom/native produce, and the net result is that all the terms get muddied. Given the above, while I concur that GMO labeling is not ideal as is, and I concur that GMO foods are fine or mostly fine, we don't actually have a sufficient food labeling system. People want to know if proprietary organisms are in their food. They want to know if it was grown with pesticides. They want to know where it was grown. Etc. In many ways food labels are a product of bizarre anti-consumer compromises. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to be able to get non-proprietary food grown with low pesticide usage. Complaining about the GMO label doesn't really seem to address this. (PS: Love getting downvoted in the interval between posting my comment and refreshing the thread... almost like somebody didn't even read it.)
• jly 10y ago
  > Genetic engineering, along with other tools, can help us address challenges like pests and droughts, while addressing nutritional issues, such as allergens or nutrient deficiencies. Farmers need these tools at their disposal to ensure a safe, sustainable, and reliable food supply. If farmers practiced sustainable agriculture and grew a variety of crops instead of one or two, they wouldn't have nearly as much need for GMO 'tools'. Our agricultural system encourages non-sustainable practices that practically require GMO seeds, pesticides, herbicides, and many others in order to continue to function. The companies that make these products want to ensure this continues. GMO on it's own is fine, to me. But we need to stop looking at it as the solution to the problem we've created, and focus on fixing the root causes of big agriculture. These 'challenges' that are being addressed are often man-made.
  • soufron 10y ago
    Exactly. There are tons of other way to address these issues - tons of less harmful and more beautiful ways. What sort of agriculture do we want in 20 years? Gmo industrial non-sustainable shit? Or something else entirely?
  • biehl 10y ago
    And even worse. There seems to be distinct mindsets where some people care about sustainable things like soil-quality, erotion and product quality and other people seem to care distinctly less about these things. I think the current GMO-reality is harmful because it seems to cater to the people who care less about sustainable practices. And possibly even promote anti-sustainable thinking. For that reason I avoid GMO products. There is simply no reason for me to support the kind of farmers who don't care about sustainable practices. And right now GMO seems to be a strong signal about that.
• soufron 10y ago
  Well that's some high-level scientist bullshit there. So non-gmo labels can be misleading, but not labeling gmo isn't. Wow. Welcome to Animal Farm. And of course, a non-gmo label doesn't mean anything good. But a cool gmo non-label of course means something positive. Also I am a scientist, and I avoid gmo products... wait... actually I don't have to avoid it since they are banned in the EU and in France. But we are only a bunch of retards I guess.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  That's great and all, and I support labelling to ensure people can make that choice, or some other choice. The big question for me is why those who support GMO want to not let other people choose?
• bad_user 10y ago
  > The World Health Organization has recognized food fortification as a beneficial way to “deliver nutrients to large segments of the population without requiring radical changes in food consumption patterns. The article got my attention until I've read this line. Sorry, but the WHO doesn't have a good track record when it comes to nutritional advice and I actually believe that "food fortification" is amongst the worst things that could have happened to us. Not only because there's zero evidence that this has led to better health, but also because it's used as a blatant lie when marketing unhealthy products. So now you have children that eat vitamin-enriched cereals instead of apples. And what do you know, we now have an obesity epidemic on our hands that our grandparents didn't have and guess what else they didn't have? Vitamins enriched bread or freaking corn syrup in everything. Or the health problems we are confronted with, even without such extensive knowledge about good vs bad cholesterol. Let's face it, when it comes to nutrition, can you imagine what would happen if tens of thousands of medical professionals suddenly admitted wrong doings which directly led to the deaths of an unimaginable number of people? WHO is never going to recognize that and that line above is bullshit. And if you think about it, because of such fuckups is why many people have lost faith in the healthcare industry and why we now have a significant minority refusing vaccinations for their children, which is fucked up and stupid, but then again you can't really blame them.
• olakease 10y ago
  * There are weapons of mass destruction in Irak! * Drink milk, it has a lot of calcium and will prevent osteoporosis. * Sugar is not that bad. Fat is the devil! * AAA CDO's are a good and safe way to invest your money! The previous sentences are all lies sponsored by big companies and lobbies which have/had the seal of approval of different governments and politicians. Big companies fight for their own interests and politicians fight for the interests of those who "sponsor" their campaigns and offer jobs in their boards once their political career is done. GMO is a technique. As a technique is it not good or bad. The problem is the big geopolitics and economic interests behind it.
• mmanfrin 10y ago
  I find the first section exceptionally problematic and misleading, it reads in part: As a reminder, the only items for which a GMO counterpart is currently available to consumers are: alfalfa, canola, corn (field and sweet, but not popcorn), cotton, papaya, potatoes, soybeans (but not tofu or edamame varieties), sugar beet, and squash. Genetically engineered apples and salmon will be available soon. The implication is 'you should not worry because there aren't many GMO products out there any way'; but this glosses over the fact that soy and corn constitute major ingredients in to many, many products (many of which you would not necessarily think contain either).
• NumberCruncher 10y ago
  >>The financial, environmental and health impacts of adopting non-GMO ingredients include [...] higher prices [...] and reduced food availability. You just found the cure for the obesity epidemic! Double win!
• jahbrewski 10y ago
  Don't let the double negative trick you like it initially tricked me!
• MustrumRidcully 10y ago
  You are not scientists, you are merely technicians understanding little about how nature and especially soils works. GMOs and extensive agriculture using glyphosate slowing sterilize soils by destroying its ecosystem that were protecting it. Thus you are forced to add more and more fertilizer, making the soils more and more acid. At this point, you are only managing your plants' desease. Until a stronger desease will come and wipe all of your DNA clones. Think about Dedale's fate, the first engineer that lost his son after going from poor solution to poor solution. A forest is a very productive environment, without the need of GMOs or glyphosate. Why?
• opo 10y ago
  What is ironic about the GMO debate, is that the people most worried about GMO foods don't seem to know or care about the many crops that were created by exposing seeds to high amounts of radiation or chemical mutagens: >...Unlike genetically modified crops, which typically involve the insertion of one or two target genes, plants developed via mutagenic processes with random, multiple and unspecific genetic changes[17] have been discussed as a concern[18] but are not prohibited by any nation's organic standards. Reports from the US National Academy of Sciences state that there is no scientific justification for regulating genetic engineered crops while not doing so for mutation breeding crops.[5] So, these crops with random genetic mutations are sold as organic and have been in the food supply since 1930: >...From 1930 to 2014 more than 3200 mutagenic plant varietals have been released[1][2] that have been derived either as direct mutants (70%) or from their progeny (30%) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding
  • grzm 10y ago
    "the people most worried about GMO foods don't seem to know or care about the many crops that were created by exposing seeds to high amounts of radiation or chemical mutagens" I think you're right in pointing out that there is general ignorance about the roles of radiation and chemical mutagens. These have been around for a long time, introduced when there was less focus on the methods of food production. I think if there were more awareness placed on these aspects as well, people would be interested in, say, labeling for this, too. As for the labeling of organic, what is acceptable under that label is also a contentious issue, with lobbying on both sides. To assume that those who prefer to buy organic are knowingly accepting that mutation-bred foods should be labeled organic I think is a little disingenuous. Of course, lines have to be drawn somewhere, if we've got a binary label, and that's why some would like more detailed labelling.
    • opo 10y ago
      >...To assume that those who prefer to buy organic are knowingly accepting that mutation-bred foods should be labeled organic I think is a little disingenuous. Disingenuous? I certainly didn't claim that people who buy organic understand what they are buying and I don't appreciate your insinuation. I simply said that these crops have not prohibited by any nation's organic standards.
• hackaflocka 10y ago
  > It can also be redundant, since the USDA’s organic label already excludes GMOs Quick, what's the logical fallacy here?
• skywhopper 10y ago
  While I agree entirely with many points about misleading labelling and the relative safety of GMO foods, these sorts of articles inevitably leave out any notion of the actual risks that heavily pro-GMO policies might produce. Such as the massive risk to long-term biodiversity of crowding out non-GMO breeds in the name of "less wasteful" but far less diverse GMO breeds. Not to mention the well-established risk of lowering the quality of the food itself in terms of taste and nutrition in pursuit of shelf appearance and lifetime, pest resistance, and harvesting density, which long before direct genetic modification was possible ruined many common produce varieties. These are entirely reasonable concerns, well proven out by past experience with agricultural monocultures and counterproductive "improvements" in the shelf product. And so while it's fair and probably justified to avoid the "Non-GMO" certification label itself, it's not justifiable to dismiss concerns about trends in GMO produce overall by quoting "science" that only addresses the safety of GMO produce and not the larger concerns.
• ajarmst 10y ago
  "I'm a trained scientist, and I masturbate at least twice a day." is not a scientific argument for frequent masturbation. I don't care if you're a scientist, a mom, or a flat-earther. I care if you have a well-designed, properly documented and formally reviewed study. And the fact that you're a "mom" is only relevant if the topic of discussion is whether you possess a particular set of organs and glands and have successfully put them to use.
• mark_l_watson 10y ago
  We have the right to have our food correctly labeled. Then everyone gets to decide for themselves. To me, the pro-gmo crowd seems to be about taking away my rights to have my food correctly labeled. This is a morally indefensible position, regardless of safety of gmo.
  • gajjanag 10y ago
    This is part of the reason why I wish we had more of an "open food" movement. As it stands, it is astonishingly difficult to make well reasoned choices about food. There are numerous gimmicks that can be played going far beyond things like http://www.simplemost.com/sneaky-reason-tic-tacs-can-say-sugar-free-really-arent/ http://www.simplemost.com/sneaky-reason-tic-tacs-can-say-sug... , which is still non-obvious. This is a reason I added to my more "traditional" reasons for being a vegetarian - as it stands, it is very hard to reason about the likely supply chain of food that I purchase. Nevertheless, it is easier in my view with vegetables as they are lower down in the food chain. With meat, there are a whole bunch of extra parameters governing things beyond the feed composition and structure. This also meshes well with the original ideas behind the virtues of free markets, which depend upon customers making informed, rational choices. "Openness" regarding the supply chain is essential for the critical "informed" aspect.
  • hammerzeit 10y ago
    This is a problem we've managed to solve for dozens of other dietary preferences, from kosher status to gluten-free, without insisting on mandatory labeling. Why is GMO so special? It's hard to believe the sincerity of your claim, given that you can reasonably infer anything not advertising itself as "non-GMO" contains GMO.
    • mark_l_watson 10y ago
      Do you think that I have the right to have my food correctly labeled? It seems to me that a lot of food is labeled as kosher, low fat, sugar free, contains peanuts, gluten-free, etc. I am not sure where your comment comes from.
• exabrial 10y ago
  If you support AGW but think GMOs are unsafe you really need to think about why you can support science based conclusions in only certain circumstances
• pitaj 10y ago
  I am just blown away by the amount of anti-GMO sentiment on HN. For a community so vehemently in support of the science around global warming, you certainly do not seem to be nearly as "pro-science" when it comes to the topic of GMOs.
  • grzm 10y ago
    Do you consider those in favor of GMO labeling as pro- or anti-GMO? Edit to add: I've taken a look at the responses of 31 commenters (not comments) in this thread (starting at the top, working down until I got tired of keeping track), looking to determine if they were pro/anti-GMO and pro/anti-GMO-labelling. Of those 31, I dismissed 10 that I couldn't categorize. Here are my completely unscientific, eye-balled results: 3 strongly pro-GMO, no labeling 10 pro-labeling, including one for detailed labeling if labels are required 6 who expressed some desire for nuanced discussion, no discernible position on labeling 2 who expressed restraint in moving forward, but not anti-GMO
  • j15t 10y ago
    I think labelling one side of this debate as "pro-science" and the other as not, is disingenuous. Science at its core is about scepticism and degrees of certainty - never about absolute truth (see: inductive logic, etc.). Using "science" as an appeal to authority to end debate is the opposite of scepticism. I personally do not have strong opinions about this debate, but I think it is completely acceptable for someone to take a 'wait-and-see' approach, especially considering the number of times "scientific consensus" has been wrong in the past (see: smoking, fats, etc.). Moreover, it seems to me that there isn't any immediate danger from people who are "GMO sceptics" since all they do is pay extra for organic products. Market forces will regulate this behaviour if any shortages occur; which I don't think is likely. So overall I find the "pro-GMO" attitude (such as that displayed in the article) to be strangely insistent on influencing the choices of individual's, dispite such low stakes.
• rm2889 10y ago
  Nassim Taleb has been very vocal against GMOs. Here's a summary of his beliefs. http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/FictionAndFacts3.pdf http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/FictionAndFacts3.pdf
  • grzm 10y ago
    Thanks for providing this. Useful info. That PDF in turn references "The Precautionary Principle (with Application to the Genetic Modification of Organisms)" from 2014. https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5787 https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5787
• lesserknowndan 10y ago
  Good thing the products are labelled as being non-GMO or you wouldn't be able to boycott them!
• woodpanel 10y ago
  I've always been "pro GMO" in the sense that I think its immoral to artificially restrict our food supply and making food unnecessarily expensive. Plus the innovation that can be spurred from the food sector into other areas won't be seen until a hotbed has been established. I also think Europe is losing out on opportunity with its Gealileo-like reflex on fundamentally new, groundbreaking science. That being said, I was deeply disappointed to hear that our 'groundbreaking technology' amounts to stuff like "make plants pesticide resistant" > "dump more pesticide on plants" > "apply for patent". This is really disappointingly stupid. Also it turns out that crop yields are almost not at all affected by genetic modification [1] [1] http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/10/gm-crops-not-increasing-yields.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/10/gm-...
  • jlj 10y ago
    In addition to the unknown side effects of GMO's that might take us a few generations to learn about, the scarier thing for me is the risk of GMO's going into the wild and becoming an invasive species that wipes out native crops and habitats. By the time we know if GMO's are good for us and the environment or not, it may be too late to go back to conventional crops. Agree completely on the pesticides comment though. Biggest innovation in crop yield seems to be hydroponics and vertical growing. Fraction of the water use and don't need to worry about soil.
  • makomk 10y ago
    One of the biggest dirty secrets of GMO crops is that it just isn't that effective a technique compared to conventional breeding.
• igl 10y ago
  Clickbait-mood-piece that has plenty of links to even worse articles.
• swehner 10y ago
  Looks and smells like a well-funded marketing campaign. See also this comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12894370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12894370