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GMO are a very powerful technology. Like anything powerful, an intelligent person calls for caution. A lot of people are worrying about GMO in food because we

GMO are a very powerful technology. Like anything powerful, an intelligent person calls for caution. A lot of people are worrying about GMO in food because we don't have enough data about them. We are changing things that could have important biological, health and ecological impacts, but the companies producing them are not willing to test them extensively for safety during 20 years before selling them. We don't know what are the long term effects of cross breeding the GMO species with non GMO ones. We don't know the long term effects of the fauna. We don't known the long term (on decades) effects of ingesting any of them. What we know is that if you give mouses the GMO food in isolation for a short time, they don't develop apparent problems. That's not a lot to go on, especially since very simple products, like processed meat, revealed themself as being carcinogenous on the long run (http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/ http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/). That's not science to me. That's business as usual. I don't trust business. History taught me that for profit entities don't make the right decisions on this. After all, we knew asbestos was dangerous in 1920, but had to wait 1980 to act on it. After all, we fed cows with meat while knowing it's an herbivore, leading to spongiform encephalopathy. After all, we used the least safe nuclear technology we knew about because it was more suited for our military ambitions. On a technology as complex as GMO, with a lot of interactions in different systems, it can take a lot of time to realize something is wrong. If it happens, it will take even more time before we act. The companies creating GMO will then, as usual, protect them-self to the extreme, and eventually just pay some money to get out of trouble, money they already earned by selling the GMO anyway. So yes, whether it's GMO in food, nano-particles or anything that is very potent, I think it's fair to say "hey, slow down, we are not doing our homework here" when the other side is just trying to sell it to everybody. It's a matter of agenda.

girvo 8y ago
And yet none of the food we farm hasn’t been modified, genetically. None of it is natural. Are you as worried about new strains of rice? I can see a good argument to worry about all of it, but picking a particular method and demonising it confuses me. But perhaps it’s because I’ve not been exposed to the anti-GMO propaganda (and pro-) that the USA is flooded with that I’m not “intelligent”?
- sametmax 8y ago
  > And yet none of the food we farm hasn’t been modified, genetically On one hand we have a complex adaptative ecological system we lived in for millions of years and adapted to it. We leverage it as a context to make plants change in a way we tested for a lot of time as well. All that happen in the boundaries of this tested system, but only benefit from the self-balancing mechanism of said system. Then, the result itself, by nature, is slow enough that we can assess the effects. On the other hand, we have a very new barely tested tool we use to make a big change on a very small and limited characteristics of an organism. We have little feedback on it, we don't have the context of a huge ecosystem to drive it. We just think, that, according to a few variables we know, it should be ok. Also the result are very fast and we can't see the effects yet. It's like the difference between loosing weight with quick diets and one with a balance diet. The first one can have very accurate variables it works on, and kwow scientifically the causes and effects of what will make you loose weight. However, it's almost always better to loose weight on a longer, but more global balance diet. The system of your body adapts to a lot of things, and is not an island without a context. It's not just a program with a few variables. It has a LOT of variables, evolves, and is influenced by what's going on outside. The way you see thing is a very reductionist thinking. It means because we understand small parts of a system, we understand it all. And since we understand it all, we are safe from mistakes. The thing is, I know many friends who can tell you exactly what are the social interactions happening on a diner table, and yet can't do anything about it. The reductionist mindset make for great rocket scientists, but terrible gardeners. > Are you as worried about new strains of rice? There is no such things as a free lunch. Selective breeding coupled with intensive farming have caused a diminishing of biodiversity and rendered a lot of our crops vulnerable to predators and parasites. In return, we use more pesticides, which has been shown to have harmful consequences on our health, but also on the ecosystem, e.g: killing a massive about of useful bugs. The thing is, I don't really trust for profit entities to make the right decision when it's about the future of the human specie. It's not their agenda. It's not about being bad or good, it's just the nature of thing: when something is not your priority, you don't do it. > But perhaps it’s because I’ve not been exposed to the anti-GMO propaganda I'm not American.
SquareWheel 8y ago
This is exactly the kind of misinformation being described above. Why would "traditional" crops going through random mutations be any safer than GMO crops going through highly controlled, highly tested mutations? It isn't a mysterious process - it's science. It allows us to create products like Golden Rice to alleviate malnutrition and increase crop yields. It's probably the only thing which has helped curtail world hunger in any meaningful capacity.
- TheMagicHorsey 8y ago
  Breeding over time is slow. When you select crops over generations to improve a seed stock you are not making radical changes quickly, and you are not introducing genes from other species. It is the pace of change and the scope of change that makes GMO crops more dangerous than those we have modified over 1000s of years of selective breeding. And BTW, even in natural selection, there can be instances where a naturally occurring mutation causes a change in a species which has drastic and rapid implications for the environment in which it reproduces and spreads. For example the evolution of oxygen-creating organisms created a toxic environment which killed 99% of life that existed in the oxygen-free environment before those organisms came into existence.
  - SquareWheel 8y ago
    >When you select crops over generations to improve a seed stock you are not making radical changes quickly, and you are not introducing genes from other species. Non-GMO breeding methods can also mutate rapidly. One example is mutation breeding, where a plant is exposed to high levels of radiation to encourage rapid mutation. This does not require any labelling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding As for genes from other species, this is known as horizontal gene transfer and it actually does happen in nature. It's even occurred in humans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer It's worth bearing in mind that there is no such thing as a "fish gene", or "strawberry gene". They're just genes. All forms of life have considerable overlap between them.
  - pdkl95 8y ago
adrr 8y ago
GMO should be safer than natural breeding. Natural breeding you get random gene mutations where GMO, its all controlled. Good example is the Lenape potato which they accidentally reactivated the solanine trait in potatoes and made a potato that was toxic to humans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenape_potato https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenape_potato
briandear 8y ago
I trust governments less than companies because governments have thousands of years of history attesting to their ability to commit genocide based on ideology. Governments have killed millions because of ideas! Companies don’t have an incentive to kill their customers. And, a free market leads to people being able to choose to buy things from companies they like or refusing to buy dangerous products. People rarely have a choice in their government. Governments are inflicted upon people without a lot of power to stop them; companies can die relatively easily if they aren’t serving their customers.
muriithi 8y ago
I also do not have data on almost all the food that I eat.
- sametmax 8y ago
  We do have experience with traditionally grown plants and mixing and cooking them for centuries. So we have the feedback on that. It's actually a big problem currently for a lot of food. We do have more cancer, diabetes, obesity and such disease than ever. Those are all problems that are at the very minimum influenced by food. But it took a few decades to manifest. We may also have many others we do know we have yet, or that we don't know are linked to food. Occam's Razor, though, says that there are far less likely to have problems with a raw cucumber that we have been eating for 1000 of years than with a Ben n Jerry ice cream we just recently invented, and optimized for people pleasure and the cheapest batch production. And I really, really love BnJ.

girvo 8y ago

And yet none of the food we farm hasn’t been modified, genetically. None of it is natural. Are you as worried about new strains of rice? I can see a good argument to worry about all of it, but picking a particular method and demonising it confuses me. But perhaps it’s because I’ve not been exposed to the anti-GMO propaganda (and pro-) that the USA is flooded with that I’m not “intelligent”?

sametmax 8y ago
> And yet none of the food we farm hasn’t been modified, genetically On one hand we have a complex adaptative ecological system we lived in for millions of years and adapted to it. We leverage it as a context to make plants change in a way we tested for a lot of time as well. All that happen in the boundaries of this tested system, but only benefit from the self-balancing mechanism of said system. Then, the result itself, by nature, is slow enough that we can assess the effects. On the other hand, we have a very new barely tested tool we use to make a big change on a very small and limited characteristics of an organism. We have little feedback on it, we don't have the context of a huge ecosystem to drive it. We just think, that, according to a few variables we know, it should be ok. Also the result are very fast and we can't see the effects yet. It's like the difference between loosing weight with quick diets and one with a balance diet. The first one can have very accurate variables it works on, and kwow scientifically the causes and effects of what will make you loose weight. However, it's almost always better to loose weight on a longer, but more global balance diet. The system of your body adapts to a lot of things, and is not an island without a context. It's not just a program with a few variables. It has a LOT of variables, evolves, and is influenced by what's going on outside. The way you see thing is a very reductionist thinking. It means because we understand small parts of a system, we understand it all. And since we understand it all, we are safe from mistakes. The thing is, I know many friends who can tell you exactly what are the social interactions happening on a diner table, and yet can't do anything about it. The reductionist mindset make for great rocket scientists, but terrible gardeners. > Are you as worried about new strains of rice? There is no such things as a free lunch. Selective breeding coupled with intensive farming have caused a diminishing of biodiversity and rendered a lot of our crops vulnerable to predators and parasites. In return, we use more pesticides, which has been shown to have harmful consequences on our health, but also on the ecosystem, e.g: killing a massive about of useful bugs. The thing is, I don't really trust for profit entities to make the right decision when it's about the future of the human specie. It's not their agenda. It's not about being bad or good, it's just the nature of thing: when something is not your priority, you don't do it. > But perhaps it’s because I’ve not been exposed to the anti-GMO propaganda I'm not American.

SquareWheel 8y ago

This is exactly the kind of misinformation being described above. Why would "traditional" crops going through random mutations be any safer than GMO crops going through highly controlled, highly tested mutations? It isn't a mysterious process - it's science. It allows us to create products like Golden Rice to alleviate malnutrition and increase crop yields. It's probably the only thing which has helped curtail world hunger in any meaningful capacity.

TheMagicHorsey 8y ago
Breeding over time is slow. When you select crops over generations to improve a seed stock you are not making radical changes quickly, and you are not introducing genes from other species. It is the pace of change and the scope of change that makes GMO crops more dangerous than those we have modified over 1000s of years of selective breeding. And BTW, even in natural selection, there can be instances where a naturally occurring mutation causes a change in a species which has drastic and rapid implications for the environment in which it reproduces and spreads. For example the evolution of oxygen-creating organisms created a toxic environment which killed 99% of life that existed in the oxygen-free environment before those organisms came into existence.
- SquareWheel 8y ago
  >When you select crops over generations to improve a seed stock you are not making radical changes quickly, and you are not introducing genes from other species. Non-GMO breeding methods can also mutate rapidly. One example is mutation breeding, where a plant is exposed to high levels of radiation to encourage rapid mutation. This does not require any labelling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding As for genes from other species, this is known as horizontal gene transfer and it actually does happen in nature. It's even occurred in humans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer It's worth bearing in mind that there is no such thing as a "fish gene", or "strawberry gene". They're just genes. All forms of life have considerable overlap between them.
- pdkl95 8y ago

adrr 8y ago

GMO should be safer than natural breeding. Natural breeding you get random gene mutations where GMO, its all controlled. Good example is the Lenape potato which they accidentally reactivated the solanine trait in potatoes and made a potato that was toxic to humans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenape_potato https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenape_potato

briandear 8y ago

I trust governments less than companies because governments have thousands of years of history attesting to their ability to commit genocide based on ideology. Governments have killed millions because of ideas! Companies don’t have an incentive to kill their customers. And, a free market leads to people being able to choose to buy things from companies they like or refusing to buy dangerous products. People rarely have a choice in their government. Governments are inflicted upon people without a lot of power to stop them; companies can die relatively easily if they aren’t serving their customers.

muriithi 8y ago

I also do not have data on almost all the food that I eat.

sametmax 8y ago
We do have experience with traditionally grown plants and mixing and cooking them for centuries. So we have the feedback on that. It's actually a big problem currently for a lot of food. We do have more cancer, diabetes, obesity and such disease than ever. Those are all problems that are at the very minimum influenced by food. But it took a few decades to manifest. We may also have many others we do know we have yet, or that we don't know are linked to food. Occam's Razor, though, says that there are far less likely to have problems with a raw cucumber that we have been eating for 1000 of years than with a Ben n Jerry ice cream we just recently invented, and optimized for people pleasure and the cheapest batch production. And I really, really love BnJ.