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> And somehow, we did that without GMO. I think you're confused. You probably eat genetically modified food on a daily basis. It's everywhere. The question is

> And somehow, we did that without GMO. I think you're confused. You probably eat genetically modified food on a daily basis. It's everywhere. The question isn't "should we genetically modified food?" because we already are and have been doing it for centuries. The question is "which GMO techniques should we use?"

hycaria 7y ago
And even if you are not, the animals you eat most probably do. But yeah parent comment underlines all the pathetically common misconceptions and broad ignorance about GMOs.
- beat 7y ago
  In what way is what I posted "pathetically common misconceptions and broad ignorance"? I'm curious.
  - hycaria 7y ago
    Firmly believing that we got there without the use of GMOs when it's not the case at all. And this thought is sadly very common. Maybe anti-GMOs movements that might lead to believe that they are not used yet and that it's still completely up to debate ? I don't really know.
    - beat 7y ago
      I assume you're arguing that selective breeding is the same thing as GMO. It is not, and the article was not talking about selective breeding. If that's your argument, it's very common, as seen in this thread. It's still wrong. GMO is specifically about laboratory manipulation of genes, including cross-species gene insertion, which is not possible via selective breeding.
      - rayiner 7y ago
        Selective breeding is just one way to enhance expression of particular genes.
        beat 7y ago
        And GMO is another - one that enables genetic expressions not possible with selective breeding.
        dragonwriter 7y ago
        GMO isn't really an alternative to selective breeding,strictly speaking. GMO refers to a set of methods of inducing individual genetic change, selective breeding is a process to affect the population distribution of genetically-controlled traits independent of the mechanism by which individual genetic change occurs.
      - davidivadavid 7y ago
        It looks like according to Wikipedia and different authoritative bodies, the definition of GMO varies quite a bit from a narrow definition that (sometimes) excludes selective breeding, to a broader definition that includes it.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        > GMO is specifically about laboratory manipulation of genes, including cross-species gene insertion, It's actually about a specific narrow range of techniques, not laboratory manipulation generally. > cross-species gene insertion, which is not possible via selective breeding. Cross-species genetic transfer occurs in the wild and, as such, is one of the forms of genetic drift on which the selection in selective breeding acts, so this claim is false. It is not one of the mechanisms that is accelerated by modern methods of accelerated genetic change that are frequently paired with selective breeding as a similarly-rapid, far less controlled, and more label-friendly alternative to “GMOs”.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        Covering a point not covered by my earlier reply: > I assume you're arguing that selective breeding is the same thing as GMO. This seems to be just repeating the mistake pointed out upthread; no, current agricultural productivity is not a result of selective breeding alone without transgenic technology; GMOs are a real and significant thing in current agriculture, and part off what the current food productivity is built on.
- BubRoss 7y ago
  How long have genetically modified foods been around and common? Did they coincide with a population boom or did most population increase come before the use of genetically modified foods? Just because larger population exists at the same time right now it doesn't mean their times coincided with each other.
  - beat 7y ago
    When I say "GMO", I mean laboratory manipulation of genetics, not selective breeding. The tech was first done experimentally in the 1970s, and didn't become commercially viable at all until the 1990s, and it wasn't until quite recently that it became easy and inexpensive. Most of the 20th century population explosion happened before that, and the expected rate of population growth over the next century is an order of magnitude lower than the previous century.
    - MichaelApproved 7y ago
      What does "laboratory manipulation" even mean?
beat 7y ago
Selective breeding and GMO are different things, and will continue to be different things, until you can convince a squid to screw a cucumber. Please don't make that crap argument. That being said, I pointedly did not say "GMO BAD". I said that the article is making a bad argument for its necessity.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago
  Does this lie on the selective breeding side or the GMO side in your mind https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/science/28crop.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/science/28crop.html
  - beat 7y ago
    It doesn't matter, because I am not arguing against GMO.
    - X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago
      I'm not making a value statement. I am just wondering if you consider intentional irradiation of seeds as selective breeding, GMO or something else.
      - beat 7y ago
        I'm rejecting the question. I consider it an irrelevant distraction to the actual point, which is that GMO has not been necessary to feed a quadrupling of the population in a century, so it won't be necessary to feed a 25% increase in another century.
reroute1 7y ago
That still doesn't mean that it's the only way and that the headline isn't hyberbolic.
ksec 7y ago
>You probably eat genetically modified food on a daily basis. It's everywhere. I assume that is only if you live in US? GMO Food are near non existent in EU.
- RenRav 7y ago
  The majority of food in the US is already GMO, but not being American doesn't discount its usage when the scope is global population.
- TheCraiggers 7y ago
  Only if you don't count selective breeding as GMO. Which I do. We've "genetically modified" our food to have greater yields, better taste, pest resistance, etc. Just because someone in a labcoat wasn't hunched over a petri dish doesn't mean the genetics aren't being tweaked. The corn we eat today is all but indistinguishable from what we ate in our past. Genes are genes, and changes to them are changes to them.
  - ksec 7y ago
    >Only if you don't count selective breeding as GMO Well if selective breeding is GMO then there is nothing on earth that isn't GMO. We have been doing selective breeding since before age of industrial revolution.
    - TheCraiggers 7y ago
      Agreed, which is why I find the health scare rather silly. Are there arguments still to be had on the ethics of what we are changing? Perhaps. But the health risk has been basically proven (as much as anything ever is in science) to be nonexistent.
- Taylor_OD 7y ago
  Are you sure? I thought the majority of wheat and grains have been modified across the globe.
- hycaria 7y ago
idoubtit 7y ago
> The question isn't "should we genetically modified food?" because we already are and have been doing it for centuries. "Genetically modified" does not apply to selection and cross breeding. To create a variety of corn that can resist herbicides, you need some advanced technology that modifies the genes, hence GMO. So, no, we haven't been genetically modifying our food for centuries. The process appeared a few decades ago in the agro-industry. > You probably eat genetically modified food on a daily basis. It's everywhere. It's everywhere in the USA and some other countries. In Europe , GMO are rarely directly present in food. But, indirectly, many animals are fed with GMO, especially GMO soybean.
ovi256 7y ago
>we already are and have been doing it for centuries Now you're conflating traditional crop breeding such as selection and hybrid breeding with GMO crops, which is dishonest. The article is specifically about GMO crops. >eat genetically modified food on a daily basis. It's everywhere. I was surprised how you could possibly believe this, it makes sense only with that overbroad GMO crop definition.

hycaria 7y ago

And even if you are not, the animals you eat most probably do. But yeah parent comment underlines all the pathetically common misconceptions and broad ignorance about GMOs.

beat 7y ago
In what way is what I posted "pathetically common misconceptions and broad ignorance"? I'm curious.
- hycaria 7y ago
  Firmly believing that we got there without the use of GMOs when it's not the case at all. And this thought is sadly very common. Maybe anti-GMOs movements that might lead to believe that they are not used yet and that it's still completely up to debate ? I don't really know.
  - beat 7y ago
    I assume you're arguing that selective breeding is the same thing as GMO. It is not, and the article was not talking about selective breeding. If that's your argument, it's very common, as seen in this thread. It's still wrong. GMO is specifically about laboratory manipulation of genes, including cross-species gene insertion, which is not possible via selective breeding.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      Selective breeding is just one way to enhance expression of particular genes.
      - beat 7y ago
        And GMO is another - one that enables genetic expressions not possible with selective breeding.
        dragonwriter 7y ago
        GMO isn't really an alternative to selective breeding,strictly speaking. GMO refers to a set of methods of inducing individual genetic change, selective breeding is a process to affect the population distribution of genetically-controlled traits independent of the mechanism by which individual genetic change occurs.
    - davidivadavid 7y ago
      It looks like according to Wikipedia and different authoritative bodies, the definition of GMO varies quite a bit from a narrow definition that (sometimes) excludes selective breeding, to a broader definition that includes it.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > GMO is specifically about laboratory manipulation of genes, including cross-species gene insertion, It's actually about a specific narrow range of techniques, not laboratory manipulation generally. > cross-species gene insertion, which is not possible via selective breeding. Cross-species genetic transfer occurs in the wild and, as such, is one of the forms of genetic drift on which the selection in selective breeding acts, so this claim is false. It is not one of the mechanisms that is accelerated by modern methods of accelerated genetic change that are frequently paired with selective breeding as a similarly-rapid, far less controlled, and more label-friendly alternative to “GMOs”.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      Covering a point not covered by my earlier reply: > I assume you're arguing that selective breeding is the same thing as GMO. This seems to be just repeating the mistake pointed out upthread; no, current agricultural productivity is not a result of selective breeding alone without transgenic technology; GMOs are a real and significant thing in current agriculture, and part off what the current food productivity is built on.
BubRoss 7y ago
How long have genetically modified foods been around and common? Did they coincide with a population boom or did most population increase come before the use of genetically modified foods? Just because larger population exists at the same time right now it doesn't mean their times coincided with each other.
- beat 7y ago
  When I say "GMO", I mean laboratory manipulation of genetics, not selective breeding. The tech was first done experimentally in the 1970s, and didn't become commercially viable at all until the 1990s, and it wasn't until quite recently that it became easy and inexpensive. Most of the 20th century population explosion happened before that, and the expected rate of population growth over the next century is an order of magnitude lower than the previous century.
  - MichaelApproved 7y ago
    What does "laboratory manipulation" even mean?

beat 7y ago

Selective breeding and GMO are different things, and will continue to be different things, until you can convince a squid to screw a cucumber. Please don't make that crap argument. That being said, I pointedly did not say "GMO BAD". I said that the article is making a bad argument for its necessity.

X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago
Does this lie on the selective breeding side or the GMO side in your mind https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/science/28crop.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/science/28crop.html
- beat 7y ago
  It doesn't matter, because I am not arguing against GMO.
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 7y ago
    I'm not making a value statement. I am just wondering if you consider intentional irradiation of seeds as selective breeding, GMO or something else.
    - beat 7y ago
      I'm rejecting the question. I consider it an irrelevant distraction to the actual point, which is that GMO has not been necessary to feed a quadrupling of the population in a century, so it won't be necessary to feed a 25% increase in another century.

reroute1 7y ago

That still doesn't mean that it's the only way and that the headline isn't hyberbolic.

ksec 7y ago

>You probably eat genetically modified food on a daily basis. It's everywhere. I assume that is only if you live in US? GMO Food are near non existent in EU.

RenRav 7y ago
The majority of food in the US is already GMO, but not being American doesn't discount its usage when the scope is global population.
TheCraiggers 7y ago
Only if you don't count selective breeding as GMO. Which I do. We've "genetically modified" our food to have greater yields, better taste, pest resistance, etc. Just because someone in a labcoat wasn't hunched over a petri dish doesn't mean the genetics aren't being tweaked. The corn we eat today is all but indistinguishable from what we ate in our past. Genes are genes, and changes to them are changes to them.
- ksec 7y ago
  >Only if you don't count selective breeding as GMO Well if selective breeding is GMO then there is nothing on earth that isn't GMO. We have been doing selective breeding since before age of industrial revolution.
  - TheCraiggers 7y ago
    Agreed, which is why I find the health scare rather silly. Are there arguments still to be had on the ethics of what we are changing? Perhaps. But the health risk has been basically proven (as much as anything ever is in science) to be nonexistent.
Taylor_OD 7y ago
Are you sure? I thought the majority of wheat and grains have been modified across the globe.
hycaria 7y ago

idoubtit 7y ago

> The question isn't "should we genetically modified food?" because we already are and have been doing it for centuries. "Genetically modified" does not apply to selection and cross breeding. To create a variety of corn that can resist herbicides, you need some advanced technology that modifies the genes, hence GMO. So, no, we haven't been genetically modifying our food for centuries. The process appeared a few decades ago in the agro-industry. > You probably eat genetically modified food on a daily basis. It's everywhere. It's everywhere in the USA and some other countries. In Europe , GMO are rarely directly present in food. But, indirectly, many animals are fed with GMO, especially GMO soybean.

ovi256 7y ago

>we already are and have been doing it for centuries Now you're conflating traditional crop breeding such as selection and hybrid breeding with GMO crops, which is dishonest. The article is specifically about GMO crops. >eat genetically modified food on a daily basis. It's everywhere. I was surprised how you could possibly believe this, it makes sense only with that overbroad GMO crop definition.