4 ms·

How wrong am I to draw the conclusion from this, that people claiming that GMOs are "completely safe" (i.e. cannot have unexpected side effects, such as creatio

by tomp 7y ago

How wrong am I to draw the conclusion from this, that people claiming that GMOs are "completely safe" (i.e. cannot have unexpected side effects, such as creation of super-species that completely crowds out other, non-GMO and now inferior, species in the specific niche, or the migration/expression of toxin-producing genes in unexpected places) are full of bullshit? That's my knee-jerk conclusion, I'd be really interested in hearing counterarguments.

wetpaws 7y ago
Life by definition is a process of genetic modification
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Truisms don't make for productive discussions. Picture yourself receiving a cancer diagnosis followed by your statement above.
  - wetpaws 7y ago
    How is cancer related to gmo? You know what is also bad? Traffic jam and rain. And flu. And clowns, I hate them.
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      Oh, you're just trolling. Bye.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    Fear-mongering doesn’t make for productive discussions either. These mosquitoes are not super mosquitoes so they don’t lend any credence to the anti-GMO tropes. Picture yourself receiving a cancer diagnosis and then hearing that tobacco is organic non-GMO.
    - tomp 7y ago
      > Picture yourself receiving a cancer diagnosis and then hearing that tobacco is organic non-GMO. Oh come on this is such a ridiculous point. No these mosquitoes are not super-mosquitoes - I never implied so. However, these mosquitoes are a GMO experiment gone wrong - fortunately this "wrong" doesn't mean "world-destroying" (so far), but just "unintended", but that's kind-of my point - who's to say that the next time a GMO experiment goes "wrong" it won't be a bit more wrong...
- tomp 7y ago
  ah, yeah the old "GMO is same mechanism as evolution" argument. But unfortunately it's also completely wrong. Evolution is local optimization (walking around Australia in search for the highest mountain), whereas GMOs are global optimization (flying to the Himalayas). For another counterexample, natural nuclear reactors exist (i.e. can happen "naturally", because chance), but we're still concerned about artificial (engineered) nuclear reactors, because they can have much worse consequences than what could happen just by chance.
sb057 7y ago
The actual process of GMO is completely safe. Just like the process of nuclear fission. You have to treat it with care though, otherwise very bad things may occur.
- kkqwpodkpo 7y ago
  I'm sorry, but every time someone argues this point, I feel they are completely side-stepping the actual issue. Anything can be safe depending on how you use it, almost by definition, because "rare/no usage" is included in that. The real argument to be had is not whether or not something can potentially fail whatsoever. The argument is, "What are the consequences at the expected rate of failure?" Viewed from that perspective, much greater stakes are revealed. When the consequence of failure is "Irreversible alteration of an entire species", understandably even a single failure should be cause for pause.
  - tomp 7y ago
    Yeah, that’s my logic as well. It’s interesting how the same people (left-leaning rational scientist-y types) come to opposite conclusions with respect to GMOs and Climate Change, even though they are very similar situations (small positive consequences and huge unpredictable potentially run-away tail risks).
rstuart4133 7y ago
> How wrong am I to draw the conclusion from this, that people claiming that GMOs are "completely safe" (i.e. cannot have unexpected side effects, such as creation of super-species that completely crowds out other, non-GMO and now inferior, species in the specific niche, or the migration/expression of toxin-producing genes in unexpected places) are full of bullshit? I don't whether they are full of bullshit or not, but for the life of me I can't see how this particular example demonstrates they are full of bullshit. They made a genetic mod that was supposed to prevent them from breeding. They got it wrong and they breed. Far from producing a super species, this modification weakened the offspring and will be eliminated from the gene pool over time by natural selection. It's hardly a super organism. This is pretty much true for any modifications we've made. They invariably have a the same effect: they enhance fitness in some circumstances at the cost of reducing in others. For example round-up ready definitely gives you an advantage when there are hominoids spraying round-up everywhere, but at the cost of some energy efficiency. If those hominoids disappear the advantage gene gave them will disappear but the disadvantage will remain, and consequently gene itself will disappear along with the hominoids. The vitamin A enhanced bananas do very well when those same hominoids knock off all their competition because their want that vitamin A, but when the hominoids disappear and they are back on an even footing with their competition and they won't fair so well. I could go on, but it's pretty much the same story every time. Natural selection has already produced super organisms for every niche. Think the blue whale, which is the largest animal every to roam the earth. It looks pretty "super" to me. We can alter the genome to be work better the situations we create, but when those situations vanish the situation the super organisms natural selection is so good at creating will take over again. The implicit assumption in the super organism argument is mankind is so superior we will be to bring more intellect and computation power to bear on creating super organisms in a few decades than natural selection has over millions of years. The proposition is laughable, and it's the height of hubris.
- tomp 7y ago
  Thanks, this is a good argument! Let me just completely dismiss your "evolution is a good optimizer" - it's a decent optimizer, but some things are just impossible for it to achieve (as I said above, local vs global search). That's why humans are so dominant - e.g. we started using tools and eventually figured out that steel is harder than most other natural materials (and thus more useful as a weapon). Otherwise, I think your point about fitness of crops is a good one - crops are fundamentally not easy to grow, if they were, we wouldn't be an agricultural society, we'd just be "picking and gathering" fruit, seeds, grain etc. that would naturally grow in forests, etc. but that's unrealistic, we have to put a lot of effort into sustaining crop production. I oppose Roundup-ready and vitamin enhanced crops on other grounds; is Roundup residual really so safe? If it's so safe and GMO foods are so much cheaper and better, why the lack of transparency? It's not like we lack food in the West, so no need to enhance it with vitamins, and we should probably be finding ways to use less pesticides, not more and deadlier. (Different situation in the third world, I think GMOs can be genuinely helpful there, if risks can be minimized.) But the one I actually had in mind is when crops are modified to express pesticides using genes that originate from bacteria (looks like Cowpea is an example [0]). Personally, I also see that as the kind of GMO with most potential (again, if risks are minimized), though you might be right that it's actually the minority of current use (why?), and the above arguments about crops being hard to grow still holds (unless genes can "jump" to a different species, though AFAIK that's only really possible in bacteria.) Mind you, I'm not totally opposed to GMOs. I think they great when used in pharma (in controlled environment with controlled products). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpea#Pests_and_diseases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpea#Pests_and_diseases

by tomp 7y ago

wetpaws 7y ago

Life by definition is a process of genetic modification

anigbrowl 7y ago
Truisms don't make for productive discussions. Picture yourself receiving a cancer diagnosis followed by your statement above.
- wetpaws 7y ago
  How is cancer related to gmo? You know what is also bad? Traffic jam and rain. And flu. And clowns, I hate them.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    Oh, you're just trolling. Bye.
- kortilla 7y ago
  Fear-mongering doesn’t make for productive discussions either. These mosquitoes are not super mosquitoes so they don’t lend any credence to the anti-GMO tropes. Picture yourself receiving a cancer diagnosis and then hearing that tobacco is organic non-GMO.
  - tomp 7y ago
    > Picture yourself receiving a cancer diagnosis and then hearing that tobacco is organic non-GMO. Oh come on this is such a ridiculous point. No these mosquitoes are not super-mosquitoes - I never implied so. However, these mosquitoes are a GMO experiment gone wrong - fortunately this "wrong" doesn't mean "world-destroying" (so far), but just "unintended", but that's kind-of my point - who's to say that the next time a GMO experiment goes "wrong" it won't be a bit more wrong...
tomp 7y ago
ah, yeah the old "GMO is same mechanism as evolution" argument. But unfortunately it's also completely wrong. Evolution is local optimization (walking around Australia in search for the highest mountain), whereas GMOs are global optimization (flying to the Himalayas). For another counterexample, natural nuclear reactors exist (i.e. can happen "naturally", because chance), but we're still concerned about artificial (engineered) nuclear reactors, because they can have much worse consequences than what could happen just by chance.

sb057 7y ago

The actual process of GMO is completely safe. Just like the process of nuclear fission. You have to treat it with care though, otherwise very bad things may occur.

kkqwpodkpo 7y ago
I'm sorry, but every time someone argues this point, I feel they are completely side-stepping the actual issue. Anything can be safe depending on how you use it, almost by definition, because "rare/no usage" is included in that. The real argument to be had is not whether or not something can potentially fail whatsoever. The argument is, "What are the consequences at the expected rate of failure?" Viewed from that perspective, much greater stakes are revealed. When the consequence of failure is "Irreversible alteration of an entire species", understandably even a single failure should be cause for pause.
- tomp 7y ago
  Yeah, that’s my logic as well. It’s interesting how the same people (left-leaning rational scientist-y types) come to opposite conclusions with respect to GMOs and Climate Change, even though they are very similar situations (small positive consequences and huge unpredictable potentially run-away tail risks).

rstuart4133 7y ago

> How wrong am I to draw the conclusion from this, that people claiming that GMOs are "completely safe" (i.e. cannot have unexpected side effects, such as creation of super-species that completely crowds out other, non-GMO and now inferior, species in the specific niche, or the migration/expression of toxin-producing genes in unexpected places) are full of bullshit? I don't whether they are full of bullshit or not, but for the life of me I can't see how this particular example demonstrates they are full of bullshit. They made a genetic mod that was supposed to prevent them from breeding. They got it wrong and they breed. Far from producing a super species, this modification weakened the offspring and will be eliminated from the gene pool over time by natural selection. It's hardly a super organism. This is pretty much true for any modifications we've made. They invariably have a the same effect: they enhance fitness in some circumstances at the cost of reducing in others. For example round-up ready definitely gives you an advantage when there are hominoids spraying round-up everywhere, but at the cost of some energy efficiency. If those hominoids disappear the advantage gene gave them will disappear but the disadvantage will remain, and consequently gene itself will disappear along with the hominoids. The vitamin A enhanced bananas do very well when those same hominoids knock off all their competition because their want that vitamin A, but when the hominoids disappear and they are back on an even footing with their competition and they won't fair so well. I could go on, but it's pretty much the same story every time. Natural selection has already produced super organisms for every niche. Think the blue whale, which is the largest animal every to roam the earth. It looks pretty "super" to me. We can alter the genome to be work better the situations we create, but when those situations vanish the situation the super organisms natural selection is so good at creating will take over again. The implicit assumption in the super organism argument is mankind is so superior we will be to bring more intellect and computation power to bear on creating super organisms in a few decades than natural selection has over millions of years. The proposition is laughable, and it's the height of hubris.

tomp 7y ago
Thanks, this is a good argument! Let me just completely dismiss your "evolution is a good optimizer" - it's a decent optimizer, but some things are just impossible for it to achieve (as I said above, local vs global search). That's why humans are so dominant - e.g. we started using tools and eventually figured out that steel is harder than most other natural materials (and thus more useful as a weapon). Otherwise, I think your point about fitness of crops is a good one - crops are fundamentally not easy to grow, if they were, we wouldn't be an agricultural society, we'd just be "picking and gathering" fruit, seeds, grain etc. that would naturally grow in forests, etc. but that's unrealistic, we have to put a lot of effort into sustaining crop production. I oppose Roundup-ready and vitamin enhanced crops on other grounds; is Roundup residual really so safe? If it's so safe and GMO foods are so much cheaper and better, why the lack of transparency? It's not like we lack food in the West, so no need to enhance it with vitamins, and we should probably be finding ways to use less pesticides, not more and deadlier. (Different situation in the third world, I think GMOs can be genuinely helpful there, if risks can be minimized.) But the one I actually had in mind is when crops are modified to express pesticides using genes that originate from bacteria (looks like Cowpea is an example [0]). Personally, I also see that as the kind of GMO with most potential (again, if risks are minimized), though you might be right that it's actually the minority of current use (why?), and the above arguments about crops being hard to grow still holds (unless genes can "jump" to a different species, though AFAIK that's only really possible in bacteria.) Mind you, I'm not totally opposed to GMOs. I think they great when used in pharma (in controlled environment with controlled products). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpea#Pests_and_diseases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpea#Pests_and_diseases