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The fear is not inherently irrational either. Its clearly a very powerful field on the confoundingly complicated biological domain, and with more power and comp

The fear is not inherently irrational either. Its clearly a very powerful field on the confoundingly complicated biological domain, and with more power and complexity comes greater potential for serious error. It can be fair to disagree about the safety and wisdom of various GM applications, but the charge that it is all irrational is really just divisive rhetoric. I don't approve of novel GM in agriculture, I encourage naturalistic development for mass production in the environment and especially the materials we routinely put into our body. Poor nutrition is caused by poor politics, culture and economics over and above all of the existing foods which are already available to solve it. I think GM will best be limited to acute medical challenges and containable research and emergency uses, until we have actually developed a strong command of diseases and natural (evolved) systems. Our agriculture should be as contingent as possible with natural history and existing species in our already very disturbed sphere of ecology.

deogeo 7y ago
That's true - while I mostly don't buy the 'frankenfood' scare, I worry about the dangers to the ecosystem. For example a GM crop that is fungus/insect resistant, but the resistance is due to a herbicide/pesticide it was engineered to synthesize, that is later found to harm some key species (the way neonicotinoids were found to harm bees). Only recalling it will be much more difficult, especially if the genes spread to other species (such as by horizontal gene transfer). All the while the corporation selling the crop has every incentive to try to hide the ill effects.
- strainer 7y ago
  I question why doesn't some amoeba just maximize its fitness and so turn into effectively a bioweapon that eats all the mammals on the planet? It has some sort of intelligence that restrains it from wiping out its food source? I do wish for Genetic Science and all relevant fields to take that mystery very seriously and solve it securely before its confident to mass replicate novel species in the huge system. Species which have evolved somehow over ages to not be routinely in massive flux between champion species. The microbial world could liquidate swathes of the phylogenetic tree repeatedly, if all it needs is a chance mutation to create a new alpha species. What stops an experimental GMO containing such an over-competitive mutation, or a precursor to such? There is so much yet not known or controllable in microbiology, it does worry me that the prevailing attitude is so confident with the little that is known and doable. Its alarmist and uncertain, but so is the foresight that significantly increasing ghgs through the whole atmosphere is too dangerous, or filling the sea with more plastic waste than there are fish left in it is not worth the price and risks. Hopefuly culture is on the verge of accepting these concerns have had rational basis. It needn't result in the end of modernity, but in the appreciation and protection of some older things.
  - smt88 7y ago
    > Why doesn't some amoeba just maximize its fitness and so turn into effectively a bioweapon that eats all the mammals on the planet? Evolution takes a long time. It's not totally unfair to describe humans as that amoeba, now approaching the nightmare scenario of consuming almost everything on earth.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    One aspect is the speed of evolution - as one species evolves, its competitors evolve just as much, making it difficult to dominate too much. This is a limitation that GM does not share - it can make genetic leaps in a few years that would be vanishingly unlikely to occur naturally, or would take millions of years. Other species could not keep up. To illustrate with the previous example, insects evolve resistance to the chemical countermeasures that plants evolve. But give those countermeasures a GM kick, and insects won't be able to keep up. I'm sure eventually they would evolve something, but there could still be a huge crash in their population before that happens.
  - rictic 7y ago
    Part of the answer is that mammals are three to seven orders of magnitude larger than amoeba. That comes with some advantages! Immune systems are super complicated, and can leverage the resources of a vast cooperating superorganism of cells. That sort of thing has happened before though. Oxygen was originally a pollutant that caused the extinction of most species on the planet. This is sometimes called the Oxygen Holocaust (more commonly, the Great Oxidation Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event).
    - strainer 7y ago
      Its not a great answer because despite superior size and having immune systems, microbial life is still routinely deadly, just not too often so deadly to cause extinctions. I have read microbiologists puzzles over for example, what mechanisms 'evolves' strains of flu viruses between periods of relative dormancy and deadly flare up. That oxidation event represents one major collapse on an ancient scale, but did not owe to a species over-predating others, which Im considering here as a more pervasive risk for species 'dynamics' than pollution/poisoning. I find no firm answer to these concerns. We dont know that species genetic information has not evolved to avoid over-competitiveness, configurations that could be broken by non-evolved modifications, mass reproductions and releases into the system. Its not a matter which can be settled by current insights, so its somewhat plausibly disguarded as fear and uncertainty. But it might even be the case that what genetics may naturally evolve are naturally confined to modest competitiveness by a property of the yet mysterious steps which enable life to evolve - because we don't even know in what circumstance life evolves. Plenty of theories but no one has ever observed life assembling and evolving from lifelessness, or even modelled a viable sequence illustrating it, and not from lacking of trying for the great achievement and accolades that would bring. Its such an amazing scientific subject, the developed science is amazing too but not nearly so much as its subject matter - biological complexity and remaining mysteries. Its worth treating with special care and humility of some kind.
nradov 7y ago
Humans have been genetically modifying their food since the beginning of agriculture. Fear based on the particular modification technique used is completely irrational.
- jammygit 7y ago
  That is silly. Imagine that the genes were transferred via some toxic mould that transfers DNA but that was extremely hard to remove after the procedure. Of course the procedure matters
  - beerandt 7y ago
    So a virus?
  - dekhn 7y ago
    You mean, like transferring the proteins that cause brazil nut allergy into soy? Fortunately, they caught that before it was rolled out.
- deogeo 7y ago
  Humans have also been traveling since forever, yet the precautions for flying a jet plane are vastly different than if you're going on foot.
  - andromeduck 7y ago
    Yet still you are much more likely to end up dead or injured walking or driving any distance that would cause a normal person to fly there.
    - josefx 7y ago
      As Boeing has shown that only stays true as long as nobody games the regulations against flying death traps. Planes are safe because we require them to be safe, not because tin cans traveling miles above ground are inherently safe. I will take my chances on foot over a 737 MAX with its suicidal MCAS.

deogeo 7y ago

That's true - while I mostly don't buy the 'frankenfood' scare, I worry about the dangers to the ecosystem. For example a GM crop that is fungus/insect resistant, but the resistance is due to a herbicide/pesticide it was engineered to synthesize, that is later found to harm some key species (the way neonicotinoids were found to harm bees). Only recalling it will be much more difficult, especially if the genes spread to other species (such as by horizontal gene transfer). All the while the corporation selling the crop has every incentive to try to hide the ill effects.

strainer 7y ago
I question why doesn't some amoeba just maximize its fitness and so turn into effectively a bioweapon that eats all the mammals on the planet? It has some sort of intelligence that restrains it from wiping out its food source? I do wish for Genetic Science and all relevant fields to take that mystery very seriously and solve it securely before its confident to mass replicate novel species in the huge system. Species which have evolved somehow over ages to not be routinely in massive flux between champion species. The microbial world could liquidate swathes of the phylogenetic tree repeatedly, if all it needs is a chance mutation to create a new alpha species. What stops an experimental GMO containing such an over-competitive mutation, or a precursor to such? There is so much yet not known or controllable in microbiology, it does worry me that the prevailing attitude is so confident with the little that is known and doable. Its alarmist and uncertain, but so is the foresight that significantly increasing ghgs through the whole atmosphere is too dangerous, or filling the sea with more plastic waste than there are fish left in it is not worth the price and risks. Hopefuly culture is on the verge of accepting these concerns have had rational basis. It needn't result in the end of modernity, but in the appreciation and protection of some older things.
- smt88 7y ago
  > Why doesn't some amoeba just maximize its fitness and so turn into effectively a bioweapon that eats all the mammals on the planet? Evolution takes a long time. It's not totally unfair to describe humans as that amoeba, now approaching the nightmare scenario of consuming almost everything on earth.
- deogeo 7y ago
  One aspect is the speed of evolution - as one species evolves, its competitors evolve just as much, making it difficult to dominate too much. This is a limitation that GM does not share - it can make genetic leaps in a few years that would be vanishingly unlikely to occur naturally, or would take millions of years. Other species could not keep up. To illustrate with the previous example, insects evolve resistance to the chemical countermeasures that plants evolve. But give those countermeasures a GM kick, and insects won't be able to keep up. I'm sure eventually they would evolve something, but there could still be a huge crash in their population before that happens.
- rictic 7y ago
  Part of the answer is that mammals are three to seven orders of magnitude larger than amoeba. That comes with some advantages! Immune systems are super complicated, and can leverage the resources of a vast cooperating superorganism of cells. That sort of thing has happened before though. Oxygen was originally a pollutant that caused the extinction of most species on the planet. This is sometimes called the Oxygen Holocaust (more commonly, the Great Oxidation Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event).
  - strainer 7y ago
    Its not a great answer because despite superior size and having immune systems, microbial life is still routinely deadly, just not too often so deadly to cause extinctions. I have read microbiologists puzzles over for example, what mechanisms 'evolves' strains of flu viruses between periods of relative dormancy and deadly flare up. That oxidation event represents one major collapse on an ancient scale, but did not owe to a species over-predating others, which Im considering here as a more pervasive risk for species 'dynamics' than pollution/poisoning. I find no firm answer to these concerns. We dont know that species genetic information has not evolved to avoid over-competitiveness, configurations that could be broken by non-evolved modifications, mass reproductions and releases into the system. Its not a matter which can be settled by current insights, so its somewhat plausibly disguarded as fear and uncertainty. But it might even be the case that what genetics may naturally evolve are naturally confined to modest competitiveness by a property of the yet mysterious steps which enable life to evolve - because we don't even know in what circumstance life evolves. Plenty of theories but no one has ever observed life assembling and evolving from lifelessness, or even modelled a viable sequence illustrating it, and not from lacking of trying for the great achievement and accolades that would bring. Its such an amazing scientific subject, the developed science is amazing too but not nearly so much as its subject matter - biological complexity and remaining mysteries. Its worth treating with special care and humility of some kind.

nradov 7y ago

Humans have been genetically modifying their food since the beginning of agriculture. Fear based on the particular modification technique used is completely irrational.

jammygit 7y ago
That is silly. Imagine that the genes were transferred via some toxic mould that transfers DNA but that was extremely hard to remove after the procedure. Of course the procedure matters
- beerandt 7y ago
  So a virus?
- dekhn 7y ago
  You mean, like transferring the proteins that cause brazil nut allergy into soy? Fortunately, they caught that before it was rolled out.
deogeo 7y ago
Humans have also been traveling since forever, yet the precautions for flying a jet plane are vastly different than if you're going on foot.
- andromeduck 7y ago
  Yet still you are much more likely to end up dead or injured walking or driving any distance that would cause a normal person to fly there.
  - josefx 7y ago
    As Boeing has shown that only stays true as long as nobody games the regulations against flying death traps. Planes are safe because we require them to be safe, not because tin cans traveling miles above ground are inherently safe. I will take my chances on foot over a 737 MAX with its suicidal MCAS.