65 ms·

> If it’s part of your ideological community’s worldview that unnatural things are unhealthful, factual information about a scientific consensus on the safety o

> If it’s part of your ideological community’s worldview that unnatural things are unhealthful, factual information about a scientific consensus on the safety of vaccines or GMOs feels like a personal attack. There's nothing unnatural about genetic manipulation. Nature modifies genes at every level from base pairs to whole chromosome-sets, far more promiscuously than us humans. You learn all about this if you study biology in college. Arguably, you learn nothing but.

undersuit 7y ago
Because I took Biology in college, I can't be skeptical of GMOs?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mnemonicsloth 7y ago
  You can be skeptical of almost anything you want. One thing that surprised me was how tolerant scientists are of dissent. Your views can run from the unorthodox to the downright eccentric and, so long as you pay attention to data and argue politely (and maybe even not so politely), people will listen to you. You can't be a scientist without being humble, and humble people listen even to the weird arguments. But if you believe GM foods have adverse health effects, and you design a study to look for them, and try to get it funded you'll be turned down. Literally thousands of scientists have had the same idea and done the same thing, and they all found nothing. Scientists listen to data, so if you wanted to go on looking for health effects, you would probably start with very subtle ones that haven't been looked for yet. If it were me, I would start by trying to find ways genetically modified protein gets past the digestive system, which destroys genetic information by breaking all protein down down into its constituent amino acids. Not an easy problem, but better than some of the others. If you don't want to work on the problem scientifically, you also have the option of thinking about it non-scientifically. A non-scientific opinion can be whatever you want, but holding one means lumping yourself in with a lot of people who object to genetic engineering without knowing the central dogma or even what a gene is. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/well/eat/are-gmo-foods-safe.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/well/eat/are-gmo-foods-sa...

undersuit 7y ago

Because I took Biology in college, I can't be skeptical of GMOs?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mnemonicsloth 7y ago
You can be skeptical of almost anything you want. One thing that surprised me was how tolerant scientists are of dissent. Your views can run from the unorthodox to the downright eccentric and, so long as you pay attention to data and argue politely (and maybe even not so politely), people will listen to you. You can't be a scientist without being humble, and humble people listen even to the weird arguments. But if you believe GM foods have adverse health effects, and you design a study to look for them, and try to get it funded you'll be turned down. Literally thousands of scientists have had the same idea and done the same thing, and they all found nothing. Scientists listen to data, so if you wanted to go on looking for health effects, you would probably start with very subtle ones that haven't been looked for yet. If it were me, I would start by trying to find ways genetically modified protein gets past the digestive system, which destroys genetic information by breaking all protein down down into its constituent amino acids. Not an easy problem, but better than some of the others. If you don't want to work on the problem scientifically, you also have the option of thinking about it non-scientifically. A non-scientific opinion can be whatever you want, but holding one means lumping yourself in with a lot of people who object to genetic engineering without knowing the central dogma or even what a gene is. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/well/eat/are-gmo-foods-safe.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/well/eat/are-gmo-foods-sa...