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One occurs naturally and thus happens all around us without human interaction. So there's value in understanding how things work without any input from humans.
by nkrisc 6y ago
One occurs naturally and thus happens all around us without human interaction. So there's value in understanding how things work without any input from humans.
One is more like studying a natural process while the other is the mechanics of that process.
- animal_spirits 6y agoYes exactly. The fruit might be the same at the end of the day; red, round, juicy. But there is more that goes into growing fruit than just reaping the end product. There is fertilizers which run off into lakes [1], pesticides and herbicides that get into the soil increasingly making soil less fertile [2], market cornering tactics like seed patenting [3]. I think it is more important to study how to make nature do the work of growing food abundantly with as little side-effects as possible, instead of engineering it to with no caution for side-effects. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fertilizer-runoff-overwhelms-streams/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fertilizer-runoff... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC91132/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC91132/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co.
- Attained 6y agoLook up mutagenic breeding, the idea breeders are taking a more natural approach is nuts. I do agree we should invest more heavily in tech like bug resistance to reduce necessary pesticides.