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It always amuses me to find that people are against GMO foods yet almost everything we eat is GMO depending on how you define it. Almost every crop and livesto

• briefcomment 5y ago
  I'm guessing it's more about transparency. Monsanto using a proprietary genome for the sake of increasing yield at scale seems fundamentally different than a local farmer who selectively breeds to maintain some heirloom crop. I think the former is much more of a black box and has more potential for something unexpected to occur than the latter.
  • bostonsre 5y ago
    Would both of your examples be labeled as gmo?
    • mlavin 5y ago
      GMO implies a lab process with specific alteration of genes, while traditional plant breeding to traits only exposes phenotypes as indication of results, and relies on the pre-existing variance in species to provide new traits.
• forgotmypw17 5y ago
  GMO in the sense most people mean it (direct genetic modification) almost always also means pesticides. I think that
  • mensetmanusman 5y ago
    I have never heard of that connection. I was under the assumption anti gmo folk were against modified rice that is super drought resistant.
    • enchiridion 5y ago
      Sure there are some anti-science people out there, but most people I've talked to are worried about pesticides. GMO plants are designed to take much higher doses. That is a concern both environmentally and as a potential health issue.
    • lavela 5y ago
      One use if GMO is to engineer a plant, that is resistant to a specific herbicide, which is typically sold by the same company (see e.g. Monsanto and Glyphosate). Another use is to engineer plants that produce insecticides themselves, which raises the concern if those insecticides affect other organisms as well.
  • SigmundA 5y ago
    So is mutagenesis "direct genetic modification"? How does GMO mean pesticides? I thought that was more under "organic" which is again a very ambiguous and problematic label.
    • batch12 5y ago
      I think the poster may mean that some plants have been modified to resist pesticides sprayed on them and folks may not want to eat these plants.
  • asdff 5y ago
    Organic farming also means pesticides. All farming means pesticides.
• lucideer 5y ago
  >It always amuses me to find that people are against GMO foods yet almost everything we eat is GMO depending on how you define it. What I find problematic about many "anti-progress" stances is the (very false) mythos around a return to a purer past when we didn't do things in such supposedly "corrupt" ways. That stance is certainly prevalent in much of the anti-GMO following but I would hesitate to tar over it all with the same brush. The second falsity is that the primary concern with GMO is individual human health. Much of the more informed anti-GMO stances consist of the following two views: 1. The view that the past practices you mention in your comment were damaging to ecosystems and while the horse has bolted with many of the products of those packages (and reaping the fruits of those now is not too problematic) the negative impacts of those practices can be learned from to avoid future damage. 2. That it's a nuanced topic fundamentally about making informed decisions about the lifecycle impact of GMO based on current scientific knowledge rather than a blanket dogmatic opposition to the concept as a whole. The second point in particular is absolutely not taken into consideration in current GMO practices: widespread corruption and disregard for impact analyses is well documented.
• mahogany 5y ago
  > It always amuses me to find that people are against GMO foods yet almost everything we eat is GMO depending on how you define it. > Almost every crop and livestock has been genetically modified through selective breeding (domestication). I agree with your broader point that much of what we eat is GMO. But isn't selective breeding a categorically different process of modifying an organism? My understanding is that selective breeding starts with two things that we already are familiar with, and tries to maximize or minimize some characteristic in the next generation via traditional reproduction. On the other hand, a modern definition of GMO includes genetic engineering -- manipulating DNA directly using technology. Is it naive to worry that the latter process might introduce unexpected and potentially harmful characteristics, in ways that the former wouldn't? Additionally, if selective breeding happens slowly over generations, it seems to me that it would allow us to more carefully track how the modification of particular traits affects the surrounding ecology of the organism.
  • SigmundA 5y ago
    Again mutagenesis I would consider "manipulating DNA directly using technology" its just using a less targeted and more random approach. Every variation of life today including poisonous and deadly plants and animals came from random mutation over time. For example tomatoes and eggplants and peppers are closely related to tobacco and to deadly nightshade. How likely would a random mutation create a poisonous version, or one that is just poison to some people. Many people are allergic to them already. Artificial selection with artificial mutation speed that process up greatly, targeted gene editing even further but in a more controlled way. Which process is more likely to produce harmful side effects? Is there data to warrant engineered organisms are more likely or is it just unwarranted fear?
    • mahogany 5y ago
      > Again mutagenesis I would consider "manipulating DNA directly using technology" its just using a less targeted and more random approach. Right, I would put mutagenesis in my second category of "modern GMO". (Edit: I interpreted your use of mutagenesis as the controlled use, as in the original topic of this post. Maybe that's not what you meant?) > Which process is more likely to produce harmful side effects? Is there data to warrant engineered organisms are more likely or is it just unwarranted fear? That's essentially what my question was, for traditional artificial selection (selective breeding) versus genetic engineering. I wasn't making a point one way or another; it was a genuine question. The point about random mutations occurring naturally is fair. Perhaps part of what scares people is simply the speed of the process, combined with not really knowing or understanding what technology is being used in the labs.
• JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  I'm in your boat. Gene's are letters in a story. To say "That's a salmon gene! It doesn't belong in my tomato!" is puzzling, like "That letter belongs to another book! Keep it out of this book!" Anyway, good ol' paleo food was whatever nature provided, most of what was happy to kill you. Humans tamed 1000's of plants over 50,000 years changing them beyond recognition so they wouldn't hurt us with alkalis and poisons. And so the tasty bits were bigger and easier to get at. All by genetics. Sure we can do it faster now. But we're aware of what we're doing. Grandparents with crossbred tomato didn't have any idea if she was reintroducing a poison or raising the acidity to dangerous levels. They were blundering in the dark. I see no problem with turning on the light, and moving confidently.
  • SigmundA 5y ago
    Since I share at least 60% of the DNA with about anything I eat I don't worry too much about mixing one organism with another genetically bad things can happen mixing close relatives or distant ones and I am not sure one poses a higher risk than the other.
    • DominoTree 5y ago
      DNA is DNA, be it fragments or full genes, and regardless of the sequence, our bodies are pretty damn good at breaking down DNA we eat without directly incorporating it into our genomes. Would be pretty interesting if that weren't the case though; quite literally "you are what you eat."
  • b3morales 5y ago
    This is oversimplifying in the opposite direction in my opinion. The important thing is not the letters, it's how they manifest -- the way they're interpreted as instructions. So the objection is to taking a paragraph of Ulysses and putting it into The Grapes of Wrath. Or even better, selecting a step from the middle of How to Build a Birdhouse and inserting it into the directions for crocheting a tea cozy. If properly chosen, it could certainly have a beneficial effect. But DNA is also a much more complex system than a book.
  • pvaldes 5y ago
• tryonenow 5y ago
  Most people who oppose GMO don't really understand the scientific reasons to do so, and I don't think that all GMO are necessarily dangerous. However what I've come to realize over the years is that if mutations can induce positive traits in organisms, they can also induce negative attributes. With crude methods like atomic gardening, and to a lesser extent crispr, it's quite possible for example for a seemingly desirable plant, or even a desirable mutation, to inadvertently also introduce, say, the production of a carcinogenic or otherwise toxic compound. And the difficulty here is that such undesirable effects are only likely to be detected through correlational studies decades after the engineered genome is widespread and the damage is done, if at all. Sure, all of this is possible with conventional selective breeding, but orders of magnitude less likely given the quantity and randomness of artificially induced mutations. AFAIK gene splicing is still a rather messy, evolving practice. The progress of science is marred by unexpected dangers, for which we must be vigilant.
• LatteLazy 5y ago
  Techniques like CRISPR are at least 1000 times more powerful than selective breeding. That's why we use them. Given the food industry don't give a shit about nutrition and have spent decades pushing sugar and fat and 101 similar things, why would you trust them with tools 1000 times more powerful than they already have? I'm opposed to gmo not because I think it will magically make me grow another head or something. I'm opposed to it when it doesn't offer anything good for me as a consumer.
• asimpletune 5y ago
  Let me do my best to convey some potential concerns. To say that they’re all GMO so what’s the problem is sort of either an ignorant or disingenuous overloading of the term. Sexual reproduction in a way sort of fits with that category (I mean it’s just selective breeding crowdsourced). But if we restrict GMO to only mutations, yeah there are actually legitimate issues. Mutations occur naturally, and overtime nature has evolved methods to withstand this. Like the one thing that all organisms share, DNA-wise, is the code to faithfully copy DNA. You literally never see mutations in this code because nothing survives. Beyond that we do see random mutations all the times, but they’re usually harmful or at best don’t do much. Then occasionally there are beneficial mutations but they’re very rare and they happen over long periods of time. Atomic gardening is using this exact process albeit speeding it up bu increasing the speed that mutations occur. On the other hand, genetic engineering is selective in a way that there is no natural precedent for. We literally have no idea if it’s not harmful or not. I’m not trying to say this to sound alarmist I just mean philosophically speaking you can’t prove that. I’ll add as an aside that I don’t think the condescension that you see all the time regarding GMO is a food faith argument. There are plenty of scientific reasons to give pause to testing this stuff out in production. As to concrete, practical reasons why we should give pause before engineering life with such wild abandon, I’d say recombinant DNA is one, but also so is the danger of just good ok’ mono-crops. Now let me explain that I’m not personally and categorically anti-GMO. I think it’s wonderful technology that we can do so much with. I just think it’s dumb for people who don’t have degrees in genetics to go on the internet and say that people who have any concerns are “amusing” or stupid or whatever because science. The truth is it all depends abd there’s absolutely zero reason to think the GMO can’t go horribly wrong as some kind of rule. I’m on my phone so some of this may read weird but I hope my point comes across as I meant it. Basically science is a philosophical branch rooted in skepticism. One last thing I’ll say is there’s a bit of selection bias happening. You never hear from scientist who raise legitimate concerns because industry has a huge influence in people’s ability to do research and this their careers. So in summary, mutations happen all the time in nature. Some “good” some “bad”. There are dangers but there’s been billions or years of evolution to buffer against it. Targeted genetic engineering like CRISPR is only the same un that there’s mutations but that’s where the similarities end. Like natural mutations they can be good or bad. There’s nothing unscientific or amusing about giving a second thought if maybe there are additional differences yet to be seen downstream. To say otherwise is categorically unscientific. We should absolutely proceed with caution and there are absolutely problems like the ones I listed. I mean, many of the people here are programmers. How many of us trust any code? It’s a spirit of temperance and skepticism that im putting fourth, and I actually think the burden of proof should lie on a case by case basis. Does that make sense?
• throwawaysea 5y ago
  The problem with GMO is that you end up with varieties that don’t naturally come into balance with people and the environment, especially since the reality is that GMO implies large scale industrial farming with crop monocultures. People don’t want to experiment with their lives and discover decades later that some obscure ingredient in a pesticide has some long term effect. Nor do they want to have issues like water tables dropping and aquifers getting depleted because the high yield crops are not sustainable with a region’s water cycle. Cooks are worried about losing the diversity of crops that support their culinary diversity. Farmers are worried about getting bullied and economically enslaved by seed manufacturers. These are all risks - and your evaluation or perception or appetite for risks may be different - but I don’t think it’s illogical for people to be wary of GMO or want to take it slow, especially when operating in a world where humans regularly get things wrong and where human processes (like government approvals) can be corrupted.
  • pfdietz 5y ago
    We have large scale industrial farming and monocultures without GMOs. We could have GMOs without large scale industrial farming and monocultures. So what you are saying really doesn't make sense. These sorts of scattershot incoherent arguments are a red flag that the position being defended wasn't arrived at by honest reasoning.
• TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  There’s two types of people who are against GMOs. Those that are afraid of eating genetically modified organisms, and those who take issue with how GMOs are used in practice. In practice, the most common GMOs (I believe) are Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crops. The point of that crop is that farmers can spray huge quantities of the herbicide glyphosate in to the soil to kill all plants in the field without damaging the crop. Monsanto swears this is safe but there are many reasons why this practice puts workers and eaters at risk and seriously damages ecosystems. So I would love to know what plants are GMO and specifically what strain is used and why. This would help me avoid GMOs that are used to damage farm ecosystems. This is also why I look for certified regenerative organic products - I want the food I eat to regenerate the soil, not destroy it.
  • codingdave 5y ago
    > Monsanto swears this is safe... Not anymore. The lawsuits challenging its safety ended to the tune of a 10 Billion dollar loss.
• pvaldes 5y ago
  > Mutagenesis, has been around since the 1920's using x-rays and chemicals and currently doesn't normally fall under most GMO definitions because its "traditional". Not, is because is a different technique. Hybridizing two closely related species is a thing. Introducing the gen of a fish into a tomato is another totally different, and mutating the gen of one species (often with poor results) is a third thing. GMO mix the genetic code of species that can be even in different kingdoms. There is also an international consensus into not including selective breeding in the same category as genetically modified, for similar reasons. Would be confusing. The so called atomic gardening had produced several fancy and really ugly cacti, but not much more really. Plays in a much lower league than hybridization.
  • dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Mutating the gen of one species, often with poor results, is clearly different than introducing the gen of a different species into other that can be even classified in a different kingdom. Genes aren’t inherently kingdom specific, and mutagenesis can produce genes that don’t even exist in nature; moreover, it produces changes all over the genome; when you then select for a desired trait, you still have unrelated changes all over, whereas there is a whole lot more control and knowledge of what you have with transgenics. Yeah, they are different techniques, but it is insane that mutagenesis (especially in its modern forms) is not treated as even a moderate concern by the same people who hold up transgenics as an existential threat.
    • pvaldes 5y ago
      The statistical probability of a crop randomly mutating a gen that would express a new complex alkaloid from scratch is close to zero (We know it because hasn't happened often in the last 3000 years)... but can be easily done with GMO. To blend all those different techniques under the same term would be useless and confusing to both science and consumers.
      • dragonwriter 5y ago
        > The statistical probability of a crop randomly mutating a gen that would express a new complex alkaloid from scratch is close to zero That's true if most mutations produced through and then artificially selected for in modern mutagenesis based techniques, as well as most of the mutations irrelevant to the targeted trait that come along for the ride. > We know it because hasn't happened often in the last 3000 years 3,000 years isn’t all that long and we don’t know that, what we do know is that no mutation that does that has occurred where it has been in net of cost to the organism useful enough to be selected for an retained, which is a very different thing. > To blend all those different techniques under the same term would be useless and confusing to both science and consumers So? The post you respond to acknowledges that they are different but notes “it is insane that mutagenesis (especially in its modern forms) is not treated as even a moderate concern by the same people who hold up transgenics as an existential threat.” That it is comparatively easy to do a precise, targeted change where you know exactly what new thing will be expressed and change little else through transgenics isn’t in dispute, its the whole reason for that statement.
• bosswipe 5y ago
  I'm against GMO because 99% of the time it means I'm eating the pesticides that the plant was engineered to resist.
• speed_spread 5y ago
  The real problem with GMO is entirely political. Plants with proprietary DNA engineered to ignore a soil-persistent wide-band herbicide. Short term crop productivity rises, forcing farmers to follow suit. Next, prices drop, costs rises, but you can't go back because fields now can't grow anything else for years. It's agricultural lock-in. Add insecticides that destroys pollinating insects for maximum effectiveness...