4 ms·

That's not a good argument at all. What 'modification' do you think is a risk and how would it cause the concerns your worried about?

rjsw 5y ago
I must have missed the announcement that we had worked out exactly what causes food allergies and intolerance and have promised not to do anything that could trigger them when doing GM.
- freshpots 5y ago
  You miss a lot with a thought process like that.
  - rjsw 5y ago
    Please post a URL to the announcement that I missed.
wtetzner 5y ago
One of the modifications some GMO plants have is to produce more/more effective lectins to make them more resilient against insects. Given research on lectins shows many of them are harmful to human health, it seems like a valid concern.
ipaddr 5y ago
To put the question back what benefit does it provide aside from cost?
- mek6800d2 5y ago
  A liveable Earth? Look up "nine planetary boundaries". The "biogeochemical boundary" especially pertains to the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, both necessary to plants. Nitrogen- and phosphorus-supplying fertilizer is energy intensive to produce and toxic in wide-area run-off. Some crops live in a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, so scientists are actively researching ways of engineering that abiility into other crops -- which would greatly reduce the need for producing fixed nitrogen for fertilizer, which, in turn, would greatly reduce the need for the high fossil-fuel-consuming method of generating fixed nitrogen for fertilizer, thus helping out on the global warming front. It's not all about cost.
- csnover 5y ago
  As just one example, if you live in an area where it is difficult to get dietary Vitamin A, you might enjoy the benefits of not going blind due to Vitamin A deficiency by eating Golden Rice[0]. Have you ever eaten a SweeTango apple? It is one of dozens of varieties that have been created in the last hundred years using genetic engineering via cross breeding[1]. Do you know why commercial tomatoes are so bland? Genetic engineering via selective breeding[2]. The fact of the matter is that all of the crops and livestock that we cultivate today are genetically engineered. The main distinction now is that we are technologically advanced enough to introduce beneficial modifications deliberately, rather than relying on random mutations and gene recombinations that occur in nature at random over hundreds or thousands of generations. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice [1] https://mnhardy.umn.edu/varieties/fruit/apples/all-apple-varieties https://mnhardy.umn.edu/varieties/fruit/apples/all-apple-var... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Modern_commercial_varieties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Modern_commercial_varie...
  - incrudible 5y ago
    The vitamin A argument boils down to cost. Genetic engineering goes way beyond the possibility space of selective breeding, which we have thousands of years of experience with. When it comes to diet, science is difficult enough as it is. Introducing such novelties only makes it harder.
    - csnover 5y ago
      > The vitamin A argument boils down to cost. It boils down to cost in the same way that you and I not owning a private jet boils down to cost—which is to say, as nice as it would be, there are probably not enough resources on the planet to feed everyone a balanced diet without these continued advances in food production, as the current conventional farming practices are not long-term sustainable, and they are already required to actually feed everybody on the planet today. > Genetic engineering goes way beyond the possibility space of selective breeding, which we have thousands of years of experience with. And inside that possibility space are things like extremely high-yield crops that end hunger forever. Grains like Golden Rice that solve nutritional deficiencies caused by incomplete diets. Nuts that are modified so they don’t trigger life-threatening anaphylaxis. Crops that absorb and sequester CO2 more efficiently. Delicious new hybrids that don’t even exist right now. Foods genetically modified to be low in FODMAPs so people who have gut problems aren’t so restricted in what they can eat. All the problems that exist now with diets have hypothetical solutions in genetically engineering crops to create more of the nutrients that we need to be healthy, and to eliminate the bad stuff that makes us sick, down to the point of being able to provide ideal nutrition for a specific person’s body. However, we’re unlikely to get there if people’s imaginations are always focused on the potential negatives instead of balancing those risks with the obvious potential and need for this sort of technology to be developed.

rjsw 5y ago

I must have missed the announcement that we had worked out exactly what causes food allergies and intolerance and have promised not to do anything that could trigger them when doing GM.

freshpots 5y ago
You miss a lot with a thought process like that.
- rjsw 5y ago
  Please post a URL to the announcement that I missed.

wtetzner 5y ago

One of the modifications some GMO plants have is to produce more/more effective lectins to make them more resilient against insects. Given research on lectins shows many of them are harmful to human health, it seems like a valid concern.

ipaddr 5y ago

To put the question back what benefit does it provide aside from cost?

mek6800d2 5y ago
A liveable Earth? Look up "nine planetary boundaries". The "biogeochemical boundary" especially pertains to the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, both necessary to plants. Nitrogen- and phosphorus-supplying fertilizer is energy intensive to produce and toxic in wide-area run-off. Some crops live in a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, so scientists are actively researching ways of engineering that abiility into other crops -- which would greatly reduce the need for producing fixed nitrogen for fertilizer, which, in turn, would greatly reduce the need for the high fossil-fuel-consuming method of generating fixed nitrogen for fertilizer, thus helping out on the global warming front. It's not all about cost.
csnover 5y ago
As just one example, if you live in an area where it is difficult to get dietary Vitamin A, you might enjoy the benefits of not going blind due to Vitamin A deficiency by eating Golden Rice[0]. Have you ever eaten a SweeTango apple? It is one of dozens of varieties that have been created in the last hundred years using genetic engineering via cross breeding[1]. Do you know why commercial tomatoes are so bland? Genetic engineering via selective breeding[2]. The fact of the matter is that all of the crops and livestock that we cultivate today are genetically engineered. The main distinction now is that we are technologically advanced enough to introduce beneficial modifications deliberately, rather than relying on random mutations and gene recombinations that occur in nature at random over hundreds or thousands of generations. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice [1] https://mnhardy.umn.edu/varieties/fruit/apples/all-apple-varieties https://mnhardy.umn.edu/varieties/fruit/apples/all-apple-var... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Modern_commercial_varieties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Modern_commercial_varie...
- incrudible 5y ago
  The vitamin A argument boils down to cost. Genetic engineering goes way beyond the possibility space of selective breeding, which we have thousands of years of experience with. When it comes to diet, science is difficult enough as it is. Introducing such novelties only makes it harder.
  - csnover 5y ago
    > The vitamin A argument boils down to cost. It boils down to cost in the same way that you and I not owning a private jet boils down to cost—which is to say, as nice as it would be, there are probably not enough resources on the planet to feed everyone a balanced diet without these continued advances in food production, as the current conventional farming practices are not long-term sustainable, and they are already required to actually feed everybody on the planet today. > Genetic engineering goes way beyond the possibility space of selective breeding, which we have thousands of years of experience with. And inside that possibility space are things like extremely high-yield crops that end hunger forever. Grains like Golden Rice that solve nutritional deficiencies caused by incomplete diets. Nuts that are modified so they don’t trigger life-threatening anaphylaxis. Crops that absorb and sequester CO2 more efficiently. Delicious new hybrids that don’t even exist right now. Foods genetically modified to be low in FODMAPs so people who have gut problems aren’t so restricted in what they can eat. All the problems that exist now with diets have hypothetical solutions in genetically engineering crops to create more of the nutrients that we need to be healthy, and to eliminate the bad stuff that makes us sick, down to the point of being able to provide ideal nutrition for a specific person’s body. However, we’re unlikely to get there if people’s imaginations are always focused on the potential negatives instead of balancing those risks with the obvious potential and need for this sort of technology to be developed.