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You could say that about any new product. Here! Use this cellphone! What? The battery can explode when it overheats? Don't worry about it! Almost never happens!

by maratd 14y ago

You could say that about any new product. Here! Use this cellphone! What? The battery can explode when it overheats? Don't worry about it! Almost never happens! And with cellphones ... that's already happened. Yet you still have one in your pocket. > Does it cause problems when you eat these types of bananas for 20 or 30 years? Bananas didn't evolve with "being good for you 20 or 30 years from now" ethos. That doesn't help the spread of their seeds. They just needed to taste sweet, so you would eat them now and spit out their seed somewhere else. Is there even a plant out there that has harmful side-effects two decades after you eat it? If we make one, that would be one hell of an achievement.

celiac 14y ago
>You could say that about any new product. Here! Use this cellphone! What? The battery can explode when it overheats? Don't worry about it! Almost never happens! If the battery explodes you will know about it. Each explosion will be an independent, isolated event. They will not all blow up at once. A better analogy would appeal to concerns over EM radiation from cell phones. In that case, it turned out to be harmless - at least in terms of cancer risk. And that single, highly-controllable factor took years to validate for safety. >Is there even a plant out there that has harmful side-effects two decades after you eat it? Gluten sensitivity can take years to show up, and months to get better after you've cut it out of your diet. For years doctors dismissed patients who claimed to be suffering from wheat allergies. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
DanBC 14y ago
> Is there even a plant out there that has harmful side-effects two decades after you eat it? If we make one, that would be one hell of an achievement. I understood the post to mean the cumulative effects of eating that plant. One cigarette is not going to do much, but smoking 40 a day for 30 years is probably going to cause a few problems.
pyre 14y ago
The food you eat has a lot more intimate interaction with your body than the cellphone that you are using. While we know a great deal about human physiology, it's still an equation that we have yet to solve. The systems of a cellphone (and the battery) are probably better understood, with less variables to account for. Also, when the food at your local grocery store is completely replaced with GMO foods, you don't really end up with a choice in the matter. On the other hand, you still have a choice to get a cellphone or not (even in today's world). | Bananas didn't evolve with "being good for you 20 or | 30 years from now" ethos. That doesn't help the spread | of their seeds. They just needed to taste sweet, so you | would eat them now and spit out their seed somewhere else. Yes, but people have been eating them for a long time, and thus far we haven't found any correlations between them and negative outcomes. | Is there even a plant out there that has harmful side-effects | two decades after you eat it? If we make one, that would be one | hell of an achievement. Are you saying that it's impossible for plants to end up having a cumulative effect on your body? For example, checkout this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4494083 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4494083. Summary: Broccoli has mutagenic and anti-mutagenic properties, and in one study of fruit flies the mutagenic properties won out. What happens when GMO broccoli ends up further tipping this balance towards mutagenic? What happens when another food is engineered and tips the balance from the anti-mutagenic side (to the mutagenic side)?

by maratd 14y ago

celiac 14y ago

>You could say that about any new product. Here! Use this cellphone! What? The battery can explode when it overheats? Don't worry about it! Almost never happens! If the battery explodes you will know about it. Each explosion will be an independent, isolated event. They will not all blow up at once. A better analogy would appeal to concerns over EM radiation from cell phones. In that case, it turned out to be harmless - at least in terms of cancer risk. And that single, highly-controllable factor took years to validate for safety. >Is there even a plant out there that has harmful side-effects two decades after you eat it? Gluten sensitivity can take years to show up, and months to get better after you've cut it out of your diet. For years doctors dismissed patients who claimed to be suffering from wheat allergies. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

DanBC 14y ago

> Is there even a plant out there that has harmful side-effects two decades after you eat it? If we make one, that would be one hell of an achievement. I understood the post to mean the cumulative effects of eating that plant. One cigarette is not going to do much, but smoking 40 a day for 30 years is probably going to cause a few problems.

pyre 14y ago

The food you eat has a lot more intimate interaction with your body than the cellphone that you are using. While we know a great deal about human physiology, it's still an equation that we have yet to solve. The systems of a cellphone (and the battery) are probably better understood, with less variables to account for. Also, when the food at your local grocery store is completely replaced with GMO foods, you don't really end up with a choice in the matter. On the other hand, you still have a choice to get a cellphone or not (even in today's world). | Bananas didn't evolve with "being good for you 20 or | 30 years from now" ethos. That doesn't help the spread | of their seeds. They just needed to taste sweet, so you | would eat them now and spit out their seed somewhere else. Yes, but people have been eating them for a long time, and thus far we haven't found any correlations between them and negative outcomes. | Is there even a plant out there that has harmful side-effects | two decades after you eat it? If we make one, that would be one | hell of an achievement. Are you saying that it's impossible for plants to end up having a cumulative effect on your body? For example, checkout this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4494083 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4494083. Summary: Broccoli has mutagenic and anti-mutagenic properties, and in one study of fruit flies the mutagenic properties won out. What happens when GMO broccoli ends up further tipping this balance towards mutagenic? What happens when another food is engineered and tips the balance from the anti-mutagenic side (to the mutagenic side)?