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As a biologist, the furor over GM plants drives me crazy. Crazy! Why? We've been genetically modifying plants for hundreds of years. Mendel himself fucked a

As a biologist, the furor over GM plants drives me crazy. Crazy! Why? We've been genetically modifying plants for hundreds of years. Mendel himself fucked around with plant genetics - crossing plants is nothing more than fiddling with genetics. People were messing with genetics hundreds - thousands - of years before Mendel and they just didn't realize it. Hell, people have been messing with the genetics of animals for thousands of years, selectively breeding dogs, horses, goats, cows. Just because we are able to modify genetics precisely doesn't mean it is any different. If anything, we should have fewer problems (e.g. how many german shepherds have hip dysplasia because of inbreeding?) Edit: Don't have time to respond to all the replies, but there are some good arguments there. I acknowledge that this post was over the top - but simply because all the press one sees about GM = evil. Things are never black and white.

arbuge 13y ago
Quite so. I highly doubt the people of Japan are better off thanks to their country suspending wheat shipments from Oregon...
- VLM 13y ago
  If you assume that the whole world benefits if no one uses GM plants, which is almost universally true except for a handful of crooks who would gain, then if Japan is part of the world, they directly benefit from participating in a boycott. This is an example of the classic freeloader problem where people too lazy to participate in the boycott will be rewarded just as much as the more ethical people who do participate. More people would understand why GM plants are evil if they were more properly called patented copyrighted licensed intellectual property, which happens to be in the form of living plants. Kind of like the renaming games played around certain ethnic groups. Another classic example of using name games to influence opinion is "He's not anti-abortion, he's pro-life", that kind of garbage. You can also get a slavery vibe going. If you modify 0.001% of the wheat genome, the multinational mega corp literally owns that living thing. So if you genetically modified my grandma to cure her glaucoma using corporate intellectual property, then they'd own a human being, right? Maybe a more direct example would be a genetically engineered fertility treatment would clearly mean the baby would be the owned property slave of the corporation who invented the treatment, right? After all, thats the decision we've made with wheat...
  - projct 13y ago
    These are arguments for fixing problems with the IP system, not against GM food.
CJefferson 13y ago
As a non-biologist, the comparison with cross-breeding does not seem reasonable to me. With cross-breeding, I can get characteristic A from some corn, characteristic B from some other corn, and end up with corn with A+B. And also maybe over time taller, or larger. With GM, I can do a much larger range of things taking genes from fish and putting them in corn (for example), which we currently poorly understand. The kinds of things we would like to do (make plants which grow fast and are hard to kill) seem like exactly the kinds of things that might lead to serious issues (we make a plant which we lose control of, grows fast, and is hard to kill).
- polyfractal 13y ago
  Cross-breeding is fine, inbreeding is not. When you identify A+B makes a taller plant, you start breeding the children C with each other to isolate the "tall" gene. Soon you are inbreeding the descendent's of A+B. Most "breeds" of dogs are horribly inbred so that they maintain their traits. Same goes for "heritage" vegetables, "fancy" rats, or any other organism that humans have selectively cultivated.
eksith 13y ago
The problem with GM isn't that we've been "modifying" them. As you say, we've been doing that since the dawn of civilization (probably earlier). The problem with GM is speed. Those thousands of years acted as a wonderful buffer to see what works, what doesn't. What creates healthier humans and what has the potential to wipe out whole villages with a single mutation. It also provided us with ample time to adjust our digestive tracks to the new types of food we were ingesting. Dogs didn't become poodles in a thousand years. They became work dogs and watch dogs first and many hundreds of such generations of selection of traits. And we've seen the detriments of speedy breeding already. Dogs with breathing problems, hip and other bone problems. Dogs that can barely lift their own heads, have glaucoma, diabetes and other preventable misery. The difference between those thousands of years of breeding dogs and today? A few decades of speed.
contingencies 13y ago
You sound well meaning and I believe it to be the case. However, I also believe you probably have a subconscious bias resulting from over exposure to one side of this question. The difference between GM and natural modification of genetics subsequent to the (however you measure it, extremely recent) advent of agriculture can be summarized as one of scale (individual sites are far larger), totality (homogeneity of genes, frequently near-absolute destruction of other plants within the zone of growth), and mindset (commerciality: view toward maximum and permanent human-centric functional yields, with all of the technology and complexity that brings to being - machinery, energy consumption, chemical fertilization, potentially pesticides though these are often claimed to be used less with GM, and a clear and solely profit-taking motive for the GM supplier). Many people who maintain a conservative view towards GM (many don't "actively oppose" it, they simply don't buy it or support it where possible) do so recognizing that homogeneity is unnatural, dependence upon an external source for seeds eviscerates the fundamental security of farming, the integrity of the farmers relationships to their land, and large multinational companies are generally profit taking soulless beasts with a history of shafting anyone and everyone possible. I would invite people who are still on the fence on this issue to consider this single document which shocked me of late - it is a collection of 'heritage' potatoes from New Zealand, ie. those brought with European settlers only 200 years ago. Try reading this document, then try to find even four different potatoes available in your area via modern industrial agriculture! http://www.koanga.org.nz/media/wysiwyg/Potato-Trial-2013-sml.pdf http://www.koanga.org.nz/media/wysiwyg/Potato-Trial-2013-sml...
oneandoneis2 13y ago
As a biologist, the "All GM is bad!" stuff drives me crazy. But you do yourself no favours by ignoring legitimate concerns. Case in point: Monsanto. Their notorious Roundup-ready plants have been GM'd to be resistant to herbicides that will kill off all other plants. I would cheerfully eat a plant that had just been GM'd to have such resistance. But I would be rather more concerned about it after it was used as designed: repeatedly sprayed with massive doses of toxic substances. Even if they're completely correct about all traces of that gunk being gone by the time their plant winds up on my plate, you still get the herbicides and/or the breakdown products washed into the water table; you still get farmers skipping crop rotation and fallow seasons in favour of just growing the same crop over and over and fixing the perceived problems by dumping yet more fertiliser and yet more herbicides onto them. And you still wind up encouraging the evolution of herbicide-resistant weeds requiring yet-more GM and yet-more poisons. You still get yet-more need for yet-more poisons of questionable safety being dumped into the food chain. I've no problem with eating a plant that's had its genes tinkered with. But I'm totally against Roundup-ready crops and the like. And that's a perfectly rational, informed position to hold.
- polyfractal 13y ago
  These are reasonable arguments. My biggest problem is that all GMO gets lumped together. Legit GM that helps increase drought-hardiness in water-starved Africa gets lumped with Roundup-GMO. I agree my post was way over the top, but damn, you never hear anyone advocating for GM. It is all going to kill you, spread to every other plant and sterilize the whole world. As with most things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. :)
  - ambler0 13y ago
    "you never hear anyone advocating for GM." My perception is just the opposite: it seems like the advocacy is overwhelmingly in favor of GM. EDIT: For example, here in America, we can't even get laws passed requiring the labelling of GMOs. I'm not talking about a ban; just a law that would allow people to know whether or not they are purchasing a "Roundup Ready" crop.
  - 13y ago
Xylakant 13y ago
The problem is one of scope. With GM, traits are introduced in plants that stem from different kind if life, often bacteria that would never naturally be accessible using selective breeding. Plants that are resistant to herbicides for example. This is on one side a blessing - you can just spray roundup on your fields and the crop lives while the rest dies. On the other side, no one can predict the effect these changes will have on the ecosystem. I'm not very much concerned that GM food in itself is dangerous to consume. I'm far less certain that growing gene manipulated crops is as safe as it's made to be. What happens if two gene modified plants inter-breed? We've had enough accidents with "naturally" [1] selected plants and ruined a couple of ecosystems. We don't have that many ecosystems left. Add to that the whole economical dimension: Gene modified plants prevent farmers from creating their own seeds for limited gain. The ones profiting big time are monsanto and friends. [1] as in "not gene modified"
rlpb 13y ago
Some countries carefully restrict imports of certain plants, animals and foodstuffs to avoid upsetting their ecosystem. This essentially boils down to the restriction of import of genes. Are you opposed to this? Can't genetic modification essentially amount to the same thing? (I'm happy with genetic modifications in general, but I think that it's prudent to be cautious because of potential upsets to the ecosystem.)
VLM 13y ago
I used to be terrified by GM foods because the big companies that make them intentionally contaminate farmers fields, then sue them, and the farmers lose everything. The only reason I'm not terrified anymore is my "gentleman farmer" great uncle died, so I have no direct family in the line of fire. Imagine growing what amounts to an overgrown garden, some dude takes a sample, detects "contamination" containing their "intellectual property" and next thing you know, you're bankrupt and homeless. I could probably survive that, but for my elderly uncle that would have been a death sentence. Killing someone to make a relatively small amount of money seems inhumane, but its the American way. GM = horrifically evil in practice. In theory I agree 100% there is nothing wrong with it as a technology. However as a business its a disaster. I'm not willing to kill my uncle so some monsanto exec can get 61 Ferraris with his bonus instead of 60 this year. I feel terrible for the poor farmer who owns the field the contamination was detected on. Its like, euthanasia time for legal reasons for that poor guy, his life is basically over now.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Ygg2 13y ago
GM isn't bad per se. However Monsanto's business practice + GM is evil. Pure evil (much in a way software is ok, but Microsoft brand of lock software is absolutely evil). If there was an OSS licence on all GM food I might consider it, non-horrible.
pasbesoin 13y ago
You don't have to look as far as the genetic modifications themselves. 1) Monsanto ran test plots. The presumed protocol was for them to remain isolated and to be destroyed upon completion of the testing, so that the test lines did not enter the ecosystem. This has not occurred. Either they lied, or they were negligent. 2) Monsanto scientists trotted out estimates of the usable lifespan of Roundup. Many years prior to this, we have pervasive problems of Roundup resistant "superweeds" that can be worse than the original weed problems Roundup was supposed to solve. The scientists lied, or were incompetent. (I'm sorry, but when you use your scientific... predictions to justify widespread ecological modification, mistakes immediately rise to the level of incompetence. Also, there have been reports that, internally, Monsanto scientists were worried about and predicting these results. However -- contrary to the spirit of science -- this information was not shared publicly. Granted, it may not have consisted entirely of measured results. But it consisted of deep concerns for the impact and repercussions of the "experiment" -- the unfettered application of previous work and results -- being conducted in the public sphere.) 3) Monsanto seems intent upon cornering the marketplaces of seedstock for ever more species of crop plant. Such activity has the distinct air, in my opinion at least, of monopolization. 4) Monsanto has U.S. Federal legislation passed that exempts it from liability and from State law. I don't need to get at far as looking at the direct fallout of the genetic modifications upon downstream consumption, before I start to become quite opposed to Monsanto. Now, as for the modifications themselves. I'm still uncertain about the consumption of the modified genes, themselves. But there has been increasing evidence that the Roundup herbicide -- the other half of this commercial cocktail -- is not as benign to human health as originally argued. For some years, I've been reading that components of Roundup are more active with respect to human health and more enduring in the environment than originally expected. And most recently, interesting discussion has evolved about the effect of Roundup upon microflora in the human gut. Of course, one might easily imagine or expect corresponding effects upon other animal species. Monsanto, unlike open science, seems to be acting to keep all this quiet, to the extent they can. What we have, in significant part, as the resulting action of this company, is not scientific exploration but rather commercial exploitation that appears to stand significantly in the way of the former.

arbuge 13y ago

Quite so. I highly doubt the people of Japan are better off thanks to their country suspending wheat shipments from Oregon...

VLM 13y ago
If you assume that the whole world benefits if no one uses GM plants, which is almost universally true except for a handful of crooks who would gain, then if Japan is part of the world, they directly benefit from participating in a boycott. This is an example of the classic freeloader problem where people too lazy to participate in the boycott will be rewarded just as much as the more ethical people who do participate. More people would understand why GM plants are evil if they were more properly called patented copyrighted licensed intellectual property, which happens to be in the form of living plants. Kind of like the renaming games played around certain ethnic groups. Another classic example of using name games to influence opinion is "He's not anti-abortion, he's pro-life", that kind of garbage. You can also get a slavery vibe going. If you modify 0.001% of the wheat genome, the multinational mega corp literally owns that living thing. So if you genetically modified my grandma to cure her glaucoma using corporate intellectual property, then they'd own a human being, right? Maybe a more direct example would be a genetically engineered fertility treatment would clearly mean the baby would be the owned property slave of the corporation who invented the treatment, right? After all, thats the decision we've made with wheat...
- projct 13y ago
  These are arguments for fixing problems with the IP system, not against GM food.

CJefferson 13y ago

As a non-biologist, the comparison with cross-breeding does not seem reasonable to me. With cross-breeding, I can get characteristic A from some corn, characteristic B from some other corn, and end up with corn with A+B. And also maybe over time taller, or larger. With GM, I can do a much larger range of things taking genes from fish and putting them in corn (for example), which we currently poorly understand. The kinds of things we would like to do (make plants which grow fast and are hard to kill) seem like exactly the kinds of things that might lead to serious issues (we make a plant which we lose control of, grows fast, and is hard to kill).

polyfractal 13y ago
Cross-breeding is fine, inbreeding is not. When you identify A+B makes a taller plant, you start breeding the children C with each other to isolate the "tall" gene. Soon you are inbreeding the descendent's of A+B. Most "breeds" of dogs are horribly inbred so that they maintain their traits. Same goes for "heritage" vegetables, "fancy" rats, or any other organism that humans have selectively cultivated.

eksith 13y ago

The problem with GM isn't that we've been "modifying" them. As you say, we've been doing that since the dawn of civilization (probably earlier). The problem with GM is speed. Those thousands of years acted as a wonderful buffer to see what works, what doesn't. What creates healthier humans and what has the potential to wipe out whole villages with a single mutation. It also provided us with ample time to adjust our digestive tracks to the new types of food we were ingesting. Dogs didn't become poodles in a thousand years. They became work dogs and watch dogs first and many hundreds of such generations of selection of traits. And we've seen the detriments of speedy breeding already. Dogs with breathing problems, hip and other bone problems. Dogs that can barely lift their own heads, have glaucoma, diabetes and other preventable misery. The difference between those thousands of years of breeding dogs and today? A few decades of speed.

contingencies 13y ago

You sound well meaning and I believe it to be the case. However, I also believe you probably have a subconscious bias resulting from over exposure to one side of this question. The difference between GM and natural modification of genetics subsequent to the (however you measure it, extremely recent) advent of agriculture can be summarized as one of scale (individual sites are far larger), totality (homogeneity of genes, frequently near-absolute destruction of other plants within the zone of growth), and mindset (commerciality: view toward maximum and permanent human-centric functional yields, with all of the technology and complexity that brings to being - machinery, energy consumption, chemical fertilization, potentially pesticides though these are often claimed to be used less with GM, and a clear and solely profit-taking motive for the GM supplier). Many people who maintain a conservative view towards GM (many don't "actively oppose" it, they simply don't buy it or support it where possible) do so recognizing that homogeneity is unnatural, dependence upon an external source for seeds eviscerates the fundamental security of farming, the integrity of the farmers relationships to their land, and large multinational companies are generally profit taking soulless beasts with a history of shafting anyone and everyone possible. I would invite people who are still on the fence on this issue to consider this single document which shocked me of late - it is a collection of 'heritage' potatoes from New Zealand, ie. those brought with European settlers only 200 years ago. Try reading this document, then try to find even four different potatoes available in your area via modern industrial agriculture! http://www.koanga.org.nz/media/wysiwyg/Potato-Trial-2013-sml.pdf http://www.koanga.org.nz/media/wysiwyg/Potato-Trial-2013-sml...

oneandoneis2 13y ago

As a biologist, the "All GM is bad!" stuff drives me crazy. But you do yourself no favours by ignoring legitimate concerns. Case in point: Monsanto. Their notorious Roundup-ready plants have been GM'd to be resistant to herbicides that will kill off all other plants. I would cheerfully eat a plant that had just been GM'd to have such resistance. But I would be rather more concerned about it after it was used as designed: repeatedly sprayed with massive doses of toxic substances. Even if they're completely correct about all traces of that gunk being gone by the time their plant winds up on my plate, you still get the herbicides and/or the breakdown products washed into the water table; you still get farmers skipping crop rotation and fallow seasons in favour of just growing the same crop over and over and fixing the perceived problems by dumping yet more fertiliser and yet more herbicides onto them. And you still wind up encouraging the evolution of herbicide-resistant weeds requiring yet-more GM and yet-more poisons. You still get yet-more need for yet-more poisons of questionable safety being dumped into the food chain. I've no problem with eating a plant that's had its genes tinkered with. But I'm totally against Roundup-ready crops and the like. And that's a perfectly rational, informed position to hold.

polyfractal 13y ago
These are reasonable arguments. My biggest problem is that all GMO gets lumped together. Legit GM that helps increase drought-hardiness in water-starved Africa gets lumped with Roundup-GMO. I agree my post was way over the top, but damn, you never hear anyone advocating for GM. It is all going to kill you, spread to every other plant and sterilize the whole world. As with most things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. :)
- ambler0 13y ago
  "you never hear anyone advocating for GM." My perception is just the opposite: it seems like the advocacy is overwhelmingly in favor of GM. EDIT: For example, here in America, we can't even get laws passed requiring the labelling of GMOs. I'm not talking about a ban; just a law that would allow people to know whether or not they are purchasing a "Roundup Ready" crop.
- 13y ago

Xylakant 13y ago

The problem is one of scope. With GM, traits are introduced in plants that stem from different kind if life, often bacteria that would never naturally be accessible using selective breeding. Plants that are resistant to herbicides for example. This is on one side a blessing - you can just spray roundup on your fields and the crop lives while the rest dies. On the other side, no one can predict the effect these changes will have on the ecosystem. I'm not very much concerned that GM food in itself is dangerous to consume. I'm far less certain that growing gene manipulated crops is as safe as it's made to be. What happens if two gene modified plants inter-breed? We've had enough accidents with "naturally" [1] selected plants and ruined a couple of ecosystems. We don't have that many ecosystems left. Add to that the whole economical dimension: Gene modified plants prevent farmers from creating their own seeds for limited gain. The ones profiting big time are monsanto and friends. [1] as in "not gene modified"

rlpb 13y ago

Some countries carefully restrict imports of certain plants, animals and foodstuffs to avoid upsetting their ecosystem. This essentially boils down to the restriction of import of genes. Are you opposed to this? Can't genetic modification essentially amount to the same thing? (I'm happy with genetic modifications in general, but I think that it's prudent to be cautious because of potential upsets to the ecosystem.)

VLM 13y ago

I used to be terrified by GM foods because the big companies that make them intentionally contaminate farmers fields, then sue them, and the farmers lose everything. The only reason I'm not terrified anymore is my "gentleman farmer" great uncle died, so I have no direct family in the line of fire. Imagine growing what amounts to an overgrown garden, some dude takes a sample, detects "contamination" containing their "intellectual property" and next thing you know, you're bankrupt and homeless. I could probably survive that, but for my elderly uncle that would have been a death sentence. Killing someone to make a relatively small amount of money seems inhumane, but its the American way. GM = horrifically evil in practice. In theory I agree 100% there is nothing wrong with it as a technology. However as a business its a disaster. I'm not willing to kill my uncle so some monsanto exec can get 61 Ferraris with his bonus instead of 60 this year. I feel terrible for the poor farmer who owns the field the contamination was detected on. Its like, euthanasia time for legal reasons for that poor guy, his life is basically over now.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Ygg2 13y ago

GM isn't bad per se. However Monsanto's business practice + GM is evil. Pure evil (much in a way software is ok, but Microsoft brand of lock software is absolutely evil). If there was an OSS licence on all GM food I might consider it, non-horrible.

pasbesoin 13y ago

You don't have to look as far as the genetic modifications themselves. 1) Monsanto ran test plots. The presumed protocol was for them to remain isolated and to be destroyed upon completion of the testing, so that the test lines did not enter the ecosystem. This has not occurred. Either they lied, or they were negligent. 2) Monsanto scientists trotted out estimates of the usable lifespan of Roundup. Many years prior to this, we have pervasive problems of Roundup resistant "superweeds" that can be worse than the original weed problems Roundup was supposed to solve. The scientists lied, or were incompetent. (I'm sorry, but when you use your scientific... predictions to justify widespread ecological modification, mistakes immediately rise to the level of incompetence. Also, there have been reports that, internally, Monsanto scientists were worried about and predicting these results. However -- contrary to the spirit of science -- this information was not shared publicly. Granted, it may not have consisted entirely of measured results. But it consisted of deep concerns for the impact and repercussions of the "experiment" -- the unfettered application of previous work and results -- being conducted in the public sphere.) 3) Monsanto seems intent upon cornering the marketplaces of seedstock for ever more species of crop plant. Such activity has the distinct air, in my opinion at least, of monopolization. 4) Monsanto has U.S. Federal legislation passed that exempts it from liability and from State law. I don't need to get at far as looking at the direct fallout of the genetic modifications upon downstream consumption, before I start to become quite opposed to Monsanto. Now, as for the modifications themselves. I'm still uncertain about the consumption of the modified genes, themselves. But there has been increasing evidence that the Roundup herbicide -- the other half of this commercial cocktail -- is not as benign to human health as originally argued. For some years, I've been reading that components of Roundup are more active with respect to human health and more enduring in the environment than originally expected. And most recently, interesting discussion has evolved about the effect of Roundup upon microflora in the human gut. Of course, one might easily imagine or expect corresponding effects upon other animal species. Monsanto, unlike open science, seems to be acting to keep all this quiet, to the extent they can. What we have, in significant part, as the resulting action of this company, is not scientific exploration but rather commercial exploitation that appears to stand significantly in the way of the former.