4 ms·

It would be great if you or someone on your team did a blog post addressing this issue. I'm generally in favor of GMOs in all their forms, but there aren't many

It would be great if you or someone on your team did a blog post addressing this issue. I'm generally in favor of GMOs in all their forms, but there aren't many good, non-Monsanto, voices that get heard over the screedy shouters and milquetoast "better safe than sorry" types. For instance, what is the real worst case scenario? Would it be Kudzu meets glow sticks? Man eating plants? Or just a bunch of $50 sprouts that only glow in the most technical sense of the word?

mvdileo 13y ago
If you want to hear scientists un-affiliated with industry talk about genetic engineering in a thoughtful way, it's happening over at http://www.biofortified.org/ http://www.biofortified.org/
lukifer 13y ago
GMO opponents often react reflixively without looking at specifics, but I think their fears are rooted in something real. Setting aside bad behavior from Monsanto specifically (suing farmers, patents, sterile seeds), there is both promise and peril to GMOs, even in the simple act of selective breeding that comprises most of the activity in that space. My primary concern is the lack of long-term thinking in the drive for high production yield, and accompanying side effects to health and ecosystems. For instance, some claim that the high-yield "dwarf wheat" pioneered in the 60s is responsible for exacerbating gluten sensitivity: http://marksdailyapple.com/the-problems-with-modern-wheat/ http://marksdailyapple.com/the-problems-with-modern-wheat/ There is also an overlapping concern with the broken patent system, and whether it is acceptable to "own" the genetic results of evolution, whether human-guided or otherwise. It's not hard to conceive of some scary slippery slopes there. Each individual advancement is probably, on average, not a big deal, and probably a win for both providers and consumers. But if you aggregrate the accelerating advances over decades and centuries, I think there are real consequences for human health and the biosphere. I'm not advocating the elimination of GMOs (as if we could), but at minimum they deserve scrutiny, honest labeling, and long-term follow-up studies.
Retric 13y ago
Worst case is probably accidentally creating a GMO plant that does something vary useful and also produces a novel toxin which Bio-accumulates and is not discovered. Under the right circumstances you could probably kill something like 10-100,000 people that way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation
mcguire 13y ago
Beyond the "the seeds are sterile" and "if our genes wind up in your plants, we sue your hindquarters off" arguments, the worse-case (not necessarily "worst") scenarios I've heard involve things like Bt genes[1] potentially affecting non-pest insects and induced resistance in pest insects. On the other hand, there's the whole "glow-in-the-dark pets as this month's fashion accessory" bit, but even that is not wildly different than typical pet breeding shenanigans. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis#Use_of_Bt_genes_in_genetic_engineering_of_plants_for_pest_control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis#Use_of_B...

mvdileo 13y ago

If you want to hear scientists un-affiliated with industry talk about genetic engineering in a thoughtful way, it's happening over at http://www.biofortified.org/ http://www.biofortified.org/

lukifer 13y ago

GMO opponents often react reflixively without looking at specifics, but I think their fears are rooted in something real. Setting aside bad behavior from Monsanto specifically (suing farmers, patents, sterile seeds), there is both promise and peril to GMOs, even in the simple act of selective breeding that comprises most of the activity in that space. My primary concern is the lack of long-term thinking in the drive for high production yield, and accompanying side effects to health and ecosystems. For instance, some claim that the high-yield "dwarf wheat" pioneered in the 60s is responsible for exacerbating gluten sensitivity: http://marksdailyapple.com/the-problems-with-modern-wheat/ http://marksdailyapple.com/the-problems-with-modern-wheat/ There is also an overlapping concern with the broken patent system, and whether it is acceptable to "own" the genetic results of evolution, whether human-guided or otherwise. It's not hard to conceive of some scary slippery slopes there. Each individual advancement is probably, on average, not a big deal, and probably a win for both providers and consumers. But if you aggregrate the accelerating advances over decades and centuries, I think there are real consequences for human health and the biosphere. I'm not advocating the elimination of GMOs (as if we could), but at minimum they deserve scrutiny, honest labeling, and long-term follow-up studies.

Retric 13y ago

Worst case is probably accidentally creating a GMO plant that does something vary useful and also produces a novel toxin which Bio-accumulates and is not discovered. Under the right circumstances you could probably kill something like 10-100,000 people that way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation

mcguire 13y ago

Beyond the "the seeds are sterile" and "if our genes wind up in your plants, we sue your hindquarters off" arguments, the worse-case (not necessarily "worst") scenarios I've heard involve things like Bt genes[1] potentially affecting non-pest insects and induced resistance in pest insects. On the other hand, there's the whole "glow-in-the-dark pets as this month's fashion accessory" bit, but even that is not wildly different than typical pet breeding shenanigans. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis#Use_of_Bt_genes_in_genetic_engineering_of_plants_for_pest_control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis#Use_of_B...