Greenpeace's Crimes Against Humanity

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

It's rather disingenuous to equate the two - a gross over-simplification that can lead to very dubious conclusions.

Lumping togeter selective breeding and direct genetic modification and treating them as essentially doing the same thing just because the outcome is superficially similar (a different variety) is misleading and inaccurate.

It's the same thing achieved by different means. How do you argue it's not?

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

It's rather disingenuous to equate the two - a gross over-simplification that can lead to very dubious conclusions.

Lumping togeter selective breeding and direct genetic modification and treating them as essentially doing the same thing just because the outcome is superficially similar (a different variety) is misleading and inaccurate.

And speeding up the process is bad because...?

You assume it's merely speeding up the process because...?

Because through HGT and mutation sooner or later the gene you seek to splice would be found naturally and then the specific genotype could be created through selective breeding. Much faster to take a pigmentation gene from Snapdragons and insert it into a Tomato plant to get your high anthocyanin Blue Tomatoes or Roundup Ready Soybeans.

I want blue tomatoes! =o blue food is nice

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

The real issues surrounding gmos that have come to my attention tend to come off conditional on geographical distinction for lack of a better word. The push to sustain natural food development, along with active concerns about cross contamination that can go so far as to entail pervasive branding resulting in complicated legal matters.

I don't see how the second sentence connects with "geographical distinction". Could you try finding some better words or explaining at greater length?

[Riedquat]

It's rather disingenuous to equate the two - a gross over-simplification that can lead to very dubious conclusions.

Lumping togeter selective breeding and direct genetic modification and treating them as essentially doing the same thing just because the outcome is superficially similar (a different variety) is misleading and inaccurate.

It's the same thing achieved by different means. How do you argue it's not?

No, it's a very different thing indeed. Regarding it as the same requires taking a very over-simple view - "any and all change is equivalent." In-species variation and cross-species chimeras are significantly different things. It's like comparing a cave and a skyscraper because you can shelter in both from the rain.

And the results are thus significantly different too - the sudden introduction of what's essentially a new life form compared to (relatively) gradual shifts over long periods. Such shocks to the system are not good for the biosphere (a good proportion of the problem with climate change for example is that it doesn't give the natural world time to react - if it happened over many thousands of years the impact would be signifcantly less).

[Thebestoftherest]

Wait is GMO the stuff company tries to use to sue family for trying to used seeds they grow themselves on their own property.

[CmdrKing]

Wait is GMO the stuff company tries to use to sue family for trying to used seeds they grow themselves on their own property.

Monsanto is infamous for this practice yes. The issue is basically that they're allowed to patent any particular variant, and they've now filed so many for different kinds of corn they very nearly own the entire genome.

So it's less something inherent to GMOs as a concept and more yet another failing of IP law.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Not just that, but they argue that it's theft whenever one of their crops cross-pollinates with somebody else's crop. You know, when things happen like wind blows pollen or bees carry it across property lines, because natural forces don't care about real estate.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The real issues surrounding gmos that have come to my attention tend to come off conditional on geographical distinction for lack of a better word. The push to sustain natural food development, along with active concerns about cross contamination that can go so far as to entail pervasive branding resulting in complicated legal matters.

I don't see how the second sentence connects with "geographical distinction". Could you try finding some better words or explaining at greater length?

It has to do with various environmental implications in the region and not as much a common underlying political citation. Kind of like appropriation across different cultures. It's geographical for lack of a better word.

Although many geographers are trained in toponymy and cartology, this is not their main preoccupation. Geographers study the space and the temporal database distribution of phenomena, processes, and features as well as the interaction of humans and their environment.[1] Because space and place affect a variety of topics, such as economics, health, climate, plants and animals, geography is highly interdisciplinary. The interdisciplinary nature of the geographical approach depends on an attentiveness to the relationship between physical and human phenomena and its spatial patterns.

Not just that, but they argue that it's theft whenever one of their crops cross-pollinates with somebody else's crop. You know, when things happen like wind blows pollen or bees carry it across property lines, because natural forces don't care about real estate.

I believe that's consistent with what they're referring to.

[TGLS]

"Sooner or later it would be found naturally" - no, no guarantee of that. The assumption that GM is simply doing the same thing as selective breeding but with a bit more control is flawed.

Give it a billion years. Sooner or later the random luck of mutation would create the desired effect.

Change without good reason is something I'll always reject and there's no persuasive case made for GM food. As I pointed out earlier it's trying to cure the symptoms rather than the disease of famine, why developed countries haven't had a famine for a long time without GM crops.

Let's leave aside the developing world for a moment and focus on the developed world. GM crops increase yields and allow for the same amount of food to be produced on a smaller amount of land. This allows for greater fallow land, less use of fertilizer and the possibility to return land to wilderness, allowing the growth of forests and the reduction of the human footprint.

Farming methods, irrigation, population distribution, poltical stability, those are the sorts of issues that need tackling to deal with hunger.

Let's focus in on Golden Rice for a moment. India, Vietnam, the Philippines, Mexico and Brazil. All reasonably stable countries (Mexico and India have unstable areas, but the overall countries are stable), many of which have adopted good farming methods. All have problems with Vitamin A deficiency. Golden rice is a high yield, Vitamin A rich crop. In some areas (i.e. East Asia), it won't even require much change in local diets. Famine is just the beginning of the problems of food insecurity.

There's a big problem with this day and age of thinking that more technology is the solution to every problem.

With anything new the very solid, convincing case needs to be made by its proponents. Trying to shift the onus on to having it unless there's a good reason against is getting things out by 180 degrees.

Almost no one changes things for changes sake. Unless a change must be widespread, causes major impacts on starting, can have drastic consequences on failure, or can have highly unpredictable effects (i.e. a change to a chaotic system), then requiring an extremely solid case is ridiculous. Setting up a single farm and selling golden rice isn't going to cause a disaster. Planting higher yield corn at one farm won't either.

Would you be disturbed by the thought of doing the same with humans and genes from other species?

Interesting you mention that. This popped into my mailbox. Obviously this is much more likely to run into that unpredictable effects. Spidersilk Goats on the other hand, don't.

With humans I'm not terribly concerned with someone making Khan, the fears are probably overblown. The greater concern is the dozen prototypes that are made before Khan. It's probable (especially with the early ones), that their existence will be suffering.

[clearspira]

Isn't Quadrotricicale from the TOS episode with the Tribbles a GM food? I only ask because it amuses me that we've apparently been having this discussion since the 1960s and we've still got Luddites arguing against it.