Your argument is really stupid. GMO's should be tested for safety, but to flat out reject it over some hippie pseudo-science is stupid.

That's not his argument.

He's saying GMO is equivalent to cultivation.

He knows that. GMOing is just the next step.

Apparently he doesn't, or he just doesn't understand the concept of using the things you know in the arguments you make.

How is it not equivalent? In both cases we are selectively modifying the genes. GMO is only a more efficient way of doing it.

We've got seven billion people. You expect them all to shop at whole foods?

Is this one of those troll things you're doing, SolRo, or do you honestly believe that NDT is full of shit? Because I'm starting to think you actually believe this stuff... like maybe you're actually a space traveller from the Bizarro Universe, and that's why you think everything is opposite of what it really is.

Anyway, like Ms Tubman said, how is it not equivalent? Are you simply worried that GMO allows for genetic changes to happen too rapidly, thereby magnifying the potential for undesired side effects? Or is there something else to your raw food munching paranoia?

>>He knows that. GMOing is just the next step.

His argument is what he knows, it's what he's saying.

>>Is this one of those troll things you're doing, SolRo, or do you honestly believe that NDT is full of shit? Because I'm starting to think you actually believe this stuff... like maybe you're actually a space traveller from the Bizarro Universe, and that's why you think everything is opposite of what it really is.

NDT is full of shit, Homer.

And pointing it out does not mean I'm saying that NGOs are inherently bad or scary, or that everybody is supposed to eat at whole foods, or that I think eating GMOS will give me cancer. I'm saying that his analogy is shit.

Now, there are people going around saying GMOS will give you cancer, and the consensus seems to be that the data is about as sketchy as the link between vaccines and autism. So fuck those people, they are full of shit. Just like Neil DeGrasse Tyson is full of shit.

>>How is it not equivalent? In both cases we are selectively modifying the genes. GMO is only a more efficient way of doing it.

It's not the same thing. Because it's not. Just like frying is not the same thing as boiling. Conflating the two is a shitty way to have a discussion, and a great way to avoid having a discussion.

Honestly, I'm not as concerned about GMOs per se as i am about the intellectual property system that supports it. I can't say exactly WHY having a handful of corporations control the DNA to the world's food supply makes me uneasy. I honestly don't know what mischief might ensue, but Monsanto has a bunch of smarter guys than me on the payroll working to figure that out, and they'll probably think of it before I do.

>>And pointing it out does not mean I'm saying that NGOs are inherently bad or scary,

Obviously not. Or GMOS, neither.

bottom line is when you splice a gene from a bacteria for an antipesticidal protein, you're creating mutants that have never existed before a few decades ago. Artificial selection allows you to select genes from mateable species. Bacteria and plants aren't mateable, but we splice genes from the genomes of all sorts of non-plants (or vastly unrelated plants) and that's a new kind of genetic modification that may lead to unpredictable outcomes (such as corn that is literally deadly to whatever eats it that was intended only for the production of corn oil for gasoline use)

Get with the times, Sim. Fish have been shacking up with tomatos for years now in NYC and SF. Stop being such a speciest.

All kidding aside, if you can't see the kinds of problems that might arise from Sims example, you're in some serious denial about the consequences of the technology. Neil certainly has his head stuck firmly in the sand. Not sure that's an appropriate position for a scientist to be in, but perhaps an inviting one for the hornier members of this site.

All mutations are unpredictable and have the potential to lead to undesirable outcomes. And new agricultural hybrids almost always contain "new kinds of genetic modifications" that have never existed before in nature, whether they were made the Godly way, by manly farmers in a field, or the scary unnatural way, by egghead scientists in a lab.

The only difference between modern GMO and Bronze Age cis-cultivation, is that gene-splicing opens the door for far more powerful mutations, which can then be introduced into nature far more quickly. As Cena argued above, it's a difference of magnitude, not of kind.

well, you're wrong, but you're longwinded about it, so that's good I guess.

Homer, I'd like you to meet some dear close friends of mine. Prometheus, and Pandora. They're quite a pair of cut ups, those two.

Regardless of whatever real concerns there are with them, it is very, very difficult to avoid rolling your eyes at a significant portion of the anti-GMO crowd when they throw around useless, fear mongering terms like "frankenfood" and are largely driven by ignorance.

I'm not a scientist but the process itself seems to me inherently neutral; you can presumably modify something to be deadly, or not deadly, or glow in the dark.

Prometheus was a goddamn hero as far as I'm concerned. You know what the real message of that story was? "Fuck the gods, because they're vindictive assholes and they know their time is coming." It's time we seized his gift and took our fire!

As for you, SolRo, you're always welcome to flesh out your arguments and articulate the reasons why you say the crazy things you do, assuming you actually do believe these things.

>>Regardless of whatever real concerns there are with them, it is very, very difficult to avoid rolling your eyes at a significant portion of the anti-GMO crowd when they throw around useless, fear mongering terms like "frankenfood" and are largely driven by ignorance.

They spent a zillion dollars defeating a measure that would require labeling GMO foods in California. With the industry going to those kind of lengths to avoid transparency, I wonder if we're really to blame for our ignorance.

If they spent a zillion dollars on educating us about exactly what they're doing to the world's food supply, I'd feel a lot better about it... unless they're doing something terrible. The point is that ignorance is not a good argument. The fact that no one knows or understands what they're doing to the world's food supply is precisely the problem.

that's not how genetic modification works potrod.

Genes aren't clearly labeled, and their function can be vague even in the original organism.

The safety checks and regulations for the new organisms seem to be whatever the company thinks they should be.

A cabbage could sprout tomorrow deadly to humans, evolution happens in nature, using it as an argument against mutating genes on purpose is begging the question.

DNA is swapped across non-matable species through viruses and bacteria in nature, using un-matable life as an argument against cross species engineering is begging the question.

You're all left with "man shouldn't play God 2.0, the atheist nerd version."The best argument so far is the appeal to the unknown worst case scenario as a counterpoint to a known potential for a best case scenario.

Neil has no time for this dumb shit.

meme, don't be stupid.

or at least name some examples of naturally transferred DNA between mammals and plants.

Because viruses that infect both plants and mammals don't exist.

Genes evolve in the environment of their original host organisms. Yes, genes, transfer along various vectors such as viruses. However, those genes carried in viral proteins are evolved as well, to serve a specific role to the benefit of the virus. They're an irrelevant example.

Introns are non-translated sequences of DNA. Quote wikipedia on introns: "Early studies of genomic DNA sequences from a wide range of organisms show that the intron-exon structure of homologous genes in different organisms can vary widely. ... Alternative splicing of introns within a gene acts to introduce greater variability of protein sequences translated from a single gene, allowing multiple related proteins to be generated from a single gene and a single precursor mRNA transcript. The control of alternative RNA splicing is performed by complex network of signaling molecules that respond to a wide range of intracellular and extracellular signals."

The ratio of exons (translated sequences) and introns is fairly similar across species: roughly 1 to 4.5 or so. (Source: http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/15/3219.full). There are 162 exons in the corn plant, but 618 introns. Those introns have functions. They won't be the same introns as for a pea plant, but we probably want mass-produced peas with resistance to the n^100 possible pathogens that we think we can efficiently fight off with a single splicing act.

Basically, GMO foods are unnatural by definition. They should be labeled as such and every action taken upon their genomes should become public property. It is vital that we share and distribute the knowledge of splicing the genes in order to have some means of reverse-engineering the results if they become uncontrolled. The premise upon which GMO is safe is that "it is under control." Destabilization of the civil infrastructure that keeps GMO controlled is likely.

The point he really misses, though, in GMOs is that strains are developed with "copyrights" and and are not sustainable.

Aka, you cant take one seed and grow more food out of it, leaving you dependent on the corporations to sell you more seeds.

And if their seeds accidentally fall into your own crops, you are sued for the ensuing crops because you grow foods for which you dont have legal rights to. It's happened before: some schmuck ended up with hybrid plants because his field ended up being pollinated by the neighbor's GMO strain.

Everyone making SolRo look reasonable. What the fuck.

>> They should be labeled as such and every action taken upon their genomes should become public property.

Once again, Sim, all arguments focused on the *business* and *social policy*, not the *science*. Time and again, we come back to the central problem with the anti-GMO conspiracy crowd- everything is based on what-ifs and vaguely defined slippery slopes. Even Dr Carman, cited below, cannot come up with any hard evidence of GMOs being harmful to humans; instead, her focus is on establishing that GMOs have improper oversight, with a couple attempts to cast doubt on the validity of one or two of the hundreds of animal safety studies conducted by her colleagues. She may be right! On both counts! But even if we accept these arguments, arguments which are still very much on the fringe and not currently endorsed by her scientific peers, that still leaves us a long way off from being able to claim that GMOs are dangerous, let alone "unnatural", depending on how we might define the term.

(related question: would you please define "unnatural", as you use it here?)


One thing I will say is that, on further reflection, the anti-GMO believers are less like climate change deniers, and more like CERN conspiracy theorists.

Again, evolution is begging the question. All your problems with this are social, yet you point at the science like it's a tribal magic curse. Make a better society, because the technology isn't going away.

SolRo : meme, don't be stupid.

Says the man who only communicates in agitprop based on his outdated Bolshevik loyalties. You have mastered plastering English characters on your animal noises, one day I hope you'll learn to use them sentiently, like a Cossack.

Great links, guys!

You stupidly brought up viral genetic transfer and I just asked you where the magical virus that infects animals and plants might be found. I know the answer is no where, but you didn't.

You just had to make idiotic statements based on your vague knowledge of genetics from, what I'm guessing, is random news clippings.

There's a strong pattern of clueless confidence from several of the twits labeling anyone that doesn't worship at the idol of Monsanto as heretics. Learn something beyond news blurbs before you start acting like you're experts.

There has been a sharp increase in long winded vitriolic debates lately.

I'm not going to take a side on this one, but I do want to point out that solro is really REALLY bad at arguing.

You are just making ad hominem attacks and not presenting any arguments of your own. You look like an idiot, dude.

EH: the definition of unnatural is something that does not exist or was caused/created by nature, i.e., made by human intervention. We might want to call artificial selection unnatural, but then we'd be dis-servicing ants, who have selectively bred for better aphids long before we bred wolves into dogs. It's just selection pressure, something that has always existed. We speed it up in various ways but we simply can't exert evolutionary change at any faster than a specific pace, determined by the rate of mutations, and some other factors usually inherent to the species.

You might argue that it's okay for humans to use plant viruses to splice in a prokaryotic gene into a plant's genome is okay too because endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) exist in nature, but this is a special case. The majority of retroviruses are evolved to infect somatic cells, not germline cells. It has to do with their life cycle. For most viruses, infecting a germline cell and causing a permanent modification to the next generation of the host species' genome is an undesired effect, as it is fatal to the offspring, usually due to splice errors. There are examples of germline-infecting cells who do this as a part of their normal life cycle, but the genes they splice into their hosts usually come from similar species (i.e., other hosts). Anyway, the problem is that most viruses that infect germline cells lead to oncogenesis.

"In retrospect, the relative absence of
directly pathogenic viruses from the germ line is perhaps
not that surprising, as they would represent a substantial
negative evolutionary pressure. It is also worth noting
that one prime example of ERV-associated tumorigenesis,
the thymomas that arise spontaneously in nearly
all AKR mice, is a highly artificial case. AKR mice were
originally derived in the 1930s following multiple generations
of inbreeding accompanied by selection for high
tumour incidence." Source: http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v3/n10/full/nrmicro1248.html

...Anyway, I will concede the point that there is no "natural vs unnatural," but a continuum of unnatural acts. given that endogenous retroviruses are extremely rare and usually inconsequential or slightly beneficial, the point is that viruses almost never favor fucking with the germline genes of their hosts. They either fuck with the somatic cell DNA without any significant impact on the host gene pool, or if they do infect germline cells, they do it silently or with a slight benefit, and they do it rarely in nature, and only among the host species' genomes which it infects.

Dammit, I need to correct one of my assertions after some further research. Apparently, though it was previously assumed that viral genes such as the Mutator superfamily were primarily found in prokaryotes, they apparently exist in numerous eukaryotic organisms, including humans. Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2927773/. Sorry guys, I asserted that usually they stay within their range of species but I guess not. Maybe this is reassuring to you, EH.

Whoops meant to be a reply. I feel like an idiot whenever I do that, but I'm not as stupid as they guy asking NDT that stupid question, he can't even hold his damn phone correctly.

Five for "scifu."

I volunteer to be a beta taster for all future steak code.

Now ask him about chemtrails

have fun with New Mad Cow disease meme.

I just wonder what he was eating that's all

Oh, and the farmer suicides thing in India, before anyone brings the spooky-ooky boogeyman of Monsanto into this, have been soundly debunked as nonsense. There was indeed an upsurge of suicides amongst farmers in India....and it started YEARS before Bt Cotton was introduced as a crop there, after it was the profitability of Bt Cotton there actually went up significantly.

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/06/24/scientists-react- to-republished-seralini-maize-rat- study/

But it didn't change anything - the majority of scientists still think it's a flawed study.

"Seriously this is like on the level of climate deniers or vaccine deniers."

Honestly, your attitude of 'man can do no wrong' and 'blindly trust corporations until something goes wrong' is a lot more in line with climate change deniers.


http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/march2014/scientist-jour ney-from-gmo-believer-to-skeptic.php

The issue has nothing to do with how the GMO food will affect you. It's entirely about what happens when the genes we splice in start to spread to other related organisms. When a majority of weeds pick up the round up resistant gene we put in the food plants, will you then agree we have a problem?

It's both.

GMO foods have shown to increase allergic reactions in humans to the point some crops were banned (after the company already said their fine and started planting or even brought them to market)

*If* a majority of weeds pick up the round up resistant gene, then we can adapt and find new genes and new herbicides. Honestly, I wonder if primitive man feared clothing at first, on the grounds that this newfangled technology might get infected with lice?

And SolRo, I'm glad you're finally making an effort to back up your arguments, even if citing non-standard scientific opinion is a classic tactic employed by climate change deniers. However, the only substantive point Dr Martineau raises is that GM foods lack adeuquate labelling and market transparency - but this is a point about business, not about science.

Correction: *when* a majority of weeds pick up the new genes. Not if.

While I urge all people in their understanding and worship of Prometheus, I caution you to exercise that first and greatest gift he has bestowed on us, his namesake, Forethought.

Here's a point about safety, then;

"(in the US) Crops not intended for food use are generally not reviewed by authorities responsible for food safety.[92] Food derived from GMOs is not tested in humans before it is marketed as it is not a single chemical, nor is it intended to be ingested in specific doses and times, which makes it difficult to design meaningful clinical studies"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controv ersies#Substantial_equivalence

That's no reason to be against GMOs its a reason to be in support of testing and oversight from government agencies.

it's a reason to be against GMOs -right now-, because they aren't properly regulated or tested for safety -right now-.

-After- that problem is fixed, I would be more trusting.

The burden of bullshit lies on the people whose views are not supported by science. If you can start producing some real scientific evidence to suggest that GMOs are actually dangerous, not just potentially dangerous to some undefined degree, then I'm sure NDT would be the first to recant and change his views.

just read this you fucking bastard

http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/dec08/gm_food_safey_test ing_inadequate.php

There are two major challenges. First, it is very hard to get GM seed to conduct the research. In order to buy GM seed, you have to go to a licensed seed dealer, and sign a technology licensing agreement, which states that you won’t do any research on the seed, which includes agronomic, health, and environmental research. Also, scientists who try to research health impacts of GM food get harassed and intimidated by people with vested interests in GM technology. I’ve had 10 years of abuse from such people who’ve defamed me, driven me out of a university, and tried to get me fired from jobs. With that kind of intimidation, scientists often decide not to do any research.

Vested interests have been trying to find out about research I’m doing. They filed a freedom of information request with the Western Australian government to find out. The government denied their request. It could have ended up in court. My research protocol could have been stolen.

- See more at: http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/dec08/gm_food_safey_testing_ inadequate.php#sthash.eWL1SZSM.dpuf

I think the retard horde here tripping over themselves to defend GMO against a non-existant attacker is a testemant to how great a job the agribusiness lobby and spindoctors are doing.

>>The burden of bullshit lies on the people whose views are not supported by science.

Well, again, NDT's argument is what he actually SAYS, not what he knows, or even what's real, and WHAT HE ACTUALLY SAYS HERE IN THIS VIDEO THAT ARE NOW DISCUSSING is not science.

It's NOT SCIENCE to say that "we did this thing for thousands of years so this other thing that maybe has similar results (but I'm not going to bother to prove that, we'll just assume it's the same) must be okay" And that's the only solid point I've tried to tried to make vis a vis the video. Not fucking science, or anything else.

I'm not interested in convincing this guy that GMOs are dangerous. I don't know the answer. In fact, if he could convince me that they're not, that would be lovely. But this does not convince me of anything.


There's an assload of material differences, and they go beyond the difference between gene splicing and cultivation. There's the patenting of organisms, restrictive liscensing agreements, the fact that they're making plants that can't create fertile seeds, which, among other things, means the end of cultivation. You're not going to be able to create a new strain for your own purposes. And remember, it's not just Monsanto, it's who owns Monsanto 50 years from now. Who's going to stop them from selling low yield crops to poor farmer in South America to keep them poor? Who's to know?

Why am I not surprised that a site called non-GMOreport.com is basically a one man show run by a sociology major with no apparent scientific background? Can swap links all day: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/once-more-bad-science-in-the-s ervice-of-anti-gmo-activism/

"There might be questions about GMOs, but by and large they are not issues of safety. Rather, they are issues of intellectual property; i.e., how large companies developing GMOs behave. "

It seems obvious to be in favor of thorough testing and regulation--this guy agrees with everybody here on many points.

There are plenty of valid questions about the safety of GMOs, to say otherwise is just whitewash.

Also potrod, after saying something as uninformed (some might say blitheringly stupid) as

"I'm not a scientist but the process itself seems to me inherently neutral; you can presumably modify something to be deadly, or not deadly, or glow in the dark."


maybe you shouldn't be commenting on someone else's credentials?

Holy shit, guess what, none of us have any credentials. That doesn't mean I can't try to learn from people who do. It also doesn't mean I can't question the credentials of someone with zero science background who uses his site to hawk his books. Other than insulting me I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make (literally could be said for your entire presence on here). My point is, the site linked has some obvious red flags. I think nearly everybody agrees there should be thorough testing. That there may not be is concerning but no reason for the kind of misinformation regularly pumped out by the anti-gmo crowd.

A little investigation into the non-gmo website Simillion posted, specifically the inadequate food safety article, led me to the scientist interviewed therein: Dr. Judy Carman. She seems pretty reputable, and not only that, is one of the people responsible for a recent study referenced here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/11/gmo-pigs-study-idUSL 2N0EN0UR 20130611

And here's the full text of the study from her website:

http://gmojudycarman.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/The-Full-P aper.pdf

Check at least the reuters one out. I haven't read any reactions or investigations by the scientific community at large however.

So while the website might be dubious, there's an expert they're quoting, who has done some recent work that looks pretty legit.

Is an astrophysicist really more qualified than a sociologist in matters of genetics? I think I'd take the opinion of a farmer over either one of them.

Potrod, you're an idiot and a hypocrite because;

a) you make concrete conclusions about science while in the same paragraph saying you aren't a scientist

b) you blanket discredit legit scientists because they're interviewed by a blogger who doesn't have science credentials.

c) you're not looking for evidence, you're just looking for excuses to use against those you don't agree with

Say PegLeg, if you've any questions for the good Dr. Carman, you should ask them. She's standing right next to us.

Well, here's a site that features not one, but three scientists refuting specific claims in Dr Carman's work:

http://www.biotech-now.org/food-and-agriculture/2013/06/more-j unk-science-is-the-carman-pig-study-seralini-2-0#

The website looks to be a front for Biotech interests, but as PegLeg argues above, it's less about the who is doing the citing, and more about what and whom is being cited.

Yeah, Oscar, I noticed what Simillion posted, without quotes, is word-for-word what the good doctor is recorded as having said in the interview from the website. Pretty dishonest - if we assume dishonestly - but the doctor does exist and has done actual science, from the looks of it.

yes yes, but keep going; there's another explanation than the one you proffered. As I mentioned, if you have any questions, why don't you ask her directly?

The explanation is your foregone conclusion, dear Oscar.

Okay, just ask directly;

Simillion, are you this doctor or are you just shitty at using quotation marks?

I forgot to put quotation marks. sorry

One reason why people don't trust corporations is because the secrecy of corporate culture makes wrongdoing extremely difficult to detect. Enron stole millions from everyday Americans, but they were only caught after they went completely broke. Presumably, if they'd only managed to make a profit while stealing from millions of dollars from everyday Americans, they'd still be at it. "The Informant" is about the extraordinary circumstances that it took for a major corporation to be caught in a massive criminal conspiracy.

Arguably, Monsanto have already done that, although the most prominent case of it turned out to be an issue of someone going out of their way to make it happen with their crops (and of course that farmer has become a martyr for the anti-Monsanto crowd).

Don't you think it's just as stupid to label anyone anti-GMO as being exactly the same as a radical organic-only hippy?

Goddamn dumb fucking bronys. The activities of anti-GMO people are making certain that Monsanto, and only Monsanto, will make and market them. Monsanto are far too large to be brought down directly, and there exists no competition because GMOS ARE EEEEEVILL so nobody can afford to push a start-up past the loons, and lord have mercy if the government ever suggested funding public GMO development at universitys.

If a whacko anti-GMO movement hadn't formed on its own, Monsanto would probably have made one.

But that's not the part they want to believe. They want to believe that this will lead to plants that not only give you AIDS and bad skin, but eventually it'll allow the plants to evolve the ability to move and hold weapons, laying waste to all the works of man.

Oh, and making your brain turn into Morgellons. Can't forget that. And chemtrails somewhere in there, too.

Who the fuck makes pesticide-resistant plants? Pesticides kill bugs, not plants.

Sorry, I meant herbicide resistant. Herbicide resistant plants tend to have shitloads of herbicide, pesticide, and fungicide used on them as a matter of course. After a few seasons of that kind of growing, the soil basically starts to turn to sand.