I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Yeah, you know -- splicing jellyfish genes onto tomatoes? Already done by Native Americans...
Gaaaaah... my brain is slipping out of my nooooose
OT: The helicopter crash.
12 Soldiers were killed in the crash.
The CNN report below indicates that 417 soldiers have died, whereas Atrios mentioned that we had reached 400 in this post. Where are the missing 5?
The deaths brought the number of American soldiers killed in the Iraq war to 417. Of those, 278 have died since President Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1.
Where are the missing 5
I wish they were in the white house.
We could have stopped this, we didn't protest the war makers enough.
I guess he was trying to be cute. But it just came out sounding stupid -- but maybe wing-nuts are yukking it up: Genetic modification--it's been around forever! Just like trees cause pollution!
I didn't think it was physically possible. People are actually getting stupider.
If agriculture=genetic engineering now, then maybe war IS peace....
Note to Mr. Reynolds: genetically modifying foods is not the same as hybridization. There's a big, big difference between them.
well, the photochemicals of which some trees produce quite a bit do contribute to smog.
however, since that's 100% natural, by denotation it's not 'pollution' per se. and since trees perform a number of smog-reducing functions, the net effect of more trees in a given area is almost always less smog, not more.
still, kernel of truth and all that.
Yeah, there's no difference between selective breeding and fucking with genetic code in a lab. Nope. In fact, for my next pet, I want to cross-breed a cat with a cacao tree so I get a Siamese that shits Hershey bars.
Guess that solves that pesky problem
Oddly enough this idea isn't really wrong. Simple observations of this sort were the basis for Madelavian genetics. The differences in degree and method are large but in concept not that much so.
Ohh, wait, I get it, you're refering to Reynolds-wrapped-not-too-tightly. Yes, he's an idiot. Couldn't follow that for a minute, duh, need to sleep in more next time.
No, the dumbest posts ever are tie between Friedman and Brooks. You can pick your dumberest column.
I didn't think it was physically possible. People are actually getting stupider.
This isn't so much stupidity as it is a demonstration of self-reinforcing aggressive ignorance. He has no idea what he's writing about, but thinks he understands that selective breeding has something to do with genetics. In the absence of actual information to act as a moderator, two bits of unrelated information (genes are involved in breeding; scientists can modify genes) react violently inside his head, producing anti-knowledge.
This anti-knowledge is then dispersed aggressively. It enters the heads of other people and reacts with what little knowledge they have. The anti-knowledge wipes out the knowledge, producing heat (but no light) and yet more particles of anti-knowledge. Those particles are then further dispersed. The result is a breeder-reactor of ignorance.
And because the ignorance reinforces an ideological viewpoint, it is spread aggressively.
http://www.blogstudio.com/
Search...d=1068527570031
hey- we could kill two birds and get stoned, why not have the "Chief" running around in a lab coat labeled "the original genetic engineers" or something ;}
Yeah? I was hoping to breed a boneless dog. So instead of walking him, I could just hold him out a window and squeeze.
people have to stop reading this clown.....WHY does anyone pay attention to him? But yeah, this IS the dumbest posting Ive read in a long while.
Clearly, Reynolds has no idea as to the difference between selective breeding - which is restrained by the considerable biological barriers to horizontal gene transfer - and the much more radical program of directly splicing in genes from one species to another.
Indeed.
Why not Genetically modified food?
1) The pollen of genetically modified plants are known to infect normal plants. (much like a virus, in my opinion) If genetically modified plants are not controlled, their natural counterparts may eventually cease to exist.
2) Some companies genetically modify their plants to be sterile
3) It is illegal to replant genetically modified foods, the company have the power to confiscate a farmer's crops if s/he replants crops, thus the farmer will have to buy seeds from the company each year.
Combinine 1 and 2, and you have the danger of potentially creating mass starvation. If normal plants are infected to become sterile, crop failure on a grand scale will be the result.
Combine 1 and 3, and you have a world of agriculture completely controlled by big corporations, since once natural plants are eradicated, the farmers will be forced to buy their seeds each year.
Claiming that genetically modified foods = traditional agriculture is completely ludicrous. While traditional agriculture does breed crops for quality it also accounts for the plants' ability to survive. (Ability to adapt to harsh tests of nature)
After all, I truly doubt that sterile plants will survive more than two generations in traditional agriculture.
Note, that my arguments are based solely on how GM crops affect their natural counterparts. Who knows what long term effects they have on humans. Which would you trust more, food grown over thousands of years and proven to be good for you, or mutants fresh out of the lab that kills most insects that it encounters?
I wish to modify my previous post. I realize now that I will be unable to breed a cat with a rectangular ass, so I will have to settle for mini-Baby Ruths. (cf Caddyshack)
I was hoping to breed a boneless dog. So instead of walking him, I could just hold him out a window and squeeze.
LOL!
Whole thing reminds me of the counter argument some nuts have used to "disprove" that humans and apes are related. I'm making the numbers up I think, but the gist of it is "people claim we're related to apes because we share 98% of our DNA. Hogwash! Humans are 98% water, and so are watermelons, but clearly we're not related to watermelons." Uh...not the same as what InstaPinhead said, but idiotic nevertheless--complete ignorance of the subject matter.
It's great and all that you all think this is an ignorant post, but how about some evidence? Can anyone show proof that hybridization and selective breeding are dramatically difference from current "genetic engineering" in any way besides the speed at which results can be achieved?
I think the post is accurate. The corn that we eat today is not naturally occuring, it was developed by man. Sure there are dangers to genetically engineered foods, but there's also dangers in drug development. Accidents will happen. Should would we give up modern phramacutical research just because there's a chance that drugs like thalidomide could be created? Should we abandon physics because it's principles will surely be used to develop more destructive weapons?
Or is this just a political issue for you all?
No, no, we must continue to experiment. We might someday be able to prevent disasters like Aids, Sars, hunger, the Bachlor, and Kenny G.
bravo, betaray.
instapundit's a meathead but on this one, i'm with him.
genetically modified crops are the only way we will be able to feed everyone on the planet if we're not going to turn every last acre of forest into farmland -- while using staggering amounts of fertilizer.
i wish the left weren''t so reflexively anti-high tech agriculture.
commenting on the stupidity of the post is not the same as being anti-GM.
betaray -- when a plant or animal is developed through traditional husbandry means, things happen differently in several ways. We get a chance to develop along with our products, meaning we're not likely to produce something new that's bad for us. With genetic engineering, we don't really know if we will or not.
Also, nothing truly devestating can happen all at once -- it is theoretically possible that, say, genes for producing insecticide can spread outside of the species being farmed. This could have astoundingly disastrous effects on an ecosystem. I don't think we really need to discuss quite how bad that could be. However, nothing so dramatic can ever happen through selective picking, husbandry, or standard agriculture -- things just change too slowly to make anything really devestating happen like that.
Personally, by the way, I don't think genetic engineering is necessarily all bad -- just that it needs to be done very very carefully, to avoid the sorts of problems I just mentioned.
betaray:
See my previous post on the dangers of GM foods.
As for comparison to the drug market.
1) Drugs sold in pharmacies are always labelled. GM foods are not, and in the US, are mixed with naturally grown crops and marketed without the people ever knowing they are genetically modified.
2) Drugs have to undergo comprehensive testing for potential side effects before being marketed, GM foods are not. Since we don't know if certain foods are GM or not, there is no way to tell.
3) We fillout prescriptions for drugs. Foods? I don't think so. What are you suggesting? We should fill out a prescription form every time we by a head of cabbage?
alexwinthr,
What the hell are you talking about? No one's commenting on the good or bad of GM foods, just that Instapundit doesn't know what GM foods really are.
Schuyler,
I laughed out loud at your posts. Both of them.
The AP article he quoted is quite reasonable.
His one-liner at the end was so dopey I just ignored it.
I got the impression most of the posters here were commenting on the AP portion of Instapundit's post, not his idiotic editorializing, which doesn't merit a response.
pharmagribusiness
ya know, makes me wonder why those Native Americans didn't genetically engineer an army of clones. That would have evened up the odds, alright.
Mr. President! We cannot afford a Corn Cob Gap!!
to betaray – wow way to compare apples and Tylenol and particles. Pharmaceutical research and physics experiments take place in controlled environments. One of the very real concerns about genetically modified crops is that they can and will spread, via pollenation, beyond the supposed boundaries of the experiment. At least the movement of genetically modified animals can be controlled.
And your mention of the consequences of Thalidomide use strengthens, the argument for careful research before just dumping something into the stream of commerce.
To Schuyler – sign me up for one from the Baby Ruth litter.
To Molly, NYC – hilarious - and a way to clean up our sidewalks.
I agree we need to take steps to increase food production in this country, but I'm not taking the word of the corporations that have the most to gain in terms of $$$$. Do I mean I don't trust them? Yes.
Obviously, people have concerns about GM foods. More testing. Much more.
To Molly, NYC – hilarious - and a way to clean up our sidewalks.
Not if you're standing below the window!
increase food production in the world, rather
alexwinthr,
I have to take issue with your claim that we can't feed everyone without these specific forms of "high-tech." Have you looked at biointensive growing techniques? (And before you wave me off as a freak, check it out and look at the numbers behind the thing.) It's not exactly "low-tech," because it relies on at least as sophisticated an understanding of plant science as does genetic engineering or the development of new pesticides and fertilizers.
The difference is that in alternative agriculture, the knowledge is deployed to finesse the workings of the ecosystem so that we get what we need to eat while not messing with all of creation.
It really is possible. It's not how most people are used to thinking about food, but it is possible.
Please read Jon Jeavons "How to grow more vegetables" before repeating this tired conventional wisdom.
genetically modified crops are the only way we will be able to feed everyone on the planet if we're not going to turn every last acre of forest into farmland -- while using staggering amounts of fertilizer.
Yea, that’s true like we would all freeze to death without nuclear energy keeping us warm.
Petroleum-derived fertilizer is only needed in massive amounts for the current unsustainable agri-conglomerate ways of farming.
"Humans are 98% water, and so are watermelons, but clearly we're not related to watermelons."
Well, actually, we ARE related to watermelons, though perhaps not very closely
alexwinthr
His one-liner about extinctions at the end of the posting was the most sensible and serious part of his comment. There have been serious theories in North American archaeology for the last 30 years that think Native American ancestors were responsible for the extinction of mammoths, mastodons, large species of bison and other Pleistocene fauna.
Oh, and I'm not reflexively anti-GE or anti "high-tech." The real question is what purpose GE or any other agricultural technology will serve. The biotech industry likes to claim that its products will reduce pesticide use, but the empirical evidence on this is at best mixed. Why?
Because the technology has been developed in an economic setting where there are only weak incentives for farmers to use fewer pesticides or in other ways reduce their environmental impacts. If we had pesticide regulations with teeth, I would expect biotech companies to develop "high-tech" plants that really DID reduce pesticide use, and I'd expect farmers to use them in ways that actually accomplished that. Unless and until we have the institutions in place to make protecting the environment pay, don't expect us to develop the technologies that will let us have our environment and eat it too. And until then, agricultural genetic engineering will be a technology with very large risks for very small gains.
I'll pass on that trade-off, and that doesn't make me a Luddite.
see, the thing is, traditional husbandry can only coax a plant or animal in a particular direction that could occur naturally, spontaneously.
Genetic modification propels an organism down a path that could never occur naturally
====
Please note that by traditional husbandry I am referring to agriculture as it existed before global transportation. Agriculture post-British Empire has allowed for all sorts of cross breeding that nature would never have achieved. But the limited scope of pre-empire travel ensured that most cross breeding could have occurred naturally
The changes brought about by selective breeding and hunting to extinction occurred over long periods of time. GM is a useful study, but its rapid application for consumer products shouldn't be taken lightly, since rapid changes to ecosystems can cause disasters. People who know nothing about a subject such as ecology should refrain from opining about it.
....but that NEVER stops the righty-tighties, does it?
Nameless: I read your first post, and it shows a little ignorance on your part as to the current state of farming. Most modern non-GM seeds are sterile. It's hard to replant seedless grapes, and we eat the seeding part of most foods anyway.
But what your bringing up is mostly corporate influence issues that could be applied to a hundred other things and is already being hotly debated in regards to intellectual property. I'll certainly agree that GM foods need to be held to a standard of safety, and that labeling should be a requirement. But I don't see either of those points in the original article. I just don't want to see the liberals turn into the ludites with this "GM BAD!" meme.
Every technological advance has good and evil applications, that's a given. Arguing that it makes change happen to fast is ridiculus. Should we go back to using slide rules and communicating through telegraph because because computers have allowed us to design evil things or spread evil ideas at rates that were unimaginable 50 years ago?
I think we can all agree that really the problem is, that reckless science with profit as the only goal is bad, but careful investigation for the benefit of mankind is good, and this can be applied constently to GM foods, stem cells, pharmacuticals, etc.
Honmono:
You may be right, but I don't think that genetically engineering plants to be sterile really contribute to increased production.
Well, you folks are missing a few minutea -- there is a profound difference in the cultigens produced by the "New World" isolate human population, and those produced by the "Old World" isolate human. We be good, you all be ... a distant second. Next, the "extinction theory" has been used to ding us for several decades. Vine DeLoria Jr even put bits of this turd stew in his (singularly lamentable) "Red Earth, White Lies", recounting getting doesed with "extinction theory" when guest lecturing at Stanford.
Is Glen a moron? He hits the big dumb blond bullseye on this pitch, that's for certain. A seperate questions is whether GM is bad. On this I'm personally in line with the Mohawks -- yes. GM is wicked bad (as is domestication generally).
I hope this doesn't become a thing. Yesterday or the day before, some idiot writing on dKoz was offering the Cobell extension as proof of Republican evility. It is kind of fun watching Whites bonk each other over the head with pretend Indian Issues, but we don't take the game seriously. I mean hell, what could be funnier? Howard Dean running on a Repugs-cheat-'skinz platform?
alexwinthr, please also read Diet For A Small Planet or Diet For A New America. Much of our agriculture goes to feeding animals, animals that are fed an unnatural diet to get that plump and juicy steak onto our plates. (Apologies if you're vegetarian) And in a world with 6 billion people, does everyone really need to have more than 2 kids, or even need to have kids at all? I'm not saying that these are easily workable solutions or even the only solutions, but saying that GMO food is the only solution to world hunger is way too narrow-minded.
Jim E. and Honmono, now I'm trying to think of ways to force-feed my cat crispy rice and caramel.
betaray: "Should would we give up modern phramacutical research just because there's a chance that drugs like thalidomide could be created?"
Well, for one thing, modern pharmaceuticals are currently saving my life as we speak (I hope), so I'm not some kind of unappreciative luddite here, but...
Thalidomide is a very bad example for you to use in your argument because it underscores the danger of tinkering with plants and rushing the results to the farm/market without adequate research.
It wasn't cleared for use with pregnant women to treat morning sickness, because it was considered so safe as to not be a problem. Thing was, no one had done ANY research on whether or not it was dangerous to fetal development. Oh well. Full steam ahead. And with the rush to bring drugs to the market and push them through testing as quickly as possible, thalidamide moments are sure to come again.
So what happens when say, cows and pigs start going sterile or giving birth to deformed offspring as a result of eating GM feeds? And what happens when we realize that it will be impossible to produce plants that do not contain modified genes because they've all become contaminated through cross-pollination?
One thing that i can't figure out; I can think of a number of people I know who are both pro-GMO and anti-evolution.
To me the two positions seem incompatible. Does anyone know how they reconcile these beliefs?
i'm not suggesting that GMOs equal natural evolution in any way, but it does draw on some of its principles
What's really hilarious is when people who call themselves "free market" advocates start cheerleading for GM foods.
This despite the fact that GM foods couldn't pay for themselves in a free market in a million years. GM foods depend on
1) massive government R&D subsidies;
2) government-enforced protection against competition (aka patents), enabling agribusiness to charge monopoly prices for GM foods;
3) FDA labelling restrictions, and food libel laws, to prohibit packagers or grocers from informing consumers of GM content.
It's the most hilarious things since some Big Pharma shill in Congress announced that patented drugs cost twenty times more in this country because "that's the way our free market system works."
Hate to say it, but many of you sound a whole lot like some of the dumber creationists that I've gone up against at talk.origins. I have fairly lefty politics - likely more so than many of you. I am downright militant when it comes to habitat preservation, restoration, and biodiversity issues. But I also have a doctorate in microbial genetics and I've spent more than a bit of time over the last ten years reading about and studying horizontal gene transfer in natural populations. In short: over the course of evolutionary history, there's been a hell of a lot of it. Not so much in animals, but among plants and microbes there is an enormous amount of transfer going on all the time. Now, I agree with many criticsims of industrial agriculture and specifically of monocropping. But blaming GMOs for these trends is roughly akin to blaming fuel injection for global warming. It misses the deepr issues totally, while focusing people's attention on technical concerns that are relatively minor and easily rebutted. So: Instaretard's post is far from the dumbest thing he's ever posted. It is overblown, but frankly it is less so than much of what's been committed to the present thread.
Pleistocene extinction theories haven't been used to "ding" anybody - just social scientists seeking explanations
Serious part- GM is the creation of plants and animals that would never exist in nature, usually by gene splicing. Besides the fact that this rips a hole in the eco-fabric, there is the danger to people or other creatures who are allergic to some part of the new product and learn it the hard way. We know now that the GM feature cannot be contained to the fields of the farmers who bought it.
When the scientists set off the first nuclear bomb, they weren't sure they wouldn't start an fission reaction that would consume the world. GM is the fission reaction in extremely slow motion (by A-bomb standards) that will consume the entire world.
We do not need GM to feed the world. Our current crop production would feed the world quite comfortably if we distributed it with that goal in mind.
Couple points, from posts I've made in a forum on this subject:
The AP article he quoted is quite reasonable.
No, alexwinthr, the AP article is not reasonable, because it accepts the study's absurd premise that there is essentially no difference between selective breeding and direct genetic manipulation. From my other post:
The entire purpose of the study seems to have been to make the claim that there's no difference between producing genetic modification through selective breeding and doing through through direct genetic modification. This is nonsense, and any capable science reporter or editor should know this, and should therefore point it out in the article. Without correction of bald and deliberate inaccuracies like that, they're just printing a press release, essentially printing a free advertisement.
Yes, genetic modification has gone on for many many years through selective breeding, and it's been long known that one of the earliest, most dramatic cases of that is the breeding of corn from its native relatives. Dramatic because corn is so much more different from its wild cousins than the other early grains were. It's quite a story, though hardly new. The study, and the article which parrots it, then uses that as a springboard into a claim that we shouldn't be wary of modern direct genetic modification because we've been doing genetic modification for all these years.
Two points:
One is that even selective breeding has produced some bad outcomes, but of course selective breeding has major limits on what can be done with it. You can't cross corn with strawberries, or with pigs.
That's the major difference with modern direct genetic modification, and is why their implyng the two methods are the same is so ridiculous. Now you can cross corn with a pig. Is that bad? Not necessarily, but it might be and it is, contrary to the study's claim, fundamentally different from selective breeding. It's unprecedented and selective breeding is not very similar at all to it. With selective breeding you couldn't cross a potato with a snowdrop, but now you can insert a snowdrop lectin into a potato and come up with what seems a perfectly good, ordinary-looking potato -- except that it causes the following in rats: "impaired development of organs such as the liver, thymus, spleen and gut. Their brain size decreased and their immune systems were weakened." Does that sound good? It wasn't expected, and it couldn't have been done with traditional selective breeding.
The authors of the study are no doubt aware that what they are saying is nonsense -- perhaps their funding from the Wellcome Trust, legacy of pharmaceutical tycoon Sir Henry Wellcome influenced them; perhaps it was other considerations, but it is nonsense and they certainly know it. Nevertheless, scientists who know better do, for whatever reason, spout this sort of nonsense from time to time, but science reporters and editors, who should k
know their subject well enough to spot the nonsense, shouldn't let them spout it unchallenged in the pages of their publications.
The idea that direct genetic manipulation is essentially the same as selective breeding is nonsense. While direct genetic manipulation has the potential for beneficial effects, there is also an unprecedented chance of making very harmful combinations. Not only can you make massive changes in an organism as opposed to the relatively small, slow changes you could through selective breeding, you can make changes that were impossible through selective breeding. Also, because of the massive rollout that a new GMO product can have nowadays, the likelihood is increased that a problem that would have traditionally shown up on a small scale will instead show up on a massive scale. Because of this unprecedented potential for harm as well as good, GMO crops and animals need much more study than traditional selective breeding. It's frightening to see that this necessary study is not only not being done, but is being "PRed" away through dishonest claims and analogies like those of the study described in this article.
As for the potato/snowdrop lectin research, no, it has not been discredited. True, there have been extensive, and (again) frighteningly dishonest attempts to discredit it, but it has not been discredited. I have several links to discussions of that issue on my other computer, and I'll have to put them up later. Then bare outlines of some of these attempts: the researcher who did the tests, Dr. Pusztai, was investigated (and eventually cleared of wrongdoing, even though he was barred from access to his own data which he needed for his defense. During this time he was placed under a gag order even while he was being attacked, making it fairly difficult to defend his research, as you can imagine. It was falsely claimed his work used the dangerous jackbean lectin instead of the snowdrop lectin (which was chosen for the study because up until then it was thought to be harmless to mammals); mind you, the people making the claim (that he used the wrong lectin) knew which one he actually used -- that doesn't sound too honest to me. Dr. Pusztai was painted as some sort of extreme anti-GMO utjob, an incompetent who couldn't even tell the difference between the two types of lectin in question -- he is actually a reknowned authority on lectins and fully expected to find that the potato/lectin combo he was researching would be completely safe for mammals.
When you find research being savagely and dishonestly attacked in this way, you should start wondering about trusting your health, and the health of our environment, to the attackers. When you accept the nonsense notion that direct genetic manipulation is essentially the same as selective breeding, you are giving your health, and that of our environment, over to those dishonest people. I don't think that's a good idea.
p.s. I mention the health of our
p.s. I mention the health of our environment because another method of making a dishonest claim about many GMO crops is to make a technically accurate statement which doesn't tell the whole story. For instance, many GMOs are modified to give resistance to insect attacks. The statement is often made that they haven't been found to be harmful to humans. This is generally a true statement, but here's two ways in which it is dishonest:
1) Generally no studies have been done as to whether or not it is safe; saying it hasn't been found to be unsafe when no studies have been done is true, but dishonestly implies that we know they are safe. The reason few studies are done on these GMOs is that there has been a concerted and dishonest lobbying effort to claim that there is no essential difference between direct genetic manipulation and selective breeding. In fact, the study and article in question are part of that PR effort, which has been sucessful enough to have that nonsense claim codified into regulatory rules and laws, to our detriment.
2) While it may actually be that these crops are not harmful to humans (it's just a guess if we don't do the studies, but it might be an accurate guess -- you don't mind leaving your health up to a wild guess, do you? I mind.) but they are demonstrably harmful to insects. Those that are engineered to be harmful to insects are harmful to insects -- makes sense, right? But the crop does not and cannot distinguish between "good" and "bad" insects, so it's harmful to all sorts of insects, even ones we want around. Since insects are a vital part of the overall ecosystem's food chain, this disrupts the food chain. We seem to be losing songbirds, for instance, due to losing insects -- do we really want to accelerate this? There are also potential problems with herbicide use, for instance in Monsanto's canola, which is engineered to withstand Monsanto's herbicide, making it possible to use large quantities of that herbicide on the fields, to the benefit of that crop and at the expense of all surrounding crops, plants, and ultimately animals. These things need to be studied, not "PRed" away by printing nonsensical articles promoting BS claims, or by dishonestly attacking the messenger, as was done with Dr. Pusztai.
A lot of the responses on this thread are ridiculous and knee-jerk. The bone-dumb thing about Reynolds' post is that he doesn't seem to know the difference between selective breeding and hybridization (which have been going on for thousands of years) and GM. He apparently thinks they're the same thing.
Whether or not you think GM is a good thing or a bad thing, it's a DIFFERENT thing than hybridization and selective breeding. It's a big, recent scientific advance -- something scarcely even imaginable 50 years ago.
It just goes to prove that even the stooopidest posts can become a teaching and learning tool.
Thanks for all the good info everyone.
You can not go against nature.
Because if you do.
To go against nature is part of nature too.
- david j
Zizka - I don't think Crazy Qat's post is a knee-jerk reaction - he/she really does know the subject.
I don't know where I stand on GM foods - I think the science is a long way from complete on it, so I am just waiting. But there is a lot of money at stake, so I take a lot of what is written in support of GM foods with the idea that it is only part of the story.
As an archaeologist and an Indian, I have to say I completely agree with you, Atrios. I wonder if he even read (or understood) Pearson's work. And he's just now "discovering" the development of maize agriculture in the Americas?
Bwa ha ha. You might want to put up on your Amazon list a copy of Bruce Trigger's "A History of Archaeological Thought" for dear clueless Glenn.
No, the bone-dumb thing is not that Reynolds doesn't know the difference between selective breeding and GM. It's that he thinks his readers are so dumb that they will believe there's no difference if he tells them so.
The baseline concern is unforseen consequences.
Could any pro-GM people out there explain to me the how it is a good idea to put GM crops into the world without knowing how they will affect the biosphere?
Again, scientific research and methods center on controlled experiments. GM crops are a brave new world.
What's the need that overrides generally accepted scientific methodology of testing a hypothesis, i.e., Are genetically modified crops safe?, before letting these organisms loose?
genetically modified crops are the only way we will be able to feed everyone on the planet if we're not going to turn every last acre of forest into farmland -- while using staggering amounts of fertilizer.
Rank nonsense. There is not one person starving on this planet for lack of food, and that has got to be one of the biggest myths in the whole GM Crop controversy. The reasons for starvation are numerous, but they are mostly political and methodological. People can't get food to the people that need the food. But it has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with lack of food. We have enough food, right now, to feed the entire earth five times over. GM is one thing and one thing only, a way for agrabiz to collect more money than they could using traditional means of growing.
Using GM will make crops intellectual property. Think about that for a moment. Nor is it right to claim that GM food has been adequately tested, it has been tested but only by those companies producing it. The FDA has expressed no interest in testing.
I am not at all surprise at Instaidiot's post. It is a misconception that is spread by such think tanks as AEI, Cato, etc...etc. When you can show me a native American that was able to breed a tomato plant with a fish (which GM has done) then perhaps I will agree that selective breeding and genetic modification is the same. Until then the idea is simply laughable.
but the world desperately needs glow in the dark bunnies!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/
gen..._gallery2.shtml
Tena -- I wasn't talking about Qrazy Qat, whose post I hadn't even read, but which furthermore I agree with.
I am neutral/undecided about GM, but it's not the same thing at all as selective breeding or hybridization.
If people are starving for lack of food, why don't we give them the stuff that rots here because it isn't sold? We have an overabundance, and there is no excuse for people to be hungry, except for money and power - that's it.
Though I will always view GM foods with a wary eye, I suppose I should acknowledge that genetic engineering does benefit agriculture in certain cases just to be "fair-and-balanced."
An example of such would be genetically engineered Hawaiian papaya which are resistant to ring spot virus.
In my opinion, GMO should be researched, but their production should be addressed to the needs of the people (adding nutrients into food, for example) rather than the greed of the corporations (making sterile crops to ensure a constant market, for example)
Just as there is a world of difference between controlled fission in nuclear reactors and uncontrolled fission in a nuclear bomb. GMOs should be grown in exclusively isolated greenhouses to minimize the impact on the biosphere. The potential benefits of GMOs are great, but the potential cost of mistakes are catastrophic. Particularly with a globalized distribution of crops, one mistake could potentially destroy entire species of plants.
Should GMOs be sold? Yes. Should they be labelled? Absolutely. For only this way can we truly understand the positive and negative effects of GMOs.
If the GM food companies truly care about humanity as the GMO proponents claim, then these are the steps they should take.
Zizka - duly noted. I really know very little about this; it seems to me that it is a complex subject. It also seems to me that eventually GM foods could be acceptable, but I haven't heard any real reasons to date to accept them yet.
"glow in the dark bunnies"
That will make it a lot easier to tell if I'm shooting a rabbit or your cat! Yeeeeeeeeee-Haaaaaaaaa!
And, having grown up on a farm, wouldn't crossing a pig and corn give me an animal that could feed itself with its own shit?
CD318 writes:
But I also have a doctorate in microbial genetics and I've spent more than a bit of time over the last ten years reading about and studying horizontal gene transfer in natural populations. In short: over the course of evolutionary history, there's been a hell of a lot of it. Not so much in animals, but among plants and microbes there is an enormous amount of transfer going on all the time.
I've done quite a bit of reading on this too; CD318 is correct on this, but it's also important to keep in mind some crucial points:
Evolutionary time frames are enormously long, which is an indicator of the kinds of barriers that exist in nature to horizontal gene transfer. Yes, it does happen a lot more than most people realize, but I think the point that others were trying to make (as was I) was that Reynolds was equating selective breeding with genetic manipulation in the laboratory and there are significant differences between the two.
It would be interesting to see, at least in plants, how broadly distributed horizontal gene transfer in nature is among different species and if this transfer is tends to cluster among closely related species. Perhaps such clustering doesn't happen, but it seems to me that one is more likely to see genes jumping, say among the tomato's close relatives rather than between tomato plants and peanut plants, though the latter isn't impossible.
I do think the larger point about putting GMO's in their political and economic context and not just focusing on narrow technical aspects is a sound one. No argument from me on that one.
First, it's not even news that Native Peoples bred corn selectively. It's not even news that virtually all agrarian people did the same thing with whatever crops they had at their disposal. Read Jared Diamond's (Guns, Germs, and Steel." (Read it anyway: it's a great book.)
Second, I thought the right-wingers LIKED pointing out that pre-industrial societies were just as environmentally destructive as ours, so why the sneering link to the Clovis article? Again, read Diamond's book (for starters).
God, I feel sorry for that asshole's students.
Let me state that I am not opposed to genetic modification of food plants.
I do thik that tremendous care should be taken with releasing them into the biosphere.
I also think that a set-up that makes poor farmers slaves to biotech companies for their survival absolutely pernicious.
Here is one place that I think the profit motive is the wrong engine to be driving this process.
I don't think it was a good idea to decide that organisms could be patented in the first place--and I think that the equation of big money if you succeed and limited liability if you create an ecological catastrophe is the way to encourage the diligent caution needed for safe progress.
I'd not be surprised if Rush picks up this hybridization = GM meme* on his return and from now on any discussion of GM foods is brought to a halt with the declaration that liberals don't even realize that Hopis were genetically modifying food thousands of years ago.
*I don't know if this is the right context for 'meme' but I didn't want to be the last person on earth to use it.
QQ and Dominion have posted everything I would want to say on the subject, plus the poster that scoffed at the "free market" idea of GM foods.
CD318, I respect your knowledge but think about what you actually said:
>but among plants and microbes there is an enormous amount of transfer going on all the time
What happens when our GMO plant makes an unforseen transfer to another plant of microbe? The problem is, Dorothy, we ARE in Kansas now, not a laboratory.
Simple observations of this sort were the basis for Madelavian genetics."
Mendelian. Gregor Mendel.
"Evolutionary time frames are enormously long, which is an indicator of the kinds of barriers that exist in nature to horizontal gene transfer. Yes, it does happen a lot more than most people realize, but I think the point that others were trying to make (as was I) was that Reynolds was equating selective breeding with genetic manipulation in the laboratory and there are significant differences between the two."
CD318 was not defending Reynolds. (S)he was pointing out the inherent difficulties in painting GM agriculture with the broad brush that much of the left insists on using. It's especially ironic in a thread about the idiocy of (that idiot) instapundit.
The situation is far from simple, and while breeding mutant strains (almost certainly polyploid) of maize is not analogous to introducing xenogenic elements into the maize's genome, the complexity and degree of the problems involved in both traditional and organic agriculture makes a tacit dismissal of all "GM" crops absurd in the extreme.
Opining about how the world might be if everyone was a vegetarian and excess food stores were shipped free of charge to those that needed them is similalry absurd in an ostensibly free capitalist system.
Horizontal gene transfer does occur in plants in nature, the degree to which it happens is not precisely inversely proportional (but close) to the degree of interrelatededness between the species involved. Plant viruses, viroids (naked ssRNA plant pathogens) and transposable elements ensure a non-linear realationship.
While it is extraordinarily unlikely that Bt corn would develop spontaneously in the environment, the dangers inherent in fixing (via recombinant measures) the Bacillus thuringiensis toxin gene into corn have been blown dramatically out of proportion by paranoiacs who do not or choose not to see the crippling problems that arise from more traditional pest deterrence.
Organic farmers spray corn seed with Bt spores already, this is common practice. Bt toxin is totally benign to humans and every organism that does not possess the specific GI ionophore. The argument that Bt resistance is more likely to develop if Bt corn was in circulation is facetious because the likelyhood of pests developing Bt toxin resistance is directly proportional to the prevalence of Bt toxin *regardless of where on the crop the toxin is expressed*. More organic farmers spraying corn seed with Bt spore means the likelyhood of toxin resistance among affected pests increases as surely as if the corn was expressing the toxin itself. Period.
The point of "GM" foods being helpful in combating world hunger is a good one. "GM" foods are *not* limited by the arbitrary limitations imposed by some of the agribusiness strains such as sterility and brand weedkiller resistance. "Roundup ready" crops are bad for the environment because the
because they encourage increased usage of dangerous and polluting pesticides, but "GM"=!Roundup Ready, goddamit!
Given the well-documented inefficiencies of organic farming (the least environmentally damaging techniques of legume plowing under/"green fertilizer" are the least efficient by unit area, and the most environmentally damaging techniques (manure has the same water wrecking nitrates as inorganic fertilizers) are the most efficient) and the destructive nature of inorganic fertilized/pesticide treated (but efficient) farming, there are a great number of reasons to invest in research on "GM" crops, provided they are tested sufficiently before being introduced to the market.
Recombinant plant varietals with integral rhizobium nitrogenase could fertilize ground naturally (really) where nothing else could grow before. "GM" crops can be engineered to grow in environments contaminated with high concentrations of salt or halides, creating viable new agricultural land over time. Staple foods can be engineered to overexpress *endogenous* (prexisting natural) proteins in order to provide higher protein sustenence to the subsistence level farmers who depend on them.
The possibilities are essentially limitless, and safety can be readily ensured by ultrarigorous testing procedures (something that has indeed been lacking in the past).
Dismissing "GM" crops out of hand however, is an absurd, conservative, almost religious position that is untenable given the current rate of population growth and the havoc we've wreaked on the environment with both traditional and organic farming methods. Less pesticide use and less fertilizer use (regardless of whence the nitrogen comes, creating and use of animal dung is no less dangerous than the stuff derived from the Haber process) are good things for the environment, very good indeed. Provided sufficient research and testing is performed, "GM" crops may save the day, and the planet.
Especially if NGO's and governments develop their own variants and do not charge patent royalties or enforce sterility.
Yep. Agreed.
Tom
who the fuck links to a 12 page pdf?
man, i feel cheated.
Note from someone who actually works in genetics:
You people (who I normally call 'my type of people') have gone a little insane with your instant fear and paranoia over GM crops.
First, selective breeding is a tool of genetics, therefore agriculture is genetic modification, and as much as I hate to say it, Instahacks post was acurate (but still asshole-ish).
Secondly genetic modification itself is nothing to be afraid of (however most do fear what they don't understand, and I doubt most of you have degrees in genetics). What is to fear is missuse of genetic modification, such as making them resistant to poisons so farmers can use cheaper and deadlier pesticides on their crops.
Writing off GM crops as a whole just makes our side seem ignorant and afraid. GM crops are innevitable, and whether that is a good thing or bad will depend on all of you educating yourself about it, and narrowing your protests to specific practices, until then you'll never be taken seriously, you'll just be considered a bunch of naturalist hippies who don't know anything about genetics.
atipamezole, and Lord Kanti:
Thank you for your posts. There ar a LOT of problems with industrial agriculture, but the left wing's (and note, I place myself firmly within the left political tradition) blanket dismissal of genetic engineering is downright medieval. I use that word advisedly. I am saying that these folks are rejecting rationalism, and rejecting the liberal notion of progress. This is the attitude that says it is all right to not act as the darkness closes in, as the Library at Alexandria is sacked. Such an attitude is antiintellectual in its rejection of complexity and embrace of simple dichotomy. Now, who *else* engages in that sort of behavior? Hint: it begins with "George".
And yet, I still can't help but think that the pollen from the genetically modified crops is exacerbating my allergies, forcing me to snort genetically modified rat nostril dna in a shigella virus carrier, making me simultaneously afraid to and desperately in need of a sneezing fit.
While it may not always be expressed in the best possible way, there are two entirely different concerns raised by people opposed to GM crops. One is specific to the crops, the other to the framework in which they're being developed.
It can't be denied that GM crops known to be wind pollinated have been released into the wild with reckless abandon. They can't be contained, and have led to genetic contamination creeping closer to the home of the original corn species where the greatest diversity is found. When we lose wild types, we lose genetic diversity, which can ultimately doom crop plants if there aren't enough alternate gene pools to hybridize back into in the case of a new determined pathogen. Note the likely extinction of the cultivated banana within a few decades. It's very fortunate that there are plenty of wild bananas to create a new cross from.
There's also a health related issue, that of food allergies, some of which can be quite severe. If someone with food allergies doesn't know what they're eating, bad things can happen. Many of the most commonly allergenic plant foods are the ones that a) have already been so selectively bred that a gene map is necessary to figure out what they're related to, and b) are likely to be wind pollinated grasses that the GM people have been most eager to work their magic on. From this perspective, what I see happening is tampering with a bunch of allergenic organisms that no one with any power wants to label.
And this plays into the institutional concerns which people being 'rational' about the inevitability of scientific progress don't seem to be getting here. The people who own the rights to GM crops are pursuing actively irresponsible and predatory policies in concert with the US government. There are African countries who have been offered 'in kind' US food aid, meaning that if they don't take the GM food we insist on offering, they get nothing. There are farmers who've been sued for violation of IP law because GM pollen from their neighbors' crops contaminated their seed. Percy Schmeiser of Canada had to pay tens of thousands in damages to Monsanto, was unable to sell his crop, and had all his seed stock rendered useless.
GM might be nice in some cases, under a certain system. But we aren't living under that system, and the cases available for scrutiny look like bad news.
This is the same kind of ostrich maneuver Thomas Friedman pulled, when he insisted that the invasion of Iraq would be the greatest thing ever if it was done right. Ignoring the fact that our only imminent option was to let the keystone cops have it, or leave it alone. No third choice at the time.
And there really isn't much of a third choice in this case. We can have unscrupulous companies literally shove this unlabeled stuff down our throats and poison the genome of crops owned by those who don't want to participate, or we can put a halt to letting it run wild until more studies are done an
Dumbest post ever?
Nah. This is.
Dumbest post ever?
Nah. This is.
In a roundabout way it makes the case for splicing human intelligence genes into the Instapundit genetic makeup.
A frightening thought indeed!
BWA HA HA HA!! Instapundit gets a pat on the head from Monsanto for this one. Tomacco, anyone?
Instapundit proves that he's a product of indiscriminate inbreeding.
Now that's an interesting one. What evidence is there, prey tell, that highly-selected food crops are more likely to cause food allergies? Right, none. What raises boils at the back of my throat? Triticale? Soybeans? Nope. Hazelnuts. Truth is that a lot of FUD has been raised about allergies, but there's precious little evidence that GM crops are more likely to trigger food allergies than non-GM ones.
If you want to worry abour agriculture worry about the economics, the soil loss, the pesticide overuse the nitrogen toxicity and salinization, the depletion of aquifiers, the loss of genetic diversity in crop species. GM seed stocks do nothing to address these problems. In some cases GM will exacerbate them somewhat, and in other cases (pesticide use, fertilizer-related pollution) GM may over time dramatically reduce the problems. But in no case are GM seed stocks the root (cough) cause of the problems, which have been with us since before the second world war, and accelerated with the green revoution. I'll even be a bit more blunt: the fundies and Matt Drudges of the world will not stop stem cell research or molecular genetic manipulation of humans or the proliferation of porn on the internet. The left has already failed to stop the widespread adoption of GM crops (over half of the soybeans grown in the US are GM). Europe is stalling, but in time they too will adopt GM crops. The economic advantages will be far too compelling not to do so.
Did you guys even read the second link? It says exactly the opposite of what it is supposed to say. Not very good citation for a law professor.
Sir Hackalot rides again!
Jesus. Uh, yeah, actually corn started out as a miniature grain. It only became the size we know it as through thousands of years of selective breeding. We've KNOWN that for a very long time.
That has absolutely nothing, however, to do with genetic modification.
This man is certifiably brain dead. Even a humongous dose of real, working science is of no use to him.
Yet another tool in the box, and this is proof positive. Eeyuck.
Later,
No wonder he doesn't allow comments. Who wants to be told that they're a moron everyday?
Will you people knock this shit off! We're supposed to be the side of reason, of sanity, and here you are acting the same way about GM crops as the wing nuts do about stem cell research.
Face it, most of you who are so against GM crops know nothing about genetics or ecological genetics. It is the boogie man to you. Your fears reflect your ignorance of it. Sure, their are a lot of 'what if' scenarios, but where is your research to back it up?
And your making us look bad because Instahacks post isn't original, the argument was first put forward by liberal progressive scientists when they first began GM crop research, before the conservatives found their was money it for them and were trying to block it to appease their reactionary ignorant voters.
GM crops has to happen, it must. But if we don't get involved, instead of just trying to block it, if we leave this in the hands of the same morons who have screwed everything else up, then it will be as much our fault as theirs. We have to stop trying to stand in the way of progress and do something to try and shape it.
Well, don't tell me Instahack just found that? What a genius. Had he gone to Mexico City Museum, he would've seen indeed fine examples of corn ranging from 8.000 years ago until now, and the volume was multiplied by 5 at least. Quite impressive.
Whatever, that's a slow process using external means, not tinkering with corn's ADN by cutting it and replacing it.
And ultimately, the whole "GM is necessary to feed everyone" is CRAP, for several reasons:
Most of soya and corn is used to feed cattle, which is then turned into T-bones. Well, stop eating 3 steaks a day, eat meat twice a week, and we can feed 20 billions people with vegetables and corn. Half the planet is starving basically because we waste food by feeding countless beefs; and by overeating, which not only starves the planet but causes obesity to those who don't starve.
- What good will it do to feed 20 billions people, when all the other natural resources (water, oil, scrap metal, land, ...) will all be wasted and fucked up by overpopulation? GM food should be *banned* as a way of trying to limit as much as possible the overpopulation problem, which ultimately is the biggest issue we'll have to face (that is, once the Repubs and neo-cons have been dealt with).
There's also the fact that most GM stuff is specifically targeted for American and European farmers, and these areas aren't starving. The day Monsanto comes with a cheap GM stuff that would actually help Indian or African farmers, they can begin talking about "helping to feed the people". But as I said earlier, ultimately that whole point is moot. When there's too many people in a given area, they can't support themselves, die, and population drops to a manageable reasonable size and is able to survive and live on the land.
Of course mankind has passed that point since some time, which will make for some Big Fun in the next decades.
For fuck's sake get it right!!! Altering hereditary traits IS genetic modification, whether done in a lab or out in a field. For the sake of never discussing this again, and giving small victories to assholes like instahack, lets just call them LGM crops (labratory genetically modified crops). There, no more confusion.
Now, lets take our own adivice and try not to be so reactionary. Think about crops that don't need pesticides, so no pesticides polluting our ground water. It's a ways off, but do you really want to be the one trying to stop that and other possible benefits? Fight how corporations and governments missuse this tool, not the tool itself.
Lord Kanti:
Actually, I think that's what most of us are trying to do here. I certainly don't advocate painting GM practices with a broad brush, but it seems to me that's what Reynolds was doing - in the other direction. There is a difference between selective breeding corn and introducing, via the laboratory, genes from say, animals, into plants. It may be valuable. All I'm saying is that we should be careful about it and not assume it to be the panacea that the potential abusers of this technology would like us to think it is. That's all.
And yes, I've done some work in genetics/molecular biology. I think this is an issue that touches enough people that a broad spectrum of individuals ought to be able to enter into it.
"Most of soya and corn is used to feed cattle, which is then turned into T-bones. Well, stop eating 3 steaks a day, eat meat twice a week, and we can feed 20 billions people with vegetables and corn. Half the planet is starving basically because we waste food by feeding countless beefs; and by overeating, which not only starves the planet but causes obesity to those who don't starve.
- What good will it do to feed 20 billions people, when all the other natural resources (water, oil, scrap metal, land, ...) will all be wasted and fucked up by overpopulation? GM food should be *banned*"
WTF are you talking about?
Where do you get off spewing nonsense of this magnitude?
I'm as left if not more so than the next person who comes here, but you're talking nonsense couched in propaganda!
Do you propose to create a *fascist dictatorship* that *runs the entire world* to ensure that no one eats beef?
Solving overpopulation is a real and viable concern, but *you're not going to be able to close down McDonalds and force the entire world population to become vegetarian in order to do it*, so shut that sh*t off right now!
Blaming the entire field of genetic manipulation based on the fact tha Monsanto has acted like a pack of jackasses at times also *makes NO SENSE WHATOSEVER*. If you wish to _actually do something_ to help overpopulation, making baseless statements predicated on FUC WON'T CUT IT!
FUD....
Regardless, the tacit dismissals of the vast potential of GM crops seen in this thread are merely more evidence of the religiosity with which people in this country view even non-poliitical issues such as this one.
The simple fact of the matter is this: anyone who knows a goddamn thing about the subject (few and far between here....even more so at instapundit) can tell you with a straight face that if you dismiss genetic manipulation and transgenic foods based on the sample set you're using, you're no better than Chicken Little.
In fact, you're making a *precious bodily fluids* statement of *supersition* by proposing to ban "genetic manipulation" whole hog.
Because you don't *trust Monsanto*.
But *Monsanto isn't shit*, their craven attempts to line their own pockets by producing sterile pesticide resistant strains of food crops is *not*, I REPEAT, *NOT* what genetic manipulation is limited to!
It's a relatively simple matter to get soy, or corn to *overexpress endogenous proteins* (the proteins that ALREADY EXIST IN THE PLANT NATURALLY) without impacting the plants' ability to reproduce.
This could have a stunning impact on the rate of malnutrition in third-world countries, but some of you people *won't hear of it because of your own reactionary superstition*.
You think you could reasonably get the population of *any* western country to switch completely to vegetarianism and ship their excess agricultural food stores *free of charge* to third world countries without resorting to totalitarian measures that would make Ashcroft look like Jefferson?
YOU CAN'T. So drop it.
You work with what you have, and you don't make absurd statements about allergies (christ!) and some hypothetical magical land where agriculture is somehow "natural" to begin with and overpopulation is best cured by *mass starvation* rather than education.
"Fight how corporations and governments missuse this tool, not the tool itself."
This is exactly right.
There is *nothing* preventing NGO's or governments from taking up the tool sets of modern molecular biology and biochemistry and manipulating organisms in such a way as to minimize fertilizer use (nitrogenase coupled with the bacterial hemocyanin subunit for example), minimize pesticide use and maximize protein output without creating a dependence on a first-world corporation for seed supplies or custom pesticides.
Well, excuse me, there is something preventing this.
The ignorant and puritanical supposition that traditional agricultural products are somehow "natural", and that genetic manipulation in the context of a laboratory is fundamentally different from that performed for thousands of years to create our modern livestock and food stocks.
In fact, traditional agriculture is to *blame* for the homogeneous nature of the genomes of our primary food crops.
"Whatever, that's a slow process using external means, not tinkering with corn's ADN by cutting it and replacing it."
This statement is one of the most absurd I've read recently.
While introducing a bacterial gene into a dicotyledon plant is unlikely to occur in nature, the *act of cutting and manipulating DNA in general* is not *inherently* unnatural - inbreeding corn varietals to produce *polyploid* strains *is at least* as "unnatural".
The *speed* of the manipulation has *jack shit* to do with *anything*.
Splicing in an octopus pigment attached to a viral promoter is potentially (though unlikely) risky proposition.
But you can splice in an additional copy of a gene in the endogenous methionine synthesis pathway and put in front of a preexisting promoter in the same amount of time.
So please, don't make rash statements like this or the others I've pointed to.
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