80% of Americans...

[JeffDG]

You are using your own definition of "genetically modified". If you look at the link I quoted a few posts earlier, it's a misleading term for the process in question.

Actually, I'm using a "plain english" meaning of genetically modified. Has the genome of the organism been modified by artificial means.

The scare tactic is blaming the tool, which is what the modern gene splicing is. It's a method of doing something more precisely and accurately than was available in the past with hybridization and selective breeding.

It's like if you decided that you would have different sentences for bank robbery depending on whether the robber used a sedan or an SUV as the getaway car.

 

[EdFred]

Yes, they should, but that is not in the agenda of leadership. You can't blame the 80%, it's the leadership that is failing.

Oh, I blame the 80%, because the 80% are morons.

 

[steingar]

I'm using an accurate definition, not one based on spin.

While your definition is literally accurate, it does not address the central issue. People are worried about the effect of so called "genetic engineering" on the safety of foodstuffs. Most of this is just anti-science, there has never been a GMO that has damaged an indigenous crop or ecosystem in the history of biological science. That said, plenty of plants and animals modified the good old-fashioned way have ruined indigenous ecosystems.

The really sad thing about all this is your digestive system cannot distinguish between GMOs and anything else you eat. There is one instance where the modification introduced a powerful allergen, I don't even know if those are still on the market.

So lets see. Use of antibiotics on commercially grown animals is really bad, since it leads to the genesis of antibiotic resistant bacterial strains. That said, your digestive system will digest any antibiotics that make it to your gastric tract, I doubt any could survive gastric acid to begin with. And whatever harm the antibiotics do is dwarfed by the harm farming does to the environment in the first place.

Treating cows with growth hormone may change the texture or taste of the meat, obviously I wouldn't know. But the hormones don't make it into tissues in any bioactive concentration, and even if they did would be broken down in your stomach before they ever had a chance to exert their effects. I suspect that treating cows with hormones is far from the worst thing done to cows in their lives.

Most genetic modifications are monoallelic (one gene or trait). They aren't monsters, and while the modified trait might make them more amenable to culture or assist with their processing, they don't make them more fit to grow in the wild. Lurid fantasies of GMOs running wild are just that, lurid fantasied. Ma nature designs pretty darn well, I doubt us humans are going to do her one better any time soon.

 

[Henning]

Actually, I'm using a "plain english" meaning of genetically modified. Has the genome of the organism been modified by artificial means.

The scare tactic is blaming the tool, which is what the modern gene splicing is. It's a method of doing something more precisely and accurately than was available in the past with hybridization and selective breeding.

It's like if you decided that you would have different sentences for bank robbery depending on whether the robber used a sedan or an SUV as the getaway car.

You are using the wrong argument for situation. This is no longer just about education, we have passed that point. This is now about a company stonewalling information. We can't even get back to addressing the science education until we restore trust. You don't restore trust, especially to the scientific side, when you try to play word games in an argument. It's like asking "what is is", and it breeds mistrust. Everybody understands GMO to be gene splicing, not grafting and breeding techniques. When you start telling people "Oh, you're wrong, we've been doing GMO for thousands of years." you exclude your input from the argument and reduce the validity of everyone else arguing the pro GMO case trying to provide a basis for rational consideration.

Your poor and off target argument is ****ing the cause brother. If you cannot view the argument with compassion and empathy for the other side, you will not reach a good solution, especially when the other side is scared and stupid. Your argument does nobody any favors.

 

[Henning]

Oh, I blame the 80%, because the 80% are morons.

You can blame morons all you want, but it won't do you any good, they're morons, they just do what they are told.

 

[JeffDG]

Your poor and off target argument is ****ing the cause brother. If you cannot view the argument with compassion and empathy for the other side, you will not reach a good solution, especially when the other side is scared and stupid. Your argument does nobody any favors.

There's no stonewalling of information, just uninformed politicians pandering to the lowest common denominator with pseudo-science bullcrap.

It's like the anti-vax maroons. I have no "compassion and empathy" for people who endanger not only themselves, but others around them

 

[Everskyward]

Actually, I'm using a "plain english" meaning of genetically modified. Has the genome of the organism been modified by artificial means.

But that is not what we are talking about here. This is the text from the Colorado ballot measure under "definitions".

(12.5) "GENETICALLY ENGINEERED" OR "GENETICALLY MODIFIED" MEANS FOOD PRODUCED FROM OR WITH AN ORGANISM OR ORGANISMS WITH ITS GENETICS ALTERED THROUGH APPLICATION OF:

(a) IN VITRO AND IN VIVO NUCLEIC ACID TECHNIQUES, INCLUDING RECOMBITANT DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC ACID (DNA) TECHNIQUES AND THE DIRECT INJECTION OF NUCLEIC ACID INTO CELLS OR ORGANELLES; OR

(b) METHODS OF FUSING CELLS BEYOND THE TAXONOMIC FAMILY THAT OVERCOME NATURAL PHYSIOLOGICAL REPRODUCTIVE OR RECOMBINANT BARRIERS, AND THAT ARE NOT TECHNIQUES USED IN TRADITIONAL BREEDING AND SELECTION SUCH AS CONJUGATION, TRANSDUCTION, AND HYBRIDIZATION.

You are the one who is confusing the issue hoping that people who are ignorant of the processes will think, oh it's just like selective breeding so it must be OK.

I don't have much of a problem with this technology, although like all technology there are plusses, minuses and unintended consequences. But I think that by using your tactic you will turn off more people than you will convince because they will realize you are twisting the meaning of the words so perhaps there is something to hide.

 

[JeffDG]

You are the one who is confusing the issue hoping that people who are ignorant of the processes will think, oh it's just like selective breeding so it must be OK.

No.

What I'm saying is that there is no fundamental difference between selective breeding and hybridization that humans have been doing for millenia, and direct modification of DNA, except that the direct modification is faster and more accurate to do.

If you want to label GMO, then all genetically modified organisms should be labelled, not just those that are modified by one tool that you don't happen to like.

Again, it's like saying that if your getaway car is a sedan, you get 5 years for bank robbery, but if you use an SUV, it's 20 years for you.

 

[Henning]

There's no stonewalling of information, just uninformed politicians pandering to the lowest common denominator with pseudo-science bullcrap.

It's like the anti-vax maroons. I have no "compassion and empathy" for people who endanger not only themselves, but others around them

Without compassion and empathy for the stupid, your point will not prevail and you will fail. That is exactly why the greedy have control, because they apply compassion and empathy to their control strategy and tell the people how hard they are going to **** them in such a way they bend over willingly. They do so because they want to believe the lie. Since the stupid don't want to think (the definition of being stupid) they abdicate to whomever tells them what they want to hear.

Until someone tells them the truth that they believe, because while they may not be able to spot a lie, the stupid are very adept at spotting truth and honesty, they just don't often see it.

If you don't overcome the trust issue though, you never get to present the truth, and that is where we are now. Right now scientists as a class are viewed pretty much the same as priests. Those who know you personally trust you personally, nobody trusts the institutions of science or religion because they have been used to corrupt purposes in the past. Plus the food and drug community can hardly present a fine clean track record of safe innovation. There have been many things that took a generation or more to see the deadly results. "There has never been" does not hold much weight in a technology so young without a much deeper understanding of why you think you have enough information to believe that will hold true into the future.

People have to trust you to believe your arguments. Right now over half the people here will argue that NOAA ocean temperature data is fraudulent. How do you get anywhere starting there? How do you start to gain trust? You look at things from their point of view, you understand their fears and limitations, you use some empathy to understand them and how to address their fears. It doesn't really take much, but it does take an effort.

Dismissive arguments are not enough effort. You have to produce the information over and over in thought and argument, that's how progress happens. The more the information is produced, the greater the odds it gets observed. The more information is observed the likelier it comes to exist.

Using the "Oh, your definition is wrong and you don't know what the **** you are talking about so just shut up and quit annoying my sensibilities and costing me money" argument is really counter productive to your position.

BTW, Refusing labeling is seen as stonewalling information.

 

[JeffDG]

BTW, Refusing labeling is seen as stonewalling information.

Hell, I'm saying, if you're going to label, label all genetically modified organisms. You're arguing to give heavier sentences if the getaway car is an SUV instead of a sedan.

 

[Henning]

Hell, I'm saying, if you're going to label, label all genetically modified organisms. You're arguing to give heavier sentences if the getaway car is an SUV instead of a sedan.

Your definition of GMO is not the one used in the GMO labeling issue though, that is where your argument falls on its face and loses your anti labeling argument credibility. As for the sentence, that is the cost of acting like dismissive asses and bringing this subject to this point. Corporate Karma.

 

[JeffDG]

Your definition of GMO is not the one used in the GMO labeling issue though, that is where your argument falls on its face and loses your anti labeling argument credibility. As for the sentence, that is the cost of acting like dismissive asses and bringing this subject to this point. Corporate Karma.

The one used by the "GMO labeling issue" is the equivalent of giving someone 20 years for using an SUV as a getaway car in a robbery, and someone 5 years if they use a sedan.

If you can't get that through your skull, well, that's your issue.

 

[Henning]

The one used by the "GMO labeling issue" is the equivalent of giving someone 20 years for using an SUV as a getaway car in a robbery, and someone 5 years if they use a sedan.

If you can't get that through your skull, well, that's your issue.

That's what happens when you aggravate the circumstances of your offense. You get punished for it. The industry could have been cooperative a decade, even 5 years ago, and none of this would exist. The industry brought this upon themselves through bad acts of management, oh well, I won't cry for them.

None of this is about science, it's all about corporate attitude in the US, if you can't get that through your skull, well, that's your issue.

 

[JeffDG]

That's what happens when you aggravate the circumstances of your offense. You get punished for it. The industry could have been cooperative a decade, even 5 years ago, and none of this would exist. The industry brought this upon themselves through bad acts of management, oh well, I won't cry for them.

None of this is about science, it's all about corporate attitude in the US, if you can't get that through your skull, well, that's your issue.

I get it. You don't understand science, with all your bullcrap that flatly violates thermodynamics (ie. you can make unlimitted energy just by repeating the word Hydrogen until it magically appears), and your wacko ideas about the Higgs boson that have no relation to actual science. Definitions matter, and you hate them...like when you keep spouting about "supersymetry" when you don't have a clue what it means.

But this is about science.

The simple fact is: Genetic Modification is Genetic Modification. Period.

Gene splicing, cloning, hybridization, artificial selection...these are just tools used.

 

[Henning]

The labeling is not an issue of science, it is an issue of trust.

 

[denverpilot]

The labeling is not an issue of science, it is an issue of trust.

Right. Everyone should trust your assessment of genetic modifications and their safety over the scientist's. That's what it's really about. Not some silly anti-large-company screed.

Labeling does nothing useful to make people smarter. But it does move power to a particular group of people who will make a lot of money "reviewing" things.

The GMO debate is simply a market price manipulation tool.

 

[JeffDG]

it's all about corporate attitude in the US

I'm just down the road from Alcoa even!

 

[Henning]

Right. Everyone should trust your assessment of genetic modifications and their safety over the scientist's. That's what it's really about. Not some silly anti-large-company screed.

Labeling does nothing useful to make people smarter. But it does move power to a particular group of people who will make a lot of money "reviewing" things.

The GMO debate is simply a market price manipulation tool.

Why do you assume my views of genetic modification are negative? The real question you are missing is why is there this large population of people who do not trust the scientists over Food Babe? That is the first issue that needs to be addressed, and it can't be done by telling people to **** off.

 

[steingar]

The saddest thing is Henning goes on and on about trust and ignores the only guy in the room who knows the first thing about it.

 

[ClimbnSink]

The saddest thing is Henning goes on and on about trust and ignores the only guy in the room who knows the first thing about it.

Which has nothing to do with the moronic public's distrust of altruistic big food.

 

[steingar]

Which has nothing to do with the moronic public's distrust of altruistic big food.

What are they going to trust? I have no dog in the hunt at all, I just know the relevant issues and how stupid the anti-GMO position truly is.

The vaccine situation is really, really, really pathetic. The guys who make these things mostly want to keep people from getting sick. So folks skip them because of some outdated study that was wrong in the first place.

The funny thing is folks will happily believe a discredited study, but not the very altruistic guys who discredited it.

I promise this will bite us in the six if it hasn't already. Why would any promising young person want to go into science when his or her parents berate and mistrust scientists? What kind of message does that send? And who does the US maintain technological prowess without trained personnel to keep us on the cutting edge? You think things are bad now? Wait until we have to buy all our high technology from abroad.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Meh, Science career is a backup if your internship at Goldmans doesn't pan out.

 

[Henning]

What are they going to trust? I have no dog in the hunt at all, I just know the relevant issues and how stupid the anti-GMO position truly is.

The vaccine situation is really, really, really pathetic. The guys who make these things mostly want to keep people from getting sick. So folks skip them because of some outdated study that was wrong in the first place.

The funny thing is folks will happily believe a discredited study, but not the very altruistic guys who discredited it.

I promise this will bite us in the six if it hasn't already. Why would any promising young person want to go into science when his or her parents berate and mistrust scientists? What kind of message does that send? And who does the US maintain technological prowess without trained personnel to keep us on the cutting edge? You think things are bad now? Wait until we have to buy all our high technology from abroad.

The funny thing is, if we hadn't started vaccinating and the advances in medicine like antibiotics since, the entire GMO issue would have never come about because we wouldn't have the population numbers to require it.

 

[Stewartb]

What are they going to trust? I have no dog in the hunt at all, I just know the relevant issues and how stupid the anti-GMO position truly is.

The vaccine situation is really, really, really pathetic. The guys who make these things mostly want to keep people from getting sick. So folks skip them because of some outdated study that was wrong in the first place.

The funny thing is folks will happily believe a discredited study, but not the very altruistic guys who discredited it.

Hmm. That sounds alarmingly accurate for the internet climate change threads, too!

I promise this will bite us in the six if it hasn't already. Why would any promising young person want to go into science when his or her parents berate and mistrust scientists? What kind of message does that send? And who does the US maintain technological prowess without trained personnel to keep us on the cutting edge? You think things are bad now? Wait until we have to buy all our high technology from abroad.

Too late. Go to a big US university that's strong in engineering and tech. Watch the beer-drinking American party kids get their undergrad diplomas. If you went early you watched the middle eastern and asian kids getting their graduate degrees. And don't go racial, those tinted skin kids are smart, motivated, and have a cultural work ethic that Americans now find distasteful. They're the new us. Those kids? Most of the former will be working for the latter.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Hmm. That sounds alarmingly accurate for the internet climate change threads, too!



Too late. Go to a big US university that's strong in engineering and tech. Watch the beer-drinking American party kids get their undergrad diplomas. If you went early you watched the middle eastern and asian kids getting their graduate degrees. And don't go racial, those tinted skin kids are smart, motivated, and have a cultural work ethic that Americans now find distasteful. They're the new us. Those kids? Most of the former will be working for the latter.

Nope. Asian culture and achievement isn't nearly as good as their marketing and the self hating whiteys would have you believe.

 

[Henning]

Nope. Asian culture and achievement isn't nearly as good as their marketing and the self hating whiteys would have you believe.

Self hatred is the correct response when you know you are doing the wrong thing. Suicide is what happens when you realize you are damned for it and can't do anything about it.

 

[steingar]

The funny thing is, if we hadn't started vaccinating

Yeah, because everyone wants their kid in an iron lung or wheelchair from Polio.

and the advances in medicine like antibiotics since,

since very one likes dying from infection

the entire GMO issue would have never come about because we wouldn't have the population numbers to require it.

There were more people in India and China than in the US now before the advent of any of these things.

 

[Stewartb]

Nope. Asian culture and achievement isn't nearly as good as their marketing and the self hating whiteys would have you believe.

Marketing? Go to a few university graduations for yourself. I get the opportunity. That's the sole basis for my comments.

 

[James_Dean]

The funny thing is, if we hadn't started vaccinating and the advances in medicine like antibiotics since, the entire GMO issue would have never come about because we wouldn't have the population numbers to require it.

Farmers were cultivating Bacillus thuringiensis before penicillin was discovered.

Farmers chose varieties based upon what is going to make them the most money. A more economical method of pest control is going to be a winner whatever the world population.

 

[Stewartb]

Y'all need to watch or read "The Botany of Desire". Very interesting. One chapter is about Monsanto and GMO potatoes. I like the chapter about apples. It's worth the time and if you have time to watch cars driving in circles on TV? Maybe you ought to try something different, anyway. :wink2:

 

[Henning]

Yeah, because everyone wants their kid in an iron lung or wheelchair from Polio.


since very one likes dying from infection



There were more people in India and China than in the US now before the advent of any of these things.

Doesn't matter, past is past and technology has brought changes both positive and negative to production, then there is the factor as population increases they require space that is taken away from ability to produce food, so the issue is also one of compounding. The Earth has the ability to sustain half a billion humans as hunter gatherers, that was the stable world population until we became an agrarian society then it went up to 1BB and stayed there as we developed into a technological society. We finally came into fruition as a technological species in the mid 1800s with the what I consider the 2 defining moments, the steam engine and the small pox vaccine. When these two factors came into play, we were then solidly and forever a technological society.

These 2 factors acted symbiotically to grow the population through increased food yield and reduction of childhood deaths and both technologies have grown simultaneously, and gene splicing technology is a natural progression in these regards, growing the population.

However one factor in all this we have been ignoring is the fresh water required for sustained growth. We are already stressing nature's ability to supply, which appears to be around 7BB people's needs and are in deficit. We need to apply the same technological innovation on this front as we do on medicine or food production, but we don't; the reason we don't is because it will reduce profits if we do it one way, or it is too expensive if we do it the other, either way, there is no profit in it yet. In 10 years there will be, and then we will choose the expensive energy wasteful method because it is the quickest to implement and show a profit by the end of the quarter, the consumer will pay, they have to; but they won't be able to, and the revolution will begin.

By arguing every argument on the wrong points, we stay on our path. We need to look for the root cause of the issues and eliminate them.

 

[Everskyward]

No.

What I'm saying is that there is no fundamental difference between selective breeding and hybridization that humans have been doing for millenia, and direct modification of DNA, except that the direct modification is faster and more accurate to do.

If you want to label GMO, then all genetically modified organisms should be labelled, not just those that are modified by one tool that you don't happen to like.

.
I already said I voted 'no' on the labeling.

It doesn't matter what your definition of GMO is for the purpose of voting. It only matters what is in the language on the ballot, which I quoted. Not only that, both sides use the term in its more restrictive way. Don't you think the science is strong enough to stand on its own? You are just confusing the issue. Some might say you are being deceptive.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Marketing? Go to a few university graduations for yourself. I get the opportunity. That's the sole basis for my comments.

Credentials doesn't equal ability. Lotta Asians with the credentials to fly airliners.

 

[denverpilot]

Why do you assume my views of genetic modification are negative? The real question you are missing is why is there this large population of people who do not trust the scientists over Food Babe? That is the first issue that needs to be addressed, and it can't be done by telling people to **** off.

I did not claim that you thought it was positive or negative.

I claimed that you want to control what others think about companies, by leveraging silly unfounded fears about stuff everyone eats every day and have since long long before the popularity of the anti-GMO crowd.

I really don't give a crap if idiots trust scientists or not. Of companies. Scientists and companies can handle their own PR as they see fit.

You appear to be bothered by how they handle their affairs. Bummer for you. They're not elected nor politicians, so expecting any particular behaviors of them, probably won't lead to much, unless everyone decides to go on a hunger strike.

The only possible way to get what you desire is by force, by buying politicians. It might work. Quite a bit of that going around these days.

 

[PaulS]

Doesn't matter, past is past and technology has brought changes both positive and negative to production, then there is the factor as population increases they require space that is taken away from ability to produce food, so the issue is also one of compounding. The Earth has the ability to sustain half a billion humans as hunter gatherers, that was the stable world population until we became an agrarian society then it went up to 1BB and stayed there as we developed into a technological society. We finally came into fruition as a technological species in the mid 1800s with the what I consider the 2 defining moments, the steam engine and the small pox vaccine. When these two factors came into play, we were then solidly and forever a technological society.

These 2 factors acted symbiotically to grow the population through increased food yield and reduction of childhood deaths and both technologies have grown simultaneously, and gene splicing technology is a natural progression in these regards, growing the population.

However one factor in all this we have been ignoring is the fresh water required for sustained growth. We are already stressing nature's ability to supply, which appears to be around 7BB people's needs and are in deficit. We need to apply the same technological innovation on this front as we do on medicine or food production, but we don't; the reason we don't is because it will reduce profits if we do it one way, or it is too expensive if we do it the other, either way, there is no profit in it yet. In 10 years there will be, and then we will choose the expensive energy wasteful method because it is the quickest to implement and show a profit by the end of the quarter, the consumer will pay, they have to; but they won't be able to, and the revolution will begin.

By arguing every argument on the wrong points, we stay on our path. We need to look for the root cause of the issues and eliminate them.

Fresh water is falling from the sky right now, it's amazing, but it's frozen too.

 

[Henning]

Fresh water is falling from the sky right now, it's amazing, but it's frozen too.

Yes, how much? How much will be consumed in agriculture? How much of what we need are we getting? Nature provides enough for 7BB people, and we are there, and increasing, pulling down aquifers globally.

We would have plenty of cheap pure water globally if we just weren't so wasteful with our energy process, but that will potentially hurt profits in the future of the water market.

We fail to do thing the best way because our goals are wrong.

 

[ClimbnSink]

Fresh water is falling from the sky right now, it's amazing, but it's frozen too.

I don't know of New England is an outlier, not making policy arguments, but being from here then seeing some of the water stuff out West is startling. Western water policies might be corrupt, I dunno, but they are draconian and the norm.

 

[Henning]

I don't know of New England is an outlier, not making policy arguments, but being from here then seeing some of the water stuff out West is startling. Western water policies might be corrupt, I dunno, but they are draconian and the norm.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/c...ost-Productive-Farming-Valley-273339641.html#

 

[PaulS]

Yes, how much? How much will be consumed in agriculture? How much of what we need are we getting? Nature provides enough for 7BB people, and we are there, and increasing, pulling down aquifers globally.

We would have plenty of cheap pure water globally if we just weren't so wasteful with our energy process, but that will potentially hurt profits in the future of the water market.

We fail to do thing the best way because our goals are wrong.

I'm about 50 feet from about 625 billion gallons of water not including the frozen stuff covering a huge area. There's plenty of fresh water, politics, unfettered environmentalism, mother nature and geography cause shortages in some areas.

 

[Henning]

I'm about 50 feet from about 625 billion gallons of water not including the frozen stuff covering a huge area. There's plenty of fresh water, politics, unfettered environmentalism, mother nature and geography cause shortages in some areas.

There is a cost getting that water to where it can do some good, and you are talking areas of local plenty in a world of diminishing resource. The frozen stuff in reserve is the real problem we are seeing with climate change, we are losing the fresh water ice off the glaciers. Seawater ice is of no benefit as it is saline.

BTW, Nestlé is selling the supply to the Great Lakes to China; in bottles, that are being used to recharge aquifers.