There isn't a national debate surrounding gluten-free pancake mix.
There is about the GE crops Whole Foods is always on about. If I say "Everyone deserves to know to think for themselves! Just put a label the [blank] on the [blakn]!' is the missing work evolution/textbooks, or GMOs/foods? They're both part of unscientific, regressive movements. Neither is the main driver, but they're both moving in bad directions.
I'd love to know the causative mechanism behind this. I mean, its complicated, but I'm guessing your reaction is either do to factors not directly involving the organic growing methods, or its psychological.
It irks me that they also encourage it. I know a guy barely making ends meet who shops at the local overpriced natural/organic/non-GMO store because he is afraid that doing otherwise would be a health hazard. I once seriously heard he say he only buys 'non-chemical sugar.' They might sell some nice produce, but stores like that also sell fear.
No, we want some assurances they've done real safety testing instead of just assuming,
There's hundreds of studies on the topic. You're pulling the same 'just one transition fossil' trope. In fact, that line would fit even closer in a anti-vaccine argument.
and we don't want the option of buying non-GMO foods destroyed because of cross-pollination which contaminates crops which aren't supposed to have that in it.
You could apply that to anything. No hybrids by my heirlooms? No red corn by my yellow corn? No warty squash by my smooth squash? Your reasoning is highly selective.
I disagree. In my opinion, the IP issues are merely an attempt to move the goalpost, so that anti-science becomes the much more reasonable anti-corporation. For example, the Honeycrisp apple used to be patented. The patent expired, but in that time the breeding program was able to recoup their costs and make enough to develop new varieties, such as the fabulous SnowSweet. Who complained? No one, that's who, because the system worked, and GMOs weren't involved. Now Monsanto patents a variety of soy, which I might remind you goes off patent before the end of this year, uses that money to produce new things like DroughtGard, a drought tolerant corn (assuming that works, independent data not yet in), and that's bad? They have a monopoly you say? Tell that to BASF, Syngenta, Dow Agrosciences, Pioneer, Bayer Cropscience, Vilmorin, and all the other small seed companies. Of course, given that less that 2% of the population is actively connected to agriculture, are you really surprised that we don't have a huge number of companies? Hell, everyone owns computers and there's really only two major companies selling operating systems so I'd say the seed world is doing pretty damned good.
I'm tired of defending them (if I was into that I could easily be working for them and be living much nicer than I do now), but I wish people would stop with the bullshit about them. Plant patents are good. Sorry, you might not agree that the people improving the plants that help make your lifestyle possible deserve to make a living themselves, but they do. You think plant breeding is easy? You think genetic engineering is simple? It isn't! Ever had a pluot? Ever had a really nice watermelon or ear of sweet corn? Years of someone's dedicated effort went into that. You want to attack Monsanto? Fine, whatever, go ahead, but try to stick to the real and the rational.
I want them labeled because I don't want a dime of my money to go to Monsanto.
Great, now Syngenta's GMO sweet corn is labeled and Monsanto's non-GMO broccoli is not. You do realize the topic is more complicated they you're presenting it yes?
I want Monsanto to die because of their patent policy,
You mean the ones anti-GMO groups routinely lie about? The one where no farmer has ever been sued for accidental cross pollination despite the lies to the contrary? The one that has allowed them to recoup losses to reinvest in new projects like Vistive Gold soybeans and DroughtGard corn, the exact thing patent laws are supposed to do? The one that basically all plant breeders use to fund themselves without controversy (you think your non-GMO crops are not patented? Think again). The one where their first GE soy goes off patent this year? What exactly do you find wrong with it?
It's an informed consumer issue, nothing more.
I want textbooks to be labeled as identifying evolution as just a theory. It's true, you know. Evolution is just a theory, disagree with that? Then why not label it, just for information's sake? Or, do you think that selectively deciding what gets labeled and what does not is a deceptive and biased lie by omission? Most people have no idea what goes into their food, what things breeders do, and you want to irrationally single out one aspect, one that is the easiest to identify (corn, soy, cotton, canola, alfalfa, sugar beet, summer squash, and papaya are the only species that are GE) and call that informative? Instead of spreading education the pro-labeling people just want a label that says nothing other than how a crop was improved, completely ignoring the nature of the modification and rational behind it. In other words, a label that contains no information. I tell you I modified my computer; tell me exactly what I did to it. Can you do that? If not, my statement was not informative, was is? That pro-labeling people push for something that is the target of fearmongering, that you know damned well will be taken to be a bad thing if singled out, without attempting to inform or educate or give context should tell you something.
My wife likes to buy organic fresh vegetables, fruit and free range meat because of the less intensive farming and ranching practices.
I don't buy organic because, among other reasons (promoting socially unsustainable rigid pre-scientific pre-enlightenment appeal to nature type dogma being the main one), I prefer the more intensive farming practices. You might feel good supporting less intensive practices, and that's fine, but there's a reason organic production is not a universal practice; among other things, lower yield per acre, which is to say, more land requirements to produce the same amount of food. If everyone went all natural there'd be no nature left.
You mean like seedless bananas and seedless watermelons? Surly those were made by nature, since sterility & seedlessness are such an advantageous traits. Or corn, which has its seeds encased by a husk preventing dispersal. Yep, a product of nature right there.
Even if what you were saying wasn't an appeal to nature, the same nonsense spouted by every snakeoil salesman hawking naturopathic cure-alls I might add, you're still wrong. Everything you eat has been dramatically changed by human hands. Strawberries? Human creation. Wheat? Human creation. Look it up, neither of those existed in nature prior to humans making them. Broccoli, cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are the same damned species, selected for centuries by humans. Ever seen a wild carrot? Look up Queen Anne's lace. Same thing, not that you'd recognize it. Carrots weren't even orange until a few centuries ago. Wild apples are small and sour, wild pears are gritty, wild cherries are just bad, wild grapes are seedy, wild tomatoes are tiny, wild potatoes are mildly toxic, the first beans to be eaten had to be popped like popcorn. Even the original corn was not sweet.
The notion that science can do better isn't hubris. It's well proven fact that you take unknowingly enjoy the benefits of every day. The only arrogance I ever see when dealing with this topic are people who know bugger all about plants, agriculture, or genetics, yet still think they know better than those who actually work with plants. It's the Dunning-Kruger effect in action.
No one is saying that Latin would not be useful in learning other romance languages, but I do not see how understanding various quirks of etymology (ex. forêt used to have an S, just like English forest still does) is sufficiently valuable to merit learning an entirely separate language, even if it is the ancestral language, as opposed to simply learning those various things that it would help you with. Learning Latin as an aid, unless you are learning the languages to study linguistics, while interesting from an intellectual standpoint sounds very inefficient from a practical one. I'd much rather use other useful languages as my guide. Even if we make the assumption that the cross language benefits are substantially less, I fail to see how the usefulness in terms of communication applications would not compensate for whatever is lost in terms of learning guidance.
Nobody. Monsanto (because I'm sure that's who you are implying) could not care less about taro. This was 100% publicly funded research done out of concern for the local taro producers. The exact kind of research the anti-GMO people love to insist they don't oppose.
Exactly. Which is why there shouldn't be any issue in labelling GMO.
So, the old 'If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear' argument. Well, there is no problem with GMO, so they don't need labeled.
And companies happily label meat as "halal" meat.
But is there a legal mandate for haraam?
My country even has "vegetarian" labels, mandatory by law.
Really, which country do you live in?
Only people who want to suppress information would resist labels.
Or people who want to take information out of context. You can lie with a fact you know. It's like those who want textbooks labeled as saying 'Evolution is only a theory.' Is it true? Yes. Is it also a deception? Yes. Same here, for many reasons.
GMO and other known species/varieties can be distinguished. No reason why exact species/variety cannot be labelled.
That same logic could apply to a large number of things. Do you see every plant improvement technique and variety labeled on every crop? No. Does anyone want them labeled? Also no, there is no controversy over that.
But labelling nutritional information is mandatory by law in many countries.
But we're not taking about nutritional information. This is variety information. Not even that, it is a label for a particular crop improvement method, which is even less informative. What does a label saying GMO even tell you? Absolutely nothing of relevance.
If you're trying to hide what's in what you're selling, you're probably up to no good.
Hiding? No one is hiding anything. There is a world of difference between hiding something and not singling out something and making it look special. You are using the same tactic that creationists use when they want evolution labeled as 'just a theory'. Sure, it's true, but it is also misleading as hell. But I suppose that because I oppose that I'm just trying to push my evil evolutionist ways by keeping kids in the dark about what they're learning, right? OR how about this...organic food is grown in manure, but I don't see that labeled on the food. Why not? What more or less justification is there for labeling that? This labeling thing is a bullshit tacit designed to single out one aspect of food, make it look bad, then call it information. It's stupid. And yes, not labeling is the free market. If people want labeled food, they will pay extra for it, just like they do with kosher, halal, and vegan labeling. If not, then they won't. Pro-mandatory labelers want to use the government to enforce marketing. That's not a free market at all.
Well, lets see here. First off, there are a wide variety of things done to improve crops, each along a gradient of genetic changes, including selective breeding, inbreeding, hybridization, interspecific wide crosses, intergeneric wide crosses, wild relative genetic introgression, radiation and chemical induced mutagenesis, somaclonal variation, bud sport selection, induced polyploidy, and various combinations of them that result in some only recently possible crop alterations. Was your cucumber produced via a doubled haploid hybrid? Does your tomato have any S. pimpinellifolium it it? Was your pluot developed using embryo rescue to overcome reproductive barriers? Did your pear grow on quince roots? Each of these changes the plants in different ways, and alters all sorts of aspects of the plant, including altering the levels of potential allergens, like PR proteins, as well as toying with the production of all sorts of secondary metabolites, some of which can be harmful, like the conventionally bred celary that was phototoxic or the conventionally bred potato that had dangerous levels of solanine. Now, you could say that they are just manipulating already natural forces (like crossing two wild peanut species, altering the ploidy level, and backcrossing it into a commercial line would just happen in nature) but so is genetic engineering...it is just a manipulation of horizontal gene transfer, which by the way is why you have viral DNA in your genome right now, and all sorts of other fun things that, in all likelihood, has already resulted in every organism on earth having foreign DNA.
So, we completely ignore all that, and focus on just one aspect of crop improvement. But do we tell consumers what it means? Hell no. Does a thing have a cpsB, or a Cry1ab, or bar, or a PRSV-CP gene, and what does that all mean? Nope, no information. And even if you did tell that information, it ignores the genes that might be changed in other crop improvement methods, like does your raspberry have the A1 gene, or tomato have the Ph-3 gene, or rice have the SD-1 gene? Who knows, but better not tell the consumer that genetic engineering is only one aspect of the whole picture, because information!
So, here we have this wide world of crop improvement, and you want to single out one thing, provide no information about that thing, do nothing to let people know that virtually every relevant expert on the planet agrees is beneficial, a thing that ideologues have been fearmongering for years about, and then call it informative? Bullshit, that's a weasel worded lie by omission. Even ignoring all this, there's still no reason to enforce mandatory labeling. Every other group that wants specific labels that are not provably essential has to rely on free market demand for specially labeled products and rely on their own education to know what to avoid...Jews, Muslims, Hindus, vegans, ect. Naturalism is no more deserving of being legally catered to than any other religion.
By the way, did you know that GE corn has lower levels of carcinogenic mycotoxins. Hmm, where is the push to force organic corn products to carry that information, I wonder? If Monsanto lobbied for that, would you support it? Hey, more information is always better, right?
You know exactly what I mean. I'm talking about items in and from countries like the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, China, ect., where GE crops are more common. Of course, not all of the any crop is genetically engineered, as I clearly indicated in my previous comment.
Of course they are different, but when people are sitting there complaining that genes are being changed, it is still something worth saying, especially when the changes made via breeding work with thousands of genes while genetic engineering works with only single genes. There's nuance to both, differences, but there are many similarities.
I'd love to see the natural way that potatoes would breed with jellyfish to get the genes to glow when they need to be watered.
Even better, several of the University of Hawai'i scientists who were there got less between the group of them than Jeffrey Smith, who is kind of like the Jenny McCarthy of genetic engineering. That's right, a guy whose only claim to fame is peddling nonsensical books about genetic engineering was given more time than the local, reputable, independent university scientists. Science was not welcome at the testimonies for the bill.
I have heard some talk about how big aggro funds a lot of the GMO research which influences opinions.
Go to your local university. The vast majority of scientists in relevant areas support the use of GE. You should not find it surprising when the people who cry Monsanto conspiracy at every inconvenient fact also accuse research of being part of the conspiracy.
I for one don't buy the argument that the world needs more food to support a growing population.
Well, you're wrong. The population is not only growing, but it is also demanding more than just rice, corn, and wheat. Also, there is less land, encroaching urbanization, more demand for water, evolving pests and diseases, and climate change. We need all the technology we can to face that.
While I question the wisdom of Hawaii's move, I treasure the idea that Hawaii might remain pure, pristine, and full of naive hippies.
It's definitely not healthy if only few companies control the food chain.
Which has what, exactly, to do with the technology those companies use? They also use marker assisted selection, tissue culture, induced polyploidy, inbred lines, and tractors, but no one is blaming them.
The companies are even happy to restrict the reuse of the seeds.
You mean the seeds that farmers haven't saved since the advent of hybrid seed in the 1930's, the ones that they sign a contract to get, the ones they are free to not use if they so choose? Not seeing the problem here.
Also the aim to create food for only human use (GMO crops that repel everything else) will have an impact on biodiversity.
There is an increase in biodiversity with GE crops. The GE crops aren't 'toxic to everything but humans' they are toxic to very specific orders of insect pests. Swapping that out for broad spectrum insecticides is a good thing. Unless you are talking crop biodiversity, which is a very big issue, but not one relating much to GE crops, unless you consider that the opposition to biotechnology is holding back those would wish to improve biodiverse crops to make them better able to be cultivated, in which case anti-GMO is very anti-biodiversity.
Diversity is the natural mechanism to cope with the changing conditions, and the lack of diversity will polarize the eco-system, which would as a whole weaken.
Which is why intensive agriculture is a good thing. Keep the farms productive and less land needs to fall under the plow.
When I heard that Monsanto's GMO crops had become superweeds
Which crop became a superweed, and how did it do that? Or are you referring to glyphosate resistant weeds, which are only super in that they are resistant to one particular herbicide, which is a problem that existed for decades before the use of GE crops but never got popular press until GE crops became controversial? Opposing GE crops on that basis is like opposing HIV treatments because the virus can become resistant to them.
it seemed that what I was taught was correct.
Seems more like you are confused. Farmers not using glyphosate are not going to have an issue with glyphosate resistant weeds.
From the article, it seems that most of Hawaii's concern is protecting their ecosystems.
I wish. The hippies supporting this wouldn't know adenine from their asshole, and are just convinced that anything that isn't natural is dangerous. They are citing bad science and using conspiracies to discredit anyone who disagrees (calling the university of Hawai'i at Manoa 'UH Manoa-santo).
Slashdot Mirror
There isn't a national debate surrounding gluten-free pancake mix.
There is about the GE crops Whole Foods is always on about. If I say "Everyone deserves to know to think for themselves! Just put a label the [blank] on the [blakn]!' is the missing work evolution/textbooks, or GMOs/foods? They're both part of unscientific, regressive movements. Neither is the main driver, but they're both moving in bad directions.
I'd love to know the causative mechanism behind this. I mean, its complicated, but I'm guessing your reaction is either do to factors not directly involving the organic growing methods, or its psychological.
It irks me that they also encourage it. I know a guy barely making ends meet who shops at the local overpriced natural/organic/non-GMO store because he is afraid that doing otherwise would be a health hazard. I once seriously heard he say he only buys 'non-chemical sugar.' They might sell some nice produce, but stores like that also sell fear.
No, we want some assurances they've done real safety testing instead of just assuming,
There's hundreds of studies on the topic. You're pulling the same 'just one transition fossil' trope. In fact, that line would fit even closer in a anti-vaccine argument.
and we don't want the option of buying non-GMO foods destroyed because of cross-pollination which contaminates crops which aren't supposed to have that in it.
You could apply that to anything. No hybrids by my heirlooms? No red corn by my yellow corn? No warty squash by my smooth squash? Your reasoning is highly selective.
...or your salt.
I disagree. In my opinion, the IP issues are merely an attempt to move the goalpost, so that anti-science becomes the much more reasonable anti-corporation. For example, the Honeycrisp apple used to be patented. The patent expired, but in that time the breeding program was able to recoup their costs and make enough to develop new varieties, such as the fabulous SnowSweet. Who complained? No one, that's who, because the system worked, and GMOs weren't involved. Now Monsanto patents a variety of soy, which I might remind you goes off patent before the end of this year, uses that money to produce new things like DroughtGard, a drought tolerant corn (assuming that works, independent data not yet in), and that's bad? They have a monopoly you say? Tell that to BASF, Syngenta, Dow Agrosciences, Pioneer, Bayer Cropscience, Vilmorin, and all the other small seed companies. Of course, given that less that 2% of the population is actively connected to agriculture, are you really surprised that we don't have a huge number of companies? Hell, everyone owns computers and there's really only two major companies selling operating systems so I'd say the seed world is doing pretty damned good.
I'm tired of defending them (if I was into that I could easily be working for them and be living much nicer than I do now), but I wish people would stop with the bullshit about them. Plant patents are good. Sorry, you might not agree that the people improving the plants that help make your lifestyle possible deserve to make a living themselves, but they do. You think plant breeding is easy? You think genetic engineering is simple? It isn't! Ever had a pluot? Ever had a really nice watermelon or ear of sweet corn? Years of someone's dedicated effort went into that. You want to attack Monsanto? Fine, whatever, go ahead, but try to stick to the real and the rational.
I want them labeled because I don't want a dime of my money to go to Monsanto.
Great, now Syngenta's GMO sweet corn is labeled and Monsanto's non-GMO broccoli is not. You do realize the topic is more complicated they you're presenting it yes?
I want Monsanto to die because of their patent policy,
You mean the ones anti-GMO groups routinely lie about? The one where no farmer has ever been sued for accidental cross pollination despite the lies to the contrary? The one that has allowed them to recoup losses to reinvest in new projects like Vistive Gold soybeans and DroughtGard corn, the exact thing patent laws are supposed to do? The one that basically all plant breeders use to fund themselves without controversy (you think your non-GMO crops are not patented? Think again). The one where their first GE soy goes off patent this year? What exactly do you find wrong with it?
It's an informed consumer issue, nothing more.
I want textbooks to be labeled as identifying evolution as just a theory. It's true, you know. Evolution is just a theory, disagree with that? Then why not label it, just for information's sake? Or, do you think that selectively deciding what gets labeled and what does not is a deceptive and biased lie by omission? Most people have no idea what goes into their food, what things breeders do, and you want to irrationally single out one aspect, one that is the easiest to identify (corn, soy, cotton, canola, alfalfa, sugar beet, summer squash, and papaya are the only species that are GE) and call that informative? Instead of spreading education the pro-labeling people just want a label that says nothing other than how a crop was improved, completely ignoring the nature of the modification and rational behind it. In other words, a label that contains no information. I tell you I modified my computer; tell me exactly what I did to it. Can you do that? If not, my statement was not informative, was is? That pro-labeling people push for something that is the target of fearmongering, that you know damned well will be taken to be a bad thing if singled out, without attempting to inform or educate or give context should tell you something.
My wife likes to buy organic fresh vegetables, fruit and free range meat because of the less intensive farming and ranching practices.
I don't buy organic because, among other reasons (promoting socially unsustainable rigid pre-scientific pre-enlightenment appeal to nature type dogma being the main one), I prefer the more intensive farming practices. You might feel good supporting less intensive practices, and that's fine, but there's a reason organic production is not a universal practice; among other things, lower yield per acre, which is to say, more land requirements to produce the same amount of food. If everyone went all natural there'd be no nature left.
I sort of miss Clippy and the other Office Assistants. Sure, I never used them and they mostly just got in the way, but I still kind of liked them
these gmo mofos have been making life extremely hard for average joe farmer
Yeah, I'm sure their utter hatred for GE seed is why they keep buying and using it.
You mean like seedless bananas and seedless watermelons? Surly those were made by nature, since sterility & seedlessness are such an advantageous traits. Or corn, which has its seeds encased by a husk preventing dispersal. Yep, a product of nature right there.
Even if what you were saying wasn't an appeal to nature, the same nonsense spouted by every snakeoil salesman hawking naturopathic cure-alls I might add, you're still wrong. Everything you eat has been dramatically changed by human hands. Strawberries? Human creation. Wheat? Human creation. Look it up, neither of those existed in nature prior to humans making them. Broccoli, cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are the same damned species, selected for centuries by humans. Ever seen a wild carrot? Look up Queen Anne's lace. Same thing, not that you'd recognize it. Carrots weren't even orange until a few centuries ago. Wild apples are small and sour, wild pears are gritty, wild cherries are just bad, wild grapes are seedy, wild tomatoes are tiny, wild potatoes are mildly toxic, the first beans to be eaten had to be popped like popcorn. Even the original corn was not sweet.
The notion that science can do better isn't hubris. It's well proven fact that you take unknowingly enjoy the benefits of every day. The only arrogance I ever see when dealing with this topic are people who know bugger all about plants, agriculture, or genetics, yet still think they know better than those who actually work with plants. It's the Dunning-Kruger effect in action.
No one is saying that Latin would not be useful in learning other romance languages, but I do not see how understanding various quirks of etymology (ex. forêt used to have an S, just like English forest still does) is sufficiently valuable to merit learning an entirely separate language, even if it is the ancestral language, as opposed to simply learning those various things that it would help you with. Learning Latin as an aid, unless you are learning the languages to study linguistics, while interesting from an intellectual standpoint sounds very inefficient from a practical one. I'd much rather use other useful languages as my guide. Even if we make the assumption that the cross language benefits are substantially less, I fail to see how the usefulness in terms of communication applications would not compensate for whatever is lost in terms of learning guidance.
Highly processed foods (e.g. twinkies) very rarely end up being healthy for you
Once upon a time we called avoiding eating foods like that eating healthy, not whatever fad diet is in vogue this year.
Case in point: high fructose corn syrup. The pathway for your body to get rid of it involves directly converting it into fat in your liver.
HFCS is treated basically the same as sugar, just don't overdo it.
there is some evidence that it's not processed by your body as efficiently as meats and veggies.
And there's lots of evidence that any more than moderate amounts of meat are pretty bad for you, but 'no bacon' doesn't sell fad diets very well.
Nobody. Monsanto (because I'm sure that's who you are implying) could not care less about taro. This was 100% publicly funded research done out of concern for the local taro producers. The exact kind of research the anti-GMO people love to insist they don't oppose.
Exactly. Which is why there shouldn't be any issue in labelling GMO.
So, the old 'If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear' argument. Well, there is no problem with GMO, so they don't need labeled.
And companies happily label meat as "halal" meat.
But is there a legal mandate for haraam?
My country even has "vegetarian" labels, mandatory by law.
Really, which country do you live in?
Only people who want to suppress information would resist labels.
Or people who want to take information out of context. You can lie with a fact you know. It's like those who want textbooks labeled as saying 'Evolution is only a theory.' Is it true? Yes. Is it also a deception? Yes. Same here, for many reasons.
GMO and other known species/varieties can be distinguished. No reason why exact species/variety cannot be labelled.
That same logic could apply to a large number of things. Do you see every plant improvement technique and variety labeled on every crop? No. Does anyone want them labeled? Also no, there is no controversy over that.
But labelling nutritional information is mandatory by law in many countries.
But we're not taking about nutritional information. This is variety information. Not even that, it is a label for a particular crop improvement method, which is even less informative. What does a label saying GMO even tell you? Absolutely nothing of relevance.
If you're trying to hide what's in what you're selling, you're probably up to no good.
Hiding? No one is hiding anything. There is a world of difference between hiding something and not singling out something and making it look special. You are using the same tactic that creationists use when they want evolution labeled as 'just a theory'. Sure, it's true, but it is also misleading as hell. But I suppose that because I oppose that I'm just trying to push my evil evolutionist ways by keeping kids in the dark about what they're learning, right? OR how about this...organic food is grown in manure, but I don't see that labeled on the food. Why not? What more or less justification is there for labeling that? This labeling thing is a bullshit tacit designed to single out one aspect of food, make it look bad, then call it information. It's stupid. And yes, not labeling is the free market. If people want labeled food, they will pay extra for it, just like they do with kosher, halal, and vegan labeling. If not, then they won't. Pro-mandatory labelers want to use the government to enforce marketing. That's not a free market at all.
Reading comprehension is a hell of a drug.
Well, lets see here. First off, there are a wide variety of things done to improve crops, each along a gradient of genetic changes, including selective breeding, inbreeding, hybridization, interspecific wide crosses, intergeneric wide crosses, wild relative genetic introgression, radiation and chemical induced mutagenesis, somaclonal variation, bud sport selection, induced polyploidy, and various combinations of them that result in some only recently possible crop alterations. Was your cucumber produced via a doubled haploid hybrid? Does your tomato have any S. pimpinellifolium it it? Was your pluot developed using embryo rescue to overcome reproductive barriers? Did your pear grow on quince roots? Each of these changes the plants in different ways, and alters all sorts of aspects of the plant, including altering the levels of potential allergens, like PR proteins, as well as toying with the production of all sorts of secondary metabolites, some of which can be harmful, like the conventionally bred celary that was phototoxic or the conventionally bred potato that had dangerous levels of solanine. Now, you could say that they are just manipulating already natural forces (like crossing two wild peanut species, altering the ploidy level, and backcrossing it into a commercial line would just happen in nature) but so is genetic engineering...it is just a manipulation of horizontal gene transfer, which by the way is why you have viral DNA in your genome right now, and all sorts of other fun things that, in all likelihood, has already resulted in every organism on earth having foreign DNA.
So, we completely ignore all that, and focus on just one aspect of crop improvement. But do we tell consumers what it means? Hell no. Does a thing have a cpsB, or a Cry1ab, or bar, or a PRSV-CP gene, and what does that all mean? Nope, no information. And even if you did tell that information, it ignores the genes that might be changed in other crop improvement methods, like does your raspberry have the A1 gene, or tomato have the Ph-3 gene, or rice have the SD-1 gene? Who knows, but better not tell the consumer that genetic engineering is only one aspect of the whole picture, because information!
So, here we have this wide world of crop improvement, and you want to single out one thing, provide no information about that thing, do nothing to let people know that virtually every relevant expert on the planet agrees is beneficial, a thing that ideologues have been fearmongering for years about, and then call it informative? Bullshit, that's a weasel worded lie by omission. Even ignoring all this, there's still no reason to enforce mandatory labeling. Every other group that wants specific labels that are not provably essential has to rely on free market demand for specially labeled products and rely on their own education to know what to avoid...Jews, Muslims, Hindus, vegans, ect. Naturalism is no more deserving of being legally catered to than any other religion.
By the way, did you know that GE corn has lower levels of carcinogenic mycotoxins. Hmm, where is the push to force organic corn products to carry that information, I wonder? If Monsanto lobbied for that, would you support it? Hey, more information is always better, right?
You know exactly what I mean. I'm talking about items in and from countries like the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, China, ect., where GE crops are more common. Of course, not all of the any crop is genetically engineered, as I clearly indicated in my previous comment.
Of course they are different, but when people are sitting there complaining that genes are being changed, it is still something worth saying, especially when the changes made via breeding work with thousands of genes while genetic engineering works with only single genes. There's nuance to both, differences, but there are many similarities.
I'd love to see the natural way that potatoes would breed with jellyfish to get the genes to glow when they need to be watered.
An irrelevant appeal to nature.
Even better, several of the University of Hawai'i scientists who were there got less between the group of them than Jeffrey Smith, who is kind of like the Jenny McCarthy of genetic engineering. That's right, a guy whose only claim to fame is peddling nonsensical books about genetic engineering was given more time than the local, reputable, independent university scientists. Science was not welcome at the testimonies for the bill.
I have heard some talk about how big aggro funds a lot of the GMO research which influences opinions.
Go to your local university. The vast majority of scientists in relevant areas support the use of GE. You should not find it surprising when the people who cry Monsanto conspiracy at every inconvenient fact also accuse research of being part of the conspiracy.
I for one don't buy the argument that the world needs more food to support a growing population.
Well, you're wrong. The population is not only growing, but it is also demanding more than just rice, corn, and wheat. Also, there is less land, encroaching urbanization, more demand for water, evolving pests and diseases, and climate change. We need all the technology we can to face that.
While I question the wisdom of Hawaii's move, I treasure the idea that Hawaii might remain pure, pristine, and full of naive hippies.
I'd like two of those three.
It's definitely not healthy if only few companies control the food chain.
Which has what, exactly, to do with the technology those companies use? They also use marker assisted selection, tissue culture, induced polyploidy, inbred lines, and tractors, but no one is blaming them.
The companies are even happy to restrict the reuse of the seeds.
You mean the seeds that farmers haven't saved since the advent of hybrid seed in the 1930's, the ones that they sign a contract to get, the ones they are free to not use if they so choose? Not seeing the problem here.
Also the aim to create food for only human use (GMO crops that repel everything else) will have an impact on biodiversity.
There is an increase in biodiversity with GE crops. The GE crops aren't 'toxic to everything but humans' they are toxic to very specific orders of insect pests. Swapping that out for broad spectrum insecticides is a good thing. Unless you are talking crop biodiversity, which is a very big issue, but not one relating much to GE crops, unless you consider that the opposition to biotechnology is holding back those would wish to improve biodiverse crops to make them better able to be cultivated, in which case anti-GMO is very anti-biodiversity.
Diversity is the natural mechanism to cope with the changing conditions, and the lack of diversity will polarize the eco-system, which would as a whole weaken.
Which is why intensive agriculture is a good thing. Keep the farms productive and less land needs to fall under the plow.
Ignorance is not strength, but a fact taken out of context can be deceitful.
When I heard that Monsanto's GMO crops had become superweeds
Which crop became a superweed, and how did it do that? Or are you referring to glyphosate resistant weeds, which are only super in that they are resistant to one particular herbicide, which is a problem that existed for decades before the use of GE crops but never got popular press until GE crops became controversial? Opposing GE crops on that basis is like opposing HIV treatments because the virus can become resistant to them.
it seemed that what I was taught was correct.
Seems more like you are confused. Farmers not using glyphosate are not going to have an issue with glyphosate resistant weeds.
From the article, it seems that most of Hawaii's concern is protecting their ecosystems.
I wish. The hippies supporting this wouldn't know adenine from their asshole, and are just convinced that anything that isn't natural is dangerous. They are citing bad science and using conspiracies to discredit anyone who disagrees (calling the university of Hawai'i at Manoa 'UH Manoa-santo).