And what happens that that gene is later found to exist somewhere in nature?
That's fairly unlikely, especially if it is existing in the patented organism.
Should some biotechnology company "own" all of our rice just because some farmer decided to use their seeds, and their crops then crossed with, thereby contaminating all nearby farmers' rice crops?
Certainty not.
And it takes a virus or bacterium to transfer the gene into a plant... should humans really receive the patent for doing something that a lowly microorganism does itself?
I'm not sure I follow why that matters. In the end all inventions are just a more precise manipulation of natural forces.
Patenting living things is just a bad idea. Period.
Why? If you don't like patented organisms, you don't have to use them. Me, some of my favorite things exist because of patents, and humanity has gotten some great stuff out of patented organisms that in all likelihood would not exist if they could simply be reproduced.
He believes what he sees, and since there isn't so much as a shred of convincing evidence that any supernatural phenomenon exist, I really can't say I blame him. that doesn't make him a fundamentalist anything; it makes him a realist.
I once had a package of trees delivered by UPs that I found smashed and lying on the side of the road. I'm glad they didn't die. I don't know if its the same everywhere, but I'd rather have packages delivered by a flock of carrier pigeons than UPS.
That's something we already know. It's how humans got viral genes, how cows got snake genes, how a sea slug got algae genes, and how a pea aphid got fungal genes, among other known examples. It's pretty rare unless you're giving things an evolutionary time frame, and has little to do with genetic engineering, either in terms of scientific or patent related concerns.
Since when was a joke about anatomy 'sexually charged'? Further this is more about human nature than sexes. Do you think that one sex is more prone to telling these jokes? The problem is that someone took offense to it when one sex said it but clearly not the other.
It isn't normal men behavior, it is normal human behavior. Lets not assume this woman is representative of women in general. The divide here is not between male and female. It is between thin skinned politically correct weirdos who go out of their way to win the oppression olympics and rational people who can take a joke and who don't think that penis references are going to prevent girls from being able to go into programming (but only when males say it, as females are allowed as evidenced by her own penis themed Twitter jokes).
Of course he confessed to being offensive; he just lost his job and, seeing as how he probably did not want to be unemployed, didn't want to have the stigma of being sexist hanging over him in the future. Under his circumstances a confession is not unsurprising, but that doesn't mean his dongle joke was actually sexist and offensive.
Once more, some overly politically correct social justice warrior with a blog and constant craving for attention via playing the victim makes the world a little worse. Racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and everything else unbefitting a civilized society should be called out and fought against but political correctness is not that; it is just a scourge.
ts sad that someone lost their job because this person (who lets not forget made her own dick jokes, and also said that 'black people can't be racist,' which goes to show you her character) felt the need to take offense at the non-offensive, but at least some justice was done. People like this need to grow up. But you know they won't. She'll find herself the victim her, a noble martyr fighting against the [insert conspiracy here], and other overly PC nutbags will offer support.
Wrong. That's how the insanely politically correct social justice warrior nutcases with persecution complexes, regardless of sex, fight. Plenty of rational people, again regardless of sex, would have just turned around and directly said something if the two guys were actually doing something wrong (which they weren't).
Another little factoid I forgot to add: in some crops they don't even tell you what species you are eating! If you eat a fresh cherry and a cherry pie, that is not the same species (one is Prunus avium and the other is P. cerasus). If you eat a fresh grape and drink grape juice, that is also two different species (Vitis vinifera and V. labrusca). In the case of blueberries, there are quite a number of species. You might be eating Vaccinium corymbosum, V. australe, V. myrtilloides, V. angustifolium, or V. ashei. Despite being labeled as the same things, they are different species, and most people do not even know about it due in part to the fact that there are no required labels for the different species. Ever seen the species on your blueberries? I haven't, and while I'd certainly like to, I don't feel that my curiosity merits special regulations on the blueberry producers.
It's a bit more complected than that. Whether or not a thing is GE is only one attribute of a crop. There are a lot of similar details about crops I could mention that most people just don't know about. For example, many apples and peaches are bud sports, somatic mutations selected for a particular trait, but the sport is not labeled. Things like strawberries and blueberries don't even have their varieties labeled. Many citrus fruits and varieties of wheat have been altered via mutagenesis, exposing plant tissue to mutagenic radiation or chemicals, yet this is unlabeled. Some crops, like tomato, are improved via wide crosses with wild plants, sometimes so wide that they could not produce viable offspring, so the developing embryo must be cut out and cultured in vitro to produce offspring to introduce the desired genes into the population. Watermelons often have an entire extra set of chromosomes artificially induced, and the technique of artificially doubling chromosomes is used in the production of many types of vegetables. Do you know if the last carrot you ate was a doubled haploid hybrid? There is so much about crop species that many people just don't know, and relative to a lot of these things, which involve changing an unknown number of genes, the insertion of just a few is somewhat minor by comparison, so I would not say that a GE crop is 'more processed' than a non-GE one.
My point is there is a lot of things we don't label. Why don't we require they be labeled? Because labels are for relevant things. Ingredients, allergens, those matter. How a crop variety was produced, not so much. To require labels for genetic engineering would be inconsistent and not based in science. Even if we did label them, it wouldn't even be informative. Okay, so I say I've got a GE corn that is genetically modified. What does that tell you about it? Not much, unless you already know what genes to expect. You would have to label the genes inserted and what they do to make it actually mean anything, and if you do that, why ignore all other genes that have variable presence in crops? For example, why not label if a raspberry has the A1 gene, or label rice with the sd-1 gene, or tomatoes with the Ph-3 gene? Again, it is too inconsistent and too irrelevant to merit a specific law.
I get that some people want it, but there is already options for those people. Many supermarkets have entire isles of organic products, and many products are labeled as 'non-GMO' or certified by the Non-GMO Project. It's basically no different than Halal or Kosher. If you want it, that's fine, but you don't deserve a special law requiring that everyone else accommodate you. For example, a product with pig gelatin does not have to be labeled as Haram, and the onus is on Muslims to avoid questionable products, not for the world to accommodate their beliefs. Or consider orlah fruits. If Jews want to avoid them, their call, but the responsibility is on themselves. In this case, if you want to avoid GE crops, that is easy. There are only 8 crop species that are GE: corn, soy, canola, cotton, alfalfa, sugar beet, summer squash, and papaya. Avoid those, or buy organic, and you avoid GE crops. With a little education, it becomes a non-issue. Which raises the question of why it is so often made into an issue.
I often hear anti-GMO people say of the labels 'They don't label them, so they must be hiding something from you. They must be dangerous.' These same people say of the mandatory labels in Europe 'They must label them there, so there must be something wrong with them. they must be bad for you.' The labeling push is, in my opinion, just an attempt to ignore everything else you could mention and single out genetic engineering under the guise of providing more information when in actuality they are just trying to make GE crops look somehow different and bad, despite their safety. They are trying to scare consumers who do not fully understand the topic (which is pretty much everyone, unfortunately). I compare it to
I work in plant scientist. I do research at a university. I probably could work for Monsanto (and make a lot more money) if I didn't believe in what I do so strongly. When I see people attack an important tool with all the sense of an anti-vaxxer, you bet I'm going to say something. But hey, keep thinking that science is a conspiracy.
I'm sure you have an abundance of evidence documenting the corruption and proving that accusation. The revolving door may have some merit, but do you have proof that they are rubber stamping their own products, or are you just playing the same conspiracy canard that everyone who is wrong does? And once you provide that evidence, care to explain how it is that so many other organizations reach similar conclusions to the FDA's on this topic?
Monsanto isn't saying they will release terminator seeds, some guy who specializes in IP says they might want to. Where does it say anywhere that they are 'set to make a comeback'?
They repurchase new hybrids every year. The various seed vendors maintain lines that they cross to produce the hybrids, then they make the crosses in fields where they are specifically producing seed to be grown by farmers, then the farmers grow that seed. Farmers get the benefit of not having to worry about the genetics of their seed, not having to clean their seed own seed (by clean I mean get nice clean seed from, say, a tomato, which you do by fermentation), getting superior yielding seed, and getting seed that companies are actively competing to improve.
At some point, there's going to be a crop around that can be contaminated, right?
Yes, and this holds true for a lot more than just genetically engineered crops. What happens after that depends on the situation and how people react.
Either the plants get genes that teach them how to make their own insecticides
Just so you are aware, all plants produce insecticides. Plants can't fight back or run from the things that want to eat them like animal life can, so they evolved other methods of defense, including chemical ones. For example, genetically engineered corn has insecticidal Cry proteins in it, but even the non-GE corn has insecticidal maysin and other compounds in it. I'm not saying we shouldn't test things, just that a plant producing an insecticide internally is only exceptional if you know nothing about plant biology.
And your farmers don't have the ability to choose for themselves. Do they not have the right to choose for themselves? Sweden and other countries really aren't doing themselves any favors by limiting their farmers' ability to use technology that other farmers in the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, China, ect. can use and making a blanket ban on technology. Historically, technology bans haven't worked out so well in the long term. I once talked to a European plant biologist who basically said of European bans on GE crops, 'Well, they'll probably change their minds when climate change comes around.'
It would most likely be the same. There are patented varieties of crops that are propagated entirely asexually (like apples, peaches, grapes, ect) and it would be illegal to propagate those without a license, so I doubt doing the same with one of Monsanto's crops would be any different.
Saving the best of a crop for next year's planting is also a time honored farming method.
One that has not been in wide practice in many places since farmers started growing hybrid seeds, which have greater yields but are not exceptionally suitable for replanting. Hybrid seed has been one of the greatest inventions in human history and we couldn't feed the world without it.
this is a patent that will never expire
The patent on their first Round-Up Ready soy expires next year.
Big fire at Monsanto, and the world starves because no seed grows?
They don't produce all their seed in one spot you know, nor are they the only seed company out there.
That somewhat greyer area is what makes this case stand out. The farmer is claiming that his actions are legal via the first sale doctrine. He says the seeds were sold once, and therefore whatever happens after that is fair game. Monsanto says that, because the seeds in question are not purchased seeds but newly produced seeds, the first sale doctrine does not apply, and because the farmer intentionally selected for what he knew were the transgenic seeds, it is a patent violation. I think the case will go to Monsanto because I can't imagine any other case where knowingly producing something under patent would fly. I suppose you could say that the beans were reproducing themselves, but that ignores the human intervention necessary for this to even be a case, which I feel is the key detail here.
That said, considering the patent on Monsanto's first GE soybean expires next year (at which point anyone will be able to grow their own transgenic soy free from having to deal with Monsanto), I think they're kind of stupid for making this into a case and, right or wrong, generating even more animosity for themselves, although perhaps they actually want this to go to the Supreme Court in the hopes of setting precedent.
then farmers that try to produce an heirloom seed crop near a field planted with a Monsanto variety would be screwed since their seed crop could end up infertile.
If you grow heirlooms you are screwed anyway if your crops are cross pollinated because next year's crops will not be the same line, they will be a hybrid. If someone is growing If the seeds can be tested for viability tested and only saved from the center of the field where cross pollination is less likely to occur, sounds like those grown heirloom varieties would be better off.
Why don't you tell me why they are necessary. Okay, a corn has a cspB gene, or a cotton has a Cry1Ab gene, or a soy has C4 epsps gene, or a papaya has prsv cp gene, or an apple has an antisense PPO gene. Why should that bother me, especially considering all the other mandatory testing?
I would be suspicious that anything developed in the past ten years or less is completely guaranteed to be safe for the duration of a human life.
You should be suspicious of things that you have reason to be suspicious of, not things that could potentially have an unknown unknown, which is pretty much everything. You can't prove that something won't be dangerous because you can't prove a negative, but there is neither reason to suspect that GE crops are dangerous nor is there evidence suggesting that GE crops are dangerous, unless you count Wakefield grade rubbish like the Séralini study. It irks me that when people say that some stuff about wifi or cell phones they are mocked but saying it about biotechnology is enlightened.
If you can convince me not to worry about that, I'm all ears!
Read these studies, and statements from various organizations like the WHO, FDA, EFSA, FSANZ,NAP, ANBIO, AAAS, ect. The scientific consensus on genetic engineering is pretty solid. You can hate on Monsanto all you want (although you should be aware that the business end, like the science end, is often fought with misconceptions, half truths, and downright FUD), and I'm not saying there are not nuances that should be rationally discussed (such as herbicide resistant weeds and resistance breakdown, although those are larger issues that have affected non-GE crops as well) but the science behind genetically engineered crops is solid. In many ways, the controversy over genetically engineered crops is the agricultural equivalent to the controversies surrounding evolution, climate change, and vaccines.
Not a surprise. Mother Jones isn't exactly known for great journalistic standards. I think people like them are part of the reason we have climate change denialism. They don't appreciate facts any more than the denialists. It just so happens that climate change can go with their agenda. That people may be seeing them, instead of the science, probably doesn't do much to convince people.
Slashdot Mirror
And what happens that that gene is later found to exist somewhere in nature?
That's fairly unlikely, especially if it is existing in the patented organism.
Should some biotechnology company "own" all of our rice just because some farmer decided to use their seeds, and their crops then crossed with, thereby contaminating all nearby farmers' rice crops?
Certainty not.
And it takes a virus or bacterium to transfer the gene into a plant... should humans really receive the patent for doing something that a lowly microorganism does itself?
I'm not sure I follow why that matters. In the end all inventions are just a more precise manipulation of natural forces.
Patenting living things is just a bad idea. Period.
Why? If you don't like patented organisms, you don't have to use them. Me, some of my favorite things exist because of patents, and humanity has gotten some great stuff out of patented organisms that in all likelihood would not exist if they could simply be reproduced.
He believes what he sees, and since there isn't so much as a shred of convincing evidence that any supernatural phenomenon exist, I really can't say I blame him. that doesn't make him a fundamentalist anything; it makes him a realist.
I once had a package of trees delivered by UPs that I found smashed and lying on the side of the road. I'm glad they didn't die. I don't know if its the same everywhere, but I'd rather have packages delivered by a flock of carrier pigeons than UPS.
That's something we already know. It's how humans got viral genes, how cows got snake genes, how a sea slug got algae genes, and how a pea aphid got fungal genes, among other known examples. It's pretty rare unless you're giving things an evolutionary time frame, and has little to do with genetic engineering, either in terms of scientific or patent related concerns.
Since when was a joke about anatomy 'sexually charged'? Further this is more about human nature than sexes. Do you think that one sex is more prone to telling these jokes? The problem is that someone took offense to it when one sex said it but clearly not the other.
It isn't normal men behavior, it is normal human behavior. Lets not assume this woman is representative of women in general. The divide here is not between male and female. It is between thin skinned politically correct weirdos who go out of their way to win the oppression olympics and rational people who can take a joke and who don't think that penis references are going to prevent girls from being able to go into programming (but only when males say it, as females are allowed as evidenced by her own penis themed Twitter jokes).
Of course he confessed to being offensive; he just lost his job and, seeing as how he probably did not want to be unemployed, didn't want to have the stigma of being sexist hanging over him in the future. Under his circumstances a confession is not unsurprising, but that doesn't mean his dongle joke was actually sexist and offensive.
Worse, she's a blithering idiot with a following of other blithering idiots.
Once more, some overly politically correct social justice warrior with a blog and constant craving for attention via playing the victim makes the world a little worse. Racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and everything else unbefitting a civilized society should be called out and fought against but political correctness is not that; it is just a scourge.
ts sad that someone lost their job because this person (who lets not forget made her own dick jokes, and also said that 'black people can't be racist,' which goes to show you her character) felt the need to take offense at the non-offensive, but at least some justice was done. People like this need to grow up. But you know they won't. She'll find herself the victim her, a noble martyr fighting against the [insert conspiracy here], and other overly PC nutbags will offer support.
Basically, this is how females fight.
Wrong. That's how the insanely politically correct social justice warrior nutcases with persecution complexes, regardless of sex, fight. Plenty of rational people, again regardless of sex, would have just turned around and directly said something if the two guys were actually doing something wrong (which they weren't).
Another little factoid I forgot to add: in some crops they don't even tell you what species you are eating! If you eat a fresh cherry and a cherry pie, that is not the same species (one is Prunus avium and the other is P. cerasus). If you eat a fresh grape and drink grape juice, that is also two different species (Vitis vinifera and V. labrusca). In the case of blueberries, there are quite a number of species. You might be eating Vaccinium corymbosum, V. australe, V. myrtilloides, V. angustifolium, or V. ashei. Despite being labeled as the same things, they are different species, and most people do not even know about it due in part to the fact that there are no required labels for the different species. Ever seen the species on your blueberries? I haven't, and while I'd certainly like to, I don't feel that my curiosity merits special regulations on the blueberry producers.
It's a bit more complected than that. Whether or not a thing is GE is only one attribute of a crop. There are a lot of similar details about crops I could mention that most people just don't know about. For example, many apples and peaches are bud sports, somatic mutations selected for a particular trait, but the sport is not labeled. Things like strawberries and blueberries don't even have their varieties labeled. Many citrus fruits and varieties of wheat have been altered via mutagenesis, exposing plant tissue to mutagenic radiation or chemicals, yet this is unlabeled. Some crops, like tomato, are improved via wide crosses with wild plants, sometimes so wide that they could not produce viable offspring, so the developing embryo must be cut out and cultured in vitro to produce offspring to introduce the desired genes into the population. Watermelons often have an entire extra set of chromosomes artificially induced, and the technique of artificially doubling chromosomes is used in the production of many types of vegetables. Do you know if the last carrot you ate was a doubled haploid hybrid? There is so much about crop species that many people just don't know, and relative to a lot of these things, which involve changing an unknown number of genes, the insertion of just a few is somewhat minor by comparison, so I would not say that a GE crop is 'more processed' than a non-GE one.
My point is there is a lot of things we don't label. Why don't we require they be labeled? Because labels are for relevant things. Ingredients, allergens, those matter. How a crop variety was produced, not so much. To require labels for genetic engineering would be inconsistent and not based in science. Even if we did label them, it wouldn't even be informative. Okay, so I say I've got a GE corn that is genetically modified. What does that tell you about it? Not much, unless you already know what genes to expect. You would have to label the genes inserted and what they do to make it actually mean anything, and if you do that, why ignore all other genes that have variable presence in crops? For example, why not label if a raspberry has the A1 gene, or label rice with the sd-1 gene, or tomatoes with the Ph-3 gene? Again, it is too inconsistent and too irrelevant to merit a specific law.
I get that some people want it, but there is already options for those people. Many supermarkets have entire isles of organic products, and many products are labeled as 'non-GMO' or certified by the Non-GMO Project. It's basically no different than Halal or Kosher. If you want it, that's fine, but you don't deserve a special law requiring that everyone else accommodate you. For example, a product with pig gelatin does not have to be labeled as Haram, and the onus is on Muslims to avoid questionable products, not for the world to accommodate their beliefs. Or consider orlah fruits. If Jews want to avoid them, their call, but the responsibility is on themselves. In this case, if you want to avoid GE crops, that is easy. There are only 8 crop species that are GE: corn, soy, canola, cotton, alfalfa, sugar beet, summer squash, and papaya. Avoid those, or buy organic, and you avoid GE crops. With a little education, it becomes a non-issue. Which raises the question of why it is so often made into an issue.
I often hear anti-GMO people say of the labels 'They don't label them, so they must be hiding something from you. They must be dangerous.' These same people say of the mandatory labels in Europe 'They must label them there, so there must be something wrong with them. they must be bad for you.' The labeling push is, in my opinion, just an attempt to ignore everything else you could mention and single out genetic engineering under the guise of providing more information when in actuality they are just trying to make GE crops look somehow different and bad, despite their safety. They are trying to scare consumers who do not fully understand the topic (which is pretty much everyone, unfortunately). I compare it to
I work in plant scientist. I do research at a university. I probably could work for Monsanto (and make a lot more money) if I didn't believe in what I do so strongly. When I see people attack an important tool with all the sense of an anti-vaxxer, you bet I'm going to say something. But hey, keep thinking that science is a conspiracy.
I'm sure you have an abundance of evidence documenting the corruption and proving that accusation. The revolving door may have some merit, but do you have proof that they are rubber stamping their own products, or are you just playing the same conspiracy canard that everyone who is wrong does? And once you provide that evidence, care to explain how it is that so many other organizations reach similar conclusions to the FDA's on this topic?
Monsanto isn't saying they will release terminator seeds, some guy who specializes in IP says they might want to. Where does it say anywhere that they are 'set to make a comeback'?
They repurchase new hybrids every year. The various seed vendors maintain lines that they cross to produce the hybrids, then they make the crosses in fields where they are specifically producing seed to be grown by farmers, then the farmers grow that seed. Farmers get the benefit of not having to worry about the genetics of their seed, not having to clean their seed own seed (by clean I mean get nice clean seed from, say, a tomato, which you do by fermentation), getting superior yielding seed, and getting seed that companies are actively competing to improve.
At some point, there's going to be a crop around that can be contaminated, right?
Yes, and this holds true for a lot more than just genetically engineered crops. What happens after that depends on the situation and how people react.
Either the plants get genes that teach them how to make their own insecticides
Just so you are aware, all plants produce insecticides. Plants can't fight back or run from the things that want to eat them like animal life can, so they evolved other methods of defense, including chemical ones. For example, genetically engineered corn has insecticidal Cry proteins in it, but even the non-GE corn has insecticidal maysin and other compounds in it. I'm not saying we shouldn't test things, just that a plant producing an insecticide internally is only exceptional if you know nothing about plant biology.
We don't have to choose
And your farmers don't have the ability to choose for themselves. Do they not have the right to choose for themselves? Sweden and other countries really aren't doing themselves any favors by limiting their farmers' ability to use technology that other farmers in the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, China, ect. can use and making a blanket ban on technology. Historically, technology bans haven't worked out so well in the long term. I once talked to a European plant biologist who basically said of European bans on GE crops, 'Well, they'll probably change their minds when climate change comes around.'
It would most likely be the same. There are patented varieties of crops that are propagated entirely asexually (like apples, peaches, grapes, ect) and it would be illegal to propagate those without a license, so I doubt doing the same with one of Monsanto's crops would be any different.
Saving the best of a crop for next year's planting is also a time honored farming method.
One that has not been in wide practice in many places since farmers started growing hybrid seeds, which have greater yields but are not exceptionally suitable for replanting. Hybrid seed has been one of the greatest inventions in human history and we couldn't feed the world without it.
this is a patent that will never expire
The patent on their first Round-Up Ready soy expires next year.
Big fire at Monsanto, and the world starves because no seed grows?
They don't produce all their seed in one spot you know, nor are they the only seed company out there.
will put and end to many farmers' current practice of saving part of this years crop as next year's seed
Most farms don't save seed anymore and haven't since the rise of hybrid seed in the 1930's.
That somewhat greyer area is what makes this case stand out. The farmer is claiming that his actions are legal via the first sale doctrine. He says the seeds were sold once, and therefore whatever happens after that is fair game. Monsanto says that, because the seeds in question are not purchased seeds but newly produced seeds, the first sale doctrine does not apply, and because the farmer intentionally selected for what he knew were the transgenic seeds, it is a patent violation. I think the case will go to Monsanto because I can't imagine any other case where knowingly producing something under patent would fly. I suppose you could say that the beans were reproducing themselves, but that ignores the human intervention necessary for this to even be a case, which I feel is the key detail here.
That said, considering the patent on Monsanto's first GE soybean expires next year (at which point anyone will be able to grow their own transgenic soy free from having to deal with Monsanto), I think they're kind of stupid for making this into a case and, right or wrong, generating even more animosity for themselves, although perhaps they actually want this to go to the Supreme Court in the hopes of setting precedent.
then farmers that try to produce an heirloom seed crop near a field planted with a Monsanto variety would be screwed since their seed crop could end up infertile.
If you grow heirlooms you are screwed anyway if your crops are cross pollinated because next year's crops will not be the same line, they will be a hybrid. If someone is growing If the seeds can be tested for viability tested and only saved from the center of the field where cross pollination is less likely to occur, sounds like those grown heirloom varieties would be better off.
Can you tell me how much testing is done to verify these things are safe?
A lot.
How long and how numerous are the human trials?
Why don't you tell me why they are necessary. Okay, a corn has a cspB gene, or a cotton has a Cry1Ab gene, or a soy has C4 epsps gene, or a papaya has prsv cp gene, or an apple has an antisense PPO gene. Why should that bother me, especially considering all the other mandatory testing?
I would be suspicious that anything developed in the past ten years or less is completely guaranteed to be safe for the duration of a human life.
You should be suspicious of things that you have reason to be suspicious of, not things that could potentially have an unknown unknown, which is pretty much everything. You can't prove that something won't be dangerous because you can't prove a negative, but there is neither reason to suspect that GE crops are dangerous nor is there evidence suggesting that GE crops are dangerous, unless you count Wakefield grade rubbish like the Séralini study. It irks me that when people say that some stuff about wifi or cell phones they are mocked but saying it about biotechnology is enlightened.
If you can convince me not to worry about that, I'm all ears!
Read these studies, and statements from various organizations like the WHO, FDA, EFSA, FSANZ,NAP, ANBIO, AAAS, ect. The scientific consensus on genetic engineering is pretty solid. You can hate on Monsanto all you want (although you should be aware that the business end, like the science end, is often fought with misconceptions, half truths, and downright FUD), and I'm not saying there are not nuances that should be rationally discussed (such as herbicide resistant weeds and resistance breakdown, although those are larger issues that have affected non-GE crops as well) but the science behind genetically engineered crops is solid. In many ways, the controversy over genetically engineered crops is the agricultural equivalent to the controversies surrounding evolution, climate change, and vaccines.
Not a surprise. Mother Jones isn't exactly known for great journalistic standards. I think people like them are part of the reason we have climate change denialism. They don't appreciate facts any more than the denialists. It just so happens that climate change can go with their agenda. That people may be seeing them, instead of the science, probably doesn't do much to convince people.