First, you could say the same of tractors. Doesn't make them bad. Second, false dichotomy between biotech and agroecology. Third, or course a well managed agroecology type system is going to be better than the poor systems a lot of the world has. That's not saying much.
Honesty is exactly why I oppose requiring mandatory labeling. There are many aspects of food I could demand be labeled. for example, is something produced via hybridization, induced polyploidy, mutagenesis, bud sport, grafting, tissue culture, somaclonal variation, embryo rescue, ect.? They're not labeled. Why not? If they're so safe, why are they hidden? Of course that's ridiculous. They're not labeled because the are ultimately not different. But if I were to, say, single out one of these things (while a movement existed that opposed this thing and had no problem spreading unscientific FUD on the topic) it would make that one thing look like it was wrong somehow, would it not? I mean, hey, it is labeled, that must mean it is bad, right? Granted, its a no win for GE crops since many folks also say that if they are not labeled, they must be hiding something from you and therefore it must be bad (damned either way).
The thing is that there is no reason to label something that does not affect the end product. What if I demand, say, that the variety of parsnip or species of blueberry (yes, species, there is more than one cultivated) I find in the store be labeled? What if I demand that the specific bud sport of apple (do you think the last Gala or Fuji you had was the original? I'll be it wasn't!) be labeled, or that citrus produced with radiation a few decades ago carry a radiation symbol, or if squash produced via doubled haploid hybridization carry l label saying 'produced with toxic chemicals'? It would all be true, but I don't deserve that and more than a Jew deserves mandatory Kosher labeling or a Muslim deserves mandatory Halal labeling because, ultimately, that information is not relevant to the product and they are equivalent to items produced without those things. It's the same with GE crops. Okay, they are GE. That doesn't mean anything to the nutritional properties of the end product, and while some may think so, some might think certain beef might send you to hell, but that doesn't mean they deserve a law catering to them. And speaking of individual genes, simply labeling things as GMO without providing more details is meaningless and you know it. It is as informative as saying I modified my can. Can you tell me what I did to it based on that information alone? No, so how would that be informative for food? And if you do include the individual genes, why do all other genes get a free pass? What if I want rice with the sd-1 gene labeled, or raspberries with the A1 gene labeled, or tomatoes with the Ph-3 gene labeled (all conventionally bred by the way)?
Besides, there are already free market solutions, such as organic and Non-GMO Project certified foods, and you can also just educate yourself on the topic to know for sure. Anything with corn, soy, canola, cotton, sugar beet, alfalfa, summer squash, and papaya is likely GE unless market otherwise. If you can't be bothered to educate yourself, quite frankly that's your own problem. And sure, you could just say that people want it, but I'm sure that most people would like a pony too, but that doesn't mean they should get one. Just because someone wants a law doesn't mean the law should be passed (see Prop 8 and cannabis prohibition for reference).
Basically, I'm opposed to requiring mandatory labeling for the same reason I'm opposed to those warning labels on textbooks stating that evolution is 'just' a theory. That, as we know, was a political move to single out a single theory and mislead those who do not know what the term actually means. The movement to label GE crops is a political movement that seeks to single out one aspect of crop genetic alteration to confuse and mislead consumers who are not educated on the subject. I've yet to hear a convincing, scientifically and morally consistent argument that takes into account the full scope of crop genetic alteration.
In terms of beliefs? That's for you to decide. In terms of actions and the things that really matter? Not even close. When the Mormon church has been implicated in things like Operation Freakout or Operation Snow White, or any of the other crazy things the CoS has done to people that you can learn of after 5 seconds on Google, then your false equivalence of comparing the CoS to other religious bodies might have a point. The modern Mormon church is, as far as I know, generally decent and full of okay folks. I don't know if I can say the same of the CoS, judging by all the stuff they've done, and that's the issue here.
I've seen people argue that letting things go extinct because they can't compete with man made environmental destruction, hunting, ect. is no problem because it is the natural order and such species do not serve a purpose. Funny how things turn out.
If someone knowingly and intentionally introduces something new into the environment which would prevent nearby "GMO Free" farmers from being able to grow "GMO free" food and that has a negative economic impact on these farmers, the person introducing the item should be liable for damages and stop doing it.
That's a good point, and one with a lot of hard issues to consider. I think it gets confusing fast though. Say I'm growing Red Kuri squash. My neighbor grows Galeux d'Eysines. We cross pollinate. Both of those open pollinated would get a premium, but now the next generation is hybridized. Who has to pay up? What if a sweet and field corn mess each other up? Or two fields of parthenocarpic citrus varieties cross pollinate and result in seeded fruit? Those guys get by just fine through communicating with their neighbors and taking measures to prevent problems (like staggering their planting dates, collecting seed from the center of the field, ect). It is only now that we hear of cross pollination becoming an issue, strangely. On one hand, if you are producing a product a certain way, shouldn't the onus be on you to take care of your operations? A somewhat absurd example, imagine if someone was selling food grown outside the presence of wifi (which makes about as much sense as the anti-GE thing and had the professional activists who started the GE nonsense made that into a problem I guarantee would be a thing), should everyone else turn off their routers? On the other hand, yeah, there is something starting on field A and moving unwanted to field B, so I can certainty see your point. On the other other hand, it is pretty unreasonable to hold all farmers accountable for their pollen, no? Ultimately, given the nature and necessity of farming, I'm inclined to think it is. You certainty wouldn't want Monsanto taking action over simple cross pollination, so I'd apply the same for being cross pollinated.
The first GMO's were things like rice that grew Vitamin A so rural Asian children wouldn't go blind. That was good.
Actually, that one isn't even on the market yet. The first GE crop was actually virus resistant tobacco, in China. the second was the Flavr Savr tomato, in the US. Do you think that Golden Rice is a good idea? Then keep in mind that, by and large, the same people opposing the other GE crops you mention are opposing Golden Rice.
But instead, we got crops that are resistant to pesticides that are applied by the tanker load
I agree that it sounds bad, but not when you consider things holistically. Those herbicide tolerant crops have increased the usage of some herbicides, but they've decreased the use of harsher herbicides and reduced the need for environmentally damaging tillage. They've actually been pretty beneficial. Note also that many of Benbrook's works have been often criticized. Obviously, spraying chemicals is never a good thing if it can be avoided, but if you've got a better way to control weeds a lot of farmers would love to hear it.
and vegetables that express their own pesticides, which, we're kinda-maybe-sure don't effect humans
They don't. It is the same protein that has been used in organic farming for years to no ill effect. We know very well how it works, and yes, there has been much study on the health effects. By the way, all plants produce pesticides. It's how they defend themselves. Even your non-GE corn is going to be full of insecticidal maysin.
With absolutely no idea what the long-term health effects are going to be from human consumption of a modified genetic animal,
Appeal to ignorance. We have no reason to suspect long term harm, and you can claim unknown unknowns about anything. Can you prove that eating triploid seedless watermelons won't kill us all in a few decades? I can't. But I have no reason to suspect that is the case, so my inability to prove a negative won't stop me from eating them.
And given how we're now finding out the honey bee collapse syndrome is a direct result of the Monsanto creations
You do realize that CCD is happening even in areas with GE crops, yes? Last I heard the most likely culprit was neonicotinoids and overly stressed hives, possibly with the help of mites. The GE angle is nonsense preached by the anti-GE folks who blame GE crops for just about everything.
That worked great for people with Celiacs. Or people who drink sassafras. Or the Lenape potato. There is a difference between rigorous testing and long term anecdotes. Unless you have reason to believe there is a danger, you're just setting up an unreachable moving goalpost.
what fucking good can come from patented (or copyrighted?) organisms?
This. That is Snowsweet, my all time favorite apple. I would choose it over any other variety. Notice the royalty fee and patent? It is a patented organism. It was produced by the same people who developed Honey Crisp, which was also patented (was, the patent has expired). It was produced after Honey Crisp, using the royalties form the Honey Crisp patent. I doubt my favorite apple would exist without patents. What good does patented food do? It generates income for the people who make food better, enabling future development. There's nothing wrong with that.
Do the biggest corporations not yet have enough control over our lives that now they need to get money out of us for the "idea" of a fish? Or the "idea" of corn?
Not even close to what happens. Just like Snowsweet's patent doesn't affect Red Delicious, those patents don't affect any other fish or corn, just the varieties covered by the respective patents.
Don't be surprised when future generations look back on the first decades of the rise of biotech food in the same way we look back on putting radioactive paint on wristwatch hands and asbestos in home insulation and lead in house paint
Or look back on the opposition to it like we look back on people who futilely opposed every other technology.
People have made a lot of baseless claims about the safety of GE food. I've heard them accuse it of causing cancer, diabetes, and infertility. But turning you into Aquaman...now that's pretty bad.
Speaking as someone who is about as pro-GE as you're going to find (well, in the same sense that I'm pro-vaccine or pro-Pythagorean theorem anyway), I don't care one bit, as long as you put it like that. I'm not about to get on a Jew's case for following Kosher or complain about a Muslim who keeps Halal. I hope you're knowledgeable enough about crop genetics to know just how puzzling that stance is, but as long as you're not going around and saying things that aren't true, trying to stop agricultural progress, demanding special treatment for your lifestyle, or spreading fear to others, then hey, whatever floats your boat. You get your own opinion (just like how Johnny Appleseed believed that grafting trees, now a ubiquitous process in fruit production, was evil because it was 'against the will of God'), just don't make up your own facts.
although I would be a little put off by a "THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS GENETICALLY MODIFIED FISH" label that I think should be mandated.
I disagree with that. Thing is, there is a lot of information you could add about food. tell me your last meal, and I'll tell you something about those plants you probably don't know. If I want to, I can make it sound scary. Did you know your citrus was produced by radiation? Or that many of your grapes were sprayed with plant hormones? Or that your tomatoes may have had non-tomato genes (despite being non-GE, by the way)? Or that your apples were spontaneous somatic mutations? Or that many of your vegetables were bred with gene altering chemicals? Perfectly safe, but what do you think would happen if you required that oranges be labeled as 'Produced with radiation' or that celery had to say 'Produced with chemicals'? It wouldn't tell you anything, but it would scare people who don't understand the science behind crop production. I think that to do so would be somewhat deceptive really, because without fully explaining it, that label is basically like a fact taken out of context. Lets say I tell you your peas have an insecticide in them. Sounds bad, right? What if I say I'm referring to PA1b, a naturally occurring defensive mechanism peas have? Now it sounds less scary. If I only told you the first part, even though what I said was perfectly true, it would have been deceptive of me.
So, I disagree with the notion that it should be labeled (by law anyway, anyone should be free to label as GE/non-GE as they see fit). It isn't informative, it unfairly selects one aspect of the food and singles it out as special, and it will do little more than scare people.
Too bad that doesn't happen. This comes up every time genetic engineering is mentioned, but that isn't what happened. Monsanto doesn't sue farmers for being cross pollinated (and even when it is undesirable, it is cross pollination, not contamination, quit trying to use loaded words, no one calls pollen from outcrossing heirloom varieties pollution when it screws up someone else open pollinated line). They have however sued for knowingly selecting for and propagating material. Every single case, the Schmeiser case, the Parr case, ect. it turned out more than just cross pollination happened.
It would be like if someone accidentally received a copyrighted DVD, then reasoned that Disney or whoever should be more careful with the DVDs that people buy and started producing there own copies, got sued for it, and a bunch of anti-DVD people claimed that people can get sued for receiving DVDs as a way of attaching DVDs to make their position, which also claims that DVDs cause cancer, sound more reasonable.
There's political opposition too, namely from Alaska where they don't want their fishing industry challenged by the new guy. Huzzah for crony capitalism.
More than that, to use your analogy, it would be as if a large number of people did not believe that spending made debt and the consequences it would bring are real things.
This reminds me of when groups like Greenpeace complains about something popular just to get attention. It's just some activist noise making about something topical to bring attention to themselves. What I find funny is that by pulling these stupid stunts, all they are doing is making themselves (and their cause) look bad. Maybe the next time someone hears about an actual legitimate issue in animal welfare they'll think of this and pay it no mind ('Hey, isn't that the same stuff those wackos who complained about Pokemon were going on about?') . The way they trade credibility for publicity (not that they had much credibility to start with) makes me think PETA cares more about their own 15 seconds of fame than actually bringing any benefit to animals.
And by the way, Pokemon are clearly partners, not slaves. The games make generally that pretty clear and go on ad nauseam about poke-friendship or something like that, in fact, something about humans being mean to their Pokemon was even a central part of the plot of the last games, not that any of this is relevant if causing a fuss is your only actual goal.
That's more of a matter of local and vine ripened vs. picked at harvestable maturity (in other words, green), shipped from wherever, and gassed with ethylene than anything (the local guys might also be using a different variety too; some tomatoes are bred for durability but lost some taste along the way). Organic or not doesn't matter, but buying local is usually a good bet.
The point of organic isn't about the nutrition, it's about the other things.
It isn't hard to find claims that it is more nutritious (although to be fair I can see how there may be some merit to some of those claims under certain conditions, given all the variables that go into producing crops), and if those other things are shown false, yet more other things will be brought in to justify organic. It sounds like the a classic moving goalpost to simply say that organic is all about other things.
I was just on a small, local orchard the other day. Totally not organic it was. Don't assume that growing methods and small farms are necessarily connected; large operations want in on this market as well. You'd be better off hitting the farmer's markets or asking your grocery store about their suppliers than focusing on organic.
Care to explain why purchased (conventional) produce tastes like cardboard, while garden-grown stuff is delicious?
That's like trying to compare stir fried food with yesterday's leftover. you are comparing two entirely different things. Of course something you grow yourself and eat fresh is going to be better than something that was shipped from California or Chile or wherever. That does not imply that a growing practice is the cause if it; the difference is in freshness, maturity, harvesting and post harvest treatment, and possibly variety. If you compared the non-organic tomatoes I've grown with an organic one shipped hundreds of miles, I'll bet mine would would be far superior in taste, but not because of how it was grown.
What really gets me is the false dichotomy between organic and conventional. It reminds me of how medical quacks try to differentiate between conventional and alternative (or naturopathic or whatever) medicine when the rational thing to do is to focus on what works, not what it is called. Some organic techniques are good. A lot of biological techniques like intercropping, crop rotation, focus on soil microbes, insect mating disruption, passive pest control methods like use of predator insects, increased use of biodiversity, ect. are positives. But that does not mean you should be dogmatic about it, which is exactly what organic is: naturalistic dogma. A natural pesticides is fine in organic production (and before anyone assumes organic uses no pesticides, look up the approved pesticide list), but not a synthetic one, simply on the basis of its origin? That is the classic appeal to nature fallacy. And while it is true that excessive fertilizer use has many negative consequences, why should responsible use of synthetic fertilizers be forbidden? Soil fertility management is damned complex, and it is presumptive to think only 'natural' methods are going to be of sustainable benefit. Genetically engineered crops are a great example of the naturalistic nature of the organic dogma. You can apply Bt to a crop, but if the crop does it itself, it is suddenly forbidden? Even something as simple as an apple modified to not brown can never be organic. Why? It is not natural (or rather, it is not natural and is popularized, unlike things like mutagenesis and chemically induced polyploidy).
My point is that organic has some things going for it, but not because it has some special label like 'organic'. What it has going for it are the biological techniques it uses. Of course, these techniques are not exclusive to organic; if you think your average farmer does not pay attention to things that can make their operations better, you are mistaken and have probably never even set food on an actual farm before. Ultimately, the focus should be on the scientifically verified merit individual practices, not on some label that represents a collection of practices grouped together based on the appeal to nature fallacy with some after the fact justification. The dichotomy misses the point entirely (unless the goal is marketing of course, in which case oversimplifications work great, and absolutes tend to create more true believers than nuance). Even if organic did produce more nutritious food, that would still not support the superiority of organic so much as it would indicate that there is an attribute of some growing method causing the increased nutrition that should be determined, explained, and focused on.
It is one of the bigger points of organic food that is brought up every time the nutritional advantages of organic food is questioned. It is assumed that you pay for what you're not getting. Of course, that takes fro granted that you should be concerned about trace residues of those things, or that the pesticides applied in organic production are leaving safer residues, but nonetheless, that is still one of the arguments for organic food.
I'm for mandatory labeling of products and detailed government sponsored scientific studies on the topic
Why single out GE crops? Why should they get special restrictions while everything else (like the conventionally bred toxic Lenape potato and herbicide resistant Clearfield wheat) gets a free pass?
Slashdot Mirror
First, you could say the same of tractors. Doesn't make them bad. Second, false dichotomy between biotech and agroecology. Third, or course a well managed agroecology type system is going to be better than the poor systems a lot of the world has. That's not saying much.
Honesty is exactly why I oppose requiring mandatory labeling. There are many aspects of food I could demand be labeled. for example, is something produced via hybridization, induced polyploidy, mutagenesis, bud sport, grafting, tissue culture, somaclonal variation, embryo rescue, ect.? They're not labeled. Why not? If they're so safe, why are they hidden? Of course that's ridiculous. They're not labeled because the are ultimately not different. But if I were to, say, single out one of these things (while a movement existed that opposed this thing and had no problem spreading unscientific FUD on the topic) it would make that one thing look like it was wrong somehow, would it not? I mean, hey, it is labeled, that must mean it is bad, right? Granted, its a no win for GE crops since many folks also say that if they are not labeled, they must be hiding something from you and therefore it must be bad (damned either way).
The thing is that there is no reason to label something that does not affect the end product. What if I demand, say, that the variety of parsnip or species of blueberry (yes, species, there is more than one cultivated) I find in the store be labeled? What if I demand that the specific bud sport of apple (do you think the last Gala or Fuji you had was the original? I'll be it wasn't!) be labeled, or that citrus produced with radiation a few decades ago carry a radiation symbol, or if squash produced via doubled haploid hybridization carry l label saying 'produced with toxic chemicals'? It would all be true, but I don't deserve that and more than a Jew deserves mandatory Kosher labeling or a Muslim deserves mandatory Halal labeling because, ultimately, that information is not relevant to the product and they are equivalent to items produced without those things. It's the same with GE crops. Okay, they are GE. That doesn't mean anything to the nutritional properties of the end product, and while some may think so, some might think certain beef might send you to hell, but that doesn't mean they deserve a law catering to them. And speaking of individual genes, simply labeling things as GMO without providing more details is meaningless and you know it. It is as informative as saying I modified my can. Can you tell me what I did to it based on that information alone? No, so how would that be informative for food? And if you do include the individual genes, why do all other genes get a free pass? What if I want rice with the sd-1 gene labeled, or raspberries with the A1 gene labeled, or tomatoes with the Ph-3 gene labeled (all conventionally bred by the way)?
Besides, there are already free market solutions, such as organic and Non-GMO Project certified foods, and you can also just educate yourself on the topic to know for sure. Anything with corn, soy, canola, cotton, sugar beet, alfalfa, summer squash, and papaya is likely GE unless market otherwise. If you can't be bothered to educate yourself, quite frankly that's your own problem. And sure, you could just say that people want it, but I'm sure that most people would like a pony too, but that doesn't mean they should get one. Just because someone wants a law doesn't mean the law should be passed (see Prop 8 and cannabis prohibition for reference).
Basically, I'm opposed to requiring mandatory labeling for the same reason I'm opposed to those warning labels on textbooks stating that evolution is 'just' a theory. That, as we know, was a political move to single out a single theory and mislead those who do not know what the term actually means. The movement to label GE crops is a political movement that seeks to single out one aspect of crop genetic alteration to confuse and mislead consumers who are not educated on the subject. I've yet to hear a convincing, scientifically and morally consistent argument that takes into account the full scope of crop genetic alteration.
In terms of beliefs? That's for you to decide. In terms of actions and the things that really matter? Not even close. When the Mormon church has been implicated in things like Operation Freakout or Operation Snow White, or any of the other crazy things the CoS has done to people that you can learn of after 5 seconds on Google, then your false equivalence of comparing the CoS to other religious bodies might have a point. The modern Mormon church is, as far as I know, generally decent and full of okay folks. I don't know if I can say the same of the CoS, judging by all the stuff they've done, and that's the issue here.
I've seen people argue that letting things go extinct because they can't compete with man made environmental destruction, hunting, ect. is no problem because it is the natural order and such species do not serve a purpose. Funny how things turn out.
If someone knowingly and intentionally introduces something new into the environment which would prevent nearby "GMO Free" farmers from being able to grow "GMO free" food and that has a negative economic impact on these farmers, the person introducing the item should be liable for damages and stop doing it.
That's a good point, and one with a lot of hard issues to consider. I think it gets confusing fast though. Say I'm growing Red Kuri squash. My neighbor grows Galeux d'Eysines. We cross pollinate. Both of those open pollinated would get a premium, but now the next generation is hybridized. Who has to pay up? What if a sweet and field corn mess each other up? Or two fields of parthenocarpic citrus varieties cross pollinate and result in seeded fruit? Those guys get by just fine through communicating with their neighbors and taking measures to prevent problems (like staggering their planting dates, collecting seed from the center of the field, ect). It is only now that we hear of cross pollination becoming an issue, strangely. On one hand, if you are producing a product a certain way, shouldn't the onus be on you to take care of your operations? A somewhat absurd example, imagine if someone was selling food grown outside the presence of wifi (which makes about as much sense as the anti-GE thing and had the professional activists who started the GE nonsense made that into a problem I guarantee would be a thing), should everyone else turn off their routers? On the other hand, yeah, there is something starting on field A and moving unwanted to field B, so I can certainty see your point. On the other other hand, it is pretty unreasonable to hold all farmers accountable for their pollen, no? Ultimately, given the nature and necessity of farming, I'm inclined to think it is. You certainty wouldn't want Monsanto taking action over simple cross pollination, so I'd apply the same for being cross pollinated.
The first GMO's were things like rice that grew Vitamin A so rural Asian children wouldn't go blind. That was good.
Actually, that one isn't even on the market yet. The first GE crop was actually virus resistant tobacco, in China. the second was the Flavr Savr tomato, in the US. Do you think that Golden Rice is a good idea? Then keep in mind that, by and large, the same people opposing the other GE crops you mention are opposing Golden Rice.
But instead, we got crops that are resistant to pesticides that are applied by the tanker load
I agree that it sounds bad, but not when you consider things holistically. Those herbicide tolerant crops have increased the usage of some herbicides, but they've decreased the use of harsher herbicides and reduced the need for environmentally damaging tillage. They've actually been pretty beneficial. Note also that many of Benbrook's works have been often criticized. Obviously, spraying chemicals is never a good thing if it can be avoided, but if you've got a better way to control weeds a lot of farmers would love to hear it.
and vegetables that express their own pesticides, which, we're kinda-maybe-sure don't effect humans
They don't. It is the same protein that has been used in organic farming for years to no ill effect. We know very well how it works, and yes, there has been much study on the health effects. By the way, all plants produce pesticides. It's how they defend themselves. Even your non-GE corn is going to be full of insecticidal maysin.
With absolutely no idea what the long-term health effects are going to be from human consumption of a modified genetic animal,
Appeal to ignorance. We have no reason to suspect long term harm, and you can claim unknown unknowns about anything. Can you prove that eating triploid seedless watermelons won't kill us all in a few decades? I can't. But I have no reason to suspect that is the case, so my inability to prove a negative won't stop me from eating them.
And given how we're now finding out the honey bee collapse syndrome is a direct result of the Monsanto creations
You do realize that CCD is happening even in areas with GE crops, yes? Last I heard the most likely culprit was neonicotinoids and overly stressed hives, possibly with the help of mites. The GE angle is nonsense preached by the anti-GE folks who blame GE crops for just about everything.
That worked great for people with Celiacs. Or people who drink sassafras. Or the Lenape potato. There is a difference between rigorous testing and long term anecdotes. Unless you have reason to believe there is a danger, you're just setting up an unreachable moving goalpost.
what fucking good can come from patented (or copyrighted?) organisms?
This. That is Snowsweet, my all time favorite apple. I would choose it over any other variety. Notice the royalty fee and patent? It is a patented organism. It was produced by the same people who developed Honey Crisp, which was also patented (was, the patent has expired). It was produced after Honey Crisp, using the royalties form the Honey Crisp patent. I doubt my favorite apple would exist without patents. What good does patented food do? It generates income for the people who make food better, enabling future development. There's nothing wrong with that.
Do the biggest corporations not yet have enough control over our lives that now they need to get money out of us for the "idea" of a fish? Or the "idea" of corn?
Not even close to what happens. Just like Snowsweet's patent doesn't affect Red Delicious, those patents don't affect any other fish or corn, just the varieties covered by the respective patents.
Don't be surprised when future generations look back on the first decades of the rise of biotech food in the same way we look back on putting radioactive paint on wristwatch hands and asbestos in home insulation and lead in house paint
Or look back on the opposition to it like we look back on people who futilely opposed every other technology.
People have made a lot of baseless claims about the safety of GE food. I've heard them accuse it of causing cancer, diabetes, and infertility. But turning you into Aquaman...now that's pretty bad.
Speaking as someone who is about as pro-GE as you're going to find (well, in the same sense that I'm pro-vaccine or pro-Pythagorean theorem anyway), I don't care one bit, as long as you put it like that. I'm not about to get on a Jew's case for following Kosher or complain about a Muslim who keeps Halal. I hope you're knowledgeable enough about crop genetics to know just how puzzling that stance is, but as long as you're not going around and saying things that aren't true, trying to stop agricultural progress, demanding special treatment for your lifestyle, or spreading fear to others, then hey, whatever floats your boat. You get your own opinion (just like how Johnny Appleseed believed that grafting trees, now a ubiquitous process in fruit production, was evil because it was 'against the will of God'), just don't make up your own facts.
although I would be a little put off by a "THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS GENETICALLY MODIFIED FISH" label that I think should be mandated.
I disagree with that. Thing is, there is a lot of information you could add about food. tell me your last meal, and I'll tell you something about those plants you probably don't know. If I want to, I can make it sound scary. Did you know your citrus was produced by radiation? Or that many of your grapes were sprayed with plant hormones? Or that your tomatoes may have had non-tomato genes (despite being non-GE, by the way)? Or that your apples were spontaneous somatic mutations? Or that many of your vegetables were bred with gene altering chemicals? Perfectly safe, but what do you think would happen if you required that oranges be labeled as 'Produced with radiation' or that celery had to say 'Produced with chemicals'? It wouldn't tell you anything, but it would scare people who don't understand the science behind crop production. I think that to do so would be somewhat deceptive really, because without fully explaining it, that label is basically like a fact taken out of context. Lets say I tell you your peas have an insecticide in them. Sounds bad, right? What if I say I'm referring to PA1b, a naturally occurring defensive mechanism peas have? Now it sounds less scary. If I only told you the first part, even though what I said was perfectly true, it would have been deceptive of me.
So, I disagree with the notion that it should be labeled (by law anyway, anyone should be free to label as GE/non-GE as they see fit). It isn't informative, it unfairly selects one aspect of the food and singles it out as special, and it will do little more than scare people.
Too bad that doesn't happen. This comes up every time genetic engineering is mentioned, but that isn't what happened. Monsanto doesn't sue farmers for being cross pollinated (and even when it is undesirable, it is cross pollination, not contamination, quit trying to use loaded words, no one calls pollen from outcrossing heirloom varieties pollution when it screws up someone else open pollinated line). They have however sued for knowingly selecting for and propagating material. Every single case, the Schmeiser case, the Parr case, ect. it turned out more than just cross pollination happened.
It would be like if someone accidentally received a copyrighted DVD, then reasoned that Disney or whoever should be more careful with the DVDs that people buy and started producing there own copies, got sued for it, and a bunch of anti-DVD people claimed that people can get sued for receiving DVDs as a way of attaching DVDs to make their position, which also claims that DVDs cause cancer, sound more reasonable.
There's political opposition too, namely from Alaska where they don't want their fishing industry challenged by the new guy. Huzzah for crony capitalism.
More than that, to use your analogy, it would be as if a large number of people did not believe that spending made debt and the consequences it would bring are real things.
This reminds me of when groups like Greenpeace complains about something popular just to get attention. It's just some activist noise making about something topical to bring attention to themselves. What I find funny is that by pulling these stupid stunts, all they are doing is making themselves (and their cause) look bad. Maybe the next time someone hears about an actual legitimate issue in animal welfare they'll think of this and pay it no mind ('Hey, isn't that the same stuff those wackos who complained about Pokemon were going on about?') . The way they trade credibility for publicity (not that they had much credibility to start with) makes me think PETA cares more about their own 15 seconds of fame than actually bringing any benefit to animals.
And by the way, Pokemon are clearly partners, not slaves. The games make generally that pretty clear and go on ad nauseam about poke-friendship or something like that, in fact, something about humans being mean to their Pokemon was even a central part of the plot of the last games, not that any of this is relevant if causing a fuss is your only actual goal.
Nobody uses antibiotics on plants crops
False. Antibiotics are used to control fireblight in organic apple production.
That's more of a matter of local and vine ripened vs. picked at harvestable maturity (in other words, green), shipped from wherever, and gassed with ethylene than anything (the local guys might also be using a different variety too; some tomatoes are bred for durability but lost some taste along the way). Organic or not doesn't matter, but buying local is usually a good bet.
The point of organic isn't about the nutrition, it's about the other things.
It isn't hard to find claims that it is more nutritious (although to be fair I can see how there may be some merit to some of those claims under certain conditions, given all the variables that go into producing crops), and if those other things are shown false, yet more other things will be brought in to justify organic. It sounds like the a classic moving goalpost to simply say that organic is all about other things.
I was just on a small, local orchard the other day. Totally not organic it was. Don't assume that growing methods and small farms are necessarily connected; large operations want in on this market as well. You'd be better off hitting the farmer's markets or asking your grocery store about their suppliers than focusing on organic.
If we're making chemistry based jokes, my favorite is organic salt
Care to explain why purchased (conventional) produce tastes like cardboard, while garden-grown stuff is delicious?
That's like trying to compare stir fried food with yesterday's leftover. you are comparing two entirely different things. Of course something you grow yourself and eat fresh is going to be better than something that was shipped from California or Chile or wherever. That does not imply that a growing practice is the cause if it; the difference is in freshness, maturity, harvesting and post harvest treatment, and possibly variety. If you compared the non-organic tomatoes I've grown with an organic one shipped hundreds of miles, I'll bet mine would would be far superior in taste, but not because of how it was grown.
What really gets me is the false dichotomy between organic and conventional. It reminds me of how medical quacks try to differentiate between conventional and alternative (or naturopathic or whatever) medicine when the rational thing to do is to focus on what works, not what it is called. Some organic techniques are good. A lot of biological techniques like intercropping, crop rotation, focus on soil microbes, insect mating disruption, passive pest control methods like use of predator insects, increased use of biodiversity, ect. are positives. But that does not mean you should be dogmatic about it, which is exactly what organic is: naturalistic dogma. A natural pesticides is fine in organic production (and before anyone assumes organic uses no pesticides, look up the approved pesticide list), but not a synthetic one, simply on the basis of its origin? That is the classic appeal to nature fallacy. And while it is true that excessive fertilizer use has many negative consequences, why should responsible use of synthetic fertilizers be forbidden? Soil fertility management is damned complex, and it is presumptive to think only 'natural' methods are going to be of sustainable benefit. Genetically engineered crops are a great example of the naturalistic nature of the organic dogma. You can apply Bt to a crop, but if the crop does it itself, it is suddenly forbidden? Even something as simple as an apple modified to not brown can never be organic. Why? It is not natural (or rather, it is not natural and is popularized, unlike things like mutagenesis and chemically induced polyploidy).
My point is that organic has some things going for it, but not because it has some special label like 'organic'. What it has going for it are the biological techniques it uses. Of course, these techniques are not exclusive to organic; if you think your average farmer does not pay attention to things that can make their operations better, you are mistaken and have probably never even set food on an actual farm before. Ultimately, the focus should be on the scientifically verified merit individual practices, not on some label that represents a collection of practices grouped together based on the appeal to nature fallacy with some after the fact justification. The dichotomy misses the point entirely (unless the goal is marketing of course, in which case oversimplifications work great, and absolutes tend to create more true believers than nuance). Even if organic did produce more nutritious food, that would still not support the superiority of organic so much as it would indicate that there is an attribute of some growing method causing the increased nutrition that should be determined, explained, and focused on.
It is one of the bigger points of organic food that is brought up every time the nutritional advantages of organic food is questioned. It is assumed that you pay for what you're not getting. Of course, that takes fro granted that you should be concerned about trace residues of those things, or that the pesticides applied in organic production are leaving safer residues, but nonetheless, that is still one of the arguments for organic food.
I'm for mandatory labeling of products and detailed government sponsored scientific studies on the topic
Why single out GE crops? Why should they get special restrictions while everything else (like the conventionally bred toxic Lenape potato and herbicide resistant Clearfield wheat) gets a free pass?