Kanji are words, they're just words whose "spelling" is entirely unrelated to their pronunciation.
Not entirely. For example, sensei, teacher. 'Sen' comes from the kanji for before, 'sei' comes from the kanji for birth/life. Gakusei, student. Gake comes from the kanji for 'study/learning', and again, 'sei' comes from the same kanji for life. 'Sui' is a sound associated with the kanji for water, 'hi' with the one for day, 'dai' with the one for big...it really isn't correct to say that the kanji are unrelated to their pronunciations, even though it is a bit more complicated that using kana. It's one of those things that a fluent person (which I am far from) might be able to use to pick up on to deduce the pronunciation of an unknown word.
It'd be a lot easier to show you if/. would join the rest of the world in supporting non-Latin characters.
I've always assumed most games of 'skill' are rigged. Remember those Storm Stopper games that look like a glass dome with the spinning light that you try to catch on the jackpot (you see them at Chuck E. Cheese places)? Every time, I hit it on either side of the jackpot. You'd think that I'd have at least 1/3 chance of getting if if that's the case, but I rarely actually got it. I would think that most games even outside casinos (cranes, stackers, those vertical ones with the red lights) that appear to be be dependent on skill are, once you hit a certain level, mostly luck. They're kinda fun to put a few quarters in, and I get that someone has to make money, but still, rigging is rigging.
I think that a better approach, rather than opposing the mass produced aspect, would be to advocate the integration of more variety into the large scale growing. The system isn't broke; it's just flawed. I mean, if someone starts producing large scale industrial farm quantities of, say, Orangeglo watermelon, Purple of Sicily cauliflower, or Ananas Noire tomato, or a less cultivated species like mulberry, oca, Jerusalem artichoke, or pindaíba, well, I say great. I too buy things if they have a less used ingredient in them (like juices with a minute amount of camu-camu or prickly pear in them), and I think doing that, encouraging other species to be mass produced, buying new things when they show up in the produce aisle (lychees & persimmons ftw!) is better than simply opposing the mass production.
I have to kind of disagree there. While it is true that they are not species in and of themselves, there are no small number of such varieties with unique genes due to being selected from a different population of wild stock or selecting from some mutation or something. This could result in a unique flavor or a useful trait (like flood resistant rice or disease resistant bananas), or just some other neat thing, like red fleshed apples, yellow kiwis, white blackberries, pink blueberries, or orange watermelons. A diverse genetic population is a good thing, and only cultivating a small number of those is limiting, and besides, not very fun. As for genetic engineering, damn strait. One of these days we'll just be able to coalesce the most beneficial genes from the older varieties and with other ones and make it kind of a moot point, except for subjective things like flavor (for example, the flavor of Court Pendu Plat vs Red Delicious) and historical genetic preservation purposes.
Actually, being tasty to humans is one of the most advantageous adaptations a species can have. Well, either the best or the worst, depending on if we raise them or unsustainably collect them from the wild until the population collapses. You don't see cows or chickens or apples or oranges in any danger any time soon, but then again, things have been eaten to extinction. I don't think it's too bad of an idea to, where possible, try to introduce cultivated or farmed endangered species into the food supply. Preservation through consumption.
I think that's exactly it. The key word in alternative medicine is not medicine. I think that if tomorrow homeopathy (or any other alt med, I pick on homeopathy because it is very popular and very dumb) were vindicated, some revolutionary new field of chemistry were discovered to support it, every study showing homeopathy bogus was shown to be the worlds largest statistical glitch, and homeopathy received approval by groups like the WHO, CDC, FDA, ect., we'd still see something emerge to challenge it. In a hundred years, people would be railing against homeopathy for the exact same reasons they now complain about science based medicines. Because in the end, this whole thing is just the materialization of social phenomenon, a reaction to something. I don't know what exactly...disdain for the popular and wanting to feel superior to others, or a fear that your health is in controlled by something you don't understand. Something, I don't know.
It kind of reminds me of those kids in high school who always dissed popular music because it was popular, then disliked unpopular bands when others started liking them. I think alternative medicine guys are a lot like that. Except no one ever died from bad music.
In case people actually took that seriously, fisrt off, there is no such thing as 'western' medicine. That's a load of crap to try to act as if there are two valid forms of treatment. There aren't. There is scientifically proven medicine, and medicine that has not been proven/has been disproven. And that part about not trying to prove stuff, that's either great parody or bad logic. Anything that works, works. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. If a treatment works, it can be shown to work under proper trials. Acupuncture, like most alternative medicines, has not shown this. And that bit about fully scientific treatment, all science is is observation. That's it. Science is what can be seen, and until a thing is seen, science ramains unconvinced of the thing's existence. If homeopathy worked, or ghosts were real, or if there really were qi lines and crap, science would be able to at least observe them, even if we could not truly understand them.
That is basically the same thing as religious fundamentalist.
“You’re so sure of your position But you’re just closed-minded I think you’ll find Your faith in Science and Tests Is just as blind As the faith of any fundamentalist”
“Hm that’s a good point, let me think for a bit Oh wait, my mistake, it’s absolute bullshit. Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved. If you show me That, say, homeopathy works, Then I will change my mind I’ll spin on a fucking dime I’ll be embarrassed as hell, But I will run through the streets yelling It’s a miracle! Take physics and bin it! Water has memory! And while it’s memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite It somehow forgets all the poo it’s had in it!
You show me that it works and how it works And when I’ve recovered from the shock I will take a compass and carve Fancy That on the side of my cock.” -Tim Minchin, "Storm"
Problem n.1: Very few things have 'sufficient evidence' at first. That's the point of research. But then people go "there's not enough evidence so this is BS and I'm not going to research this" GOTO 10
Problem n.2. Define "sufficient evidence". Sometimes "sufficient evidence" looks like "overwhelming evidence so I'm changing my opinion to save face"
Yeah, but they should at least have something going for them first. There are tons of new things being worked on. Those weren't simply chosen at random, people start working on those fields because there is some reason to think they will yield results. The sufficient evidence is either fitting with models or predictions or well reasoned hypotheses or early testing or something. And sure, there are things out there that don't have sufficient yet but are perfectly valid. Tomorrow we might discover that one radical new theory has been proven and all scientists that dismissed it will be looked at as chumps by people who don't get that they were just going by the evidence available to them at the time. Because, that available evidence is important.
To paraphrase Sagan, 'They laughed at Einstein, ect., but they also laughed at Bozo' and there are a lot more Bozos than Einsteins, so it is preposterous to think that every stupid little thing should be investigated. Should we investigate homeopathy, even though it violates all known laws of biology, chemistry, and physics? How much more money should we spend debunking the Wakefield study? Should we test ear candling, reiki, reflexology, the Bates method, urine drinking, crystal therapy, ect.? Just because they're there? Of course not, it is not possible to research every possible possibility without some sort of good evidence. Acupuncture is the same way. After a while, with no indication that it works and many that it probably doesn't, it's time to call BS until something exceptional is found. Discovered qi or chakra or whatever flowing through the body? That's new, then it's time to reopen acupuncture. Got a well designed study indicating superior results? Same thing. But until then, no amount of accusations of being closed minded is a substitute for good proof.
Yep, the herbal thing is a strange animal because pharmacognosy, the study of medicines derived from plants, is a perfectly valid legitimate field of science, whereas chewing on a twig because it's natural is just kinda silly. It ticks me off a bit because (some) herbal medicine has real power, it really does, and for many centuries it was used to some degree of success, and is still used by many who can't afford drugs, and I hate seeing pre-scientific people slime such a beneficial field with their nonsense. I hear herbal medicine and automatically think quackery, and that's not right. What's funny is, if that twig is shown to produce a novel useful compound, and that compound is isolated, studied, synthesized, and administered in a measured does within a sugar pill it is called a pharmaceutical, and now the naturopaths say it is bad, and would rather have a random dose along with who knows what else. Weird people.
The skepticism will appear if you start saying "it matters where you stick the needles" and stuff like that.
Apparently, there is at least one study that showed sticking them at random was actually better, or at least statistically the same, as the whole qi line thing. It is sad that this thing will be twisted and misrepresented by the alternative medicine quacks and used as a 'Nya nya we told ya so,' to skeptics who already suspected that the body does release pain killers when poked full of multiple small holes.
When it comes to alternative medicine, pretty much any skeptic knows that there are three main ones which may have some merit (even if not enough to justify mainstream usage): chiropractic, because it actively affects the spine, naturopathy/herbal, because plants contain active ingredients, and acupuncture, because it actively affects the skin. What skeptics want is robust evidence indicating that these things work better that other traditional techniques, and those have simply not materialized, and until they do, color me skeptical about acupuncture as a whole, even if there is some method to the madness.
There are skeptics and there are "skeptics". "skeptics" make their first reaction to everything "this is BS"
That's a load of crap. Skeptics make their first reaction to anything for which there is not sufficient evidence present "this is BS." That's a critical difference. As far as I know, acupuncture has not been exceptionally good at proving itself. It is based on the flow of some qi or whatever and claims to have all sorts of healing properties, neither of which have been proven in the least, and that is something to be rightfully skeptical about. If you make an extraordinary claim, I require extraordinary evidence. Plenty of new theories and ideas are accepted by skeptical types (for example, this was new, but there was no skeptic backlash, because it was a reasonable claim with reasonable evidence); just because some old time quackery is rejected doesn't mean skeptics are closed minded, that's just a way to distract form a lack of evidence. Medical skeptics have long admitted that minor injuries like sticking needles into yourself may trigger some pain-killer response, and this new thing, if indeed true, confirms that, not the validity of acupuncture. In fact, another study once showed that fake acupuncture outperformed 'real' acupuncture. It's not about simply denying everything, it is about denying everything until a reasonable amount of evidence exists to support it.
You know, homeopathy used to 'work' too, back when mercury was a medicine, because it didn't do anything whereas medicine killed you, which may be why it is still around. Chiropractic, originally claimed to cure all sorts of things, has the same affects as a good massage. Do they get vindicated too now? Sometimes things get lucky, or traditions are held for some reason, and maybe acupuncture is one of them due to this effect, but there is still no reason to not be skeptical about redirecting your qi or whatnot, or its ability to outperform any modern science based pain killing methods (I'd go with a good hit o' weed myself, but that's a different debate). It's good to have an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.
If some of the comments here are representative of anything, right there. It does make a bit of sense though. Maybe I can give the opinion of a religious scientific type. Science is about skepticism and not accepting anything until ample evidence is presented. Religion is based on faith about things outside the realm of ordinary perception, and must be taken on faith. I'm a Christian, generic variety, studying to go into a scientific field, and you know what? I can scientifically, empirically, logically, justify my stances on scientific issues, but religious ones? The only thing separating them from things like homeopathy is that they can't be falsified, and I know this, I know it is not logical, I understand that I would probably be an atheist were I not raised Christian (and I have to confess I have toyed with the idea of becoming one before), and in a debate, I must admit that it really seems to me like atheism wins every time, but I guess I just take it on some blind faith that there is a metaphysical with a certain set of characteristics, and it is that faith that just doesn't jive with scientific principles.
Might also be not wanting to be associated with people who make predictions about the physical world based on the Bible. As I see it, there are three points when it comes to this: Biblical interpretation, science, and the Bible. I hold, on scientifically baseless faith, the validity of the Bible, and science certainty isn't wrong, so the only thing to adjust is my interpretation of the Bible. Many will not do that, and instead demand that the facts change. My personal view is that if the facts are inconsistent with your interpretation, either you're wrong, or God is out to trick you, which doesn't match with what they believe to be other attributes of God. And as long as I'm not allowing my scientific judgment to be influenced by private prejudices, as long as my religious beliefs stay in the metaphysical or philosophical, I feel even with that small spot of non-skepticism, I can still be perfectly competent as a scientist, as have been the many Christians, Jews, and Muslims who have advanced science in the past (many of whom who, admittedly, may indeed have allowed their work to become clouded by faith if ever faced with an apparent contradiction, but nonetheless helped built the framework of modern biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and engineering).
And maybe I'm wrong, I have no solid empirical evidence to indicate that God is any more real that the Loch Ness Monster, and I'm not going to try to defend my position because I really can't; it has no more defense than Russell's Teapot or the FSM or Invisible Pink Unicorn or the dragon in the garage, and I know this, it won't do to sit here and say, on this particular area, that maybe I'm just an illogical credulous moron, and maybe that's why people who are trained to view everything under the light of skepticism are not inclined to put their one small cherished bit of irrational faith out like that.
Go ahead and bash away; I won't lie, it is entirely possible that this position deserves it. I probably would if I were an atheist. That's about all I can really say.
I too consider myself a gourmet, so I can sympathize with your concerns, however, they are completely unfounded. I am a horticulture student, and while one of my greatest horticultural interests is the development and utilization of underutilized crops (particularly fruits), and the other is genetic engineering, and I do not consider completely embracing both (genetically engineering all the crops we grow and dramatically expanding the number of species we grow) to be contradictory. What you're talking about are two very different things. Most of the loss in crop diversity has nothing to do with genetic engineering, but with the use of hybridized lines to produce food aimed at shipping ability, not taste. It was not genetic engineering that replaced, for example, heirloom tomatoes with big red common store tomatoes; it was simple hybridization, breeding, the same thing that created the heirloom tomatoes, just used for a different purpose. The reason we have these shippable hybrids is due to market forces and the economies of scale present in large scale efficient agriculture, so don't make genetic engineering into a whipping boy here; it isn't at fault. I for one support that large scale agriculture because it enables much greater output and I think that it's lack of ability to produce diverse foods is a fixable flaws that genetic engineering can help to address, if we use it in that way. A lot of people assume hybrids are genetically modified, and while their genes certainty are modified, it is not in the sense that advanced technology was used, it's just good old fashioned breeding techniques.
So basically, the idea that genetic engineering somehow reduces crop selection doesn't make any more sense than saying that breeding reduces biodiversity. If anything, we could use it to increase crop selection, because in the end, genetic engineering is just a tool, not a way of life, but it is an exceptionally powerful tool. For example, there are people working on traits that delay ripening in tomatoes, and this could enable once unshippable tomato varieties to be grown commercially.
I envision a future supermarket where produce is the biggest section is the biggest aisle. One with fresh jaboticaba, cloudberry, midgen berry, pawpaw, rose apple, bunya, pulasan, baobab, oca, zabala, guajilote, yellowhorn, mangosteen, mabolo, marula, shipova, quandong, yacon, queule, safou, goumi, salak...I could keep going. One with new 'grains' like amaranth, sorghum, quinoa, or Job's tears in large use, where exotic spices and other things like rosita de cacao, rooibos, and lemonade sumac used to their culinary potential. (I wouldn't mind seeing meats like kangaroo, iguana, guinea ping, grasshopper, and emu see more use either, but that's not my field.) There is a huge world of largely uncultivated plants out there, so many fruits and vegetables and spices and nuts that we just don't use. Imagine the culinary possibilities (and the agricultural benefits of polyculture) that could come with the full usage of these plants, dishes made from plants from every continent, mixed and rearranged and selected for each cooking style's focus, like a French take on dotorimuk, or a Japanese tejate. And genetic engineering can help to make this a reality; plants are at the heart of cuisine and genes are at the heart of plants. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but as the science progresses and we develop and refine the technique I think we can use it to overcome almost any agricultural obstacle, and future generations will look at the FUD spewed forth by GE denialists just like we today (most of us anyway) look at the early anti-vaccine movement that opposed Edward Jenner. It is not an enemy, it is a large potential friend, if it is used in the right way. I hope more people will come to realize this.
I'm an evolutionist, not a creationist, so I am going to eat the foods I evolved to eat, not the foods someone is trying to create for me.
I would question though if you really did evolve to eat the foods you eat. I admit I don't know much about human migration, but how long ago did humans really start to spread out over all the globe? Enough time to adapt to the local foods? Maybe, but we rarely see problems even we other groups of humans who have never encountered them before eat those foods. For example, most Americans came to to North America in the last couple hundred years, yet no group of humans, neither Europeans, nor Africans, nor Asians, that I have heard of, have problems with 'new' foods like corn, tomatoes, squash, peppers, lima beans cranberries, blueberries, cacao, cashew, cassava, bison, or turkey, all native to the Americas (although we have had problems with peanuts; people have even died). And no one has problems with 'new' foods that have just begun to spread globally and become significant, like banana, papaya, mango, or kiwi, (though we've seen problems with starfruit too; again, people have even died). I don't think you can claim to have evolved to specific foods. And when you consider that the genes that have changed wild wheat or apples or pears into what we have today, it really doesn't seem too reasonable to claim there is a huge difference between wild form food and human selected or bred food, of for that matter, 'frankenfood'. For example, I highly doubt that the few genes added in a GMO will make that much of a difference; compare Bt soybeans with the brassicas and tell me which is more different due to human manipulation. Now, you could certainty make arguments against specific traits, like the Bt trait for instance (although I have seen no compelling scientific evidence against that one), or the merits of causing a plant to produce any particular compound, but what I'm getting at is that you really can't use an evolutionary argument when it comes to 'creating' food.
As an aside, since you mention creationism, I've always thought a good way to give creationism some vindication would be to prove that any human tampering with DNA inevitably results in undesirable side effects (like some people seem to claim), which really should not happen under current scientific models. That said, I think that'll happen the day after hell reopens as a Baskin-Robbins, and I'll eat me hat if that's ever proven.
But honest labeling should be mandated to allow consumers to make informed choices. Making a bad choice is allowable.
But on the other hand, I don't see how one's curiosity or beliefs should dictate policy. I mean, I'm sure Muslims want to avoid Haraam food, but that is simply their faith, not a scientific concern, and since there is no evidence* whatsoever to indicate that GMO corn or whatever is in any way detrimental to human health, that is also more akin to a faith than a reasonable concern; should we really require things specifically labeled based on non-scientific beliefs or aesthetics? A bit of an extreme example, but you might go to hell if you eat food containing pig gelatin. Should things be labeled as Kosher or Halal by mandate? Without reasonable scientific evidence, I say no. If you want to self label that's fine, but no one else should be forced to conform to the beliefs of a vocal group of genetic engineering denialists.
*Unless you count debunked crank evidence. There are plenty of 'smoking gun' studies 'proving' that GMOs cause [insert disease here]. But let's face it, anything controversial will have studies supporting both sides. There are studies proving homeopathy works. What I mean is that there are no good, robust, thorough studies detailing human harm by approved for consumption GMOs.
How about it. It's really quite amazing that some people get all pissed about eating something that has had a gene inserted into it by humans, despite having gone through rigorous testing and producing no indications of harm, yet have no qualms about eating a few billion years worth of random accumulated mutations and natural gene transfer, later selectively bred for a few thousand years, some created through the use of mutagens.
Instead of investing money on this, they should have gotten better Olympic mascots. I mean, have you seen those weird assed things? What generic anime did they them out of? Wenlock and Mandeville, more like Angry and Creepy. They look like something you'd see pestering Scooby Doo.
It isn't because there is a technical difference (randomly mixing thousands genes via controlled pollination vs. inserting one gene precisely) even if the end product is similar, indeed, I don't see how any GMO trait could not be achieved with sufficient time and breeding (although we might be talking on an evolutionary timescale here), but let's call a spade a spade, the reason so many people act like there's such a huge difference is mostly because genetic engineering is new and creepy and they don't understand it, and a dash of scientific illiteracy doesn't help either. Breeding is something kindly old folks do in tune with nature in the bright warm orchard, genetic engineering is something arrogant crazy haired wild eyed mad scientists cook up in some creepy lab. But at the end of the day, they both result in plants that have had their genetic make-up altered to suit humans.
People act as if there is a rift between genetic engineering and breeding techniques. There's not, they're just different tools for different situations, and each have their uses. You wouldn't try to saw a board with a level or pound in a nail with a wrench, yet these anti-GE people expect all plant advances to come through breeding, and that's just not going to happen. Why should it, that's just silly. We need both. Theoretically GE can replace breeding entirely one day but that day will not come for a long time, so in the mean time, we need both types of genetic manipulation. I think everything commercially grown should be genetically modified, plenty of benefits and no known negatives, but thanks to all the baloney floating around the net about GMOs, that seems like an extremist, radically pro-science position any more.
I can't imagine the reaction we'd be getting today of things like breeding and grafting were invented today. I'm reminded of a story about people who went to Africa to teach people in Cameroon about grafting and breeding and they were met with skepticism over the 'white man's magic,' but they soon came to realize the benefits. If they had access to people propagating misinformation and spreading FUD I wonder if their situation would have become similar to the one the developed world now faces with GMOs.
Personally, my two biggest horticultural interests are improving agricultural biodiversity by improving underutilized fruit crops, like pawpaw, goumi, jaboticaba, zabala, dragon fruit, ect., through breeding (because we presently really can't use genetic engineering to manipulate flavor; there are too many genes involved there and it is too complex for us right now) and improving other traits like hardiness or virus/pest resistance through genetic engineering, and I think it is a darned shame so many asshole groups have used misinformation and scare tactics to get the public so scared over something we should be embracing with open arms.
Ack, forgot a part: Safety assessment for environmental damage- again, nothing hugely great to indicate that there's much worry there, although I have heard reports of cross pollination in wild populations of corn (by which I assume they mean corn relatives). Not sure just how prevalent it is or how accurate those reports were, but either way, the issue here isn't so much what harm they cause to the environment as the net harm. Farming is very bad for the environment, especially with our large population, so it isn't if GMOs cause harm, but if their use is a net reduction in damage, which it appears to be.
The whole concept of safety in GMO is defined in terms of species and genus
Safety is assessed based on if it can be shown to cause health effects, even if it produces a new chemical that could cause those effects. The evidence to indicate that the vast majority of GMOs possess these health concerns is hugely underwhelming. I don't know where you get that taxonomy plays into it.
We need a much better understanding of really basic biological principals to replace the rigid classification hierarchy with a way of thinking about the flows of information, materials, and energy that are an ecosystem. Until we have that more realistic framework and can use it to guide research and applications, I find the concept of using GMO in the field rather disturbing. At a very basic level, scientists and engineers involved in GMO research and applications don't know what the f*ck they are doing.
And when will that be? What amount of knowledge will be sufficient to safely work with individual genes instead of mixing thousands of genes like we've been doing with selective breeding? Think about it, where else have we heard this appeal to ignorance with claims that the experts don't know what they're doing and moving the goalpost every time more info comes in? Oh yeah, the guys who brought back measles said the same thing about vaccinations. Same argument, same tactics, different topic, and it makes about as much sense. The science is there, and while GMOs certainty have the potential for doing bad things, the evidence to indicate that they are/will become dangerous is scant indeed.
You must be joking. Tell that to to people who are allergic to peanuts, or have celiac's and can't eat wheat, or had a drug interaction with a grapefruit, or died from eating a starfruit. Don't anthropomorphize nature. It doesn't care of how things turn out, it doesn't care if you have an anaphylactic reaction to kiwis or whatever, it just is. It just goes, and while it does so fantastically, it doesn't care what effects any given mutation will have. Giving it any traits beyond that is just magical thinking.
AMEN. As one planning on going into this area, I think about genetic engineering a lot, and that was the first thing that came to my mind too. I love how the anti-GE guys out there rail against the 'dangers' of foreign DNA being inserted into plants yet are blissfully unaware that species get foreign DNA all the time. Humans are 3-8% viral DNA depending on who you ask, and we're more genetically similar to chimps than two unrelated types of corn are to each other. My worry is that, in typical crank fashion, they'll take something like this and say 'See, we were right, inserted genes can jump to other plants, nya, nya, nya!' and totally miss the fact that it could happen with anything, especially in plants. But this won't stop them from parading their ignorance any more than facts stopped anti-vacationists or any other denialist group. They're right, and damn it, any science that proves them wrong, no matter how overwhelming, is clearly part of a plot by Monsanto to make them sick (cause killing your customers is a great business model), and therefore it to be dismissed or misused. A few million years of accumulated random mutations and horizontal gene transfer and a little human selection is fine and dandy, but add one gene in a controlled setting in a precise manner, and suddenly you've gone too far and no amount of testing well catch any problems all because scientists are either arrogant ebil B-movie villains or unethical, bribed off conspirators. Riiiiight.
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Kanji are words, they're just words whose "spelling" is entirely unrelated to their pronunciation.
Not entirely. For example, sensei, teacher. 'Sen' comes from the kanji for before, 'sei' comes from the kanji for birth/life. Gakusei, student. Gake comes from the kanji for 'study/learning', and again, 'sei' comes from the same kanji for life. 'Sui' is a sound associated with the kanji for water, 'hi' with the one for day, 'dai' with the one for big...it really isn't correct to say that the kanji are unrelated to their pronunciations, even though it is a bit more complicated that using kana. It's one of those things that a fluent person (which I am far from) might be able to use to pick up on to deduce the pronunciation of an unknown word.
It'd be a lot easier to show you if /. would join the rest of the world in supporting non-Latin characters.
I've always assumed most games of 'skill' are rigged. Remember those Storm Stopper games that look like a glass dome with the spinning light that you try to catch on the jackpot (you see them at Chuck E. Cheese places)? Every time, I hit it on either side of the jackpot. You'd think that I'd have at least 1/3 chance of getting if if that's the case, but I rarely actually got it. I would think that most games even outside casinos (cranes, stackers, those vertical ones with the red lights) that appear to be be dependent on skill are, once you hit a certain level, mostly luck. They're kinda fun to put a few quarters in, and I get that someone has to make money, but still, rigging is rigging.
As one of my finance professors once told me, gambling (lotteries and casinos) is a tax on desperation and gullibility.
I think that a better approach, rather than opposing the mass produced aspect, would be to advocate the integration of more variety into the large scale growing. The system isn't broke; it's just flawed. I mean, if someone starts producing large scale industrial farm quantities of, say, Orangeglo watermelon, Purple of Sicily cauliflower, or Ananas Noire tomato, or a less cultivated species like mulberry, oca, Jerusalem artichoke, or pindaíba, well, I say great. I too buy things if they have a less used ingredient in them (like juices with a minute amount of camu-camu or prickly pear in them), and I think doing that, encouraging other species to be mass produced, buying new things when they show up in the produce aisle (lychees & persimmons ftw!) is better than simply opposing the mass production.
I have to kind of disagree there. While it is true that they are not species in and of themselves, there are no small number of such varieties with unique genes due to being selected from a different population of wild stock or selecting from some mutation or something. This could result in a unique flavor or a useful trait (like flood resistant rice or disease resistant bananas), or just some other neat thing, like red fleshed apples, yellow kiwis, white blackberries, pink blueberries, or orange watermelons. A diverse genetic population is a good thing, and only cultivating a small number of those is limiting, and besides, not very fun. As for genetic engineering, damn strait. One of these days we'll just be able to coalesce the most beneficial genes from the older varieties and with other ones and make it kind of a moot point, except for subjective things like flavor (for example, the flavor of Court Pendu Plat vs Red Delicious) and historical genetic preservation purposes.
Actually, being tasty to humans is one of the most advantageous adaptations a species can have. Well, either the best or the worst, depending on if we raise them or unsustainably collect them from the wild until the population collapses. You don't see cows or chickens or apples or oranges in any danger any time soon, but then again, things have been eaten to extinction. I don't think it's too bad of an idea to, where possible, try to introduce cultivated or farmed endangered species into the food supply. Preservation through consumption.
I think that's exactly it. The key word in alternative medicine is not medicine. I think that if tomorrow homeopathy (or any other alt med, I pick on homeopathy because it is very popular and very dumb) were vindicated, some revolutionary new field of chemistry were discovered to support it, every study showing homeopathy bogus was shown to be the worlds largest statistical glitch, and homeopathy received approval by groups like the WHO, CDC, FDA, ect., we'd still see something emerge to challenge it. In a hundred years, people would be railing against homeopathy for the exact same reasons they now complain about science based medicines. Because in the end, this whole thing is just the materialization of social phenomenon, a reaction to something. I don't know what exactly...disdain for the popular and wanting to feel superior to others, or a fear that your health is in controlled by something you don't understand. Something, I don't know.
It kind of reminds me of those kids in high school who always dissed popular music because it was popular, then disliked unpopular bands when others started liking them. I think alternative medicine guys are a lot like that. Except no one ever died from bad music.
Poe's Law rears it's head once again.
In case people actually took that seriously, fisrt off, there is no such thing as 'western' medicine. That's a load of crap to try to act as if there are two valid forms of treatment. There aren't. There is scientifically proven medicine, and medicine that has not been proven/has been disproven. And that part about not trying to prove stuff, that's either great parody or bad logic. Anything that works, works. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. If a treatment works, it can be shown to work under proper trials. Acupuncture, like most alternative medicines, has not shown this. And that bit about fully scientific treatment, all science is is observation. That's it. Science is what can be seen, and until a thing is seen, science ramains unconvinced of the thing's existence. If homeopathy worked, or ghosts were real, or if there really were qi lines and crap, science would be able to at least observe them, even if we could not truly understand them.
That is basically the same thing as religious fundamentalist.
“You’re so sure of your position
But you’re just closed-minded
I think you’ll find
Your faith in Science and Tests
Is just as blind
As the faith of any fundamentalist”
“Hm that’s a good point, let me think for a bit
Oh wait, my mistake, it’s absolute bullshit.
Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.
If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
I’ll spin on a fucking dime
I’ll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It’s a miracle! Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And while it’s memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it’s had in it!
You show me that it works and how it works
And when I’ve recovered from the shock
I will take a compass and carve Fancy That on the side of my cock.”
-Tim Minchin, "Storm"
Problem n.1: Very few things have 'sufficient evidence' at first. That's the point of research. But then people go "there's not enough evidence so this is BS and I'm not going to research this" GOTO 10
Problem n.2. Define "sufficient evidence". Sometimes "sufficient evidence" looks like "overwhelming evidence so I'm changing my opinion to save face"
Yeah, but they should at least have something going for them first. There are tons of new things being worked on. Those weren't simply chosen at random, people start working on those fields because there is some reason to think they will yield results. The sufficient evidence is either fitting with models or predictions or well reasoned hypotheses or early testing or something. And sure, there are things out there that don't have sufficient yet but are perfectly valid. Tomorrow we might discover that one radical new theory has been proven and all scientists that dismissed it will be looked at as chumps by people who don't get that they were just going by the evidence available to them at the time. Because, that available evidence is important.
To paraphrase Sagan, 'They laughed at Einstein, ect., but they also laughed at Bozo' and there are a lot more Bozos than Einsteins, so it is preposterous to think that every stupid little thing should be investigated. Should we investigate homeopathy, even though it violates all known laws of biology, chemistry, and physics? How much more money should we spend debunking the Wakefield study? Should we test ear candling, reiki, reflexology, the Bates method, urine drinking, crystal therapy, ect.? Just because they're there? Of course not, it is not possible to research every possible possibility without some sort of good evidence. Acupuncture is the same way. After a while, with no indication that it works and many that it probably doesn't, it's time to call BS until something exceptional is found. Discovered qi or chakra or whatever flowing through the body? That's new, then it's time to reopen acupuncture. Got a well designed study indicating superior results? Same thing. But until then, no amount of accusations of being closed minded is a substitute for good proof.
Yep, the herbal thing is a strange animal because pharmacognosy, the study of medicines derived from plants, is a perfectly valid legitimate field of science, whereas chewing on a twig because it's natural is just kinda silly. It ticks me off a bit because (some) herbal medicine has real power, it really does, and for many centuries it was used to some degree of success, and is still used by many who can't afford drugs, and I hate seeing pre-scientific people slime such a beneficial field with their nonsense. I hear herbal medicine and automatically think quackery, and that's not right. What's funny is, if that twig is shown to produce a novel useful compound, and that compound is isolated, studied, synthesized, and administered in a measured does within a sugar pill it is called a pharmaceutical, and now the naturopaths say it is bad, and would rather have a random dose along with who knows what else. Weird people.
The skepticism will appear if you start saying "it matters where you stick the needles" and stuff like that.
Apparently, there is at least one study that showed sticking them at random was actually better, or at least statistically the same, as the whole qi line thing. It is sad that this thing will be twisted and misrepresented by the alternative medicine quacks and used as a 'Nya nya we told ya so,' to skeptics who already suspected that the body does release pain killers when poked full of multiple small holes.
When it comes to alternative medicine, pretty much any skeptic knows that there are three main ones which may have some merit (even if not enough to justify mainstream usage): chiropractic, because it actively affects the spine, naturopathy/herbal, because plants contain active ingredients, and acupuncture, because it actively affects the skin. What skeptics want is robust evidence indicating that these things work better that other traditional techniques, and those have simply not materialized, and until they do, color me skeptical about acupuncture as a whole, even if there is some method to the madness.
There are skeptics and there are "skeptics". "skeptics" make their first reaction to everything "this is BS"
That's a load of crap. Skeptics make their first reaction to anything for which there is not sufficient evidence present "this is BS." That's a critical difference. As far as I know, acupuncture has not been exceptionally good at proving itself. It is based on the flow of some qi or whatever and claims to have all sorts of healing properties, neither of which have been proven in the least, and that is something to be rightfully skeptical about. If you make an extraordinary claim, I require extraordinary evidence. Plenty of new theories and ideas are accepted by skeptical types (for example, this was new, but there was no skeptic backlash, because it was a reasonable claim with reasonable evidence); just because some old time quackery is rejected doesn't mean skeptics are closed minded, that's just a way to distract form a lack of evidence. Medical skeptics have long admitted that minor injuries like sticking needles into yourself may trigger some pain-killer response, and this new thing, if indeed true, confirms that, not the validity of acupuncture. In fact, another study once showed that fake acupuncture outperformed 'real' acupuncture. It's not about simply denying everything, it is about denying everything until a reasonable amount of evidence exists to support it.
You know, homeopathy used to 'work' too, back when mercury was a medicine, because it didn't do anything whereas medicine killed you, which may be why it is still around. Chiropractic, originally claimed to cure all sorts of things, has the same affects as a good massage. Do they get vindicated too now? Sometimes things get lucky, or traditions are held for some reason, and maybe acupuncture is one of them due to this effect, but there is still no reason to not be skeptical about redirecting your qi or whatnot, or its ability to outperform any modern science based pain killing methods (I'd go with a good hit o' weed myself, but that's a different debate). It's good to have an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.
If some of the comments here are representative of anything, right there. It does make a bit of sense though. Maybe I can give the opinion of a religious scientific type. Science is about skepticism and not accepting anything until ample evidence is presented. Religion is based on faith about things outside the realm of ordinary perception, and must be taken on faith. I'm a Christian, generic variety, studying to go into a scientific field, and you know what? I can scientifically, empirically, logically, justify my stances on scientific issues, but religious ones? The only thing separating them from things like homeopathy is that they can't be falsified, and I know this, I know it is not logical, I understand that I would probably be an atheist were I not raised Christian (and I have to confess I have toyed with the idea of becoming one before), and in a debate, I must admit that it really seems to me like atheism wins every time, but I guess I just take it on some blind faith that there is a metaphysical with a certain set of characteristics, and it is that faith that just doesn't jive with scientific principles.
Might also be not wanting to be associated with people who make predictions about the physical world based on the Bible. As I see it, there are three points when it comes to this: Biblical interpretation, science, and the Bible. I hold, on scientifically baseless faith, the validity of the Bible, and science certainty isn't wrong, so the only thing to adjust is my interpretation of the Bible. Many will not do that, and instead demand that the facts change. My personal view is that if the facts are inconsistent with your interpretation, either you're wrong, or God is out to trick you, which doesn't match with what they believe to be other attributes of God. And as long as I'm not allowing my scientific judgment to be influenced by private prejudices, as long as my religious beliefs stay in the metaphysical or philosophical, I feel even with that small spot of non-skepticism, I can still be perfectly competent as a scientist, as have been the many Christians, Jews, and Muslims who have advanced science in the past (many of whom who, admittedly, may indeed have allowed their work to become clouded by faith if ever faced with an apparent contradiction, but nonetheless helped built the framework of modern biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and engineering).
And maybe I'm wrong, I have no solid empirical evidence to indicate that God is any more real that the Loch Ness Monster, and I'm not going to try to defend my position because I really can't; it has no more defense than Russell's Teapot or the FSM or Invisible Pink Unicorn or the dragon in the garage, and I know this, it won't do to sit here and say, on this particular area, that maybe I'm just an illogical credulous moron, and maybe that's why people who are trained to view everything under the light of skepticism are not inclined to put their one small cherished bit of irrational faith out like that.
Go ahead and bash away; I won't lie, it is entirely possible that this position deserves it. I probably would if I were an atheist. That's about all I can really say.
I too consider myself a gourmet, so I can sympathize with your concerns, however, they are completely unfounded. I am a horticulture student, and while one of my greatest horticultural interests is the development and utilization of underutilized crops (particularly fruits), and the other is genetic engineering, and I do not consider completely embracing both (genetically engineering all the crops we grow and dramatically expanding the number of species we grow) to be contradictory. What you're talking about are two very different things. Most of the loss in crop diversity has nothing to do with genetic engineering, but with the use of hybridized lines to produce food aimed at shipping ability, not taste. It was not genetic engineering that replaced, for example, heirloom tomatoes with big red common store tomatoes; it was simple hybridization, breeding, the same thing that created the heirloom tomatoes, just used for a different purpose. The reason we have these shippable hybrids is due to market forces and the economies of scale present in large scale efficient agriculture, so don't make genetic engineering into a whipping boy here; it isn't at fault. I for one support that large scale agriculture because it enables much greater output and I think that it's lack of ability to produce diverse foods is a fixable flaws that genetic engineering can help to address, if we use it in that way. A lot of people assume hybrids are genetically modified, and while their genes certainty are modified, it is not in the sense that advanced technology was used, it's just good old fashioned breeding techniques.
So basically, the idea that genetic engineering somehow reduces crop selection doesn't make any more sense than saying that breeding reduces biodiversity. If anything, we could use it to increase crop selection, because in the end, genetic engineering is just a tool, not a way of life, but it is an exceptionally powerful tool. For example, there are people working on traits that delay ripening in tomatoes, and this could enable once unshippable tomato varieties to be grown commercially.
I envision a future supermarket where produce is the biggest section is the biggest aisle. One with fresh jaboticaba, cloudberry, midgen berry, pawpaw, rose apple, bunya, pulasan, baobab, oca, zabala, guajilote, yellowhorn, mangosteen, mabolo, marula, shipova, quandong, yacon, queule, safou, goumi, salak...I could keep going. One with new 'grains' like amaranth, sorghum, quinoa, or Job's tears in large use, where exotic spices and other things like rosita de cacao, rooibos, and lemonade sumac used to their culinary potential. (I wouldn't mind seeing meats like kangaroo, iguana, guinea ping, grasshopper, and emu see more use either, but that's not my field.) There is a huge world of largely uncultivated plants out there, so many fruits and vegetables and spices and nuts that we just don't use. Imagine the culinary possibilities (and the agricultural benefits of polyculture) that could come with the full usage of these plants, dishes made from plants from every continent, mixed and rearranged and selected for each cooking style's focus, like a French take on dotorimuk, or a Japanese tejate. And genetic engineering can help to make this a reality; plants are at the heart of cuisine and genes are at the heart of plants. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but as the science progresses and we develop and refine the technique I think we can use it to overcome almost any agricultural obstacle, and future generations will look at the FUD spewed forth by GE denialists just like we today (most of us anyway) look at the early anti-vaccine movement that opposed Edward Jenner. It is not an enemy, it is a large potential friend, if it is used in the right way. I hope more people will come to realize this.
Monsanto makes aspartame. Monsanto is evil. Aspartame is a chemical compound. Chemicals are evil. Therefore aspartame is bad for you.
Hey, I'm not saying it makes sense, I'm saying that's how it is.
I'm an evolutionist, not a creationist, so I am going to eat the foods I evolved to eat, not the foods someone is trying to create for me.
I would question though if you really did evolve to eat the foods you eat. I admit I don't know much about human migration, but how long ago did humans really start to spread out over all the globe? Enough time to adapt to the local foods? Maybe, but we rarely see problems even we other groups of humans who have never encountered them before eat those foods. For example, most Americans came to to North America in the last couple hundred years, yet no group of humans, neither Europeans, nor Africans, nor Asians, that I have heard of, have problems with 'new' foods like corn, tomatoes, squash, peppers, lima beans cranberries, blueberries, cacao, cashew, cassava, bison, or turkey, all native to the Americas (although we have had problems with peanuts; people have even died). And no one has problems with 'new' foods that have just begun to spread globally and become significant, like banana, papaya, mango, or kiwi, (though we've seen problems with starfruit too; again, people have even died). I don't think you can claim to have evolved to specific foods. And when you consider that the genes that have changed wild wheat or apples or pears into what we have today, it really doesn't seem too reasonable to claim there is a huge difference between wild form food and human selected or bred food, of for that matter, 'frankenfood'. For example, I highly doubt that the few genes added in a GMO will make that much of a difference; compare Bt soybeans with the brassicas and tell me which is more different due to human manipulation. Now, you could certainty make arguments against specific traits, like the Bt trait for instance (although I have seen no compelling scientific evidence against that one), or the merits of causing a plant to produce any particular compound, but what I'm getting at is that you really can't use an evolutionary argument when it comes to 'creating' food.
As an aside, since you mention creationism, I've always thought a good way to give creationism some vindication would be to prove that any human tampering with DNA inevitably results in undesirable side effects (like some people seem to claim), which really should not happen under current scientific models. That said, I think that'll happen the day after hell reopens as a Baskin-Robbins, and I'll eat me hat if that's ever proven.
But honest labeling should be mandated to allow consumers to make informed choices. Making a bad choice is allowable.
But on the other hand, I don't see how one's curiosity or beliefs should dictate policy. I mean, I'm sure Muslims want to avoid Haraam food, but that is simply their faith, not a scientific concern, and since there is no evidence* whatsoever to indicate that GMO corn or whatever is in any way detrimental to human health, that is also more akin to a faith than a reasonable concern; should we really require things specifically labeled based on non-scientific beliefs or aesthetics? A bit of an extreme example, but you might go to hell if you eat food containing pig gelatin. Should things be labeled as Kosher or Halal by mandate? Without reasonable scientific evidence, I say no. If you want to self label that's fine, but no one else should be forced to conform to the beliefs of a vocal group of genetic engineering denialists.
*Unless you count debunked crank evidence. There are plenty of 'smoking gun' studies 'proving' that GMOs cause [insert disease here]. But let's face it, anything controversial will have studies supporting both sides. There are studies proving homeopathy works. What I mean is that there are no good, robust, thorough studies detailing human harm by approved for consumption GMOs.
How about it. It's really quite amazing that some people get all pissed about eating something that has had a gene inserted into it by humans, despite having gone through rigorous testing and producing no indications of harm, yet have no qualms about eating a few billion years worth of random accumulated mutations and natural gene transfer, later selectively bred for a few thousand years, some created through the use of mutagens.
Instead of investing money on this, they should have gotten better Olympic mascots. I mean, have you seen those weird assed things? What generic anime did they them out of? Wenlock and Mandeville, more like Angry and Creepy. They look like something you'd see pestering Scooby Doo.
It isn't because there is a technical difference
It IS because there is a technical difference.
It isn't because there is a technical difference (randomly mixing thousands genes via controlled pollination vs. inserting one gene precisely) even if the end product is similar, indeed, I don't see how any GMO trait could not be achieved with sufficient time and breeding (although we might be talking on an evolutionary timescale here), but let's call a spade a spade, the reason so many people act like there's such a huge difference is mostly because genetic engineering is new and creepy and they don't understand it, and a dash of scientific illiteracy doesn't help either. Breeding is something kindly old folks do in tune with nature in the bright warm orchard, genetic engineering is something arrogant crazy haired wild eyed mad scientists cook up in some creepy lab. But at the end of the day, they both result in plants that have had their genetic make-up altered to suit humans.
People act as if there is a rift between genetic engineering and breeding techniques. There's not, they're just different tools for different situations, and each have their uses. You wouldn't try to saw a board with a level or pound in a nail with a wrench, yet these anti-GE people expect all plant advances to come through breeding, and that's just not going to happen. Why should it, that's just silly. We need both. Theoretically GE can replace breeding entirely one day but that day will not come for a long time, so in the mean time, we need both types of genetic manipulation. I think everything commercially grown should be genetically modified, plenty of benefits and no known negatives, but thanks to all the baloney floating around the net about GMOs, that seems like an extremist, radically pro-science position any more.
I can't imagine the reaction we'd be getting today of things like breeding and grafting were invented today. I'm reminded of a story about people who went to Africa to teach people in Cameroon about grafting and breeding and they were met with skepticism over the 'white man's magic,' but they soon came to realize the benefits. If they had access to people propagating misinformation and spreading FUD I wonder if their situation would have become similar to the one the developed world now faces with GMOs.
Personally, my two biggest horticultural interests are improving agricultural biodiversity by improving underutilized fruit crops, like pawpaw, goumi, jaboticaba, zabala, dragon fruit, ect., through breeding (because we presently really can't use genetic engineering to manipulate flavor; there are too many genes involved there and it is too complex for us right now) and improving other traits like hardiness or virus/pest resistance through genetic engineering, and I think it is a darned shame so many asshole groups have used misinformation and scare tactics to get the public so scared over something we should be embracing with open arms.
Ack, forgot a part: Safety assessment for environmental damage- again, nothing hugely great to indicate that there's much worry there, although I have heard reports of cross pollination in wild populations of corn (by which I assume they mean corn relatives). Not sure just how prevalent it is or how accurate those reports were, but either way, the issue here isn't so much what harm they cause to the environment as the net harm. Farming is very bad for the environment, especially with our large population, so it isn't if GMOs cause harm, but if their use is a net reduction in damage, which it appears to be.
The whole concept of safety in GMO is defined in terms of species and genus
Safety is assessed based on if it can be shown to cause health effects, even if it produces a new chemical that could cause those effects. The evidence to indicate that the vast majority of GMOs possess these health concerns is hugely underwhelming. I don't know where you get that taxonomy plays into it.
We need a much better understanding of really basic biological principals to replace the rigid classification hierarchy with a way of thinking about the flows of information, materials, and energy that are an ecosystem. Until we have that more realistic framework and can use it to guide research and applications, I find the concept of using GMO in the field rather disturbing. At a very basic level, scientists and engineers involved in GMO research and applications don't know what the f*ck they are doing.
And when will that be? What amount of knowledge will be sufficient to safely work with individual genes instead of mixing thousands of genes like we've been doing with selective breeding? Think about it, where else have we heard this appeal to ignorance with claims that the experts don't know what they're doing and moving the goalpost every time more info comes in? Oh yeah, the guys who brought back measles said the same thing about vaccinations. Same argument, same tactics, different topic, and it makes about as much sense. The science is there, and while GMOs certainty have the potential for doing bad things, the evidence to indicate that they are/will become dangerous is scant indeed.
You must be joking. Tell that to to people who are allergic to peanuts, or have celiac's and can't eat wheat, or had a drug interaction with a grapefruit, or died from eating a starfruit. Don't anthropomorphize nature. It doesn't care of how things turn out, it doesn't care if you have an anaphylactic reaction to kiwis or whatever, it just is. It just goes, and while it does so fantastically, it doesn't care what effects any given mutation will have. Giving it any traits beyond that is just magical thinking.
AMEN. As one planning on going into this area, I think about genetic engineering a lot, and that was the first thing that came to my mind too. I love how the anti-GE guys out there rail against the 'dangers' of foreign DNA being inserted into plants yet are blissfully unaware that species get foreign DNA all the time. Humans are 3-8% viral DNA depending on who you ask, and we're more genetically similar to chimps than two unrelated types of corn are to each other. My worry is that, in typical crank fashion, they'll take something like this and say 'See, we were right, inserted genes can jump to other plants, nya, nya, nya!' and totally miss the fact that it could happen with anything, especially in plants. But this won't stop them from parading their ignorance any more than facts stopped anti-vacationists or any other denialist group. They're right, and damn it, any science that proves them wrong, no matter how overwhelming, is clearly part of a plot by Monsanto to make them sick (cause killing your customers is a great business model), and therefore it to be dismissed or misused. A few million years of accumulated random mutations and horizontal gene transfer and a little human selection is fine and dandy, but add one gene in a controlled setting in a precise manner, and suddenly you've gone too far and no amount of testing well catch any problems all because scientists are either arrogant ebil B-movie villains or unethical, bribed off conspirators. Riiiiight.