You obviously don't know what you are talking about when it comes to genetics. Maybe you've seen too many half-baked, made-for-TV, Scifi channel movies on the topic and haven't actually bothered to take a genetics course, I can't say for sure. If I manipulate the genetics of a strain of rice and that strain has some sort of fatal flaw it may die, but it won't kill all of the other strains of rice. Genetic diversity is not what it once was, but it also hasn't gotten to the point where any crop exists of exactly one strain with no genetic variation. Geneticists won't let that happen because it's easier to use pre-existing genetic material than to synthesis new alleles from scratch. I'm pretty sure that it is still impossible to do so with current technology.
As to the motives of CEO's, I'm sorry but you are just wrong. You have this warped idea that anyone in any sort of control over a corporation automatically loses their grip on their humanity. I'm sorry that you have such a lack of faith in any human being outside of yourself. I would like to assume that you are young and possibly naive, but since you joined slashdot around the same time I did I can't really expect that to be true. It's obvious that after this much time, you aren't willing to accept that GM isn't the most dangerous threat to humanity since stone knives no matter what evidence or argument is presented. It appears to me that this fear is more akin to a religious belief and while I would never be one to say a religion is wrong, I would also never knowingly attempt to change someone's religious beliefs because they are too much a part of a persons personal identity.
You can respond to this post or not, but I won't be responding any further.
a nuclear reactor is a semi contained explosive reaction. GM food is not violently damaging to the immediate environment if I take a nap on the job. I don't believe that GM is completely harmless. I do believe that it is fairly harmless by comparison to a nuclear reactor, which is why I thing the comparison is intentionally inflammatory and not valid. You don't have to trust GM food if you so choose, but people who work in the Ag industry developing GM products don't do it because they are power mad and convinced of their own infallibility. They do it because they want to improve the world they are a part of and as a good scientist they are met with failure so much more frequently than success that they have a healthy case of skepticism. I'm not trying to say that nuclear engineers don't, but I think you've got this "Mad Scientist" picture in your head.
As to the NOAA weather studies. I disagree with you but will leave it at that because I have no Idea what that has to do with the discussion concerning Monsanto. We've already strayed from the point by bringing up nuclear reactors.
Please quote some statement I made previously (in context preferably) that you read to mean "I don't like it so people shouldn't hear about it."
I try not think that just because I feel a certain way that no one else's opinion matters or that we shouldn't discuss the issue. If that was the impression you got then let me know which line was the offending line so that I can understand why you read it that way.
Some people may agree with you that "Organic" means an attempt at sustainability, but they are wrong. The federal definition has to do entirely with the use of antibiotics, pesticides, and hormones.
I have never stated that sustainable agriculture isn't necessary, but it is not possible to use organic food to do that. You give examples of environmental benefits but you ignore the problems with organic food. a. reduced output from the same amount of inputs
b. increased use of theraputic doses (much higher) of antibiotics in animal agriculture.
c. increased use of a narrow range of "Organic" pesticides that need to be applied at heavier rates and more frequently actually increasing the pesticide load of the crops.
d. Increased cost to produce the crops leading to increased prices at market.
As an Ag college student I'm aware of more than one article on the issue and my concerted opinion based on 9 years of college at this point (PhD is only a year away) 6 of which were at the graduate level, the preponderance of evidence that Organic is a bunch of emotion wrapped up in a marketing gimmick.
Buying local food is great! but it doesn't have to (in my opinion shouldn't) be organic.
Sustainable agriculture is necessary, but it's not possible with organic practices as they exist right now.
Second, I can give you a national example of someone who is being, if not forced then at the very least coerced into buying organic... Do you honestly expect a mother to buy food that she believes to be less healthy if she has other options?
There is not a court in the land that will penalize someone because Monsanto's corn pollinates with their corn. It's only a problem for those farmers if they turn around and try to sell those seeds. Besides, you are operating under the false assumption that saving back seeds is a common practice and it is not for the reasons I've provided in other posts. They don't want to miss out on improvements in genetics (improved Yield, drought tolerance, pathogen resistance, etc.) Modern agriculture is a very different beast than most people realize and I'm of the opinion that the piece was written by someone who is having a knee jerk reaction to those differences and painting Monsanto as the cause of these perceived problems with the system.
A patent is a monopoly. By granting a patent the government is giving a limited monopoly on what was patented. Yes, the fruit of their labors. If you were to develop something patentable wouldn't you want to reap the benefit of your intelligence and investments (Millions of dollars on the part of Monstanto et al.) I've already stated that I think genetic patents are a bad idea, but they exist and are the only way that product could have been developed with the company still being able to make some sort of a return on their investment. I didn't design the system I'm just trying to make sure it's represented fairly on a web site populated mostly by individuals with little direct connection to agriculture.
Wow, that's definitely a case of comparing apples to a rack of lamb dipped in trans fats.
GM crops have been evaluated extensively by the FDA and USDA. They've even been pulled from the market when they were shown to be other than safe. I don't remember the name of the corn but it was removed from the market because it turned out that the pesticide it was producing was also toxic to the butterflies that fed on it.
No one was claiming that Nuclear plants were without risk, just that the risks were manageable and being managed appropriately. My understanding of Chernobyl was that the plant wasn't being managed appropriately, The existence of Nuclear plants from the same era around the world that haven't melted down (France has a lot of them) shows that the first part can be true.
You're being incredibly flippant. I'm totally in favor of accurate labeling of food. What I'm not in favor of is a campaign of FUD being waged by the Organics food industry against tried and true agricultural practices that have enabled farmers to produce the quantity and quality of food the do enabling most americans to be 3-4 generations away from the farm and spend such a small portion of their income on food. Unless you have some sort of connection with current agriculture I just don't see how you're going to understand my viewpoint.
Antioxidants is a whole other issue entirely. I've also yet to see any antioxidant research that shows conclusively that antioxidants are absorbed intact if consumed orally. Antioxidants work great in the cell or in a petri dish, but they are by their very nature highly reactive to oxygen free radicals of the sort found in the gastric stomach. The likelyhood of any of them making through the stomach to the small intestine where absorption takes place is not very good for most of them.
I realize I already responded to this statement but I received a link to another site and it answers your questions
Who is being "forced" to buy organic foods? and the answer is, You will if this group gets their way The Organic Center.
I was sent the link in response to my statement that i've not seen any research supporting any sort of superiority of Organic that was any good. There is a book that they are publishing online of some meta-data analysis (analysis of a lot of research collectively to try and draw larger conclusions) that they thought might be that good research I couldn't find. I looked through the page and found this gem of a group vision
Vision
Conversion of agriculture to organic methods, improved health for the earth and its inhabitants, and greater awareness of and demand for organic products.
In my opinion the difference between Kosher and Organic is that Kosher doesn't pretend to be healthier, only more pious. Organic cannot make that same claim.
I totally agree with you that buying half a cow is a sound investment. I work with pork and half a whole pig in my freezer right now. I was not questioning her decision to save money by buying in bulk. I was instead using the show to illustrate the point that someone who can probably not really afford to spend 10-15% more for groceries is doing so out of a perception that organic is dramatically healthier despite the fact that it has never been shown to be anything better than "as good" as food produced via traditional production systems.
The vast majority of food on the shelves is what you would call "normal." for now this is probably true most places. However, how long do you think that will last. I've already noticed that there are a handful of the more exotic produce that are only available as "Organic" at the Target around the corner (The only dried apricots are the one I first noticed since I love dried apricots). We've reached a point in this country where rhetoric about agriculture is more important that the science used to bring about what was originally called the green revolution (referring to modern agriculture, not the current meaning referring to energy efficiency and recycling). We have companies like McDonalds and KFC dictating terms by which the animals they use have to be grown in an attempt to proactively satisfy the demands of a small, but vocal group of consumers. How long before large grocery chains start making the same demands of produce farmers?
This country is probably the most "Health" and "Nutrition" obsessed in the western world, and is yet among the unhealthiest. It's call the "American Paradox." The name comes from what was originally called the "French Paradox" for the opposite reason (they couldn't care less about their fat intake and are, on average, incredibly healthy by comparison to the US). Your statement that you
don't really think the "organic" movement is necessarily about hormones or pesticides. is (and I'm not trying to be offensive) proof that you are speaking past your true understanding concerning what the Organic movement is about. The refusal to use hormones, chemical pesticides, and growth promoting antibiotics is exactly what it is about and it is use of these that dictate whether a farmer can legally sell their crops as organic based on laws established by the federal government in response to rampant use of the term without it having a consistent definition.
you've proved my point for me by referring to an article by an advocacy group as opposed to something that is actually peer reviewed itself. If you are doing a meta data analysis (analyzing the results of multiple studies and drawing larger conclusions) it is very simple to cherry pick the data. Especially if you are going to publish on a website devoted to one side of the topic you are reviewing instead of submitting it to a journal where it's statistical validity can be assessed by your peers. While the conclusions that can be drawn from a meta-study can be far more valuable than any of the individual studies that make up the meta-data set, it is also far more susceptible to faulty study selection criteria.
Now with that said, I have not read the complete article that you linked too. I'm in the middle of fixing a large data set for my advisor and don't have the time right now. I'm willing to concede that it is possible that this research was done by unbiased individuals in a fair manner and that the results are legitimate. However, it if is then why isn't it in a peer reviewed journal. Researchers don't get their data from books where the authors say "Trust me," it's the dedication to a professional mythos of disbelief until proved otherwise that is the hallmark of a good researcher.
Now, as to your statement
Many times a family farm's crop is replaced with Monsanto seed, a distinct type of crop is actually lost. what are you basing this statement on. To my knowledge, most farmers purchase their crops because otherwise there genetics (used to be called breeding) program is left up to chance. Farmers are trying so hard to do so much with so little that they don't have the time to develop their own improvements, they buy them instead from Companies like Monsanto, or from regional Co-Op's.
First off, Kosher is a religious term. The rules around Kosher production and processing of food stem not from science but from scripture. The purveyors of Kosher foods are not lying to anyone. They are indicating that if you believe Kosher food is required to get into heaven, then this food will not be what stops you.
Second, I can give you a national example of someone who is being, if not forced then at the very least coerced into buying organic. There is a TV show about a couple that have 8 children. There is a set of twins who are now 7 and a set of septuplets that are now 3. The show is called Jon & Kate + 8 and is a reality TV show about their life. My wife and I recently discovered it and watch it religiously now. I like it because I'm from a big family (6 kids, no multiples thankfully), and my wife likes it because she's half Korean and so are the children on the show (a bit of a preview as to how our future children may look). There have been several episodes where she makes reference to the fact that she is
a. she is Anal retentive about health and cleanliness (her words)
b. Children from multiple births often have a lot of health problems, especially with their lungs (My buddie has twins and told me the same thing)
c. That out of a desire to keep her children healthy she buys organic food whenever possible (in one episode they even went to an organic farm and bought half a cow for their freezer).
This family has only 1 person earning income (or would if it wasn't for the TV show) that needs to feed 10 people. As someone that grew up in a how of 8 people I can attest to the fact that money goes fast when you have to buy 2 shopping carts worth of food almost every week.
and as to your reference to grocery stores being
CHOCK FULL of processed, pesticide/hormone laden foods I have to ask you whether or not you've ever bothered to look into the FDA regulations on food for human consumption. It is illegal to sell any food that is contaminated with dangerous chemicals like pesticides. I'm assuming the hormone reference is to either chicken (which is flat out hilarious, who would want to inject millions of birds with hormones individually even if it were legal. It's totally and urban myth.) or rBST in milk (which has been injected directly into humans during research trials and was found to have no reactivity because Bovine Somatotropin is too different from Human Somatotropin to interact with the hST receptor.) which is probably better for the environment than just about any "Organic" production method because you produce more milk from less cows, so you have less cow shit and the potential for pollution of ground water by it. Both of these urban myths have been debunked several time but no who believes them is willing to investigate them, or believe it when they do come across the truth.
HOLD UP. you are going waaaayyy off topic. Monsanto spent Millions of dollars developing a strain of corn that is resistant to their pesticide (Round-up). They then spent Millions of dollars doing the research necessary to convince the FDA and USDA that the product is generally safe. They then decided that the only way they could ever recoup their investment was to sell the seeds only to those willing to sign a contract stating that they wouldn't keep back seeds. No one was forced to agree to this. If the farmers didn't believe it was a sound investment they wouldn't have agreed.
There is nothing stopping some other company from developing a grain resistant to a different pesticide and giving them some stiff competition, maybe driving down the price of the seeds, or putting room in the debate for the restrictions to go away. Monsanto isn't sterilizing anyone, they don't have a monopoly on corn seeds, their are not destroying someone else's property. In fact, their are probably thousands of companies and Co-Ops selling seeds to farmers who don't think saving money by keeping back some seeds is worth missing out on improved genetics (whether by GM in the lab or by old fashioned GM techniques like controlled pollination). People toss the word monopoly around way too much and use it in situations that don't really apply. The only way that Monsanto can be said to have a monopoly is if you limited it the scope to include only grains that are sold by their company and resistant to a single pesticide.
I don't know which part of the country you hail from, but here in Indiana (part of the corn belt) if you drive down any country road you'll see miles of corn and soybeans. Most of these fields have small signs in the grass advertising which seed company the seeds were purchased from. I can most likely count at least a dozen different companies represented on the half hour drive from my home in Lafayette to my father-in-laws home in Frankfort. This tells me that while Monsanto may have a booming business, and may even be the biggest player, they are not the only game in town and as a result cannot really be called a monopoly without stretching the term past the breaking point.
Whether you agree with genetic patents or not (I personally don't) you have to accept that, at the moment they exist, Monsanto has one that is very lucrative, and they are aggressive about protecting it. Now, I agree that they are painted as being too aggressive by the article, but that's a judgement call and I'm personally of the opinion that the author was biased against Monsanto for other reasons (Franken foods perhaps?) prior to starting the legwork necessary for the article.
Then advertise the fact that post-harvest handling and preparation differences. This would be a far more accurate (in my opinion better) approach than to clump all sorts of questionable agricultural practices into one buzz word and market the hell out of it.
On a personal note, I spent years working on a produce farm in western Massachusetts. If you want wax free cucumbers then try buying them at a regional produce market or at a road side stand. I don't know where you are from, so maybe it's a regional issue, but I've never seen cucumbers coated in wax.
People perceive an article to be biased one direction or the other because of a variety of factors which include: biased word selection, assumptions not supported by data, poor sourcing, open demonization, inaccuracy, omission of facts, and guilt by association as a few examples. Right, so that covers conservative bias. What do the liberals do?;) I pray to god that the smiley face on the end means you're being sarcastic!
As a member of the college of Ag at a Big 10 University I have to say that this article was an obvious smear job. Yes, Monsanto is a big company that makes GM crops. Yes, Monsanto acts to defends it's patents by preventing people from reusing the seeds and will occasionally go after the wrong person when they think someone is using their product without paying for it. The tone I got from the article was that GM is bad and Monsanto is a big company so it is bad as well.
As to the case of suing over labeling I have to disagree with your statement
People have the right to make true statements about their products, even and especially if it's irrational to buy based on that. This is a problem because of the implied statement as to the safety of other products. It's a scare tactic because the labeling is intentionally misleading. It's akin to my recent change of mind over "Organic Food".
I used to be a huge fan of the Organic Foods movement because it meant that farmers received more money for their goods. I have never read a reputable article that shows organic to be any healthier for the consumer or the environment, but until recently farmers were getting screwed when they sold their goods so I thought it was a good idea because it was essentially those with too much money that were paying the Organic Tax. The problem is that now people are convinced that it is superior to normally produced food and people who cannot afford the extra money are forced to purchase organic either out of fear, lack of options, or peer pressure (applied by not only friends but half of the talking heads on TV)
that members of this site haven't started an open source project around developing an OS and maybe a basic hardware specification for cheap E-voting machines.
Considering how many people get upset every time some article like this comes up and the expertise many claim that this hasn't occurred to anyone yet. I'm no programmer (outside of incredibly simple perl scripts) so "I" couldn't do it but I can't imagine that members of the Slashdot community would do any worse than these asshats. Besides, even if they did do a crappy job it would be open source so that security hats could look through it and point to all of the bugs for fixing.
I've also never had a drive fail. That said I've had the enclosure (LaCie and their use of sub standard firewire bridges) or it's power brick (Cheap radio shack enclosures) fail several times for external drives.
The first one was bad for 3 years before I realized that it was the enclosure and not the drive, and I returned the drive in the second one before I realized it was the power brick and not the drive itself that was bad Doh't.
The only genuinely bad drive I've ever come across was came with a second hand blue and white G3 mac 2 years ago that was bad when I got it, but it was the one that originally shipped with the machine and too small to be useful anyway.
Microsoft forces Dell et al. to sell the preponderance of their hardware with Microsoft software installed by default
Apple sells computers that consist of both software and hardware developed for each other by the same company. (Besides, people buy a computer more for the OS than the hardware. That's why there is little to no brand loyalty in the PC market)
There is a huge difference here. The computer industry is the only one I know of that manufactures hardware that isn't intrinsically tied to some software by default. We have a LECO Nitrogen and Carbon analyzer in my lab. It is a large expensive piece of hardware that has a software component that is required for it to function. The company is willing to sell us an update, but is not willing to sell us an analyzer sans OS. It's patently ridiculous for us to ask for one. B
It wasn't a matter of the author being bored. It's a matter of him not getting enough ad revenue lately and deciding to inflate his hit counters. The reason that the Apple Mob appear as bad as they do is because a large number of the writers in the tech media use them as a way to drive up their hit count. Write an article that is completely one sided against apple, distorts facts, or out right make shit up and the apple fans that haven't figured it out will be all over that page's message boards like ants at a picnic.
The part I find ridiculous is how often these end up on the front page of slashdot. If these articles were to ever offer something that hasn't been commented on here to death (including the near infinite flame wars that eventually degrade into Microsoft and/or Apple being compared to the Nazis) then I would be glad to read them, but they almost never do. And even when they do, the discussion still usually devolves into the flame war using the same bullshit analogies seen previously and repetitious arguments that have been used for at least the decade that I've been paying attention with very few of the commenters having actually RTFA.
I manage for my mother, step-father, 2 sisters, cousin, and maternal grandmother. The only people in my family that could be considered remotely in the same league with the average slashdotter would be me (mac guy), my older brother (CS degree from the Naval Academy, Windows exclusively), and my younger brother (CS degree from a vocational HS, Windows/little linux). The only ones in my family to have experienced infection are my grandmother (Can't understand the concept of not opening EVERY attachment) and my younger brother (can't leave the pr0n alone). Everyone else in my family uses macs and since my grandmother was upgraded to a second hand mac she's been free of viruses and trojans without changing her surfing habits.
I'm willing to concede the point that viruses and trojans will eventually hit the mac. However, I don't believe that the sense of security we feel is false. It's based on, in my families case, 12 years and counting without a single infected mac. whereas my younger brothers computer was loaded down and had to be reformatted and reinstalled 2x in the first year he had it.
those are all social issues where there is a lot of disagreement. The Standards for most states hare heavily biased toward math and science. If the children are taught that creationism is a scientific theory despite the complete lack of any falsifiable predictions or evidence outside of the lack of evidence then these children will fail the standardized tests with flying colors. The standards are developed to make sure that any child within the state leaves with the same basic knowledge, or at the very least having been exposed to it. The details they are taught vary from place to place, but there are certain important educational milestones that they need to reach. the only way to teach creationism as a scientific theory is to intentionally mislead the students as to the definition of a scientific theory, thus confusing the issue for any scientific theory that they are exposed to for the rest of their lives.
Lets get this straight right now, creationism isn't a scientific theory at all for reasons I've indicated earlier. It is a theory in the way that genesis is a theory, it is an attempt to explain the world that doesn't use the scientific method, it instead uses the belief in a higher power. Unlike the bible, or any other religious theory, it does not indicate who said higher power is but it is a religious theory non the less, just one that lacks specificity. There is nothing wrong with that, it just doesn't belong in the biology class room.
As far as all of the examples you put forward as other taboo topics that you feel should be discussed, with the exception of medicinal marijuana, all of those were discussed to varying degree's in my HS courses even copyright laws. I have no problem with a teacher going off script as long as it is relevant to the topic they are supposed to be teaching and they don't use that pulpit as a chance to degrade the quality of the education my children would be receiving if they hadn't gone off script. In general I believe that the more information one has the better they are equipped to make decisions. That's why I have no problem with the topic of creationism being taught, just not in the science classes because it is not science.
Climbing up on my soapbox Personally, I believe that creationism is the result of too many people being too proud to accept evolution as it relates to the human race. The individuals I've met appear to be most irate when discussing the possibility that humans have evolved from apes (the fact that the theory would indicate that we are not evolved from modern apes, but a common ancestor is usually ignored). The idea that we evolved from the same progenitor as apes is appalling to their world view (supported by most modern religions) that man is the reason for creation. It's Hubris at its finest. "Evolution can't be real because it implies that we aren't important!" It's my observation that evolution is the biological equivalent to the astronomical theory of Heliocentrism, and Creationism is just the modern day equivalent of the Church excommunicating individuals that disagreed with old central dogma of Geocentrism, with the notable exception being that even the church doesn't have a problem with evolution. It's the unadulterated arrogance of individuals who can't fathom a world where they are not the most important thing in it that pushes them into the fold of supporting creationism as some sort of an alternative to evolution.
I think the fundamental flaw in your reasoning is an attempt to delineate based on geography or political ideology. I think it has more to do with the quality of the education system than anything else. States that fall behind in emphasizing science will fail to impart a true understanding of the scientific process on it students who will eventually grow up and elect school board officials.
The overriding problem with creationism is the same that I have with string theory, they use an absence of knowledge as the proof of their theory and don't make any testable predictions about the natural universe that can be falsified via observation or experimentation. I have no problem with creationism being taught in philosophy, sociology, psychology, etc. but the moment it gets brought into the "hard" science of biology it fails to pass muster. Teaching it is akin to trying to legislate the value of Pi, it's completely asinine.
Slashdot Mirror
You obviously don't know what you are talking about when it comes to genetics. Maybe you've seen too many half-baked, made-for-TV, Scifi channel movies on the topic and haven't actually bothered to take a genetics course, I can't say for sure. If I manipulate the genetics of a strain of rice and that strain has some sort of fatal flaw it may die, but it won't kill all of the other strains of rice. Genetic diversity is not what it once was, but it also hasn't gotten to the point where any crop exists of exactly one strain with no genetic variation. Geneticists won't let that happen because it's easier to use pre-existing genetic material than to synthesis new alleles from scratch. I'm pretty sure that it is still impossible to do so with current technology.
As to the motives of CEO's, I'm sorry but you are just wrong. You have this warped idea that anyone in any sort of control over a corporation automatically loses their grip on their humanity. I'm sorry that you have such a lack of faith in any human being outside of yourself. I would like to assume that you are young and possibly naive, but since you joined slashdot around the same time I did I can't really expect that to be true. It's obvious that after this much time, you aren't willing to accept that GM isn't the most dangerous threat to humanity since stone knives no matter what evidence or argument is presented. It appears to me that this fear is more akin to a religious belief and while I would never be one to say a religion is wrong, I would also never knowingly attempt to change someone's religious beliefs because they are too much a part of a persons personal identity.
You can respond to this post or not, but I won't be responding any further.
a nuclear reactor is a semi contained explosive reaction. GM food is not violently damaging to the immediate environment if I take a nap on the job. I don't believe that GM is completely harmless. I do believe that it is fairly harmless by comparison to a nuclear reactor, which is why I thing the comparison is intentionally inflammatory and not valid. You don't have to trust GM food if you so choose, but people who work in the Ag industry developing GM products don't do it because they are power mad and convinced of their own infallibility. They do it because they want to improve the world they are a part of and as a good scientist they are met with failure so much more frequently than success that they have a healthy case of skepticism. I'm not trying to say that nuclear engineers don't, but I think you've got this "Mad Scientist" picture in your head.
As to the NOAA weather studies. I disagree with you but will leave it at that because I have no Idea what that has to do with the discussion concerning Monsanto. We've already strayed from the point by bringing up nuclear reactors.
Awesome reference! I just got around to watching the last episode yesterday.
Please quote some statement I made previously (in context preferably) that you read to mean "I don't like it so people shouldn't hear about it."
I try not think that just because I feel a certain way that no one else's opinion matters or that we shouldn't discuss the issue. If that was the impression you got then let me know which line was the offending line so that I can understand why you read it that way.
Some people may agree with you that "Organic" means an attempt at sustainability, but they are wrong. The federal definition has to do entirely with the use of antibiotics, pesticides, and hormones.
I have never stated that sustainable agriculture isn't necessary, but it is not possible to use organic food to do that. You give examples of environmental benefits but you ignore the problems with organic food.
a. reduced output from the same amount of inputs
b. increased use of theraputic doses (much higher) of antibiotics in animal agriculture.
c. increased use of a narrow range of "Organic" pesticides that need to be applied at heavier rates and more frequently actually increasing the pesticide load of the crops.
d. Increased cost to produce the crops leading to increased prices at market.
As an Ag college student I'm aware of more than one article on the issue and my concerted opinion based on 9 years of college at this point (PhD is only a year away) 6 of which were at the graduate level, the preponderance of evidence that Organic is a bunch of emotion wrapped up in a marketing gimmick.
Buying local food is great! but it doesn't have to (in my opinion shouldn't) be organic.
Sustainable agriculture is necessary, but it's not possible with organic practices as they exist right now.
Wow, that's definitely a case of comparing apples to a rack of lamb dipped in trans fats.
GM crops have been evaluated extensively by the FDA and USDA. They've even been pulled from the market when they were shown to be other than safe. I don't remember the name of the corn but it was removed from the market because it turned out that the pesticide it was producing was also toxic to the butterflies that fed on it.
No one was claiming that Nuclear plants were without risk, just that the risks were manageable and being managed appropriately. My understanding of Chernobyl was that the plant wasn't being managed appropriately, The existence of Nuclear plants from the same era around the world that haven't melted down (France has a lot of them) shows that the first part can be true.
You're being incredibly flippant. I'm totally in favor of accurate labeling of food. What I'm not in favor of is a campaign of FUD being waged by the Organics food industry against tried and true agricultural practices that have enabled farmers to produce the quantity and quality of food the do enabling most americans to be 3-4 generations away from the farm and spend such a small portion of their income on food. Unless you have some sort of connection with current agriculture I just don't see how you're going to understand my viewpoint.
Antioxidants is a whole other issue entirely. I've also yet to see any antioxidant research that shows conclusively that antioxidants are absorbed intact if consumed orally. Antioxidants work great in the cell or in a petri dish, but they are by their very nature highly reactive to oxygen free radicals of the sort found in the gastric stomach. The likelyhood of any of them making through the stomach to the small intestine where absorption takes place is not very good for most of them.
I was sent the link in response to my statement that i've not seen any research supporting any sort of superiority of Organic that was any good. There is a book that they are publishing online of some meta-data analysis (analysis of a lot of research collectively to try and draw larger conclusions) that they thought might be that good research I couldn't find. I looked through the page and found this gem of a group vision Vision
Conversion of agriculture to organic methods, improved health for the earth and its inhabitants, and greater awareness of and demand for organic products.
I totally agree with you that buying half a cow is a sound investment. I work with pork and half a whole pig in my freezer right now. I was not questioning her decision to save money by buying in bulk. I was instead using the show to illustrate the point that someone who can probably not really afford to spend 10-15% more for groceries is doing so out of a perception that organic is dramatically healthier despite the fact that it has never been shown to be anything better than "as good" as food produced via traditional production systems.
The vast majority of food on the shelves is what you would call "normal." for now this is probably true most places. However, how long do you think that will last. I've already noticed that there are a handful of the more exotic produce that are only available as "Organic" at the Target around the corner (The only dried apricots are the one I first noticed since I love dried apricots). We've reached a point in this country where rhetoric about agriculture is more important that the science used to bring about what was originally called the green revolution (referring to modern agriculture, not the current meaning referring to energy efficiency and recycling). We have companies like McDonalds and KFC dictating terms by which the animals they use have to be grown in an attempt to proactively satisfy the demands of a small, but vocal group of consumers. How long before large grocery chains start making the same demands of produce farmers?
This country is probably the most "Health" and "Nutrition" obsessed in the western world, and is yet among the unhealthiest. It's call the "American Paradox." The name comes from what was originally called the "French Paradox" for the opposite reason (they couldn't care less about their fat intake and are, on average, incredibly healthy by comparison to the US). Your statement that you don't really think the "organic" movement is necessarily about hormones or pesticides. is (and I'm not trying to be offensive) proof that you are speaking past your true understanding concerning what the Organic movement is about. The refusal to use hormones, chemical pesticides, and growth promoting antibiotics is exactly what it is about and it is use of these that dictate whether a farmer can legally sell their crops as organic based on laws established by the federal government in response to rampant use of the term without it having a consistent definition.
Now with that said, I have not read the complete article that you linked too. I'm in the middle of fixing a large data set for my advisor and don't have the time right now. I'm willing to concede that it is possible that this research was done by unbiased individuals in a fair manner and that the results are legitimate. However, it if is then why isn't it in a peer reviewed journal. Researchers don't get their data from books where the authors say "Trust me," it's the dedication to a professional mythos of disbelief until proved otherwise that is the hallmark of a good researcher.
Now, as to your statement Many times a family farm's crop is replaced with Monsanto seed, a distinct type of crop is actually lost. what are you basing this statement on. To my knowledge, most farmers purchase their crops because otherwise there genetics (used to be called breeding) program is left up to chance. Farmers are trying so hard to do so much with so little that they don't have the time to develop their own improvements, they buy them instead from Companies like Monsanto, or from regional Co-Op's.
Second, I can give you a national example of someone who is being, if not forced then at the very least coerced into buying organic. There is a TV show about a couple that have 8 children. There is a set of twins who are now 7 and a set of septuplets that are now 3. The show is called Jon & Kate + 8 and is a reality TV show about their life. My wife and I recently discovered it and watch it religiously now. I like it because I'm from a big family (6 kids, no multiples thankfully), and my wife likes it because she's half Korean and so are the children on the show (a bit of a preview as to how our future children may look). There have been several episodes where she makes reference to the fact that she is
a. she is Anal retentive about health and cleanliness (her words)
b. Children from multiple births often have a lot of health problems, especially with their lungs (My buddie has twins and told me the same thing)
c. That out of a desire to keep her children healthy she buys organic food whenever possible (in one episode they even went to an organic farm and bought half a cow for their freezer).
This family has only 1 person earning income (or would if it wasn't for the TV show) that needs to feed 10 people. As someone that grew up in a how of 8 people I can attest to the fact that money goes fast when you have to buy 2 shopping carts worth of food almost every week.
and as to your reference to grocery stores being CHOCK FULL of processed, pesticide/hormone laden foods I have to ask you whether or not you've ever bothered to look into the FDA regulations on food for human consumption. It is illegal to sell any food that is contaminated with dangerous chemicals like pesticides. I'm assuming the hormone reference is to either chicken (which is flat out hilarious, who would want to inject millions of birds with hormones individually even if it were legal. It's totally and urban myth.) or rBST in milk (which has been injected directly into humans during research trials and was found to have no reactivity because Bovine Somatotropin is too different from Human Somatotropin to interact with the hST receptor.) which is probably better for the environment than just about any "Organic" production method because you produce more milk from less cows, so you have less cow shit and the potential for pollution of ground water by it. Both of these urban myths have been debunked several time but no who believes them is willing to investigate them, or believe it when they do come across the truth.
HOLD UP. you are going waaaayyy off topic. Monsanto spent Millions of dollars developing a strain of corn that is resistant to their pesticide (Round-up). They then spent Millions of dollars doing the research necessary to convince the FDA and USDA that the product is generally safe. They then decided that the only way they could ever recoup their investment was to sell the seeds only to those willing to sign a contract stating that they wouldn't keep back seeds. No one was forced to agree to this. If the farmers didn't believe it was a sound investment they wouldn't have agreed.
There is nothing stopping some other company from developing a grain resistant to a different pesticide and giving them some stiff competition, maybe driving down the price of the seeds, or putting room in the debate for the restrictions to go away. Monsanto isn't sterilizing anyone, they don't have a monopoly on corn seeds, their are not destroying someone else's property. In fact, their are probably thousands of companies and Co-Ops selling seeds to farmers who don't think saving money by keeping back some seeds is worth missing out on improved genetics (whether by GM in the lab or by old fashioned GM techniques like controlled pollination). People toss the word monopoly around way too much and use it in situations that don't really apply. The only way that Monsanto can be said to have a monopoly is if you limited it the scope to include only grains that are sold by their company and resistant to a single pesticide.
I don't know which part of the country you hail from, but here in Indiana (part of the corn belt) if you drive down any country road you'll see miles of corn and soybeans. Most of these fields have small signs in the grass advertising which seed company the seeds were purchased from. I can most likely count at least a dozen different companies represented on the half hour drive from my home in Lafayette to my father-in-laws home in Frankfort. This tells me that while Monsanto may have a booming business, and may even be the biggest player, they are not the only game in town and as a result cannot really be called a monopoly without stretching the term past the breaking point.
Whether you agree with genetic patents or not (I personally don't) you have to accept that, at the moment they exist, Monsanto has one that is very lucrative, and they are aggressive about protecting it. Now, I agree that they are painted as being too aggressive by the article, but that's a judgement call and I'm personally of the opinion that the author was biased against Monsanto for other reasons (Franken foods perhaps?) prior to starting the legwork necessary for the article.
Then advertise the fact that post-harvest handling and preparation differences. This would be a far more accurate (in my opinion better) approach than to clump all sorts of questionable agricultural practices into one buzz word and market the hell out of it.
On a personal note, I spent years working on a produce farm in western Massachusetts. If you want wax free cucumbers then try buying them at a regional produce market or at a road side stand. I don't know where you are from, so maybe it's a regional issue, but I've never seen cucumbers coated in wax.
As to the case of suing over labeling I have to disagree with your statement People have the right to make true statements about their products, even and especially if it's irrational to buy based on that. This is a problem because of the implied statement as to the safety of other products. It's a scare tactic because the labeling is intentionally misleading. It's akin to my recent change of mind over "Organic Food".
I used to be a huge fan of the Organic Foods movement because it meant that farmers received more money for their goods. I have never read a reputable article that shows organic to be any healthier for the consumer or the environment, but until recently farmers were getting screwed when they sold their goods so I thought it was a good idea because it was essentially those with too much money that were paying the Organic Tax. The problem is that now people are convinced that it is superior to normally produced food and people who cannot afford the extra money are forced to purchase organic either out of fear, lack of options, or peer pressure (applied by not only friends but half of the talking heads on TV)
that members of this site haven't started an open source project around developing an OS and maybe a basic hardware specification for cheap E-voting machines.
Considering how many people get upset every time some article like this comes up and the expertise many claim that this hasn't occurred to anyone yet. I'm no programmer (outside of incredibly simple perl scripts) so "I" couldn't do it but I can't imagine that members of the Slashdot community would do any worse than these asshats. Besides, even if they did do a crappy job it would be open source so that security hats could look through it and point to all of the bugs for fixing.
I've also never had a drive fail. That said I've had the enclosure (LaCie and their use of sub standard firewire bridges) or it's power brick (Cheap radio shack enclosures) fail several times for external drives.
The first one was bad for 3 years before I realized that it was the enclosure and not the drive, and I returned the drive in the second one before I realized it was the power brick and not the drive itself that was bad Doh't.
The only genuinely bad drive I've ever come across was came with a second hand blue and white G3 mac 2 years ago that was bad when I got it, but it was the one that originally shipped with the machine and too small to be useful anyway.
Microsoft sells software.
Dell et al. sells hardware
Microsoft forces Dell et al. to sell the preponderance of their hardware with Microsoft software installed by default
Apple sells computers that consist of both software and hardware developed for each other by the same company. (Besides, people buy a computer more for the OS than the hardware. That's why there is little to no brand loyalty in the PC market)
There is a huge difference here. The computer industry is the only one I know of that manufactures hardware that isn't intrinsically tied to some software by default. We have a LECO Nitrogen and Carbon analyzer in my lab. It is a large expensive piece of hardware that has a software component that is required for it to function. The company is willing to sell us an update, but is not willing to sell us an analyzer sans OS. It's patently ridiculous for us to ask for one. B
It wasn't a matter of the author being bored. It's a matter of him not getting enough ad revenue lately and deciding to inflate his hit counters. The reason that the Apple Mob appear as bad as they do is because a large number of the writers in the tech media use them as a way to drive up their hit count. Write an article that is completely one sided against apple, distorts facts, or out right make shit up and the apple fans that haven't figured it out will be all over that page's message boards like ants at a picnic.
The part I find ridiculous is how often these end up on the front page of slashdot. If these articles were to ever offer something that hasn't been commented on here to death (including the near infinite flame wars that eventually degrade into Microsoft and/or Apple being compared to the Nazis) then I would be glad to read them, but they almost never do. And even when they do, the discussion still usually devolves into the flame war using the same bullshit analogies seen previously and repetitious arguments that have been used for at least the decade that I've been paying attention with very few of the commenters having actually RTFA.
I manage for my mother, step-father, 2 sisters, cousin, and maternal grandmother. The only people in my family that could be considered remotely in the same league with the average slashdotter would be me (mac guy), my older brother (CS degree from the Naval Academy, Windows exclusively), and my younger brother (CS degree from a vocational HS, Windows/little linux). The only ones in my family to have experienced infection are my grandmother (Can't understand the concept of not opening EVERY attachment) and my younger brother (can't leave the pr0n alone). Everyone else in my family uses macs and since my grandmother was upgraded to a second hand mac she's been free of viruses and trojans without changing her surfing habits.
I'm willing to concede the point that viruses and trojans will eventually hit the mac. However, I don't believe that the sense of security we feel is false. It's based on, in my families case, 12 years and counting without a single infected mac. whereas my younger brothers computer was loaded down and had to be reformatted and reinstalled 2x in the first year he had it.
Anecdotal? Yes! Compelling? Also Yes!
those are all social issues where there is a lot of disagreement. The Standards for most states hare heavily biased toward math and science. If the children are taught that creationism is a scientific theory despite the complete lack of any falsifiable predictions or evidence outside of the lack of evidence then these children will fail the standardized tests with flying colors. The standards are developed to make sure that any child within the state leaves with the same basic knowledge, or at the very least having been exposed to it. The details they are taught vary from place to place, but there are certain important educational milestones that they need to reach. the only way to teach creationism as a scientific theory is to intentionally mislead the students as to the definition of a scientific theory, thus confusing the issue for any scientific theory that they are exposed to for the rest of their lives.
Lets get this straight right now, creationism isn't a scientific theory at all for reasons I've indicated earlier. It is a theory in the way that genesis is a theory, it is an attempt to explain the world that doesn't use the scientific method, it instead uses the belief in a higher power. Unlike the bible, or any other religious theory, it does not indicate who said higher power is but it is a religious theory non the less, just one that lacks specificity. There is nothing wrong with that, it just doesn't belong in the biology class room.
As far as all of the examples you put forward as other taboo topics that you feel should be discussed, with the exception of medicinal marijuana, all of those were discussed to varying degree's in my HS courses even copyright laws. I have no problem with a teacher going off script as long as it is relevant to the topic they are supposed to be teaching and they don't use that pulpit as a chance to degrade the quality of the education my children would be receiving if they hadn't gone off script. In general I believe that the more information one has the better they are equipped to make decisions. That's why I have no problem with the topic of creationism being taught, just not in the science classes because it is not science.
Climbing up on my soapbox
Personally, I believe that creationism is the result of too many people being too proud to accept evolution as it relates to the human race. The individuals I've met appear to be most irate when discussing the possibility that humans have evolved from apes (the fact that the theory would indicate that we are not evolved from modern apes, but a common ancestor is usually ignored). The idea that we evolved from the same progenitor as apes is appalling to their world view (supported by most modern religions) that man is the reason for creation. It's Hubris at its finest. "Evolution can't be real because it implies that we aren't important!" It's my observation that evolution is the biological equivalent to the astronomical theory of Heliocentrism, and Creationism is just the modern day equivalent of the Church excommunicating individuals that disagreed with old central dogma of Geocentrism, with the notable exception being that even the church doesn't have a problem with evolution. It's the unadulterated arrogance of individuals who can't fathom a world where they are not the most important thing in it that pushes them into the fold of supporting creationism as some sort of an alternative to evolution.
I think the fundamental flaw in your reasoning is an attempt to delineate based on geography or political ideology. I think it has more to do with the quality of the education system than anything else. States that fall behind in emphasizing science will fail to impart a true understanding of the scientific process on it students who will eventually grow up and elect school board officials.
The overriding problem with creationism is the same that I have with string theory, they use an absence of knowledge as the proof of their theory and don't make any testable predictions about the natural universe that can be falsified via observation or experimentation. I have no problem with creationism being taught in philosophy, sociology, psychology, etc. but the moment it gets brought into the "hard" science of biology it fails to pass muster. Teaching it is akin to trying to legislate the value of Pi, it's completely asinine.