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#27 Sep 19 2013 at 2:28 PM Rating: Default
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Yeah. I'm sure they work hard to prevent anyone from using their seeds without paying them. But that's kinda the point, right? You can't really square that with a fear that a few seeds will blow over a fence and suddenly whole portions of our farmland will become infested with GMO wheat with no way to stop it.
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#28 Sep 19 2013 at 2:34 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
This is genetics, not magic.
Or as I recently reassured a jittery client, of course we use scientific methods...

to decide what kind of magic to try first. Smiley: nod

I pointed him to the methods writeup on our website afterwards as usual; but that's not the fun part of the story.
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#29 Sep 19 2013 at 2:47 PM Rating: Good
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Yeah. I'm sure they work hard to prevent anyone from using their seeds without paying them. But that's kinda the point, right? You can't really square that with a fear that a few seeds will blow over a fence and suddenly whole portions of our farmland will become infested with GMO wheat with no way to stop it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeiser

You can see how people might think that via honest confusion and not nefarious mustache twirling environmentalism, right?
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#30 Sep 19 2013 at 2:50 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Yeah. I'm sure they work hard to prevent anyone from using their seeds without paying them. But that's kinda the point, right? You can't really square that with a fear that a few seeds will blow over a fence and suddenly whole portions of our farmland will become infested with GMO wheat with no way to stop it.
It's probably inevitable in the long run. I'd imagine the company knows that though. You're going to get the stuff cross-breading into local grains, and you'll eventually lose control over the product.

The thing that tends to get lost in these arguments is that by in large organisms that have developed antibiotic resistance aren't really that well off. Grains we've engineered don't tend to really thrive well in the wild, as they're designed to grow lots when we take really good care of them, not survive on meager resources on the other side of the fence. Any cross-bred progeny will have a lot of genetic baggage to overcome to thrive outside of the farmer's field. Still will happen in time I'd imagine, but it's not like this stuff will just up and grow everywhere it wants. By the time it adapts to do so, I doubt the company will care so much if people are using their outdated product anyway.

My guess? Many years from now this strain is pretty much useless, and we've sucked something else out of some critter crawling on the ocean floor that is the new best bet for keeping bugs off food. Until then company makes some nice money.
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#31 Sep 19 2013 at 3:08 PM Rating: Default
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Smasharoo wrote:
Yeah. I'm sure they work hard to prevent anyone from using their seeds without paying them. But that's kinda the point, right? You can't really square that with a fear that a few seeds will blow over a fence and suddenly whole portions of our farmland will become infested with GMO wheat with no way to stop it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeiser

You can see how people might think that via honest confusion and not nefarious mustache twirling environmentalism, right?


Think what? That the genetically modified crops have some kind of super powers that will cause them to grow without end if they appear in your fields? The farmer found a few plants that he suspected were genetically modified. He then chose to save the seeds and intentionally planted 1000 acres of the stuff. Regardless of what we think of the patent law decision involved, at no point was his field "infested" by some unstoppable super crop.

I was replying to the suggestion that these crops somehow grow out of control because they're modified and that magically makes them "evil" or something. There's no indication that they are any less controllable than any other crop though.
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#32 Sep 19 2013 at 3:57 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Elinda wrote:
- Food crop diversity - once the seed is out there, there is no containing it. If the bulk of the seed supply should become genetically modified and then that modification proves to be responsible for a genetic mutation in peeps of some detrimental sort, we're screwed.


I understand this from an "all your eggs in one basket" point of view, but I'm not sure what you're talking about with "genetic mutation of peeps". Are you worried that by eating the food people will somehow become "infected" with the genetic modifications of the wheat/whatever? Genetics doesn't work that way. Your genes don't change based on the genes of what you eat. Otherwise, people would have turned into cows a long time ago.

If you meant something else, please explain.
Lots of chemicals are mutagens - or teratogens or carcinogens bleh I was feeling TMNTish. They can get into people, into your blood stream - eat it drink it breath it absorb it whatever. We really know little about long term effects of of such sweeping use of a genetically modified seed that is like a major component of the big ol base of our food chain. I think it'll mess with stuff - probably already is - but it has almost assuredly now been proven that it's gotten into crops and onto lands where it wasn't supposed to and wasn't wanted.
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#33 Sep 19 2013 at 4:05 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Yeah. I'm sure they work hard to prevent anyone from using their seeds without paying them. But that's kinda the point, right? You can't really square that with a fear that a few seeds will blow over a fence and suddenly whole portions of our farmland will become infested with GMO wheat with no way to stop it.

I'm honestly not sure what you're thinking here. I guess you're conflating several strawmen into one super strawman or something. People who are concerned about the patent side probably aren't people convinced that "GMO" means everyone will die. There's several (in my mind) legitimate concerns here. Note that "legitimate" means I think they have a non-insane argument, not that I completely with them.

(1) Seed supply being held by a limited number of organizations. As mentioned, farmers are not allowed to retain seed from their crops for replanting. This is primarily a "rights" issue; if the government collapsed tomorrow and we all turned into road warriors, you could still plant the seed and we wouldn't all starve to death

(2) Cross pollination and contamination can negatively affect crops by changing resistances, chemicals of choice, etc. Farmers choose how to spray their fields (chemical & concentration) based on what seeds they assume are in the field. If they are planning on retaining part of their crop for replanting, they assume that what they are harvesting is composed of what they had previously planted and will base next year's decisions off the same. In a worse case scenario, the mixed hybrid could turn out sterile or something.
-and blending 1 & 2-
(3) Patent issues with accidental contamination haven't been fully resolved. If I accidentally grow crops containing patented genes, the patent holder has a legitimate complaint against me. You're not allowed to propagate patented genes, even accidentally. It's very conceivable that one could wind up having to pay fines, retroactive licensing or destroy crops as a result.

You seem to under some belief that farmers would be thrilled to have accidental cross pollination of their crops. They wouldn't be. Seeds and crops are closely kept track of because the farmer wants to know exactly what that field contains. I'm not sure how else to explain it; I'm guessing I just have a clearer understanding here than you do due to proximity to agriculture and experience with plant patenting as a result of working in my field.
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There's no indication that they are any less controllable than any other crop though.

I don't think you even know what this means. The issue isn't fields of land being taken over by errant corn plants; it's the invisible changes to the composition of the intended crops.
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#34 Sep 19 2013 at 4:25 PM Rating: Default
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Elinda wrote:
Lots of chemicals are mutagens - or teratogens or carcinogens bleh I was feeling TMNTish. They can get into people, into your blood stream - eat it drink it breath it absorb it whatever.


Sure. But that has nothing to do with the food being genetically modified.

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We really know little about long term effects of of such sweeping use of a genetically modified seed that is like a major component of the big ol base of our food chain. I think it'll mess with stuff - probably already is - but it has almost assuredly now been proven that it's gotten into crops and onto lands where it wasn't supposed to and wasn't wanted.


Because it's genetics. We're not talking about a toxin or virus, but genetic code. It "spreads" just like regular genetic changes (in plants in this case). It can't hurt you any more than the eye color differences in a cow will somehow infect you with a different eye color. Genetics doesn't work like that. Species that are sufficiently similar to interbreed can produce offspring that shares some combination of their genes, just like every other organism on the planet.

Saying it's "gotten into crops" is meaningless. The "it" we're talking about is no more harmful than any other combination of genes that make up corn, or wheat, or whatever. Mutations happen all the time. The odds of some horrific thing accidentally occurring is far greater as a result of the billions of random mutations and combinations that go on out in the world every single day among all the various species of animals, plants, and germs than the relatively small number of controlled modifications we make to food sources.
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#35 Sep 19 2013 at 4:43 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
We're not talking about a toxin or virus
To be fair to both sides, we're talking about plants that have been modified to create toxins in some cases.
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#36 Sep 19 2013 at 4:45 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Saying it's "gotten into crops" is meaningless. The "it" we're talking about is no more harmful than any other combination of genes that make up corn, or wheat, or whatever.

The "it" in this case are specific genes that change how the plant responds to factors important to agriculture. Elinda is postulating that the genes which make a plant resistant to glyphosate or malathion could have other unforeseen consequences to the plant's composition which would be a long-term negative when consumed as food. Not that the gene itself is poison but that the biological changes that gene causes may not be 100% positive/neutral. That would personally fall under the "legitimate even if I don't completely agree".

I'd say a more immediate environmental concern is that if you have a field of crops resistant to malathion than you're inclined to use more malathion to handle crop pests than you did back when using too much harmed the plants. Unfortunately the rest of the world isn't as malathion resistant and those additional chemicals make it hither and yon and affect wildlife, fish, water supplies, yadda yadda.

Edited, Sep 19th 2013 5:46pm by Jophiel
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#37 Sep 19 2013 at 4:46 PM Rating: Good
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Think what? That the genetically modified crops have some kind of super powers that will cause them to grow without end if they appear in your fields? The farmer found a few plants that he suspected were genetically modified. He then chose to save the seeds and intentionally planted 1000 acres of the stuff.

You are not great at....reading...are you?
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#38 Sep 19 2013 at 4:49 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
(1) Seed supply being held by a limited number of organizations. As mentioned, farmers are not allowed to retain seed from their crops for replanting. This is primarily a "rights" issue; if the government collapsed tomorrow and we all turned into road warriors, you could still plant the seed and we wouldn't all starve to death


Sure. Not really seeing the problem here though. If the value of the improved seed is sufficiently high that the farmer can pay the extra cost for the seed and still sell his crop at a competitive price compared with the guy who doesn't, then this is really a business issue. I don't see how or why folks are up in arms about this aspect of it.

Quote:
(2) Cross pollination and contamination can negatively affect crops by changing resistances, chemicals of choice, etc. Farmers choose how to spray their fields (chemical & concentration) based on what seeds they assume are in the field. If they are planning on retaining part of their crop for replanting, they assume that what they are harvesting is composed of what they had previously planted and will base next year's decisions off the same. In a worse case scenario, the mixed hybrid could turn out sterile or something.


Right. But this is the case regardless of whether that other breed down the road was genetically modified in a lab, or via normal processes.

I was responding to the suggestion that this was some problem created by and/or unique to the production of lab modified crops. That there was some feature of those crops that made them more likely to infect other crops and cross pollinate or otherwise interact in negative ways. But so far, I've seen zero evidence of this being any more of a problem than "normal" crops. So why the fear?

Quote:
-and blending 1 & 2-
(3) Patent issues with accidental contamination haven't been fully resolved. If I accidentally grow crops containing patented genes, the patent holder has a legitimate complaint against me. You're not allowed to propagate patented genes, even accidentally. It's very conceivable that one could wind up having to pay fines, retroactive licensing or destroy crops as a result.


The case that was linked didn't directly address it, but the implication I got was that accidental is unlikely to result in an entire field having a high concentration of a given crop. As you said earlier, a farmer doesn't want to have mixed breeds in the same field. So a small percentage of the wrong type accidentally growing in a field isn't likely to benefit him or harm the patent holder. The issue in question in the case was that he intentionally collected the seeds from the round up resistant canola and then grew it in 1000 acres, resulting in 95% of the modified plant in that part of his farm.

That clearly was not an accident. Also, you used two slightly different phrases. Growing crops is one thing. Propagating them is another. The action which got the farmer in trouble was not a small percentage of one field growing the modified crop, but the intentional planing of the seeds from that specific set of plants in an entire field the next year. We don't know for sure what the outcome would be with a truly accidental situation, but it's doubtful that the cost to the farmer would be any greater than the cost of having the wrong kind of crop growing in his field in the first place.

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You seem to under some belief that farmers would be thrilled to have accidental cross pollination of their crops. They wouldn't be. Seeds and crops are closely kept track of because the farmer wants to know exactly what that field contains.


I know. That's actually part of my point though. Elinda's post made it appear as though risk of cross pollination is greater with genetically modified crops than "natural" ones. But I haven't seen any evidence that this is true.

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There's no indication that they are any less controllable than any other crop though.

I don't think you even know what this means. The issue isn't fields of land being taken over by errant corn plants; it's the invisible changes to the composition of the intended crops.


Um... Right. But is there any greater risk of that happening in the case of crop strain modified by Monsanto than one that was developed using more traditional means? Secondly, is the harm from cross pollination of a Monsanto strain any greater than cross pollination for any other different strain than the one the farmer intended to grow in his field?

If the answer is no, then this isn't an issue with GMO. It's something that is always a risk in farming regardless of the means by which different strains of crops are generated.
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#39 Sep 19 2013 at 4:51 PM Rating: Default
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Smasharoo wrote:
Think what? That the genetically modified crops have some kind of super powers that will cause them to grow without end if they appear in your fields? The farmer found a few plants that he suspected were genetically modified. He then chose to save the seeds and intentionally planted 1000 acres of the stuff.

You are not great at....reading...are you?


Reading is only half of understanding Smash. Did you... understand... what was written? Because I read a wiki article that in no way supported the idea that Monsanto canola was any more likely to spread into other people's fields than any other canola. Did you read a different article? Or just didn't have a clue what Elinda said and why I responded to it?
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#40 Sep 19 2013 at 4:52 PM Rating: Decent
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Lots of chemicals are mutagens - or teratogens or carcinogens bleh I was feeling TMNTish. They can get into people, into your blood stream - eat it drink it breath it absorb it whatever. We really know little about long term effects of of such sweeping use of a genetically modified seed that is like a major component of the big ol base of our food chain. I think it'll mess with stuff - probably already is - but it has almost assuredly now been proven that it's gotten into crops and onto lands where it wasn't supposed to and wasn't wanted.

Fear of the unknown or "we don't know what might happen" is about the worst possible reason to restrict or regulate something. We don't know what the long term consequences of using antibiotics are, maybe the end of the human race through speeding bacteria evolution. We don't know what the long term consequences of an AIDS vaccine might be, yadda. Humans have a broken pattern recognition engine that responds orders of magnitude too severely to this sort of thing. When GMO food crops actually cause a negative outcome that's the time to address it, not halt scientific progress over "don't play god" unintended consequences *********
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#41 Sep 19 2013 at 4:55 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
But is there any greater risk of that happening in the case of crop strain modified by Monsanto than one that was developed using more traditional means?

Yes, by virtue of sheer numbers. Around 90% of the corn seed used today in the US is glyphosate resistant which means it is patented by Monsanto.

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Secondly, is the harm from cross pollination of a Monsanto strain any greater than cross pollination for any other different strain than the one the farmer intended to grow in his field?

Yes, see #1 & #3 previously. Now if you mean biologically... still yes. Because GMO crops were modified specifically to change how they respond to agriculturally important things. If a field is cross pollinated with some corn that has a slight mutation causing the tips of the leaves to be 1.2mm wider than average, it doesn't really cause any problems. If you're cross pollinated with crops that cause your plants to respond differently to carbaryl insecticides then it could be a big deal.

Keep in mind that strains of non-GMO crops are based upon general things like frost hardiness or ear length or whatever. Like the difference between Big Boy and Better Boy tomatoes when you go plant shopping at the Home Depot. You want to keep them separate because you're trying to grow a specific strain of product but they don't have the same potential to dramatically change how you grow them.

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If the answer is no...

...it's not.

Edited, Sep 19th 2013 6:00pm by Jophiel
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#42 Sep 19 2013 at 4:57 PM Rating: Decent
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Reading is only half of understanding Smash. Did you... understand... what was written? Because I read a wiki article that in no way supported the idea that Monsanto canola was any more likely to spread into other people's fields than any other canola. Did you read a different article? Or just didn't have a clue what Elinda said and why I responded to it?

Did someone argue that at some point? I must have missed it. Someone did point out that, as one would discover reading the wiki page, there was a prolonged media event over the case and that it was frequently presented in a way that would lead one to assume that GMO crops were becoming invasive.

That would require a certain level of curiosity or reading comprehension that you clearly lack, however. It's ok, though. As usual we know your position and what you've decided to argue against before anyone else posts. You live in California, it's somewhat forgivable. This is one of the rare cases where you very likely do know some idiots that are convinced that GMOs are basically toxins.
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#43 Sep 19 2013 at 5:18 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
The "it" in this case are specific genes that change how the plant responds to factors important to agriculture. Elinda is postulating that the genes which make a plant resistant to glyphosate or malathion could have other unforeseen consequences to the plant's composition which would be a long-term negative when consumed as food. Not that the gene itself is poison but that the biological changes that gene causes may not be 100% positive/neutral. That would personally fall under the "legitimate even if I don't completely agree".


Ok. I can buy the possibility. But I still place this in the "same thing can happen using traditional techniques'. When we breed for specific traits in plants and animals we also tend to introduce other side traits. Some of these are not desirable. Interestingly enough, using lab techniques to directly manipulate gene patterns and insert them into strands can often decrease the likelihood of those unintended side effects though. Nature tends to change whole sets of dna segments at a time, even when the specific effects of the parts of that segment are all completely different and unrelated. In a lab, you can identify just the handful of genes you need to change/remove/add in order to get the desired effect without having to affect a whole bunch of other seemingly random stuff. Emphasis on "can". I'm not by any means suggesting it's easy.

Whether that means that the odds of unintended side effects are greater or lesser is up in the air. I would argue that right now, it's a toss up. But as we get better at this, we'll get better at making the changes we want without the potential side effect baggage that would come with such a change if done in a traditional manner. That is the whole point of using these new techniques after all. Being able to more precisely affect the outcome than with traditional cross breeding.

Quote:
I'd say a more immediate environmental concern is that if you have a field of crops resistant to malathion than you're inclined to use more malathion to handle crop pests than you did back when using too much harmed the plants. Unfortunately the rest of the world isn't as malathion resistant and those additional chemicals make it hither and yon and affect wildlife, fish, water supplies, yadda yadda.


Or you have a crop that's naturally resistant to a given pest and thus needs less pesticides to grow a given volume of food. Again, this isn't a feature of GMO itself, but how it's implemented.
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#44 Sep 19 2013 at 5:25 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Or you have a crop that's naturally resistant to a given pest and thus needs less pesticides to grow a given volume of food. Again, this isn't a feature of GMO itself, but how it's implemented.

That's not how it's exclusively done though. It's easier to make a plant that can withstand being doused in a specific chemical than to make one that aphids no longer want to eat. Even better when the dousing chemical covers a spectrum of insects versus making a strain of crop that's unpalatable to aphids and weevils and Japanese crop beetles and grubs and...

Edited, Sep 19th 2013 6:27pm by Jophiel
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#45 Sep 19 2013 at 5:25 PM Rating: Decent
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Ok. I can buy the possibility. But I still place this in the "same thing can happen using traditional techniques'. When we breed for specific traits in plants and animals we also tend to introduce other side traits. Some of these are not desirable. Interestingly enough, using lab techniques to directly manipulate gene patterns and insert them into strands can often decrease the likelihood of those unintended side effects though. Nature tends to change whole sets of dna segments at a time, even when the specific effects of the parts of that segment are all completely different and unrelated. In a lab, you can identify just the handful of genes you need to change/remove/add in order to get the desired effect without having to affect a whole bunch of other seemingly random stuff. Emphasis on "can". I'm not by any means suggesting it's easy.


I largely agree. What I think you're missing from Joph's post is that Nature doesn't see a "do not enter" sign in front of modified genes, and thus mutations still could occur apace, just with a drastically different starting point. Yes, this could still happen with traditional selective breeding and it's mostly technique and efficiency that isn't any more dangerous, but the idea that GMO crops are less prone to mutation is probably false. I think. Joph almost certainly knows more than me about it...and oddly, I'm fine with that.
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#46 Sep 19 2013 at 5:30 PM Rating: Decent
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Smasharoo wrote:
Reading is only half of understanding Smash. Did you... understand... what was written? Because I read a wiki article that in no way supported the idea that Monsanto canola was any more likely to spread into other people's fields than any other canola. Did you read a different article? Or just didn't have a clue what Elinda said and why I responded to it?

Did someone argue that at some point? I must have missed it.


You missed it:

Elinda wrote:
The issues I've heard springing up around GMO's are...
- Food crop diversity - once the seed is out there, there is no containing it. If the bulk of the seed supply should become genetically modified and then that modification proves to be responsible for a genetic mutation in peeps of some detrimental sort, we're screwed.


My response to this post lead to the trail of posts that ultimately lead to this one. So yeah. Someone started out suggesting that there was some feature of GMO that caused it to grow uncontrollably. Unless you have a different interpretation of "once the seed is out there, there is no containing it"?

Quote:
Someone did point out that, as one would discover reading the wiki page, there was a prolonged media event over the case and that it was frequently presented in a way that would lead one to assume that GMO crops were becoming invasive.


But they'd be wrong. Which was the exact point I was making. GMO crops are no more invasive than any other. And if you posted the article because you thought it supported that assumption, then you were one of those people lead to assume something that was wrong.

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That would require a certain level of curiosity or reading comprehension that you clearly lack...


Like the reading comprehension required to realize that the wiki you linked doesn't say at all that GMO is more invasive than other crops? That reading comprehension? I'm now somewhat curious why you posted the article in the first place. If you understood what it said, then you'd understand that it didn't support the idea that GMO crops are more invasive than other crops. So either you didn't understand that *or* you did, but figured you'd just toss something out there randomly anyway?

I also notice what while you made the statement above about prolonged media frequently presenting the case in a way that would lead one to assume that GMO crops were becoming invasive, but you didn't actually say whether *you* believed that was true.

Do you?

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This is one of the rare cases where you very likely do know some idiots that are convinced that GMOs are basically toxins.


So you agree with me that they are not toxins and they aren't any more invasive than other crops? Why are you arguing with me then? Bored?
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#47 Sep 19 2013 at 5:33 PM Rating: Decent
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But they'd be wrong. Which was the exact point I was making.

Me too. Hence your reading problem. I was commenting that it had been presented as such in the PR campaign for that court case, and in lots of documentaries, etc, so someone thinking it would be the case probably wasn't an error in thinking, but bad science reporting.
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#48 Sep 19 2013 at 5:34 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Or you have a crop that's naturally resistant to a given pest and thus needs less pesticides to grow a given volume of food. Again, this isn't a feature of GMO itself, but how it's implemented.

That's not how it's exclusively done though. It's easier to make a plant that can withstand being doused in a specific chemical than to make one that aphids no longer want to eat. Even better when the dousing chemical covers a spectrum of insects versus making a strain of crop that's unpalatable to aphids and weevils and Japanese crop beetles and grubs and...


Sure. But we've been breeding pesticide resistant crops for as long as we've had pesticides. So, once again, not something specific to GMO. GMO can do it "better and faster", I suppose. But it also opens up the door to doing things differently as well. I guess I just don't see the boogie man that some people do here. I know you don't either, so this is more of a philosophical thing, but still.
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#49 Sep 19 2013 at 5:40 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Sure. But we've been breeding pesticide resistant crops for as long as we've had pesticides

Yeah, not really.
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#50 Sep 19 2013 at 5:47 PM Rating: Decent
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Smasharoo wrote:
But they'd be wrong. Which was the exact point I was making.

Me too. Hence your reading problem.


Problem reading what? The article? I correctly understood that it did not support the idea that GMO was overly invasive.

Or are you talking about your own post? You linked to the article and said "You can see how people might think that via honest confusion and not nefarious mustache twirling environmentalism, right?". Now maybe I have a reading problem, or maybe you have a writing problem, but to me that means that the article you are linking is some evidence that people might be honestly confused about the invasive nature of GMO crops based on the information surrounding the case itself.

But I don't see that. You really do have to take the details of that case, twirl your mustache a bit, and then dramatically exaggerate the hell out of what happened in order to make people think that the GMO canola somehow invested this guys field uncontrollably and was therefor a threat for everone to fear because it could take over the world!!!!.

Quote:
I was commenting that it had been presented as such in the PR campaign for that court case, and in lots of documentaries, etc, so someone thinking it would be the case probably wasn't an error in thinking, but bad science reporting.


I would equate the PR campaign for that court case with "mustache twirling environmentalism" Smash. Wouldn't you?
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King Nobby wrote:
More words please
#51 Sep 19 2013 at 6:05 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Sure. But we've been breeding pesticide resistant crops for as long as we've had pesticides

Yeah, not really.


Um... yes, really. Each generation of a given plant that is exposed to a given pesticide will be more resistant to it. Assuming we retain and plant seeds from the most healthy plants in each generation, this can't *not* happen. It may not be as dramatic as when bugs develop resistances to those pesticides, but it's really just a matter of degrees. One can also assume that the higher the dose of pesticide used (like say "enough to not kill more plants than the bugs would if I didn't spray) will increase the rate at which resistance will develop.


I guess if I have a theme on this topic, it's that genetic modification in a lab doesn't fundamentally cause anything negative that can't or doesn't happen naturally anyway. It does, however, have the potential to generate positives that can't be duplicated via natural processes (or at least not in any controllable way). While there should be concerns with the use of any technology, for the most part, the kind of stuff I see about GMO is exaggerated, emotional, and in many cases just downright factually incorrect. If you want to make a case against poor business practices by a company like Monsanto, creating BS GMO hype is a poor way to do that.
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King Nobby wrote:
More words please
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