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Can you provide examples specific cases of this having happened, in a manner that could conseivably causes harm?Times we have put genes into organisms that don't normally express them? Yea. How many do you want?
You seem to have missed the, '...that could conceivably cause harm' clause.
I thought I normally was the DA. Then again, I really have no interest in playing the DA to GP or the IPCC at the moment.
Unless they make a good snack...errr...I mean...takes care of wolves and such....
I posted their FBI file in that other thread. Makes light reading for those interested.
You seem to have missed the, '...that could conceivably cause harm' clause.Can you provide examples specific cases of this having happened, in a manner that could conseivably causes harm?Times we have put genes into organisms that don't normally express them? Yea. How many do you want?
There is the real concern that anytime we add protein coding genes into an organism that doesn't have regulatory pathways to deal with it that it is potentially dangerous.
Evolution [is] a far cry from using a retrovirus to add genes into our expression matrix.I disagree. Most of the human genome is exactly that -- dead viruses. They may provide some resistance to similar viruses (much as we're often trying to do by inserting other ones into grain crops), but they have no physical expression on us. When our ancestors selectively bred wheat with other strains of wheat or even other plants altogether, they were doing more or less the same thing, except a lot more haphazardly.
Exactly my point. Evolutionary artifacts are just that, artifacts. Foods that we engineer to express genes they don't have regulatory pathways for are another matter entirely. Even if we engineer them to express alongside an existing pathway we are still haphazardly (as you put it) playing with things we don't truly understand.
There is the real concern that anytime we add protein coding genes into an organism that doesn't have regulatory pathways to deal with it that it is potentially dangerous.You seem to have missed the, '...that could conceivably cause harm' clause.Can you provide examples specific cases of this having happened, in a manner that could conseivably causes harm?Times we have put genes into organisms that don't normally express them? Yea. How many do you want?
There is a real concern that at anytime the earth might be struck by a large iron meteor of a size that could wipe out human life.
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we are still haphazardly playing with things we don't truly understand.
Said Franklin's detractors when he invented the lightning rod.
If we didn't "haphazardly play with things we don't truly understand" we never would have started using fire.we are still haphazardly playing with things we don't truly understand.Said Franklin's detractors when he invented the lightning rod.
~yelps and jumps back~ That is HOT!!!
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Evolution [is] a far cry from using a retrovirus to add genes into our expression matrix.I disagree. Most of the human genome is exactly that -- dead viruses. They may provide some resistance to similar viruses (much as we're often trying to do by inserting other ones into grain crops), but they have no physical expression on us. When our ancestors selectively bred wheat with other strains of wheat or even other plants altogether, they were doing more or less the same thing, except a lot more haphazardly.Exactly my point. Evolutionary artifacts are just that, artifacts. Foods that we engineer to express genes they don't have regulatory pathways for are another matter entirely. Even if we engineer them to express alongside an existing pathway we are still haphazardly (as you put it) playing with things we don't truly understand.
I vehemently disagree that we don't understand. Uncountable hours were spent discovering these techniques, learning the best ways to use them, determining the most effective vectors, and choosing the best recipients, and there were no doubt plenty of failures, set backs, and missteps. There is no way there could be dozens of viable GMO's if the science behind it was not understood. The much more dangerous methods were the methods used before, mutation breeding was haphazard, sloppy, and had an actual chance of creating a harmful plant. It's like the difference between a modern neurosurgeon and a civil war saw bones.
Can you provide examples specific cases of this having happened, in a manner that could conseivably causes harm?Nearly every serious complaint that can conceivibly be leveled at GMOs is in fact, not a problem with GMOs, but with Intellectual property law and the behaviour of companies.Protein expression by organisms which have no normal regulatory pathways for those genes having the potential to result in unforseen and possibly dangerous outcomes; is an IP issue?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8594427?dopt=Abstract
I vehemently disagree that we don't understand. Uncountable hours were spent discovering these techniques, learning the best ways to use them, determining the most effective vectors, and choosing the best recipients, and there were no doubt plenty of failures, set backs, and missteps. There is no way there could be dozens of viable GMO's if the science behind it was not understood. The much more dangerous methods were the methods used before, mutation breeding was haphazard, sloppy, and had an actual chance of creating a harmful plant. It's like the difference between a modern neurosurgeon and a civil war saw bones.Evolution [is] a far cry from using a retrovirus to add genes into our expression matrix.I disagree. Most of the human genome is exactly that -- dead viruses. They may provide some resistance to similar viruses (much as we're often trying to do by inserting other ones into grain crops), but they have no physical expression on us. When our ancestors selectively bred wheat with other strains of wheat or even other plants altogether, they were doing more or less the same thing, except a lot more haphazardly.Exactly my point. Evolutionary artifacts are just that, artifacts. Foods that we engineer to express genes they don't have regulatory pathways for are another matter entirely. Even if we engineer them to express alongside an existing pathway we are still haphazardly (as you put it) playing with things we don't truly understand.
Please describe exactly how ER and Golgi fold complex 1 of the electron transport change. Then please explain exactly how it is inserted into the mitochondrial membrane. Please include the method used for designating the end point location.
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How 'bout a reality based Greenpeace controversy?
They're one of the biggest opponents of genetically modified foods. Good or bad?
Personally, I find their position on this ridiculous. Granted, Monsanto is clearly evil... but that doesn't change the fact that GMOs can be safely developed to provide vast health, environmental, and security benefits to the human race. If Greenpeace wants to protest Monsanto for unethical business practices, great. However, painting GMOs as 'dangerous' is anti environmental propaganda IMO. Every bit as bad as the global warming deniers... and hypocritical to boot coming from supposed eco-champions.
Greenpeace being in bed with anti-GMO radicals is more than enough to make the entire organization sullied in my eyes.
GMO technology allows us to better serve public health, reduce food waste, increase crop yield per acre, use less fossil fuels, reduce pesticide runoff, reduce herbicide runoff, reduce bacterial contamination of food, and increase crop efficiency. Somehow this is bad, "not natural", or a giant conspiracy between corporations and scientists to poison people, just like vaccines and chemtrails /s. I dunno. *sigh*
Anti-GMO radicals infuriate me as a scientist, and it very often smacks of scientific illiteracy, privilege, and comfort with allowing people to starve, go blind, etc.
You can find issue with Monsanto's corporate policies and business practices without going into loonyville and screaming about Frankenfoods.
I know I'm going to have to repeat myself again and again, but I really have no interest in Greenpeace at all. I'm not a fanboy, I've never donated and I've always thought they were at best, slightly crazy. I've never read any of their literature, nor have I attended a rally or voted for anyone because they were endorsed by Greenpeace.So in other words, you've made a judgement about Greenpeace soley based on the media and wht their opponents say about them? Since you've neve bothered to actually read their material and hear their side?
Correct.
Yet somehow, several people have the impression that I want to give Greenpeace complete authority over the US, EU, and the UN.
Honestly, Greenpeace is so far off my radar of things that are important, I really just don't care about them at all. To the grand scheme of things in our culture, I think Greenpeace, the organization, is largely irrelevant.
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The main purpose of marketing GMO seeds to farmers is to encourage increased use of herbicides, also coincidentally enough, marketed by Monsanto. So what we have are increasing levels of toxicity in our food. This has led to an increase in food allergies, including some very toxic ones in some cases.
Also in the same way that over use of antibiotics is leading to resistant super bacteria, the increased use of herbicides because of GMO plants will lead to herbicide reistant weeds as well.
Reducing Food Waste? Perhaps you missed John Oliver's excellent video on the subject. Food waste hasn't been reduced, it's continuing to skyrocket.
The reason GMO's are considered bad is that the only positive effect that they seem to generate is increased profit for companies like Monsanto. Profits that come at the cost of a lot of collateral harm to farms, the environment, and the consumers.
All of which falls under the heading of corporate malfeasance rather than having anything to do with genetic modification itself.
Yes, companies are using GMO technology to increase profits... e.g. making pesticide resistant plants rather than plants which have inherent insecticide properties. However, that doesn't change the fact that GMO could be used to develop these improvements. Ergo, protests should be aimed at corporate misbehavior, not a potentially beneficial technology.
Yes, by all means, let's celebrate violent, destructive, futile acts by people opposed to advancing technology because it imperils their interests.By all means, let's celebrate all advances in technology even when they leave populations out of work and starving.
Yes, in the long run, with massive social changes and government support, it led to a better world, but the adjustment took generations and caused much devastation.
The union wars a hundred years or so later also involved a lot of violent, destructive, apparently futile acts. But they actually had a working solution. At least for the time.As I said, the Luddites didn't have a solution, just a diagnosis. Breaking the machines wasn't the answer then. Distributing the productivity of those machines more widely was. We're facing similar issues today. The answer is still the same.
And it's a sidetrack from the GMO issue, since the Luddites had entirely different motivations than anti-GMO activists today.
Yes, the Luddites were fighting for their livelihood as well as fighting the progress of technology. Anti-GMO radicals are just scientifically illiterate fearmongers. Whether you're anti-GMO, anti-vaccine, anti-evolution, or a climate change denier, scientific progress and education will drag you into the 21st century kicking and screaming.
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And I think there lies my problem with GMO technology. Like anything else, it could be good or bad. As it's used it's wholly owned by a few companies who are, as usual, trying to maximize profits and minimize regulations.
Actually, there are GMO technology 'garage corporations' now. The tools have gotten simple / inexpensive enough that there are hobbyists. Obviously, without billion dollar research budgets they aren't making advancements as fast as the big corporations, but the point is that they are making some and will continue to do so. Given the ridiculous intellectual property rulings we have seen thus far this is a potential growth industry as developing a useful gene sequence (or even identifying an existing one) could be hugely profitable.
Nor is it true that there have been no beneficial developments from the big corporations. Krensky pointed out golden rice above, which is actually made freely available to subsistence farmer by... Monsanto. Sure, they're still evil and it is purely a PR thing for them, but still... improving nutrition.
But those are problems that occur AFTER you've fed people with it. Those same people currently have food shortages and severe malnutrition.
I don't have a problem with a non-golden rice solution, but currently there isn't one that would be even remotely as cheap or simple to implement.
Sometimes a short term solution that creates additional problems in the future is the best current solution. Solve the problem now, deal with the new problems when they arise. Issues like death and blindness are often permanent, so even if you're just delaying them, that's a good thing.
Uhhhhhh and something little called the potato plague... And people living off altogether too little land so that potatoes was what they could survive off... Oh, and wholesale oppression.
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Uhhhhhh and something little called the potato plague... And people living off altogether too little land so that potatoes was what they could survive off... Oh, and wholesale oppression.
Along with the fact that they were forced to grow potatoes and phase out other crops, thus eliminating the diversity in the area.
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Uhhhhhh and something little called the potato plague... And people living off altogether too little land so that potatoes was what they could survive off... Oh, and wholesale oppression.Along with the fact that they were forced to grow potatoes and phase out other crops, thus eliminating the diversity in the area.
From what I recall, it wasn't just about diversity of vegetables. The potatoes themselves had become a genetic monoculture as well.
(I wish I could find the book I read it in, but it was in the university library, and it's been years since I was there.)
Vitamin A deficiency is a huge problem worldwide. The vitamin is mostly to be found in meat and related stuff like liver, and poor people eat little enough of that. The problem here is not getting enough vitamin A in the diet, which golden rice helps with. Yes, bad enough malnutrition shuts down the intestinal absorption, but those people are severely ill already, and need other, more advanced, help. The rice can prevent people getting to that point.
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Agreed. But...
help > no help
True. And I don't have any real problems with golden rice, at least the later versions of it. From what I know, it's been pretty thoroughly tested and mostly lives up to its promise.
It's just not enough for me to give Monsanto a pass or to handwave all GMOs as automatically a good thing.
GMOs should be independently studied and regulated is a different issue. Unfortunately, many use a potential lack of regulation (or a lack of knowledge of what regulations there are) to imply that all GMOs are bad.
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That's essentially the textbook definition of a lack of biodiversity.
From what I recall, it wasn't just about diversity of vegetables. The potatoes themselves had become a genetic monoculture as well.
Indeed. I just wanted to make sure it was spelled out clearly for those who might not be as familiar with the terminology. ^_^
Everything else being equal, the rice would certainly help, but it's not a panacea.
Is that a viable standard? GMOs are bad and evil and should be banned because, even though they certainly help, they're not a panacea? Because that's exactly what a number of people in the thread seem to be saying.
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It doesn't help when the proponents claim there's no difference between GMOs and more conventionally created plants. That implies GMOs should receive no more scrutiny than normal artificial selection in crops.
The amount of unregulated lateral gene transfer in traditional crossbreeding is far greater than in creating a GMO from the same two plants for the same purpose. That almost implies that traditional methods should be under more scrutiny, not less.