Monsanto

it's pretty obv to me that jellyfish corn should happen immediately

this has been going on for a while now guys

http://images.wikia.com/capcomdatabase/images/9/97/CatDog_by_deadPxl.jpg

I agree that there is a chance that splicing genetic material from a jellyfish into a cat might result in a cat which is in some way superior for human purposes than could be achieved in any other way. This opens amazing possibilities. Where I start to have misgivings is when these exotic modifications are injected into the food supply by profit-driven corporations.

The profit motive is wholly driven by the desire for personal benefit. As Adam Smith noticed, this drive can be harnessed for public good. But he never made the mistake of thinking that the profit motive never results in public harm. He understood that strong laws and regulations must place limits around individual selfishness and canalize it into safe boundaries.

Most of the bitching and moaning I hear about how the public are idiots who don't understand how wonderful genetic modification is comes from interested parties with a profit motive. Your friend the PhD in genetics is an interested party just like any of us.

What I mostly hear the public demanding are extremely strong safeguards against unwanted side effects from sloppy, selfish, shortsighted or malicious use of genetic modification. Very few people are saying this new science must be strangled in its crib and buried at midnight with a stake through its heart. We, the public, get that this is powerful stuff. We're convinced. It was the scientists who convinced us. We've seen powerful new technologies unleashed with no regard for their consequences. This science strikes at the very core of life. That's heavy stuff in the hands of mere humans. We want to be protected from its potential excesses.

That position is extremely reasonable even if it makes genetic scientists gnaw at their fingers in exasperation. We don't exist for their pleasure. Fuck 'em. I want to go slow on this shit.

jellyfish corn tho

it's sweet, nutritious, and stings the fuck out of your face

lol at aimless deploying the interested party line the right's been using in their anti-science tirades for years. huger lol at his deploying their 'fuck scientists' line also.

'of course scientists say global warming is occurring! that's how they get grant money!'

most current PhD students are being driven by intellectual curiosity moreso than profit motive, given that research assistants don't make that much money

"a cat which is in some way superior for human purposes"

trying to figure out what those may be. liek it could glow in the dark?

"this corn has a real bite to it!"

all decisions should be made by uninterested parties with no stake in the outcome btw. leads to v. thoughtful discussions.

seriously dumbest anti-science thing i've read on ilx since josh in chicago argued that non-native species of mosquitos shouldn't be eradicated thru non-pesticide means cuz of 'nature'.

it's fine, when mankind wipes itself from the face of this planet, nature will continue

Satisfying one's intellectual curiosity is a personal gratification. That is to say, it has selfish elements in it. When the average scientist is on the trail of an exciting new discovery, that feeling of excitement is very compelling. The idea that somewhere down the road this discovery may be put to horrific uses is unlikely to deter that scientist from going forward. The ability to live a life of intellectual excitement pursuing his field is strongly motivating to the average scientist. You cannot deny that.

As for global warming, that is a red herring. Argument by analogy where the analogy is weak.

why don't you just say "science scares me so I wish people would proceed slower with this" since that's what your arguments boil down to; it's not even an indefensible position to take

balls, you are talking trash

why don't you just say

Reduce argument to a walking erection joke has been done, dan.

so has the ad hominem attack

are you referring to "dumbest argument"?

Satisfying one's intellectual curiosity is a personal gratification

"why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" - ronald reagan

at least the right is more honest that they don't believe science, are scared and confused by what they do believe, and don't really give a fuck about the environment or whether poor ppl die anyway

Lefty science denialism is the worst.

now genetic modification and personal gratification -- i thing i see where this is going.

yeah but you can't deny that scientists deliberately became scientists and enjoy science and - brace yrself - even paid to do science (some, though not as many as some think, may even find their jobs exciting. they get off on that excitement. they live for it. they come to need it. and eventually, they'll do anything for it.), so of course when you ask one of them about something they're gonna give you some science answer which of course we have no method of testing or verifying. you can't deny this.

To be clearer, the anti-global warming argument is that scientists are fabricating data in order to perpetuate their jobs in a bogus scientific field, and pretending a threat exists in order to add urgency to our need to employ them, so they can save us from this non-existant threat. And those who originated this argument and pay to propagate it clearly profit from the burning of fossil fuels.

By contrast, I am not arguing that anything the scientists are saying is bogus, but rather that the knowlege they are finding, the techniques they create and the claims they publish are all obviously otm. So, to say this is anti-science is incorrect. But just as chemistry PhDs work for chemical companies and mathematics PhDs now work for Wall Street banks, genetic engineers work for Monsanto and other agribusinesses.

The argument is not over whether the science is correct or the scientists are corrupting their data, but an entirely different argument over how to put this new knowlege into the world, and how to do it in such a way that unforeseen consequences are kept to a minimum. I say that profit-driven corporations are not trustworthy enough to make these decisions without oversight.

I say that balls equating this with the anti-global warming argument is superficial and tendentitous, and he is just skating on the thin ice of "lol anti-science" to make his analogy work. If he wants to get into it, let him develop his argument beyond "lol". Otherwise, I get to call bullshit.

feel free druid

The distinction of the scientific method is that it establishes factual knowlege, based on testable hypotheses, repeatable experiments with measurable results, full disclosure of findings, peer review and eventual consnsus among experts in the field. It works just fine, thank you. But scientists who work for Monsanto are not the ones who decide how Monsanto will profit from their work. Those decisions are made by marketers, lawyers, and managers.

Fuck it, if you all want to insist that I am frightened and confused when faced by omg genuine science then feel free. I've made my points. Misunderstand and distort them however you wish. I'm done clarifying. It's your sandbox now.

i will say that the one geneticist i know does work from time to time for monsanto and last year we were all 'how can you be a scientist and vote republican?'. boy has he been laughing it up the past few weeks. gmos are pretty heavy regulated (and the 'monsanto protection act' doesn't change this fwiw) but if you want to actually make an argument for more regulation feel fee, i'm down (feel free to be consistent in applying it to raw milk and homeopathy while you're at it). if you want to actually make an argument against monoculture or about reforming our intellectual property laws (there are even pro-science arguments to be made here though that might make some uncomfortable, the warm loving embrace of mother nature and all that), i'm down. but if you want to make an argument against agriculture that feeds more ppl and reduces negative enviromental impact though and your argument is 'someone somewhere will make money off it, possibly even lawyers' i'm gonna lol, esp if you cloud it w/ vague worry of 'unforseen consequences'. if the 'unforseen consequences' don't have anything to do w/ science (or professional self serving scientists w/ their lies and their extremely exciting lives) let me assure you that regulating gmos out of existence won't actually lead to the overthrow of capitalism. it won't even lead to the overthrow of big agriculture.

You have just provided arguments against about half a dozen things I never argued for. I see though that you had the integrity to make your ascription of these positions to me provisional.

yeah i'm waiting for you to make an actual argument, any argument beyond 'i dunno guys, i getting bad vibes about this'. anytime you're ready.

aimless tbf your concern appears to be rooted completely in your distrust of big ag; we can all sympathize, but the science isn't on your side. watch that video that was posted in the other thread, if you haven't. it's probably a good intro for well meaning enviros

Aimless balls

distrust of big ag is fine, I just don't get why we should disproportionately distrust this one particular kind of big ag

i mean

Aimless balls beef

xp

My argument: when the public demands strong safeguards to regulate the introduction of genetically modified plants and animals into generalized use they are not being anti-science, but rather are recognizing the potential for abuses or harms which are inherent in the capitalist system. When they are sceptical of corporate-financed research into questions of safety, their scepticism is justified by past experience (see the pharmaceutical industry). When they perceive that the stakes are even greater with gmo organisms than with drugs, because food is grown under far less contained and controlled circumstances than the manufacture of drugs and food is consumed by everyone while drugs are consumed by only a fraction of the population, they have a rational point. When they are wary of the potential for industry capture of regulatory agencies producing weak or negligent oversight of industry, they are not imagining this potential. When they maintain a public clamor over these potential dangers, they are using the one political power they have to counteract the many institutional forces which tend to favor profit over safety. And when opponents say that all this amounts to luddite fear and ignorance, they are using scorn and ridicule in place of addressing the legitimacy of these concerns.

If any of those statements is the equivalent of saying gmo foods ought to be banned because omg frankenfood, then you can kick me in the crotch. If you would like to argue against the rationality of any of these, then quote it directly and state why it is misguided or wrong.

Or was I supposed to be defending a completely different set of positions that you find it more convenient to dismiss?

when exactly is when there

clarify

This is like talking to a weight/fortune machine.

i was thinking sarah palin on my end but, again, feel free to clarify

troll

Here are some more bad vibes

http://occupymonsanto360.org/2013/03/02/syngenta-charged-for-covering-up-livestock-deaths-from-gm-corn/

There is still no explanation provided by the authorities as to the cause of death of Gloeckner’s cows. The biotech industry claims that Bt toxins are quickly digested in the stomach and are only effective in insect target species. However, a recent study has found the toxin in the blood of over 80 % of women and their unborn children tested in Canada [5]. Because naturally existing Bt toxins from the soil bacterium have been used for a long time, long-term toxicology and health risk assessments on Bt proteins in GM crops were not done. However, there are important differences between the naturally produced toxins that can be washed off the crops, as opposed to genetically modified toxins that are part and parcel of the GM crop. Independent studies have shown that basing health assessments on flawed scientific assumptions is not only arrogant, but foolish.

Scientific studies dating from the 1990s have identified Bt toxins as potent immunogens, with Cry1Ac inducing immune responses in mice similar to the cholera toxin [6]. Farm workers dealing with Bt cotton have consistently reported allergic responses requiring hospitalisation in some cases (see [7] More Illnesses Linked to Bt Crops, SiS 30). Binding of Cry1Ac to the intestine of mice has been shown, with concomitant diarrhoea symptoms [8]. A meta-analysis of 3 month feeding studies in laboratory animals found that Bt maize led to changes in blood protein levels indicative of abnormal liver metabolism (see [9] GM Feed Toxic, Meta-Analysis Confirms, SiS 52). A recent study finds Cry1Ab toxic to human kidney cells, causing cell death at low doses (see [10] Bt Toxin Kills Human Kidney Cells, SiS 52).

almost every claim that author makes is causally specious. i'd like to read an article that's published somewhere a little more reputable than "occupymonsanto360.org"

i should say "seem", because i'm not reading the other websites the author linked to

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793308/

ok i read that paper. the authors essentially say that the evidence monsanto provided to regulators is really flawed, due either to low standards required by regulating bodies or by deliberately misleading research methods employed by the investigators. to be honest i'm not familiar with the statistical methods they used to interpret the data they were given (methods they had to use since the sample sizes were so small), but their conclusion essentially is that the results are troubling; they call for additional research with longer follow-up, and they m/l echo that nature editorial by saying the research should be more independent. i agree w/ that, and monsanto is awful. the evidence that GM food is harmful is still very weak, though

the evidence that GM food is harmful is still very weak, though

I agree with you, but this paper suggests that the only reason why that is so is probably because no one has yet done the research. and while the minimal research that has been done is far from definitive, it is already far from encouraging -- the only mammals which were tested before market were rats, which developed kidney & liver problems within 3-5 months -- not long enough to prove causation, but that's been the extent of the testing. there's that, and there's the Bt toxins showing up in blood tests instead of being filtered by our livers as advertised: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1388888/GM-food-toxins-blood-93-unborn-babies.html

there was no popular vote to allow this into 87% of our corn supply, and therefore most of what we use to feed our animal livestock, which we then eat. when it comes to the wisdom of splicing a protein that causes an insect's stomach to explode into our own food chain, I would think the burden of proof would be on those arguing for, not those against -- and what this paper is telling us is that the burden has really not been met

the wikipedia post on these issues links to rebuttals on both of the studies I mention: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_maize#Safety_issues

I understand why some have become allergic to anti-GMO activism, especially now that it's reached peak level facebook .jpg dissemination, and I'm pro-GMO research in the abstract. I've certainly got more to read about this, and I appreciate the conversation.

Harking back to my points made upthread, if a corporation holds a patent on a GMO, it is in the interest of that corporation to protect that patent from anything which may tend to lessen its eventual profitability. Hence, if a corporation is required to provide studies and data upon the safety of introducing a GMO into the general environment, it is in the interests of that corporation to provide the very least data acceptable to regulators and to present it in the most favorable possible light.

A market-oriented conservative might argue that the true interest of the corporation is to do due diligence and avoid the liability of introducing a harmful product, but this overlooks the obvious fact that few of their customers will have the financial means or the sophistication to supplement the corporation's original faulty research with better research of greater depth and breadth, and that most government regulatory agencies or research universities can be co-opted through political influence or money. Therefore, if the product makes big profits, those same profits can be used to subvert the system and protect the corporation from liability.

it's easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission