(In reference to my previous thread.) [Redacted]: So confused on the science about GMOs. Me: [begin quote] Yeah, its difficult to maneuver. These are some things to remeber: 1) The organic INDUSTRY is an INDUSTRY under capitalism. Small farmers this and that. Yeah, your best friends uncle is a small farmer. But most of the organic food in our stores is *commercially produced* for profit, owned by the same people who own the conventional farms. Relevance? Youll hear all this stuff about monsanto this and agro-business that as if almost all of the organic food sold here isnt also trying to turn profit. In other words, sources arent neutral(not biased) merely because they arent associated with monsanto or GMO labs. The other important point is that much of this information is directly from these organic NOT SMALL farmers conglomerates who are capitalizing off the general lack of understanding about basic sciences. For example, the idea that natural = good is pure horseshit and any person living in the wild will tell you that thats a great way to get your ass killed. This goes back to my point in the OP about the implicit (most people dont directly think this) assumption that either nothing has evolved for its own survival or that everything has evolved to benefit humans. Its natural, you can pronounce it, so obvs its good. Thats how healthfood stores can get away with selling toxic shit. (Regular stores get away with it because the non-organic crowd doesnt give much of a shit/often dont have other options. Remember that its all largely exploiting ignorance; its just that the non-gmo, organic crowd is a specific consumer base. The goal is to get people to pay more for food thats generally a lot smaller and shittier.) 2) This is not something to just google because so many people get the basics wrong---starting with the fact that weve been genetically modifying food for thousands of years, and that genetically engineering food is merely a more precise way of achieving the same result. Damn near all criticisms dont consider that. For example, What if they cause allergies?! The top ten food allergens, the top ten that kill people --- all food allergens on the market, in fact --- are from conventionally grown food. Peanuts kill lots of people but we dont argue to have them taken out of everything. But the anti-GMO argument takes it a step further! Because one strain of a GMO has an allergen, we should ban GMOs. Following that logic, we should ban conventionally grown food period because a large portion of humans are allergic, and most are intolerant, to at least something within the top ten groups of food! Derp. That also represents a missed opportunity: Itll take work, but we can develop non-allergen foods. The proteins in milk, eggs, soy, peanuts, etc., that people are allergic to? We can get those babies outta there! The sugars (e.g. lactose) that people are intolerant to? We can get the plants to produce larger amounts of the enzymes (e.g. lactase) themselves so people can digest em. The phytates on nuts, grains, and seeds that make them largely undigestible to humans? We can modify that out so we dont need to spend hours soaking/sprouting/fermenting them so we can digest them. Again, its not magic --- I think it took four years to produce an allergen-free strain of soy --- but its an opportunity weve never had before. Back to research. You have to be *really* careful with the books you read. Plenty anti-GMO books will cite a shitton of sources, but theyll typically be to magazines, newspapers, heavily flawed studies and unrelated studies. For example, one of the most widely cited studies is one by a dude(Ill have to look his name up) who studied rats who ate either genetically engineered or non-GE potatoes and concluded that the ones who ate the GMO potatoes had significant organ damage. 1) He studied six rats. 2) He fed them potatoes. Srsly, wtf? 3) He fed some raw potatoes, which are toxic to rats. 3) He didnt record relevant things like the kind of potatoes, how much each rat was fed/ate, etc., so the numbers could not be confirmed and the study could not be reproduced. This was a terrible study, but it wasnt reported that way by the media, and it caused MASSIVE hysteria. Its what officially started everything. Lots of members of scientific organizations were absolutely shocked that one study that had not been reproduced or even peer reviewed would cause such a panic among the public. The result? Data about GMOs became heavily controlled. Its not because of Monsanto. Its because the general public doesnt know how to respond to preliminary data. Or even definitive dats. Remember, it wont be used to prove that that particular strain is dangerous; it will be used to prove that GMOs are dangerous. Peanuts, conventional food, yadda yadda. Another typical example will be of a s study on GMOs not intended for human consumption used to justify how dangerous they are. Derp. Its like banning deodorant because you can prove that its highly toxic when eaten. Well, okay. But it was never meant to be eaten. And, in the case of the anti-GMO rhetoric, you likely will never be told that. A more common but sleezier example is using studies of products intended to be put on the market but isnt because it is show pre-production to contain a suspected allergen or to be toxic. This is a good example of confirmation bias --- particularly of interpreting data to confirm your biases --- because usually the argument is that we dont have tests that can detect potential allergens or toxicity. But suddenly we do when we want to prove that theyre(all of them, not particular strains) super duper allergenic and toxic. Psst. A great source for information is academicreviews refute of the entirety of Jeffrey Smiths Genetic Roulette here: academicsreview.org/reviewed-content/genetic-roulette/ It seems like all anti-GMO books are the same book re-worded, so once youve read one, youve read them all. Consequently, once youve read the refute to one, youve read the refute to them all. [end quote]
Posted on: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 03:37:48 +0000