Genetic Modified Crops to Get Excited About (Unless You’re An Eco-Idiot)
July 17th, 2008
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Genetically Modified crops are something which I generally support. As long as they’re properly tested and regulated they can be extremely beneficial. Really the only issue that I have with them at the moment is the fact that good intellectual property regulations for genetically modified crops have yet to be established. But aside from the legislative issues that still need to be ironed out, the ability to create plants with desirable traits is one of the most important abilities that humanity has. Genetic engineering is simply a tool for doing this which extends our ability beyond the previously established methods of selective breeding and cross-pollination, a method of genetic modification which is as old as civilization itself.
One recent innovation which I consider pretty damn exciting is some recent developments which could dramatically reduce the amount of fertilizer needed for various types of crops which normally require large amounts of nitrogen to be grown properly. Nitrogen is by far the most important fertilizer component and is usually delivered to plants in the form of ammonia compounds. Modern society would not be able to provide food to the current population without the ability to produce ammonia synthetically. However, doing so does take a considerable amount of energy. It also contributes to global warming when the nitrogen compounds decompose to nitrous oxides. Nitrogen fertilizer is critical to modern agriculture but the current production of vast quantities of nitrogen-hungry crops creates a significant burden on soil management and runoff control.
Beyond the fact that nitrogen fertilizers have their own impacts, they also are not avaliable to all areas, especially in their world countries where modern farming techniques are not avaliable and where a bad growing season can mean famine. If it were possible to somehow allow plants to absorb nitrogen more efficiently then the need for fertilizer would be reduced and crops which depend on nitrogen-rich soil would be avaliable to more areas and could be produced in larger volumes with less impact.
Well that seems to now be possible. While researching the properties of canola-producing plants a scientist in Canada discovered that a small genetic change resulted in the plants suddenly absorbing nitrogen with considerably higher effeciency. These plants normally required artificial fertilizer to be grown, but to everyone’s surprise the genetic modification allows them to grow in unfertilized soil that unmodified plants were incapable of normal development in. It turns out that the science team had stumbled onto a gene which existed in many domestic plants all along but had an initiator which was corrupted. In simple terms the gene was “switched off” because the genetic “switch” had a mutation that prevented the gene from initiating. Better still, this same gene seems to be present in rice, corn and other crops! In tests, farmers have been able to maintain normal crop yield with less than half the fertilizer typically used.
And if that’s not good enough, the more effecient uptake of nutrients also increases the drought tolerance of these plants. For those who lack artificial irrigation or live in regions prone to dry periods, this could be the difference between eating well and starvation. And all of this is from the modification of a gene which many plants already have a functional copy of but which some critical food crops have lost the ability to utilize. If this technology does turn out to be as effective for rice, corn and wheat, it could be one of the most revolutionary developments since the Haber–Bosch process.
For those of us who know the first thing about science, agriculture and the realities of the world this is really damn exciting. It has the potential to improve food growing while reducing impacts and expense. It means less energy used and less worries about managing runoff. It also means that production of high calorie, nutritious foods may be more avaliable in places like Africa and South Asia, where poor farmers don’t have access to synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and where the introduction of such crops can both help feed the world and help reduce impacts from clearing of land and depletion of soil.
After all, it’s not “natural” according to someone’s definition and therefore it must be bad and destructive, right? No matter how many lives saved, no matter how much a standard of living can be improved, how many acres of forest can be saved or how much runoff can be prevented, it never matters. Once these assclowns have decided a certain technology or method is unnatural and evil that is that.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 12:34 am and is filed under Agriculture, Bad Science, Enviornment, Good Science, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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July 18th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Okay, I get the whole “turned on” thing and the reference to being excited about this, but I actually think it’s fair to say that this is exciting. Yes, the potential for cutting nitrogen need and making nitrogen absorption more effecient in plants that normally do so poorly is exciting. The potential to get high oil crops to grow in soil that isn’t heavily fertilized is exciting. Yes, I know most people will look at that statement and it is meaningless, but really its potentially very revolutionary. Most nitrates are not absorbed properly and they either break down and oxidize or the are washed away. It is a huge deal and very exciting.
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July 18th, 2008 at 1:30 am
sceptix said:
I don’t honestly know about those in development. The existing treatments for things are generally produced by private companies. In some cases like leprosy, the drugs were developed by private companies but it was groups like the WHO that did a lot of research on figuring out how to use the drugs in combination for maximum effect.
Much of the development work and deployment of things like that for third world countries or poor populations is done a lot by groups like the WHO or the CDC in the United States and other multi-national and national groups. Also universities and that kind of thing are involved. Private companies are part of it though because they do a lot of work like for the big groups. Private drug companies or research companies are contractors and they do much of the work. It’s complicated depending on the circumstances and whether they’re working for keeping the intellectual property or if they’re purely a research outsource.
It’s involved a lot in universities and stuff where there are technologies and things developed that are working with industry for deployment. Usually if the government funds this then the intellectual property is free and public but it’s very dependent on the circumstances. A lot of the time a university or research institute will retain patents and if so they generally are good about releasing them for worthwhile use.
It would likely be a system like this where a lot of the deployment is done by the WHO or something but most of the research is done through private firms and they may do some of it on outsource contract or they will likely invest much of their own in a partnership with the understanding that the WHO or something would be interested in buying the product when and if it is developed. In that case it might be a risk capital thing.
It happens many ways. One thing though is that the mass production and the procedures used to develop and evaluate this stuff was generally all developed by private industry, for the most part.
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July 18th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Finrod: The conclusion is that the correct moral position remains: it is to behave unto your… fellow, whatever…, as you would like them to be done unto you”, isn’t it? Isn’t that what every whatever fake moral standard preaches? Isn’t that what religion tries to teach? Isn’t that what we live up to?
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July 18th, 2008 at 1:36 am
sceptix said:
Bah. People have been saying that forever that humanity is going done the tubes. Human nature is nasty in some ways but it also gets stuff done when you work with it instead of fighting it. Things work now like they did always and the one thing that keeps moving is that as long as comerace is continuing life will generally improve as more things develop. It’s not a path straight up it’s a wobbly line but the trend is upward. Really, there are a lot of doom and gloom things you can look at but the more things change the more they stay the same.
In the 1860’s it was the robberbarrons who were laying track all over the place so people could get from one place to another on a train and not a covered wagon. In the 1900’s it was Henry Ford and making a buck by making a cheaper car and then he got copied by GM and suddenly everyone could buy two per household. Then the Japanese copied them to make money and in the process upstaged them and rebuilt a destroyed nation into an economic power. Then the profiteers of the internet age laid all the fiberoptic cable so we could chat here and they got rich off of it too.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
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July 18th, 2008 at 1:38 am
sceptix said:
Well, you can look at it that way of you could just say that you are better off being reasonably nice to others because if you walk around acting like a douchebag then people won’t like you in general and you can’t expect to be too popular. Besides that, I generally try to do the honest and right thing in general I mean just because it’s the more civil way to be, but I don’t read so much into it. In the end, I’m definitely motivated to do many things by my own wants. Nothing wrong with that, I don’t think.
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July 18th, 2008 at 2:21 am
sceptix said:
That doesn’t answer my question. I asked you whether your adherence to this Christian moral code is what led you to believe and assert in public that the third world should be kept in poverty.
Anyhow, although you didn’t answer that question, you have answered another which was raised in passing by Chem Geek Gregor. The answer is ‘complete’.
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July 18th, 2008 at 2:40 am
I suspect ordinary people today have a higher real standard of living than the feudal lords of old. Are they sadists, more interested in knocking others down than enjoying a high standard of living themselves?
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July 18th, 2008 at 6:35 am
sceptix said:
DDT used in housing is very effective against malaria which is spread mostly by mosquitos that bite at night; combine with bed netting and it’s close to 100%. Eliminating pools of standing water near residences effectively cuts down mosquito prevalence in the area. Using predatory organisms such as fish or methoprene larvacide one can cut down the number of surviving larvae in known breeding grounds. There’s over a dozen effective anti-malarial drugs. There’s development of cheaper anti-malarial drugs, such as artemisinin using genetically modified yeast. Malaria vaccines have been and still are an area of intense research.
It is sheer unadulterated ignorance to suggest that malaria is a low priority. I suspect you are similarly wrong about the other diseases but I don’t know enough to tell.
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July 18th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
George Carty said:
Yes, ordinary people in the western world are healthier, cleaner and live longer than the feudal lords of old. BUT, we ordinary people don’t have their power or leisure. The dreams of these people is NOT to live like a feudal lord of old, but have their power. The pastoral life of contemplation and leisure and being one with the soil and nature they dream of has never ever existed and, given what we (science educated people) know of natural laws and the environment and, historically, human nature, CAN never exist. We have to deal with the universe AS IS, not what we like it to be.
But, some people get really turned on by power OVER others, the main motivation of many in the political arena.
I, and many of my fellow travellers on the science and engineering side get turned on by power FOR others. Especially the nuclear kind.
Our motivation (if I can be so presumtious to speak for most of those I know on my side) is to improve the human condition. This includes protecting the environment, as we see humans as part of it.
The other side sees humans as a disease, which has to be mostly erradicated, except for those on the “correct” path. In that view humans are NOT part and product of nature, but an outside enemy.
Here’s BTW another interresting essay:
http://www.vunet.org/progressive/1210198278-_toeslist__Manufacturing_scarcity_in_an_age_of_abu.html
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July 18th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
KLA said:
Well you definitely are speaking for me. I might add that we cannot discount the general hatred of all things technical by those who do not understand them. Times might have changed, but in my youth as a student I noticed that the most fervent anti-technology types were those that could not understand mathematics, which barred them from understanding anything that depended on it. Not only did they hate everything engineered, but finance as well.
They waxed on about the days when those grounded in the liberal arts were the leading intellectuals of the age, and Natural Philosophy was the domain of the lunatic-fringe.
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July 18th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Yes, I noticed the same. Math is the language of science. People who don’t understand the language feel left out. It’s a form of xenophobia.
I also noticed that the ecotard side has very very few people with a scientific/technical background. And those that are there professionally, are typically individuals who have been washed out of careers and success in science/engineering by beeing too poor and marginal at it. But don’t have the character to admit it to themselves. And no, a successful career making money from science/engineering does not count.
I read recently a good article in SciAm about no-till farming. One of the facts stuck with me. It said that agriculturally based civilisations in the past had typically a lifespan of 800-1000 years, the time it takes to deplete the soil by erosion. Remember, this is the old style “organic” type of farming, before modern agriculture. GM crops, designed for it, allow to grow large quantities of food per acre WITHOUT that soil depletion. Natural plants can only be grown that dense by working the soil intensively, which is not sustainable. It logically follows (if you can think logically, not a given) that GM crops, like nuclear energy, are the ONLY ways to sustain civilization indefinitely.
Though the energy part is more important, because with enough energy we are no longer resource constraint. None of the elements we use in our civilization leave the earth. They just change association with other elements. With plenty of energy we can recycle and make products (or food) out of them indefinitely, as Jerry Pournelle said. The only cost is a small mass-loss involving otherwise environmentally unused elements like uranium and thorium.
Our battle cry should be: E = MC^2
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July 18th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
What do people here think of vertical farms?
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could return most of the land on Earth back to nature, because we were growing our food in giant skyscrapers instead (with a nuclear reactor in the basement to provide lighting for the crops)…
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July 18th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
George Carty said:
Well it’s an interesting idea but I really don’t think it’s that realistic for any kind of mass deployment. The whole idea of growing crops in greenhouses with hydroponic fertilizer and sunlamps and so on has been around since at least the 1960’s, but given the costs and especially the energy needed to pump water, provide fertilizer and light and so on, I don’t think it’s very economical, although a big nuclear reactor could probably provide the energy pretty easily. At this point land is nowhere near a premium enough to make that kind of thing really worthwhile.
I do think in the future it **may** have potential for things like fruits and some vegetables. I could see how a versicle farming method might be useful for an orchard or something. I’ll be the first to admit that for all my love of technology, you just can’t beat the freshness of just-picked newly ripened fruit, at least for certain fruit. So in that circumstance there might be enough of an advantage for those looking for fresh and high quality produce in bringing it closer to population centers and making it more continuous output. Still, probably a long way off for any kind of significant deployment.
But that’s a nitch. As for staple or commodity crops like corn, wheat, rice, soy, canola and such things, I really don’t think it has a reasonable chance of any kind of deployment in the foreseeable future.
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July 18th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
George Carty said:
drbuzz0 said:
Long before that type of farming is cost-effective for cereals we will probably move to vat-grown algae, suitably processed into food-oils and flours as feedstock for finished products including meat substitutes. Even that would free up more than enough land to meet Georges idea.
As for fruits and vegetables only some can be grown hydroponically anyway – that is without a massive redesign of the plant via recombinant genetics. Think of oranges growing on a cucumber vine.
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July 18th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Vertical farming would seem like a good idea to me but for the power requirements. Crops require large quantities of light. If you can somehow provide enough power for the vast number of grow lights required, fair enough. I would think the scheme useless without an extensive, well-developed nuclear power infrastructure… but hopefully we’ll get that someday, so maybe there’s some potential. But remember we’re talking about huge quantities of power.
Of course, plants are typically very inefficient at utilising sunlight, so perhaps some genetically engineered strains could close the credibility gap there.
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July 18th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
DV82XL said:
Um… yeah. Hopefully long before that there will be the development of a vat-grown algae or similar that produces flour that can be used to make things that are more like current wheat-based products and less like current algae-based products.
Anyways, we’re a long way off from either.
As for fruits and such, I remember seeing some very large oranges and lemons growing in a bed of sand and gravel that was being kept wet with a combination of water and nutrients a long time ago when I was at EPCOT at Disney World. This was not a fake, but an actual functional greenhouse type of thing. You could buy the lemon aid and orange drinks and such made from the fruits being grown there. Of course, it was Disney World and the technology was mostly for show, which would be why it was about eight bucks for a small cup of the stuff…
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July 18th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Considering that this site is basically about science and bad science and debating or refuting certain claims that don’t reflect good science, it is pretty amazing to me how often it starts off with something and then evolves into a discussion of whether capitalism is a good or evil way of doing things. I don’t really see the connection. This article even starts off by drawing a distinction between GM crop science and technology versus the political concerns that might come up.
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July 18th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Q said:
Capitalism is, for all it’s perceived faults, is the best reflection of how humans naturally want to exchange value, all other systems must force humans to act against their own better judgment.
Good science is a reflection of how the universe works, while bad science, by definition comes from ignoring some salient truth and substituting an imaginary one.
In both cases reality is ignored. In my experience, those that choose to ignore scientific realities, also tend to ignore social ones as well. Thus it is unsurprising that these two themes mix on this site. How often have we seen someone asserting that the debate between renewables and nuclear is driven only by capitalist concerns, not technical ones.
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July 19th, 2008 at 3:46 am
The Soviet system collapsed largely because it lacked a timely feedback mechanism (Five Year Plans and all that). Imperial overstretch also had a lot to do with it.
I wonder if a “cyber-Communist” economy, making planning decisions in real time with the help of a computer network, could be just as good as a capitalist economy. (Or even better, if sophisticated algorithms were used to avoid the metastable states in which capitalist systems can become trapped.)
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July 19th, 2008 at 5:07 am
George Carty said:
I wonder how the average western consumer would feel about the prospect of having the Supreme Central Economic Management IT System deciding that in the interests of society, that steak dianne he or she just ordered should instead be a pasta dish… or that their personal circumstances would be better served by catching the bus instead of buying that car they had their eye on.
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July 19th, 2008 at 5:32 am
Capitalism doesn’t always provide people with what they need (or even what they want) either — it provides whatever can be sold at a profit. This makes it prone to bubbles in goods which are intrinsically scarce (such as real estate, as per the article KLA mentioned in post 59).
As for “metastable states” which capitalism could become trapped in, I could cite Microsoft’s domination of computer operating systems (which was built on backward compatibility at the expense of efficiency), or the current preference for natural gas powerplants rather than nuclear ones…
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July 19th, 2008 at 6:52 am
Have you read James Heartfield’s The New Socialism of Fools?
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July 19th, 2008 at 8:41 am
George Carty said:
I wonder what this has to do with GM crops?
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July 19th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
My apologies everyone!
As DV82XL said, I might have become a “pain in the butt”, the other day, because it felt like I was under attack for having a different point of view and being an outsider. DV82XL seems to have turned against me when I “thanked him for his input”, when I actually meant “I’m glad you said that”. I wasn’t dismissing his argument, but actually thought it would bring a new angle to the discussion. And I’m not just whining right now…
I actually took the time to see where this was going and read some interesting thoughts. Thank you all for sharing those.
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July 20th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Nothing really. I’m just trying to counter the American belief that capitalism is the One True Way, because I believe that the fight against anti-human reactionary environmentalism is something which goes beyond capitalism and socialism. We should first defeat the enemies of progress before arguing as to which system is best at producing progress.
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July 20th, 2008 at 9:35 am
I am saddened that even people who are knowledgeable enough to create the articles on this website are dismissive and condescending of points of view. Using labels and categories to dismiss others and their arguments do not make you more convincing.
Current testing and regulation of GM is hardly sufficient. Don’t think the FDA is on the side of protecting consumers or respecting science. The Bush administration has shown the great influence the President can effect on the agency. (See: FDA preventing private corporation from testing their cattle for BSE) The tests that I am aware of have all been small, short, and isolated. The environmental impact can be disastrous with GM crops. It would be akin to introducing a new specie, and therefore deserve large extended studies. Unlike anthrax, cloning, and whatever else most people are afraid of, GM could wreak havoc on the ecology on a large scale, and potentially damage species of plant or animal that are beneficial to us. A misstep now could result in uncorrectable disaster in the future.
Anyhow, I’m all for research. I’m not for commercialization, until much broader tests are done, especially for modifications that give a plant such a large advantage.
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July 20th, 2008 at 10:29 am
penoyer said:
Honestly now: would there be any amount of testing that would satisfy critics like you? I mean if your going to presume that the bodies responsible for the process are corrupt what’s the point of testing at all.
The other thing is that crops with limited gene pools are not such a big hazard; it’s not as if Roundup is found in the environment from natural sources thus there is really no issue if they escape. In fact I suspect that most GM plants would fair badly against indigenous flora, simply because they have been designed to flourish in very specialized niches.
As I said up thread, maize (corn) is one of the most artificial of plants, it depends utterly on humans for its continued existence. It simply cannot survive in the wild. Nor for that matter would dairy cows, they couldn’t survive predation, it’s unlikely that they could survive winter/dry seasons. Consequently the perceived threat from GM, at least from this angle, is somewhat overblown. The truth is that hybrids in general don’t do well in the wild regardless of how they were made.
That is not to say there are not some real issues with this technology, not the least of which is the bullying tactics of some of the companies that sell these seeds. For example their contention that farmers whose crops have been fertilized by pollen from GM strains from neighboring fields, are guilty of theft if the farmer uses these plants a seed-stock, is a bit much. Their high-handedness both in the West and in the Developing world, isn’t doing them any PR favors, and is not helping acceptance of the technology in general.
That being said, ultimately this is really the way we have to go, there isn’t much choice if we want to provide food and fiber to a growing population.
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July 21st, 2008 at 7:19 am
penoyer said:
Genetically modifed crops are a less harsh and less unpredictable alternative to the radiation or carcinogen induced mutation breeding we’ve been doing for many decades without any sort of safety testing.
Now why on Earth doesn’t mutation bred crops need the same safeguards? Why don’t ‘natural’ crops that we’ve created by traditional breeding techniques such as artificial selection and hybrization in the last few thousand years get a free pass?
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July 21st, 2008 at 7:20 am
fixed errata:
Soylent said:
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July 21st, 2008 at 4:54 pm
DV82XL said:
Critic like me? Why do you feel the need to classify away people who don’t agree with you? And while you’re at it, what are the defining characteristics of “critic like me”? Is it anyone who wants an extended study? How does this mean I can’t be pleased? Honestly, learn to have a material discussion. Why not address specific issues of testing? How is the current testing sufficient? Are there studies that are not small, short, and isolated?
Anyhow, onto refuting your other points:
Believing the FDA cannot be trusted to create and require sufficient testing does not mean that testing is invalid. Your argument doesn’t follow. I did not state, or imply that the FDA can not be trusted to do a scientific study. In a federal agency, political appointees dominate the top positions of the hierarchy in an agency, while the bottom of the hierarchy (including the research scientists) are long term employees, hired based on merit (hopefully). Therefore, the FDA can probably still conduct science, but the policy derived from that science, or even determining what experiments will be conducted — that is all at the whims of the current administration. Anyhow, even if the FDA can’t be trusted to truthfully report experiments (such as happened already at the EPA in relation to ground water contamination, or NASA with global warming), testing can still be done by independent researchers, which is how most research in this country gets done.
You raise up Roundup, but my post is addressing the article, which is about ability to fix nitrogen. The amount of testing should definitely vary with the amount and type of modification made. In this case, a benefit that can make a plant grow much more quickly and in poorer soil, ranks in my list as higher potential for danger, then resistance to a specific herbicide. This also sounds like an ability that would allow the crops to survive beyond “specialized niches”, though I plead insufficient information to be confident about this. If all GM crop are highly unlikely to perish without human aid, then I stand corrected.
Even aside from specific GM modifications, I would appreciate testing on the likelihood of these modifications crossing fields or crossing species. If this probability is not insignificant, then it is better to find out now rather than later. This could lead to different methods of GM, for example spreading the changes over several genes, to lower the risk.
The rest of your post is about the business practices and not science. I think the testing issue is more important, because policy can always be changed, but growing a GM crop without testing could let out a harm that cant be easily controlled.
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July 21st, 2008 at 6:21 pm
penoyer said:
The the defining characteristics of a critic like you are as follows: They start the majority of their arguments with a general attack on our motivations, or dialectic style, and our dismissal of those who will not debate with facts, logic or references. They assume all government and corporations are innately corrupt and any data (that doesn’t support their stand) is suspect. They demonstrate a complete lack of foundational knowledge of the subject at hand, and haven’t made the effort to acquire it by, at the very least, reading the relevant Wikipedia entries and often question our qualifications when someone here takes the time to write a lengthily explanation for their benefit. They often frame their arguments as a demand to prove a negative. They are insulted when their positions are not given the same weight as those from posters that have done their homework, and supplied references.
penoyer said:
You are begging the question here. You wrote in post 76:
penoyer said:
A competent study with the results suppressed, is more or less the same as a biased study. At any rate turning to private research is hardly the answer as I can assure you that they are more easily swayed by external pressure than government researchers are.
penoyer said:
This is where reading the linked articles would have served you better. Nitrogen-use-efficient modification is not giving the plant the ability to fix it’s own nitrogen from the atmosphere. It only makes the plant use more of the nitrates supplied to it via supplementary fertilization. Varietal cultivars developed for commercial use tend to demand more nutrients than their wild progenitors, ether because they are coming to maturity early, or because they are growing overdeveloped tissue.
For example the carrot was breed out of a plant, very much like Queen Anne’s Lace, with a small and unremarkable taproot no bigger than a cigarette. The hybrid being massive in comparison needs much greater resources to develop big and quickly. If you have ever spent some time in an older vegetable garden that has gone wild for several seasons, you will find that may of the species there have regressed back to a more appropriate physiology for that area. Carrots in particular become very small and pale, Natural selection works against artificial selection; it doesn’t amplify it.
penoyer said:
Crossing species is not a significant risk. Simply because new genetic material has been introduced from the outside doesn’t mean by any stretch of the imagination that it can leap back out and infect other organisms. Again I refer you to the basics here. You would not ask this question had you done some background reading on the subject.
penoyer said:
That was not addressed specifically, to you, but to the thread in general.
penoyer said:
Again I ask you: given that you have demonstrated very little understanding of the topic in general, how would you evaluate the results of any testing done in this area? If all you are concerned about are the issues that you have tabled here, these simple questions have been answered by the research done to date, as have issues like potential impacts to humans eating GM food. There are issues, both scientific and political that need to be dealt with with G.M. in general, including vulnerability issues of monocropping plants with a small fixed gene pool, and secondary impacts on soil flora and fauna, to give two examples, but these never seem to come up, nor do the political ones beyond vague concerns about the fate of Third-world peasants ‘forced’ to quadruple their yields.
If you find us (or me in particular) dismissive, you must understand that we have heard it all before.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 1:44 am
George Carty said:
No, capitalism alone certainly cannot provide for everthing in a society. I’m not a purist on the issue and I personally recognize that it is just as flawed to be a fundamentalist for the absolutely free market. While I think that by and large the free market tends to get things done pretty effeciently there are things that it doesn’t do. These include such things as high-investment science projects without an obvious and immediate payback, the maintenance of resources which have a low probability of being needed but a high stratigic value if needed and of course things like enforcing laws and providing social programs (which I think there is a need for… within reason… I don’t mind social programs as long as they’re targeted and not bloated and inefficient)
Then beyond that a free market without a good monetary system alone can make some dramatic swings, so there needs to be government control of the monetary policy that keeps inflation in relative check and allows for the capital needed. There also should be government backed insurances for critical things like savings accounts, enforcement of contracts and audits of securities. Above all else, I have no tolerance at all for big companies that don’t play fair, attempt to get government aid in gaining advantages or practice anti-competitive tactics like trying to corner regional markets or price fixing. I think they should be punished severely.
I’m somewhat libertarian, but not an anarchist. The government has a job. It has vital job. It’s just that it’s job is not to do everything and be everything.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 1:50 am
penoyer said:
Well for one thing, I’m assuming you’re talking about the FDA in the US, as other countries have agencies by the same name. Does the FDA approve GM crops? Do they have anything to do with it? I’m pretty sure it’s the USDA that handles that. The FDA and the USDA split responsibilities on food products, but usually the FDA is pretty limited except on processed foodstuffs and wouldn’t do much with agriculture or how it’s grown.
Also, as far as the Bush administration being the cause of every evil at the FDA or whatever agency, I find it fascinating that according to a lot of conspiracy theorists, Bush seems to have some big favors to do every company on the face of the earth. He is constantly helping the oil companies, the drug companies, the military contractors, the genetic engineering firms, the telecoms, the banks… I mean the Bush family and his advisers and such are reasonably wealthy, but I don’t think they hold a stake in every single industry and every single corporation on the face of the earth. Or is it that he’s getting paid off? My god, he must be making trillions!
And by the way, I’m no fan of Bush.. I just don’t think he’s the mastermind of a plot to make every evil big company richer by killing us all.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 6:01 am
DV82XL said:
Please accept my apologies for my general attack on you. I had no idea, expressing my disappointment (“saddened”) would upset your delicate sensibility. I had no idea you cared so deeply about my happiness. I now see that calling the author “knowledgeable” is really questioning his credentials.
Compare your replies and mine. The irony. I hope you hold yourself to a mirror and see how your critiques more aptly applies to you. Feel free to back up your accusations. Where did I do the following before you labeled me a “critic like you”:
Start with a general attack?
Assume all government and corporations are innately corrupt? (Besides, wouldn’t a corrupt corporation be one that doesn’t try to maximize shareholder profit.)
Demonstrate a complete lack of of foundational knowledge?
Haven’t made any effort to acquire it?
Question your qualification? (While we’re at it, where did you provide a lengthy explanation addressing my concerns?)
Demand to prove a negative?
Convey that I am insulted because my position is not given the same weight as others? (Oh, did you supply references somewhere?)
Anyhow, since you feel Wikipedia is a benchmark for “foundational knowledge” I went through their articles on GM food and transgenic plants. I learned more, but nothing that is persuasive about the points in our exchange. Perhaps, you would benefit from reading the Wikipedia page on transgenic plants, since a significant portion of it is about the danger of cross species gene transfer. Feel free to point me to more “basics”, because I would rather learn and be corrected, then spending time countering your haughty attacks.
Learn what it means to “prove a negative”. If you simply point out one study that answers my concern, you would’ve proven a positive — and shortened this discussion to a meaningful discourse rather than an excuse for self-righteousness diatribe.
DV82XL said:
So that you may understand the irrelevancy of your comment, here is some “foundational knowledge” on “begging the question” for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
Feel free to counter with why the FDA (or USDA as another poster pointed out) should be trusted to require sufficient testing. In case you need more “foundational knowledge” on the matter:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/appointments/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Integrity_in_Policymaking
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5554/is_200212/ai_n21812134
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07EED81138F93AA25755C0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html?scp=1&sq=nasa%20climate%20change&st=cse
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002215449_mercury22.html
Combined with your claims that independent studies are even less reliable, I’m even more perplexed why you think current studies and testing requirements are sufficient.
DV82XL said:
Personal attack on me… check. Does not address issue… check.
Yes, I have read the linked article. Do you even remember what the article of this website said? There isn’t even a need to go the linked article, since the post on this site states the GM “allows them to grow in unfertilized soil.” This is the basis for my statement that these GM plants can survive in “poorer soil”, and not confined to the “specialized niches” as you claimed.
DV82XL said:
Perhaps you should read the Wikipedia entries, especially the one on transgenic plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenic_plant#Ecological_risks). You might have missed “The potential impact on nearby ecosystems is one of the greatest concerns associated with transgenic plants.” or “It is understood, as a basic part of population genetics, that the spread of a transgene in a wild population will be directly related to the fitness effects of the gene in addition to the rate of influx of the gene to the population. Advantageous genes will spread rapidly, neutral genes will spread with genetic drift, and disadvantageous genes will only spread if there is a constant influx.” or “The ecological effects of transgenes are not known. . . “
DV82XL said:
I don’t think you asked that ever before, but whatever. You obviously believe that you are right and believe that you know the study(ies) that would address my concern, but due to some perverse pleasure derived from being arrogant, won’t share it. My point is that I know no study addressing my concern, not that such a study is flawed. Certainly, if I were trying to argue about that the conclusion of a study is wrong, then I would need to be more knowledgeable. However, we are not even at the stage, since you are happier insulting me rather than proving me wrong.
DV82XL said:
Whatever makes you feel better about being rude and pompous.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 6:38 am
drbuzz0 said:
I think you are right. One of the wikipedia pages I read (because of another poster) states that USDA, EPA, and FDA are all involved for evaluating GM within their areas of respective competencies.
drbuzz0 said:
I don’t follow conspiracy theorists, but I think the common understanding for why the Bush administration favors removing regulations and making it easier for business is because of their conservative ideology. It is just another step to try to stem the events that cause the creation of new regulation, including scientific experiments.
As to military contractors, I think this also flows from conservatism — by privatization.
As to the banks (ie Bear Sterns), I think that came from Ben Bernanke, who operates independently of the President and his administration, and generally free of partisanship.
As to the telecom, the retroactive immunity is crucial to maintain the integrity of a Republican administration. If the Republicans were unable to get retroactive immunity through no private entity would blindly trust a Republican administration (perhaps any administration, or executive action).
Again, since I don’t know what conspiracy theorists you are talking about, I am just giving the common understanding of why the administration pushed for those policies.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I truly hate engaging with fools and you penoyer, are one of the biggest I have run into on this site. I don’t appreciate my remarks being attributed to others, particularly negative ones.
For the record, you unobservant nit-wit, I am DV82XL a Canadian living in Montreal – Dr Buzzo is an American, we are two different people, please address your remarks to the appropriate individual
Nor am I impressed by dissemination. Please note that I said; “at the very least, reading the relevant Wikipedia entries,” hardly a statement that ‘Wikipedia is a benchmark for “foundational knowledge” as you reported. In fact I have a well developed contempt for that project as a quick search against my name there will tell.
Yes you were begging the question. If you cannot see that your statement attempted to assume the proposition to be proved explicitly in your initial premise, I suggest you look again.
Frankly I don’t give a damn if you attack me personally, nor do I think in a bad science blog that attracts all sorts of delusional posters that I should not as well. Again an attempt at dissemination, as I only pointed out that it is a property of your type of critic to begin an argument this way.
If you think the the sources you listed constitute any sort of foundational knowledge in botany, or biology, let me immediately disabuse you of that notion. Nor do I consider myself bound to provide you with a list that a Google search on the topics will generate.
There is nothing more I wish to say to you, if you intend to behave like an idiot, you can go to hell.
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July 29th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Has anyone done a calculation of how much energy 8 billion people would need just to provide the necessities of life? If it is higher than can reasonably be obtained from renewables alone, then it ought to be game over for the anti-nuclear environmentalists…
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September 6th, 2008 at 3:31 am
Holy ****, Doc, this is one of the most exciting things I’ve heard all year. It’s a shame the linked press release is so short, I’ve got to read more about how they identified the gene and then run some cross-species sequence queries to find out what other crops it appears in.
This should have been all over the news, and it’s because of twits who want to suppress GMO crops based on nothing but superstition and fear that the rest of the world doesn’t learn about these developments. Cheap, hardy, low-investment, lower-maintenance, abundant food will lead to abundance and greater prosperity for everyone in the entire world.
Monsanto will of course make an enormous profit off its licensing of Arcadia Biosciences’ technique, and for this, more power to them. It’s how the free market works — people *want* higher-yield crops and this is one of the simplest, most direct ways of achieving that I’ve ever seen. I don’t agree with many of Monsanto’s corporate practices (monocultures are a real danger even to diploid plants, bacteria/fungi/viruses mutate on their own very quickly), but it is my fervent hope that as more and more people learn about biotechnology and how it works, we will see a renaissance in “open-source” biological research in much the way that we have an open-source software community which powers enormous amounts of the information economy (eg the 61.25% of web servers which run Apache, the open-source webserver). Competition from other companies can also drive advances in this field directly, and it pisses me off that groups like Greenpeace are trying to cut GMO crops off at the knees. This *is* the future of the world we’re talking about, and what they don’t realise is that a future without GMO crops will be a future with more hardships for everyone as our population continues to grow. It’s not going to stop growing, either. It’s so sad that Greenpeace claims to care so much about people but espouses policies that are already condemning millions in the third world to poverty and starvation.
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September 6th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Yeah more research in the public sector and universities would help, because that kind of stuff is generally going to be more open-source.
Also, I think more businesses getting into this would help too. There’s usually more than one way to improve a crop or to achieve an end goal. For example, you could try to attack the nitrogen angle by improving uptake or by improving utilization or by creating more effecient root structures. If you have more wholesale research and more companies involved, that’s competition and it will drive the prices down.
Let me make sure to point out that while I’m 100% optomistic about this from a science and technology view, I’m more than willing to admit that GM crops do pose issues in legality, copyrights, patents and regulation that are not well established by copyrights. So, much as they have scientific potential, we do need to make sure that we put in good regulations that both encourage innovation and deployment and at the same time prevent companies from becoming too aggressive in cornering the market or overreaching with their patents.
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September 6th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I think one of the big worries about these nitwits and the whole religious anti-genetic-engineering movement should be that they have framed the issue as very black and white. they want to stop GE’ed food crops and others want to have them and, although ultimately I think they will loose, my worry is that since there is so much concentration on “should they be allowed at all” we’ll miss the opportunity to make sure the laws and regulations are established RIGHT.
as doc says, this is a new area and we have the opportunity now to set the legal precedents that will regulate this. We need the regulations to be careful to make sure only safe, well-tested products that won’t cause allergies or anything are in the market, but we can’t forget the other part of this: We want it to be written to encourage research by open-source entities like universities, like government science programs. We want to be sure that there is not a patent process that allows one organization to become too controlling of the technology by using too broad a patent process or claiming something they’re not entitled to. We want to encourage more and more of these products from more companies (competition = lower prices, more innovation, more choices).
There are companies out there who have GM products already and for them the best thing the law can do is give them 100% power to retain the rights to those indefinately, to patent very broad processes, to exert control on the product, to have no other smaller companies come in and start marketing competitive products. No doubt they will lobby for very broad protection. Generally big monopolies happen because these companies get too much government protection. We can’t let that happen! This is too important for that.
We need to stop DMCA or copyright crap from becoming a rubber stamp that keeps one company in control of a genetic technology. We need to set down good rules and regulations that will allow more into the market.
I think that this ridiculous debate from Greenpeace and FOE et. al. is totally obscuring the real issue here and the real issue is an important one!
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September 6th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Absolutely agreed! We’ve already seen the kinds of damage that too-broad patents can cause in the software world, and when I talk with patent reform advocates I always make sure to bring up biotechnology, because the lessons that we’ve learned about software patents apply quite well in that field as well.
When I was working on my PhD, I had an internship in the bioinformatics group at Integrated DNA Technologies, an oligonucleotide manufacturer in Coralville, Iowa. The unofficial motto of the bioinfo group was “We don’t sell software, we sell oligos.” The group has a web-based genetics design toolkit, SciTools, which anyone — a pharmaceutical company, a university, you, me — can use to design primers for all kinds of processes, completely free. You have to pay for the actual oligos if you want them manufactured and sent to you, but the design toolkit is free for anyone to use. You could even use it to design a sequence and then have another company manufacture it (or I guess you could manufacture it yourself if you had a synthesizer, it’s not that complicated of a machine but the reagents are kind of expensive) — but it’s so much more convenient to just click “Order Now” and boom, the oligos show up in the mail a week later. (Or faster if you pay for expedited service.) It made the company a ton of money, too!
Plus the researchers are really great guys and a lot of fun just to hang out with. I’m still in touch with some of them three years later.
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October 30th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
KLA said:
Did samizdat really play that much of a role? I thought that communism was bankrupt as an ideology long before the Soviet Empire actually fell (else why did hundreds die trying to escape from East Germany?) Persecution of Christians and Muslims (which made religious people everywhere willing to fight Communism to the death) and definition of “proletarian internationalism” as “service of the USSR’s interests” (which meant that patriots outside the Soviet Union viewed support for Communism as tantamount to treason) were two of the biggest reasons for this lack of legitimacy.
Wasn’t it a combination of the Afghan quagmire, cheap oil and gas (which was dreadful for the world’s nuclear industry, but also deprived the Soviets of vital hard currency) and hi-tech electronics and computers (which the Soviets couldn’t match with their heavy-industrial command economy, and which for example allowed Israel to destroy the entire Soviet-made Syrian air defence network in 1982, for the loss of only one of their own planes), which ultimately killed the Soviet Empire?
Didn’t the Communist victory in Vietnam (won thanks to piggybacking onto a patriotic war of liberation) also turn out to be pyrrhic, as it encouraged the Soviets to overextend themselves in Africa and Latin America?
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February 7th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Getting back on topic, has anyone read this posting about how Greenpeace has been paid over two million dollars to oppose GM crops?
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February 7th, 2009 at 11:11 am
George Carty said:
You’re right, George. I’ve looked into this a bit and it’s a bit strange and raises a red flag. Of all the donations to Greenpeace that are large and come with some kind of earmark for use in a given area, it seems like it’s dominated by donations which are expressly marked for opposing GM crops. The other groups like FOE seem to have similar donations.
They come from a number of charitable foundations and one thing I found out is that it’s amazing how difficult it is to really trace the money and control through these groups. You might think these groups would be open about their finances and control but they’re not. They only publish the minimum data required on their grants and donations they receive.
However, if you look at the whole picture a few of the groups seem to be donating huge amounts of money to enviornmental groups and to groups that exist only to oppose GM crops and promote “Sustainable” and “Organic” agriculture. I’m talking many millions of dollars.
The Turner foundation is one. They’re one of the few that has well known leadership and activities. Others include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The John Merck Fund.
Like I said, it’s very difficult to see who might be influencing or running these groups. They do publish their board of directors but that only tells you so much.
I theorize that it could be some of the big agra interests who are pushing for this. Ted Turner has a lot of agricultural interests. I suspect that perhaps groups like ADM, Cargill, Bunge etc might have something to do with this. It helps their interests to keep production relatively low, especially by other growers and countries.
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February 7th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
There are a number of commercial interests who that are opposed to GM crops for business reasons. We can start with farmers unions who feel that their members will be railroaded into a state of servitude to the GM companies, and will have no choice in the matter if they can’t compete with non-GM crops. Then there is the food processors who will have to label their products even if there is a chance that GM components are in the food. Finally grocers groups who see no advantages to having this stuff on the shelf, but plenty of problems with their clients.
Because of the ‘frankenfood’ attitudes of a small vocal minority, these groups think that GM foods are more trouble then they are worth.
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April 1st, 2009 at 1:42 am
George Carty said:
Or maybe not – someone on Daily Kos has posted an attack on the anti-nukes which is almost exactly how I though anti-nukes should be attacked, and got nowhere (with even other pro-nuclear posters accusing him of being unhelpful…)
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