Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/03/mark_lynas_environmentalist_who_opposed_gmos_admits_he_was_wrong.html

by ssclafani • 14 years ago

59 82 14 years ago

slate.com

graeme6• 14 years ago

Google Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HiRysAG...

I'll post my comment separately once I've looked at it.

iand2• 14 years ago

Site is down due to overload. Here's the paper:

http://www.ofc.org.uk/files/ofc/papers/mark-lynas-lecture-ox...

Here's the video:

http://www.ofc.org.uk/videos/2013/mark-lynas-changing-perspe...

graeme6• 14 years ago

His views are insubstantial. His main argument is that his previous ad hominem positions were not sufficient to condemn GMOs (correct) and that GMOs haven't caused any problems yet.

He has not presented evidence that GMO's are safe. He has two main arguments:

1. Trial and error crossbreeding affects entire genes. 2. Viruses sometimes spread genes from one organism to another.

First, trial and error crossbreeding isn't likely to produce anything catastrophic. We've been interbreeding plants for milennia. Current techniques may be more risky, but generally speaking it should be hard for plants to produce a horrid mutation based on natural interbreeding mechanisms.

Second, just becauses cross species gene transfers do occur doesn't mean that it's safe when we do it. If such transfers have occurred in nature for a long, long time, then it's safe to say that nature has created pathways that are safe. Our pathways are new.

I'm making a Talebian argument here. Nature is a VERY complex system. When we mess with it, we make incremental visible gains, and run the risk of large, invisible losses.

It means nothing to say that GMOs haven't caused harm yet. All it would take would be ONE catastrophic GMO plant to cause large amounts of damage. By definition, we won't be able to foresee this until it happens.

HN is a very tech positive community, and also a community that's very aware of the complexity of large system, and their fragility when meddled with. When considering GMOs, many forget complexity due to a pro-technology attitude.

iand2• 14 years ago

I read his argument differently. He is not claiming they are safe in an absolutist sense, merely that they are safe enough to alleviate the food shortage the world faces without them.

DanBC5• 14 years ago

The world doesn't face a food shortage. We already have enough food. We just don't distribute it.

One of the big concerns is micronutrients in Asia. We don't need GMOd crops for vitamin and mineral supplementation.

bascule• 14 years ago

I'm curious what sort of realistic disaster scenario you think might occur due to cross-species gene transfer (and for that matter, purely synthetic genes) in GMOs, and how the existing safeguards are inadequate against it. Normally I'm against FUD, but please, go nuts, so long as there's a reasonable chance of it occurring (i.e. we're not talking about a mad scientist who wants to create man-eating plants)

DanBC5• 14 years ago

Weed-killer resistance transfers to a weed, helping boost it to invasive species?

Some mutation makes crop more vulnerable to a particular plant virus, destroying 80% of that crop in EU or US?

A huge multinational wants to include "TERMINATOR GENES" in their crops to make sure the cropped seed cannot grow; environmentalists freak out at the name and oppose that; the multinational doesn't include that gene but now inspect the fields of people on the route of seed delivery and if they find any gene-manipulated crop (which is probable from wind-blown seed) they sue the farmer into oblivion.

celiac4• 14 years ago

A protein is added that adversely affects the gut. Think gluten.

kjackson2012• 14 years ago

300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide in the past 15 years because of the monopoly that GMO companies have over seeds with patents. What used to be previously free now costs farmers a huge amount of money with promises of great returns. However, in the past few years, these GMO crops have had tremendous crop failures, and have instead bankrupted the farmers that used them.

Hundreds of thousands of farmers taken advantage of by a monopolistic GMO company and ruins the lives of countless families sounds like a real-life disaster scenario to me.

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2012/11/why-are-in...

Ygg2• 14 years ago

Their seeds are known to mingle with domestic corn varieties creating corn that is unusable for consumption. That to me seems like a legit reason to be careful around them.

Basically if you a corn farmer, have people around you start planting Monsanto Corn, you have two options: change to Monsanto or switch professions.

manicdee4• 14 years ago

Extensive use of Roundup Ready crops leads to evolution of weeds that are resistant to glyphosate.

How do you prepare fields for cropping if all the weeds are resistant to herbicides? Use stronger herbicides? How is this not an environmental disaster?

What happens when altering the gene of a wheat plant to make it resistant to rust ends up adding a cumulative poison (e.g. a protein or prion associated with the rust resistance) causing the body to leech calcium from bones? Over 30 years we figure the gene was safe, then comes a 100 year long epidemic of brittle bones due to the rust gene being forgotten and no un modified wheat being available to breed clean strains from.

Or leaving the food chain entirely: what about living in a world where you are not allowed to grow food plants in your own backyard and collect the seeds yourself to provide for next year's crop?

Why do we have to increase the food supply to feed an ever-expanding population?

enraged_camel3• 14 years ago

>>I'm making a Talebian argument here. Nature is a VERY complex system. When we mess with it, we make incremental visible gains, and run the risk of large, invisible losses.

I've never understood this argument. It basically amounts to "yes, there are advantages to GMOs, but we haven't found any disadvantages yet, therefore they are unsafe!"

This is basically the equivalent of early seafarers being afraid of uncharted waters and writing on their maps "here be dragons".

edit: I should also point out that the complexity of a system does not necessarily mean that messing with it will cause problems. If anything, that same complexity may include many fail-safe mechanisms to prevent problems when the system is messed with.

pyre2• 14 years ago

If an early seafarer went down with his/her ship, it didn't affect a significant portion of the population. GMO foods are more like, "Hey look! I invented this new banana in a test tube! It looks safe, so it must be! Here eat it! Does it cause problems when you eat these types of bananas for 20 or 30 years? Who knows! Just eat it, it looks safe!"

ScottBurson3• 14 years ago

There's a huge middle ground between "proven safe" and "proven unsafe". People in this debate seem to forget that.

Personally, I want pretty good evidence that something is safe before putting it in my body. If the mere lack of evidence that it's unsafe is sufficient for you, well, that's your choice.

pohl2• 14 years ago

I've never understood this argument. It basically amounts to "yes, there are advantages to GMOs, but we haven't found any disadvantages yet, therefore they are unsafe!"

You've got the wrong thing after "therefore". The argument you're trying to paraphrase would probably advocate the Precautionary Principle instead:

"... if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

bitcartel• 14 years ago

Mark Lynas will find a new career in bad Christmas cracker jokes.

Q. What do you call someone who supports nuclear power, shale gas fracking and GM crops?

A. An environmentalist.

CamperBob23• 14 years ago

When we mess with it, we make incremental visible gains, and run the risk of large, invisible losses.

There are uncountable ways in which we all "mess with" Nature on a daily basis, both individually and as a society. Why single out this one?

graeme6• 14 years ago

Because of the way we run our agricultural system. We tend to use monocultures, or 'ogilopolies' of certain plant varieties.

Past plant varieties were more likely to be safe from hidden vulnerabilities due to the process that created them. Even so, some plants were wiped out by a single surprise event, such as during the Irish potato famine.

If, as I argue, GMO crops present more hidden risks, then we are increasing the odds of a catastrophic failure of a staple crop.

Growth in the food supply tends to produce a growth in population. This new population is dependent on food supply staying at least at it's current level. If a staple crop fails, then the consequences will be dire. There is little slack in the system.

fennecfoxen2• 14 years ago

Without addressing the validity or invalidity of your assessment of the merits of his position (or the position itself), his views are insubstantial (or at least of limited substance) for some other reasons too.

For instance, while he appeals to science and reason here, not all the organic-enviro-antiGMO complex holds its positions for reasons of science. There's a substantial number of people for whom it is part of superstitious and para-religious reasoning behind peoples' objections. (In other news, Whole Foods sells homeopathic remedies.) Even beyond the superstitious, there are a lot of anti-GMO advocates whose primary form of investment is emotional, not intellectual. (Actually, you could probably say that about most political positions...)

It's easy enough to treat the guy as a heretic in that sort of environment.

cheeseprocedure5• 14 years ago

> Current techniques may be more risky, but generally speaking it should be hard for plants to produce a horrid mutation based on natural interbreeding mechanisms.

What about the (widespread) practice of mutation breeding? [1] Blasting seeds with X-rays and gamma rays in an attempt to generate new cultivars is a genetic wrecking ball compared to performing genetic engineering.

Conventional breeding has given us plenty of Oopses. The modern kiwifruit, whose progenitor (the smaller and less tasty Chinese gooseberry) may have been safely snacked upon by many folks who would today suffer a lethal allergic reaction after eating a kiwi. In the 1980s, a mutant variety of zucchini began producing enough cucurbitacin toxin to hospitalize a number of people. [2]

> If such transfers have occurred in nature for a long, long time, then it's safe to say that nature has created pathways that are safe. Our pathways are new.

We're still playing by nature's fundamental biological rules, and nature has had hundreds of millions of years to develop resiliency inside that same framework. One example: bacterial mechanisms to mitigate the damage from undesirable horizontal gene transfers by recognizing and deactivating to foreign genetic material: [3]

> I'm making a Talebian argument here. Nature is a VERY complex system. When we mess with it, we make incremental visible gains, and run the risk of large, invisible losses.

I think "incremental" is a bit of an understatement if we can, for example, feed tens of millions of humans in parts of the world where conventional crops cannot (yet?) provide reliable and sufficient nutrition, a critical step in reducing poverty.

Having said all this, I think crop monoculture is a serious problem, but I think it's an issue that needs to be solved through sound policy, not just through science.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding

[2] http://books.google.ca/books?id=Jcq1wTe_93UC&lpg=PP1&...

[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17575047

hcarvalhoalves2• 14 years ago

> I think "incremental" is a bit of an understatement if we can, for example, feed tens of millions of humans in parts of the world where conventional crops cannot (yet?) provide reliable and sufficient nutrition, a critical step in reducing poverty.

You can argue about many benefits, but genetic engineered crops is hardly a solution to poverty and malnutrition.

minikomi2• 14 years ago

Indeed .. My honors project was genetically modefying a common pastural legume to produce anti-RNAs of a specific virus. It produced resistance but 2 or 3 generations down the line, the genes were still there but the RNAs weren't. Something was stopping them being expressed. Only 1 year so couldn't delve deeper but it was interesting none the less.

graeme6• 14 years ago

You make a good point. I have no idea what the risks to mutation breeding are.

That said, the fact that it's potentially problematic doesn't make GMOs safe. It just means they're both potentially unsafe. I don't know enough to say.

By incremental gains, I meant that GMO crops will at best add some percentage growth to total food production. This will be partly a wash, as increased food tends to increase birth/survival rates. Our food boom has helped create the population boom.

So on balance, GMOs will provide a benefit, but it is unlikely to be a kind of 'end hunger forever benefit'.

Meanwhile, the system accumulates hidden risk. Once food supplies are created, we become dependent on their persistence. If anything unforeseen and catastrophic happened that lopped a percentage off world food production, we would be ill placed to bear the shock.

DanBC5• 14 years ago

The problem is that in some parts of the world people are too poor to farm. GMO seed - produced by a company who will lock in farmers to that seed and prevent them from growing on from the crop - is not going to help that.

Kenya has barriers to free trade, which makes its food too expensive for many people to buy. (http://medilinkz.org/east-africa/kenya/37195-kenya-urban-poo...)

Some regions waste too much food, maybe as much as 33% (http://spam.irinnews.org/Report/96485/In-Brief-Southeast-Asi...)

Some more information about food insecurity (http://www.irinnews.org/In-depth/77872/72/A-global-food-cris...) - GMO isn't going to do much against war, HIV, natural disaster, etc.

Better weather forecasting (and education) may help - (http://medilinkz.org/africa/38139-climate-data-has-helped-af...)

This used to be a slide show, but they've broken it. :-/ (http://irinnews.org/Photo/Default.aspx?id=43)

Here's one image, but it's worth noodling through the others. (http://irinnews.org/Photo/Details/201202241150420779/HIV-AID...)

(http://irinnews.org/Photo/Result.aspx?id=43&CountryID=LS)

I'm not anti GMO; I'm just very cautious about allowing huge industry the opportunity to exploit starving children to make massive profits. We heard how agro-chemicals were going to feed the world. They don't. Now I'm hearing how GMOs are going to feed the world. Well, fix the other stuff and maybe I'd be more sympathetic to letting them sell their seed.

revelation• 14 years ago

There are no magic pathways for gene "transfer". Theres chromosomal crossover and there are random mutations. These are very very blunt instruments and the only reason they work to create complex organisms is through sheer number of different organisms and natural selection.

Nature is messing with nature all the time through pure randomness, the penultimate chaos monkey. Nothing has collapsed.

ScottBurson3• 14 years ago

Very well said, and I'm heartened to see your comment at the top of the page.

I think it's worth emphasizing that GMOs aren't a category, from a safety point of view. There can't be any evidence that all GMOs that will ever be produced will be safe, any more than there could be evidence that all drugs that will ever be synthesized will be safe. We have to look at them individually. I don't think the public has digested this point yet.

EDITED to add: It's also worth keeping in mind that in some cases, the primary danger may not be from the plant itself, but from pesticides to which it has been engineered to be resistant. I'm speaking, of course, of glyphosate, which I understand is being applied in growing quantities as the weeds it is intended to kill evolve their own resistance.

andylei3• 14 years ago

> Nature is a VERY complex system. When we mess with it, we make incremental visible gains, and run the risk of large, invisible losses.

this is an argument against literally any kind of technology. electricity, medicine, computers, steam engines, light bulbs, animal husbandry, farming, ...

politician3• 14 years ago

If he's changed his mind based on facts, then I'm happy for him. However, the implications of Monsanto's Terminator seed technology (DRM for plants) is so sweeping and, frankly, frightening that whatever time society wasted due to the anti-GMO activism was worth it.

Does anyone really think that if we didn't make a stink about GMO that they wouldn't have gone full steam ahead?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technol... wherein we learn that Monsanto acquired the company that did the initial R&D.

bcoates2• 14 years ago

Uh... what implications would those be? Sterile hybrids of plants where the offspring of hybrids are generally undesirable anyway?

DRM for computers is bad because the only way for it to work is to ban computers as we know them and replace them with something fundamentally broken. There really isn't a plant equivalent.

politician3• 14 years ago

Farmers who reuse seed from last season losing that ability. Monopolization of seed production increasing food costs rather than reducing costs as proponents claim. Monopolization of seed production leading to reduced biodiversity of food crops due to typical economic strategies used to remove competitors. Rent-seeking behaviors. Food security fragility due to dependence on monocultures.

We can live without the latest DRM'd TV shows. We can't live without food.

andylei3• 14 years ago

> the implications of Monsanto's Terminator seed technology (DRM for plants)

what do intellectual property laws have to do with being pro or con GMOs?

politician3• 14 years ago

It's an analogy to help people familiar with DRM understand what Monsanto's tech is without having to read the wikipedia entry: DRM is to digital content as Terminator seed technology is to plants.

manicdee4• 14 years ago

IP law has everything to do with GMO: do you think Monsanto is going to let you collect seed from your GMO crop to plant next year without paying them a licence for the genes?

aroberge• 14 years ago

A superficial reading of the news would lead one to believe that Monsanto == GMO, and I believe a lot of people are swayed to be in the anti-GMO camp by the bullying tactics of Monsanto.

baddox• 14 years ago

I'm always surprised and intrigued when people switch from being vehemently on one side of a debate to the other. I'm reminded of televangelist Pat Robertson claiming that the Earth is way more than 6,000 years old: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/29/pat-robertson-chall...

cpeterso2• 14 years ago

One of my favorite conversation prompts is to ask people, "what have you read recently that changed your mind about some issue?" People happily reinforce their own cognitive dissonance with internet "news bubbles" and echo chamber forums. Letting your mental guard down to fairly reevaluate your own beliefs is an unfortunately rare event.

latinohere• 14 years ago

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I know enough to know that we don't know enough. Too many times we've done things that in hindsight should never have been done had we had more information. I fear this may be one of those times.

tonyarkles• 14 years ago

How do we get that information if people are running around burning these crops to the ground?

jkat• 14 years ago

If you can separate GMOs from the more evil commercial activities revolving around them (patents, seed control, ...), then I don't get it.

I'm not saying that's an easy separation to make, but science and technology will continue to move forward. If it brings about our end, so be it. You can say the same about a lot of different technologies. It just happens to be the dangerous phase we are in (transitioning from a Type 0 to a Type 1 civilization on the Kardashev scale).

droithomme2• 14 years ago

Never heard of this guy.

Along the line of the argument, "John Smith, leading health care reform advocate, admits health care reform is unnecessary." And "Renowned atheist, on deathbed, admits atheism was a mistake." At least with the atheist guy I had heard of him.

So it is an 'appeal to authority' argument, but it's not even an authority who many people have heard of, and fewer still have ever thought of as an authority on the topic, and in fact who it looks like the side he is now aligned did not consider to be an authority until he said he now agreed with them.

Also the article's suggestion that this guy created GMO criticism and without him no one would have asked questions about GMO safety is absurd. Lots of people have reasonably been asking those questions. It's absolutely not something that one person created out of nothing and became the undisputed world leader as if he is some kind of pope. The article reads a lot like propaganda trying to create a straw man leader and then watch as the straw man commits suicide.

Another problem is the conflating of criticism with attacks/vilification, and the ad-hominem use of claiming critics are anti-science: "To vilify GMOs is to be as anti-science as climate-change deniers". This is the opposite of reality. It is very science oriented to ask about risks and be as interested in long term safety trials as we are with pharmaceuticals.

(To be clear, I am not getting to pros or cons of the argument, just noting this article makes a poor argument.)

fennecfoxen2• 14 years ago

Slow down... of course it's a bad form of an argument, because it's not an argument: it's a headline / news story about a guy making an argument. :P

aeturnum• 14 years ago

I don't see the headline as making a claim to authority because the speaker used to believe differently. His view on the issue will be different because he's been on both sides, and those sorts of views can help us to see how to bridge gaps in understanding. The value is not that he's more right, but that he has a different perspective.

The headline was written by a poor winner, but that doesn't make the content less interesting.

dizzystar2• 14 years ago

Just because you never heard of him doesn't mean the kings in Africa who banned GMOs have not.

droithomme2• 14 years ago

What evidence is there that they have? This person is not the cult leader he claims to be.

These kings in Africa you mention generically with no specifics, perhaps they read journals? Even if it is established these scores of kings each met with this fellow personally, went elephant or cheetah hunting together and had some laughs, it indicates little about the motivations of these supposed and possibly fictional kings in passing their dictates, edicts and proclamations.

Vazquez et al. Intragastric and Intraperitoneal Administration of Cry1Ac protoxin from Bacillus thuringiensis induces systemic and mucosal antibody responses in mice. Life Sci. 64, no. 21 (1999): 1897–1912.

Vazquez et al. Characterization of the mucosal and systemic immune response induced by Cry1Ac protein from Bacillus thuringiensis HD 73 in mice. Brazilian J. of Med. and Biol. Research 33 (2000): 147–155.

Vazquez et al. Bacillus thuringiensis Cry1Ac protoxin is a potent systemic and mucosal adjuvant. Scandanavian J. of Immunology 49 (1999): 578–584.

Burns, J.M. 13-week dietary subchronic comparison study with MON 863 corn in rats preceded by a 1-week baseline food consumption determination with PMI certified rodent diet #5002. (Monsanto Co. report, Dec 17, 2002).

Assessment of additional scientific information concerning StarLink corn (FIFRA scientific advisory panel report, No. 2001–09, Jul 2001).

Seralini, G., Cellier, D., & Spiroux de Vendomois, J. New analysis of a rat feeding study with a genetically modified maize reveals signs of hepatorenal toxicity. J. archives of Env. Contam. and Toxicology (Springer, New York).

Malatesta, M. et al. Ultrastructural morphometrical and immunocytochemical analyses of hepatocyte nuclei from mice fed on genetically modified soybean. Cell Struct. Funct. 27 (2002): 173–180.

Vecchio, L. et al. Ultrastructural analysis of testes from mice fed on genetically modified soybean. Eur. J. of Histochem. 48, no. 4 (Oct–Dec 2004):449–454.

Oliveri et al. Temporary depression of transcription in mouse pre-implantion embryos from mice fed on genetically modified soybean. (48th Symposium of the Society for Histochemistry, Lake Maggiore, Italy, Sept 7–10, 2006).

Ermakova, I. Genetically modified soy leads to the decrease of weight and high mortality of rat pups of the first generation. Preliminary studies. Ecosinform 1 (2006): 4–9.

ScotterC• 14 years ago

Original Speech http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5007853

noiv• 14 years ago

I was fascinated by reading Marc's 'Six Degrees' and would still recommend it. Now I wonder how far he is away from saying climate change isn't happening at all.

cheeseprocedure5• 14 years ago

I take it you didn't actually read his paper.

"What you don’t have the right to do is to stand in the way of others who hope and strive for ways of doing things differently, and hopefully better. Farmers who understand the pressures of a growing population and a warming world. Who understand that yields per hectare are the most important environmental metric. And who understand that technology never stops developing, and that even the fridge and the humble potato were new and scary once."

http://www.ofc.org.uk/files/ofc/papers/mark-lynas-lecture-ox...

A1kmm• 14 years ago

I think that the real problem is the false dichotomy between 'all GMOs are bad' and 'all GMOs are good'. There is clearly a middle path - 'some GMOs are safe, and some aren't, and whether release is acceptable depends on the organisms, the genes, the methods used, and the level of testing done'.

I don't think putting herbicide resistance genes into plant species that don't already have them is a very good idea, because it is a short term solution (selective pressure on weeds will eventually create the same thing anyway), has other environmental costs (the evidence last time I checked is that while glyphosate breaks down quickly, if it gets into waterways in the short period before it has broken down, it can cause considerable damage), and even without any form of gene transfer can end up as a weed (the definition of a weed is a plant growing somewhere where it is unwanted - GMO corn in a GMO soy field is a weed).

Even worse applications can be imagined - for example, imagine a cultivar of corn with genes for a drug, where the corn is toxic because of high levels of the drug - would you want that growing in the next field over from where the corn you are going to eat grows?

I think that it is right for reasonable precautionary measures to be in place whenever substantial genetic engineering of plants is going on, whether it is through transgenic methods, through mutagenically exposed plants, or even through selective breeding combined with sequencing, because there are still high risks.

It is the extreme positions of absolute prohibition or absolute acceptance of all GMOs which are irrational.

celiac4• 14 years ago

The unconditional opposition to GM food takes scrutiny away from selective breeding, which may itself be harmful in some instances.

celiac4• 14 years ago

As someone who is totally dependent on a gluten-free diet to avoid constant sickness, the idea of people tinkering with food proteins is horrifying. If it's employed for very particular, controlled reasons then so be it. But there is the potential for immense hubris here. Note that when I went to the doctor some years ago and told them I was sure bread was making me sick they told me I was wrong because I tested negative for Celiac disease.

dgbsco• 14 years ago

Clearly GMO advocates have never seen Jurassic Park.

spot• 14 years ago

because movies are a great way to make policy decisions.

Tloewald• 14 years ago

So was this guy also involved in hosing food irradiation? The insane campaign against food irradiation -- thanks to which we continue to eat all kinds of unnecessary preservatives -- was what led me to abandon Greenpeace.

cromwellian• 14 years ago

Plant breeding has always been tinkering with the genome, why aren't people scared of it? Read the Wikipedia page on the various ways plants are bombarded with radiation, mutagenic chemicals, have nuclei fuzed with electricity, et al in "non-GMO 'organic'" plant breeding.

Why is the more error prone process, in which we are ignorant of the mechanism, presumed safer?

If we invented a machine which randomly bred plants, sampled their DNA, and tested for the modification of a single gene, or infected plants with naturally occuring bacteria or virii and waited for an inter-species transfer, would you find this less scary than a process which uses a petri dish and a pipette?

There's a continuous gradient between the way people bred, modified, and selected plants thousands of years ago up until today. Our precision and our knowledge has gotten a lot better.

The only reason at all to trust maize, or other human domestic modifications, is simply because they've been around for a long long time and so you can infer safer because if there was something dangerous, it would have shown up already.

Or, are we simply ignoring dangers that have already existed but become desensitized to them, like gluten issues, or lactose intolerance. Our diet has changed radically since the invention of agriculture, and in a way, much of man's early experiments at domestication of plants, our first "GMO" so to speak, may have had unforseen circumstances.

But we brush it all off, yet people are hypersensitive to any minute theoretical issue that could happen with GMO, real or imagined.

This boils down a lot I think to human emotion, and our notions of disgust with respect to food. We like what is common and fear the unknown.

manicdee4• 14 years ago

Take the International Rice Organisation's IR8. It was supposed to be a miracle rice that yielded double the rice of existing strains. Introducing this rice meant farmers had to use pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers which had not previously been part of their practices. The herbicides and pesticides killed the local ecosystems including secondary crops which used to grow alongside the rice in paddies.

The IR8 was certainly higher yield when fed properly, but under-performed without that industrial support. That industrial support costs money: so the farmer has to produce more rice to pay for the materials required to produce more rice, in what is essentially a net loss situation.

What price to you put on the sound of frogs singing in the rice field? What value is there in being able to drink or swim in the water downstream without fear of poisoning?

KerrickStaley• 14 years ago

I don't understand why people distrust GMOs. GMOs make food production more efficient; what's bad about that?

manicdee4• 14 years ago

Feral Roundup Ready™ crops are all the argument I need. GMOs are bad, mostly due to the unintended consequences.

Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

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