2 hours ago
This article is another that can be very technical, but it spells out some of the arguments made against GMOs and well-reasoned, logical, refutations to those articles. It’s the kind of article that would make you happy if you love debate.
“Taleb and his colleagues want to impose their supposedly non-naive version of the precautionary principle to forestall activities when “consequences can involve total irreversible ruin, such as the extinction of human beings or all life on the planet.” And GMOs, they feel, could result in “irreversible environmental and health damage” or cause “an irreversible termination of life at some scale, which could be planetwide.” They Biotech crops, they claim, pose a systemic risk of global ecocide.
It is a trivially true statement that if some activity will eventually lead to total ruin, then total ruin, even if it takes a long time, will eventually follow that activity. Taleb and his colleagues just assume that producing and growing modern biotech crops is such an activity, then trivially predict a GMO apocalypse. There is a lot of hand-waving about the dangers of global connectivity and dose response relationships that may be relevant to the workings of financial markets, but they provide no justification for their assumption of biotech disaster. Unwarranted dire assumptions in; unjustified devastating consequences out.”
GMO Alarmist Nassim Taleb Backs Out of Debate. I Refute Him Anyway.
reason.com
Nassim Taleb and GMOs and Why He Is Wrong
6 hours ago
This is an oldie, but a goodie.
“Myth 4: Before Monsanto got in the way, farmers typically saved their seeds and re-used them.
By the time Monsanto got into the seed business, most farmers in the U.S. and Europe were already relying on seed that they bought every year from older seed companies.”
Top Five Myths Of Genetically Modified Seeds, Busted
npr.org
While there’s hot debate over whether genetically modified food should be labeled or is killing us, there are some questions we can definitely answer. We’re putting a stop to some of the myths about genetically modified seeds and when farmers can be sued over them.
8 hours ago
Understanding the nuanced and complex problem of food security in a country like Uganda would be difficult for anyone.
Edit – I apologize for any aspersions I cast on Zen’s intelligence. – Mark
“This is why I take offence when someone else elects themselves or is elected by another, as in my case above, to speak on behalf of another human being – they will get the story wrong, intentionally or otherwise. Honeycutt clearly has no idea that Uganda has been growing bananas for over 300 years, and we have been doing so “naturally.” She has no idea what bananas mean to us as a country (we have over 30 varieties for cooking, roasting, and eating as desert), and therefore she has the audacity to suggest, to a Ugandan, that we should grow something else, instead of trying to save our staple food crop using available tools such as genetic engineering.”
The GMO Debate: Let Africa speak for Herself
allianceforscience.cornell.edu
This past week we were in New York City for the hard launch of the Alliance for Science. The event showcased the stories of the recently graduated Global Leadership Fellows, a group of 25 people from 10 countries who believe science should have a say in policy-making. As one of the organizers (a you…
11 hours ago
March Against Myths About Modification shared Cats in Space Quoting Scientists‘s photo.
“To be clear: No regulatory agency in the world considers glyphosate to be a carcinogen.” – Daniel Goldstein, M.D. monsantoblog.com/2016/02/16/monsanto-response-to-benbrooks-latest-paper-on-glyphosate/ [Neil deGrasse Tyson]
1 day ago
Hey guys, does anyone know where or have a link to a study that shows organic pesticides can be as carcinogenic as GMO pesticides supposedly are? I’m a bit ignorant on the topic and am looking for a nudge in the right direction. Thanks!