Why do uneducated people think that GMOs are okay?

Only an ignorant, stupid person would find that to be a "stupid saying."

I could provide dozens but I'll only give you a single example for now: The kid who built a pipe bomb, filled it with powder, capped it and THEN started drilling the hole for the fuse.

he knew just enough to get himself in trouble - and so do you. <shrug>

 

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As with many proverbs, it is more philosophical than literal.

I'm quite fond of using the variation, "I know just enough about ___ to be dangerous."

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Please don't glorify humans, humans are fools who are just ruining the planet.

I reluctantly admit that I'm not that typical in some ways, it really depends on your perspective however and what you think is an important distinguishing feature. We're more related to chimpanzees than chimpanzees are to gorillas. We are generally typical animals, though living in unnatural conditions, with some extra abilities because of our brain size.

 

If you don't want to be considered a clueless troll, you should:

1. define "randomness in foods" in clear and precise form
2. bring objectively verifiable evidence that clearly and directly proves your assertion (as opposed to speculations, correlations and other shady arguments)

They probably learned that from educated people. Most (genuinely) educated people don't believe things without clear, verifiable evidence and don't accept invented answers to questions that can't be answered (for the time being) in rigorous manner by science.

 

Agreed

We have become DEPENDENT on the Government and Experts (scientists from the corps. ) . It is the trust me syndrome

Its not so much education , as it is about keeping up with information about anything really

Hence we trust the " experts " to tell us the truth , which we can't and/or shouldn't in a lot of cases

How does a PHD. In any ology keep up with all the disciplines of knowledge out there

Ethics within the government and science , is the only way to fix this problem and of course the individual person

Money is fine

But money also has as its greatest weakness , corruption and control and power over people

With GMOs it is about money , to bad really

 

ccdan, simple-minded rhetoric and the old "show me the evidence and I'll discount all the evidence you give to me" is not enough to troll me into replying again. You are not a serious poster worth replying to.

 

ccdan is much more worthy of taking seriously than you are (at least so far).

It's unfortunate how much breathless nonsense I see about the dangers of GMOs on my Facebook page. None of it seems to be verifiable. It all seems to trace back to the naturalistic fallacy. ""Each year, use of NSAIDs (Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs) accounts for an estimated 7,600 deaths and 76,000 hospitalizations in the United States." (NSAIDs include aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, diclofenac, ketoprofen, and tiaprofenic acid.)" Please tell me why I should be more concerned about GMOs than Aspirin.

 

Aspirin isn't self-replicating and won't outcompete wild types.

The naturalistic fallacy is the most misinterpreted thing ever by people like you. The naturalistic fallacy has nothing to do with any of this, it's about assuming that as a rule a natural powder or something is better than an artificial one. It has nothing to do with releasing novel organisms into the environment or assuming that a few buildings is as good as natural woodland for the planet. Also you could never use words like "natural habitat" because that would assume that a natural habitat of an organism is better for them than a man-made one: obviously that would be total nonsense that defies logic. Even who don't believe in evolution know better than that.

 

because we, as a people, now have the capability of crossing a line where there is no turning back.
humanity has always survived because nature did.
you destroy nature and you might find yourself in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no means of support.
will it ever get to that point?
seeing as these people like sex, yes eventually, save for the rogue asteroid scenario.

 

So you are living in a cave, then?

 

You're assuming that every naturally occurring DNA sequence is beneficial to humans and every artifical one is harmful. You're also assuming that the putative bad ones will survive the digestive process. Yet you can devise a simple test: take the DNA from poisonous species and mix it into the food of laboratory animals. Nothing will happen. And why should it? DNA is composed of harmless natural chemicals which are nutritive regardless of how they happen to be chained together. But allow the toxic organism to grow naturally, and eat it, and there's harm in that. But these toxins are well understood, so they're easy enough to detect in the event that the GMO happened to produce any of them (which is highly unlikely).

It's certainly not random. It's deemed "okay" when the results are successful. Considering we have DNA in common with bacteria, yeasts . . . the banana . . . what difference does it make? Note, the DNA in the food you eat becomes highly randomized in your digestive tract. What do you suppose the order of the codons has to do with the potential harm of eating one genome or another?

Not from the DNA in the food, but from the fertilized ovum. The adage "You are what you eat" is not a reference to DNA, or hamburger eaters would carry the traits of cows and vegans would carry the genes of zucchini and tofu.

Humans have been eating GMO foods since the dawn of selective breeding of crops and livestock. They did not co-evolve with them at all.

They would certainly know whether altering a superficial trait like color alters the resulting nutrient type and concentration. Furthemore, they apparently know where the gene that codes for color is. Further, they know that color changes happen in nature, thus there is no intrinsic harm in eating grapes that are colored purple, red, green or some shade in between.

The same thing happens during meiosis when the gametes of all organisms are formed.

maybe this thread should address the adequacy of the testing

Like what? No facts about the adequacy of testing have been presented.

:shrug:

Even if St Bernards were raised for meat (perish the thought), there's no evidence that eating them would have any adverse effect (other than remorse of course) over, say eating the meat of a wolf.

:shrug:

Don't you suppose that the main purpose of GMOs is to increase the nutritive yield and drought and pest resistance? This much has been done by selective breeding in the past - thus wild oats and maize are puny in comparison to the crops that were farmed since early civilizations. Yet there's no evidence that eating the selectively bred crops is more harmful than eating the wild versions.

What sort of dangers? Carbohydrates? Amino acids? Vitamins/minerals? These are universal nutrients - they can be formed in a test tube and you can survive from the artificially formed chemicals just as well as you can eating wild foods.

What's "regular" about any food?

The opposite problem is the one that confronts you. Given the freedom of speech you have, you need only demonstrate a known harm from GMOs using all of the science at our disposal.

What risks?

How is that different than selective breeding and hybridization?

Except that carbohydrates and amino acids don't explode, nor are they radioactive.

Presumably by "pro-GMO scientists" you meant educated people. So I suppose you would need to define the parameters of education that bother you.

You left out GMO ambivalence. It comes from lack of evidence about any harm. I'm sure it's endemic to all the continents.

Maybe by examining your own mindset, you'll come to an understanding about other people's mindsets. You might begin by listing each assumption you've made so far.

The demonstrated phenomenon is the opposition to GMOs without any facts to support the fear of harm.

So far all you've suggested is limiting discussion. If you have no evidence to support the harm of GMOs you can't expect that anyone else is worse off. I suspect there's plenty of science to show that foods are not harmful to eat whether wild or not. But it would begin with some actual facts about food chemistry, which is an area of specialization, so you can't expect many folks at large to be able to address it with expertise. On the other hand, anyone who's had some basic science should be able to nip this discussion in the bud.

 

Sure you can say there is no evidence but if we talk about food generally, the fact is all today's diseases have come from industry itself, diabetes, Chrone's disease, celiac disease, heart attacks, diseases of blood vessels, obesity, all forms of cancer and etc.
Go on east, in Asia for example, and you'll see that eastern people do not have any of these mentioned diseases (well if they start to eat McDonald's and all other western imported food from industry, they will end up like their western people), only western people have all mentioned diseases
GM food is no different.

 

no publicly available evidence anyway.
there is a reason both the US USDA and the new zealand equivalent are missing the publicly funded science reports on GMOs.
the wiki articles i've read was missing the GMO definitions source, you can't argue something you can't define.
i'm not sure if the above actually means anything but my question is "why", why are these reports missing?

edit:
the new zealand report was funded by the royal society, not sure if that can be called "publicly funded" or not.

 

I agree with you, unfortunately we're only lab rats to these companies, one way or another.

 

Certainly cancer existed before modern industry did. Empress Theodora is believed to have died of cancer in 548 AD (though that diagnosis is questionable on the basis that doctors rarely knew what they were talking about in the olden days). Abigail Adams Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1810. The problem is that the ancients could only identify cancer when it caused a tumor, and then only obvious tumors (because they didn't routinely conduct autopsies). The truth is that we have no idea if heart disease, cancer and the like were more or less prevalent in the past, because medical science is better now. How's that? Today if you get cancer, it is highly likely it will be identified and recorded. Not so in the past, so what looks like it's having become more common is in fact just an increase in it's being diagnosed and reported accurately. Moreover, given our ability to keep people alive, there is a very good chance that yur odds of dying from a cancer or heart disease are higher...because modern medicine has so greatly enhanced our lifespans that these long-term illnesses suddenly are more likely to be the ultimate cause of death. Fewer people die of heart disease when most people die before the age of 35.

In short, while I can understand the temptation to assume that things like "cancer" didn't exist before modern industry did, if you go and look for incidents of them arising and if you consider the difficulty in diagnosing these conditions that would have existed in the past, I believe you will see that they likely have been with us longer than you realized.

 

Cancer did exist before modern industry, but it has become much easier to get cancer (and it is muuuuch more often) and all other diseases, including new diseases when the modern industry stepped in, like I said, just compare this with east in Asia and you'll see what I'm talking about.
The way we live today basically makes us sicker than before industry when it comes to only food.
Just look at the newest research, people do live longer, but we get sicker.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121213121759.htm
http://www.healthcare-today.co.uk/news/people-are-living-longer-but-are-sicker/23373/

 

This thread title is not conducive to a fair debate. It implies he/she has already won the debate based on their limited knowledge.

For example:

I could start a thread saying, "Why do idiots refuse to believe in UFO's?". I have already claimed victory in the debate even though it would seem that the believer in UFO's is more likely the idiot. I could then shake my head in dismay as people said UFO's did not exist, and point to the idiot sign above the thread.

This type of title should be against Forum Rules. It is the type of title moderators should change without thinking about.

I personally would endeavor to eat as organically as possible, but do not have an opinion in the matter. I have witness first hand what kind of chemicals get in the soil even during organic farming. If I was going to recommend anything in the way of a thread concerning food it would be to make sure you wash your fruits and vegetables well.

Everytime I pass this thread on Sciforums it tweaks at my conscious. It is bad form.

 

It really dos not have to be like that, my neighbour for eaxmple using and eating organic food, but he does not use any chemicals, however he does not sell this for industry, he uses for his own consumption, as a first neighbour I have the privilege to eat his organic food without chemicals.
But like I said, it's enough to to go on east and see what people eat compared to what western people eat, and you'll see key differences.

 

Considering I have almost completely wasted my day today, I can hardly claim my time is worth more than responding to this nonsense.

I never assumed that every naturally occurring DNA sequence is beneficial and vice versa. You're ludicrously extrapolating what I did say. I never claimed that such toxins would be released by GMOs or they are the problem. I never claimed any of those things.

Dear god, are we really back to this horse**** again? It's nothing to do with the DNA you're consuming, it's what the DNA has formed.

The DNA in gametes is not the problem, you probably won't even be eating that. I don't know whether you think this is what we're talking about, or you're going to claim this is what you thought I thought, or whatever higher nonsense that led you to to post this. Either way it's not the issue at all.

Incorrect by every definition.

That's 100% false, they don't know that at all. That's the whole point. Jesus. The DNA isn't just changing one thing... even the GMO lobby admits this... you're inventing the idea.

What you have in your head is an IDEA. Like storing or changing variables on a computer. And you're so wrong, and the GMO lobby does not agree with you, you are one of the people this thread is talking about. It doesn't work like that, what they take is a long strand of DNA.

For the last time: Humans are not evolved to deal with randomness or pseudorandomness, or whatever extraneous traits you get when you plug a piece of insect DNA into a strawberry and out of 200 tests one comes out looking and acting okay as far as they can tell.

There's even compelling evidence to show that transgenic DNA is jumping all over the chromosomes and in wild types, they don't even know where it is: see Ignacio Chapela and David Quist's work. http://www.grain.org/article/entries/367-with-david-quist-the-mexican-maize-scandal

herr derrr, that's about as much as I can take.

I find it amazing that some of these people are taking stances and claiming things that the GMO industry itself would never claim. Nobody serious would ever be on their side, they're ridiculous. These are the types of individuals the thread is supposed to be trying to discuss, that invent stuff up in their imagination.

The GMO industry accepts there are risks, there are unknowns, there have been many failures. It's this strange fringe of individuals who think they understand "science" and "evolution" when they really know nothing about it.