Denialism in genetic engineering

[overtone]

This issue would normally be part of the flow of a thread dealing with some particular aspect or example of the field, but as that seems to have become impossible for some reason, in a manner similar to the situation with CO₂ hazards (a concerted body of organized and supported denialists simply trash the issue whenever it comes up), perhaps a thread - or even, as with climate change, a subforum? - dedicated to the general topic might come in handy, bleed off the bullshit into one pond.

 

It might also be a place where I am allowed to post in reply to some of the more obviously irresponsible or poorly motivated denialist responses to my observations elsewhere, eh? It's one thing to allow such posting, quite another to completely block response to it from an entire forum self-described as "scientific".

 

A short list of parallels, to frame the matter:

 

1) Climate change is natural, no special danger // Genetic changes are natural, no special danger

 

2) We have been altering the landscape and dealing with changes in the weather for thousands of years, it's no big deal for us // we have been breeding plants and animals for thousands of years, it's no big deal for us.

 

3) The people getting all worked up about this are dogs in a manger, selfish and ignorant hippie types who don't understand the real technology involved, don't appreciate the benefits they enjoy from it, and are denying these benefits to others // repeat verbatim.

 

4) The people getting all worked up about the role of big corporations in this arena are deluded and meddling paranoids who don't realize that these corporations are just as concerned about people's health, environments, economics, etc as anyone else is - and far more capable of protecting them, because they have real expertise // repeat verbatim

 

5) The warnings about this are from an organized body self-interested folks who make a lot of money by spreading fale rumors and alarmist rhetoric in the media // repeat verbatim

 

6) The real scientists know better, but they can't get a fair hearing in the sensationalist media // repeat verbatim

 

7) There is no scientific proof of harms done to anyone by this, even after many years of alarmist warnings, so it's not dangerous // repeat verbatim

 

8) The protesters and complainants are irrationally opposed to all aspects of the technology at issue, and want to ban it despite its being our major hope - we'll freeze in the dark, especially the poor people they claim to care about // - - - {verbatim} - - we'll starve, especially - - - .

 

9) The alternatives to the current employment of the technology at issue are all abandonments of its every improvement and use, retreats to past inefficiencies or naive adoptions of stuff that can't work. // verbatim

 

10) Here is a list of hundreds of scientific studies that show no evidence of problems from CO₂ accumulation, and a list of hundreds of scientists who agree that their results do not prove harm directly caused by CO_2, see there? It's harmless // essentially verbatim, mutatis mutandis.

 

11) lest the round number close off the litany, the phrase "and so on" here. Plus a point: an identical list could be made for nuclear power hazard denial, but discussion would face the same problem here that discussion of GMO hazard denial faces in the first place - the fact that the self-described "scientific" folks have signed on with the denialists, for some reason. Hopefully the parallels with CO₂ hazard denial will act to forestall that at least a little bit.

 

I presume nobody needs me to go through the several threads here involving GMO hazard, and pile up the examples of every single one of these "arguments"?

 

So the hoped for frame is as above, for a scientific discussion - that is, no "arguments" in lockstep parallel with the above list of invalidities and misrepresentations of the issue are admissable as "scientific" in this thread. OK?

[chadn737]

Actually, a more fit analogy is that fear-mongering of GMOs is equivalent to climate-change denialism. You have an extensive amount of research behind genetic engineering and safety testing just as you have an extensive body of research supporting climate change.

 

It is through the scientific method that we learn and know about what dangers there are and whether any fears are justified. Pointing to the extensive research supporting the general safety of GMOs is how one makes a valid argument. Its called providing evidence for ones claims. This can be contrasted with the general and baseless claims about health risks and other dangers. To insist that its dangerous contrary to the evidence is the same as a climate-change denier insisting that there is no evidence of climate change. Both amount to denying scientific evidence. It is hypocritical to me that you support one claim (climate change) based on scientific evidence, then reject another claim (genetic engineering) in spite of scientific evidence. That so much of your arguments revolve around the corporations, while ignoring that 80% of technology in the pipeline is not from corporations (Golden Rice anyone?) is evidence that you seem more driven by political ideology than actual scientific evidence. I insist that the we leave anti-corporatism out of such arguments for this very reason, because it causes people to go with their political biases rather than facts.

 

If you really want to make a case, then provide evidence of health risks. Show that there is a health risk. Support your argument with evidence, not fear mongering.

Edited March 26, 2014 by chadn737

[swansont]

So the hoped for frame is as above, for a scientific discussion - that is, no "arguments" in lockstep parallel with the above list of invalidities and misrepresentations of the issue are admissable as "scientific" in this thread. OK?

 

!

Moderator Note

Such discussion should include references, preferably to peer-reviewed literature and experiments that have been replicated.

[overtone]

You have an extensive amount of research behind genetic engineering and safety testing just as you have an extensive body of research supporting climate change.

Point 7 and point 10.

 

Standard false implication from a GMO denialist. Note that even the direction of argument is wrong: the research establishing the causes and consequences of climate change, like the research establishing the causes and consequences of genetic change , supports an implication of hazard from irresponsible CO₂ emission and irresponsible GMO deployment, respectively.

 

 

 

It is through the scientific method that we learn and know about what dangers there are and whether any fears are justified. Pointing to the extensive research supporting the general safety of GMOs is how one makes a valid argument.

And pointing to a bunch of research papers that don't support your assertions, while arguing directly from their authority, is how one makes an invalid argument.

 

Posting examples of research that actually contradict your claims, as you did with the Chinese study you misrepresented as "long term" and showing no "observed problems" in that thread I am no longer allowed to post into ^*, not only fails to make a valid argument, but reveals a basic incomprehension of the issue.

 

That incomprehension appears to me to be a general feature of GMO hazard denialism. It's not just you.

 

 

 

If you really want to make a case, then provide evidence of health risks. Show that there is a health risk

For the tenth or eleventh time, the denialist is handed a short and almost irresponsibly incomplete list of known and obvious and universally observed health risks attendant upon the current deployment of the currently dominant GMOs in real life deployment right now: 1)The destruction of Bt's effectiveness mandates a reliance on more toxic and otherwise dangerous pesticides. 2) The destruction of glyphosate's effectiveness mandates a reliance on more toxic and dangerous herbicides. 3) The inclusion of bacterial antibiotic resistance genetics, even in fragmentary or unactivated form, in the code of plant materials ingested by humans, poses health risks to those humans and all others in their community.

 

You can argue about the level of these risks - actually, I can, and you might be able to with a little bit more attention to what you are talking about - but you cannot reasonably deny their existence. And you have been denying their existence.

 

Now a real discussion of the health risks posed by GMOs in general would of course not be based on a list nearly as short, or confined to GMOs already mass marketed around the planet, or restricted to direct and demonstrated risks already being run, and so forth. Like the discussion of the risks posed by boosting the CO₂ in the air, it would include discussion of risks clearly established by well known physical theory and past events of similar or related type and so forth.

 

 

 

That so much of your arguments revolve around the corporations, while ignoring that 80% of technology in the pipeline is not from corporations (Golden Rice anyone?)

The corporations involved are responsible for far more than 20% of the risk and damage and threat of GMOs. Actually deployed GMOs are more immediately dangerous - and the implications of their imposed hazards less arguable, since the irresponsibility of their deployment is not theoretical or still to be seen.

 

Meanwhile, when the Chinese government behaves like Monsanto you will note that I do not allow anti-corporate bias to interfere with my observations, let them off. As in the asterisk above/below, a tangent I cannot post in the other thread where it belongs:

 

* (The Chinese government did in fact approve Bt rice for commercial marketing and human consumption in 2009, as reported in Reuters

 

four years before even the minimal baby step short term rat study of reproductive effects you linked as a long term study establishing the safety of Bt rice for human consumption. Hence the oddity of you posting that article as evidence of safety in GMOs - its very existence flatly contracicts your claims

 

That approval was withdrawn due to pressure and adverse publicity generated by such organizations as Greenpeace - an example among many of Greenpeace being correct and accurate and scientific in the face of irrational and irresponsible genetic engineering outfits. I don't like Greenpeace, but their track record is at least as good as Monsanto's - from a strictly scientific perspective, anyway).

 

 

 

Such discussion should include references, preferably to peer-reviewed literature and experiments that have been replicated.

Unfortunately - as may be seen by the fact that I had to type up that list of parallels myself - there appears to be very little formal research into GMO hazard denialism.

 

The misuse or misrepresentation of references, as in denialist points 1,2, 7, 10, and occasionally all the others, is of course an immediately relevant topic - the references supporting that would not be to peer reviewed literature, of course.

Edited March 27, 2014 by overtone

[chadn737]

Point 7 and point 10.

 

 

I.e. contrary to the evidence overtone insists there must be dangers!

 

 

Posting examples of research that actually contradict your claims, as you did with the Chinese study you misrepresented as "long term" and showing no "observed problems" in that thread I am no longer allowed to post into ^*, not only fails to make a valid argument, but reveals a basic incomprehension of the issue.

That incomprehension appears to me to be a general feature of GMO hazard denialism. It's not just you.

 

1) I.e. contrary to the evidence (Chinese study for example) overtone insists there are health effects.

 

2) The Chinese studied showed absolutely no bad health effects (in one case there was a statistically significant improvement!).

 

 

For the tenth or eleventh time, the denialist is handed a short and almost irresponsibly incomplete list of known and obvious and universally observed health risks attendant upon the current deployment of the currently dominant GMOs in real life deployment right now: 1)The destruction of Bt's effectiveness mandates a reliance on more toxic and otherwise dangerous pesticides. 2) The destruction of glyphosate's effectiveness mandates a reliance on more toxic and dangerous herbicides. 3) The inclusion of bacterial antibiotic resistance genetics, even in fragmentary or unactivated form, in the code of plant materials ingested by humans, poses health risks to those humans and all others in their community.

You can argue about the level of these risks - actually, I can, and you might be able to with a little bit more attention to what you are talking about - but you cannot reasonably deny their existence. And you have been denying their existence.

Now a real discussion of the health risks posed by GMOs in general would of course not be based on a list nearly as short, or confined to GMOs already mass marketed around the planet, or restricted to direct and demonstrated risks already being run, and so forth. Like the discussion of the risks posed by boosting the CO₂ in the air, it would include discussion of risks clearly established by well known physical theory and past events of similar or related type and so forth.

 

1) I.e. overtone has no evidence and despite a vast body of research, overtone insists that there are. Why? Simply because that is overtone's opinion and that trumps science.

 

2) You contradict yourself. Claiming Bt and glyphosate to be safe and introduce into a challenge to show health effects, the red herring of resistance.

 

Unfortunately - as may be seen by the fact that I had to type up that list of parallels myself - there appears to be very little formal research into GMO hazard denialism.

The misuse or misrepresentation of references, as in denialist points 1,2, 7, 10, and occasionally all the others, is of course an immediately relevant topic - the references supporting that would not be to peer reviewed literature, of course.

 

I.e. overtone comes up with an excuse as to why he has no evidence of negative health effects and why overtone is justified in dismissing all evidence to the contrary.

I'm tired of your arguments from repetition. These unsupported assertions are not evidence of risk. Support your case or retract it. These are scientific forums and science should have the last word, not your unsupported opinions.

Edited March 27, 2014 by chadn737

[overtone]

 

 

1) I.e. contrary to the evidence (Chinese study for example) overtone insists there are health effects

- - -

1) I.e. overtone has no evidence and despite a vast body of research, overtone insists that there are

- - -

I.e. overtone comes up with an excuse as to why he has no evidence of negative health effects and why overtone is justified in dismissing all evidence to the contrary.

This type of response, though typical of GMO hazard denialists, is not peculiar to them or to denialists in general - so it isn't listed above.

 

It is a false assertion, based on getting the logic wrong, presented as a personal criticism. Chad, as well as several other GMO hazard denialists, has made several of these - it's how he (and they) has been arguing this issue.

 

The reality of the situation is this: supported by the evidence presented so far (all of it), and specifically by the publication date and nature of the Chinese study recently linked, overtone observes that even the obvious and well-known health risks of some kinds of GMOs in general and Bt rice in particular (i.e. even disregarding the unknowns inevitable in such a new field) have not been and are not being addressed by research. Therefore, they still exist.

 

Comparing that to the denialist's assertion, we see a key aspect of the pattern (very common among tech experts): The confusion of risk and harm, so that to the denialist a failure or inability to demonstrate harm contradicts an assertion of risk (in honor of a really spectacular example of tech experts making this error, let's call this "Challenger Logic". Let us hope, and luck is all we have to rely on, it will not be followed among the billions of people apparently about to be relying on Chinese Bt rice for their survival by the chorus of "nobody could have foreseen" we might label the "Fukushima Syndrome").

[chadn737]

This type of response, though typical of GMO hazard denialists, is not peculiar to them or to denialists in general - so it isn't listed above.

 

It is a false assertion, based on getting the logic wrong, presented as a personal criticism. Chad, as well as several other GMO hazard denialists, has made several of these - it's how he (and they) has been arguing this issue.

 

The reality of the situation is this: supported by the evidence presented so far (all of it), and specifically by the publication date and nature of the Chinese study recently linked, overtone observes that even the obvious and well-known health risks of some kinds of GMOs in general and Bt rice in particular (i.e. even disregarding the unknowns inevitable in such a new field) have not been and are not being addressed by research. Therefore, they still exist.

 

Comparing that to the denialist's assertion, we see a key aspect of the pattern (very common among tech experts): The confusion of risk and harm, so that to the denialist a failure or inability to demonstrate harm contradicts an assertion of risk (in honor of a really spectacular example of tech experts making this error, let's call this "Challenger Logic". Let us hope, and luck is all we have to rely on, it will not be followed among the billions of people apparently about to be relying on Chinese Bt rice for their survival by the chorus of "nobody could have foreseen" we might label the "Fukushima Syndrome").

 

 

1) I.e. contrary to the published research, overtone still refuses to provide evidence of health risks and makes more excuses.

 

2) I.e. overtone merely asserts that the Chinese study did not address health concerns, but can't be bothered to specify exactly what. Why? Because overtone's opinion trumps science.

 

3) Overtone ignores the fact, pointed out to him in another thread, that the Chinese study was published before commercial use of Bt rice. Overtone mistakes the fact that because the Bt rice passed one regulatory hurdle in 2009, does not mean that it was being commercially produced or even used for human consumption.

 

Yes overtone, I am going to write mocking replies until you take the intellectually honest route and provide scientific evidence for your argument as I have challenged you many times to do so. Your biased opinion does not an argument make.

Edited March 27, 2014 by chadn737

[CharonY]

Let me ask you this question. Why is "traditional" modern breeding (which utilizes random mutations) safer than new any of the new methods?

Agriculture has always had a tremendous, usually negative effect on ecology. So how much more in terms of risk does it add above the background of existing practices? Does it rise above the noise at all? This is the part where research should and in many cases is focused on. Taking the lack of findings as proof that they are clearly present and to call that denialism is disingenuous.

 

Ignoring context is akin to concentrating on the effects of solar flares on temperature change whilst ignoring CO2.

[overtone]

 

 

3) Overtone ignores the fact, pointed out to him in another thread, that the Chinese study was published before commercial use of Bt rice. Overtone mistakes the fact that because the Bt rice passed one regulatory hurdle in 2009, does not mean that it was being commercially produced or even used for human consumption.

No, that is false. 1) I agree completely that the Chinese study was published before actual commercial deployment of Chinese engineered Bt rice, and have never posted anything different. In fact I expanded on the topic - I specifically mentioned the role of GMO protestors - including everybody's favorite example of the irrational and hippie-type anti-science nutcases Greenpeace - as being key to the delay between governmental approval and and actual deployment. I emphasized that delay, pointed to its cause.

 

In the other thread, as you know, I was prevented from replying. Denialists are free to post any garbage they want to, there, without contradiction. Not here, so far.

 

You are also in error in describing the approval by the Chinese authorities in 2009 as "one regulatory hurdle" - it was all the regulatory hurdles. Chinese Bt rice was completely cleared for commercial deployment in 2009 - four years before even the baby step of a few months of rat feeding and a check on their reproductive systems had been done. That is the latest of several such examples of day late dollar short "safety" research posted by denialists here, point 10 above,

 

and tantamount to proof that safety studies of even the most risky GMOs have been and are being systematically neglected, not done, without that fact being acknowledged by the GMO hazard denialists

[chadn737]

Ironically....the use of GMOs is directly responsible for reducing CO₂ emissions. Funny considering the comparisons being made to climate change denialism.

No, that is false. 1) I agree completely that the Chinese study was published before actual commercial deployment of Chinese engineered Bt rice, and have never posted anything different. In fact I expanded on the topic - I specifically mentioned the role of GMO protestors - including everybody's favorite example of the irrational and hippie-type anti-science nutcases Greenpeace - as being key to the delay between governmental approval and and actual deployment. I emphasized that delay, pointed to its cause.

 

In the other thread, as you know, I was prevented from replying. Denialists are free to post any garbage they want to, there, without contradiction. Not here, so far.

 

You are also in error in describing the approval by the Chinese authorities in 2009 as "one regulatory hurdle" - it was all the regulatory hurdles. Chinese Bt rice was completely cleared for commercial deployment in 2009 - four years before even the baby step of a few months of rat feeding and a check on their reproductive systems had been done. That is the latest of several such examples of day late dollar short "safety" research posted by denialists here, point 10 above,

 

and tantamount to proof that safety studies of even the most risky GMOs have been and are being systematically neglected, not done, without that fact being acknowledged by the GMO hazard denialists

 

 

1) Let me point out that you ignored all my calls for you to support your claims of health risks to challenge me on a publication date that we both agree occurred before commercialization and human consumption.

 

Once again, I challenge you to support your claim of health risks or retract it. I will not allow you to get away with making unsupported assertions.

 

2) Actually no. That is not the final regulatory hurdle. I actually already showed this in the other thread.

 

"To be commercialized in China, a GE food crop must undergo seven stages: research, pilot experiment, environmental release, experimental production, safety certification, multi-ministerial approval and the Ministry of Agriculture’s final approval. Applications are made to the GMO Biosafety Office of the Ministry of Agriculture.

 

The applications for all stages of a field trial, environmental release and commercialization are referred to the National Biosafety Committee. The Committee is convened by the Ministry of Agriculture. It examines the applications and gives its recommendations to the GMO Biosafety Office. Since 2008, it meets three times a year.

 

Then the Ministry of Agriculture itself, or a multi-ministerial meeting in some cases such as GE rice, will decide on whether or not to issue a safety certificate for cultivation to start. These certifications are restricted to the provinces that have been identified in the applications, and are usually valid for five years depending on the crop. Without such certification, there can be no commercial planting.

 

It is noteworthy that biosafety certificates and commercial approvals are issued on a provincial basis and not for the country as a whole.

 

In the case of GE rice varieties that have been recently ‘approved’, the National Biosafety Committee has issued the biosafety certificate for the two rice varieties, and this applies only to Hubei Province. The biosafety certificate is of limited duration, valid from August 17, 2009 to August 17, 2014. It may be one to two years before commercial approval is granted, and there will be a multi-ministry committee decision on this. Furthermore, the requisite process of obtaining new seed variety registration and a production license, involving further trials and seed selling, will take at least one year, so it may be some time yet before GE rice is actually commercially grown and produced in China."

 

http://biosafety-info.net/bioart.php?bid=587

 

So no, it was not yet approved. It had passed stage 5 of 7 towards commercialization, but as this article clearly states, it was not yet approved for commercialization. It still had two regulatory hurdles yet to clear.

[Ringer]

This constant bald assertions with no backing evidence is getting seriously old. There are three threads that are going back and forth in this way:

 

A: GMO is dangerous

B: Studies have shown no such danger *link*

A: What about factors not talked about in link, they didn't study enough

B: *other studies*

A: It's not enough, you don't know what what the effects will be.

 

It's seriously getting tiresome to follow 3 different threads that are doing the same damn thing over and over.

[chadn737]

This constant bald assertions with no backing evidence is getting seriously old. There are three threads that are going back and forth in this way:

 

A: GMO is dangerous

B: Studies have shown no such danger *link*

A: What about factors not talked about in link, they didn't study enough

B: *other studies*

A: It's not enough, you don't know what what the effects will be.

 

It's seriously getting tiresome to follow 3 different threads that are doing the same damn thing over and over.

 

Agreed.

[overtone]

 

Let me ask you this question. Why is "traditional" modern breeding (which utilizes random mutations) safer than new any of the new methods?

Praise the Lord, a genuine question.

 

OK, for starters: random mutations are in existing code, which is constrained in its structure and function by its long evolved role in the organism - there are severe restrictions imposed on the expression of this code by its location etc, and we have experience with the phenotype result. These restrictions are maintained in reproduction by strongly conservative regulatory and homeostatic mechanisms of fertilization and development, especially of the sexually reproducing organisms typical of human agriculture, and bypassing them would require not just one or two but many dozens of coordinated mutations and probably some aberrant recombination event during reproduction. Our newly planted chestnut trees are not likely to grow up and start putting out wheat allergens, our newly planted potato varieties need be tested only for the kinds of toxins familiar to us from thousands of years of experience with related potatoes and their mutations etc, not jellyfish neurotoxins hiding in some odd place in the tuber. These are not impossible, but they are very unlikely. We are protected, in other words, in the maintenance of basic functions and attributes by mechanisms developed over millions of years of evolution.

 

When we crossbreed apples, say, our confidence that the cyanide precursor promotion and sequestration code common to both will operate in the cross as it does in either parent, and that individual mutations or recombination events in such code will not radically alter its basic function (any such radically effective mutations being unlikely in the first place, and even less likely to make it through fertilization and embryogenesis and so forth, and then unlikely to be hidden in the final fruiting body, and after that unlikely to be harmful to us). Apples have evolved for a million years to be safe for large mammals to eat, and part of that evolution involved mechanisms for curbing any likely mutations that would endanger such seed-spreading cooperation.

 

Genetic engineering bypasses that entire safety assurance setup. If, say, a genetic engineer guns in the ability to express Bt in the core of its apples to kill codling moth larvae, it's that engineer's responsibility to make sure that not even one apple in ten thousand from one of those trees can thereby acquire via some fluke the ability to express water soluble cyanide precursor in the fruit. He's bypassed the step by mutational step evolutionary vetting that such code would have received had it been developed and bred in standard.

 

So that's one reason GMOs are more dangerous than breeds. It's not that varietals are completely safe (there was a famous potato breeding incident recently that produced a potato whose peelings could kill children), but that after all this evolutionary time the odds are really very good, and we only have to check stuff we know about already in that crop (we already know we should check potato skins for toxins - see the description of what the FDA checks for in GMOs, Ringer's link in the thread I'm banned off).

 

 

Agriculture has always had a tremendous, usually negative effect on ecology. So how much more in terms of risk does it add above the background of existing practices? Does it rise above the noise at all?

An excellent matter for research, which in my opinion should be done before landscape scale deployment of any GMO. Mind, it's not the scale of the harm potential relative to the disaster agriculture as been in most places, but the scale of the harm potential relative to the ability of the remaining pre-stressed and pre-damaged landscape to handle it. We already know we've overloaded this camel - we need to be careful about adding even straws.

 

And GMOs add not only more risk, but new kinds - especially in their actual circumstances of deployment. The quantity of extra Roundup and nitrogen fertilizer and Bt being dumped into the system is enough to make a quality difference in itself, the broadcast deployment of completely alien genetic code in forms amenable to horizontal transfer across entire phyla adds a completely new dimension to the arena of risk. We have no experience with this dimension - we will live and learn, apparently, by trial and error.

 

 

 

This is the part where research should and in many cases is focused on.

Uh, no, it isn't. For example, as far as I know no one is even attempting to quantify the difference in risk of horizontal transfer of damaging code into the landscape with GMOs present as opposed to without them. So the extra risk of GMOs is an unknown and probably unknowable number. But the presence of too much risk could be better investigated, and that is discoverable one would think - although probably quite expensive for the more risky GMOs.

 

Taking the lack of findings as proof that they are clearly present and to call that denialism is disingenuous.

I'm taking the lack of research, not the lack of findings, as evidence of the continued presence of known risk - since one must do research to eliminate or reduce one's assessment of known risks.

 

In addition to the negative assessment, the absence of research presented by those whom one would expect to have such research at hand - self described "experts", say, or those lecturing me on biological fundamentals - I'm observing the lack of research directly, by the presence of flagrantly inadequate or mistaken research presented as state of the art. When the visible research panorama is filled with newly published stuff that would be obscured completely - long buried in the pile, probably not published at all let alone in reputable journals - if adequate and relevant research had been done on time, one is looking directly at, or through, an absence of such research. I'm calling the denial of that observation an example of denialism.

 

Whatever the flaws in that chain of reasoning, it is not disengenuous.

[iNow]

Overtone - Can you cite any evidence in support of your position whatsoever as requested or not? I know, for example, that I started a thread on this same topic about a year ago and I personally asked you at least 14 times to do so. You never did. Three to five more threads since, numerous other members making the same request, and the same lack of evidence citation appears to have continued.

 

You're not an ignorant man. You may even be correct in your case, but you'd get more traction with evidence supporting your opinions, I promise. Without that, I'm sorry to have to tell you... YOU'RE the denier here.

Edited March 27, 2014 by iNow

[chadn737]

Once again, Overtone dodges the challenge to support his claim of negative health effects with evidence.

 

Support or retract overtone. Stop dodging.

 

 

Praise the Lord, a genuine question.

 

OK, for starters: random mutations are in existing code, which is constrained in its structure and function by its long evolved role in the organism - there are severe restrictions imposed on the expression of this code by its location etc, and we have experience with the phenotype result. These restrictions are maintained in reproduction by strongly conservative regulatory and homeostatic mechanisms of fertilization and development, especially of the sexually reproducing organisms typical of human agriculture, and bypassing them would require not just one or two but many dozens of coordinated mutations and probably some aberrant recombination event during reproduction. Our newly planted chestnut trees are not likely to grow up and start putting out wheat allergens, our newly planted potato varieties need be tested only for the kinds of toxins familiar to us from thousands of years of experience with related potatoes and their mutations etc, not jellyfish neurotoxins hiding in some odd place in the tuber. These are not impossible, but they are very unlikely. We are protected, in other words, in the maintenance of basic functions and attributes by mechanisms developed over millions of years of evolution.

 

When we crossbreed apples, say, our confidence that the cyanide precursor promotion and sequestration code common to both will operate in the cross as it does in either parent, and that individual mutations or recombination events in such code will not radically alter its basic function (any such radically effective mutations being unlikely in the first place, and even less likely to make it through fertilization and embryogenesis and so forth, and then unlikely to be hidden in the final fruiting body, and after that unlikely to be harmful to us). Apples have evolved for a million years to be safe for large mammals to eat, and part of that evolution involved mechanisms for curbing any likely mutations that would endanger such seed-spreading cooperation.

 

Genetic engineering bypasses that entire safety assurance setup. If, say, a genetic engineer guns in the ability to express Bt in the core of its apples to kill codling moth larvae, it's that engineer's responsibility to make sure that not even one apple in ten thousand from one of those trees can thereby acquire via some fluke the ability to express water soluble cyanide precursor in the fruit. He's bypassed the step by mutational step evolutionary vetting that such code would have received had it been developed and bred in standard.

So that's one reason GMOs are more dangerous than breeds. It's not that varietals are completely safe (there was a famous potato breeding incident recently that produced a potato whose peelings could kill children), but that after all this evolutionary time the odds are really very good, and we only have to check stuff we know about already in that crop (we already know we should check potato skins for toxins - see the description of what the FDA checks for in GMOs, Ringer's link in the thread I'm banned off).

 

This is wrong. When making random mutations, you really have no idea what you will get. The fact that it is in "existing code" (quite frankly this reminds me of creationist talk) is irrelevant. There are many ways in which such random mutations could have potentially harmful effects. As the mutations are random genome wide, there have not been methods of detecting many of the secondary mutations until very recently with whole genome sequencing. Even then, with only a handful of species with descent genomes, its very difficult to identify all of such mutations. With a transgene, its very strait-forward to identify copy number and insertion site.

 

For instance, it could lead to expression of potentially toxic or allergenic genes expressed in one part of the plant to be expressed in those parts that are now edible. Or maybe a protein is mutated into an allergenic form? There are a vast array of ways in which random mutagenesis could generate potentially harmful effects.

 

Genetic changes are restricted only by selective pressure and in domesticated species, the selective pressure comes from artificial selection imposed by humans. If you had an allergen that affected only a segment of society or traditionally was never expressed in edible parts, but led to increased yield in field trials, this could pass through any traditional methods as they are untested. Millions have food allergies as it is, yet despite thousands of years of evolution by artificial selection, we have not eliminated those allergens. The primary traits under selection in traditional breeding are yield and agronomic traits. Much of domesticated plant genomes are not as constrained.

 

Traditional breeding, including random mutagenesis, has a greater chance of increasing expression of endogenous allergens. In fact such methods alter the composition of the plant far more than does transgenic approaches, whereas the induced changes are targeted and known with transgenics. The important difference is that GMOs are all tested for such effects, whereas random mutagenesis and traditional breeding are not. This fact alone makes GMOs far safer than random mutagenesis or traditional methods.

 

 

 

An excellent matter for research, which in my opinion should be done before landscape scale deployment of any GMO. Mind, it's not the scale of the harm potential relative to the disaster agriculture as been in most places, but the scale of the harm potential relative to the ability of the remaining pre-stressed and pre-damaged landscape to handle it. We already know we've overloaded this camel - we need to be careful about adding even straws.

And GMOs add not only more risk, but new kinds - especially in their actual circumstances of deployment. The quantity of extra Roundup and nitrogen fertilizer and Bt being dumped into the system is enough to make a quality difference in itself, the broadcast deployment of completely alien genetic code in forms amenable to horizontal transfer across entire phyla adds a completely new dimension to the arena of risk. We have no experience with this dimension - we will live and learn, apparently, by trial and error.

 

You must be scared as shit of evolution and Mother Nature. She's been spreading genes around by horizontal gene transfer for millions of years without any regulation. Thats how you end up with snake retrotransposons in cows. You should go debate her. At least humans regulate the genetic engineering they do.

 

Transgenes do not possess special properties that allow them to move around. A transgene integrated into a plant genome is as stable as any other gene in that genome. It has as equal chance of jumping across phyla as the native genes of that plant. In fact, if you take into consideration native transposons, its probably less likely.

 

The environmental effects of any GMO is tested by the EPA and USDA before deployment, unlike traditional breeding, random mutagenesis, or really any other agricultural practice. Farmers can go and clean till a field without regulation, despite the massive erosion and nutrient runoff, but GMOs are all tested prior to commercial release.

 

Uh, no, it isn't. For example, as far as I know no one is even attempting to quantify the difference in risk of horizontal transfer of damaging code into the landscape with GMOs present as opposed to without them. So the extra risk of GMOs is an unknown and probably unknowable number. But the presence of too much risk could be better investigated, and that is discoverable one would think - although probably quite expensive for the more risky GMOs.

 

 

 

I.e. overtone asserts his opinion without doing a literature search.

 

There have been a huge number of papers on gene flow between domesticated and wild species, both transgenic and non.

 

 

 

I'm taking the lack of research, not the lack of findings, as evidence of the continued presence of known risk - since one must do research to eliminate or reduce one's assessment of known risks.

In addition to the negative assessment, the absence of research presented by those whom one would expect to have such research at hand - self described "experts", say, or those lecturing me on biological fundamentals - I'm observing the lack of research directly, by the presence of flagrantly inadequate or mistaken research presented as state of the art. When the visible research panorama is filled with newly published stuff that would be obscured completely - long buried in the pile, probably not published at all let alone in reputable journals - if adequate and relevant research had been done on time, one is looking directly at, or through, an absence of such research. I'm calling the denial of that observation an example of denialism.

Whatever the flaws in that chain of reasoning, it is not disengenuous.

 

I.e. overtone asserts a lack of research contrary to all the papers and lists of papers given to him. Once again, overtone's opinion trumps science.

 

Support your claims with evidence or retract. You are doing nothing except asserting your opinion contrary to all evidence.

Edited March 27, 2014 by chadn737

[hypervalent_iodine]

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Moderator Note

In the spirit of swansont's mod note, I am also moving this to Speculations. Overtone, front up the evidence for your claims, or this thread is being closed.

[overtone]

I presume nobody needs me to go through the several threads here involving GMO hazard, and pile up the examples of every single one of these "arguments"?

Guess again, me.

 

This constant bald assertions with no backing evidence is getting seriously old - - -

Overtone - Can you cite any evidence in support of your position whatsoever as requested or not? I know, for example, that I started a thread on this same topic about a year ago and I personally asked you at least 14 times to do so. You never did.

 

- - -

Once again, Overtone dodges the challenge to support his claim of negative health effects with evidence.

- - -

In the spirit of swansont's mod note, I am also moving this to Speculations. Overtone, front up the evidence for your claims, or this thread is being closed.

And that was from a bunch of posters who have yet to post a single source or item of evidence in support of any assertion they've made on this topic, whose every posted reference supports one or the other of my claims (and has been used for that purpose, explicitly, by me), who persist in misreading and misrepresenting (in plain language: lying about) my posting for the purpose of personal attack, and behave like this in complete freedom from moderator interference in their bullshit for weeks on end.

 

Apparently I am simply unable to communicate in this matter. I really have no idea what the problem is, but there's no doubt at all about the completeness of the failure, when even truly reprehensible troll responses like Chad's, beyond mere willful stupidity, are backed up rather than disciplined by a consensus of the moderators,

 

and no point in my wasting anyone's time any further - I promise not to post any more on this topic, regardless of provocation, and good luck to the lot of you.

 

I mean, good Lord:

 

The environmental effects of any GMO is tested by the EPA and USDA before deployment, unlike traditional breeding, random mutagenesis, or really any other agricultural practice

Gotta wonder why the beekeepers faced with mass bee death and worried about GMOs wasted all that money and all those years repeating all that thorough research the EPA and USDA had already done for them in just a few months, years before. Why do you suppose they didn't just refer back to the research already performed, when they were whacked by colony collapse disorder and flailing around for clues, and narrow the field of suspects right away?

 

One thing we know for sure: there's no way that research did not exist, because we are assured by experts that the EPA and the USDA test the environmental effects of all GMOs before deployment, and even minimal testing of envornmental effects would include some insects, and the most important insect in American agriculture (as well as the best understood and easiest to test) is the honeybee. So that's settled, see. A consensus of scientists says so. Where's your evidence otherwise?

Edited March 27, 2014 by overtone

[swansont]

Where's your evidence otherwise?

 

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Moderator Note

 

This is not how it works. You don't get to make a claim and require people post contrary evidence. You need to post evidence to support your assertions. The staff are getting tired of telling you this and then being ignored.

 

Further, your use of denialism is, in this case, poisoning the well. In the case of AGW the science is established and there is a consensus. You have shown no such science and consensus here. I don't see a single link to supporting evidence to buttress the idea that anybody is denying anything.

 

Since you intend to stop posting, the thread is closed. But the above admonitions stand in general. This is a science site. We we expect you to follow protocol.