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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  3178 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Misleading War on GMOs: The Food Is Safe. The Rhetoric Is Dangerous.

GMOs are one of humanity's greatest achievements and have allowed us to feed those who would not otherwise be fed. We have increased crop yields to the point that we are experiencing entirely new problems like depleted soil. Think about that for a minute, we literally grew so many plants in one spot that the plants completely drained the soil of all available nutrients. That's incredible. We're approaching the limits of what is physically possible in a piece of land.

The new Alison Van Eenennaam paper (PhD UC - Davis) looked at the 1996 changeover when animals went from eating nearly 0% GMO crops to nearly 90% to look for any deleterious effects. There weren't any, over the cases of millions of animals for decades. What else could you want?

This debate is an excellent case study in how 'educated' people can make startlingly bad decisions. We make fun of Creationists because they fervently deny scientific evidence for evolution and planetary theory, but then we take anti-GMO activists seriously. Why do we do this? Neither side has a scientific basis though both often publish 'scientific papers' that their cause waves around as sound, but anti-GMO gets a pass because it's not a religious crowd. It's the same fervor.





War  ·  3178 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's funny because one of my friends who majors in genetics is very adamant in his defense of GMO's. One of his better points involves the idea that GMO's help feed a lot more people.

This isn't an exact word for word recollection, but it sort of goes like this:

"We can go organic, but then a good portion of the population dies of starvation. Organic farming is unsustainable, and cannot even begin to approach what is required to feed an ever-growing human population"

user-inactivated  ·  3178 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I actively avoid large-scale organic for this reason. It creates a market for an irresponsible good.

However, there are different organic goods available. The farmer's market stand selling organic berries and watermelon that they just grew to sell because they don't have access to world sustaining levels of wheat production are different. At that point it's likely as not organic in truth and if you want some fruit then go for it.

But at the grocery store, it's bullshit.