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I think we've done this to a certain extent, but the difference is that we are smart enough to predict carrying capacity and what to do to keep people alive and living well. The question really remains whether or not we'll do those things. I remember in the 80s people wondered if the eco-balance was on the tipping point. Today people are asking the same questions. There's a point where, if we go too far, the system won't be able to recover itself.
In the case of the reindeer, there was the unfortunate fact that the only male was infertile. If he hadn't have been I'm sure that system, as unnatural as it was, would have reached a balance point as well.
I've gone back and forth over the years on how I feel about different things. I'm against unnecessary government regulation, but the struggle comes in deciding what's necessary and what isn't. A current example is the phasing out of incandescent light bulbs. I feel like the market has been doing a really good job of innovating, which has encouraged a lot of people to switch to cfls, so why ban incandescent bulbs? There are situations where they are a smarter choice. They give off the most accurate light spectrum and represent color the best, and for some instances that's really important.
The carrying capacity of Earth has always increased with better technology. We've been able to produce more with less. The transition to doing this same thing without the use of petroleum products won't be that difficult. There's plenty of arable land that we aren't using that could be used with almost no impact to the natural environment (because we already destroyed it in these locations). The global warming debate isn't over yet either. I'm certain (as a person can be) that we've had an impact on the environment, but I also have reason to believe that it's less dramatic than many of the scientists have claimed over the past 5 or so years.
This, pretty much. Yes, we have increased our consumption pretty consistently over the years, but we have increased the efficiency of creating those consumables even more. Heck, just look at the difference in the amount of energy and resources it took to move cargo from the east to west coast of the US just 150 years ago vs now. I also hold out hope that we'll eventually get our buts off this rock and find resources elsewhere in our solar neighborhood before we can't afford the resources to reach them. ...though that's gonna require either some really rich people backing it or the general public pulling their heads out of their collective...ah, but I digress. I've ranted enough about public space exploration policy elsewhere. :PQuote:
Originally Posted by d_stilgar
what a shame reindeer can't grow crops
Can't grow crops when a lot of the genetically engineered crop is depleting more minerals than we can replace with proper crop rotation. Check out the farmers committing suicide in India after growing some of the new super crop that was supposed to be so fantastic.
GM is meaningless without good farming practices. Like a Ferrari is meaningless without petrol.
People want an easy answer. Well-engineered (and I stress that part) crops are only a part of that puzzle, but a very significiant one.
I don't think we should be meddling with it at all in my eyes, you start with engineering it and then it could mutate out of control. We as a people need to stop living grossly outside our means on all fronts, economically and globally but that's just my two pennies
Food today would be drastically different without GE.
We have been selective breeding since we started domesticating anything. There is barely a crop grown in the developed world today we haven't 'meddled' with.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Whilst I agree that the devloped world really needs to cut down on waste, I think it's offensive to suggest that the developing world should 'go swing' - my perspective is that it's them that really need the GM crops, not us!
Doesn't necessarily mean better or worseQuote:
Originally Posted by nevermind1534
Selective breeding, and going in and chopping it up in a laboratory and adding things to it that may have never been there through cross pollination is something different. I am not sure what your "go swing" comment means but never once did I say the developing world should just suffer while the rest of us are comfortable. Not once did I say anyone should suffer for that matter do I come off that sadistic? At any rate most of what we do to try and provide food clothing and shelter seems to be retroactive to the populations gluttonous use of resources, want an example of that childhood obesity. In combination with most kids not going out and playing and the availability of gluttonous junk we have a health problem that had never even existed 30 years ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by dr.walrus
I'd actually say it's more of a intelligence problem in most cases than "poor food" problem. Plenty of people eat unhealthy food when they could do otherwise, simply because it's "easier".
In a lot of cases, people choose to eat poor food and not go outside to exercise so that they can stay healthy. I think that's an education problem primarily. And it's not entirely even that the food is the problem so much as the exercise. I've known a few families who are healthy through being active, but still eat rather poor food choices such as fast food, easy microwave dinners, etc. Although, they also have real home cooked meals somewhat often as well.
But for poorer folks, considerably poorer, we definitely have a problem with the low quality of food that is available to those people. But then... if the middle class (and upper class, I suppose, but I think they probably eat fairly "organically" being as money isn't an issue for them) would stop being, well, lazy, and just get back into the kitchen, then real food would start to become cheaper, allowing the lower class to have realistic healthy options.
And of course, with exercise, you can eat fairly poorly and still stay healthy.
I definitely think there's two sides to this problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothair
#1) Good food has become really really hard to find. Watch Food Inc. I had a good idea of how bad the industrialized food world had become, but this movie made it all the more clear. Healthy food is a lot more difficult and expensive today than it was 40 years ago.
#2) Generations of bad habits. My parents were obese when I was growing up and they have just now committed to losing weight and getting healthy and they've both done awesome, but it has had an effect on me. I'm not fat, but whenever I think of something I want to eat or what to buy at the grocery store, my first thoughts go to junky, unhealthy food. Every time I want a snack I have to consciously think "apple, banana, nuts" or else I go right for the cookies, nutella, and ice cream. Without proper education on good food, it's really hard to know what to buy. Food habits are strong and hard to break and re-learn. I'm not overweight, but I'm struggling with good food habits right now.
#3) Exercise is the other thing that's cropped up. In the 80s when I was young, Nintendo was the big thing, and back then the games weren't engaging enough to keep you playing for hours on end for days at a time. Today I could play many of the games I own for hours on end days at a time. Shoot, I've put 460+ hours into Left 4 Dead 2 alone. In the past that time would have been spent doing other stuff, probably outside and active. For other people, Facebook is engaging enough to keep them from doing anything. And there's still TV. There's just so much good media to consume that it can take all your time.
IMO it would be both better and worse. But then I have moral/etc issues with GE in general, so others might feel differently. GE has provided concrete benefits, for example, vitamin enriched rice. Unfortunately, the corporate control of it has caused some pretty horrific problems (check out Food Inc; it's even on NetFlix streaming), some immediate, some long-reaching. Like so many things, I think it's not the technology in and of itself that is the problem, but rather the implementation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Not really sure what any of that has to do with GE food... :?Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
I think all the genetic engineering has been a retroactive fix for a greater problem. It is to the point where we are so hard up for sustenance that we are cloning and engineering our food, which to me is bad juju. I don't think it is ethically or morally right by any stretch of the imagination.Quote:
Originally Posted by x88x
Why do you say that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
I don't really have a preference on this issue. It's just like modern medicine in my opinion. It's both bad and good, and it could get both worse or better. So I'm just curious to know others opinions on the topic, whether they have actual reasons or if it's just a feeling, or intuition I suppose.
I think the fear of things 'mutating out of control' is as unfounded and ridiculous as the fear of a powerful computer 'deciding to take over the world', and allowing the poor to starve based on our senseless fears is not just factually wrong, it's also highly ethically wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
We are pumping cloned food and genetically engineered stuff out before it even has a chance to be tested, meanwhile the fda regulations on it says they don't have to tell you which is real food and which isn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothair
No one said mutating out of control, but nature is always evolving always changing and when you introduce strings of dna that may not have been there before there is absolutely no way for you to tell how it is going to mutate because it has never been done before. For example what if they crossed the growth genetics of a peanut plant with that of corn to make it grow faster. They have no responsibility to report this to you because technically it is still corn. In one generation it mutates to more closely resemble the peanut plant and has enough of the right chemical make up that every person across the planet with a peanut allergy keeled over dead while eating sweet corn.Quote:
Originally Posted by dr.walrus
Will that string of events come to transpire? More than likely not I picked two arbitrary variables for the example. The problem is that a lot of these seeds are not being tested or have been and are still released for economic gain (the situation in India as I mentioned before.) From a standpoint of a farm owner that raise all natural grass fed beef the thought of eating the growth hormone stuff was bad enough now it is also going to be cloned and fed genetically engineered crop seems like a recipe for disaster to me.
I will also reiterate that I never once said anyone should starve, or otherwise suffer based on their socioeconomic status if that were so I would probably be one of those people starving and suffering.
Define 'real food'. How on earth is it not real?Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Elaborate on this 'no testing'. Really?
How on earth would cloning make an animal unsafe?
Yes you didQuote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
yeah this is just how life works. Everywhere. That's implicit in the process of how you were born.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
This is nonsense. Absolute nonsense. You just made that up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
No. it doesn't make any sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
No, but this psuedo-scientific fear is holding back a science that could save millions of lives a year. People can and do starve based on their socioeconomic status, every day. Shouldn't we be trying to stop that rather than talking about 'juju'? I mean, really?Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Your right because the course of the conversation here has bearing on what really happens. Your absolutely correct better not talk about the end of the world because then it will happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by dr.walrus
I did misspeak before I did not remember using the wording out of control for that I am the fool but you have absolutely no idea what genetically engineering crops could turn into and neither do I. To claim that we know what could happen by combining dna that in a normal circumstance never would be psuedo-scientific.
As to the bolded portion, it continually seems that you think I am promoting this and I am not. You view what I have to say as complete and utter rubbish that is fine but show me the long term effects of cloning beef and genetically engineering crops. I will give you one number stemming from the genetic crops 125,000. Number of suicides attributed to the crop failure from GM seeds. There are no long term studies because nobody has thought about the long term. We are just now seeing all the side effects from the constant over use of antibiotics and growth hormones in livestock and those practices have been going on for decades. If we don't pay attention to whats going on we will just keep shooting ourselves in the foot.
Do you have a source of information on that? I always thought we tested everything? Thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Also, keep it civilized everyone. No need to be rude. Whether you believe someone is misinformed or not is no reason or cause to be. I don't want to have to play "flame wars" song from College Humor. :p
The genetically modified seed over in India from best I can tell has been chalked up to oops we messed up. Means they didn't test it in my eyes, otherwise they would have known of the forthcoming catastrophic failure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothair
I presume you read this somewhere? Do you have the source or can yo find it? Anything else?Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Yeah I am looking now, i read it on my old phone through an rss aggregator I am looking for the source now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lothair
Transplating individual genes can not cause crops to mutate out of control. What gives you this idea? That is not how genetics work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Smoking cigarettes mutates your genes. When I light up a Marlboro red, do I worry that my children will grow fangs? I increase my risk of cancer, yes, but that affects me. Not my descendents. Genetic engineering targets specific genes - you don't have any understanding of the science here and it is painfully obvious.
What you are saying sounds like cheap, bad science fiction. Nothing else.
Fine since you are such an expert in the field explain to me why the genetically modified fish we bought to put in our pond were made specifically to grow faster, live longer and be completely sterile; however have proliferated beyond even normal standards for that breed of fish. If it is such a controlled science that we pay so dearly for why doesn't it always work as expected?Quote:
Originally Posted by dr.walrus
I never once claimed to be a genetics expert, I never claimed any of what I said to be fact. I expanded the horizons of my examples just as you have to make a point. Crossing two plants genes to create seed, and then the possibility of the daughter plant of that genetically modified seed having more traits over the other is simple secondary school FACT. So even though you started with plant a and that is all you ever wanted it may carry unwanted characteristics of plant b because the genes are there in the plant.
I understand your point, but technically if you were to smoke around others, it affects them even more than it does you. :p (still understood your point though, just saying lol)Quote:
Originally Posted by dr.walrus
However, it's also true that crops due mutate, both naturally and artificially. Now... mutation isn't a bad word in this case. You can also call it evolution. That's all it is, is genetic mutations over time. Humans would still be primitive life forms without mutations. So, yes, it happens, but no, not in an extreme sense that would cause worry (cause of worry for food is usually due to something else, a third party, a chemical or something) and not in a sense that's bad. We're just artificially creating what already happens in nature, just much faster. Sometime we fail, though, and those testings should not leave the laboratory, and they usually don't (not that they're dangerous or anything, they just didn't work for what we wanted to do with them, like making a crop that grows better during a certain season like some other crops in the world do). With food, anyways.
Did you guys know that oranges have thicker skins now than the original oranges that were brought to most modernized countries? The reason why we modified the oranges is because the skins being too thin let insects in, and sometimes you'd get a nasty ball of maggots instead of nummy orange slices! lol Ew.
Haven't found the story I am looking for yet but here is one from the same company that is responsible for the India failure
80% peak crop failure
although they had been using gm crops for years these had been modified to increase yield and resistance to weed killer.
So a single anecdotal example disproves a science that is rapidly becoming a mature field? This couldn't happen with selective breeding?Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Of course! But this happens with selective breeding, and moreover any normal breeding. And this isn't what you originally said at all:Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
There are risks with introducing new crops anywhere, just like your fish. Especially if they don't do what they're supposed to do. This is emphasised when you are manipulating genes. Just like with selective breeding.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
However, the idea that when something is out of the lab, it can suddenly mutate into 'something else' just like that is just rubbish.
Where is the evidence that it's genetic? Um yeah I'll wait.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Oh yeah and:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...a-1669018.html
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?opti...ticle&id=12221
http://unhypnotize.com/health-news/3...-using-gm.html
Having actually read these articles, the suicides were caused by crop failure after the farmers invested vast amounts of money in unethically sold GM crops. Genetic modification does not guarantee against crop failuire when there is a severe drought! Nor does it mean these crops will not be abused financially.
That is why the anti-GM lobby is so dangerous -without government investment, private companies rise to meet the need, overseas, and horribly exploit desperate people even more.
More than that, there are no long term studies because the technology hasn't been in use for long term (ie, decades). IIRC, genetically modified crops only really started getting widespread adoption in the mid-to-late '90's...so even if someone started a study into the long-term affects right away, we still wouldn't know anything for sure. It's like global warming; yes, we can take the data we have and make estimates and calculations, but we don't really know anything for sure because we're dealing with just a teensy, tiny, portion of the relevant data.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
I'm going to take a leap here and say those suicides would have happened if those crops had failed regardless of whether they had been modified or not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Unfortunately, we as a country do have quite a long track record of companies pushing out untested products in second/third-world countries. Some of the first female birth control pills were tested in (iirc) Puerto Rico, and ended up permanently sterilizing a large percentage of the participants. Does that mean every company should have stopped all work on all chemical birth control? Foxconn has a pretty bad record of employee suicides; does that mean we should stop any and all electronics manufacture? No. The poor decisions of one company should not color the reputation of an entire industry. And complaining that the FDA didn't stop them is nonsense; US regulatory bodies have little to no control over what a multinational company does in another country.
It means the company screwed up and lost millions by customers not having to buy more fish when these die. :PQuote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
I am by no means an expert on genetic engineering; at best I'm an interested bystander. That being said, I do know that animal genomes are a heck of a lot more complicated than plant genomes, and I know that it's a lot easier to screw up a change in a complicated system than a comparatively simple one. And just like any technology, there are growing pains. There are mistakes; big and small. When the Space Shuttle Challenger broke up during launch, killing everyone aboard, should we have shut down NASA and stopped all future space research and exploration? No. What matters the most is not that those mistakes happen; that is a given. What matters most is how those mistakes and the problems they create are handled by those responsible; both after they happen, and before, in preventative measures. This is why we have product recalls. This is why we have warranties. No company is perfect; no technology is perfect, least of all when it is still in its infancy. No matter what we do, there will always be times when something happens not exactly as we planned it. This should be used not as a reason to stop all work in that area but as an incentive to improve our methods, our techniques, our technologies, and finally the end product or service that we create.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers...cides_in_IndiaQuote:
Originally Posted by x88x
It's a big enough problem, it has its own Wikipedia article!
And: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton#...c_modificationQuote:
In the initial years when farmers distress came to attract public attention it was said that indebtedness through use of Bt Cotton were the main cause for farmers suicide. Here it is important to notice that in the context of Indian history [20] the moneylender is considered to be a particularly evil person and the farmer an unwitting subject of his machinations. Moreover, in recent times there has been a considerable ideologically driven movement against the use of Bt crops. As a result the initial causes indebtedness and Bt Cotton were easily accepted to be the causes of farm suicides. More detailed research by various investigators like Raj Patel,[21] Nagraj.[17].,[22] Meeta and Rajivlochan,[23] identified a variety of causes that essentially boiled down to this: India was transforming rapidly into a primarily urban, industrial society with industry as its main source of income; the government and society had begun to be unconcerned about the condition of the countryside; moreover, a downturn in the urban economy was pushing a large number of distressed non-farmers to try their hand at cultivation; the farmer was also caught in a Scissors crisis; in the absence of any responsible counselling either from the government or society there were many farmers who did not know how to survive in the changing economy. Such stresses pushed many into a corner where suicide became an option for them [24] At least one study from the Punjab also pointed at the dramatic misuse of agricultural chemicals in farmer households in the absence of any guidance on how to correctly use these deadly chemicals and linked it to the rise in farm suicides wherever farm chemicals were in widespread use.[25]
Quote:
he initial introduction of GM cotton proved to be a huge success in Australia - the yields were equivalent to the no transgenic varieties and the crop used much less pesticide to produce (85% reduction).[22] The subsequent introduction of a second variety of GM cotton led to increases in GM cotton production until 95% of the Australian cotton crop was GM in 2009.[19]
One must also bear the bigger picture in mind - MOST genetic modification of crops is pest resistance. This massively reduces pesticide usage. And we KNOW pesticide usage is very harmful.Quote:
GM cotton acreage in India continues to grow at a rapid rate, increasing from 50,000 hectares in 2002 to 8.4 million hectares in 2009. The total cotton area in India was 9.6 million hectares (the largest in the world or, about 35% of world cotton area), so GM cotton was grown on 87% of the cotton area in 2009.[21] This makes India the country with the largest area of GM cotton in the world, surpassing China (3.7 million hectares in 2009). The major reasons for this increase is a combination of increased farm income ($225/ha) and a reduction in pesticide use to control the cotton bollworm.
Yup, saw your post with the articles after I made that one. I wonder how many news organizations spun that story to make it sound like it was because the crops were genetically engineered that they failed...you know, instead of there not being enough water. :P
I think the farmers got infected with the suicide gene from the plants, personally!Quote:
Originally Posted by x88x
Can someone tell why because I read a few stories that stated one thing but was spun off from another it is okay to go with what seem like more personal and personal insults instead of just simply refuting what I have stated. Not once did I see where I made a mocking comment about dr. walrus but over and over again once he is done refuting what I have said it seems that he intends to undermine me on a more personal level? I posted my views on genetic modification of a food source from what I have read and seen first hand. It seems my information was misguided but I had read it in more than a few places (doesn't mean it wasn't all the same media conglomerate.) Maybe I am reading more into than what is there and by all means correct me if I am wrong.
I still think genetic modification has far surpassed the just speeding up evolution phase and may be causing problems for us down the road( DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT GUARANTEEING IT WILL HAPPEN JUST LOOKING AT ALL POSSIBILITIES AND GIVING MY OPINION ) I do not believe in cloning and I especially have issues with the fact that the end consumer does not have to be notified of either. One of our first forrays with science and the food market was to bulk up our livestock faster and has now been attributed to child hood obesity, accellerated puberty although both of those are refuted because not enough study has been done on them. We also turned our livestock into cancer inducing materials in the 30s through 50s using an artificial estrogen which granted is hormone treatment but your still messing with the natural balance of things.
This I think is a problem. The consumer should be able to easily determine if a product contains genetically modified food, if they care to find out. How exactly that should be done is open for debate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
I haven't looked at the science, but considering how many people grew up eating that same food and did not become obese, I'm gonna say there's more to it than that. ..maybe, idk, the same reasons most obese people are obese? You know, Occam's Razor and all. :whistler:Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
EDIT:
Forgot to ask, why are you against cloning? Not a personal attack, I'm just curious. I promise, whatever your reasons I've heard stranger. :P (well, at least what I consider to be stranger)
You seem to be taking this quite personally - but I haven't said anything other than about genetic modification. If complete falsehoods are posted about something I have strong feelings about, of course I will refute them and of course I won't take them seriously.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
rBGH a bovine growth hormone has been attributed to bulking up kids that have no other predisposition to be so inclined. Now there are other contributing factors but pumping the next generation full of growth hormones while they grow more sedentary doesn't sound like a great idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by x88x
As a breeder keeping a good strong bloodline is the main goal in keeping livestock happy. Right now when there is a plethora of good bloodlines cloning doesn't seem like a brad practice to get in to. As it proliferates however and a cloned animal is used for breeding you could lose some of your breeding stock due to the proliferation of the same bloodline. A lot of the things I point out may not be a problem for many many generations but not all of our current problems started with just our generation either.
Both of these comments sure seem as if you are trying to make what I said look foolish even though I stated the scenario was completely arbitrary and by no stretch of the imagination real. With a little creative editing you could make anyone appear however you wanted.Quote:
Originally Posted by dr.walrus
Your right this wasn't mocking in anyway you were just refuting fact I am sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by dr.walrus
I never said I wasn't having a joke about what you said! Neither of those comments were personal about you, though, I was mocking the fact that you invented an impossible scenario and seriously misappropriated some facts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Oh, ok. That does actually make good sense. So are you opposed to the concept of cloning in general or just the application to your field (no pun intended)? There are plenty of good applications in medicine and food manufacture. Personally, I don't see cloning ever really affecting breeders that much. In fact, it might even benefiting them. Instead of adding cloned animals to your stock, instead think of you providing the prime base material, from which 1,000 cows worth of meat could be grown. We're not quite there yet; currently, vat-grown meat tastes pretty awful, from what I hear, but imagine the possibilities!Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
