The food companies are using pesticides that cause cancer. It's scientifically proven and it's horrible. Monsanto doesn't know what they're doing, and someone has to change it. Either shut them down, or make find a cleaner, and healthier way, to live.
Found some studies.... obviously haven't read all of them yet but I'll admit there does not seem to be evidence indicating harm from GMO seeds.... But there is still much research to be done as most/all of these studies were done an mice,rats, and other animals, and as pointed out by blade, different animals can handle things differently.
This is from an intro to one of those studies and it points to the fact that further study needs to be done:
Currently, there is little known about predictability of adverse effects following market release of GM foods.
This study outlines a method they are developing to use mice with transplanted human immune systems, to see what they can see about how eating GMOs and eating animals fed GMOs might affect humans. Muy interestante.
You (plural) might want to have a look if you haven't already at what Greenpeace has to say on the issue of GMO's and wider agricultural and industrial issues: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/agriculture/ .
This report (2009) of theirs on the findings (2008) of the IAASTD (International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development) may be of particular interest (.pdf file): http://www.greenpeace.org/france/PageFiles/266577/iaastd-rapport-en-anglais.pdf .
really. I'm much more worried on the lack of long-term studies concerning the influences of ingesting gene manipulated organisms in general on the human body. There may be nothing, but as long as we don't know, let's be cautious.
We can't look at it in general. Any such research on the matter would have to be looked at on a case by case basis.
"â¦Sir (Prince Charles), I think you may have an exaggerated idea of the natural-ness of âtraditionalâ or âorganicâ agriculture. Agriculture has always been unnatural. Our species began to depart from our natural hunter-gatherer lifestyle as recently as 10,000 years ago â" too short to measure on the evolutionary timescale.
Wheat, be it ever so wholemeal and stoneground, is not a natural food for Homo sapiens. Nor is milk, except for children. Almost every morsel of our food is genetically modified â" admittedly by artificial selection not artificial mutation, but the end result is the same. A wheat grain is a genetically modified grass seed, just as a pekinese is a genetically modified wolf. Playing God? Weâve been playing God for centuries!" - Richard Dawkins
I have the rest of the letter if you're interested.
I have the rest of the letter if you're interested.
Actually I am. : )
It's funny you (through the letter) brought up wheat. I work with someone who cut wheat from her diet completely and she lost quite a bit of weight. She claims she can think more clearly and has more energy as well. This, I can accept, but she claims that it has to do with wheat being the product of GMO's, and Monsanto. She doesn't really have an explanation as to "why" GMO's are bad, just that they're "unnatural". She explained that the wheat we have today is much taller than it used to be, which I retorted isn't evidence that the wheat is worse for us.
I skimmed through a video and one part of it suggested that the reason GMO's are so bad is because our RNA fuses with the RNA of the crops we eat. I don't know enough about RNA and DNA to spot the BS (which I'm admittedly basing off my own assumption).
The above link is something I was able to quickly find on the subject. It's something I need to look more into (and it makes me realize how much I've forgotten when it comes to basic Biology - shame on me). Anyway, I'd love to hear what everyone has to say about the linked article.
1st of all, Rice already contains vitamins nutrients, and amino acids.... and protein and fiber. Brown rice (or any other non-white rice), which is white rice before they remove the bran and the germ (aka the healthy parts), doesn't keep as long, but is a fairly nutritionally-complete food.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I never said rice wasn't healthy, nor was I specifically talking about rice. Forgive me for not clarifying; I mean to say that, given how grains are found in all cultures around the globe, an effective way to combat hunger would be to modify these grains to contain all the nutrients needed for sustainable life. Essentially, a small bowl of rice (or what have you) could provide the same nutritional value as a diverse meal.
I skimmed through a video and one part of it suggested that the reason GMO's are so bad is because our RNA fuses with the RNA of the crops we eat. I don't know enough about RNA and DNA to spot the BS (which I'm admittedly basing off my own assumption).
Seems pretty bogus to me. Single atrands don't just "fuse" with other strands. They have to be uncoiled, seperated, translated, transcribed, etc, etc. assuming, that a human RNA sequence exists that is reversely paralled to the GMO, and assuming that all the amino acids in the GMO strand can be found in the human nucleus, and assuming that such a b*stard RNA protein actually has an affect on anything...
. I work with someone who cut wheat from her diet completely and she lost quite a bit of weight. She claims she can think more clearly and has more energy as well.
I would bet money she has an intolerance to wheat, and that's why she's healthier now that it's been cut from her diet.
I have the rest of the letter if you're interested.
Sure
I work with someone who cut wheat from her diet completely and she lost quite a bit of weight. She claims she can think more clearly and has more energy as well. This, I can accept, but she claims that it has to do with wheat being the product of GMO's, and Monsanto. She doesn't really have an explanation as to "why" GMO's are bad, just that they're "unnatural". She explained that the wheat we have today is much taller than it used to be, which I retorted isn't evidence that the wheat is worse for us.
That hasn't necessarily to do with GMOs. I read articles about a doctor who urges all his patients to cut out wheat completely, and reports apparently great results. I'm not saying wheat is bad, but as adressed in the letter above, the wheat we eat is far from the original plant and seems to have not only positive influences on our physiology. I think your friend could still eat some of the more ancestral forms of grains still on the market, maybe in specialised shops, without much problems as long as she ignores the highly modified modern wheat.
but she claims that it has to do with wheat being the product of GMO's, and Monsanto.
Wheat is just one example of many foods we have altered through artificial selection. Oranges, bananas, broccoli, (...It's almost 4a.m. and more examples are slipping my mind right now.) are all examples of this same genetic modification Dawkins is mentioning. What we call GMOs is simply us controlling the mutation itself, rather than the selection of a mutation.
Sure
Here's the whole letter.
"â¦Sir, I think you may have an exaggerated idea of the natural-ness of âtraditionalâ or âorganicâ agriculture. Agriculture has always been unnatural. Our species began to depart from our natural hunter-gatherer lifestyle as recently as 10,000 years ago â" too short to measure on the evolutionary timescale.
Wheat, be it ever so wholemeal and stoneground, is not a natural food for Homo sapiens. Nor is milk, except for children. Almost every morsel of our food is genetically modified â" admittedly by artificial selection not artificial mutation, but the end result is the same. A wheat grain is a genetically modified grass seed, just as a pekinese is a genetically modified wolf. Playing God? Weâve been playing God for centuries!
The large, anonymous crowds in which we now teem began with the agricultural revolution, and without agriculture we could survive in only a tiny fraction of our current numbers. Our high population is an agricultural (and technological and medical) artifact. It is far more unnatural than the population-limiting methods condemned as unnatural by the Pope. Like it or not, we are stuck with agriculture, and agriculture â" all agriculture â" is unnatural. We sold that pass 10,000 years ago.
Does that mean thereâs nothing to choose between different kinds of agriculture when it comes to sustainable planetary welfare? Certainly not. Some are much more damaging than others, but itâs no use appealing to ânatureâ, or to âinstinctâ in order to decide which ones. You have to study the evidence, soberly and reasonably â" scientifically. Slashing and burning (incidentally, no agricultural system is closer to being âtraditionalâ) destroys our ancient forests. Overgrazing (again, widely practised by âtraditionalâ cultures) causes soil erosion and turns fertile pasture into desert. Moving to our own modern tribe, monoculture, fed by powdered fertilisers and poisons, is bad for the future; indiscriminate use of antibiotics to promote livestock growth is worse.
Incidentally, one worrying aspect of the hysterical opposition to the possible risks from GM crops is that it diverts attention from definite dangers which are already well understood but largely ignored. The evolution of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria is something that a Darwinian might have foreseen from the day antibiotics were discovered. Unfortunately the warning voices have been rather quiet, and now they are drowned by the baying cacophony: âGM GM GM GM GM GM!â
Moreover if, as I expect, the dire prophecies of GM doom fail to materialise, the feeling of let-down may spill over into complacency about real risks. Has it occurred to you that our present GM brouhaha may be a terrible case of crying wolf?
Even if agriculture could be natural, and even if we could develop some sort of instinctive rapport with the ways of nature, would nature be a good role model? Here, we must think carefully. There really is a sense in which ecosystems are balanced and harmonious, with some of their constituent species becoming mutually dependent. This is one reason the corporate thuggery that is destroying the rainforests is so criminal.
On the other hand, we must beware of a very common misunderstanding of Darwinism. Tennyson was writing before Darwin but he got it right. Nature really is red in tooth and claw. Much as we might like to believe otherwise, natural selection, working within each species, does not favour long-term stewardship. It favours short-term gain. Loggers, whalers, and other profiteers who squander the future for present greed, are only doing what all wild creatures have done for three billion years.
No wonder T.H. Huxley, Darwinâs bulldog, founded his ethics on a repudiation of Darwinism. Not a repudiation of Darwinism as science, of course, for you cannot repudiate truth. But the very fact that Darwinism is true makes it even more important for us to fight against the naturally selfish and exploitative tendencies of nature. We can do it. Probably no other species of animal or plant can. We can do it because our brains (admittedly given to us by natural selection for reasons of short-term Darwinian gain) are big enough to see into the future and plot long-term consequences. Natural selection is like a robot that can only climb uphill, even if this leaves it stuck on top of a measly hillock. There is no mechanism for going downhill, for crossing the valley to the lower slopes of the high mountain on the other side. There is no natural foresight, no mechanism for warning that present selfish gains are leading to species extinction â" and indeed, 99 per cent of all species that have ever lived are extinct.
The human brain, probably uniquely in the whole of evolutionary history, can see across the valley and can plot a course away from extinction and towards distant uplands. Long-term planning â" and hence the very possibility of stewardship â" is something utterly new on the planet, even alien. It exists only in human brains. The future is a new invention in evolution. It is precious. And fragile. We must use all our scientific artifice to protect it.
It may sound paradoxical, but if we want to sustain the planet into the future, the first thing we must do is stop taking advice from nature. Nature is a short-term Darwinian profiteer. Darwin himself said it: âWhat a book a devilâs chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horridly cruel works of nature.â
Of course thatâs bleak, but thereâs no law saying the truth has to be cheerful; no point shooting the messenger â" science â" and no sense in preferring an alternative world view just because it feels more comfortable. In any case, science isnât all bleak. Nor, by the way, is science an arrogant know-all. Any scientist worthy of the name will warm to your quotation from Socrates: âWisdom is knowing that you donât know.â What else drives us to find out?
Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, âWell, thatâs not how I choose to think about waterâ? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesnât share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesnât value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove they should value it? If someone doesnât value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" - Richard Dawkins
ps So that final paragraph about the water analogy doesn't appear to feature in the original; rather, a web search suggests it's attributed to Sam Harris.
Then pps, as you can see Dawkins in the actual closing lines recommends this book to prince Charles: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan (1995). (Sagan some of us may know as the host of the 1980 TV series Cosmos, among other things.)
Hadn't heard of it before, but seems like a worthwhile read, indeed, and perhaps a fitting present to friends and acquaintances. In this day and age when, one sometimes feels, more than ever the world seems to be sorely lacking in "critical or skeptical thinking": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World .
