New Study Confirms Safety of GM Crops 571
New submitter ChromeAeonium writes "Much like vaccines and evolution, there exists a great disparity between the scientific consensus and the public perceptions of the safety of genetically engineered crops. A previous study from France, which was later dismissed by the EFSA, FSANZ, and the French High Council of Biotechnologies, claiming to have found abnormalities in the organs of animals fed GM diets by analyzing three previous studies was discussed on Slashdot. However, a new study, also out of France, claims the opposite is true, that GM crops are unlikely to pose health risks (translation of original in French). Looking at 24 long-term and multi-generational studies on insect resistant and herbicide tolerant plants, the study states, 'The studies reviewed present evidence to show that GM plants are nutritionally equivalent to their non-GM counterparts and can be safely used in food and feed.' Although it is impossible to prove a negative, and while every GM crop must be individually evaluated as genetic engineering is a process not a product, perhaps this study will help to ease the fears of genetically engineered food and foster a more scientific discussion on the role of agricultural biotechnology."
Re:First Post (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Crazy vs. Evil (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Crazy vs. Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
People tend to be very good at predicting what others will likely do, but we're crap at understanding the motivation of those actions, and this is a perfect example.
You're assuming people would be choosing because they're scared of the effects of GM food (and I'm assuming that's your assumption, and you'll probably correct me).
For me, I don't want to support Monsanto if at all possible. I think it's absolute bullshit that a farmer can have his crop infested with Monsanto "product" from a neighboring farm, and then get sued when he uses it. And yes, I think there needs to be patent reform, copyright reform, trademark reform, etc, but I also won't actively support a company that abuses those systems.
Requiring a label ain't so bad (we could be pushing to limit it's use or outlaw it the way they've done with smoking, for instance, which I also feel should be ones choice but should be correctly labeled), and it leaves the choice to the individual. If past labeling enforcement is any indicator, it won't change a damn thing in the larger scale of things (think McDonalds - you can now see exactly how awful their fries are and, surprisingly to me, how relatively good their nuggets are... but they're still selling millions).
I predict that the sheeple hysteria will have little to no effect on the purchasing numbers should producers be required to label GM foods. Ya know why? Cause those people have already moved to the "Organic" trend.
Proving a negative... (Score:5, Interesting)
You can readily prove the non-existence of something that satisfies a particular set of properties... for example, finding a real number that satisfies being equivalent to the square root of negative 1. The properties are "real" and "square root of -1". And it is fully provable that absolutely no number exists with both of those properties. While a complex number that is the square root of negative 1 exists, and one might want to argue that the ascribed property of being real was arbitrary and unncessary, one could equally argue the the property of being the square root of negative 1 was arbitrary as well... yet clearly real numbers exist, so what make one property distinctive and the other not?
It is even possible to prove the nonexistence of something with only a single property... such as the existence of a number that is equivalent to itself plus 1. There is absolutely no number, in any number system defined by mathematics, that satisfies this criteria. People who challenge even this would have to leave the domain of mathematics entirely, making the argument that it might still plausibly exist wholly meaningless... since, after all, outside of mathematics, what would it even mean to "add 1" to something?
Of course, one might then point out that this could work within a domain of mathematics because it is built on such rigidly defined principles, and those principles are well understood. In the real world, however, we do not necessarily know all the physical principles that govern the universe's operation... we may believe we understand them well enough to have demonstrated predictive power in the past, but that does not mean our understanding is anywhere near complete. Because of this ambiguity, some doubt can always remain about the existence of certain things. The only way you can remove this doubt is by ascribing properties to the thing you are intending to disprove, and then systematically showing that the satisfaction of those properties creates a logical contradiction, thereby disproving the existence of that thing with those properties.
Re:Crazy vs. Evil (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Roundup Ready and Arachnid/Insect Populations? (Score:5, Interesting)
I started developing a real sensitivity to wheat in 1997-1998, which stunned me, as I love eating it in all its forms, pretty much. I was living in the UK at the time, and slowly realised that it was the wheat that was the problem. Eventually I discovered that if I ate predominantly wheat products for a good 2-3 weeks straight I would get violently ill at the end of that period within 20 minutes of eating - stomach would hurt like hell, and it would feel as if I hadn't eaten at all.
I was really vexed by this. I pieced together that I needed to alternate with rice-based dishes, or with grain-less meals (salads, beans etc), and eventually I would feel better. About 3 months later, the GMO controversy erupted in the UK. At that time, I discovered that the UK gets something like 80% of all its wheat products from North America - where Canadian and US wheat producers had quietly introduced GMO wheat into the food supply - and not publicised this at all.
I returned to Canada in 1999. I then moved to Italy in 2002, and ate wheat constantly for the next two years. Guess what? Not a day of the same symptoms. Why not? Because they don't allow this frankenwheat to be sold.
Since coming back to Canada in 2005, I've had a couple of bouts of the wheat sensitivity, and for the same reasons - too much wheat in a compressed period.
Re:Crazy vs. Evil (Score:3, Interesting)