Genetically Modified Foods

[Salandriagado]

GMOs are the best shot we've got at feeding the hungry. What with Golden Rice fixing Vitamin A deficiency all over SEA, NERICA improving crop yields in Guinea, and draught-resistant maize in Africa, it's a good start.

I definately agree but we have to do it for all the right reasons and at the moment all I have ever seen is seedless watermelons and pip-less grapes etc.. I've been told, that 1 container of worms can reduce the salt content in the earth in most North African countries enough to tures into farm-able land. That would be a good start too. There are aquifers all over Africa so lets ask just one western govt to sacrifice 1 year and a couple of million dollars to a project similar to this maybe?

We are doing it for the right reasons. The reason that you don't see the really important ones is that you don't live in somewhere where they are necessary. There's no point, for example, in rolling out Golden Rice in the US, because there isn't a major Vitamin A deficiency problem in the US.

[70 Ophiuchi]

So you have never been to Africa then?

As I said, it's irrelevant, it may also cause you to not see the bigger picture.

Perhaps before we look at GMO farming we need to look at ourselves first and ask are we modifying food to make a profit or are we modifying food to feed the hungry?

You put far too much emphasis on intentions and whilst good intentions help they are merely a means to an end, not the end itself.

I'm far more concerned with results, if you make things worse or get in the way of solving a problem all that good intentions are is a sentence mitigation.

They should not be labeled imo.

Your reasoning?

You have things back the front here, it is those who think we should be labelling GMOs who need to back up their position, those who think the labels should be voluntary have the default position and so far I have not seen a good argument for required labelling of all GMOs (I can imagine situations in which some GMOs would require labelling but there is no justification for mandated labelling of all GMOs).

[Regnum Dominae]

There is nothing wrong with GM foods. We have been genetically modifying food for 10,000 years, it's just that now our techniques are somewhat more advanced.

Unless you want to eat wild corn in its original form, don't tell me you oppose GM foods.

[Immoren]

So you have never been to Africa then?

As I said, it's irrelevant, it may also cause you to not see the bigger picture.

Perhaps before we look at GMO farming we need to look at ourselves first and ask are we modifying food to make a profit or are we modifying food to feed the hungry?

You put far too much emphasis on intentions and whilst good intentions help they are merely a means to an end, not the end itself.

I'm far more concerned with results, if you make things worse or get in the way of solving a problem all that good intentions are is a sentence mitigation.

Your reasoning?

You have things back the front here, it is those who think we should be labelling GMOs who need to back up their position, those who think the labels should be voluntary have the default position and so far I have not seen a good argument for required labelling of all GMOs (I can imagine situations in which some GMOs would require labelling but there is no justification for mandated labelling of all GMOs).

i would have made same question had hir question been either way.

[Bodangus]

Apparently all the grass on the planet has been genetically modified over the centuries. We don't have 1 blade of original grass anymore

thanks for proving you don't know what modification is. We can safely ignore you now.

hahahaha What!?

That statement was just something I heard mate

How old are you?

[Bodangus]

thanks for proving you don't know what modification is. We can safely ignore you now.

hahahaha What!?

That statement was just something I heard mate

How old are you?

But on a serious note "modified" is a rather broad term really. Having its roots in the word "modern" which refers to "up-to-date" but then the word "modification" denotes a slight past tense in the sense that something has been brought up-to-date. Then again modification can also mean altered to work better which again implies being brought up-to-date with current technology.

You could say that altering the fuel ratio on a carburator is modifying the needs of the purpose of that vehicle to achieve a desired outcome. This then brings me to issue of whats the difference between genetically modified food and geneticlly altered food. how do you modify food when we never created food in the first place? or are we simply altering the genetic make up of food?

[Esternial]

Depends. If you consider crossing certain types of crop to create a hybrid, then probably 80% of all vegetables we buy in the store is "genetically modified"

[Orangi]

Long as it's neat, tastes good and doesn't kill me and or cause me any health problems, hell if I care.

[Sociobiology]

hahahaha What!?

That statement was just something I heard mate

How old are you?

But on a serious note "modified" is a rather broad term really. Having its roots in the word "modern" which refers to "up-to-date" but then the word "modification" denotes a slight past tense in the sense that something has been brought up-to-date. Then again modification can also mean altered to work better which again implies being brought up-to-date with current technology.

You could say that altering the fuel ratio on a carburator is modifying the needs of the purpose of that vehicle to achieve a desired outcome. This then brings me to issue of whats the difference between genetically modified food and geneticlly altered food.

modified implies an agent is involved.

how do you modify food when we never created food in the first place?

we created lots of food, cattle and bananas are not natural.

[Wikkiwallana]

hahahaha What!?

That statement was just something I heard mate

How old are you?

But on a serious note "modified" is a rather broad term really. Having its roots in the word "modern" which refers to "up-to-date" but then the word "modification" denotes a slight past tense in the sense that something has been brought up-to-date. Then again modification can also mean altered to work better which again implies being brought up-to-date with current technology.

Etymology
From Middle English modifien, from French modifier, from Latin modificare ("to limit, control, regulate, deponent"), from modificari ("to measure off, set bound to, moderate"), from modus ("measure") + facere ("to make"); see mode.

Etymology
From Middle French moderne, from Late Latin modernus; from Latin modo ("just now"), originally ablative of modus ("measure"); hence, by measure, "just now". See also mode.

Thanks for proving you are either making shit up, or haven't looked at a dictionary since about 10 AD.

Edit: fixed tag

[Tekania]

What is your view on genetically modified foods? Why?

Yummy.

[Tekania]

Why?

Because if one wants to eat naturally, then they should be able to. This artificial attack on natural food makes it difficult to tell what's truly natural and what's been artificially toyed with...

Just about everything you eat has been artificially toyed with. We've been engaged in a process of artificial control of crop breeding for thousands of years. I don't imagine there is much you would find to eat which has not been "artificially toyed with".

[Tekania]

People have a right to know what they're buying. It doesn't harm anything, just reduces liabilities and angry customers.

exactly, I want to buy natural broccoli to eat it instead of genetically modified broccoli.

Natural broccoli? You mean wild cabbage? Because there is no such thing as "natural broccoli"..... broccoli is a creation from years of humans artificially messing with wild cabbage.

I really fucking hate "natural" arguments from people. I've yet to meet a single person who makes an argument of something about "natural" as applying "natural" consistently... it's really an argument about what people feel comfortable with vs. what they don't.... while they just lack the intellectual honesty to fucking admit it and instead use some tired old idiotic "natural" vs. "artificial" argument.

[Kleomentia]

I don't like it. I dont want it, take it with you to your silicon valley.

[Bodangus]

But on a serious note "modified" is a rather broad term really. Having its roots in the word "modern" which refers to "up-to-date" but then the word "modification" denotes a slight past tense in the sense that something has been brought up-to-date. Then again modification can also mean altered to work better which again implies being brought up-to-date with current technology.

Etymology
From Middle English modifien, from French modifier, from Latin modificare ("to limit, control, regulate, deponent"), from modificari ("to measure off, set bound to, moderate"), from modus ("measure") + facere ("to make"); see mode.

Etymology
From Middle French moderne, from Late Latin modernus; from Latin modo ("just now"), originally ablative of modus ("measure"); hence, by measure, "just now". See also mode.

Thanks for proving you are either making shit up, or haven't looked at a dictionary since about 10 AD.

Edit: fixed tag

Explain your wiki definitions please with examples if you dont mind

[Vitaphone Racing]

The way the world's climate and population is turning out, soon there won't be a choice. Everything will be GM just to ensure we can feed ourselves.

[Wikkiwallana]

Thanks for proving you are either making shit up, or haven't looked at a dictionary since about 10 AD.

Edit: fixed tag

Explain your wiki definitions please with examples if you dont mind

Do you not know how to click a link? Or just not know what etymology means?

[Hungry]

Monsanto is a fucked up Company, but I see nothing wrong with GMO foods in theory. I don't think they should be specifically labelled as Genetically Modified because everything we eat is Genetically Modified, it's just that these modifications happen much quicker and are done by Scientists instead of Farmers.

[Terruana]

What is your view on genetically modified foods? Why?

I realise that we're now 12 pages into this thread and this has probably been said already, but it's almost 5am and I need to be up tomorrow morning so no reading through today.

All foods are genetically modified. It's been going on since the dawn of civilization when human beings invented agriculture. Every time a farmer decided to crossbreed his best plants, or breed his two biggest cows or whatever, he's been genetically altering the food he produces.

If people were more concerned with facts than media scare stories, threads like this wouldn't exist (or would at least be much less common).

You might as well ask people what their views are on food grown on farms, it would be the same thing.

[Tubbsalot]

All foods are genetically modified. It's been going on since the dawn of civilization when human beings invented agriculture. Every time a farmer decided to crossbreed his best plants, or breed his two biggest cows or whatever, he's been genetically altering the food he produces.

People need to stop saying this. "Genetic modification" doesn't refer to artificial selection, it refers to direct genetic alteration. Artificial selection certainly modifies genetics, but it's not genetic modification.

[Terruana]

All foods are genetically modified. It's been going on since the dawn of civilization when human beings invented agriculture. Every time a farmer decided to crossbreed his best plants, or breed his two biggest cows or whatever, he's been genetically altering the food he produces.

People need to stop saying this. "Genetic modification" doesn't refer to artificial selection, it refers to direct genetic alteration. Artificial selection certainly modifies genetics, but it's not genetic modification.

Uhh yes it does.
To quote the Oxford English dictionary, it is "The deliberate modification of the characteristics of an organism by manipulating its genetic material."

Artificial selection is a manipulation of the genetic material of the organism being produced. Just because it's being done in vivo rather than in vitro doesn't change what it is.

[Tubbsalot]

Uhh yes it does.
To quote the Oxford English dictionary, it is "The deliberate modification of the characteristics of an organism by manipulating its genetic material."

Yes. By "manipulating its genetic material," i.e. by directly modifying the physical genome of an organism. Getting things to fuck doesn't qualify as "manipulation of genetic material."

Artificial selection is a manipulation of the genetic material of the organism being produced. Just because it's being done in vivo rather than in vitro doesn't change what it is.

Food is a source of edible nutrition. Whether it's a ham sandwich or a bowl of honey doesn't change the fact that it's food.

However it does change a lot of other relevant things; for example, a bowl of honey doesn't qualify as a sandwich purely by being a food.

[Tubbsalot]

Actually I shouldn't have indulged you there, because your post was entirely irrelevant - even if we pretended that "genetic modification" was some broad-brush descriptor, the fact would still remain that people have a problem with the manipulation of the genome, not the artificial selection. So saying "well a bunch of stuff is artificially selected" is a totally silly argument to make.

[Tlaceceyaya]

Actually I shouldn't have indulged you there, because your post was entirely irrelevant - even if we pretended that "genetic modification" was some broad-brush descriptor, the fact would still remain that people have a problem with the manipulation of the genome, not the artificial selection. So saying "well a bunch of stuff is artificially selected" is a totally silly argument to make.

Artificial selection is manipulation of the genome, but with different methods.

[Tubbsalot]

Actually I shouldn't have indulged you there, because your post was entirely irrelevant - even if we pretended that "genetic modification" was some broad-brush descriptor, the fact would still remain that people have a problem with the manipulation of the genome, not the artificial selection. So saying "well a bunch of stuff is artificially selected" is a totally silly argument to make.

Artificial selection is manipulation of the genome, but with different methods.

Yes, in the same way that stabbing your dick involves deep control over the fundamental physical forces of the universe.

Technically true, but because language is a practical beast, if you tried to do this on a day-to-day basis you would be shot.