The Big Picture: Feeding Edge

[Daveman]

Selective breeding (I.e with carrots and cows) and genetic engineering are not the same thing. Neither are bad, just genetic engineering isn't just shutting on and off genes its making potatoes provide the correct proteins so they can be used for vaccinations (for human diseases) something which would never happen no matter how many potatoes you bred together.

I'm fine with both, this is more of a definitions thing.

Yeah, I was going to storm in and shout about it but fortunately somebody had already said what I wanted to say in the 3rd comment. I think that shows what an obvious error it was. Get your definitions straight, Bob. The authority given to you by this video slot means you have to be extra careful about what you say, otherwise it makes people go out and use your flawed arguments and make themselves appear idiots to other people.

And yes, your argument DOES make you look like an idiot. It says in the first paragraph on wikipedia that Genetic Enginnering "does not include traditional animal and plant breeding". Oh deary deary me.

 

[maddog015]

Watch Penn and Teller's Bullsh!t! on organic foods. Interesting stuff.

 

[Nimzar]

Carrots were purple????? Wow. Learned somethin' new. Though that puts the word carotene in an a funny position.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

Well done Bob. This is actually the best and most concise argument for modified food I've ever heard. Just don't show this movie to Beck, he will call you a Nazi and a Terrorist and then throw his monkey feces at you

 

[Lord Honk]

I hate the fuss about gen-tec food since I found out that the modified corn flour in the tortillas is what keeps Taco Bell from coming to Germany (or so they say).

Still, I want my friggin' tacos if it gives me cancer. Can't live forever anyways.

 

[Inuprince]

Bob you just blew my mind with the purple carrots! Good show!

 

[snakeakaossi]

Oh dear, I think Bob left a little bit out. Hear me out, please.

My problem with genetic engineering is not the engineering or the science, as has been put out, but what people eventually do with it. Genetic engineered soy, for example, is perfectly edible soy, but they've engineered it to withstand every kind of pesticide. The result is that after that they use way more pesticide than necessary and kill all the life in a wide mile radius. It's like claiming nuclear power is the cleanest energy in the world if you handle the waste right (which is true) and then putting the depleted uranium in bullets and airplane-weights (which they did) contaminating every warzone and crashsite.

There is no end to human cleverness, but unfortunately human stupidity will ALWAYS ruin it.

 

[Urh]

Also, this technically isn't a new technology. Since the 1960's, most of the world's insulin is produced by incorperating the human insulin gene into E. coli bacteria using similar techniques to those used to make GM foods. We've been doing this for 50 years, people. The only difference is now we're using it outside the medical field. While there are a few remaining kinks to be worked out (as with all science), the there is little to no reason to be worried about ANY GM food. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to eat my lunch.

I hate to be a real anal retentive, but insulin produced from genetically engineered E. coli does NOT date back to the 1960s. The technology (for insulin production) was developed in 1978, and the insulin manufactured by these processes didn't hit the market until the 1980s. Prior to that we were still harvesting pigs (and before that, cows) for insulin. Hell, restriction enzymes (which are the key to gene splicing) weren't even isolated until 1970.

Furthermore, your (inaccurate) boast that "we've been doing this for 50 years, therefore it's 100% safe" is a terrible (not to mention fallacious) argument. Just because we haven't had a serious problem yet doesn't mean we'll never have one. For example, it was 32 years between the first nuclear power station going online and the Chernobyl disaster.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Anyone seen the episode of Penn and Teller: Bullshit that covers this?

Yeah, I loved that episode, particularly the blind taste test segments.

 

[hawk533]

Except Genetically Modified seeds give Monsanto even more of a monopoly on the commercial seed market. Making it more expensive to grow crops so that the only way to make money off of farming is to have larger and larger farms that require more and more fossil fuels, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides in order to grow. In the long run, the way genetically modified seeds are patented, marketed and sold is not sustainable.

Having said that, I don't have any reason to fear genetically modified foods in and of themselves. The only thing I worry about is their potential to spread completely non-naturally occurring traits to wild plants. When humans tamper with our ecosystem, the results generally aren't good. See Asian Carp entering the great lakes, other invasive species and global warming.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

There is basically not a natraul food on this planet that hasn't been genetically engineered to a point where if somebody saw a the original they would think you were joking.

Go on, try me.

 

[BrunDeign]

CYBORG FOOD!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES ITS THE T-MATO SERIES!!! SKYNET HAS FOUND US!

 

[GuiltBlade]

Good points all round Bob (I want to kick the originator of the Franken-food trend so hard), although there is a more worrisome side to genetic engineering which is less common.

Such as lowering the number of seeds an orange will produce to make a more enjoyable orange for the market. The problem being is that it can be coupled with a dominant trait so that there is a reasonable percentage risk that eventually the majority of oranges wont contain seeds.
Of course this is just an example from my biology days and the number of oranges grown makes that risk negligible.

The thing that I dislike about GM foods is the introduction of material to increase the amount of natural defence agents a plant will produce, a natural pesticide if you will. More preferable than chemical pesticides but still with long term complications.

 

[hawk533]

I've actually written several papers on this issue and honestly Bob is vastly over oversimplifying it. As other commenters have said the concern isn't taste, its speed and quantity. The people doing the engineering in labs is mostly Monsanto, the friendly bunch that brought you agent orange. There already in a lot of trouble in the agricultural business for the malevolent defects in bovine growth hormones, which was widely untested before being released to the public. The biggest engineered product right now is canola, and its getting close to all of it being artificially created, all without being tested. On top of the fact that there crushing all competitors in the agricultural business, a misstep with some kind negative effect attached to the desired one is already integrated into the wild life by the time we find out. Considering Monsanto's track record, a little worry isn't unjustified.

This is pretty much what I'm worried about. Genetically modifying seeds is expensive enough that it's mostly large corporations doing it. Whenever you put large corporations into the mix the public safety tends to be compromised to the full extent of the law and sometimes beyond the legal limits.

 

[Urh]

Anyone seen the episode of Penn and Teller: Bullshit that covers this?

Yeah, I loved that episode, particularly the blind taste test segments.

Ugh, don't get me started on that absolute crock of a show...

 

[WolfmanNougat]

All bow in fear and awe of the mighty Robo-Tomato!

 

[CitySquirrel]

Broccoli is a man made food, so I have heard.

I'm not particularly against genetically modified foods, but this was a little deceptive and this does not lend credence to the idea that you have a legitimate argument.

First of all, by doing DNA manipulations you can make far larger leaps than you can with selective breeding. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and is definitely more efficient, but can also allow for making a jump that, in its intermediary stage during selective breeding, may have been discovered to be a bad idea.

Furthermore, one of the dangers of genetically modified organisms is that, especially with plants, they can take over native populations of the unmodified version of the plants. And, since there are fewer varieties, there is more risk of a single disease, insect, or fungus wiping them all out. And even before it was done in labs, reckless genetic engineering has had some very bad results... like the africanized honeybee.

Finally, in Frankenstein he didn't just bring a dead body to life, and you know it. He created a living being out of many parts of other living beings and then promptly abandoned it ignoring all responsibility for the thing that he made. We have a word for that today, and it is "absent parent."

 

[malestrithe]

What a load of bull. Selective breeding is NOT genetic engineering.

Turning genes on or off may have far broader impact than just changing the colour or any other aspect of just one vegetable. It may make it more resistance to disease, it may allow the crop to grow in a colder or hotter environment, it may do all kinds of things. The point is, turning on or off genes doesn?t change just one thing. It can have far reaching implications and effects on the environment in which the modified crop grows. Say, making a certain crop able to grow somewhere it wasn't able to grow may have implications on plants that DO grow there in the first place. It can affect the insects that feeds on its nectar, it may affect plants on which its pollen are transmitted (cross breeding of engineered crops to natural ones). And do you really think all those side effects are screened before they were allowed to be grown? Do you think introducing new species in a strange environment is a good idea?

Grafting is the process of taking pieces of some plants and grafting them to another. Citrus plants are often grafted onto another, but it can be done with any plant species. By doing this, it makes lemons bigger, it makes oranges with qualities of tangerines, and it is the only way that the most common banana species can be produced. Sometimes however, it can produce new species of plants, like the brocoflour. Why did I bring this up? Simply put: this practice disproves the claim that farmers never alter food products at the genetic level because that is the only place these changes can occur. There is nothing selective about this: this is straight up manipulation.

Sorry to break it you, but Yes, selective breeding IS genetic engineering. You are manipulating the genes of an animal or plant by coercing the traits desired that you want out of it. Despite what orgainzations like greenpeace has been feeding the public, Monsanto is doing the exact came thing that farmers have been doing for centuries because the same principles are being used in both areas. Just because a guy in a lab coat does it does not make it more evil than it being done with guys with pitchforks.

I love how you try to make this debate into an fear based one by using the same talking points I've read people like you made on the Skeptoid forums, as well as many other places on the web. You do this because you are projecting your fears onto others, but because fear cause you to go against gm crops in the first place.

That is the heart of this debate. It is not about the "dangers" of Gm crops, but because you are afraid of big business taking over the world.

The greater reason why need to do this is because you are not prepared to answer an even bigger question. Are you going to tell the people in Africa they need to starve because you are afraid? Who gives you the right to say such a thing?

As for me, Yes, there are dangers in Genetic Modifying foods, but there are also dangers going across the street, turning on the car, taking your medicine, or eating at a fast food restuarant. Call me selfish, but I am more concerned with feeding starving and hungry people world wide with the most efficient way possible than some farfetched, unlikely, miniscule problem that may or may not happen.

If your ego is so fragile that you need the last word, feel free to respond. just be forewarned that I my self esteem is so great that I know any further debate would be pointless.

 

[mac88]

Is Frankenberry genetically engineered? Because I think it's delicious.

 

[Dana22]

Few words of clarification here.

Defibrillation doesnt bring dead people back to life, thats a movie myth and common misconception. On the contrary, you should never ever shock a flatline, when heart is in asystole (its not "working"). It will only make things worse. In such cases adrenaline shots and heart massage is used.

Defibrillation is mainly used when heart is in arrhythmia (when the heart beat isnt regular). I know, I was defilbrillated once