Philosophical Vegan Forum

Last week in science (bio) class, my teacher briefly talked about genetic modification, and she was actually hinting pretty strongly that GMOs are bad.

"They have little labels that say if food contains GMOs, so look the next time you go to the store."
*talks about GMO experiment involving making animals a bright color* "So there are ethical issues."
"Changing the world... Scary business."
"A lot of people are really concerned."

I didn't really know what to say though, because I just accept GMOs are fine because from my understanding that's the scientific consensus... But she's a science teacher.
How exactly do we know GMOs are safe, and how are they good for the environment with climate change (does it have to do with yields and peticides)?
I could've asked something like, "Is it true that GMO crops often require less land and are good for the environment?"
But then she could've just denied it.

So what's the story with GMOs? I might email her.

Also, one girl brought up veganism during this, and I'll be making another topic about that.

EquALLity wrote:Last week in science (bio) class, my teacher briefly talked about genetic modification, and she was actually hinting pretty strongly that GMOs are bad.

I would complain to the school administration.

EquALLity wrote:"They have little labels that say if food contains GMOs, so look the next time you go to the store."

And sometimes labels that say food is kosher or halal, therefore god is real!

EquALLity wrote:*talks about GMO experiment involving making animals a bright color* "So there are ethical issues."

This is entirely the fault of the anti-GMO lobby. It's as if the meat industry, being against tofu, forced the government to require animal testing for tofu products.

EquALLity wrote:"Changing the world... Scary business."

For the better, yes. Because food scarcity IS scary business, and now it's less scary that we have options to combat it.

EquALLity wrote:"A lot of people are really concerned."

Because people are stupid. Including her, unfortunately. People respond similarly to surveys that ask if we should label products that contain DNA. And people widely support banning dihydrogen monoxide (H2O).

EquALLity wrote: I didn't really know what to say though, because I just accept GMOs are fine because from my understanding that's the scientific consensus... But she's a science teacher.

You're smarter than she is.
If Teo's teachers have taught us anything, it's that public school teachers are idiots.

EquALLity wrote: How exactly do we know GMOs are safe, and how are they good for the environment with climate change (does it have to do with yields and peticides)?

Because we know what genes they have, and what proteins they're producing. Conventional breeding is much more dangerous, because it's random and results in introduction and combination of unknown genes. Even long eaten foods are not demonstrated to be safe for health (how about meat?).
GMOs are probably the safest foods on the market since we actually know what's in them at the genetic level.

In terms of the environment: it's partially yield and less spraying (for some GM crops). It can also be changes to how the plant functions, like GM rice that doesn't release starch into the water from the roots when the field is flooding, thus reducing methane production (rice is a major source of methane in agriculture, not as bad as beef, but still substantial).

EquALLity wrote: I could've asked something like, "Is it true that GMO crops often require less land and are good for the environment?"
But then she could've just denied it.

Or ask why she denies the scientific consensus that GMOs are safe and beneficial.

And bring some facts.

https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/
http://www.vegangmo.com/
https://gmoanswers.com/

Bill Nye is a good example, you might want to reference him because she probably knows about and respects him:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-robert ... 55296.html

EquALLity wrote: How exactly do we know GMOs are safe?

There will always be an element of risk when people toy with nature. worldnewsdailyreport[dot]com/doctors-confirm-first-human-death-officially-caused-by-gmos/ That being said, IMO the benefits far outweigh the risks. After all, something as benign as a peanut is fatal to some.

PsYcHo wrote:

EquALLity wrote: How exactly do we know GMOs are safe?

There will always be an element of risk when people toy with nature. worldnewsdailyreport[dot]com/doctors-confirm-first-human-death-officially-caused-by-gmos/ That being said, IMO the benefits far outweigh the risks. After all, something as benign as a peanut is fatal to some.

Please do some very basic fact checking of these things before you believe them and spread them.
That article is a hoax:

http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/gmodeath.asp

It was probably written and designed to spread fear under the dishonest guise of satire, with the anti-GMO author knowing it would be cited as fact far more rapidly and widely than anybody can debunk it.

Embarassing? Yes. Please learn from this, and next time take two seconds to do a Google search before reposting something as fact.

brimstoneSalad wrote: http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/gmodeath.asp

It was probably written and designed to spread fear under the dishonest guise of satire, with the anti-GMO author knowing it would be cited as fact far more rapidly and widely than anybody can debunk it.

Embarassing? Yes. Please learn from this, and next time take two seconds to do a Google search before reposting something as fact.

I was actually searching for another related article I had heard about, just hastily used this one to illustrate the point that something could be dangerous. I'm all for gmo's, to be clear.

I'm going to break down that hoax anyway, and show how scientifically and medically absurd it is:

The young man’s health rapidly deteriorated after he suffered an unexplained allergic reaction, and all the drugs used to refrain the anaphylaxis were entirely inefficient. [...]the medical staff was unable to identify the cause of his allergic reaction in time and none of the usual treatments or drugs seemed to work.

Medications for allergic reactions are targeted to reduce the immune reaction, not to the substance: allergens are not like viruses and bacterium. It's the immune system overreacting which is causing the problem, the same medications work for all allergic reactions. There's no special exception to this.
So, the "cause" of the allergic reaction is really irrelevant, unless there's an issue of ongoing exposure.

They were astonished when they discovered that the tomato he had ingested, not only contained some fish-related allergens, but also some antibiotic resistant genes which had prevented Mr. Ramos’ white blood cell from saving his life.

1.White blood cells don't fight allergic reactions (they consume the allergens eventually, but that's aside from the point), allergic reactions are caused by overreaction of the immune system. Totally irrelevant.
2. Antibiotic resistance doesn't prevent white blood cells from attacking foreign agents. Antibiotic resistance only occurs in a living invader cell (not a protein causing an allergic reaction), and ONLY prevents (or partially protects) them from being killed by antibiotics. Totally meaningless in this context.
3. GMOs contain only very specific genes for specific purposes. They don't just get a bunch of random genes. Microbial antibiotic resistant genes in GMOs would likely serve no purpose.
4. There are no GMO tomatoes currently on the market. Nobody eats these, and they are available nowhere. They were available only briefly around the late 90s (AFIK). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetical ... ied_tomato

wikipedia wrote:Currently there are no genetically modified tomatoes available commercially

AND the tomato variety that was developed using fish genes was NEVER on the market, as that article mentions (search "fish" on that page).

I would complain to the school administration.

I don't know, I don't want to get her in any serious trouble for this, or worse, fired.

I'm more inclined to contact her about it and try to change her mind.

And sometimes labels that say food is kosher or halal, therefore god is real!

This is entirely the fault of the anti-GMO lobby. It's as if the meat industry, being against tofu, forced the government to require animal testing for tofu products.

So there would be zero testing anymore if not for the anti-GMO lobby? How does that work?

Because people are stupid. Including her, unfortunately. People respond similarly to surveys that ask if we should label products that contain DNA. And people widely support banning dihydrogen monoxide (H2O).

Ok, she's not stupid. Everybody has blind-spots or misunderstandings sometimes. Bill Nye seemed to have taken awhile to change his mind of GMOs based on that article you linked.

LOL, seriously? Foods that contain DNA?
The H20 one is pretty funny also. It sounds like people just hear the word and think, "Holy shit, that sounds like a scary chemical! Ban it!"
To be fair, if you asked me what 'dihydrogen monoxide' was, I wouldn't immediately recognize it as water. I may or may not have been able to figure it out, but I wouldn't say we should label/ban it.

This reminds me of a study I heard about awhile ago in which 30% of republicans wanted to bomb the city from Aladdin, Agrabah.
"I don't know, it sounds Middle Eastern. There are probably scary Muslims there, bomb it!"

You're smarter than she is.
If Teo's teachers have taught us anything, it's that public school teachers are idiots.

She's very knowledgeable, and she was actually a scientist who did research herself. She's not dumb.

Teo is in a totally different country, so it likely has a poor public education system.

Because we know what genes they have, and what proteins they're producing. Conventional breeding is much more dangerous, because it's random and results in introduction and combination of unknown genes. Even long eaten foods are not demonstrated to be safe for health (how about meat?).
GMOs are probably the safest foods on the market since we actually know what's in them at the genetic level.

In terms of the environment: it's partially yield and less spraying (for some GM crops). It can also be changes to how the plant functions, like GM rice that doesn't release starch into the water from the roots when the field is flooding, thus reducing methane production (rice is a major source of methane in agriculture, not as bad as beef, but still substantial).

Is this elaborated on and explained in the links?

I know you're not lying, of course, but I'd like to have a source and understand the ins and outs.

Or ask why she denies the scientific consensus that GMOs are safe and beneficial.

And bring some facts.

https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/
http://www.vegangmo.com/
https://gmoanswers.com/

Bill Nye is a good example, you might want to reference him because she probably knows about and respects him:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-robert ... 55296.html

Thank you, I'll check those out!

Maybe I'll post the email on here before sending.

EquALLity wrote: So there would be zero testing anymore if not for the anti-GMO lobby? How does that work?

There's just no reason to test them if other crops aren't being tested. Other methods are more dangerous and less predictable.

Did you hear about the lethal zucchini? There have been a few outbreaks.

This looks like a good article: http://www.uh.edu/~trdegreg/genetic_eng ... cantly.htm

Every form of plant breeding has unknown outcomes. Conventional breeding of wheat will result in a plant with about 3,000 alien genes. The breeder does not know where the vast majority of "alien" genes are or what they might express. This has been done safely for thousands of years. Sometimes the products of conventional breeding have to be withdrawn because of excessive production of toxins. Recent examples include potatoes, celery and squash.

A year ago in New Zealand, there was an outbreak of food poisoning from a "killer zucchini" that hospitalized a number of people. Environmentalists jumped all over the story until it was determined that the culprit was "organic" zucchini. Plants are chemical factories that produce a multitude of toxins that protect them. An outbreak of aphid infestation had minimal impact on conventionally grown zucchini. The more vulnerable "organic" zucchini was genetically inferior because of inbreeding. They expressed dangerously high levels of the toxin curcubitan. Had this been a transgenic plant, we would be hearing about it ad nauseam, but being that it was "organic," it was quickly consigned to an Orwellian memory hole.

All foods should be tested, but only using chemical analysis. And conventional breeding should be subject to much more rigorous screening, because it's much more dangerous than GMO where one well studied gene has been inserted into a pretty specific location with well studied effects.

EquALLity wrote:Ok, she's not stupid. Everybody has blind-spots or misunderstandings sometimes. Bill Nye seemed to have taken awhile to change his mind of GMOs based on that article you linked.

Which is one of the reasons I think Nye is an idiot, but that's aside from the point: his change of heart may be a good example for her.

The bottom line is she should not be teaching these things if she doesn't understand them herself, or has personal biases that are inclining her to fear monger and politicize the issue in the classroom.

EquALLity wrote:It sounds like people just hear the word and think, "Holy shit, that sounds like a scary chemical! Ban it!"

Basically. And in the same survey, people thought most plants didn't normally contain DNA.

EquALLity wrote:She's very knowledgeable, and she was actually a scientist who did research herself. She's not dumb.

Well, maybe you can convince her GMO is safer than conventional breeding, and stop her fear mongering in the class easily. If she's resistant to correction, I think it would prove my point. We'll see.

EquALLity wrote:Is this elaborated on and explained in the links?

In a number of articles, in various ways.
The main point is to understand how chaotic cross breeding is.
Organic agriculture also mutates plants with radiation, also potentially dangerous.

GMO is the safest thing there is because of its precision of gene editing.

EquALLity wrote: Maybe I'll post the email on here before sending.

Sure.