But let's talk about what's really important...

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

That's exactly the definition I'm using, Rupert. Anything that doesn't occur naturally in nature. Seedless oranges, for example. Giant strawberries. The guy that covers the tassels on corn, then pollenates the corn by hand. That's genetic modification.

You can do that in a field, as has been done for thousands of years, or in a greenhouse, or in a backyard, or in a laboratory greenhouse.

So the point you brought up is: which foods should be labeled, and why? Only those who have interspecies genes? Or every other altered gene? (which is pretty much everything we eat)

There are something like 61 countries that require labels on GMOs. Natural selection that has occurred over thousands of years does not qualify as a GMO food. The definitions are very clearly written in the laws as to what would be considered a GMO food. The law in California was going to be pretty much the same as the law in Europe. When DNA is altered in a lab to produce a plant that doesn't occur naturally, I think that pretty much defines it. The law is referring to genetically engineered crops in a laboratory, not natural selection.


http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/regul...gineering.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic...ified_organism

[Sightseek]

Originally Posted by herkhorse

It's OK just to shut up once in a while.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

By the way, you should read the 2nd rebuttal to your article. Here is a piece of it:

Response to author's call
In response to the author's comment regarding not being "pro-GM", I would suggest that perhaps the tenor of her articles don't do her feelings justice. There must be some reason why the majority of readers across time seem to be getting the incorrect impression. Regarding the issue of good journalism, I won't disagree, but it's interesting that the few positive responses to the relentlessly pro-GM sounding articles usually seem to come either from those who express a marked pro-GM bias, themselves, or from those who don't reason particularly well. Personally, I'm going to withhold judgement about the articles being 'fair and insightful' until I see some good supporting evidence.

But my intent is to help, not criticize. The author asked for links to articles that show poor methodologies being used elsewhere. Surely she's aware of the difficulties of proving negatives, but I do have a few examples. One that comes to mind are the remarkable number of field trials of GMO crops that purport to demonstrate their safety, but which fail to follow the 'life cycle' of GM proteins as they leave the plant and enter the gut flora of pollinating insects or the soil biota. Where do those genes go after leaving their initial points of contact, and what influences do they have as they travel through the environment? Nobody really knows, because very few (especially Monsanto et. al.) have asked. However, the most recent research suggests that this gap in inquiry has allowed the gut flora of field insects exposed to GM proteins in situ, to mutate and confer host immunity. That wasn't, according to Monsanto et al., supposed to happen! There was no evidence that it could happen! The reality is that the evidence was waiting to be discovered, but the GM industry never honestly looked for it. It wasn't found until independent researchers thought to inquire. How much more evidence of harm is out there, lying hidden until somebody insightful enough and wealthy enough to ask, can run the correct studies?

Unfortunately, the absence of evidence was taken as the evidence of absence. This seems to hallen a lot with Monsanto. It's too bad that economic and political interests often push this mental sleight-of-hand onto unsuspecting members of the public and the press. When one substitutes logical fallacy for logic, and bolsters one's world view with selective evidence, the mistaking of all sorts of absurdities for truth becomes easy.

An issue related to "absence of evidence" is the sheer politics of publishing scientific reviews critical of Monsanto's work. Surely the author knows that scientific research and publishing are highly political endeavors, despite the official dogma that science is free and independent of such un-scientific concerns. Independent? Hogwash. The practical reality is that science is almost as political an endeavor as - well, as politics itself. And those pushing GM are currently the same ones holding the clout, and always have been right back to the beginning of this game.

http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science...media-approach

Before I forget- thanks for opening up this line of discussion, Rupert. I've really enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts on it. And to think it came from a joke about the porn industry!

The letter writer is absolutely right that scientific study is influenced by all sorts of external factors, and again, I'm not challenging that research into GMOs may not eventually turn up clear evidence that they are harmful; just that I haven't seen it yet. I see the concerns the letter writer has about the criticisms of the study, but they don't hold up to me as strongly as the flaws in it.

A big problem I do have with the response is the complaint about the difficulties of proving negatives, as I think it shows a bit of scientific illiteracy on the part of the letter writer. I'm simplifying a bit, and someone like Riot who has actually participated in medical studies may be able to explain better, but as I understand from my statistician brother, and a very long science CD for which I did the audio narration, good studies begin with a null hypothesis- that is, the assumption at the beginning of the study is that what is being studied will turn out not to be true, i.e., "GMO foods do not increase cancer risk." That way, evidence that ends up contradicting the null hypothesis must be pretty clear, and not the result of interpreting it to fit an agenda. An extreme example of this would be that study done about estrogen replacement therapy some years back, where the mounting evidence that in fact, it did contribute to breast cancer risk became so overwhelming that they stopped the study for fear of the women's health. In that case, the null hypothesis was disproved pretty clearly.

So, in a way, science is always trying to prove the negative. Or rather, it is always assuming the negative to be true, and looking for evidence to challenge that claim. I just don't think this particular study made a good challenge to the claim, due to the flaws in methodology.

But I certainly don't challenge the claim that scientific inquiry is as influenced by Big Business and political expediency as everything else is! I think the only real weapon we have against it is to try to be as scientifically literate as we can be, so that we can better apply critical thinking skills to what the media feeds us.