Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kosh on April 20, 2008, 08:28:09 am
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http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/exposed-the-great-gm-crops-myth-812179.html
Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.
So I guess that's that. Very disappointing.
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I'd like to know if I can trust this one. I have seen many studies vanishing with a simple "That wasn't true. We're sorry for that. Full stop."
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More full stops?
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Well... they tested using just weed-killer resistant and non-GM strains. Can't really see reason why there even should have been massive increase in crop yields between the varieties.
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What a load...
It should be "In these particular, comparative conditions, these particular genetically manipulated cultivars of soy seem to produce less yield than other cultivars that have been produced via artificial selection.".
It's a logical fallacy to assume that the results of this study are applicable to all plants in all conditions. In fact, they aren't even applicable to the single species used in the study (soy). The fact that some GM plant produces less in some conditions than a "normal" version of the species proves just that, else is speculation and handwavium.
Even if we would assume that the results would be applicable to all cultivars of soy and all the genetic manipulations that are possible to make, it would still be a huge stretch to assume that the same holds true for all other species of plants.
Even if we would assume that the results would be applicable to all plants - that GM automatically makes inferior plants than those resulting from natural or artificial selection, it would be a huge stretch to assume that all world is Kansas (there are other kinds of weather conditions around the world, you know...) and same factors would define the yield everywhere.
Even assuming all this (with little basis on reality), there are still the other advantages of genetically manipulated plants than absolute amount of yield. We need to remember that famine is almost always caused by catastrophic loss of crops, mostly due to drought, sometimes due to diseases, frost, pests or peasants. If genetically manipulated plant can survive through longer bouts of time with little water, or is resistant to diseases or pests, it will produce N amount of yield when the vulnerable cultivars of same plant die and produce very little yield. So the situation is not so straightforward as to compare the absolute yields in ideal conditions.
Make no mistake though, I'm not particularly for or against genetical manipulations. They have a lot of potential and the theoretical basis is good, but on the other hand I'm rather wary of genetical manipulations of plants that can reproduce/spread through cloning. We really don't want something going wrong and having the plant equivalent of the killer bee on our hands spreading through the world. The risk of that is relatively small and the analogy is not really very good since the killer bee is a result of artificial selection (cross-breed of European honey bee and African bee), but it gets the point across.
I just get really mad when the some blithering ignoramus gets to spread their ravings in media... :mad2:
EDIT:
The GM crop – engineered to resist Monsanto's own weedkiller, Roundup – recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop's take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya's yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it.
Whate does this prove other than this particular genetic manipulation is not very thoroughly thought out? It proves that this crappily made manipulation has a side effect affecting the plant's ability to teaky-up manganese from soil.
This is like opening television and seeing that there's just Survivors going on, and assumign that therefore all stuff in television is crap.
...oh wait. :lol:
Well, there's still BSG... :nervous:
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What Herra said.
Things like this simply tend to attract the attention even if they're vague.
Sicko.
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HT seems to have made most of my arguments for me but I'll further state that I'm ****ing disappointed in the Independent for publishing this as the debunking of some huge myth about GM food.
This is like opening television and seeing that there's just Survivors going on, and assumign that therefore all stuff in television is crap.
Not quite, they were told that this bean wasn't developed to increase yields. Yet they complain that it didn't. This is like being told BSG is good, turning on the TV, seeing survivor and then saying BSG is crap.:rolleyes:
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What Herra said.
Things like this simply tend to attract the attention even if they're vague.
Sicko.
True, but I still don't think that Monsanto should be trusted either to deliver on their promise of large, safe crop yields given their ethically questionable business practices with regards to their other products.
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I don't get it... what's 'controversial' about GM food?
We've been genetically engineering things for millenia, we're just using different tools that are capable of doing it faster. Why is there no controversy about the breeding of dogs, etc.?
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I don't get it... what's 'controversial' about GM food?
We've been genetically engineering things for millenia, we're just using different tools that are capable of doing it faster. Why is there no controversy about the breeding of dogs, etc.?
I've wondered the same thing, and the best that I can figure it is that the average person is so clueless that they think genetically modified means some radical change and that perhaps the plants will become sentient and revolt... oh wait... that's artificial intelligence, but I guess it's the same difference really.
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I don't get it... what's 'controversial' about GM food?
We've been genetically engineering things for millenia, we're just using different tools that are capable of doing it faster. Why is there no controversy about the breeding of dogs, etc.?
We haven't been "genetically engineering" things for millenia, we've been using artificial selection to produce plants/animals with traits we find more desirable. With GM they use retroviruses to invade the plant cells. Then companies such as Monsanto will slap a patent on it.
One of the negative effects of this is to lock farmers into a constant need to replace their seed stocks by purchasing them, instead of traditionally keeping them. Also if a farmer's field gets contaminated with GM seeds (which is easy, keeping track of all the seeds is impossible), these GM companies will sue for IP infrigement.
As I understand it one of the other issues is the lack of regulation in the US. When people are tampering with life, there needs to be studies done on the long term effects of this, both on human health and on the plants themselves. In the US this hasn't happened.
On top of all this, there is history of bad behavior on the part of the companies themselves. They have proven they can't be trusted to ethically conduct business.