background preloader

GM Food

Facebook Twitter

Lecture to Oxford Farming Conference, 3 January 2013. [Comments are now closed - it was getting impossible to manage them given the volume.]

Lecture to Oxford Farming Conference, 3 January 2013

Chinese translation… Italian translation… German translation… Spanish translation… French translation… Vietnamese translation (shortened)… Italian version (also shortened) Thai version and Slovak version. NEW – Portuguese translation. 07 Mark Lynas from Oxford Farming Conference on Vimeo. Can We Trust Monsanto with Our Food? SA Forum is an invited essay from experts on topical issues in science and technology.

Can We Trust Monsanto with Our Food?

The World Food Prize laureates for 2013 were announced in June. They are Marc van Montagu, Mary-Dell Chilton and Rob Fraley. These scientists played seminal roles, together with the late Jeff Schell, in developing modern plant molecular modification techniques. Fraley is chief technology officer of Monsanto. Chilton is a Distinguished Science Fellow at Syngenta. GMO Truthers need to be kicked out of the Progressive movement. How do you decide which side is scientifically valid?

GMO Truthers need to be kicked out of the Progressive movement

So I guess we should start of with something very basic: how do we judge if something is scientifically valid, and how do we make scientifically valid arguments? The most obvious answer is to look at the research. But for someone who never took a science class after high school, how do you know what to look for? Well you look at a number of things. For one, the study should be relatively recent (ideally within ten years). Don't turn your back on science. Your Royal Highness,

Don't turn your back on science

Richard Dawkins talks about GMO crops. During the late 1990s, Richard Dawkins, noted secularist, author and evolutionary biologist, wrote an open letter to Prince Charles, noted promoter of pseudoscience and heir apparent to the British throne, about the Prince’s hostility to science.

Richard Dawkins talks about GMO crops

Even though Richard Dawkins GMO letter was written more than a decade ago, the salient points still ring true today: …Sir, I think you may have an exaggerated idea of the natural-ness of ‘traditional’ or ‘organic’ agriculture. Agriculture has always been unnatural. Our species began to depart from our natural hunter-gatherer lifestyle as recently as 10,000 years ago – too short to measure on the evolutionary timescale.Wheat, be it ever so wholemeal and stoneground, is not a natural food for Homo sapiens.

Nor is milk, except for children. Richard Dawkins’ GMO ideas reflect real science, based on everything we know about genetics, agriculture, and biochemistry. The Terrifying Truth About Bananas. What does science say about GMO's–they're safe. The science deniers of the world, whether they deny evolution, global warming, vaccines, or GMO safety, spend their time inventing pseudoscience to support their beliefs and claims.

What does science say about GMO's–they're safe

As I have written previously, “Pseudoscience is easy. It doesn’t take work. Argumentum Ad Monsantum: Bill Maher and The Lure of a Liberal Logical Fallacy. Let’s get real.

Argumentum Ad Monsantum: Bill Maher and The Lure of a Liberal Logical Fallacy

It doesn’t matter if you think Monsanto is evil. Genetically modified food is safe—no matter what logical fallacies will lead liberals like Bill Maher to believe. AP Photo/HBO, Janet Van Ham If Monsanto has anything to do with it, it must be evil. GMO opponents are the global warming denialists of the left. 0 Shares This article has been updated, revised, modernized, and zombified.

GMO opponents are the global warming denialists of the left

Who’s afraid of the big bad GMO? I don’t get it.

Who’s afraid of the big bad GMO?

I really don’t get the opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). We’re all genetically modified organisms — the only difference between us and the ‘objectionable’ ones is the mechanism, whether the molecular novelty was inserted by intent or inserted by chance. Much of the dissent with GMOs is based either on ignorance, or is misdirected. From Biofortified, an excellent blog on agriculture, genetics, and molecular biology, here is a good video on the subject. Yet there is established policy in many countries and states to prohibit use of GMO crops. This strange unfounded fear of GMOs is unfortunately most strongly expressed in the political left. I was interested to see in the link above that this fear is traced back to the magic word “natural”, and specifically that awful website full of woo, Natural News. Decimating the Flawed Beliefs of Anti-GMO Activists. Related: Scientific American Stands Against Mandatory Labeling of GM Foods, Unraveling Five Popular Anti-GMO Claims.

Decimating the Flawed Beliefs of Anti-GMO Activists

Recently, the editors of Scientific American took a stand against the mandatory labeling of food products containing ingredients that have been genetically modified using biotech tools. Their main arguments was that it would only increase the already widespread misconceptions about GM foods, lead to less consumer choice as companies want to avoid labels on their products that may decrease sales, increase food costs for the consumer, give farmers and manufacturers additional administrative work and further stigmatize beneficial technologies that have increased yields and profits for individual farmers and promises to combat deficiency diseases that blinds and kills hundreds of thousands of children.

The intellectual dishonesty of the shill gambit. Reblog: “10 ‘scientific’ responses” to “10 reasons we don’t need GMOs” Environmentalists Must Face Down the Anti-Science in Their Own House – denialism blog. How can environmental groups and media outlets maintain that they are advocates of science, and not ideology, when they engage in the anti-science Luddism of GMO fearmongering? The potential of this anti-science behavior to poison their credibility on global climate change is real, as there is an obvious comparison between their flawed risk assessment on GM foods being compared to their legitimate risk assessments on issues of global climate change and pollution. One of the major arguments of environmental groups on global warming is that there is overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.

This consensus, which is represented by the IPCC and supported by the national academies and scientific societies of every country in the world, is that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that human activities add enough of this heat-trapping gas to warm the planet. Why "Natural" isn't always "better" — Truth Over Comfort Podcast. Mythbusting 101: Organic Farming > Conventional Agriculture. People believe a lot of things that we have little to no evidence for, like that vikings wore horned helmets or that you can see the Great Wall of China from space. One of the things I like to do on my blogs is bust commonly held myths that I think matter. For example, I get really annoyed when I hear someone say sharks don’t get cancer (I’ll save that rant for another day). The fallacy of natural food: “Waiter, there’s a gene in my soup!” Bad science in the paper “long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize”

By: Myles Power Edited by: Hannah A good friend of mine recently sent me a French paper entitled, “Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize”. The paper investigated the health effects of a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize, cultivated with Roundup weed killer on rats over 2 years. The paper came to the conclusion that rats fed on the GM maize sprayed with Roundup were much more likely to die at an earlier age, in addition to other health problems, including large mammary tumors and severe liver and kidney damage. Even though the paper has only been published for a short amount of time, the internet is rife with anti-GMO articles claiming this paper is the proof that GMOs are dangerous. GMO pigs study – more junk science.

When I saw on Twitter that a ‘major new peer-reviewed study’ was about to reveal serious health impacts from GMO corn and soya, I was intrigued to say the least. Would this be Seralini 2.0, a propaganda effort by anti-biotech campaigners masquerading as proper science, or something truly new and ground-breaking? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence – and it would take a lot of extraordinary evidence to confound the hundreds of studies showing that GMO foods are just as safe as conventional, as summarised in this recent AAAS statement: Why GM Crops Aren't a Silver Bullet—and They Aren't a Danger Either. I’ll admit—I’ve never quite understood the obsession surrounding genetically modified (GM) crops. To environmentalist opponents, GM foods are simply evil, an understudied, possibly harmful tool used by big agribusiness to control global seed markets and crush local farmers.

GMO Corn and Cancer Link Researcher Won't Turn Over Data. More bad science in the service of anti-GMO activism. The Scientific Debate About GM Foods Is Over: They're Safe. "Changing Crops for a Changing Climate" - Mark Lynas at Cornell University - 4.29.2013. GMO Labeling, I-522, and Why This Debate Sucks for Progressive Scientists Like Me. Me picking beans at Red Fire Farm in Western Mass. Yes on Proposition 37 to Label Genetically Engineered Food? I Love Monsanto! Are GMO foods safe? Opponents are skewing the science to scare people. The Biased Views of Hank Green and SciShow. Hank has now taken the episode off-line and is putting together a new one. Anti-GMO activist changes his mind–what does it really mean? How Seeds of a False Story Took Root and Spread : Collide-a-Scape. When a questionable story gets rolling and takes on a life of its own, you can usually count on journalists to check it out thoroughly.

Not that debunking it necessarily puts an end to the matter, as we discovered with President Obama’s birth certificate and the global warming hoax cooked up by thousands of scientists. Some stories, no matter how discredited, remain believable for certain audiences.