191–200 of 241 posts
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The magnitude of the changes that are possible now are so far beyond what was available with selective breeding, it's nonsensical to consider them in the same league. I wish people would stop trotting out that argument.
Are you sure? The Chihuahua was bred out of a wolf.
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The real advances have been in packaging and transportation, not genetics. That said, the cost improvements in food aren't such a big impact on real hunger. When people are too broke to eat, making food half as expensive really doesn't have that much impact. And much of the savings-per-calorie relative to fresh food get factored into profits. Food deserts are a huge problem in this country - places where there is no…
You're thinking too small. There are places where a 30% rise in the cost of rice means people starving en masse . And riots, because this prospect does not please said people. Major yield improvements mean stable food supplies for much of the third world. You're not wrong about the lack of advances in genetics arriving in markets. What I think you've overlooked is that between attacks on the business models that make…
I completely and utterly disagree that I'm "giving cover" to the people that I called (and you quoted) "DONT EAT THE SCIENCE". That's open mockery of their Luddite ways, and I come down hard on them in these discussions. I loathe their ignorance-wrapped-in-smugness attitude. But by the same token, I have no love for the people who love GMO because "It's SCIENCE!" (you know, the ones who downvote my comments on this subject), without thinking about what problems they're actually trying to solve.
Solving problems that don't actually exist is why many startups fail. There's indirection going on here. As I've said repeatedly, the problem GMOs solve isn't food supply, because we don't have a food supply problem. The population of the Earth has doubled in 50 years, and food costs have dropped 50% over that same period. Does this sound like desperate measure time? No, it sounds like what we've been doing has been tremendously successful at making food more available and less expensive.
So the the problem GMO solves isn't making more food - it's making more money for Monsanto. Is this what we really want as a society? More concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a business model that can and does buy governments? For all the self-styled libertarianism around here, people sure are eager to hand massive corporations that don't act in their interests even more power. Me, I think that's stupid.
Again, what problem are you trying to solve? And does that problem actually exist? If you start with a solution that stimulates your nerd fantasies, and then defend that solution instead of reframing the problem, you're probably wrong.
Loss of biodiversity is an observable problem. Monocropping damaging the soil is an observable problem (and is nitrogen fertilizer and Roundup a solution?). Cash crops bringing outside money and political abuse into developing countries is an observable problem - one far more directly involved in third world hunger than crop yields. I'm after the real problems of the food chain. Are you?
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> But productivity isn't the problem of our food chain. We can grow plenty of food, and cheaply. We can. The rest of the developing world has a lot of trouble keeping people fed. There's only so much aid can do, but if we can find ways for small-time farmers to produce more, and also to transport those goods, then the rest of the world could feed itself, something small-time agriculture has historically had a lot of…
Fighting world hunger by producing more food is putting out fire with gasoline.
GMO is just an extension of Green Revolution capitalism-centric agriculture. That model has done miracles for supporting the growing population and making food cheaper, but it's not a free lunch.
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Could you give some links? I'd love to read about this but can't find anything on Google that talks about anything earlier than 2000.
I got this back in the 1990s from reading actual books. Don't know about links offhand... I was actually thinking about this myself.
CRISPR for gene editing: "Since 2013, the CRISPR/Cas system has been used for gene editing (adding, disrupting or changing the sequence of specific genes) and gene regulation in species throughout the tree of life. By delivering the Cas9 protein and appropriate guide RNAs into a cell, the organism's genome can be cut at any desired location." (From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR ) Edit: Hear a recent…
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Dark energy / accelerating expansion of the universe: well this goes back to 1998..
This is first on my list. Understanding our place in the universe will tell us where we came from and where we're going. There's also clearly some fundamental physics left to master which might have unforseen practical applications.
We're on our own, and I bet no science or discoveries will change this.
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We produce more than enough food to feed the entire world. The issue is distribution.
That's only a proximate cause. Beyond that is economics and therefore power structures.
Since everything is an economic problem, blaming economics doesn't help people envision where the problem is. Blaming distribution shows where the problem is - which is both in our methods and the economics of doing so.
An issue with improving those methods is also an issue behind economics.
[0] non-existing technology --> which requires R&D to be developed --> R&D requires $$$ --> economic problem; especially if technology is difficult/impossible to actually create
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It's inferior because we aren't adapted to it. Our bodies are highly adapted for millions of years to thrive on the food that comes out of our biosphere more or less directly. This is why super-hybridized dwarf wheat (not even GMO!), for example, which was developed in the 1960s, has been linked to all kinds health problems, including obesity. Our bodies have not had time to adapt to it, but if we look at dwarf wheat…
Would you care to address the specific question posed? Like, why Golden Rice is inferior to the rice varietal from which it is derived? Just because it doesn't come with a "100% Natural!" stamp doesn't make it bad. Neither, I should think, is the converse true. As you illustrate, there are plenty of problems with "natural" non-GMO plant breeding. Is the position that you mean to stake out perhaps that it's possible f…
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Would you care to address the specific question posed? Like, why Golden Rice is inferior to the rice varietal from which it is derived? Just because it doesn't come with a "100% Natural!" stamp doesn't make it bad. Neither, I should think, is the converse true. As you illustrate, there are plenty of problems with "natural" non-GMO plant breeding. Is the position that you mean to stake out perhaps that it's possible f…
I know nothing about Golden Rice so I can't comment on that. I think the position I'm making is that it's likely that GMOs will be inferior for all the reasons already cited. If you're trying to be more profitable, you put nutrition in the back seat. If food is just a bunch of macrobiotic chemicals disregarding a looong history of natural selection with intricacies we've only begun to understand, chances are you will…
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> But productivity isn't the problem of our food chain. We can grow plenty of food, and cheaply. We can. The rest of the developing world has a lot of trouble keeping people fed. There's only so much aid can do, but if we can find ways for small-time farmers to produce more, and also to transport those goods, then the rest of the world could feed itself, something small-time agriculture has historically had a lot of…
We produce more than enough food to feed the entire world. The issue is distribution.