Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

dw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–147 of 147 posts

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#141

Post by tomp »

rstuart4133 wrote: post #140
tomp wrote: post #84

How wrong am I to draw the conclusion from this, that people claiming that GMOs are "completely safe" (i.e. cannot have unexpected side effects, such as creation of super-species that completely crowds out other, non-GMO and now inferior, species in the specific niche, or the migration/expression of toxin-producing genes in unexpected places) are full of bullshit? That's my knee-jerk conclusion, I'd be really interes…

> How wrong am I to draw the conclusion from this, that people claiming that GMOs are "completely safe" (i.e. cannot have unexpected side effects, such as creation of super-species that completely crowds out other, non-GMO and now inferior, species in the specific niche, or the migration/expression of toxin-producing genes in unexpected places) are full of bullshit? I don't whether they are full of bullshit or not, b…

Thanks, this is a good argument!

Let me just completely dismiss your "evolution is a good optimizer" - it's a decent optimizer, but some things are just impossible for it to achieve (as I said above, local vs global search). That's why humans are so dominant - e.g. we started using tools and eventually figured out that steel is harder than most other natural materials (and thus more useful as a weapon).

Otherwise, I think your point about fitness of crops is a good one - crops are fundamentally not easy to grow, if they were, we wouldn't be an agricultural society, we'd just be "picking and gathering" fruit, seeds, grain etc. that would naturally grow in forests, etc. but that's unrealistic, we have to put a lot of effort into sustaining crop production.

I oppose Roundup-ready and vitamin enhanced crops on other grounds; is Roundup residual really so safe? If it's so safe and GMO foods are so much cheaper and better, why the lack of transparency? It's not like we lack food in the West, so no need to enhance it with vitamins, and we should probably be finding ways to use less pesticides, not more and deadlier. (Different situation in the third world, I think GMOs can be genuinely helpful there, if risks can be minimized.)

But the one I actually had in mind is when crops are modified to express pesticides using genes that originate from bacteria (looks like Cowpea is an example [0]). Personally, I also see that as the kind of GMO with most potential (again, if risks are minimized), though you might be right that it's actually the minority of current use (why?), and the above arguments about crops being hard to grow still holds (unless genes can "jump" to a different species, though AFAIK that's only really possible in bacteria.)

Mind you, I'm not totally opposed to GMOs. I think they great when used in pharma (in controlled environment with controlled products).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpea#Pests_and_diseases

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#143

Post by inimino »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #124
inimino wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with waiting until harm is demonstrated is that we don't know what form it might take. Given the current free-for-all of genetic experimentation, it's only a matter of time until something we do has a significant unintended effect on an ecosystem. Unlike DDT, we won't necessarily be able to just stop the intervention and wait for things to go back to the way they were.

There is no "free-for-all". On the contrary.

Matter of perspective. If you look globally, there's almost no conceivable experiment that can't be tried somewhere.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#144

Post by salawat »

corodra wrote: post #133
salawat wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is there is a big difference between Florida and Africa. Think about it. That hormone spray gets synthesized somewhere(on the same continent), loaded onto trucks (which are fueled, from gas reserves that are themselves kept constantly supplied and properly mixed, (by power generated somewhere else and delivered by reconstructed and maintained infrastructure(kept working by so on, and so forth, and so on...)…

I can't find the papers, but larvacides are not normally field used in trucks. They're usage is 1-2 gallon per ground acre with a dude wearing a hand pump backpack sprayer and when used in water, are dispersed by small row boats. Each area of the water is tested for concentration of larva and given the body of water and amount of larva found, a dosage is implemented. Now, that's not to say they aren't used in airplan…

Ya know, I've really go nothing further to say to challenge what you've said.

As far as I can figure, you're absolutely right. Or at least in the right ballpark.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#146

Post by rstuart4133 »

tomp wrote: post #141
rstuart4133 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How wrong am I to draw the conclusion from this, that people claiming that GMOs are "completely safe" (i.e. cannot have unexpected side effects, such as creation of super-species that completely crowds out other, non-GMO and now inferior, species in the specific niche, or the migration/expression of toxin-producing genes in unexpected places) are full of bullshit? I don't whether they are full of bullshit or not, b…

Thanks, this is a good argument! Let me just completely dismiss your "evolution is a good optimizer" - it's a decent optimizer, but some things are just impossible for it to achieve (as I said above, local vs global search). That's why humans are so dominant - e.g. we started using tools and eventually figured out that steel is harder than most other natural materials (and thus more useful as a weapon). Otherwise, I…

> Let me just completely dismiss your "evolution is a good optimizer" - it's a decent optimizer,

Perhaps I put it badly. I wasn't saying natural selection is perfect - just that it is better than us. Obviously it isn't perfect because evolution makes mistakes - our blood vessels being in front our rod and cones is an example.

So why don't we just fix that?

It because it's utterly beyond us. It's inevitably controlled by 1000's if not millions of genes acting in concert, tuning when they switching on and off according to the body they find themselves in (small or large) over our lifetimes. It's an extraordinarily complex mechanism.

We have made very simple adjustments to that mechanism. They are invariably involve just one gene that has one clear effect. But playing with something as complex as how the eye is laid out is completely and utterly beyond us and our computers. Yet natural selection pulled it off.

It really is just a question of computational power available. Natural selection is currently doing some phenomenal number (as in many zero beyond trillions) of experiments on eyeball construction every year. We can't hope to match that, and until we can natural selection will always out compete us in the "lets design a super organism" game.

So, when we do beat natural selection, it's in environments we create so the design natural selection chose is no longer optimal. Nonetheless it's only a temporary advantage, as our losing the battle against antibiotic resistant bacteria demonstrates. The same thing will happen with round up ready and Cowpea - we didn't just get round up ready crops, we also set in motion the mechanism that will create round up ready weeds. We had an advantage when we created round up ready crops - we cheated by taking an existing example from nature. Natural selection doesn't have that advantage, but over the long term it won't matter - it will just invent it again. Unlike us, it can do that. It really can create new super organisms. Right now we can't do better than copying what natural selection has done in other organisms.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#147

Post by tomp »

rstuart4133 wrote: post #146
tomp wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, this is a good argument! Let me just completely dismiss your "evolution is a good optimizer" - it's a decent optimizer, but some things are just impossible for it to achieve (as I said above, local vs global search). That's why humans are so dominant - e.g. we started using tools and eventually figured out that steel is harder than most other natural materials (and thus more useful as a weapon). Otherwise, I…

> Let me just completely dismiss your "evolution is a good optimizer" - it's a decent optimizer, Perhaps I put it badly. I wasn't saying natural selection is perfect - just that it is better than us. Obviously it isn't perfect because evolution makes mistakes - our blood vessels being in front our rod and cones is an example. So why don't we just fix that? It because it's utterly beyond us. It's inevitably controlled…

Nicely put!
Post reply on HN