Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong. • Hacker News Board

Re: Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

#71

Post by cheeseprocedure » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 4:32 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #67

cheeseprocedure wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Current techniques may be more risky, but generally speaking it should be hard for plants to produce a horrid mutation based on natural interbreeding mechanisms. What about the (widespread) practice of mutation breeding? [1] Blasting seeds with X-rays and gamma rays in an attempt to generate new cultivars is a genetic wrecking ball compared to performing genetic engineering. Conventional breeding has given us plent…

> I think "incremental" is a bit of an understatement if we can, for example, feed tens of millions of humans in parts of the world where conventional crops cannot (yet?) provide reliable and sufficient nutrition, a critical step in reducing poverty. The problem is that in some parts of the world people are too poor to farm. GMO seed - produced by a company who will lock in farmers to that seed and prevent them from…

First, I completely agree that there are plenty of very complex pieces to the food security puzzle, and I hope I'm not painting GMOs as a magic bullet.

> The problem is that in some parts of the world people are too poor to farm. GMO seed - produced by a company who will lock in farmers to that seed and prevent them from growing on from the crop - is not going to help that.

Not every GMO is a product of pure corporate interest. There are non-profit projects with massive potential (the BioCassava Plus, for example[1][2]).

I agree that the ethical track record of many agricorps is appalling, and I think we need more funding of GMO science that keeps valuable IP in public and charitable hands.

> We heard how agro-chemicals were going to feed the world. They don't.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. It's estimated that a third of humanity is sustained by the Haber-Bosch process [3]; should we count that technology as a failure because hunger still exists?

[1] http://tyglobalist.org/in-the-magazine/features/genetically-...

[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21526968

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

Re: Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

#72

Post by enraged_camel » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 4:32 AM UTC

bcoates wrote: post #53

pohl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood this argument. It basically amounts to "yes, there are advantages to GMOs, but we haven't found any disadvantages yet, therefore they are unsafe!" You've got the wrong thing after "therefore". The argument you're trying to paraphrase would probably advocate the Precautionary Principle instead: "... if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, i…

I never understood how the Precautionary Principle wasn't just Pascal's Wager and subject to the same logical problems.

Pascal's Wager: There is more to be gained from wagering on the existence of God than from atheism, and that a rational person should live as though God exists.

Anti-GMO Activists: There is more to be gained from assuming that GMOs are unsafe than that they are safe, and that a rational society should live as if they are unsafe.

Sounds like the same logic to me.

Re: Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

#73

Post by CamperBob2 » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 4:37 AM UTC

graeme wrote: post #70

CamperBob2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. I don't see a reason to assume that GMO crops present "more" hidden risks -- since by definition any such risks are hidden in both the GMO and non-GMO cases -- and you certainly haven't provided any such reasons in your post. If we want to avoid future unpleasant surprises like the Potato Famine, it seems to me that the best strategy is to gain the greatest possible mastery of plant genetics. There will be unple…

The reason there are more hidden risks is because we're creating breeds that couldn't occur in nature. We can't understand the full effects of modifications. Natural plants have been tested over time so that we can be somewhat sure they don't have that many unknown weaknesses.

We can't understand the full effects of modifications.

That's the Precautionary Principle, which as someone else pointed out is basically a rephrasing of Pascal's Wager with all of its gaping logical holes.

Re: Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

#74

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 4:37 AM UTC

graeme wrote: post #70

CamperBob2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. I don't see a reason to assume that GMO crops present "more" hidden risks -- since by definition any such risks are hidden in both the GMO and non-GMO cases -- and you certainly haven't provided any such reasons in your post. If we want to avoid future unpleasant surprises like the Potato Famine, it seems to me that the best strategy is to gain the greatest possible mastery of plant genetics. There will be unple…

The reason there are more hidden risks is because we're creating breeds that couldn't occur in nature. We can't understand the full effects of modifications. Natural plants have been tested over time so that we can be somewhat sure they don't have that many unknown weaknesses.

[deleted]

Re: Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

#75

Post by enraged_camel » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 4:37 AM UTC

pyre wrote: post #22

enraged_camel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I'm making a Talebian argument here. Nature is a VERY complex system. When we mess with it, we make incremental visible gains, and run the risk of large, invisible losses. I've never understood this argument. It basically amounts to "yes, there are advantages to GMOs, but we haven't found any disadvantages yet, therefore they are unsafe!" This is basically the equivalent of early seafarers being afraid of uncharted…

If an early seafarer went down with his/her ship, it didn't affect a significant portion of the population. GMO foods are more like, "Hey look! I invented this new banana in a test tube! It looks safe, so it must be! Here eat it! Does it cause problems when you eat these types of bananas for 20 or 30 years? Who knows! Just eat it, it looks safe!"

>>If an early seafarer went down with his/her ship, it didn't affect a significant portion of the population.

Not necessarily true. Suppose there is a nation-state A. Further suppose a rival nation-state B captured vital trade routes and started charging trades exorbitant sums of fees, and the long-term well-being of nation-state A depends on its seafarers being able to find alternative trade routes to their trading partners. Note that this is exactly how it went down in history. Only those seafarers who were bold enough to take risks were rewarded.

Re: Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

#76

Post by cheeseprocedure » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 5:13 AM UTC

graeme wrote: post #63

cheeseprocedure wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Current techniques may be more risky, but generally speaking it should be hard for plants to produce a horrid mutation based on natural interbreeding mechanisms. What about the (widespread) practice of mutation breeding? [1] Blasting seeds with X-rays and gamma rays in an attempt to generate new cultivars is a genetic wrecking ball compared to performing genetic engineering. Conventional breeding has given us plent…

You make a good point. I have no idea what the risks to mutation breeding are. That said, the fact that it's potentially problematic doesn't make GMOs safe. It just means they're both potentially unsafe. I don't know enough to say. By incremental gains, I meant that GMO crops will at best add some percentage growth to total food production. This will be partly a wash, as increased food tends to increase birth/surviva…

> Our food boom has helped create the population boom.

Impoverished populations tend to have a high birthrate, which frequently begets more poverty. I'd like to think we can work to reduce overpopulation through reducing poverty (which includes improving food security) instead of simply relying on Malthus to sort everything out. Call me an optimist.

> Meanwhile, the system accumulates hidden risk. Once food supplies are created, we become dependent on their persistence. If anything unforeseen and catastrophic happened that lopped a percentage off world food production, we would be ill placed to bear the shock.

Again, this seems like a policy problem. Having a robust selection of lower-input/higher-output cultivars would help shield us from the failure of single crops.

Re: Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

#77

Post by pyre » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 6:55 AM UTC

maratd wrote: post #33

pyre wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an early seafarer went down with his/her ship, it didn't affect a significant portion of the population. GMO foods are more like, "Hey look! I invented this new banana in a test tube! It looks safe, so it must be! Here eat it! Does it cause problems when you eat these types of bananas for 20 or 30 years? Who knows! Just eat it, it looks safe!"

You could say that about any new product. Here! Use this cellphone! What? The battery can explode when it overheats? Don't worry about it! Almost never happens! And with cellphones ... that's already happened. Yet you still have one in your pocket. > Does it cause problems when you eat these types of bananas for 20 or 30 years? Bananas didn't evolve with "being good for you 20 or 30 years from now" ethos. That doesn'…

The food you eat has a lot more intimate interaction with your body than the cellphone that you are using. While we know a great deal about human physiology, it's still an equation that we have yet to solve. The systems of a cellphone (and the battery) are probably better understood, with less variables to account for.

Also, when the food at your local grocery store is completely replaced with GMO foods, you don't really end up with a choice in the matter. On the other hand, you still have a choice to get a cellphone or not (even in today's world).

  | Bananas didn't evolve with "being good for you 20 or
  | 30 years from now" ethos. That doesn't help the spread
  | of their seeds. They just needed to taste sweet, so you
  | would eat them now and spit out their seed somewhere else.

Yes, but people have been eating them for a long time, and thus far we haven't found any correlations between them and negative outcomes.

  | Is there even a plant out there that has harmful side-effects
  | two decades after you eat it? If we make one, that would be one
  | hell of an achievement.

Are you saying that it's impossible for plants to end up having a cumulative effect on your body? For example, checkout this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4494083. Summary: Broccoli has mutagenic and anti-mutagenic properties, and in one study of fruit flies the mutagenic properties won out. What happens when GMO broccoli ends up further tipping this balance towards mutagenic? What happens when another food is engineered and tips the balance from the anti-mutagenic side (to the mutagenic side)?

Re: Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

#78

Post by politician » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 1:31 PM UTC

andylei wrote: post #65

politician wrote: post #5

If he's changed his mind based on facts, then I'm happy for him. However, the implications of Monsanto's Terminator seed technology (DRM for plants) is so sweeping and, frankly, frightening that whatever time society wasted due to the anti-GMO activism was worth it. Does anyone really think that if we didn't make a stink about GMO that they wouldn't have gone full steam ahead? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic…

> the implications of Monsanto's Terminator seed technology (DRM for plants) what do intellectual property laws have to do with being pro or con GMOs?

It's an analogy to help people familiar with DRM understand what Monsanto's tech is without having to read the wikipedia entry: DRM is to digital content as Terminator seed technology is to plants.

Re: Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

#79

Post by pohl » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 4:17 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #72

bcoates wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood how the Precautionary Principle wasn't just Pascal's Wager and subject to the same logical problems.

Pascal's Wager: There is more to be gained from wagering on the existence of God than from atheism, and that a rational person should live as though God exists. Anti-GMO Activists: There is more to be gained from assuming that GMOs are unsafe than that they are safe, and that a rational society should live as if they are unsafe. Sounds like the same logic to me.

A casual observer might suspect that the two of you are being deliberately obtuse in order to cast the Precautionary Principle in negative light so that it might be more easily dismissed.

I'll respond as if you are earnest students of reason, seeking to see the difference.

Fortunately, the main difference is very simple: Pascal was wagering to gain something that cannot be shown to exist (an afterlife). The Precautionary Principle is counseling us to guard something known to exist (the environment in which we live) that is demonstrably essential to our own existence.

Had Pascal been arguing as an atheist about why not to play Russian Roulette with his one and only life, the two arguments might be similar enough to legitimately confuse.

Re: Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

#80

Post by turbojerry » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 7:22 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #72

bcoates wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood how the Precautionary Principle wasn't just Pascal's Wager and subject to the same logical problems.

Pascal's Wager: There is more to be gained from wagering on the existence of God than from atheism, and that a rational person should live as though God exists. Anti-GMO Activists: There is more to be gained from assuming that GMOs are unsafe than that they are safe, and that a rational society should live as if they are unsafe. Sounds like the same logic to me.

There is no evidence for the existence of God(s), nor any evidence for the continuation of consciousness beyond death.

There is a large body of testable evidence of organisms that are unsafe for human consumption. We cannot prove whether or not any changes introduced by humans via genetic engineering, whether intended or not (such as random mutations) will result in an unsafe product. The worst case being that we create a strain of organism that is superior to those we currently have, displacing all others in the environment and being unsafe for human or animal consumption, and if it is a staple crop one that leads to more starvation not less.

As far as feeding an increasing population, the simple answer is not to have the increase. Even then our current agriculture system is heavily based on fossil fuels. Increasing cost of production and distribution if not outright decline in fossil fuel output is much more likely to lead to starvation.