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[Ian Meyer <ianmeyer AT mac.com>]

my mom was briefly seeing a farmer for a short while recently, he owns 
and farms a large area down towards fayetteville, and he uses roundup 
ready corn. not to avoid using pesticides, but so he can kill the weeds 
and not harm the corn

~ian


On Jun 22, 2004, at 5:23 PM, quack AT ibiblio.org wrote:

> Another Jeremy wrote:
> > On Tue, 2004-06-22 at 15:35, Shea Tisdale wrote:
> > > But I can't resist all their ads and their chemically engineered,
> > > bio-engineered, genetically modified food stuffs they sell!
> >
> > Your comment of course was sarcastic.  But it brings up a point that I
> > have -- why is there a common assumption (at least among
> > leftists/liberals) that "bio-engineered" or "genetically modified" 
> > foods
> > are such a horrible thing.  After all, they allow for a number of 
> > things
> > that help the environment, supposedly a liberal cause.
>
> Part of the problem is that the scientific method is spottily (I'd 
> argue
> shoddily, but we won't go there now) applied.  Especially when such
> bio-engineered products are treated as closed-source, and the 
> techniques
> to produce and results of testing are not open for public review.  Like
> most industries, the focus is getting the product out the door and 
> making
> money.
>
>
> > For example,
> > crops that are modified to resist Roundup herbicide ("Roundup Ready"
> > soybeans and corn from Monsanto) reduce the use of other herbicides 
> > that
> > can cause plant damage downstream.
>
> Crops modified to resist an herbicide are made so that farmers can use 
> the
> herbicide to remove non-wanted plants ("weeds", in some circles, or
> "volunteers" in others) from their fields.  This isn't reducing 
> herbicide
> use; it's just increasing the efficiency of the particular herbicide.
>
>
> > Or, crops modified to bring higher
> > yields reduce the need for fertilizers that can cause algae blooms and
> > fish kills.
>
> What about crops modified to produce their own pesticides?  You get the
> benefit of not needing to spray other pesticides (at least until the 
> bugs
> develop immunity, or worse, preference, for the pesticide the plant
> produces) ... but you get the detriment of toxins in your food you 
> can't
> get rid of by washing the produce off.
>
>
> > Such crops contain no difference whatsoever in the end
> > product, and as such are perfectly safe for human and animal
> > consumption.
> >
> > Sure, like any new technology, genetically engineered foods need to be
> > evaluated carefully, weighing costs and benefits.  I'm not arguing for
> > an end-run around the scientific method.  But when the scientific 
> > method
> > is applied, we should pay attention to it!
>
> The scientific method does not require me to take anyone's word for 
> their
> results; in fact, it obligates me to treat their results as possibly
> suspect until I have tested it myself.  The problem with these
> technologies is that their long-term effects on the environment have 
> not
> been established.  There's a simple reason:  they haven't existed long
> enough.  We don't know how they will evolve, how other plants and
> plant-eating insects in their environment will be affected by their
> introduction.
>
> If we were developing these for lab-growth only, or clean-greenhouse
> growth, such that whole crops were grown in a sealed environment, I
> wouldn't object.  I wouldn't consume them, but I wouldn't stop others 
> from
> choosing to do so.  I object to tampering with the overall environment
> when the results of such tampering are completely unknown.  We
> industrialized nations have a horrible track record of not looking 
> before
> we leap in this regard.  Here again, Monsanto and friends want us to 
> leap
> down the bio-engineered landslide before we look to see where we'll 
> land.
>
> --s
>
> ---
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