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down with slavery
Dec 23, 2013
STOP QUOTING MY POSTS SO PEOPLE THAT AREN'T IDIOTS DON'T HAVE TO READ MY FUCKING TERRIBLE OPINIONS THANKS

Kalman posted:

So, yeah, that paper says "we don't know" so you assume bad things will happen.

Where do you see him assuming that? Maybe just respond to posts instead of straw men you've crafted in your head?

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sexpig by night
Sep 8, 2011

by Azathoth

down with slavery posted:

Where do you see him assuming that? Maybe just respond to posts instead of straw men you've crafted in your head?


Tight Booty Shorts posted:

Loss of genetic diversity is bad. According to this paper, there isn't data to say that if genes from GM organisms cross over to their closely related non-domesticated counterparts bad things won't happen.

He's assuming bad things will happen unless a negative gets proven to him. Super intellectually sound position.

white sauce
Apr 29, 2012

by R. Guyovich

Tatum Girlparts posted:

He's assuming bad things will happen unless a negative gets proven to him. Super intellectually sound position.

Nope. If car manufacturers find a defect that affects 1% of a certain car model for example, they will recall that vehicle. Right now there's no strong evidence that wild strains will be less fit due to GMO gene transfer, but there's a small risk, and we have to acknowledge it.

Are you not concerned that there might be a negative impact?

sexpig by night
Sep 8, 2011

by Azathoth

Tight Booty Shorts posted:

Nope. If car manufacturers find a defect that affects 1% of a certain car model for example, they will recall that vehicle. Right now there's no strong evidence that wild strains will be less fit due to GMO gene transfer, but there's a small risk, and we have to acknowledge it.

Are you not concerned that there might be a negative impact?

Right but this 'defect' hasn't been found yet, you're saying they should recall the vehicle because they haven't proven that the car WON'T randomly explode, which is not how testing works. You test things, find their flaws, and work off that.

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

down with slavery posted:

I'm confused as to why the methodology of the FAO is being called into question because I had the gall to suggest that the biodiversity of our food crops has been declining.

I've been asking for this repeatedly because I want to know how it's measured. This isn't something you're allowed to be angry about, because I'm just asking for a simple fact. I even explained to you, using the examples of corn and brassica cultivars why this was causing me confusion and how different methods of counting would lead to different measurements. Instead of just saying, "oh, they look at this thing here" like a normal person, you flew off the deep end, made a bunch of assumptions and got mad.

If you want to derail a thread about GMOs into a discussion about biodiversity, you better be prepared to actually discuss the issue in quantitative terms.

I'm questioning the methodology because I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE METHODOLOGY IS, not because I think the methodology is wrong. How can I even begin to make that sort of judgement call when I don't understand it in the first place?

How many times do I have to repeat myself here?

down with slavery
Dec 23, 2013
STOP QUOTING MY POSTS SO PEOPLE THAT AREN'T IDIOTS DON'T HAVE TO READ MY FUCKING TERRIBLE OPINIONS THANKS

quote:

I'm questioning the methodology because I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE METHODOLOGY IS, not because I think the methodology is wrong. How can I even begin to make that sort of judgement call when I don't understand it in the first place?

Read. I provided a direct link to the third appendix from their latest report, titled "The state-of-the-art: methodologies and technologies for the identification, conservation and use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture". What else do you want?

In fact, you already quoted it here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3556746&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=34#post427865598

Solkanar512 posted:

How many times do I have to repeat myself here?

None, because I went ahead and did what you should have done in the first place (clicked three links on the FAO website to look up their methodology- http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1500e/i1500e13.pdf) if you were curious and provided the link in my next post. I even went as far as to respond to your question that you specifically asked me to, perhaps you could return the favor? The fact that you're writing paragraphs about how I should be providing methodology alongside articles written by UN bodies if I want to be taken seriously instead of just you know, clicking the link I provided you and answering my question... well, it says something.

down with slavery fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Apr 4, 2014

norton I
May 1, 2008

His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I

Emperor of these United States

Protector of Mexico

Tight Booty Shorts posted:

Nope. If car manufacturers find a defect that affects 1% of a certain car model for example, they will recall that vehicle. Right now there's no strong evidence that wild strains will be less fit due to GMO gene transfer, but there's a small risk, and we have to acknowledge it.

Are you not concerned that there might be a negative impact?

Wild strains that get herbicide resistance genes will become less fit relative to their competition in an environment lacking that herbicide. This is why concerns about transgenic crops spreading past fields are dumb, because all crop plants are pampered babies that can no longer survive in the wild, and have been for thousands of years.

A gene that reduces fitness cannot spread far among wild plants because it reduces fitness

To use the car analogy, a Chevy sold to the public with a defective ball joint would not spread far, as it would quickly be eaten by wild Toyotas.

norton I fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Apr 5, 2014

white sauce
Apr 29, 2012

by R. Guyovich

norton I posted:

Wild strains that get herbicide resistance genes will become less fit relative to their competition in an environment lacking that herbicide. This is why concerns about transgenic crops spreading past fields are dumb, because all crop plants are pampered babies that can no longer survive in the wild, and have been for thousands of years.

A gene that reduces fitness cannot spread far among wild plants because it reduces fitness

To use the car analogy, a Chevy sold to the public with a defective ball joint would not spread far, as it would quickly be eaten by wild Toyotas.

Can you provide sources for this?

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe
Read a basic genetics text. Seriously, what's hard to comprehend about the fact that adding a gene to create new proteins/other substances to meet herbicide resistance means adding new metabolic requirements for the resulting organism?

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

It costs energy to express an insecticide for the self-producing strains. For the herbicide resistant strains, the cost of herbicide resistance is less efficient pathways for processing nutrients.

It really is basic TANSTAAFL at work.

Knifefan
Nov 5, 2008
JEALOUS OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE SEX

Install Windows posted:

Read a basic genetics text. Seriously, what's hard to comprehend about the fact that adding a gene to create new proteins/other substances to meet herbicide resistance means adding new metabolic requirements for the resulting organism?

My brief google scholar search seems to indicate that a single amino acid substitution(I don't know if it is a SNP) can confer glycophosphate resistance. Doesn't that mean the metabolic damage would be negligible?

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Knifefan posted:

My brief google scholar search seems to indicate that a single amino acid substitution(I don't know if it is a SNP) can confer glycophosphate resistance. Doesn't that mean the metabolic damage would be negligible?

It doesn't provide benefit to most plants, and causes slightly increased metabolic usage. It also empirically has not been shown to spread well at all in plants around crops that have the genes.

white sauce
Apr 29, 2012

by R. Guyovich

Install Windows posted:

It doesn't provide benefit to most plants, and causes slightly increased metabolic usage. It also empirically has not been shown to spread well at all in plants around crops that have the genes.

Do you have a source for this?

norton I
May 1, 2008

His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I

Emperor of these United States

Protector of Mexico

Tight Booty Shorts posted:

Can you provide sources for this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Tight Booty Shorts posted:

Do you have a source for this?

There are no sources against it, hence why it hasn't been empirically proved.


You're doing the equivalent of asking for a source that the sky is not constantly lime green above the Atacama Desert.

Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Apr 5, 2014

white sauce
Apr 29, 2012

by R. Guyovich

Whoa, what is this devil scientist trying to say? That God's creations are not eternal?

Slanderer
May 6, 2007

Install Windows posted:

There are no sources against it, hence why it hasn't been empirically proved.


You're doing the equivalent of asking for a source that the sky is not constantly lime green above the Atacama Desert.

On a related topic: For BT crops, resistance has developed a bunch of times in the targeted insects, and initially it was shown that resistant mutants would be less fit inside "sanctuaries" planted with non-Bt crop. However, this failed in a bunch of places because farmers consistently use smaller sanctuary areas than suggested by the seed company / required by law. That, and in certain places, there are loopholes that they can use to make the sanctuary area like a mile away in an unconnected field, which basically defeats the purpose.

However, now it looks like a Bt resistance mutation has been detected without any fitness cost. Which is pretty cool, but bad for farmers. The solution is to use crops that express genes for multiple Cry toxins, and alternate them from year to year (as well as using standard rotation practices). I think there's been resistance to this from farmers or companies or whoever, which is dumb, but it will catch on.

Adenoid Dan
Mar 8, 2012

The Hobo Serenader
Lipstick Apathy

Tight Booty Shorts posted:

Do you have a source for this?

I learned about that in some class, don't remember which. Grasses that colonise barren, contaminated soils (say heavy metals for example) are less fit as they move out of the contaminated zone, and resistance in mosquitoes to insecticides fairly quickly is lost after that pesticide is no longer used in that area. How quickly it is lost depends on how much of a disadvantage it puts them at vs non resistant indivuals. But in any case most changes will not give them any advantage against wild competitors.

Edit: I'd post some sources but I'm having trouble getting access at the moment and I don't want to just post the abstract. There seem to be a number of articles on exactly this.

Adenoid Dan fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Apr 5, 2014

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos
To tie some of these allegedly conflicting views together, it seems that biodiversity is actually very important for making better GMO's, as well as for drug discovery: transgenic properties are usually discovered in wild organisms, rather than invented from whole cloth. The fewer wild varieties and species there are, the less likely you are to find the genes you would want to use to improve crops, whether through the old-fashioned way or through molecular biology. The WWF link here actually explains the history of this quite well.

El Perkele
Nov 7, 2002

I HAVE SHIT OPINIONS ON STAR WARS MOVIES!!!

I can't even call the right one bad.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

To tie some of these allegedly conflicting views together, it seems that biodiversity is actually very important for making better GMO's, as well as for drug discovery: transgenic properties are usually discovered in wild organisms, rather than invented from whole cloth. The fewer wild varieties and species there are, the less likely you are to find the genes you would want to use to improve crops, whether through the old-fashioned way or through molecular biology. The WWF link here actually explains the history of this quite well.

IMHO the real deal with the genetic variance of crops is not GMOs, although that is always nice. It's unforeseen and chaotic pathogen infestations, a thing that has happened continuously for thousands of years. Right now there are several ongoing pandemics; Europe and US are relatively untouched currently. A diverse assortment of different cultivars is much more resistant to infections and provides a meaningful buffer against disasters. A narrow gene pool, no matter how well-tailored to survive current threats and enviroments, is by definition less able to cope with sudden enviromental shifts. Weather patterns are one thing, global crop pandemics are another.

You cannot even rely on transgenic crops in crop pandemics, because quite often the timescales and economics are heavily tipped in pathogen's favor.

King of Hamas
Nov 25, 2013

by XyloJW
Hey guys maybe we should be careful about how we affect our sources of food, it's pretty important to eat and these for-profit companies creating genetic mutations in plants to maximize their profit might be holding back negative aspects of this whole process from us for their own enrichment. Why is there such a swell here on taking these GMO companies at their word? Monsanto is objectively an unethical company that has often resorted to dirty and underhanded strategies to achieve it's goals. It's easy to handwave away concerns about GMOs because research on their long-term effects basically don't exist, but that is something that should make you feel less secure, not more secure.

FuriousxGeorge
Aug 8, 2007

We've been the best team all year.

They're just finding out.
Are you also concerned with the threat of random mutation? We don't even test each seed to see what any new genes might do.

Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Dec 22, 2005

GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS
It would help if you talked about anything specific, once you talk about unknown dangers of GMOs as a class without any detail you are basically "just asking questions".

Plants have different genes and random mutations in nature also. They aren't worse because they are man made.

Deteriorata
Feb 6, 2005

King of Hamas posted:

Hey guys maybe we should be careful about how we affect our sources of food, it's pretty important to eat and these for-profit companies creating genetic mutations in plants to maximize their profit might be holding back negative aspects of this whole process from us for their own enrichment. Why is there such a swell here on taking these GMO companies at their word? Monsanto is objectively an unethical company that has often resorted to dirty and underhanded strategies to achieve it's goals. It's easy to handwave away concerns about GMOs because research on their long-term effects basically don't exist, but that is something that should make you feel less secure, not more secure.

Well, since Monsanto is an evil money-grubbing for-profit operation, perhaps knowing that if their seeds don't make farmers more money in the long run, they'll go out of business. They have a rather hefty incentive to make sure everything works as advertised.

Adventure Pigeon
Nov 8, 2005

I am a master storyteller.

King of Hamas posted:

Hey guys maybe we should be careful about how we affect our sources of food, it's pretty important to eat and these for-profit companies creating genetic mutations in plants to maximize their profit might be holding back negative aspects of this whole process from us for their own enrichment. Why is there such a swell here on taking these GMO companies at their word? Monsanto is objectively an unethical company that has often resorted to dirty and underhanded strategies to achieve it's goals. It's easy to handwave away concerns about GMOs because research on their long-term effects basically don't exist, but that is something that should make you feel less secure, not more secure.

The closest analogy to GMOs is probably the fact that viruses often swap bits of DNA between organisms on a regular basis. They've been doing it for billions of years. It's just a random process, but it demonstrates pretty thoroughly that DNA from one organism isn't going to cause massive problems if it's in another, regardless of whether it's our own genome or that of something we eat. Now, obviously, doing something like trying to set up a neurotoxin production pathway in a plant or animal we eat is probably going to cause problems, but adding an additional gene that confers a modest benefit to the 20-30 thousand already present in a given plant is unlikely to cause unforeseen problems that testing whatever chemical it produces wouldn't identify. GMO is a word we made up for the human execution of a natural process.

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

King of Hamas posted:

Hey guys maybe we should be careful about how we affect our sources of food, it's pretty important to eat and these for-profit companies creating genetic mutations in plants to maximize their profit might be holding back negative aspects of this whole process from us for their own enrichment. Why is there such a swell here on taking these GMO companies at their word? Monsanto is objectively an unethical company that has often resorted to dirty and underhanded strategies to achieve it's goals. It's easy to handwave away concerns about GMOs because research on their long-term effects basically don't exist, but that is something that should make you feel less secure, not more secure.

In simple terms, when you breed two plants together, you are taking two decks of cards, shuffling them together and cutting the deck. We've been doing that for thousands of years.

With GM crops, you're only changing one or two genes in particular. Just as a new model car or aircraft is tested, new GM crops should be tested as well, but cars and plans are generally considered safe when developed, assembled with well documented and regulated procedures. GM crops are no different.

If you're really worried about the evil, for-profit corps being the only ones making these crops, then you should be encouraging members of the environmentalist movement to support publicly funded research and development into GM crops. Otherwise the only groups who will have the time, the money and the political cover to develop these crops are Monsanto/Syngenta/Bayer et al.

WhiskeyJuvenile
Feb 15, 2002

by Nyc_Tattoo

Solkanar512 posted:

In simple terms, when you breed two plants together, you are taking two decks of cards, shuffling them together and cutting the deck. We've been doing that for thousands of years.

With GM crops, you're only changing one or two genes in particular. Just as a new model car or aircraft is tested, new GM crops should be tested as well, but cars and plans are generally considered safe when developed, assembled with well documented and regulated procedures. GM crops are no different.

If you're really worried about the evil, for-profit corps being the only ones making these crops, then you should be encouraging members of the environmentalist movement to support publicly funded research and development into GM crops. Otherwise the only groups who will have the time, the money and the political cover to develop these crops are Monsanto/Syngenta/Bayer et al.

There's other ways of doing this other than transgenics

Adventure Pigeon
Nov 8, 2005

I am a master storyteller.

Not quite. GMOs allow the addition of novel functions and genes, whereas mutation is likely to only allow you to turn things off. Basically, it can't create what's not there to begin with. In addition, there's an even higher chance of unanticipated or secondary effects than with GMOs, simply because you can't guarantee you're only affecting one gene. In all likelihood, any method that involves radiation or other mutagens is likely to cause a whole lot of mutations, it's just that many of them won't be in genes, won't be functional, or won't be immediately obvious.

PrBacterio
Jul 19, 2000

FuriousxGeorge posted:

Are you also concerned with the threat of random mutation? We don't even test each seed to see what any new genes might do.
While I'm not personally opposed to GMO's at all (quite the opposite, in fact), this argument has always struck me as rather disingenuous. Random mutation doesn't usually cause the exact same change to happen across a large sample of whatever species you're talking about all at once but are, as the name implies, distributed randomly across a population, whereas any given, new GMO crop does just that: uniformly introduce a new mutation into a large-scale population, all at the same time. It's only right and proper for there to be stringent requirements that such new crops are tested safe for human consumption before large-scale introduction to the market. Now the kind of scare-mongering from the "Frankenfood" crowd about GMO crops becoming invasive, all-consuming bio-weapons that even planting a single seed of a genetically modified plant, even under controlled circumstances, constitutes an existential threat to the food chain, on the other hand, is utter bullshit, of course.

sexpig by night
Sep 8, 2011

by Azathoth

King of Hamas posted:

Hey guys maybe we should be careful about how we affect our sources of food, it's pretty important to eat and these for-profit companies creating genetic mutations in plants to maximize their profit might be holding back negative aspects of this whole process from us for their own enrichment. Why is there such a swell here on taking these GMO companies at their word? Monsanto is objectively an unethical company that has often resorted to dirty and underhanded strategies to achieve it's goals. It's easy to handwave away concerns about GMOs because research on their long-term effects basically don't exist, but that is something that should make you feel less secure, not more secure.

Because "BUT THE CORPORATIONS MAN" is lazy and intellectually dishonest. You have yet to say anything solid other than "WHAT IF THEY LIE MAN?"

Why would they lie? As you say these are for profit places, they want their poo poo to be sold, you know what hurts sales? When some farmer goes 'uh hey they lied about a major flaw in their seeds'.

When someone says I should feel 'less secure about GMOs' I legit don't understand what they mean. Like, why should I feel less secure about 'GMO's when the corn I ate (nice and organic) is from crossbred stock? Isn't that genetically modifying them? Why should I be scared of the devil Monsanto, in real, actionable, terms and not 'well what if it's a conspiracy man'?

Slanderer
May 6, 2007

Adventure Pigeon posted:

Not quite. GMOs allow the addition of novel functions and genes, whereas mutation is likely to only allow you to turn things off. Basically, it can't create what's not there to begin with.

Congrats on disproving evolution.

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

PrBacterio posted:

While I'm not personally opposed to GMO's at all (quite the opposite, in fact), this argument has always struck me as rather disingenuous. Random mutation doesn't usually cause the exact same change to happen across a large sample of whatever species you're talking about all at once but are, as the name implies, distributed randomly across a population, whereas any given, new GMO crop does just that: uniformly introduce a new mutation into a large-scale population, all at the same time. It's only right and proper for there to be stringent requirements that such new crops are tested safe for human consumption before large-scale introduction to the market. Now the kind of scare-mongering from the "Frankenfood" crowd about GMO crops becoming invasive, all-consuming bio-weapons that even planting a single seed of a genetically modified plant, even under controlled circumstances, constitutes an existential threat to the food chain, on the other hand, is utter bullshit, of course.

There are already stringent requirements to get GMOs to the layperson - you have to receive approval from the FDA, the EPA and the USDA. It takes over a decade to bring a crop to sale and costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It's fair to argue that these intense regulations favor the Big-Ag companies because they are the ones who can afford to play.

Folks like you keep saying "oh we need stringent regulations" as if they don't already exist and spread this lovely meme that there's no regs at all. Is it really that difficult to google "GMO approval process United States"?

meat sweats
May 19, 2011

The fact that GMO food has been consumed on a daily basis by billions of consumers worldwide for twenty years and no one has ever suffered an ill consequence is the ultimate "long term study." Calling for "more research" infinitely is nearly as disingenuous as being opposed to "GMO" as a process without naming a specific product or procedure -- it just shows that you think there is some mystical punishment for "playing god." As if the very act of altering a genome, independent of any particular biochemical method or result, can somehow have consequences because there is a cosmic force meting out punishment for it. It's literally belief in magic.

PrBacterio
Jul 19, 2000

Solkanar512 posted:

Folks like you keep saying "oh we need stringent regulations" as if they don't already exist and spread this lovely meme that there's no regs at all. Is it really that difficult to google "GMO approval process United States"?
"Folks like me," huh? Glad to see you've already decided what strawman box to mentally confine me to in order to automagically invalidate any argument I can ever make from the outset.

Solkanar512 posted:

There are already stringent requirements to get GMOs to the layperson - you have to receive approval from the FDA, the EPA and the USDA. It takes over a decade to bring a crop to sale and costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It's fair to argue that these intense regulations favor the Big-Ag companies because they are the ones who can afford to play.
I never said that they weren't. I was only pointing out that the argument that makes it sound like there's no difference at all between GMO crops and natural-occurring, random mutation was bullshit and therefore there is a good reason for these regulations to exist and that it would be stupid to abolish them. If you'll allow me to strawman-pidgeonhole you in return, it's folks like you, who, due to your unshaking belief in the magic of the free market and libertarianism, want to do away with all regulations ever, leading to results like that Texas refinery blowing up</sarcasm>. For the record, I'm fairly satisfied with the existing level of regulation in the field. But to say GMO crops aren't different at all from existing crops and therefore don't need any form of regulation at all is bullshit, for the reasons I've mentioned.

EDIT: I also want to say I particularly like the mental leap that takes you from me pointing out that there are good reasons why GMO crops are strictly regulated to the insinuation that I must believe GMO crops are not currently regulated, at all.

PrBacterio fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Apr 7, 2014

meat sweats
May 19, 2011

PrBacterio posted:

"Folks like me," huh? Glad to see you've already decided what strawman box to mentally confine me to in order to automagically invalidate any argument I can ever make from the outset.

Yes, I'm glad you now understand that opposition to GMOs is fundamentally unreasonable given that it's based entirely on slogans and being a dumb caveman who is afraid that fire comes from the underworld god, and that there is no reason to engage with it beyond strategizing its defeat. Once you are in the "box" of "opposed to feeding people because the guy from the Dead Kennedys shouted a neologism at me" your arguments do not need to be listened to. A Good Post.

PrBacterio posted:

If you'll allow me to strawman-pidgeonhole you in return, it's folks like you, who, due to your unshaking belief in the magic of the free market and libertarianism, want to do away with all regulations ever, leading to results like that Texas refinery blowing up</sarcasm>.

Aside from the fact that no one is arguing for the abolition food regulation, it should be pointed out that "libertarians," so much as they are, generally have irrational fears about GMOs due to the influence of the Alex Jones crowd. The usual "anyone who doesn't buy into my ignorant hippie utopia probably wants to privatize the roads" bullshit is particularly ill-suited to this topic.

meat sweats fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Apr 7, 2014

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

PrBacterio posted:

"Folks like me," huh? Glad to see you've already decided what strawman box to mentally confine me to in order to automagically invalidate any argument I can ever make from the outset.

I never said that they weren't. I was only pointing out that the argument that makes it sound like there's no difference at all between GMO crops and natural-occurring, random mutation was bullshit and therefore there is a good reason for these regulations to exist and that it would be stupid to abolish them.

The only thing I've done is suggest that the time and money required to bring a GM crop to market could have an exclusionary effect on smaller, non-rpofit groups from pursuing their own GM projects.

Saying, "we need X", when "X" is already there means that you don't believe "X" is there, or that you didn't realize that "X" is there. After all, why would you need "X", if "X" is already there? If you meant "we need to continue X", then you need to be more clear about what it is that you want given the current state of things. So we can drop that point.

quote:

If you'll allow me to strawman-pidgeonhole you in return, it's folks like you, who, due to your unshaking belief in the magic of the free market and libertarianism, want to do away with all regulations ever, leading to results like that Texas refinery blowing up</sarcasm>. For the record, I'm fairly satisfied with the existing level of regulation in the field. But to say GMO crops aren't different at all from existing crops and therefore don't need any form of regulation at all is bullshit, for the reasons I've mentioned.

EDIT: I also want to say I particularly like the mental leap that takes you from me pointing out that there are good reasons why GMO crops are strictly regulated to the insinuation that I must believe GMO crops are not currently regulated, at all.

I'm the guy who screams in every third post or so that we need publicly funded GM research. In fact, I believe I just posted that on this very page.

I'm not saying they're different, I'm saying that the difference doesn't have a meaningful impact when it comes to safety. 20 years of eating GM crops and none of the safety issues people bring up has come to pass, supporting my hypothesis. What evidence do you have to the contrary? Is it really worth locking out small research groups from GM development for over a decade of time and costs in the hundreds of millions? Does that really make sense to you?

Adventure Pigeon
Nov 8, 2005

I am a master storyteller.

Slanderer posted:

Congrats on disproving evolution.

I have a PhD in molecular biology so I'd hope I didn't just disprove evolution.

I said likely to turn things off. In very rare events, you can get a new function, but it's not as simple as bombard with radiation = plant has tentacles and can metabolize silicates. The problem is for a whole new gene providing a whole new function, you usually need multiple events, such as gene duplication, gradual changes to the "new" gene and associated regulatory regions under selective conditions, and strong enough selective pressure to overcome genetic drift. That's the most simple case. Oftentimes, multiple genes need to undergo this process to develop a totally new function.

When you see what appears to be a new function as a result of a mutation screen, it's almost always going to be the result of a repressor gene being knocked out or a gene becoming insensitive to a repressor or a gene being turned on in a place where it shouldn't be. The point is that the function was there before, but not in the form it exists in after the screen. Something that was preventing that function from occurring was knocked out.


Here's an example of what it took to develop an entirely novel function in bacteria, and it's likely that many of the genes required were already there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

Edit: I mean the genes responsible for transport into the cell under aerobic conditions. All genes required to metabolize citrate once in the cell were present.

Adventure Pigeon fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Apr 7, 2014

Slanderer
May 6, 2007

Adventure Pigeon posted:

I have a PhD in molecular biology so I'd hope I didn't just disprove evolution.

I said likely to turn things off. In very rare events, you can get a new function, but it's not as simple as bombard with radiation = plant has tentacles and can metabolize silicates. The problem is for a whole new gene providing a whole new function, you usually need multiple events, such as gene duplication, gradual changes to the "new" gene and associated regulatory regions under selective conditions, and strong enough selective pressure to overcome genetic drift. That's the most simple case. Oftentimes, multiple genes need to undergo this process to develop a totally new function.

When you see what appears to be a new function as a result of a mutation screen, it's almost always going to be the result of a repressor gene being knocked out or a gene becoming insensitive to a repressor or a gene being turned on in a place where it shouldn't be. The point is that the function was there before, but not in the form it exists in after the screen. Something that was preventing that function from occurring was knocked out.


Here's an example of what it took to develop an entirely novel function in bacteria, and it's likely that many of the genes required were already there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

Edit: I mean the genes responsible for transport into the cell under aerobic conditions. All genes required to metabolize citrate once in the cell were present.

Perhaps I was being to snarky. But even the experiments with generating additional mutations via gamma radiation produced effective results back in the day. Yes, it still requires additional selection,but not thousands of generations. Every time we select for novel mutant phenotypes we don't know that the change in some protein that helps to increase drought resistance doesn't also make the protein a potent hepatotoxin, for example.

Adventure Pigeon
Nov 8, 2005

I am a master storyteller.

Slanderer posted:

Perhaps I was being to snarky. But even the experiments with generating additional mutations via gamma radiation produced effective results back in the day. Yes, it still requires additional selection,but not thousands of generations. Every time we select for novel mutant phenotypes we don't know that the change in some protein that helps to increase drought resistance doesn't also make the protein a potent hepatotoxin, for example.

It's always possible. It's just really, really unlikely that a protein will gain a truly novel function is extremely rare. It's more feasible in bacteria just because you go through generations so quickly and can work on massive numbers of cells at one time, so mutagenesis + selection is a viable strategy. Once you get much more complex than that, especially in multicellular organisms, the sample sizes are too small, generation time is too long, etc. Every knockout study I can think of off the top of my head in multicellular organisms works based on the idea that by disrupting a protein in some way, a novel phenotype occurs. This does not necessarily mean a truly novel protein function.

I think I need to clarify what I mean by a truly novel function. I mean a protein doing something that it was completely unable to do before in any context before the mutation existed. A protein might improve drought resistance because it's more abundant, but the same abundance leads to it becoming a hepatotoxin because it's now produced a thousand fold higher than it was previously. This would be a pretty reasonable way for it to occur, and there are plenty of examples of proteins that aren't hazardous to humans simply because their concentration is too low.

What I mean by a genuinely novel function is, say, a protein that previously uptook iron suddenly uptaking cadmium might require a lot of very lucky structural changes to accomplish this. The problem with any mutagen is you can only give an organism so much before you kill it, so you have to balance that with sample size, generation time, etc. It's just not going to happen without massive luck, time, and money investment. I mean, you can try to generate the protein in bacteria then move it back into the plant, but then you're right back to transgenics.

Now, getting into more extreme examples, like mutating a crop plant to suddenly produce a potent cocktail of toxins that kill insects but leave humans alone is pretty much impossible without some sort of transgenics. What you can accomplish feasibly with mutation and selection is very different from what you have to use transgenics to accomplish in that respect.

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white sauce
Apr 29, 2012

by R. Guyovich

quote:

The recent flurry of publicity in transgenic (also known as genetically modified or “GM”)
seed reveals a broader controversy over competition policy in high technology industries. What
constitutes conduct by a patent-holder that is legitimately within its rights, versus what exceeds
the scope of a patent? More specifically, how should antitrust deal with a patent-holder that is
also a dominant firm, and alleged to have maintained or leveraged its monopoly by selectively
enforcing its licenses? Does such conduct unduly control or influence competition and
innovation, to the detriment of consumers?

Agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto is at the center of the debate over the
intersection between patent law and antitrust law in transgenic seed. In the spotlight are the
markets for genetic traits and the complementary markets for transgenic seed.2 There are two
categories of genetic traits: input and output. Input traits affect the agronomic performance of the
plant in order to enhance yield, including tolerance to herbicides (Ht traits) such as glyphosate
and resistance to insects (Bt traits). These traits in corn, soybeans, and cotton have been
established for some time. But other input traits (e.g., drought resistance) and output traits are
more novel. Output traits affect the characteristics of the plant’s output (e.g., high oleic soybeans)
and therefore the value of the crop.

With substantial market shares in genetic traits for corn (about 75 percent), soybeans
(about 95 percent), and cotton (about 97 percent), Monsanto potentially holds sway over the
market.3 But there are growing complaints about substantial price increases for seed—about 25
to 30 percent for corn and soybeans in recent years.4 Moreover, seed companies have
complained that they cannot access Monsanto technologies for the purposes of developing
commercially valuable transgenic products, despite the firm’s policy of licensing broadly.

Together, the foregoing factors have had a catalyst-like effect. For example, there is an
ongoing investigation into Monsanto’s conduct by the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”).
Momentum could be gaining in several states to bring an antitrust suit against the firm. And a
series of high profile DOJ/U.S. Department of Agriculture workshops on competitive issues in
agriculture are scheduled throughout 2010. This article explores what is driving these antitrust
concerns. Given that Monsanto’s blockbuster Ht trait Roundup Ready 1® (RR1®) for soybeans
goes off patent in 2014, it is also important to explore what policy tools are needed to best
promote generic competition.


Awesome study published by the American Antitrust Institute regarding Monsnato and seed patents.

https://www.competitionpolicyinternational.com/file/view/6293

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