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OfflineChuangTzu
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Penn and Teller on GE Foods
    #9594392 - 01/12/09 11:46 AM (15 years, 19 days ago)



I've always liked these guys...


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InvisibleDieCommie

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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: ChuangTzu]
    #9594428 - 01/12/09 11:57 AM (15 years, 19 days ago)

Genetically Engineered food FTW!

I dont think the difference between old school selective breeding and modern genetic engineering is that great.  Mankind has done amazing things by selectively choosing plants with genes that produce a fruitful crop.  For example, perhaps the greatest crop we have ever domesticated - corn.



Thank you ancient americans, your hard work in selective breeding has been a blessing to the world and a stepping stone into the next phase of manipulation of plant's genes by proactive engineering.


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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: DieCommie]
    #9594491 - 01/12/09 12:12 PM (15 years, 19 days ago)

Exactly, i never got why simple mendelian selection and crossing is so different from GE foods.

People seem to not really understand that both the former and the later does effect the genes and dna and this causes the phenotypes. 

I understand the murphy's law arguments, I just don't see why that isn't an argument to not cross breed or select for charecteristics right now.  And since that's impossible to enforce and results in no problems, net, histrocially, I think we should take our chances with GE.

If one of the frankenfood people could explain to me the logical difference between the old and the new I'd listen to em- but I've not heard such yet.


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InvisiblelIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: DieCommie]
    #9595396 - 01/12/09 02:53 PM (15 years, 19 days ago)

The only problem I see with GMFs is that they tend to be selected based on certain characteristics, which tends to result in very little genetic variation amongst the marketed seeds. This makes them much more susceptible to some kind of catastrophe.

I think there is a lot of good that can be done with it though.


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InvisibleDieCommie

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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl]
    #9595448 - 01/12/09 03:02 PM (15 years, 19 days ago)

Quote:

The only problem I see with GMFs is that they tend to be selected based on certain characteristics, which tends to result in very little genetic variation amongst the marketed seeds.




How is that any different from traditional selective breeding?  Modern cereals (pre GM) exhibit the same characteristic.

Low genetic variation means that the plant will have a harder time adapting to a changing environment - meaning its very dependent on man to subsidize it and may go extinct without man.  Whats wrong with that?


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Offlinezouden
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl]
    #9595500 - 01/12/09 03:13 PM (15 years, 19 days ago)

Yeah, as DieCommie said, all of our crops have already been selected for certain characteristics and lack variation. Genetic engineering doesn't change that.

This is quite interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_banana


--------------------
I know... that just the smallest
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InvisiblelIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: DieCommie]
    #9595643 - 01/12/09 03:38 PM (15 years, 19 days ago)

I thought that with genetic engineering the degree of variation would be even smaller. But I could be wrong. Bananas are on the verge of extinction.


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Offlinezouden
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl]
    #9595726 - 01/12/09 03:49 PM (15 years, 19 days ago)

A lack of variation isn't caused by genetic engineering (or selective breeding, for that matter). It's caused by people only growing one type of plant. It's an economic problem more than a scientific one.

Bananas are particularly interesting because (as that article states) cultivated bananas only grow asexually. They're always going to be genetically identical.


--------------------
I know... that just the smallest
                                                part of the world belongs to me
You know... I'm not a blind man
                                                    but truth is the hardest thing to see


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InvisiblelIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: ChuangTzu]
    #9595822 - 01/12/09 04:04 PM (15 years, 19 days ago)

I think that video brings up some good points. I am actually in favor of genetically modified food, if it increases the food supply.

However, one thing they don't mention, which is understandable since the show is on specifically GMF, is energy inputs. Now even a child can understand that if you take a crop off a section, the mass of the food that you take had to come from somewhere. It didn't just come straight out of the air, except for some carbon. It came from the soil.

That food is eaten and it turns into shit... now logically you should return that shit to the crop.

Instead, we shit in purified drinking water and send that to be broken down anaerobically and through extremely expensive, technologically advanced sewage treatment systems. This is insane...

So this is an energy input. Instead of shit, we pump anhydrous ammonia (which is made from natural gas), sulfur, potash and a variety of other energy intensive fertilizers to replace what could have been replaced if we used shit. Even all of this doesn't replace the soil, and you will see in places next to farms that have never been tilled (such as graveyards) that the untilled land is a foot or two above... why is that? Because the soil is gone.

So while I agree GMF is a good idea, there is a limit. You can't grow corn every year on the same piece of land. If it produces high amounts of food energy it has to get the material from somewhere. And the higher you up the energy input to compensate, the harder it is on the soil. And God forbid should there be an energy crisis, such as the one that occurred in Cuba after the fall of the USSR, none of it will matter because you will have to grow food where people actually live, or starve.

So while I do think those green peace protestors are fucking nuts, I think there are a lot of problems with the way we grow our food that are basically time bombs waiting to explode, and GMF doesn't solve that (at least not yet).


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InvisiblelIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: zouden]
    #9595855 - 01/12/09 04:09 PM (15 years, 19 days ago)

Let me give you a real example, round up ready canola. This is a crop with a gene that allows it to survive a certain pesticide, which kills everything else. If it doesn't have that gene, it will die. Therefore it is important from an economic standpoint to make sure that the seed that is sold contains that gene.

If you compare that to standard canola there are nowhere near the controls in place making sure the seed all has the same genetics.

So I think it's fair to say regular canola has more variation than roundup ready canola. However, canola itself is a cultivar of rapeseed. This means all canola can trace it's origin from a few plants. That means that even regular canola has less variation than rapeseed.


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InvisibleDieCommie

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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl]
    #9595964 - 01/12/09 04:23 PM (15 years, 19 days ago)

Quote:

However, one thing they don't mention, which is understandable since the show is on specifically GMF, is energy inputs. Now even a child can understand that if you take a crop off a section, the mass of the food that you take had to come from somewhere. It didn't just come straight out of the air, except for some carbon. It came from the soil.





Really?  Its not just some carbon is it?  I thought the bulk of the plant (besides water) was carbon, yknow carbon backbones and such.

Quote:

That food is eaten and it turns into shit... now logically you should return that shit to the crop.

Instead, we shit in purified drinking water and send that to be broken down anaerobically and through extremely expensive, technologically advanced sewage treatment systems. This is insane...

So this is an energy input. Instead of shit, we pump anhydrous ammonia (which is made from natural gas), sulfur, potash and a variety of other energy intensive fertilizers to replace what could have been replaced if we used shit. Even all of this doesn't replace the soil, and you will see in places next to farms that have never been tilled (such as graveyards) that the untilled land is a foot or two above... why is that? Because the soil is gone.





That sounds like an appeal against (efficient) agriculture in general, not genetically modified agriculture.  :shrug:


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InvisiblelIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: DieCommie]
    #9596016 - 01/12/09 04:30 PM (15 years, 19 days ago)

Efficient as in energy efficient? Hope you didn't mean it in that way, if so you are gonna have to explain.

I assume efficiency is:

(Calories of the food) / (Total energy input, not including solar)

Green revolution decreased efficiency but increased yields. It didn't increase energy efficiency.

If it is efficient to truck the food off the crop... shouldn't it be more efficient trucking the shit back? Assuming it is composted, dried and compacted.

Have you ever been on a farm? Honest question.


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OfflineTedwilto
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl]
    #9597311 - 01/12/09 07:36 PM (15 years, 18 days ago)

one of the problems i see with genetically modified foods is the fact that the companies can patent the seeds they make and make people sign an agreement to use them. If you dont sign the agreement you can be sued by the company, even if the crop is just spread into your field without you having anything to do with it.

here's an example that happened not to long ago and there's a bunch of others.

http://www.monsanto.ca/about/news/2008/12_15_08.asp

my 2 cents.


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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl]
    #9597623 - 01/12/09 08:20 PM (15 years, 18 days ago)

Quote:

zouden said:
A lack of variation isn't caused by genetic engineering (or selective breeding, for that matter). It's caused by people only growing one type of plant. It's an economic problem more than a scientific one.

Bananas are particularly interesting because (as that article states) cultivated bananas only grow asexually. They're always going to be genetically identical.




agreed.  People conflate cloning and single-genome fields with genetic engineering when such doesn't have to be the way things are done.  And like you mention, its not like we don't do plenty of cloning allready without ge stuff- its just easy to do in plants. 

If we have the right or desire to force people to grow varieties then why don't we address that instead of GE which isn't the issue in this case?  While it makes sense to grow your strongest phenotype for your particular application, its not like by going ge you have to abandon diversity.  I could invision more diversity really- different strains, all crossed with wild type, for different applications:  big corn for animal feed and flour, tasty corn for consumption whole by humans, and then perhaps other varieties for other things (corn on the cob, et cet).


Quote:

adjust said:

So while I agree GMF is a good idea, there is a limit. You can't grow corn every year on the same piece of land. If it produces high amounts of food energy it has to get the material from somewhere. And the higher you up the energy input to compensate, the harder it is on the soil. And God forbid should there be an energy crisis, such as the one that occurred in Cuba after the fall of the USSR, none of it will matter because you will have to grow food where people actually live, or starve.




I don't get the point.  There's a limit to everything.  GE can help adjust that limit favorable to our abilities and resources.  That's good regardless of the state of these abilities or resources.
Quote:


So I think it's fair to say regular canola has more variation than roundup ready canola. However, canola itself is a cultivar of rapeseed. This means all canola can trace it's origin from a few plants. That means that even regular canola has less variation than rapeseed.




Since I presume you're talking about one product that's almost identical genetically, then yeah, you're probably right.  But that's like saying the genetic variation in N. America is greater than the twins just born from fertility therapy- so what?  The point is that GE doesn't require a lack of genetic diversity.


While I realize that buisnesses may, at least initially, desire to have sterile crops, as a result of the ecowarriers bullshit in part, and limited genetic diversity for consistant phenotypes, this is not inherent in GE and there is no reason such practices can't be addressed while leaving alone the dissimilar ones.  It seems to me as the technology gets cheaper the GE market may turn into a mirror of the software industries history- complete to the collaborative open source projects of today.

I'd note again that since its hard to state a way to rationally, with nonarbitrary policy goals in mind, distinguish between a crossed strain and a ge'd strain of similar genotype and genetic source, and even harder to explain why they should be treated different legally, it seems the definitions we use are going to be probelematic if we don't want hopefully arbitrary regulations that are pointless and capriciously block certain activities while ignoring others.

I think its axiomatic that a law that cannot define the scope of its coverage without arbitrary gaps and senseless inconsistancies in treatment of similar conduct is a bad law- suggesting that the intended target of the legislation is a poor choice anyways.


Edited by johnm214 (01/12/09 08:48 PM)


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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: johnm214]
    #9597776 - 01/12/09 08:44 PM (15 years, 18 days ago)

Quote:

DieCommie said:
Quote:

However, one thing they don't mention, which is understandable since the show is on specifically GMF, is energy inputs. Now even a child can understand that if you take a crop off a section, the mass of the food that you take had to come from somewhere. It didn't just come straight out of the air, except for some carbon. It came from the soil.





Really?  Its not just some carbon is it?  I thought the bulk of the plant (besides water) was carbon, yknow carbon backbones and such.






Yeah, it is.  The majority of the mass of the non water mass should come from the atmosphere and not the soil.  The soil should provide the nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfer, metals and other goodies, but the majority of the plant is just various sugar polymers (celluslose et cet).  I couldn't imagine theseCO2 derived molecules don't form the vast majority of the mass of ever plant, but maybe badchad or some biology folks could chip in.

So I guess really the plant did come out of the air, but I get adjust's point- CO2 isn't really the limiting factor in agriculture.  But if we get some GE'd plants that can use inorganic nitrogen, they could litterally just forgo needing soil for nitrogen at all and breathe it in through the leaves like they do carbon dioxide.  That would be quite helpful to the costs of and efficiency of farming around the world.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_fixation

Other organisms can, so its not like they don't have a place to look for the genes- though I have no idea of the practicality of this being attempted any time  relativly soon.


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OfflineBaby_Hitler
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: johnm214]
    #9598311 - 01/12/09 10:15 PM (15 years, 18 days ago)

I'm not terribly concerned about the safety of GMO food, but I would like to see the advent of open source/license genetic engineering.

Hopefully soon the technology will become affordable enough that people can make their own genetically engineered crops and distribute them freely.


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: Baby_Hitler]
    #9598620 - 01/12/09 11:12 PM (15 years, 18 days ago)

Quote:

Baby_Hitler said:
I'm not terribly concerned about the safety of GMO food, but I would like to see the advent of open source/license genetic engineering.



Therein lies my concern about GMO foods.  I think intellectual property issues can lead to some major exploitation.  I've heard about such issues before, and I'd like to see them addressed before I sign on wholeheartedly to this GMO thing.


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Edited by Silversoul (01/12/09 11:30 PM)


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Offlinezouden
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: Silversoul]
    #9598983 - 01/13/09 12:28 AM (15 years, 18 days ago)

Some very good posts in this thread.

I think my biggest concern with genetic engineering isn't the problems caused by the science itself. It's the problems caused by the companies behind it. It's essentially introducing the problems faced by the software industry into the agriculture industry.


--------------------
I know... that just the smallest
                                                part of the world belongs to me
You know... I'm not a blind man
                                                    but truth is the hardest thing to see


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InvisiblelIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: johnm214]
    #9599680 - 01/13/09 03:34 AM (15 years, 18 days ago)

Quote:

johnm214 said:
Yeah, it is.  The majority of the mass of the non water mass should come from the atmosphere and not the soil.  The soil should provide the nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfer, metals and other goodies, but the majority of the plant is just various sugar polymers (celluslose et cet).  I couldn't imagine theseCO2 derived molecules don't form the vast majority of the mass of ever plant, but maybe badchad or some biology folks could chip in.

So I guess really the plant did come out of the air, but I get adjust's point- CO2 isn't really the limiting factor in agriculture.  But if we get some GE'd plants that can use inorganic nitrogen, they could litterally just forgo needing soil for nitrogen at all and breathe it in through the leaves like they do carbon dioxide.  That would be quite helpful to the costs of and efficiency of farming around the world.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_fixation




The problem is that photosynthesis, which uses water as the reducing agent, is only about 6% efficient after respiration. That places a limit on what a plant can and cannot do. I'm not sure that breathing nitrogen through the leaves is as efficient as getting it from bacteria in the soil, which is how legumes are able to do it.

A more interesting question might be why don't all plants obtain nitrogen in the same way that legumes do?

Plants need nutrients as well as humus to grow well. Humus is basically on engineered material that creates an environment most food crops find desirable, mostly carbon.

Again, if it is so great to be shipping food hundreds or thousands of miles and then subjecting them to energy intensive manufacturing processes, why don't we ship back the composted, dried and compacted shit back to the land instead of using non-renewable resources as fertilizers. Right now our shit ends up in landfills and in the ocean and very little is used for fertilizer.


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InvisibleEntheogenicPeace
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Re: Penn and Teller on GE Foods [Re: johnm214]
    #9607461 - 01/14/09 11:43 AM (15 years, 17 days ago)

---






Edited by EntheogenicPeace (12/10/21 05:33 PM)


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