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In reply to the discussion: Pope Francis Slams GMOs and Pesticides for Destroying the Earth's 'Complex Web of Ecosystems' [View all]cprise
(8,445 posts)158. A word about reality
I'm not drawing a line at genetic research or even genetic engineering. I'm drawing a line at the mass production and environmental exposure aspect.
Then you're around 8,000 years too late.
Very old and tired, indeed. And intellectually dishonest as well. You might as well admit its been tested for 8,000 years.
I'll also add that those early agricultural societies were fairly isolated: The ones that went too far with dangerous techniques and policies were weeded out. In the globalized era, that's a recipe for adding to the problems of unsustainability to the entire biosphere.
Re: the GMO rice you love. The shortcut around sexual reproduction means we can feed more of the world with rice and worry less about distributing other nutritious foodstuffs to the needy as the rest of us continue wasting more of our food despite overall surpluses. More rice will be produced to feed humanity, and so agriculture will release more methane into the atmosphere (rice is methane-intensive) resulting in even greater entrenchment against carbon taxes to curb global warming.
That's not even getting into the question of intensifying existing monoculture that this raises.
That's not even touching on disasters-waiting-to-happen like GMO salmon.
Treat living organisms like machines with pushbuttons, and you get nasty side-effects from the shortcuts in discipline and thinking that you took. Of course, we can be spared the exercise of considering these unintended effects because of the charitable aura around "Golden Rice".
Why does bombarding a plant with gamma rays require no testing of the resulting mutations?
You tell me. As far as I'm concerned, aiming gamma rays at seeds ought to be considered a form of GE.
If we are going to address the problems you are concerned about, we're going to have to start with reality and not the fears used to market "natural" products.
How perfectly paternalistic. Love the tone. You get the GE industry to consider long-term ecological impacts first, then we'll talk about what is "real" (and your insinuation that natural processes aren't "real" . OTOH, if ecology isn't "real" enough of a science to you, then let me introduce you to "scientist" Trofim Lysenko (and also remind you that the industry boast about post-1990 productivity increases from GMOs was a lie).
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Pope Francis Slams GMOs and Pesticides for Destroying the Earth's 'Complex Web of Ecosystems' [View all]
bananas
Jun 2015
OP
And posting the word "horseshit" doesn't mean that science in the service only of profits, and
villager
Jun 2015
#27
So, *your* patronizing insults are okay, but it's just other people's insults that are the problem?
villager
Jun 2015
#96
I started by mentioning that your initial sneering -- which is how you enter any dicussion here --
villager
Jun 2015
#100
Well, that wasn't Einstein's style of critical thinking. He once pointed to a drawer in a table
Joe Chi Minh
Jun 2015
#119
Sorry. Critical thinking has to result in positive thinking or it will remain sterile.
Joe Chi Minh
Jun 2015
#126
Believe it or not, the Pope's powers are quite limited. There are many things he
Cal33
Jun 2015
#140
Are 'liberal' and 'progressive' terms that are meant to be the exclusive preserve of atheists?
Joe Chi Minh
Jul 2015
#173
They are destroying the natural diversity, they're like kudzu-takeover.
Dont call me Shirley
Jun 2015
#86
It would behoove churches to begin to preach birth control for the salvation of our species
Dont call me Shirley
Jul 2015
#169
Poison the insects and you poison or starve all of the smaller animals that eat them.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
Jun 2015
#6
I chose mules because people know what they are. People who didn't take much biology don't know
jeff47
Jun 2015
#151
American Catholics are MORE likely to use artificial birth control than Americans in general.
pnwmom
Jun 2015
#37
I'm saying that I hope the Church and the scientific establishment working TOGETHER
pnwmom
Jun 2015
#62
They can and will be taken seriously on the issue of the global environment because
pnwmom
Jun 2015
#73
I have always advocated that the CC change its position on artificial contraception. n/t
pnwmom
Jun 2015
#84
The claim that 98 percent of Catholic women use contraception: a media foul
progressoid
Jul 2015
#166
Not a fan of monoculture, pesticides, etc. It's been said often by natives it's all interconnected.
freshwest
Jun 2015
#10
The Pope knows more than Bill Nye and MdT on the safety of GMOs, imho. mahalo bananas.
Cha
Jun 2015
#45
K&R I am not totally opposed to GMO, nor any potentially beneficial science.
raouldukelives
Jun 2015
#106