Evolutionary biologist, PLoS co-founder, and UC Berkeley professor Michael Eisen is a resource for science-based commentary that you need to follow. Michael blogs at MichaelEisen.org, and is guaranteed to add value to your Twitter timeline at @mbeisen.
Michael caught my attention when we were prompted to update our understanding of GMO by the recent anti-GMO vandals’ attack on the wheat research being conducted by the U.K.’s famous Rothamsted Research.
The captioned post is Michael’s first delivery on his promise to address the nine myths/questions he has culled from the anti-science campaigners. Michael has tagged the topic as #GMOFAQ. Here is his personal nine-point assignment, which was introduced in his post titled “The anti-GMO campaign’s dangerous war on science“:
1) Isn’t transferring genes from one species to another is unnatural and intrinsically dangerous
2) The most widely consumed GM crops now produce their own herbicides and pesticides. Isn’t it obvious that it’s bad to eat these?
3) Why should I believe GM food is safe? Why should I trust the big companies that develop these crops? Didn’t it take years to realize PCBs, DDT, ‘good’ cholesterol, etc. were bad for us?
4) What about studies that show GM foods cause allergies, destroy organs and make mice sterile?
5) Why won’t GM crops will escape and contaminate non-GMO crops (and maybe the planet)
6) GM crops initially reduced spraying. But now we have resistant weeds&insects. Aren’t we on a ‘pesticide treadmill’?
7) Don’t GMOs destroy biodiversity?
8) Don’t GMOs undermine local agriculture in the developing world?
9) Aren’t Monsanto’s business practices enough to want to boycott GMOs?
Hopefully you have read enough to motivate you to plug yourself into a well-written stream of commentary – written for critical thinkers. His blog tagline is “a blog about genomes, DNA, evolution, open science, baseball and other important things”. We don’t care about the baseball, but are very keen on all the other topics. And you can see from the first paragraphs on #GMOFAQ Question 1) that you are in for a good ride:
Last week I wrote about the anti-science campaign being waged by opponents of the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture. In that post, I promised to address a series of questions/fears about GMOs that seem to underly peoples’ objections to the technology. I’m not going to try to make this a comprehensive reference site about GMOs and the literature on their use and safety (I’m compiling some good general resources here.)
I want to say a few things about myself too. I am a molecular biologist with a background in infectious diseases, cancer genomics, developmental biology, classical genetics, evolution and ecology. I am not a plant biologist, but I understand the underlying technology and relevant areas of biology. I would put myself firmly in the “pro GMO” camp, but I have absolutely nothing material to gain from this position. My lab is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. I am not currently, have never been in the past, and do not plan in the future, to receive any personal or laboratory support from any company that makes or otherwise has a vested interest in GMOs. My vested interest here is science, and what I write here, I write to defend it.
S0, without further ado:
Question 1) Isn’t transferring genes from one species to another unnatural and intrinsically dangerous
The most striking thing about the GMO debate is the extent to which it contrasts “unnatural” GMOs against “natural” traditional agriculture, and the way that anti-GMO campaigners equate “natural” with “safe and good”. I’ll deal with these in turn.
The problem with the unnatural/natural contrast is not that it’s a mischaracterization of GMOs – they are unnatural in the strict sense of not occurring in Nature – rather that it is a frighteningly naive view of traditional agriculture.
Far from being natural, the transformation of wild plants and animals into the foods we eat today is – by far – the single most dramatic experiment in genetic engineering the human species has undertaken. Few of the species we eat today look anything like their wild counterparts, the result of thousands of years of largely willful selective breeding to optimize these organisms for agriculture and human consumption. And, in the past few years, as we have begun to characterize the genetic makeup of crops and farm animals, we are getting a clear picture of the extent to which traditional agricultural practices have transformed their DNA.
With that motivation, do read the complete essay.
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