This REALLY pisses me off: Americans Are Too Stupid For GMO Labeling, Congressional Panel Says

[jeff47]

12. Well then stop being stupid.

(Not directed at the OP, but at a much larger group of Americans)

Stupid part 1:
These are GMOs: http://www.wired.com/2014/07/kraig-spider-silk-production/
They're silkworms that were modified to spin spider silk instead of "regular" silk.

GMO does not mean plant. It does not mean plant developed by Monsanto. It does not mean plant developed by Monsanto to resist RoundUp.

GMO is a broad term. If you object to Monsanto's "RoundUp Ready" crops, you do not object to GMOs, you object to Monsanto's "RoundUp Ready" crops.

Why is the difference important? Because if you want to actually feed everyone on the planet without using up all of our topsoil and pumping our aquifers dry, we're going to need GMOs. Not Monsanto's "RoundUp Ready" crops, but GMO crops that have been modified for drought tolerance and higher yield with less fertilizer.

Stupid part 2:
Where do those objections come from? Shitty science like this? http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5226677

The guy sells books, articles and speeches about the evils of GMOs. To help with his primary business, he did a study with incomplete controls to cite in his books, articles and speeches. Then he paid for a journal to publish it. It's not science, but it keeps the checks coming in.

Nobody's been able to show that GMO crops are actually dangerous. "But Monsanto won't give us seeds for study!!!" So what? You can buy the food from your friendly neighborhood farmer.....but that would mean you'd actually have to do a study, will likely find no correlation, and then people will stop paying you to talk about the dangers of GMOs.

Stupid part 3:
What happens when you eat a GMO crop? It gets broken down into it's component chemicals, and then you absorb those chemicals. Let's take Monsanto's "RoundUp Ready" crops as an example - we're gonna start with as evil as possible.

What makes them RoundUp Ready? Some proteins are slightly different. RoundUp attacks the original form of these proteins, so the crop is immune to RoundUp.

What happens when you eat that protein? The same thing that happens when you eat any other protein. Your stomach and intestines break down the protein into amino acids, and then you absorb the amino acids. Since the proteins are no longer assembled, they can't do anything in your body.

But let's pretend that isn't the case in order to make them as dangerous as possible. Even in that case, the proteins can't do anything in your body, because they are used in photosynthesis in the plant. They have to be in a particular structure inside a plant to work. You don't have chloroplasts.

And no, you can't "catch" the modification. First, the genes are inserted physically - they coat a gold nanoparticle with DNA, and then shoot that at plant cells. The ones where the nanoparticle ends up in the right place get grown into full plants. Since they're not shooting gold nanoparticles at you, the DNA can't end up in your cells.

Very early on viruses were used to insert genes, but that turned out to be much harder to do than physical insertion. Even if they still used viruses, you can't catch a plant virus. Just like a plant can't catch influenza. Your cells are too different.

Second, when you eat the DNA, it is decomposed into nucleotides (A, T, C, and G from high school biology) and then absorbed. It isn't going to be in a functional DNA molecule inside your body.

Third, the genes rely on other plant genes to do anything. As a result, even if points 1 and 2 were false, it still can't do anything inside your body.

Stupid part 4:
"You're just a paid Monsanto shill!!"
No, I think science is important whether you're talking about climate change or GMOs.

The fact that this dumbass wants to believe Earth and Mars are the same temperature doesn't make it so. Wanting to believe GMOs are dangerous does not make it so.

"It's new so it's scary" isn't an argument to ban something. You have to show harm. We've been able to show harm from RoundUp, so RoundUp should go. Which would lead to "RoundUp Ready" crops leaving the market, since they no longer have a point. But that is not all GMOs.

"But if we show harm it'll be too late! The GMO will have escaped and turned into a giant that crushes Tokyo!"
The reason people are asking to show harm instead of safety is because there is no mechanism for harm. The few mechanisms that were proposed were dealt with years ago - for example, moving away from viruses for gene insertion.

Even the weeds that are becoming immune to RoundUp aren't a harm. Well, not to anyone other than Monsanto. Immune weeds means their RoundUp business dies out. And not dousing fields with RoundUp would be better anyway.

Vague threats about "unknowns" are great for duping people into supporting illegal wars. Don't let them dupe you into trashing science.

"But Europe banned GMOs!!!"
Yes, they bought in to the "it's new so it's scary" argument. We don't need to follow their stupidity. Just like we don't need to ban headscarves on drivers licenses.