GM foodfight - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Lebenz · #16 07-07-2006, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

The allegations of an effect of genes jumping from a GM crop plant to milkweed were popular in the 1990's. I believe the crop was maize. Subsequent, detailed scientific analysis failed to substantiate the initial results.

To me, the greatest threat of GM plants is lowering the genetic diversity of the food crops.

[snip]

Humanity is dependent on 7 grains, each of which is increasingly subjected to line breeding and now, GM breeding. This means that the major food source of the planet is exhibiting increasing dependence on human culture for its survival. That okay, just so long as we don't screw-up.

That’s the basic issue - the trend towards reducing bio-diversity. While there has been a state of unnatural selection in crop foods since the beginnings of cultivation, the real trend towards reducing bio-diversity started in the 30s with the Green revolution. The example you provided is one of many to have occurred. Due largely to global warming, bio-diversity has continued to shrink. The impact of the continual increase in temperature is a big question mark. Can our current selection of food crops sustain a 5 or 15 degree increase? Some will.

The USA keeps what used to be the largest seed bank and recently a seed bank was established in the arctic circle http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800950.html Well, seed doesn’t keep very long. It looses most or all of its viability after only a few years. So it’s not enough to store it, but the stock has to be grown and re-seeded periodically. That process is not cheap but is perfectly suited to the university system.

If GM can provide a first goal of mapping the structures of the seed stock to be kept in the arctic, that would be a worthy goal. But I doubt that will be done any time soon.

Also on a more general level, isn’t the GM in crop foods a case of eugenics presented a work-a-day utility?

Botnst · #17 07-07-2006, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebenz

...

Also on a more general level, isn’t the GM in crop foods a case of eugenics presented a work-a-day utility?

Oh yeah, exactly so. Curiously, the idea for eugenics came from the confluences of Mendelian genetics, Darwinian selection, modern medicine and Nietzsche.

http://www.philosophos.com/knowledge_base/archives_17/philosophy_questions_1718.html

Lebenz · #18 07-08-2006, 11:46 AM

That’s a contemporary, roughly social Darwin take on eugenics, or at least one of the versions of it. I never looked into Nietzsche and eugenics. Or medicine and eugenics, itself a scary topic. Anyway, my recollection is that Plato first used the argument and maybe the term “eugenics” to advance the idea of “the better born” in the Republic. There it was a guise about the risks of mixing social classes.

My supposition is that the state of the science is far too immature to make decisions about what constitutes the best viable strains to grow. That’s why I’d like to see GM start by putting together maps of all known strains first. If the tools are good, they will in theory know how to restore a lost specimen. In theory...