Topic Tuesday #136 2015/02/24 "Genetically Modified Organisms"

Recently a rash of anti-intellectualism has gripped the United States. People are abusing the term skeptic when really they are just denying the consensus of scientific findings. We have seen this with climate change. We have felt the prick of the anti-vaccination crowd. One that we haven't discussed is that of genetically modified organisms, aka, food.

Let me be very clear here: there is no danger in eating the current crops. The danger is in the unknown.

Let us take as an example, GMO corn. The number one consumer of GMO corn is cattle. It is an enormous part of their diet. The livestock that we rely on for many industries and other food, has suffered no ill effects from this diet. On a microscopic level, the GMO corn is identical to a non-GMO variety. Combine this knowledge with the thousands of studies from all over the world and you have a mountain of evidence showing there is nothing to be concerned with in its consumption.

Bill Nye, recently, has come out against GMO. His take is different and I share it. He posits that we do not know the impact on the ecosystems around these products. The science is not mature enough for his liking on the effects to all the interconnected bio systems. His, is a reasonable position, even if he would prefer to stop using it all until that science is in.

That's not going to happen, based on human nature. The horse has left the barn, as is said down on Old MacDonald's farm. The world is the lab in this case, and we will have to deal with it due to inertia.

In parting, the foods are safe for us, but we don't know what the long term effects their presence in the biosphere will have.

Remember the fictional PhD, Ian Malcolm. "Life finds a way" "That's chaos theory..."

For the references to the data in the attached meme, the source URL is here.http://www.axismundionline.com/blog/the-new-is-gm-food-safe-meme/