Back to the debate with you!

A few days ago, sent you off to vote on a debate on genetically-modified crops, a debate that has continued onwards.

We didn't quite pharyngulate this poll; it has gone back and forth, and now the anti-GMO forces have a pretty good lead. One reason that we didn't pound it into the ground is that there was some dissension here, even — I think a fair number of the people who read about it here went off to vote for the antis. And then, also, I've learned that the anti-GMO gang organized their own opposition (which is perfectly fair!), which I suspect voted with much more unity than the gang from here.

Anyway, I have obtained some top secret email from the organic gang's mailing list, shown here for your amusement:

The Economist has a GM debate sponsored by BASF: "This house believes that biotechnology and sustainable agriculture are complementary, not contradictory."

We're currently losing and the debate rounds up in the next 48 hours.

Please vote now and vote NO - and tell everyone you know to do the same.

Message from Phil Chandler

Please - show the GM industry what you think of them with just one click - no signup, name or email needed - just go here - http://tinyurl.com/3yk4xj6 and vote AGAINST the motion.

I suspect this has been worded in an attempt to ask a 'soft' question, which sounds harmless, so that people will be fooled into agreeing with it. But the fact is that GM and sustainable agriculture are NOT compatible, or complementary, as the very presence of GM in an open space means that organic and other non-GM crops will inevitably be contaminated. This is happening wherever GM crops are grown, and is well-documented. American farmers who were sold on GM ten years ago are now turning against it - listen to my podcast at http://biobees.libsyn.com for evidence of this.

Don't be fooled by industry propaganda: GM crops are TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE with sustainable agriculture.

This is not a definitive survey, but it is run by The Economist and will be used by the media as 'evidence' one way or the other.

So please, if you care about keeping our food and our bees GM-free - VOTE AGAINST THIS MOTION - http://tinyurl.com/3yk4xj6 - they don't need your name or email address, and it only takes a second.

Thanks,
Phil Chandler
www.biobees.com

I've found the comments even more entertaining. There's lots of nonsense like this:

Science and nature are two parallel things. There is no comparison between sustainable Agriculture (SA) and GMOs. In SA production of food is almost natural. There is no destruction of nature and the environment remains clean. GMO is a science which tampers with biodiversity and eventually breaking the environmental cycles. The world doesn't need food produced using science rather it requires food produced using natures own ingredients.

You might want to revisit the debate and notice who is backing up all their arguments with citations of the peer-reviewed literature, and that most of the opposition to GMOs is coming from people who have this bizarre view that science is unnatural…that is, science up to the level that they are currently using is natural, but anything beyond that, anything newer, is somehow destroying nature.