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The fight over genetically modified foods, whether they're safe, healthy, good for the environment, or just plain "unnatural," has been going on for a long time now. Most people in the scientific community agree that genetic modification in general is a good thing, able to create crops that need…
MT The debate on genetically engineered crops (the so-called "GMOs") has begun to grow up. Anti-GMO protests are fizzling.
Why?
Some consumers are embracing an emerging "geek consciousness" – a science-friendly approach that rejects unfounded attacks on basic and applied science and that…
Unlike many of my colleagues, I'm not really interested in the whole "science vs. religion" thing, but I do want to point out the very thoughtful analysis of genetic engineering and synthetic biology by the Church of Scotland's Society, Religion, and Technology Project. On GM food, they write:
The…
A large study weighs up the existing evidence on the impact of GM crops on local insect life, providing some much-needed scientific rigour to the GM debate.
In Europe, the 'GM debate' about the merits and dangers of genetically-modified (GM) crops is a particularly heated one. There is a sense of…
Ahem - some GM crops good for environment. To assert that GM crops are always all good is just as facile as to assert that they're always all bad. It depends on the specific application, and you can't generalise from one particular application to all others.
Reminds one of the headline lauding the economic miracles of Weimar Germany, complete disregard of the principle of primum non nocere.
Only consider benefits after exclusionary costs are known.
Dunc, absolutely. Not all GE crops will benefit the environment as clearly as GE cotton. Each crop (whether GE or conventionally bred) must be looked at on a case-by-case basis. The original title on my blog post was from the Guardian article. I have changed it now to be more specific, as you suggested. Thanks
Scientific American weighs in:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/06/15/gmo-bonus-g…
Why not say, "Round-Up proven to be more beneficial to bald eagles than DDT and shotguns !!!"
Wonders never cease.
If GE cotton fields are not soaked with insecticides and non-GE cotton fields are soaked with insecticides, the GE cotton fields will have more living insects of all types. This is kind of obvious. The null hypothesis is what happens when you compare insect populations on GE and non-GE cotton fields without any application of any insecticides on either field. This is a classic example of the experimenter putting his 'thumb on the butcher's scale' and then getting exactly the result they predicted. It is not science; it is marketing.