tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35694909392181646012024-02-19T07:51:48.780-05:00The Regular Expressions of Humanistic JonesSystem my be subject to ranting and squeeing over various things.<br>Assumed to be working as designed.Humanistic Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00915959721227332344noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3569490939218164601.post-18602200156208034522012-09-26T13:32:00.000-04:002012-09-26T13:32:39.207-04:00Phyllis Schlafly calls out Title IXSo <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">Phyllis</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;"> Schlafly is out claiming that <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/phyllis-schlafly-claims-title-ix-damaged-us-performance-olympics" target="_blank">Title IX has lead to a decline in America's dominance in sports</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;">Feminist-imposed gender quotas hurt us at the Olympics in events which our Nation once dominated. The systematic elimination of certain men’s sports from colleges has weakened our competitiveness. We won only four medals in all of men’s wrestling, less than half the total won by Iran, and only a fraction of the medals won by Russia in this masculine sport.</span></span></blockquote>
Yes, what more do you liberals need? We were dominated by our mortal enemies in the most masculine of sports! Isn't it obvious that ever since Title IX was passed in 1972 that our manliest of men have been in decline? Wait... we've never dominated in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_medalists_in_Greco-Roman_wrestling" target="_blank">Greco-Roman wrestling</a>? Certainly free style wrestling? What's that? Our victories in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_medalists_in_freestyle_wrestling" target="_blank">men's free style wrestling</a> have been extremely variable as well and don't appear to have changed all that much since 1972 either? Well, I guess this leaves only one real explanation doesn't it.<br />
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Feminist Policies are capable of TIME TRAVEL!<br />
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Or, barring time lords and the Wibbly Wobbly nature of space time, Schlafly is just talking out of her ass.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Wrestling develops discipline in boys. Many high-achievers, such as Donald Rumsfeld and pro-life attorney Phill Kline, developed their toughness as wrestlers.</blockquote>
Yes, Phill Kline is the exemplar of the virtues of men's wrestling, because it takes discipline and toughness to claim in an ethics hearing that it is okay to <a href="http://www.kshb.com/dpp/news/state/kansas/kline-says-deception-ok-in-abortion-investigations" target="_blank">lie to state agencies and give false or incorrect information to judges to push forward investigations</a>. Well, mostly that just takes huge brass ones that you have to carry on a forklift.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Other men’s sports have also been hurt by this feminist quota, such as swimming and track. Private swimming clubs and a few aging stars like Michael Phelps filled that gap this time, but we nearly struck out in men’s track in the marquee events of 100, 200, 400 and 800 meters, events the Americans historically dominated.</blockquote>
Yep, men's sports. Running and swimming are entirely for men! Ladies, get out of the pool and off the track! Where to even begin with this one? First Michael Phelps is an "aging star"? The man is 2 years younger than me, and unless 29 is the new 50, I don't think that really counts as "aging" in the way she's using it. Two, we're not losing the track events because we suddenly got worse. We're losing them because Usain Bolt is freaking faster than our guys. His gold 100m time in 2008 beat the time of our gold medalist in 2004.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Title IX quotas have hurt our competitiveness in sports that are most helpful to the development of our young men.</blockquote>
And there's the kicker statement in all of this. Our women apparently gain nothing from the discipline, teamwork, comradery, and toughness that sports so obviously teach the men that participate in them. Only men gain anything from sports. Women are apparently too "not man" to understand such noble concepts as working together and leadership. Anything saying that schools running programs off of tax payer money have to provide the same opportunities to women as they do to men is getting in the way of men getting all the benefits and women getting nothing more than back in the kitchen.<br />
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Of course what besides this kind of doublethink do you expect from Phyllis Schlafly, a woman that made a career out of telling women how evil it is for them to try to have a career that equals a man's in the same field.Humanistic Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00915959721227332344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3569490939218164601.post-18458855404456063322012-07-30T10:34:00.001-04:002012-07-30T10:34:18.269-04:00Ireland and GMO potatoes (Did they actually make that argument?So a few posts into going through the GMO Myths and Truths paper and what do I see? Is this a post of a GMO proponent saying just what the paper's been warning about?<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Scientists say the plants have been designed to improve resistance to blight. They argue that the type of genetic modification used is akin to conventional breeding. (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19000190" target="_blank">BBC News</a>)</blockquote>
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Sure seems like it. The scientists are saying exactly what the paper said they were saying. Well, except that's not a quote and it's not a cited statement. There are quotes in the article from both the scientists working on the project and by people opposed the the 2 hectare field test, but this isn't one of them.<br />
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So that makes it a statement by the author, who in standard journalistic form is just reporting the facts and opinions of the partisans in this story. Half of the article is comments from anti-GMO proponents, so the article itself isn't pro-GMO.<br />
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So the line in the article doesn't count for a GMO proponent claiming that GMO is just the same thing as standard breeding. I looked up all the available documents on the Irish EPA's decision to approve this trial (<a href="http://www.epa.ie/whatwedo/licensing/gmo/fieldtrial/" target="_blank">and there are quite a few</a>) and found no trace of this statement among them either.<br />
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What I did find was a pretty solid summary of what this variety of GMO is. They are taking a gene from a separate breed of potato that is being tested for blight resistance. This is cisgenics, not transgenics. Although that still seems to be objectionable to the anti-GMO partisans here. It isn't "the same as breeding" but it's more akin to mixing genes from a Chihuahua and a Great Dane than it is to putting fish genes in a strawberry. This is a pairing that COULD happen naturally. The major difference is that instead of getting all of the wild potatoes genes, possibly cancelling out traits that we bread into domestic potatoes, they get the one gene that codes for the specific protein desired in blight resistance.<br />
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Granted, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics" target="_blank">epigenetic effects</a> could give rise to other traits we didn't want. This variety could even fail to reduce the onset of potato blight in the wild. But this is why they are conducting a non-commercial test of the strain. No one will be eating the potatoes from these tests. Hell, by the EPA regulations on this test is banning all commercial production on and around the site for 4-6 years (<a href="http://www.epa.ie/downloads/forms/lic/gmo/gmtrial/Draft%20Consent%20Conditions.pdf" target="_blank">page 3, section 3.5.3</a>) just to make sure that nothing is left there from the original trial but the ground cover grass to be put in place after the test site is herbicided out of existence.<br />
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Conclusions on this? I can't see that this is a GMO proponent saying that GMO is identical to conventional breeding. What I see is an editorial comment from a science journalist that may be a misrepresentation of the concept of cisgenic modification.Humanistic Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00915959721227332344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3569490939218164601.post-45204257782650021102012-07-27T12:50:00.002-04:002012-07-31T13:59:20.568-04:00GMO Myths and Truths: Muddying the waters with imprecise terms<br />
This post will cover the "Muddying the waters" subsection of chapter one in <a href="http://earthopensource.org/files/pdfs/GMO_Myths_and_Truths/GMO_Myths_and_Truths_1.3.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GMO Myths and Truths</a>. This subsection is mostly tied to section 1.1 and may have been better suited to just be a part of it. It basically covers the same ground and with the same level of verifiability.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
GM proponents often use the terminology relating to genetic modification incorrectly to blur the line between genetic modification and conventional breeding.</blockquote>
This is more <a href="http://www.fallacyfiles.org/fallfall.html" target="_blank">Fallacy Fallacy</a> here. And again, it could be a <a href="http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html" target="_blank">Straw Man</a> if no one is actually doing this. I'm still waiting for this paper to really start arguing about the risks vs. benefits of GMO products instead of arguing against how people marketing them or supporting them are presenting their case.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For example, the claim that conventional plant breeders have been “genetically modifying” crops for centuries by selective breeding and that GM crops are no different is incorrect (see 1.1). The term “genetic modification” is recognised in common usage and in national and international laws to refer to the use of recombinant DNA techniques to transfer genetic material between organisms in a way that would not take place naturally, bringing about alterations in genetic makeup and properties.</blockquote>
A quick search for people saying this actually does turn up examples, though none as damning as the paper implies.<span style="background-color: white;"> T</span><span style="background-color: white;">he only unqualified example I found was on an </span><a href="http://debates.juggle.com/are-genetically-modified-foods-safe-for-individuals-to-consume" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">online debate page</a><span style="background-color: white;">, made by an anonymous user with no sources cited. Not what I'd call the best example of a proponent of GMOs.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;"> Most</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><a href="http://www.disabled-world.com/fitness/gm-foods.php" target="_blank">qualify</a><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">that the method by which the natural gene flow is altered is very different between artificial selection and transgene techniques. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Natural breeding itself does change the genetic makeup of offspring through standard mutation rates and artificial selection and directed mating can alter the proliferation rates of those mutations. The introduction of modern genetic modification, the qualified argument states, simply gives us the ability to generate or transfer the desired traits instead of waiting for nature to generate them semi-randomly through thousands or millions of deletions, insertions, duplications, etc.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The term “genetic modification” is sometimes wrongly used to describe marker-assisted selection (MAS). MAS is a largely uncontroversial branch of biotechnology that can speed up conventional breeding by identifying genes linked to important traits. MAS does not involve the risks and uncertainties of genetic modification and is supported by organic and sustainable agriculture groups worldwide.</blockquote>
I can find no one making that argument. I find people repeating the claim in this paper, but once again I find no one actually using that argument.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Similarly, the term “genetic modification” is sometimes wrongly used to describe tissue culture, a method that is used to select desirable traits or to reproduce whole plants from plant cells in the laboratory. In fact, while genetic modification of plants as carried out today is dependent on the use of tissue culture (see 1.1), tissue culture is not dependent on GM. Tissue culture can be used for many purposes, independent of GM.</blockquote>
And again I find no one making this claim, either. Example after example of claims that the opposition is making an argument and the only thing I can find are people repeating that claim. It gets harder to chalk it up to my failure to find the right Google search phrase instead of assuming that we're dealing with straw man arguments.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Using the term “biotechnology” to mean genetic modification is inaccurate. Biotechnology is <span style="background-color: white;">an umbrella term that includes a variety of processes in which biological functions are harnessed </span><span style="background-color: white;">for various purposes. For instance, fermentation, as used in wine-making and baking, marker </span><span style="background-color: white;">assisted selection (MAS), and tissue culture, as well as genetic modification, are all biotechnologies. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Agriculture itself is a biotechnology, as are commonly used agricultural methods such as the </span><span style="background-color: white;">production of compost and silage.</span></blockquote>
If we used GM and say we used biotech, that isn't inaccurate. They just said it themselves that biotechnology includes GM. If I ate a cheeseburger, it isn't inaccurate to say I ate a sandwich. It isn't specific, but it's not deceptive either or an attempt to confuse you about what I had for lunch.<br />
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After arguing that one side is using a term in a way not normally recognized by the public, they proceed to use a not widely used or recognized version of biotechnology that encompasses all of agriculture as well. I doubt the average organic food proponent is going to claim their heirloom tomatoes are "developed using biotechnology". This definition also fails to include bioinformatics and the various fields and products considered to be in the "biotech industry" that don't harness biological functions, but use artificial devices and procedures to study biology or to aid in manipulation of biological systems.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
GM proponents’ misleading use of language may be due to unfamiliarity with the field – or <span style="background-color: white;">may represent deliberate attempts to blur the lines between controversial and uncontroversial </span><span style="background-color: white;">technologies in order to win public acceptance of GM.</span></blockquote>
Again I find very little in the way of examples that anyone is actually doing this. The most readily available example of any muddying of terms involves the inclusion of agriculture under biotechnology when the layperson reading an article on biotechnology isn't going to lump their window sill herb garden in with transgenes, MAS, knockout genes, and the like even if at a technical level it is a correct use of the term. I'm also ammused by the idea that proponents for GMOs are the ones not familiar with the field. From the previous section's failure to acknowledge more recent versions of only selecting for cells in a tissue culture that contain the desired transgene, that seems to be a bit of projection.<br />
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It would be useful to have clearly defined terms for both sides to argue for or against. However, I don't think that we have a clear example that anyone is actually doing this on the side of GMOs.Humanistic Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00915959721227332344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3569490939218164601.post-23600589397023570832012-07-24T11:23:00.002-04:002012-07-31T13:59:10.815-04:00GMO Myths and Truths: The genetic engineering technique (1.1)So here we are. The first section of <a href="http://earthopensource.org/files/pdfs/GMO_Myths_and_Truths/GMO_Myths_and_Truths_1.3.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GMO Myths and Truths</a>. This will probably be the shortest section review as this one has no cited papers backing it up. That isn't immediately a negative to it as it seems to be arguing definitions. As the section header states...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;">Myth: Genetic engineering </span><span style="background-color: white;">is just an extension of natural </span><span style="background-color: white;">breeding </span>Truth: Genetic engineering <span style="background-color: white;">is different from natural </span><span style="background-color: white;">breeding and poses special </span><span style="background-color: white;">risks</span></blockquote>
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Depending on how you are defining "just an extension" that could be true or false. It is true that once the trans-gene is inserted, we still have the organism develop by natural processes. The trans-gene is still DNA just like the rest of the DNA in the modified organism. It will still be read like every other gene by the same mechanisms in the cell, and produce proteins and amino acids just like any other gene would. The gene may effect the expression of other genes, it may produce novel proteins, but this is all standard cellular mechanics. The same could happen in my cells if there was a insertion or frameshift mutation in one of my own genes. Now what I've just said there seems to be part of the argument, as it reads closely to the first paragraph of the paper.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
GM proponents claim that genetic engineering is <span style="background-color: white;">just an extension of natural plant breeding. They </span><span style="background-color: white;">say that GM crops are no different from naturally </span><span style="background-color: white;">bred crops, apart from the inserted foreign GM </span><span style="background-color: white;">gene (transgene) and its protein product. But this </span><span style="background-color: white;">is misleading. GM is completely different from </span><span style="background-color: white;">natural breeding and poses different risks.</span></blockquote>
Well of course GM is different from natural breeding. In a typical natural gamete fusion, genes only come from genetically compatible organisms. Also, there typically aren’t laboratories or genetic screenings going on in that process, though IVF in humans can introduce that. However, even if we are allowing technological assistance to "natural breeding" it still doesn't involve adding genes from organisms off on a far branch of the evolutionary tree. This is also pretty well stated in the paper, but with one part that is a little off.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Natural breeding can only take place between <span style="background-color: white;">closely related forms of life..</span><span style="background-color: white;">. In this way, the </span><span style="background-color: white;">genes that carry information for all parts of the </span><span style="background-color: white;">organism are passed down the generations in an </span><span style="background-color: white;">orderly way.</span></blockquote>
Natural breeding is a relatively orderly process when compared with a system without a method for lowering its own entropy at the cost of local entropy increase in other locations (what we lay people call metabolism), but it is hardly without <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_rate" target="_blank">errors and mistakes</a>. If it weren't for mutations, the less than orderly passing along of information between generations, there would be no evolution. No evolution, no humans banging away on keyboards arguing about inserting genes from an antarctic fish into tomatoes to give them a frost resistant protein.<br />
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After the next paragraph we are introduced to a simplified step-by-step version of the genetic modification process. Lets take a look at each step.<br />
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<h2>
The Genetic Modification Process, abridged</h2>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1. In a process known as tissue culture or cell <span style="background-color: white;">culture, tissue from the plant that is to be </span><span style="background-color: white;">genetically modified is placed in culture.</span></blockquote>
This is fairly accurate. Plant tissue, cells, or embryos are placed in a nutrient rich gel where they can be cultured outside of the organism. I'm told that with corn this tissue culture looks a bit like apple sauce. There are a few things I <span style="background-color: white;">take issue with in step two (those thing will be in bold)...</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
2. Millions of the tissue cultured plant cells are <span style="background-color: white;">subjected to the GM gene insertion process. </span><span style="background-color: white;">This results in the GM <b>gene(s) being inserted</b> </span><span style="background-color: white;">into the DNA of a few of the plant cells in </span><span style="background-color: white;">tissue culture. The inserted DNA is intended </span><span style="background-color: white;">to re-programme the cells’ genetic blueprint, </span><span style="background-color: white;">conferring completely new properties on the </span><span style="background-color: white;">cell. <b>This process would never happen in nature.</b> </span><span style="background-color: white;">It is carried out either by using a device known </span><span style="background-color: white;">as a gene gun, which shoots the GM gene into </span><span style="background-color: white;">the plant cells, or by linking the GM gene </span><span style="background-color: white;">to a special piece of DNA present in the soil </span><span style="background-color: white;">bacterium, Agrobacterium tumefaciens. When </span><span style="background-color: white;">the A. tumefaciens infects a plant, the GM gene </span><span style="background-color: white;">is carried into the cells and can insert into the </span><span style="background-color: white;">plant cell’s DNA.</span></blockquote>
Now this process may not happen in nature due to machinery or laboratories, but I absolutely cannot let the point stand that cross-species genetic transfer never happens. This happens enough that biologist have classified and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer" target="_blank">named the process</a>. Horizontal gene transfer occurs when the genes in an offspring are not only those of it's intentional parents, but also those of parasites, symbiots, or other organisms they are in contact with. In fact the very process of using <span style="background-color: white;">A. tumefaciens to deliver a transgene relies on a form of horizontal gene transfer.</span><br />
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There are also examples of horizontal gene transfer where the genomes of whole organisms have inserted themselves into another (not one gene, all the genes). These are endogenous retroviruses or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus" target="_blank">ERVs</a>, which are viruses that reverse transcribe, or write themselves into, the host's own DNA. When they do this to a germ cell, like a sperm or an egg, the genes for that virus end up in the offspring. These are actually common enough in our history that the human genome is about <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC387345/?tool=pmcentrez" target="_blank">5-8% fragments of ERVs</a>.<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">The above examples I've given don't even cover <a href="http://kfolta.blogspot.com/2012/06/more-frankenfood-paradox.html" target="_blank">hybridization, polyploidy, or mutation breeding</a>, which can potentially modify far more genes and their expression characteristics than transgenic insertion. This isn't an attempt to say "It happens in nature, it must be safe!" Mercury is perfectly natural, but I'm not going to drink a glass of it. I'm merely arguing that the idea of genes of one organism being inserted into another organism is not a concept that is novel to the laboratories at Monsanto.</span><br />
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Conversely I can't see the point of arguing that the process never occurred in nature either. Are they trying to play the <a href="http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adnature.html" target="_blank">Naturalistic Fallacy</a>?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>U</b> is unnatural. Therefore, <b>U</b> is wrong or bad.</blockquote>
Plastic tubes allowing fluid to drain from the inner ear when the Eustachian Tubes are malformed aren't readily available in the jungle, but I personally benefited from them in my lifetime. The fact that something didn't happen until we built it in a lab is not an argument against it. They immunize themselves against a claim of Argumentum Ad Naturam after the list of steps...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The fact that the GM transformation process <span style="background-color: white;">is artificial does not automatically make it </span><span style="background-color: white;">undesirable or dangerous. </span><span style="background-color: white;">It is the consequences </span><span style="background-color: white;">of the procedure that give cause for concern.</span></blockquote>
... but if they aren't trying to make that argument, why make it? Why point out that it is an unnatural process unless you are trying to bias an audience?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
3. At this point in the process, the genetic <span style="background-color: white;">engineers have a tissue culture consisting of </span><span style="background-color: white;">hundreds of thousands to millions of plant </span><span style="background-color: white;">cells. Some have picked up the GM gene(s), </span><span style="background-color: white;">while others have not. The next step is to </span><span style="background-color: white;">treat the culture with chemicals to eliminate </span><span style="background-color: white;">all except those cells that have successfully </span><span style="background-color: white;">incorporated the GM gene into their own DNA.</span></blockquote>
This is one of the more basic methods of selection, however there are newer methods that involve <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19009449" target="_blank">fluorescent detection</a>.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
4. Finally, the few cells that survive the chemical <span style="background-color: white;">treatment are treated with plant hormones. The </span>hormones stimulate these genetically modified <span style="background-color: white;">plant cells to proliferate and differentiate into </span><span style="background-color: white;">small GM plants that can be transferred to soil </span><span style="background-color: white;">and grown on.</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;">If the chemical bath selection method was used, this step is true.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
5. Once the GM plants are growing, the genetic <span style="background-color: white;">engineer examines them and eliminates any </span><span style="background-color: white;">that do not seem to be growing well. He/she </span><span style="background-color: white;">then does tests on the remaining plants to </span><span style="background-color: white;">identify one or more that express the GM genes </span><span style="background-color: white;">at high levels. These are selected as candidates </span><span style="background-color: white;">for <i>commercialisation</i>[sic].</span></blockquote>
There is a glaring thing missed in this step. Sometimes the expression level you want is actually a low one. Some GMO plants currently under development, such as the Arctic Apple, are ones where genes were <a href="http://www.biofortified.org/2012/07/consumers-should-get-to-try-the-first-commercial-biotech-apple/" target="_blank">regulated to reduce their expression</a>. These apples also demonstrate another drastic oversimplification of this list, they are a GMO plant, but they contain no transgenes.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
6. The resulting population of GM plants all carry <span style="background-color: white;">and express the GM genes of interest. But </span><span style="background-color: white;">they have not been assessed for health and </span><span style="background-color: white;">environmental safety or nutritional value. This </span><span style="background-color: white;">part of the process will be discussed later in this </span><span style="background-color: white;">document.</span></blockquote>
So "we haven't covered the step about health and safety screenings yet, therefore they haven't been done yet". Well, at least we have an assurance that it will be discussed later.<br />
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<h2>
<b>Conclusion</b></h2>
When I went out searching for a GMO proponent saying what is presented in this section, I found nothing. I found a lot of people repeating this report, but no original source for the statement. Even the geneticist I contact to get clarification on some terms and processes told me that he's never once heard a colleague use this argument. But before I called this a full on <a href="http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html" target="_blank">Strawman</a>, I dug around for a source that would back up this claim. At first I found either only this paper, or people repeating the claim from this paper. After a while, someone pointed me at a <a href="http://www.bats.ch/bats/biosicherheit/blickpunkt/01-01_genetic_engineering.php" target="_blank">paper by Jean-Pierre Zryd</a>, from the Institute of Ecology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Though this was given to me as an example of a scientist in favor of GMOs saying that the process was the same as traditional breeding, I don't read him as saying the same thing.<br />
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According to some people, genetic engineering is a man made tool that goes against natural laws. In fact during this century scientists have discovered that nature does a lot of shuffling, rearranging and transferring genetic material in bacteria, plants and animals: that knowledge can now be used to speed up and improve the precision of classical genetics and traditional breeding.</blockquote>
As I've pointed out in this review, we actually have discovered methods by which natural processes move genes between distantly related organisms in ways that would not normally occur in standard reproduction. And the knowledge we've gained from this has allowed us to develop technology that can be used to do the same thing, but with more accuracy and with more possible benefit than blind horizontal transfer. I don't see that he's said they are the same, but merely that they can expand upon traditional breeding and the chemical rules of genetics.<br />
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This could be a matter of perspective on my part, and it could just be that it isn't the best example. My failure to Google search an example doesn't mean they aren't there, and at least one person on the side of this paper is convinced that the argument has been used. I'm willing to grant that somewhere a PR rep for Monsanto may have said something to this effect to quell a reporter's or an investor's fears. So assuming ignorance before malice without evidence of malice, I'm not going to stand behind a strawman claim here even though I'm really tempted.<br />
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Now, all that being said, what, if anything, does all this say about commercial GMOs and their risks. Would it surprise you that it says absolutely nothing?<br />
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The main premises here are.<br />
1. GMO proponents say that the GMO process is no different from traditional plant breeding.<br />
2. The GMO process is different.<br />
3. ??? I'm guessing something about the paper's stated goal of exposing the risks of GMOs.<br />
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Even if I hesitate to call this a Strawman, I can in good conscience call this a full on <a href="http://www.fallacyfiles.org/fallfall.html" target="_blank">Fallacist's Fallacy</a>.<br />
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Argument A for the conclusion C is fallacious. Therefore, C is false.</blockquote>
Even if what was being said in this argument fully checks out, it means nothing to the larger question of whether the benefits of GMOs are worth the risks. By pointing out that your opponent's argument is bad, all you've done is point out that their argument is bad. In a worse case, if your opponent didn't even make that argument, what you've done is strawmanned them, defeating a ridiculous argument that they didn't hold in the first place.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">And that's the first section. Thanks to </span><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.biofortified.org/community/user/admin/" target="_blank">Karl Haro von Mogel</a> from BioFortified for his clarification on a few points of the genetic modification process. Also big thanks to my wife for copy editing my posts to make sure that after I've changed the direction of my argument seven times, my thoughts are still coherent on the page for others. </span><span style="background-color: white;">I'll cover the insert on "Muddying Terms" in my next post before moving onto a review of their sources for section 1.2, followed by a post about section 1.2 itself.</span>Humanistic Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00915959721227332344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3569490939218164601.post-63929196690955378982012-07-20T10:22:00.000-04:002012-07-24T13:54:34.353-04:00Only wrong if a Obama says itSo apparently, every right-wing media outlet in this country got a severe case of "failed primary school reading comprehension" this week. The president gave another speech, as politician are wont to do during a campaign. During this speech he made a point that pretty much no one with two neurons to rub together for sparks denies, no man is an island. If you grew up in a human society, there were things that you benefited from that you did not construct, devise, pay for, or implement yourself. In fact, those things were paid for by all of us. Things like schools teaching us knowledge and skills, roads to move ourselves and supplies on, police to protect us from criminals, fire departments to keep us from waking up on fire, etc.<br />
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However, Republicans these days like to portray themselves and their wealthy backers as some kind of Promethean ubermenschen. They got where they were with no one helping them. No one ever did anything for them. They may as well have sprung into the world fully formed as Athena from the brain of Zeus, summoned their first factory into being by the sheer force of their will and spoke into being their educated work force and the roads on which they ship their products! And since they have consumed nothing of these tax funded programs and services, they owe very little to nothing to the system. As such, asking them to pay their share is punishing them, attacking them, looting their coffers to benefit people that never did anything for them.<br />
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Well, in the president's speech he reminded people that even if you are one of those lucky few who can get a business off the ground and succeed in turning your ideas into real profit, you DID have help getting there. Our infrastructure, our educational system, our service men and women all aided you and still aid you. To be specific he said...<br />
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"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.<br />
"The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.... We say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That's how we funded the GI Bill. That's how we created the middle class. That's how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That's how we invented the Internet. That's how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that's the reason I'm running for President -- because I still believe in that idea. You're not on your own, we're in this together." (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzf4yjphgf8" target="_blank">full speech here</a>)</blockquote>
Clear as day to me. Just because you've got a business doesn't mean you created the infrastructure on which that business relies. But follow me now, follow me through the wormhole to Planet Wingnutia...<br />
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President Obama insulted small business owners during a campaign stop in Roanoke, Va. on Saturday.<br />
“If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that,” Obama told the crowd. “Somebody else made that happen.” (<a href="http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/obama-insults-small-business-owners.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Todd Starnes</a>)</blockquote>
Well if you take out the surrounding paragraphs, yes, it looks like he's insulting people. Oddly enough, Todd gives the paragraph after that where Obama lauds both individual initiative AND the power of working together. A paragraph that oddly demonstrates that small business owners aren't being attacked here, but so much for that. Hell, he even posts the whole transcript after the "insult" quip, but that line at the top is all that we need on Wingnutia. So of course the right-wing blogs, Fox News, and half of the Republicans I know on facebook have just had a field day with this.<br />
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But context loss isn't the only phenomenon we find on Planet Wingnutia. On this strange world, apparently the law of contradiction doesn't hold (or does and doesn't at the same time... without it things get a bit weird). Because of this we now have this strange video of Mitt Romney<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/1cgSXUQDTM0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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Did you catch that? It is subtle. Mitt Romney first bashes Obama for the Fox News version of the speech. He then turns right around and get the crowd cheering during the following statement.<br />
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There are a lot of people in government who help us and allow us to have an economy that works and allow entrepreneurs and business leaders of various kinds to start businesses and create jobs. We all recognize that. That's an important thing</blockquote>
So... <span style="background-color: white;">Barack Obama says business owners didn't get there on their own, they had their own initiative AND the help of the American system, the help of all of us. "Boooooo! Un-American socialist drivel!" </span><span style="background-color: white;">Mitt Romney say </span><span style="background-color: white;">owners didn't get there on their own, they had their own initiative AND the help of the American system, the help of all of us. "Wooo! *cheering* USA! USA!"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">That's some double-think that would make Engsoc proud. It isn't really that hard, you see. When </span><span style="background-color: white;">Romney tells you there are five lights, all you have to do is repeat back that there are five lights.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> Granted, "it's only wrong when the other guy does" it isn't really a </span><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-16-2012/democalypse-2012---bain-damage---romney-s-blind-trust">strange tactic for Romney</a><span style="background-color: white;">. Looks like a fun election season.</span>Humanistic Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00915959721227332344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3569490939218164601.post-30271696556367504322012-07-19T15:30:00.000-04:002012-07-19T15:30:11.638-04:00GMO Myths and Truths: The paper at a glanceThis will be my first post on the paper <a href="http://earthopensource.org/files/pdfs/GMO_Myths_and_Truths/GMO_Myths_and_Truths_1.3.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GMO Myths and Truths</a> by <a href="http://earthopensource.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Earth Open Source</a>. This is more about my first impressions on the topic and putting my bias out in the open, and less about the actual contents of the paper, which I will get into in the next post.<br />
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My first impressions? It is fracking huge, like 123 pages huge, so we aren't dealing with concision<span style="background-color: white;">. From the table of contents it looks like there are about 34 arguments being presented in this paper, broken up into 7 main sections. Now as first impressions go, getting the feeling that one is looking up the sheer cliff face of a print version </span><a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gish%20Gallop" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Gish Gallop</a><span style="background-color: white;"> is not a good one to have. Why not just pick the best argument, the most damning of GMOs and do a solid paper on that one? No, we get what appears to be every argument ever made against GMOs. Just from the "Executive Summary" on page 8...</span><br />
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Genetically modified (GM) crops are promoted on the basis of a range of far-reaching claims from the <span style="background-color: white;">GM crop industry and its supporters. They say that GM crops:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
● Are an extension of natural breeding and do not pose different risks from naturally bred crops<br />
● Are safe to eat and can be more nutritious than naturally bred crops<br />
● Are strictly regulated for safety<br />
● Increase crop yields<br />
● Reduce pesticide use<br />
● Benefit farmers and make their lives easier<br />
● Bring economic benefits<br />
● Benefit the environment<br />
● Can help solve problems caused by climate change<br />
● Reduce energy use<br />
● Will help feed the world.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
However, a large and growing body of scientific and other authoritative evidence shows that these <span style="background-color: white;">claims are not true. On the contrary, evidence presented in this report indicates that GM crops:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
● Are laboratory-made, using technology that is totally different from natural breeding methods, <span style="background-color: white;">and pose different risks from non-GM crops</span>● Can be toxic, allergenic or less nutritious than their natural counterparts<br />
● Are not adequately regulated to ensure safety<br />
● Do not increase yield potential<br />
● Do not reduce pesticide use but increase it<br />
● Create serious problems for farmers, including herbicide-tolerant “superweeds”, compromised <span style="background-color: white;">soil quality, and increased disease susceptibility in crops</span>● Have mixed economic effects<br />
● Harm soil quality, disrupt ecosystems, and reduce biodiversity<br />
● Do not offer effective solutions to climate change<br />
● Are as energy-hungry as any other chemically-farmed crops<br />
● Cannot solve the problem of world hunger but distract from its real causes – poverty, lack of <span style="background-color: white;">access to food and, increasingly, lack of access to land to grow it on.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Seriously, just one of those should be enough. Refuting the point that they "</span><span style="background-color: white;">Bring economic benefits"</span><span style="background-color: white;"> should be enough to stop a corporation like Monsanto from </span><span style="background-color: white;">pursuing</span><span style="background-color: white;"> GMOs at all. The only reason corporations exist is to make a profit from providing a product or service, so if there is no economic benefit to be had from GMOs, they would have no reason to research or market them; regulatory, technological, and humanitarian arguments be damned.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Instead of that, we have all of these claimed "Myths" and their opposing claimed "Truth" with their own sections delving into them. Maybe the authors just feel that this is such a huge threat that they needed to blow the lid off of every single problem with it they could find all at once, but deluging the people you are trying to convince serves, not so much to inform them, but to overwhelm them. The average consumer isn't going to have the expertise or time to go through all of it, and may just take the argument as from authority (two of the authors are listed as geneticists).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Those that actually are informed on the matter often times are not the best communicators of the subject to laypersons. Genetics is a very complicated field, and putting it into terms those of us not trained in it can understand is work by itself. You have to make sure you don't lose important information in the translation from technical language to standard English, and also that your explanation isn't easily misunderstood or misrepresented. Couple that with the fact that it often takes more space to refute an argument than it took to present the argument, and offering rebuttal to 123 pages of arguments becomes a monumental task.</span></div>
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And that is the main reason seen in skeptical circles that someone will unload a scatter-shot of arguments for their point instead of a well developed single argument. Overload those on the fence with so much that it appears one side has amassed so much data on the subject, they can't possibly be wrong. Overwhelm your opposing partisans with so many arguments to rebut that they haven't the time to do it. Then point to the arguments they haven't gotten to and tell the fence sitters "See, they don't have anything to say to that! Our position stands unchallenged!"<br />
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Now, that is my bias as a skeptic, and my initial impression as someone uninformed on the matter at hand. If I were a bad skeptic (like the climate change skeptic type of skeptic), I'd just plug my ears at this point. The argument's format looks bad, I don't agree with their side, and I'm not going to read their paper. Instead<span style="background-color: white;"> a computer scientist who makes software to design printed circuit boards, that would be me, is</span><span style="background-color: white;"> going to wade into this debate on biology and genetics in the hopes of actually getting a skeptic's eye on this paper.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">...and I'm doing this because I'm bored... really, I couldn't just be happy with playing MMOs all night, grinding levels and slaughtering waves of pixels? No, we have to try our hands at getting informed on the science and economics of GMOs because no one else seems to have taken to doing it.</span></div>
</div>Humanistic Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00915959721227332344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3569490939218164601.post-41945342180132979602012-07-19T00:06:00.001-04:002012-07-19T18:16:23.598-04:00Where to begin?So I've thought for a while... I have this blog and I don't really do anything with it. I used to rant about politics, religion, and the like on it more, but when I finally joined the hive mind that is Facebook, most of my rants moved there. However, I've started to feel like all I do on FB is comment on politics or social issues. So to clear that up from people's status feeds, I think I'll start blogging it again. I can make better responses in blogs anyway, FB status posts don't let me fisk or reference link other pages.<br />
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As for a regular subject to blog about for a while, I've decided to delve into <a href="http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/58" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The "GMO Myths and Truths"</a> paper that I caught sight of a few weeks back. Quick back story on that, a friend of one of my aunt's started posting anti-GMO links, which got my aunt posting them, which got me long-windedly commenting on them, which resulted in her posting a page that linked to this paper as a counter argument ("Scientists even say they're dangerous"). It's a huge paper and what little I've read of it hasn't impressed me much.<br />
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That being said, as a skeptic, I feel like I should educate myself on this. It's being touted as the end-all argument against GMO food production around the crowds that are against that sort of thing. I'm not part of that crowd myself (I like to joke that I wish some brand would sell a non-organic, all GMO product so I could buy it), but neither am I part of any group that stands to financially benefit one way or the other from public opinion on the subject. Hell, I'm not even a biologist or a geneticist, but the benefit of the information age is that I can probably find some who can explain what the hell some of this stuff means.<br />
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Damning for the paper, the way I got to it was through a few pages that were a little on the tin foil hat side of credulity. Not to shoot the messenger or anything; I just feel like a review of it from the skeptical blogosphere needs to happen, even if it is by a dreadfully bored software engineer who's decided his boredom is enough to warrant reading the paper's 123 pages and 650 cited sources in order to make heads or tails of it.<br />
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Fun times ahead.Humanistic Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00915959721227332344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3569490939218164601.post-46694114607722070882012-07-18T14:14:00.000-04:002012-07-18T14:22:50.748-04:00Reboot!<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Wow, I still have this thing? Looks like its time to sweep up the broken links and ancient formats and get this sucker running again.</span>Humanistic Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00915959721227332344noreply@blogger.com0