Anti-GMO activist admits he was wrong

Mister Earl said:
Hrm. You know, I really have to respect a guy who can stand up and say, "I was wrong." Especially so when it's in such a public way.
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Intellectual honesty in action.

Even after so publicly committing to the opposite viewpoint.
 
Eddie Dane said:
Intellectual honesty in action.

Even after so publicly committing to the opposite viewpoint.
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I guess the reason it's so impressive is the usual standard we see today is people doubling down on the wrong and hoping it somehow all pans out for the best.

See: Bigfootarianism.
 
Unabogie said:
I just re-read what I wrote. I'm not sure what's confusing you. Do you have more to say on this?
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You left out the possibility of Martians invading and changing the legal system to allow Monsanto to take over all agriculture. That's why I was confused.
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
You left out the possibility of Martians invading and changing the legal system to allow Monsanto to take over all agriculture. That's why I was confused.
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Ah, so you don't think it's possible for large corporations to go patent trolling and then use those patents to crowd out the competition? I hope you're right. But if you're wrong, then you'd agree with me that it would be bad and you'd support a change in the law to prevent it?

ETA: Here's an article in Scientific American about the phenomenon.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...-the-devastating-consequences-for-innovation/

Imagine if food or seeds were all patented. Would we want to see a world where this kind of litigation controlled our food source? I honestly don't understand your confusion.
 
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Unabogie said:
Ah, so you don't think it's possible for large corporations to go patent trolling and then use those patents to crowd out the competition? I hope you're right. But if you're wrong, then you'd agree with me that it would be bad and you'd support a change in the law to prevent it?

ETA: Here's an article in Scientific American about the phenomenon.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...-the-devastating-consequences-for-innovation/

Imagine if food or seeds were all patented. Would we want to see a world where this kind of litigation controlled our food source? I honestly don't understand your confusion.
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Here's your original, bizarre scenario:

But if Monsanto patented a genetic strain of corn, and then by some circumstance that corn came to dominate or there were some quirk in which legally they had a patent claim against farmers who were being forced to pay them and they couldn't avoid that...
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How would they have a patent claim against farmers who didn't use their seeds? The patent claim would be against another seed company. Those cases happen now. And I'm not sure what you mean by their "corn (coming) to dominate". Dominate what?

Martians seem just as likely.
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
Here's your original, bizarre scenario:



How would they have a patent claim against farmers who didn't use their seeds? The patent claim would be against another seed company. Those cases happen now. And I'm not sure what you mean by their "corn (coming) to dominate". Dominate what?

Martians seem just as likely.
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So you're ignoring my post above to reiterate your initial confusion, even after I've explained further? That it's not possible for other sellers of seed to be crowded out through litigation or other means? That it's not possible for seed to be contaminated and thus create a patent infringement? If you're right, great! I really hope you are! I'd love to be wrong about this. And I don't claim to know, since I am not a patent lawyer.

I'm trying to get you to admit that if you're wrong, and there existed a scenario, HOWEVER UNLIKELY YOU MAY FEEL IT IS, where food sourcing was being threatened by patent laws or monopolies, that you too would support putting profits as second to food source.
 
Unabogie said:
So you're ignoring my post above to reiterate your initial confusion, even after I've explained further? That it's not possible for other sellers of seed to be crowded out through litigation or other means?
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"Other means" like selling an inferior product perhaps? Patent lawsuits go on all the time, in all industries. I'm sure some companies go out of business because they can't defend the lawsuits. You realize that there are hundreds of seed companies, right? If Monsanto (or Pioneer or Bayer or DuPont - funny that they're never mentioned, just evil Monsanto) plan on getting rid of them through litigation, they better get going.

Unabogie said:
That it's not possible for seed to be contaminated and thus create a patent infringement?
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Ah, the old Percy Schmeisser gambit. :nope:

Unabogie said:
If you're right, great! I really hope you are! I'd love to be wrong about this. And I don't claim to know, since I am not a patent lawyer.
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Right about what?
 
Travis said:
I have never understood the opposition to genetically modified foods. I continue to think it must originate with the scientifically illiterate who are scared of long words.
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Indeed I can remember our Green Party & Greenpeace spreading claims that if you ate genetically modified food you would become genetically modified, however, they never made it clear just which comic book they got the idea from.

As for the item in the OP it's a case of too little, too late.
 
Mister Earl said:
Hrm. You know, I really have to respect a guy who can stand up and say, "I was wrong." Especially so when it's in such a public way.
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Me too. But just because he was wrong before, doesn't mean that he's right now.

Mark Lynas said:
Well, life is nothing if not a learning process. As you get older you tend to realize just how complicated the world is and how simplistic solutions don’t really work...
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It’s blindingly obvious, actually, and I don’t know why it took me so long. The current deployment of nuclear power worldwide of 430 reactors reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 2 billion tons per year. And that really is the beginning and the end of the argument
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Mark Lynas may have finally 'discovered science', but does he now really appreciate just how complicated the world is, or is he still trying to promote simplistic solutions?

Mark Lynas said:
"the widespread use of nuclear power means we don’t have to cover so much of the land surface with wind farms"
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:boggled:
 
Roger Ramjets said:
Me too. But just because he was wrong before, doesn't mean that he's right now.





Mark Lynas may have finally 'discovered science', but does he now really appreciate just how complicated the world is, or is he still trying to promote simplistic solutions?


:boggled:
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Nuclear plants really do save carbon dioxide emissions and save land from being turned into wind farms. Land footprint is a major drawback to several renewable energy sources. Not boggled now?
 
Morrigan said:
I just remember that wild, "natural" bananas are inedible and it's only through human breeding (since many many centuries) that they are, and they're a very healthy food, and, yeah...
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As much as I like the Cavendish banana I've been eating for years, having clones of a single variety of seedless bananas is not the best way to have a healthy industry protected against the Panama disease... Even with genetic engineering, it's good to have access to the biodiversity provided by the rapidly disappearing wild bananas and older traditional cultivars.

Nevermind that GMOs get more crop yields for less space, and therefore destroys the environment less.... ugh, "good for nature" indeed.
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Actually, Round-Up ready crops don't have higher yield than the conventional version (e.g. this), the profitability to the farmer comes from saving money elsewhere (e.g. less labor), not higher yields. And if you look up government reports like this one, you realize that the effectiveness of GMOs varies from one place to the next (depending on local conditions). That's not to say that GMOs are bad, evil, or anything, but that one should remain critical of technologies and sellers of "one-size-fits-all" solutions. We should be critical of the claims of organic farming sellers and promoters, but so should we of the GMO crowd. Don't dismiss a side without digging further (to make sure you're not rejecting a strawman), don't embrace one without digging further either. That is what skepticism is about.
 
Jorghnassen said:
As much as I like the Cavendish banana I've been eating for years, having clones of a single variety of seedless bananas is not the best way to have a healthy industry protected against the Panama disease... Even with genetic engineering, it's good to have access to the biodiversity provided by the rapidly disappearing wild bananas and older traditional cultivars.



Actually, Round-Up ready crops don't have higher yield than the conventional version (e.g. this), the profitability to the farmer comes from saving money elsewhere (e.g. less labor), not higher yields. And if you look up government reports like this one, you realize that the effectiveness of GMOs varies from one place to the next (depending on local conditions). That's not to say that GMOs are bad, evil, or anything, but that one should remain critical of technologies and sellers of "one-size-fits-all" solutions. We should be critical of the claims of organic farming sellers and promoters, but so should we of the GMO crowd. Don't dismiss a side without digging further (to make sure you're not rejecting a strawman), don't embrace one without digging further either. That is what skepticism is about.
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^this^
 
Jorghnassen said:
As much as I like the Cavendish banana I've been eating for years, having clones of a single variety of seedless bananas is not the best way to have a healthy industry protected against the Panama disease... Even with genetic engineering, it's good to have access to the biodiversity provided by the rapidly disappearing wild bananas and older traditional cultivars.



Actually, Round-Up ready crops don't have higher yield than the conventional version (e.g. this), the profitability to the farmer comes from saving money elsewhere (e.g. less labor), not higher yields. And if you look up government reports like this one, you realize that the effectiveness of GMOs varies from one place to the next (depending on local conditions). That's not to say that GMOs are bad, evil, or anything, but that one should remain critical of technologies and sellers of "one-size-fits-all" solutions. We should be critical of the claims of organic farming sellers and promoters, but so should we of the GMO crowd. Don't dismiss a side without digging further (to make sure you're not rejecting a strawman), don't embrace one without digging further either. That is what skepticism is about.
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We should do all of this while embracing science. The anti-GMO nutwads reject science.
 
WildCat said:
What? You really don't know if that's true? You think Monsanto is forcing farmers to buy their seed and no one else's? :eek:
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No, that's not what I meant. What I am saying, and I don't know how to be clearer about this, is that I think it would be a mistake to allow any company the ability to threaten the food supply due to patents or monopoly. If that is not currently possible, great, and I would agree. But that's not what started this line of questioning. I was asked the question "why shouldn't a company like Monsanto reap the rewards of their research?" and I responded that while I support profit and I support farmers, I would support limits to that if there ever arose a situation where their right to profit interfered with the food supply.

That is a general philosophy and policy that does not have to be happening NOW in order to have an opinion on it. We do this all the time in terms of scientific ethics. Should we clone humans? Should we abort fetuses if we detect certain genes? Even though we don't have those ethical dilemmas RIGHT NOW, we still can decide how we feel about them.

Again, for the kids in the back of the class, even if I grant everything you say about the current state of the GMO science and the current state of the law, GOING FORWARD, I do not consider the right to profit and the right to patent as sacrosanct and of greater importance than a stable and well regulated food supply for humanity.

I really don't understand what you guys don't understand about that, unless obtuseness is related to eating too many GMOs.
 
WildCat said:
What? You really don't know if that's true? You think Monsanto is forcing farmers to buy their seed and no one else's? :eek:
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The kids at the back of the class believe that. They spin all sorts of bizarre conspiracies about how Monsanto (never DuPont/Pioneer or Stine or any of the hundreds of other seed companies) could somehow take over the food supply and somehow force farmers to buy their products or force other seed companies to sell their products, or....something. Which is why I introduced the Martian angle. It's just as plausible.
 
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