“But no one who’s acquainted with the essential tenets of scientific investigation should do anything other than laugh off that line as ridiculously naive.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Perhaps, to someone who’s largely innocent of any understanding of science, that might likely be the case. But no one who’s acquainted with the essential tenets of scientific investigation should laugh off that line as ridiculously naive.

To those who’ve left behind them an enchanted view of the world, no, technology, however advanced, is not anything like magic. It’s not thought to be magic simply because it may not be understood by non-experts—which includes most of us today in some fields, at any rate. We might dimiss this sort of aphorism as typical of silly throw-lines which people find charming –unless they actually think about them for a few minutes. For a scientist to toss out this line as anything other than a gag or a matter for derision is sad, pathetic and an indication of a person who apparently hasn’t bothered to think about it. For no one else to have done so, to have noticed the intellectual bankruptcy of this shallow-minded tripe–that, too, ought to give us pause in a science forum such as this. It’s a piece of junk-“thought” and ought to have been dismissed as such.

See also: “Petitio principii”

Let it be the public’s abiding and rightful place, then, to be the first and the last arbiter of distinguishing scientists’ good “magic” from their “bad”— stupendously arrogant fucking stupid and dangerous—magic since scientists are not immune to “the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to.”

…” Nature is more clumsy at making genetic changes that humans are.”
And for “support” of that bald assertion we have (again) just your good word. The actual point is not which, if either, is more “clumsy”, “Nature’s” happenstance genetic evolutions or, on the other hand, those attempts undertaken by people for (typically) selfish purposes when not simply purely profit-driven aims. No. The point is that we’re inevitably going to be subject to natural evolutionary outcomes to a greater or lesser extent since even “our” own efforts to cicumvent them just might cause as many undesired ramifications as they were intended to remedy.

“One could fill this blog page with examples of Nature playing Russian Roulette with genetic mutation that has caused massive loss of life, resources, and capital.”

Right, one could. But just why humanly-directed interventions should “double down” on nature’s given risks by undertaking their own is (again) something you assume as self-evidently proper or, if not, you either choose not to explain (defend) here or perhaps you just can’t explain (defend).

RE: “Shall we outlaw Nature making genetic changes because of the potential that Nature could produce something with consequences which we can not properly foresee and thus place all flora and fauna at risk from Her potential blunders?”

LO (fucking) L ! Allirony is lost on you, isn’t it? What seems clear is that, if they only could, indeed, too many scientists would love to do that. In fact, with just a tiny bit of care and imagination, an observer might notice that, in effect, for all practical intents and purposes, GMO research is actually an attempt to achieve the “next best thing”, as such scientists would define that, to “outlawing” any and all non-humanly determined genetic outcomes at least as far as human health and food needs are supposedly concerned. That, in other words, is the dispute in a nutshell. And I had to point this nuance out to you!? That’s rich! You make a fine hostile witness for the prosecution so, please, do tell us more!

” Help fight global warming if you want to be afraid of something we’re doing.”

IOW: “Go away! You bother us (i.e. me) !

LO (fucking) L again. Gee, I’m so used to deciding for myself when, where and how to defend causes I support or criticize those which I oppose that, rather than take your kind advice to drop dead, I’ll continue to challenge you to come up with something which begins to resemble an intellectually respectable argument. Unlike your attitude here, I regard your doing so as something which is at least within your rights to attempt even if so far all we’ve seen suggests that it isn’t within your capacity to do.

To bastardize Arthur C Clarke’s famous quote, “As with any sufficiently advanced technology, one must apply it with care, lest one cause bad magic”.

^^ This was done with wheat and many consider it a cumulative toxin (gliadin) now. The advantage for increased yeild was solely due to convenient, consistent height for mechanical harvesters — This is true for most current strains of GMO as actual potential yeild is invariably reduced.

As a wise sage with bad feet once pointed out; ‘Who put the Tribbles into the quadriticule?’

Not that that hasn’t already happened. Ebola is one of Nature’s blunders, putting humans at risk. Ditto for HIV. Toxic parasites. The pathogenic fungus Cryphonectria parasitica that caused massive loss of chestnut trees.

One could fill this blog page with examples of Nature playing Russian Roulette with genetic mutation that has caused massive loss of life, resources, and capital.

Shall we outlaw Nature making genetic changes because of the potential that Nature could produce something with consequences which we can not properly foresee and thus place all flora and fauna at risk from Her potential blunders?

Your argument doesn’t work. Mankind is part of nature. We’re changing the Earth all the time. This is one aspect of many, many examples. Get over it. Help fight global warming if you want to be afraid of something we’re doing.

I never said it was. Read my comment again. My point is this: Outlawing “new style” GMO technologies will not remove “conventional” GMO foods from your table. They’re both genetically modified and one is not more dangerous than the other.

Conventional GMO techniques have been used for centuries to genetically modify organisms (plants and animals) to increase pest resistance, increase yield, and confer new desirable traits, just as with new GMO. But conventional GMO techniques can & do include the use of such things as radiation and mutagenic chemicals to cause genetic modifications of the foods you eat (from which selection begins). And the results of these conventional GMO techniques changes the genomes of your food in ways that are not well known or understood.

Contrary to what you imply, it is not just “innocent selective breeding” that’s performed. Ignorance of this causes the public to mistakenly assume that conventional techniques are safer and better understood than new GMO techniques. That’s misleading people into accepting things that they perhaps should be more concerned about. (We understand one reason why they’re not: Familiarity breeds complacency. If new GMO techniques were common, we’d see the same complacency for them.)

And sticking daffodil genes into rice keeps 500,000 children per year from going blind or dying. That’s not going to be accomplished (in anyone’s lifetime) using conventional techniques.

Should I really get into a snit over that because Monsanto may make a profit doing such things? That’s a form of blood on your hands — and all over misdirection about what industry has really been doing to the plants & animals you eat. NONE of them are natural! Stop kidding yourself that they are.

However, the political processes are in such a state of degradation or ruin that, even before any of that can be attempted, the politcal processes must be made responsive to the public’s own best informed general interests. In that goal we find too many professional scientists squarely in league with powerful interests which oppose and prevent that political reform.