Why single out GMO? Why not label food which has been made through mutation breeding / radiation breeding? That ought to be a bigger concern.

Except I guess this has been done for so long that pretty much everything already sold in the grocery store as well as organic food would be labeled.

You have already been eating tons of this stuff which is potentially more risky than GMO, yet you want to single out GMO for labeling?

Two points:

1. I can think there are things wrong with food safety and advocate for new things being done safely at the same time. To some degree, you have to make changes where there's the political will to improve, even if it's not perfect.

2. The rate of mutation and deployment of new cultivars is really the concerning aspect, not the mechanism. I think we should have to label and clone cultivars (while checking for drift) these days, which still isn't perfect but better.

I want to make wider changes, but there's no reason not to start with limited changes at the start, particularly if we can do it for the method that's likely to be the long-term winner.

GMOs have the economic advantage of precision and control, while they also have the political will around them to effect regulation. So you can effect long-term broad legislation by targetting GMOs at this early stage.

So let me ask you this, if I were broadly concerned by food as widely practiced, unregulated pharmacy, why wouldn't I target regulation on a politically hot portion of the market as the wedge for wider reform?

I would think you'd be concerned to get the food industry on your side. This seems likely to be more difficult than necessary if you propose to shift consumers away from some of their products and hand them inconsistent labeling standards across their product ranges.

Besides, free markets don't operate well if buyers have information on only half the products.

Holy smokes, that mutation breeding was news to me!

That's how typical plant selective breeding works. Plant a bunch of the plant, induce all the mutations you can with all the mutagens (radiation, chemicals, etc.) you can, and look for useful traits. Then use recombinant breeding techniques to try to breed just those traits back in.

This has been standard practice since at least the 40s. There's very little "natural" about it.

I just think that GMO cultivars should be required to be identified the way chemicals are, and meet similar safety standards to other food additives. In many ways that's what they are: an added chemical to a standard product. (Though, I support identifying them by bundles, ie, cultivars.) Do you think that's an unfair standard -- that a new technology be labled like other technologies, so people can be aware that it's happening?

I get that you want to manipulate people and not allow them choice "for the right reasons", but do you really not understand why Im not okay with that? I can outline the history of that thought, and the dire consequences, if you'd like.

You also misunderstood the prior. The prior is merely on "this technology will be dangerous to use for the first N years". I think that's a perfectly fine prior to have, and science has a history of underestimating those risks because they're (understandably) confident in their work (and bear almost none of the cost).

No one is saying scientists have to always be right, just we should be cognizant of their systematic optimism about technology maturity and risk. And therefore, we should be about 3-4 decades more cautious than scientists call to be on technology rollovers of key infrastructure.

Which, given when they started to be rolled out, would be a couple decades from now for total adoption of GMOs.

Ed: I suppose my question about GMOs is this -- if there's no improper motive, what's the hurry to make the transition? We're not starved for land for farming in the US, farming is making acceptable profits, etc. We have the resources to easily sustain a culture wide trial period of a few more decades (a generation from the start), where I believe that GMOs will be able to mature and show their safety and benefit.

What I don't get is why most GMO proponents go "Nah, fuck safety, science didn't mess up this time." They won't benefit in any appreciable way, only companies of which they're not owners will, but they're taking on the risk for someone else's reward.

PR, eh?

>...I just think that GMO cultivars should be required to be identified the way chemicals are, and meet similar safety standards to other food additives.

This idea that GMOs are unregulated is a myth. If someone wants to argue for more testing, that is one thing, but in doing a simple google search it is easy to see that there is certainly oversight:

>...The three main agencies involved in regulating GMOs are the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

>...APHIS regulates the planting, importation, or transportation of GM plants pursuant to its authority under the Plant Protection Act (PPA),[23] which authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to “prohibit or restrict the importation, entry, exportation, or movement in interstate commerce of any plant, plant product [etc.] if the Secretary determines [it] is necessary to prevent the introduction . . . of a plant pest or noxious weed within the United States.”[24] By regulation, APHIS classifies most GM plants as plant pests or potential plant pests and as “regulated articles.”[25] Under the PPA, a regulated article must receive prior approval from APHIS before it is introduced.[26]

>APHIS grants authorization to use GM plants in three ways: through a notification process, a permitting process, or a determination of nonregulated status.

>...In a 1992 policy statement, the FDA reaffirmed that in most cases it would treat foods derived from GMOs like those derived from conventionally bred plants, and that most foods derived from GM plants would be presumptively GRAS. However, with respect to a GMO product “that differs significantly in structure, function, or composition from substances found currently in food,” premarket approval of the substance as a food additive would be required.[47]

>...The EPA regulates pesticides and microorganisms developed through genetic engineering.

https://www.loc.gov/law/help/restrictions-on-gmos/usa.php

I'd just like to address an overall sentiment. There is this idea that science screws up now and then and we all get hurt so it is ALWAYS good to be skeptical.

I think that is an equally dangerous thought. More people have died and gotten hurt from being skeptical to science than those who have died due to science.

When science suggested you should clean yourself before doing surgery, delivering babies etc, then Semmelweis got laughed at. People thought they should stick to what they "know".

People of science got burned for suggesting the earth orbited the sun.

A scientific approach determined that we should wear seat-belts in cars. Still a lot of people around the world being skeptical towards these expert suggestions die.

People die from not getting vaccines, because they believe more in their "feelings" then hard science.

The point is there is no alternative to science. If GMO was ever proved unsafe it would be through the scientific method, not by peopling "feeling" their way to an answer.

I think GMO cultivars are not different from any other plant cultivar. I think we should label them. All of them, without exception. I don't think this is misleading or manipulative. I do understand why people might disagree. For my own part, I think people should have all the information that can be reasonably made available for decision-making. This included both GMO and non-GMO cultivar information. I dp think giving people GMO data and witholding non-GMO data is an unfair standard.

I actually don't think this would frighten people. I think most people would realize they don't actually care. The ones who do could make their own choices.

The current public rhetoric is basically that scientists do have to always be right. That this technology is too scary unless it's perfect every time. People are terrified of berries that don't bruise when they get cold or apples that don't turn brown when cut open.

Of course we should be cognizant of the risks. We should also be cognizant that they are not fully controllable and act accordingly.

We agree on general labeling; our disagreement is limited largely to if we should implement that on the part of the market where there is political will for it as a start.

The rest of our disagreement is on the role scientists had in public perception of their trade. I think scientists have earned the scepticism they face; you (and another commenter) seem to feel the benefits of rapidly deployed science outweigh the risks; I think you're falling prey to a common human error of underestimating long-tail risk (particularly that others pay), which science has a history of underestimating.

I also think you only address strawman versions of the other side, and much of their blanket rejection of your position stems from openly mocking and strawmanning theirs, which when pressed on technical details, you admit is a valid concern.

To some capacity, GMO proponents arent necessarily wrong, theyre just assholes.