12/17/2020

1. How would you reconcile the advantages and disadvantages that GMOs bring
to humans?

Only badly-educated people who don’t understand science and frankly stupid people are in
favour of GMOs.

GMOs will not bring any advantages to humans. They will solve no problems. Even if they
yield a small increase in percentage of food available they will cause irreversible damage to
the ecological systems of the world. They will put them out of balance. Plants and animals
will find that the world they inhabited has become artificial and synthetic, that there is no
place for them anymore. As the world increasingly becomes out of sync the knock-on effect
will hit humans as well.

Any percentage increase in food produced will almost immediately be offset by the increase
in population. The real problem is overpopulation. There should be enough food for
everyone even without modern farming methods - with farming methods coming along
why is there still not enough? Because people just said hey let’s overpopulate more and
they will do it again with GMOs. Why is overpopulation being allowed and even encouraged
in some places? This is due to greed also. It suits corporate interests to have more people so
they can get more work from them and sell them more stuff. Overpopulation creates strain
and fear in people. And fear is a very valuable thing to corporations. A very large amount of
people in the world today would not work half as hard if they had all the best food available
already. It’s all money. The world is going down a very, very dark path and I don’t know
what will happen but you can be sure that GMOs are a terrible spanner to throw into the
works and will not help at all.

Advantages: Possibly better yields, possibly more nutritional crops

Disadvantages:

1. Putting food production into the hands of a few mega corporations -

reducing the diversity of smaller farmers
2. The majority of GMO crops are controlled by chemical companies
3. The wrong solution to the problem - (eg add vitamin A to rice, rather than
encourage a varied diet)
4. The GMO industry is focused on mono-culture farming, reducing bio-
diversity, rather than permaculture, embracing biodiversity
5. Far better yields achieved through indoor farming, with minimal pesticide
and herbicide use.
 6. Massive herbicide use. (Monsanto produced ‘Roundup’ and then went into
GMOs to engineer them resistance to ‘Roundup’ so that they could sell
more herbicide)
7. Cross pollination and contamination of non GMO crops.
8. Ongoing debate about potential health risk. (Even if not so bad from the
GMO food itself, certainly from the pesticide)
So, not much advantage - certainly outweighed by the disadvantages as far as I am
concerned. The main problem is that they cannot be contained. Sure, if people want to grow
and consume these crops, then they should have the right, but they certainly do not have
the right to impose it on those who do not want to.

This question, how would you reconcile the advantages and disadvantages of GMOs, is like
asking, how can we reconcile greed and irresponsible science with the needs of nature and
humans?

The only way you can “reconcile” them is to rationalize or pretend or do PR spins that claim
benefits exist for everyone.

But you can’t fool nature. Just as all human-created chemical medicine has unwanted side-
effects, you can’t avoid unwanted side effects when humans artificially tinker with DNA.

This question is too big to be answered here. I suggest that instead of asking (often) ill-
informed Quora readers what their opinion is, that you do real research into the literature
and read books about it.

Just be warned, the pro side will tell you glamorous and dazzling possibilities while never
mentioning side effects, and when you read their research, remember the research studies
done by the tobacco companies, and also read about the retractions months after
publication.

There is nothing to reconcile. The advantages are overwhelming. The avoidance of famine in
some poor countries is more than adequate to compensate against all these ill-conceived
complaints. Yield per acre increases are an absolute necessity to keep in step with the
population explosion which will never cease despite all the good intentions.

I would look at as many scientific studies from both sides as I can find, ignoring clearly
invalid ones, and then weigh the upsides against the downsides. My research has turned up
one valid study providing reasons to oppose GMOs, and about fifteen supporting them, so
right now, I’m a supporter. I think that if people would read the literature, then this entire
issue would become a lot less emotional. Most of the things that are brought out in these
discussions are not really accurate.

By looking at each GMO separately, and deciding whether that particular GMO is good, bad,
or just fun. I place inserting the firefly gene for light production into aquarium fish in the
“just fun” category.

2. When do you think should the pursuit of GMOs research is off?

Never! We've been genetically modifying plants and animals since the first guy decided to
gather wild seeds and plant them behind his lean to or cave.

People today, at least in our progressive, affluent western nations, are so far removed from
real agriculture and so ignorant regarding food production, that they're nearly child like in
their perceptions and demands about the food they consume. Most people have just
enough information to be dangerous to themselves and the people they influence.

The issue isn't gmo's, it's the cr ap between a lot of people's to two ears!

My own opinion here, but I think the non gmo activists ought to be sent out naked to live in
a mud hut on the prairie for a year or three to eek out an existance with only a bag of wild
seed and a sharp stick to work the ground with. The ones that are still alive at the end of the
experience. Then, and only then will they have earned the right to climb up onto a pedestal
to preach to all the rest of us ,the virtues of non gmo food and exactly how they are going
to feed all the world with their new found knowledge!

The research so far, provides a plant that can withstand the increasing amounts of
herbicides and pesticides, so that food crops can be grown on factory farms. First though,
the crops were approved as safe,(edible) then licence granted for the use of up to ten times
more herbicide and pesticide use. How the technologies work is not the issue, the health
and wellness of the population is not being safeguarded. The epidemics of diseases, is quite
sensibly linked to the growing of our food with poisons (herbicides,pesticides, and chemical
fertilizers) As far as funding though, the conglomerates fund most research, and the
research is tainted as there is no real scientific proof that the crops grown in poisons are
safe. The enzymes that people so desperately need for good gut health, are only available
on correctly grown organic food. The government regulations for organic food, is not
adequate, and yes, food grown to government standards for organic, are a joke. There is
such a thing as Farmacy, - which is the best for health and wellness - properly grown
organic food, and exercise, will heal 80% of illnesses now in epidemic proportions in the
Western World. One day we will ask ourselves what were we ever thinking when we grew
our food with poisons.

So far G.M.O. research is done to make factory farming profitable, and has little to do with
human health. There is no scientific method, no sensible reasoning in the process of making
good nutritious food.

The vast majority of factory farmed food is fed to livestock, where the effects are more
accumulative, and meat is now more toxic than ever.

 When do you think the pursuit of genetically modified organism research should cease?

A. When we have plants that can glow in the dark and grow along forest trails and nowhere
else to light the way for hikers. When we have edible plants that supply us with much
needed vitamins and supplements in sufficient quantities instead of taking pills or
pharmaceuticals. When we have plants that can survive conditions on Mars to help us
colonize the planet. When we can grow plants expressing human insulin and other
hormones which are free of proteins which we develop immunity/intolerance to.

3. Is genetic engineering a pure scientific process or is it indeed an act of human

playing like God?

Firstly it’s engineering.

Secondly it’s a technological process for changing the DNA program in a cell, based on
knowledge gained through the application of the scientific method.

There is no magic involved or indeed miracles, so I guess it’s not playing God since to do
that you’d have to be doing “miracles”.

I guess as a theist if you can choose to view it as playing god or not it’s a rather subjective
judgement not really based on any evidence that there even is a God to play.

The genetic code is like a sort of divine software. Only God has the copyrights to it.
Unauthorized genetic tampering is an infringement and violation of divine rights and
authority without God's consent. I don't think they asked nor has he given them permission
to tamper with his program. Playing God is very serious and dangerous.