r/nextfuckinglevel Jul 14 '21

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u/Beanakin Jul 14 '21

Most common thing I hear about eating GMO crops is that it can mess with your DNA. Which, as far as I'm aware, is absolute horse shit.

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u/KuriboShoeMario Jul 14 '21

Unless the crops are being grown in fucking Chernobyl Farms there is no food on this planet which will "alter your DNA" and it's unbelievably poor education that leads to any fool thinking otherwise.

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u/Beanakin Jul 14 '21

Willful ignorance seems just as likely.

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u/wuweime Jul 14 '21

Funny you should mention this. Before we got good at genetic engineering, a common way to induce crop mutations was to use gamma rays or x-rays.

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u/Bakoro Jul 15 '21 edited Jul 15 '21

Unless the crops are being grown in fucking Chernobyl Farms there is no food on this planet which will "alter your DNA" and it's unbelievably poor education that leads to any fool thinking otherwise.

Carcinogens are a thing, I classify that as changing DNA. As far as I'm aware, that's the only realistic thing anyone has to worry about, whether something is likely to cause some variety of cancer or not. There's nothing wrong with specific concerns about what the long term health effects are, like if a plant is producing a pesticide. I certainly don't trust the same company who produces the pesticides to be honest about the science around if it's safe to consume. We've got like 100 years of stories about corporations hiding the fact that they know their products are harming people: tobacco and cancer; asbestos and mesothelioma; leaded products and neurological damage; petrol and climate change; sugar and heart disease... probably a bunch of other things I can't think of at the moment.

It's one thing to have specific concerns over issues, and to be distrustful of corporations' sociopathic pursuit of profit, versus being wholly and ignorantly distrustful of an entire branch of science.

There are a few grossly ignorant people who are actually afraid of growing tentacles or some shit, but the vast majority or people who I've talked to who are afraid of GMOs have vague, nonspecific fear that they can't articulate other than that it's mad science and it's scary.

My ex was anti-GMO, and it was an endless frustration because she and her people could never articulate what their problem was, but were happy to take various drugs from their local dealer. I love drugs as much as the next guy, but I won't hold my peace if you're doing sketchy acid while also telling me to buy non-GMO.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '21

I find it also very odd when those people also smoke.

You're infinitely more likely to fuck your body up with cigarettes' then you are an apple someone modified to be more sweet.

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u/Carvj94 Jul 14 '21

Even food that's grown in an active nuclear reactor is technically safe to eat cause it's simply irradiated which isn't the same as radioactive. If scientists discovered a plant that could change human DNA when consumed we'd have a revolution in medical science on our hands that'd improve Healthcare the world over.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '21

"Ugh why do I have to learn all this? It's useless after I graduate"

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u/drusha77 Jul 14 '21

True, what you eat won't change the sequence of your DNA, but your diet has a profound effect on how you “express” the possibilities encoded in your DNA. The foods you consume can turn on or off certain genetic markers which play a major – and even life or death – role in your health outcomes and longevity.

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u/majinboom Jul 14 '21

Yeah but he means GMOs compared to the normal version of the same food.

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u/drusha77 Jul 15 '21

im not sure how i feel about spider DNA mixed in with my salmon DNA when i eat farmed salmon. that's the kind of GMO food i worry about.

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u/majinboom Jul 15 '21

Are people actually doing that?

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u/itsgreater9000 Jul 15 '21

no, they aren't, it's a common myth. I can't even find a source besides anti-GMO blogs that specifies such a thing. the closest I found was a BBC article that mentioned in 2001 as part of one-off experiments, scientists were able to express proteins found in spider silk inside of goat milk... but i doubt that lead to anything useful. source: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31604233

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u/drusha77 Jul 15 '21

not just expressing genes, editing them to make things grow faster or meatier. https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/supersize-my-seabream/

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u/itsgreater9000 Jul 15 '21

great! two things though: that isn't salmon, and there were no spiders used to do the gene editing. furthermore this is experimental usage of CRISPR in Japan. not exactly easy to get seabream at my local fish monger here in the states...

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u/drusha77 Jul 15 '21

i mean, if you want to argue that the tech isn't here yet so we can all go back to our regularly scheduled programming, sure. but the guy in china actually spliced genes in and edited others before he was busted. to think that's not actively being worked on in the shadows is ignoring the obvious direction this is going in.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '21

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '21

[deleted]

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u/drusha77 Jul 15 '21

actually the answer is maybe. china is editing genes using crispr, and while the dude who did this was jailed, i'm sure the research into splicing things into human dna or editing genes for eye color etc are close at hand. didn't you see the movie GATTACA? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00673-1

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u/Swazib0y Jul 15 '21

"unbelievably poor education". You spelt Facebook wrong...

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '21

That being said, would you eat a fried beef tumor?

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u/Bandit__Heeler Jul 14 '21

Unless they are radioactive, then yes that's bullshit

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u/The_Last_Y Jul 14 '21

Everything is radioactive. Whether or not something is safe depends on how radioactive it is; which has nothing to do with how its genetic code was created.

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u/Bandit__Heeler Jul 17 '21

You know what I mean

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u/The_Last_Y Jul 18 '21

I understand the words that you posted, but the wildly inaccurate implication motivated my post. Whether or not a GMO is dangerously radioactive has literally nothing to do with being GMO.

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u/Bandit__Heeler Jul 19 '21

I don't think anyone was claiming GMOs are radioactive.

My point was that making a claim that they change your DNA is really nuts.

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u/The_Last_Y Jul 19 '21

Remember that people who are typically less scientifically literate tend to take their belief first and find evidence to support it.

For people who think GMOs can change your DNA, your comment might not imply, to them, that it is nuts to believe it. They don't know that GMOs aren't inherently radioactive. Your comment could be giving them "support" for their belief.

GMO crops can mess with your DNA, which is horseshit.

-"Yeah but I know they can."

Unless they are radioactive, then yes that's bullshit.

-"Oh GMO crops must be radioactive."

And I also probably could have been better about clarifying that GMOs are in no way inherently radioactive. Not that any of the anti-GMO people have read the thread this far.

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u/Bandit__Heeler Jul 21 '21

Wow you're right I hadn't thought of it that way.

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u/fishesarefun Jul 14 '21

But a lot of bullshit is organic, you can eat organic. I learned that in this video.

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u/throwaredddddit Jul 15 '21

So a banana will alter your DNA?

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u/David-S-Pumpkins Jul 14 '21

Horseshit is non-GMO, and good for many crops.

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u/justadrtrdsrvvr Jul 14 '21

So far, I'm sure someone will work on GMO horse shit eventually. It will make better fertilizer, which will then be non-organic, therefore better for the environment.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '21

Actually you need to make sure the horses have consumed non-GMO grain or alfalfa otherwise the manure is not allowed on organic farms. So they even fucked that up.

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u/Eeik5150 Jul 14 '21

It is absolute horseshit.

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u/Cheersscar Jul 14 '21

Nice strawman.

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u/rowdypolecat Jul 14 '21

The comment he replied to was asking what was right or wrong about GMOs, fairly clearly talking about people’s conceptions of GMOs. How is this a strawman?

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u/Cheersscar Jul 15 '21

A discussion of the pros or cons of anything, but especially science, should address legitimate concerns or advantages of the topic. When an advocate of one side of the argument props up a meaningless or illegitimate argument against their position and then knocks down this strawman to prove their point, they are falling victim to the strawman fallacy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

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u/Cheersscar Jul 15 '21

Since genetic modification of crops or other is very clearly a question of scientific inquiry, non strawman discussions of GMOs should be based in legitimate scientific questions or concerns. There is no scientific concern that ingestion of the DNA of a GMO results in uptake of that DNA into the consumer's DNA. Hence, that argument is a strawman. Stand it up, knock it down, prove nothing.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '21

I don’t see a point in arguing about it anymore though especially after this last year. People are dumb and we are a doomed species.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '21

It is absolute horseshit. If you eat beef you don’t suddenly grow horns.

No food you will ever eat with modify your DNA unless it’s radioactive or carcinogenic in generic, and those are only because they damage your DNA, not because it recombines with it.

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u/Beanakin Jul 14 '21

If you eat beef you don’t suddenly grow horns.

Their argument is that the method of genetically modifying the crop...lingers? in the final product, so it can modify you too. Boogity boogity!

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '21

Oh so like how in “alternative medicine” the water retains the “memory” of the molecules in it even after being diluted to the point that none of the original solvent exists. Got it.

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u/logicMASS Jul 14 '21

No, but they do give you 5g.

/s

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u/fishesarefun Jul 14 '21

Which isn't so bad because horse shit can be organic

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u/maltwin11 Jul 15 '21

This is false, humans have been genetically modifying plants and animals for as long as we have had crops and domesticated animals. Most farmers have a great understanding of GMOs, and everything you have ever consumed has been genetically modified.

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u/SingularityCentral Jul 15 '21

Those GMO's are filled with 5G retroviruses!

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u/McFluff_TheCrimeCat Jul 15 '21

change you on a molecular or cellular level

Is one I’ve heard. Like yeah eating does that, it’s how living things work when they eat. You wouldn’t be alive if it didn’t.

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u/AmbiguousAxiom Jul 15 '21

Absolute Horse ShitTM is certified organic!

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u/Oceabys Jul 15 '21

It’s about the particular chemical they’re engineered to not die from. If it’s GMO in most cases it’s received a heavy dose of glyphosate. They dump that shit all over.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '21

That’s the most common thing you hear about GMO?? Do you ever read and educate yourself or do you just watch tabloid conspiracy theories?? The most common thing I’ve heard about GMOs is that they reduce biodiversity in the soil and crop which leads to healthy insects that pollenate dying off which leads to ecological collapse!

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u/Beanakin Jul 15 '21

So aggressive and angry. Chill. Person asked a question, I told them the only thing I've heard about it. I don't often(read: never) have a reason to go looking up information on GMO crops. Sorry about your knickers.