My cursory scanning of the web turns up evidence to suggest this is true, as shown above. But if we want drill down on this comparison, then Mark Hoofnagle makes an important distinction my emphasis :. In terms of the liberal nature of anti-GMO movement, the data is mixed. Dan Kahan, studying risk assessment with regard to GMOs found liberals and conservatives reacted [ I have added this link ] with similar levels of concern over the technology.
Conservative media doesn't have a whole to say on the GMO issue, while liberal media is all over it, frequently distorting the science of biotechnology and skewing its coverage to play up uncertainties in a way that is completely out of scientific context. Kinda reminds you of how another big environmental issue is often covered in conservative media, doesn't it?
Register or Log In. The Magazine Shop. Login Register Stay Curious Subscribe. Newsletter Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news. It is not a haphazard Frankenstein process of sowing and suturing animal and plant parts together. In fact, a Frankenstein-style process is exactly what was done before genetic modification.
In the early days of agriculture, farmers crossbred plants to take advantage of the genetic diversity thrown up by evolutionary processes. Whatever beneficial properties emerged were saved in the seeds and transplanted into the next generation. This is a Mary Shelly-style process, with more recent farmers exposing their plants to radiation in the hopes of increasing the genetic variations at their disposal.
Even when we are taking genes from animals and inserting them into plants or vice-versa, the results are still safe , reduce pesticide use , and dramatically increase crop yields. Increasing the hardiness of our crops to better feed the world is also the main benefit of genetic modification, often omitted from the curious liberal opposition to GM food.
As climate change picks up its pace, we will need crops that can feed more people while at the same time resisting parasites, infections, and drought. Scientifically established safety is bolstered by moral obligation.
However, the supposed superiority of organically grown food has little scientific justification. Organically grown food still uses pesticides, those pesticides are largely untested, the pesticide reduction that organic food does offer is insignificant at best , and the food itself is no more nutritious or safe than its engineered alternative.
Still, even though the scientific community is in agreement over the safety of GM foods , there is a question of disclosure—the second component of the argumentum ad absurdum. But again, the science must be separated from the politics. No one will deny that Monsanto had a dog in the fight to prevent GM labeling in California, but Maher might be surprised to hear that labeling genetically modified foods is a bad idea, despite the benefits of transparency.
There is no scientific reason to label from a safety standpoint, and doing so would likely only create more fear around the already beleaguered technology. And that fear would probably have damaging implications for all advances in food technology. Just look at what happens when people realize that fluoride—a safe and amazingly effective addition to our public water supply—is coming from their tap.
For questions that science, and not politics, has a bearing on, it really does not matter what you think of Monsanto. Similarly, it does not matter if you think Al Gore a hypocrite or Charles Darwin a heathen--climate change and evolution are real and established. Just as many conservatives distrust science that tells them the earth is warming and government needs to regulate private enterprise to stop it, many liberals mistrust science that says genetically manipulating seeds or injecting chemicals into children will lead to a better world.
The difference is that conservatism's mistrust of climate science has taken over the Republican Party — even politicians like Mitt Romney and John McCain have gone wobbly on climate science — while liberalism's allergy to messing with nature hasn't had much effect on the Democratic Party. And part of the reason is that the validators liberals look to on scientifically contested issues have refused to tell them what they want to hear.
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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. The most common candidate was liberal mistrust of genetically-modified foods : GMOs. Delicious, vaccinated tomato. Next Up In The Latest.
Delivered Fridays. Dhoksal is about three hundred miles northeast of Mumbai, but it seems to belong to another century. The majority of local farmers travel to the market by bullock cart. Some walk, and a few drive. A week earlier, a local agricultural inspector told me, he had seen a cotton farmer on an elephant and waved to him. The man did not respond, however, because he was too busy talking on his cell phone.
In the West, the debate over the value of Bt cotton focusses on two closely related issues: the financial implications of planting the seeds, and whether the costs have driven farmers to suicide.
The first thing that the cotton farmers I visited wanted to discuss, though, was their improved health and that of their families. Before Bt genes were inserted into cotton, they would typically spray their crops with powerful chemicals dozens of times each season.
Now they spray once a month. Bt is not toxic to humans or to other mammals. Organic farmers, who have strict rules against using synthetic fertilizers or chemicals, have used a spray version of the toxin on their crops for years. Everyone had a story to tell about insecticide poisoning. He plants corn in addition to cotton. We would all get sick. Similar reductions have occurred in China. The growers, particularly women, by reducing their exposure to insecticide, not only have lowered their risk of serious illness but also are able to spend more time with their children.
Pawar is forty-seven, with skin the color of burnt molasses and the texture of a well-worn saddle. Without it, we would have no crops. Genetically engineered plants are not without risk. One concern is that their pollen will drift into the surrounding environment. Farmers can reduce the risk of contamination by staggering planting schedules, which insures that different kinds of plants pollinate at different times.
There is a bigger problem: pests can develop resistance to the toxins in engineered crops. In the U. This forces pests that develop resistance to Bt cotton to mate with pests that have not. In most cases, they will produce offspring that are still susceptible. Natural selection breeds resistance; such tactics only delay the process. But this is true everywhere in nature, not just on farms. Treatments for infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and H. Nevertheless, none of the farmers I spoke with in Dhoksal planted a refuge.
When I asked why, they had no idea what I was talking about. The film received warm recommendations from food activists in the U. As the journalist Keith Kloor pointed out earlier this year, in the journal Issues in Science and Technology , the farmer-suicide story even found its way into the scientific community. The World Health Organization has estimated that a hundred and seventy thousand Indians commit suicide each year—nearly five hundred a day.
Although many Indian farmers kill themselves, their suicide rate has not risen in a decade, according to a study by Ian Plewis, of the University of Manchester. In fact, the suicide rate among Indian farmers is lower than for other Indians and is comparable to that among French farmers. Most farmers I met in Maharashtra seemed to know at least one person who had killed himself, however, and they all agreed on the reasons: there is almost no affordable credit, no social security, and no meaningful crop-insurance program.
The only commercial farmers in the United States without crop insurance are those who have a philosophical objection to government support. In India, if you fail you are on your own. Farmers all need credit, but banks will rarely lend to them.
We want to buy equipment. But when the crop fails we cannot pay. The annual interest rate on loans can rise to forty per cent, which few farmers anywhere could hope to pay.
Sahai is not ideologically opposed to the use of genetically engineered crops, but she believes that the Indian government regulates them poorly. Nonetheless, she says that the Bt-suicide talk is exaggerated. Studies have shown that unbearable credit and a lack of financial support for agriculture is the killer. But she is blinded by her ideology and her political beliefs.
That is why she is so effective and so dangerous. Brinjal is the first G. Shiva wrote recently that the Bangladeshi project not only will fail but will kill the farmers who participate. It long ago became impossible to talk about genetically engineered crops without talking about Monsanto—a company so widely detested that a week rarely passes without at least one protest against its power and its products occurring somewhere in the world.
It was an unusually hot day in St. Louis, where Monsanto has its headquarters, and Grant was in shirtsleeves, rolled halfway up his arm. Nonetheless, Monsanto has pursued the market for transgenic crops with a zeal that has sometimes troubled even proponents of the underlying science.
Glover considers it unethical to ignore G. Grant concedes the point. And we are not. Food and agriculture are finally part of the conversation. The all-encompassing obsession with Monsanto has made rational discussion of the risks and benefits of genetically modified products difficult.
Golden Rice—enriched with vitamin A—is the best-known example. More than a hundred and ninety million children under the age of five suffer from vitamin-A deficiency. Every year, as many as half a million will go blind. Rice plants produce beta carotene, the precursor to vitamin A, in the leaves but not in the grain.
To make Golden Rice, scientists insert genes in the edible part of the plant, too.
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