GMO's

I have been trying very hard to hate genetically modified organisms (GMO’s). There is such a groundswell of rabid opinion against this technology that I have felt the need to overcome, or ignore, my inclinations as a geneticist and try to find reason and logic in a stance that objects to these new versions of what has been a very long line of different forms of manipulating the genomes of organisms that have proven useful to us. (If you think for a minute that there is anything natural about cows or pigs or corn or tomatoes or dogs, then I have some lakefront property in the Sahara you might be interested in.)
            I’ve been having a hard time of it. When I read some of the more apparently informed statements (generally they really are statements more than arguments) of the anti-GMO crowd I am, for a moment at least, swayed. Could it be? Could all these near apocalyptic outcomes actually come to pass? Have we all been fooled, hoodwinked by corporate conspiracy? Could these perceived hazards actually be things we should be deeply worried about? Have I missed something?
            I’ve pretty much failed in the attempt, though I’m not done trying. I will keep listening to what is being said, and read what is being written. I’m fascinated. I have no doubt that there are risks, and perhaps I’ve become more cognizant of them, but there is nothing unique to GMO’s in this regard. Risk exists in all human endeavor. We shouldn’t take too many but we shouldn’t be afraid to take some.
            But I can’t escape the feeling that the anti-GMO perspective is mostly driven by emotion and an underlying objection to the ethics of cross-taxon genetic manipulation (as opposed to traditional breeding = ‘old school’ genetic manipulation) more than by any real risks to human health or the environment.
            There are three basic areas of concern with GMO’s:

            1) human health risks
            2) ecological/environmental risks
            3) corporate practices/social risks

            There is a classic example of cherry-picking of data in the way that research showing negative effects of GMO’s are trotted out as soon as they become known among the cognoscenti – rather than dipping in an unbiased fashion into the large pool of relevant research the lottery tickets are scanned for conformance to prior belief and grasped at with fervid glee when found – they are waved to the sky to show the proof! This is especially true with regard to human health risks. For example, it’s very difficult to see how toxins (various Bt toxins) that don’t even harm the vast majority of insects can possibly pose a threat to humans (through your cotton shorts I guess). The preponderance of evidence in the published literature supports what my knowledge as a geneticist and entomologist and biologist tells me. However, on the basis of minimal evidence for allergenicity, Bt crops have been castigated.
            Science leans toward accepting – for the moment at least – those things that the preponderance of data support. In no field of science do all studies agree 100%. That’s clearly true for almost any other field you care to name as well. The preponderance of studies on GMO’s support the view that they pose little threat to human health.
            To say otherwise is to incite hysteria, for motives that are not clear.
 
            The story is a little different for possible ecological/environmental impacts of GMO’s. There are real risks to be worried about here, though they do not appear to be anything approaching the ecological disaster category that many opponents invoke.
            Some crops and their wild relatives really can hybridize and therefore transgenes can pass into wild species. The likelihood of doing so depends on whether any of those relatives are anywhere nearby, and a host of other ecological factors. On almost any scale that likelihood is low but it’s definitely not nil. It can happen, and it has.
            Likewise, non-target species really can be impacted by feeding on insect resistant plants - as one example - whether they’ve been genetically engineered or produced by traditional breeding.
            Does it matter?
            It might. It all depends. I don’t have time to get into the different ecological and evolutionary conditions that would have to exist for it to make a difference. Suffice to say; the probabilities are quite low and in any case gene flow of transgenes to wild relatives will not produce an ecological catastrophe. Humans have already done that on a massive scale by habitat fragmentation, pollution and globalization. Nothing resulting from gene flow of transgenes could be worse, or less manageable.

            I am a borderline socialist/communist and I hate corporate practices, and indeed, I hate the whole corporate restructuring of modern society. It sucks, and it demeans the worth of the majority of people who must operate under its influence, whether they be employees or consumers. The dictatorship of the corporation is little better than the dictatorship/totalitarianism of worn-out communism, and is far more imperialistic. But railing against Monsanto’s practices with respect to GMO’s is not a proper objection to GMO’s; it is rather an objection to corporate practices that could as easily be directed toward cell phone companies, fast food chains, Walmart, Exxon or any number of other large corporations. The practices that the large biotech companies use are not different from those of other large companies that force-feed their mostly useless commodities down the throats of consumers. It’s a commonality of run-away capitalism. It would be useful to understand what it is that one is actually objecting to - and to make that clear.
            While a handful of international conglomerates have dominated commercialization of GMO’s, it is the truth that a large proportion of the research in genetically engineering organisms is done in public institutions with public funding, with an honest interest in improving conditions for human society.
            To say otherwise is simply ignorant, or worse.

For those willing to be open minded, and to try moderately technical writing, I suggest you read these for a pretty thorough overview:

Lemaux PG. 2008. “Genetically Engineered Plants and Foods: A Scientist’s Analysis of the Issues (Part I). Annual Review of Plant Biology 59: 771-812.

Lemaux PG. 2009. “Genetically Engineered Plants and Foods: A Scientist’s Analysis of the Issues (Part II). Annual Review of Plant Biology 60: 511–59.

They can be downloaded for free here:

http://www.annualreviews.org/eprint/9Ntsbp8nBKFATMuPqVje/full/10.1146/annurev.arplant.58.032806.103840
and here:
http://www.annualreviews.org/eprint/ESHx4FnZadAJZqvIsGRg/full/10.1146/annurev.arplant.043008.092013

 

 

Merry Christmas

I've been paying attention to too many Jewish comics lately. First it was Lewis Black, now it's Jon Stewart. But what the hell, imagine how Jewish people feel around Christmas time in a narrow-minded Christian society like the USA? The little lord Jesus and all that crap? The immaculate conception? What kind of garbage is that? I'm a biologist. Am I supposed to take this shit seriously?
How did this state of affairs ever come about?
Without doubt the biggest snowjob ever perpetrated on human kind is this one: that Jesus rose from the dead.
Again, I'm a biologist...
But there it is. It sits like a giant cowpat on the head of our collective society. The biggest lie of all time, with about the biggest impact on the lives of the most people.
There are a number of striking cases of mass delusion in history, and I hesitate to mention one of the most obvious (centered somewhere around Germany), but this one is bigger. It's the biggest.
Of course, we know that the special little brat's birthday was December 25, right?
Of course we do.
Don't get me wrong. If there ever was a Jesus and if the things he was supposed to say and stand for were anything like the things he said and stood for in the New Testament he was cool by me. But there have so many other people (real humans who have lived and died, and who still live and will die) who have been, and are, equally cool. They were around before Jesus. They have been around since Jesus, and some have been inspired by him and some have not.
Knowing this and acknowledging them is how we love our fellow man.
I wonder if we can live without mythology.
I know I can.
Merry Christmas, and to all a good night.

Kiss Ass

Kiss Ass

 

There’s an odd perspective out there

circulating in various unstated ways

like a polluted groundwater

drilling softly into the soles of our feet.

 

It is the view that the host does not welcome the guest

but rather

the guest must kiss the ass

of the host.

 

It’s a thermal inversion

a flip of priorities

an ignorance of opportunities

a death of unity.

 

How did this happen?

 

Writers

There is an ocean of writers that swells against our shores. They crash upon our beaches and leave forlorn bits of insight if we take the time to peek into the flotsam they have left behind. They are like a mounting wave of zombies crawling over a barrier, relentless in their desire to inflict their views upon us. I am overwhelmed at their number and the sheer volume of words that pour forth from them. They gush out as if from a broken conduit to hell. It all passes over my head like the wave that took me under on the beach when I was five years old, feeling the power of the sea for the first time.
Sad to say, I am one of them.
It is a hopeless position to be in.
No one has time for this.
In fact, many of them are not that bad, many are even good.
But that makes no difference at all.
The raves will still go to those who play the game the most strategically, and manipulate the audience the most effectively, those who plumb the public psychology the most cynically; and damn those who seek to find an honest expression.
And it's not easy to say that that's a bad thing sometimes,
because
there
are just
too
many
damn
writers.

Marathon

It's a good thing the NY marathon has been cancelled in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. It was an insensitive waste of money in the face of all the people who had been deprived of basic services, after all. Someone finally came to their senses.
It's also a good thing because marathons are pathetic spectacles of mass masochism. Can you imagine what it takes to get all those people out there toe to toe, ass to belly, thinking that enduring self-inflicted torture is victory? One tends toward the view that yet another form of brainwashing has infected a substantial body of humanity.
Marathon running is not a sport. It is a form of mass delusion.
Sport in general has some key features that marathon running lacks:
1) strong hand-eye coordination
2) agility in multiple body parts
3) quick reactions to sudden and unexpected situations, setting into play multiple body parts
4) strategy beyond simple endurance
5) teamwork coupled with individual effort
6) multifaceted intellectual and physical skills in the particulars of an ordered discipline

Marathon running is monotonic, duller than snakeshit, lacking in most of the key features noted above.
Why do people do it?

Misery loves company, and we're all too fat.

American values

It's not too easy to express clearly what any nation's or culture's values are, but the way this phrase is being bandied about in the current climate of ass-kissing for votes is nothing short of bewildering.
What the hell does it mean?
For example, when Rom-Ry berate the Obama admin for not upholding American values in the Libyan embassy attacks...what the fuck do they mean? Which American values? Family? Church? Three square a day? How do they relate to Libya? Why would American values have any relevance whatsoever in Libya? What the fuck are they talking about?
I can only surmise that they are talking about the core value of freedom of expression. That's what needs to be defended. Of course for radical Islamists that's the problem. Why should people be allowed to say such things?
They have a point, given their lack of experience of open expression.
But wait...it was a terrorist attack, not a protest.
Ah, now which values do we mean? The value of self-defense? That's not an American value. That's a human value, or even more; an organismal value.
That can't be what they mean.
What do they mean?
I think they mean the value of the US as being the biggest and baddest motherfucker on the planet, the value of being able to tell other soveriegn states what to do, when to do it, and when and where to jump when we ask them to. That's what needs to be defended. That's what American values are.
I think they mean the value of arrogance.

I see no value in that at all.

The Unshaven Man

Sometimes one has nothing better to do than issue a bit of a rant. Now is as good a time as any to do that.
For quite awhile now I've been peeved to no end at this extraordinarily irritating trend of men who cultivate the unshaven look. We see it a lot in tv shows and Hollywood movies. If I saw a doctor looking like the one in the tv show House walk into my room I'd kick him in the nuts and tell him to get away from me (in spite of the fact that the actor is a reasonable facsimile of a blues musician). Apparently some one out there, perhaps a gaggle of fools in LALA land, believes this to be an attractive, masculine look  - a devil-may-care look perhaps, a look of a man who has too many more exciting things to do in his life than worry about his appearance - there simply isn't any time to shave.
Well, then grow a beard, asshole. Make up your mind.
Talk about indecisiveness; a lack of masculinity.
I've had difficulty discerning whether women find this look attractive. At the level of whiskers most of these guys cultivate it's hard to see how it can be good for the muff dive.
Which is of course, the point.
It's a cultivated look, not even remotely related to a devil-may-care stance or approach to life and the world, or any kind of practicality.
It's Hollywood.
It's bullshit.
It's like walking around with a flag flying over your head with the logo:
'I AM A STUPID SHIT'.
Because, as any man who has gone a few days without shaving knows, ants begin to crawl across your face, they crawl down your arms and begin to invade your torso, and elsewhere.
It doesn't feel good.
It begins to feel better if you actually let it grow out into an actual and real beard.
But these assholes truly cultivate this look by using their little electric razors set at 1/4 inch depth to assure the appearance of a four-day beard.
Why would you want to feel bad all the time?
The hypocrisy is clear, but it's still a mystery.