
107 Nobel laureates sign letter blasting Greenpeace over GMOs - larion1
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/06/29/more-than-100-nobel-laureates-take-on-greenpeace-over-gmo-stance/
======
byuu
I have to admit that the science side of this is very compelling: zero
documented negative health outcomes is pretty compelling evidence for its
safety. And it's a much easier solution than trying to scale up global food
production naturally with our exponentially growing population.

But I am also sympathetic to the concerns over GMOs. These things spread in
the wild, and we are basically playing god with the building blocks of (plant)
life itself, which we definitely do not fully understand. If we fail to
acknowledge some detail after meddling with something that could not have
happened in nature, we might not find out until it's reaped devastating
effects on global agriculture or even long-term human health. Even if GMOs can
do a lot of good in the short-term, it would be terrifying to find out in the
long-term that we've caused horrific damage due to our arrogance.

We're rightfully weary about human genetic engineering, but plant life is just
as important to our survival.

I'm perfectly fine with there being opposing sides double-checking each
other's work here.

~~~
RealityVoid
See, that's fine, it's a totally valid point you're raising. The issue here,
the thing that bugs me the most is that they're appealing to fear of unknown
with this hurr-durr GMO bad to eat not natural mantra. That is a lie. Most
attacks on GMO don't come from some ecological concern, they come from the
"How do we know they're safe to eat" angle. And that is totally idiotic and I
can not sustain a conversation along that line. So of course, that gets shut
down because it does not promote valid conversation.

I guess i understand _why_ people go and promote this line of thinking -
because it appeals to the self-interested natureof humans. We are interested
about threats to our existance now, because we are afraid for us that what we
eat is poisonous. We would care less about some future potential threat for
the ecosystem, something that would affect _other_ people (or so our brain
thinks)

~~~
unclebucknasty
> _they 're appealing to fear of unknown_

Is it ever rational to have concerns about the unknown? The human organism is
very complex, and we know that there is much we don't know about it. For
instance, there are certain conditions that are on the rise, and we do not
know why.

Obviously, you cannot just conclude that it must be GMOs. However, is it
possible that we should have some concern around wholesale modifying various
food sources to the extent that we are now introducing new proteins and new
organisms into the human organism em masse?

Given all that we know we don't understand, I just don't get the conclusion
that it must be safe because we haven't yet been able to prove otherwise.

And, we've seen how this line of thinking has worked out in the past so many
times.

~~~
collyw
We have been modifying foods for centuries with selective breeding. Why do you
think targeted genetic modification will be any different from the random
genetic modification that occurs in nature? They aren't adding new proteins
"en mass" as you describe it, its usually specific and minimal.

~~~
unclebucknasty
I don't think random genetic modification in nature is the same as using a
gene gun to splice genetic material from organisms in a manner as would never
occur in nature? Do you?

And, of course, some of these "unnatural" GMOs explicitly have toxins added to
them to kill pests. Obviously we would not be otherwise consuming these.

I'm also sure you're not contending that everything found in nature is safe
for human consumption, are you?

Altogether you seem to be suggesting that anything which can occur (whether in
nature, or otherwise) must be safe. There really is nothing else to your
"argument".

> _They aren 't adding new proteins "en mass" as you describe_

I wasn't suggesting that they are adding them en masse; only that we are
consuming them en masse (especially given their pervasiveness in staples such
as corn, soy, canola, etc.)

------
mmastrac
I'm not a fan of the term "real food" that Greenpeace uses. Your body can get
nutrition from anything in a compatible form. It doesn't matter if it's been
engineered, crawls on tree back, created in a science kit - if it's
compatible, your body will absorb it.

> “The only guaranteed solution to fix malnutrition is a diverse healthy diet.
> Providing people with real food based on ecological agriculture not only
> addresses malnutrition, but is also a scaleable solution to adapt to climate
> change.

~~~
anotherhacker
It's not about nutrition. It's the risk that hidden risks that GMOs engender.
E.g. Unknown effects upon the ecosystem.

Another example: GMO Wheat contains an unnaturally high gluten content. Gluten
is an irritant for everyone--some more than others. We have many people who
are not really "gluten intolerant", but think they are. They are just
sensitive to the unnaturally high gluten content in GMO foods.

~~~
AngrySkillzz
There is no commercially grown GMO wheat. I have no idea where you heard this
nonsense. And within different non-modified wheat varieties, gluten content
varies greatly. Ex. Hard, red winter wheat has more gluten and is often used
as bread flour. There is no incentive to breed wheat for higher gluten content
anyway.

~~~
anotherhacker
You're wrong on both accounts.

1) A GMO wheat currently is used. It's called Renan. 2) Higher gluten flour is
desirable for bread products such as pizza. I make my own pizza. The best
pizza bread is made from high-gluten flour.

------
kristopolous
The criticism is about the emergent incentives due to the interplay of
capitalism and technology.

The question is whether the industry can be trusted to self-regulate or if
there are externalities and endogenous variables which may spur a generalized
irresponsible utility.

In the same way that environmentalists criticize coal for its abuses in the
context of capital markets, there's a concern that not every for-profit
biotech firm will value multi-generational probabilistic long-term effects on
an ecosystem as much as the company's business interests.

~~~
panic
Sure, but that doesn't necessarily have to do with GMOs. Say we pass a
mandatory GMO labeling law and, in response, Monsanto figures out a way to
make pesticide-resistant seeds through normal cross-breeding. Now we're back
in the same place we started, except with labels that confuse people into
thinking GMOs are bad.

~~~
kristopolous
Sorry but I'm not anti-GMO.

I'm for intellectual honesty and believe thoughtful claims should be presented
sincerely and carefully as a matter of course whether I support them or not.

------
carapace
I firmly believe that all genetic engineering applications, except for human
health-related medical interventions, should be delayed for at least several
hundred years. Research, yes, but applications are out of the question for
centuries.

Anything less stringent is open-ended experimentation on the _only_ biosphere
in the known Universe. It is hubris of the rankest sort.

Further I believe that this _is a scientific view_.

We know our ignorance is far too vast.

The only reasons to use GMOs are hubris and greed. That is it.

Either you are a scientific ego-tripper who can't or won't understand that
real people have serious reservations about participating in your open-ended
genetic experiment, or you just want to make a buck and don't care.

If it could be shown that, for some given application of GE, there is
absolutely no other alternative to save lives, then that's something. However,
I believe we can feed ourselves without GMOs by means of "applied ecology"
("Permaculture" etc.) so there is no call to use GMOs. These doubtless well-
meaning scientists are using the reduction of "Vitamin-A deficiencies causing
blindness and death in children in the developing world" to insist on a highly
controversial technology. It's kind of just as ugly and self-serving as they
paint Greenpeace to be.

The report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
is quoted in the article as saying, "such crops are relatively new and that it
is premature to make broad generalizations, positive or negative, about their
safety."

We know we don't know enough. I don't want to eat your faith.

~~~
sampo
> _I believe that this is a scientific view._

> _hubris_

Don't you think there is maybe a little hubris in you thinking you know the
scientific view better than 107 Nobel Price winners?

~~~
carapace
No. Argument from Authority. There isn't one "the" scientific view.

And, in this case, "107 Nobel Price winners" (sic) have said merely,
"Greenpeace are superstitious baby-killers." not a scientific repudiation of
the points I've raised.

------
sampo
There is one extremely simple [1], unequivocally positive GMO success story:
Rainbow papaya in Hawaii [2,3].

In the 90s, papaya ringspot virus was about to wipe out papaya cultivation
from Hawaii. Scientist (the leading scientist was Hawaiian born even)
transferred a gene from the virus to a cultivar of papaya, making the cultivar
resistant to the virus. Hawaiians have been happily producing papaya ever
since.

But still the general anti-science, anti-GMO sentiment is strong. Banning GMOs
seems to be the fashionable thing to do. So in 2013 the main island in Hawaii
banned the cultivation of any GMO crop [4]. Except the papaya. They have been
safely growing and eating GMO papayas for 20 years, and growing papaya is
economically important to them. But with some cognitive dissonance they can
still jump on the "GMOs are dangerous" bandwagon, and ban all other GMO crops.
Talk about hypocrisy.

[1] There are other successes, but their stories are more complicated. For
example herbicide tolerant cultivars are usually 'good', considering that they
facilitate switching from more toxic herbicides to less toxic, but the story
is more complicated, and can be quite easily attacked by a populist demagogue.

[2] [http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/sections/news/local-
news/pap...](http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/sections/news/local-news/papaya-
gmo-success-story.html)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering_in_Hawaii#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering_in_Hawaii#Papaya)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering_in_Hawaii#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering_in_Hawaii#Local_government_action)

------
fovc
I do not like GMO* and try to avoid buying the stuff. I understand that the
overwhelming scientific consensus is that it has no ill-effects compared to
non-GMO foods. For me there are two main arguments for avoiding it, one
selfish, one less-so.

1\. The less selfish one: GMO is strongly associated with massive monoculture.
The lack of genetic diversity presents serious systemic risks.

2\. The selfish one: The majority of GMO encountered in a US supermarket is
modified for resistance to herbicide (canola, roundup) [citation needed],
rather than for nutrition, flavor, or texture. Though not a strong signal,
being non-GMO correlates with higher quality. (Yes, I prefer buying uncommon
cultivars where e.g., the tomato hasn't been bred for mass transport)

While I don't think there's anything a priori wrong/harmful/etc. with
genetically modifying organisms, I think the _current_ applications on the
market are not ideal. I would love to see the cost of GMing food come down to
the point where we don't have oligopolies controlling seed production and see
some more beneficial uses of the technology.

* If you consider cross/selective-breeding GMOing, then just s/GMO/roundup ready crops, BT-corn, flavr savr, etc./.

------
cperciva
This brings to mind "Project Steve" ([https://ncse.com/project-
steve](https://ncse.com/project-steve)) which lists scientists named
Steve/Stephen/Stefan/Stephanie/etc. who agree with a statement endorsing
evolution.

On the other hand, maybe a list of 110 Nobel Laureates (100 of whom are Nobel
prize-winning _scientists_ ) isn't enough, and we need a "Project John": There
are six Nobel prize-winning scientists named John (or Johann, or Jean-Marie)
who endorse GMO foods.

------
tstactplsignore
While the common GMO crops on the market have been shown to be completely safe
for human consumption time after time again, I think it's important to get
across that being "anti-GMO" is inherently an unscientific position,
regardless of the safety profile of any specific food products. Why?

From a biologist's perspective, the phrase "anti-GMO" is meaningless - what
are you really _against_ if you're anti-GMO? It means you're completely
against the use of a wide range of specific biotechnologies, protocols, and
experiments that modify the genome of an organism. To dismiss the safety
profile of all of these biotechnologies by themselves is irrational, not only
because there is no proven mechanism for how they can cause harm, or because
they've been shown to create perfectly safe crops, but because they use very
different mechanisms (from Agrobacterium to gene guns to RNA-i to the new
CRISPR/Cas) from each other.

To be skeptical of the safety profile of the concept of gene editing in
principle is also irrational, unless one is willing to also be skeptical of
the safety profile of induced mutagenesis methods that humans have used for a
century, and cross-breeding methods that humans have used for thousands of
years. Why? Because both of these conventional methods "edit genes", but there
is an inherent risk that is significantly higher: randomness. When scientists
apply modern biotechnological methods to edit genomes, they utilize and target
known and characterized genes and pathways, which can have any associated
risks or consequences profiled and understood. Broad mutagenesis and cross-
breeding create organisms (especially in polyploidy plants) with rearranged
and mutated genes at random, which creates a scenario which makes it even
currently impossible to truly understand and predict the safety or nutritional
profile of the resulting organism. Of course, even these "oh-so-risky" methods
are responsible for creating the entire repertoire of fruits and vegetables we
eat today.

Therefore, the anti-GMO movement truly does seem anti-scientific - by
definition it isn't making specific claims about specific crops, or even
specific technologies, but rather the broad generalization that an entire
range of very different technologies are unsafe. It is also applying that
generalization unfairly to modern technologies (which _sound scarier and
riskier_ ) as opposed to the ones that have successfully created all modern
crops (which have a similarly very low but distinctly higher risk involved).
With a bit of context, it seems impossible to interpret the movement as
anything besides having a problem with the existence of the field of
biotechnology itself.

~~~
zaroth
Very well said. I think the cogent part of the complaint is the economics of
it. I can understand being opposed to the capitalist enterprise of inventing,
patenting, and licensing the seeds. I personally am happy there's a way to
fund this kind of R&D in the general market, but it does create interesting
power dynamics between farmers and the patent holders.

------
whack
It's ironic that the same people who insult conservatives for denying the
scientific consensus behind global warming, would themselves deny the
scientific consensus behind GMO safety and efficacy. Makes you wonder if
anyone actually believes in science, or if everyone simply sees it as a pawn
to use and discard when convenient.

~~~
tgb
I dunno. You paint it as a hypocrisy to take the scientific consensus view on
one topic but not the other. They would paint it as a hypocrisy to take the
"let's minimize human toying with the environment in ways we can't fully
understand" side for one but not both topics.

The power of the climate change consensus is much stronger than that of GMOs
in the following sense. If someone doesn't believe climate change is happening
(or doesn't believe it's bad), then they had better have a damn good reason
for thinking that pumping huge quantities of CO2 into the air is OK. Their
argument can't be "the environment is complex, so the climate modelers might
be wrong" since that only argues for even greater caution in disturbing the
chaotic system of the environment. Therefore their argument must be "there is
scientific evidence that it doesn't matter". So you counter that with "but
then why don't any scientists think that?" _even if you think we don 't truly
understand the environmental impact_.

Contrast to the GMO argument where the views of "the scientific community
understands the ramifications of our actions" and "the system is too complex
to analyze" come to opposite conclusions.

~~~
sampo
The scientific consensus on GMO safety is actually slightly stronger than on
global warming: [https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/01/29/pewaaas-
st...](https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/01/29/pewaaas-study-
scientific-consensus-on-gmo-safety-stronger-than-for-global-warming/)

~~~
tgb
My comment was tangential to that matter, it was that the consensus and the
can't-trust-the-consensus views lead to different conclusions in GMOs but not
in climate change, which can explain the hypocrisy observed.

------
MichailP
I like this example [1], about fish tomato. Now, you can't call THAT natural.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_tomato](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_tomato)

~~~
collyw
A fish gene in a tomato!

I guess you are unaware that human and banana genomes are 50% the same.
[http://www.askabiologist.org.uk/answers/viewtopic.php?id=128...](http://www.askabiologist.org.uk/answers/viewtopic.php?id=12889)

------
frank_jaeger
I was looking into those who signed (currently at 110 by the way) and I was a
bit interested in the age range. Even though the years that individuals were
granted the prize ranged to as far back as 1962 (James Watson was around 32 at
the time), I didn't find anyone who's currently under 60 who signed. My search
was far from exhaustive, so I'd be interested if anyone found a young laureate
on this list.

------
peterkshultz
I have no problem with people wanting to have GMO labels. Consumers should
have a choice as to what they put in their body.

But the argument that GMOs are dangerous has had little--if any--scientific
proof. That so many Nobel laureates are getting behind this fact is
reassuring, especially in a world where malnutrition is still existent.

~~~
largote
But if you label it, why wouldn't you start labeling all other sorts of
things?

GMO vs not-GMO is irrelevant information for the consumer outside of marketing
and ignorance-based paranoia.

~~~
nitrogen
_But if you label it, why wouldn 't you start labeling all other sorts of
things?_

Good question. More labels for everyone! I want to know the soil composition
where my vegetables were grown, for example, and the average and peak levels
of various airborne pollutants during the growing season.

------
akamaka
Is there any legitmacy left to the argument that we need technology to solve
malnutrition?

According to some sources, the world has recently crossed a threshold where
there are more overweight people in the world than there are malnourished
people. [1]

If one excludes considerations around national security, labour markets, land
use, etc., is there a good case to be made that increased food production is
even necessary?

[1] [http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/31/obese-humans-now-outnumber-
th...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/31/obese-humans-now-outnumber-the-
underweight-study.html)

~~~
morgante
Absolutely.

There being overweight people does not mean there aren't still malnourished.

Technology can help not only to increase overall food production, but also to
enable greater production in the localized areas where there is still
insufficient supply.

~~~
akamaka
I wasn't very clear in that I was referring to developing new technologies.

Undeveloped parts of the world don't have access to even the most basic
agricultural technology, like mechanization and efficient irrigation.

Of course it would be good to spread technologies both old and new. Inventing
new things, including GMOs, is fantastic for those who adopt them, but won't
help if undeveloped areas that have difficulty adopting _any_ new techniques.

~~~
btilly
It turns out to be a lot easier to convince farmers to use better seeds than
to change everything else about how they work. We have a lot of experience
with successfully getting poor farmers to try better varieties.

See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug)
for the man who made it work.

------
socialist_coder
The demonization of GMOs has been one of the most frustrating things for me to
witness. GMOs are not inherently bad (as everyone here is basically agreeing
with), but it is unfortunate that their primary use case right now is for a
shitty company to squeeze more profit out of its customers, so you can kind of
see why it's easy to be against GMOs. I still don't agree with it though.

I hope public opinion changes on this, but I don't have much hope until some
very positive things actually start to happen with GMOs.

~~~
maxerickson
The market for glyphosate-resistant crops is competitive, it isn't just
Monsanto selling them.

(glyphosate itself went out of patent in 2000, the various resistance
mechanisms may be under patent)

~~~
socialist_coder
Their business practices surrounding it though, are terrible, to say the
least. If they wanted to give GMOs a bad name, they couldn't have done a
better job.

~~~
sampo
There are so many urban legends about "Monsanto is evil". Do you have an
example of some actual evildoings?

~~~
socialist_coder
Like so many other things in our world today, the truth is distorted by spin
on all sides. Everyone has an agenda and it's quite difficult to know if what
you're reading is actually factual. You can google it yourself and read both
sides of the story for hours and still come away like you aren't sure what the
actual deal is.

But, it does seem safe to say that Monsanto as a company is only in it for the
money, much like the vast majority of other companies. Do they care about
farmers? Do they care about food? Do they care about people? Or do they only
care about making money? I think it's clear what the answers are, but I can't
really blame them for that, I blame our system at large. But still, they could
choose to be less greedy, less capitalist, and a little more human. It's very
easy to hate them as it is now.

Anyways, it doesn't really matter what the actual truth is. The public hates
Monsanto and to them, GMO and Monsanto seeds are one and the same. Until we
see more usages of GMO that are not tainted by questionable business
practices, this won't change. We need a GMO farming company that puts the
farmer and the food first, not profits.

Secondly, and this is a whole different issue, I do not think our modern
industrial farming practices are sustainable in the least. Industrial farming
companies exist only to sell fertilizers and pesticides and other profitable
things. They are not interested in fixing any of the problems with modern
industrial farming because that would not be profitable. Again, capitalism is
the problem, not really Monsanto.

Interestingly enough, Monsanto started out as a chemical company. So it's no
wonder they push chemical based solutions to farming problems.

For an alternative to modern industrial farming, google forest gardening,
aquaponics, or food forests. This applies "the 5 whys" to modern industrial
farming: Why do we need fertilizers and pesticides? What problems do they
solve? Why are those problems? Finally, you come to the conclusion that trying
to grow hundreds of acres of the same crop is just not what nature is built
for. Nature wants diversity, nature wants things that look like forests.
Industrial farming is what you get when Man tries to force Nature to do
something that is not natural.

------
dleslie
I reject the notion that self-replicating organisms ought to be treated as
intellectual property, and I have concerns about particular commercially-
available herbicides that rely upon gene sequencing to make them safe for
plants. I have no substantive concerns about eating the available GMO product.

Yet the pro-GMO movement wishes to frame the anti-GMO movement as a cause
which is focused upon the harms of consumption. It's dishonest at best, and
has me questioning for motives.

------
hyperion2010
Reading the VAD section of the wikipedia article on golden rice [0] always
makes me angry. I would go so far as to call Greenpeace's continued political
activity evil, since averaged out over time it has contributed to the
preventable deaths of millions of children.

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice#Vitamin_A_deficien...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice#Vitamin_A_deficiency)

------
repliculture
These debates on the merits/possible side effects of GMOs often disregard an
important point. Why are companies modifying the genomes of plants? For the
big four GMO crops - corn, soybeans, cotton and canola, many of the
modifications are focused on breeding in pesticide resistant traits so that
more pesticides may be sprayed (which has environmental implications and
ultimately will fail as the organisms targeted by the pesticides become
resistant). For other crops, many of the modifications are cosmetic - e.g.
apples that don't brown after being cut. It's much rarer for crops to be
genetically modified for nutrition (as in the case of the golden rice). I
often wonder: what if all of the effort used to produce these GM crops was
focused on increasing the acreage and availability of crops that were
nutritious and finding better ways to implement non-chemical control of pests?
Of course it would me much more difficult to sell those solutions....

Just to clarify, I'm not anti- or pro-GMO, but think the other factors and
motivations deserve consideration.

------
jrkelly
If you'd like to spin up on GMO debate / tech this series is the best source
I've found: [https://grist.org/series/panic-free-
gmos/](https://grist.org/series/panic-free-gmos/)

------
bobthechef
The Nobel laureate thing is a gimmick. "Nobel laureate" has a cachet that
seems to sedate the brain. How many of these Nobel laureates have any real
authority on the subject at hand that would make their signatures particularly
meaningful?

------
Qantourisc
GMO themselves might not be bad, yet I see 3 issues: patents ; mono-culture
(so 1 disease could wipe out a lot); allergy-cross-contamination, as in: lets
introduce this peanut gene into this rice (for whatever reason).

------
adrr
There is no fundamental difference between genetic modification done in a lab
then done with selective breeding. Each relies on modification of the
underlying DNA. Selective breeding just takes longer to get the desired
results as it requires trial and error. Any result that produced by produced
with genetic modification can be produced with selective breeding if given
sufficient time. I don't understand the argument against GMO if you support
selective breeding.

~~~
dmritard96
Actually I might argue there is a difference. Going through selective breeding
means the plants/animals live long enough to reproduce and likely reproduce
sexually. Cloning + GMOs means you can make things that don't need to go
through this process but still exist and serve some purpose.

~~~
Natsu
That would seem to argue that severely deleterious effects will only persist
as long as people keep creating more of that modification and thus preventing
unwanted spread of such things.

If anything, my only real concern with GMOs relates to the IP rights and how
it could give Monsanto & co. too much control over our food supply, but that's
a legal issue, not a safety issue and it's not a good reason to oppose them
outright.

~~~
sampo
> _my only real concern with GMOs relates to the IP rights_

Also non-GMO varieties can be patented and have been patented. I see no reason
why your IP concerns should be limited to GMO varieties only.

~~~
Natsu
They are not. My concerns range for the patenting of any lifeform.

------
100ideas
Greenpeace on what GMOs are:

>"Genetic engineering enables scientists to create plants, animals and micro-
organisms by manipulating genes in a way that does not occur naturally."

The article:

> "Virtually all crops and livestock have been genetically engineered in the
> broadest sense; there are no wild cows, and the cornfields of the United
> States reflect many centuries of plant modification through traditional
> breeding."

Conclusion: 'GMO' should stand for "Generally Modified Organism"

~~~
defen
Without taking a stance either way...that argument isn't very convincing. By
that argument a car is just a really fast horse.

------
cyphunk
Read the Greenpeace response in the update shown at the end of the article.
They might be right.

------
brooklyndude
If it's GMO put a label in it. What's the big deal? The way companies try to
skirt that law is pretty mind blowing. Companies number 1 priority is
shareholder value, consumer safety is a distant 2nd place.

Take it slow, what's the rush? 40% of food now goes to wast. People seem to
forget that farmers that don't use GMO crops are probably far more conscience
about other aspects of the food chain than Monsanto, that's just common sense.

~~~
dogma1138
Let's put warnings on vaccines then? There's just as much (or lack there of)
"evidence" that vaccines cause autism as GMO's being harmful.

~~~
brooklyndude
They do. It's a big read too.

This reminds me of talks with my dentist. Me: What about mercury fillings,
could they really harm you, or is that just a bunch of BS. Dentist: That's
crazy. There is nothing wrong with mercury fillings. Nothing. Me: Would you
use them for your children? Dentist: What! Never, composites only. The science
is really not out yet on that.

An interesting talk for sure. :-)

------
matt_wulfeck
I suppose if your goal is to keep as many human beings alive as possible, then
the noble laureates are right.

However if your goal is to keep the earth alive for as long as possible then
it seems Greenpeace is right.

~~~
millerm
Could you please explain your statement "keep the earth alive"? I don't
understand what this means.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
I'm merely commenting on the Greenpeace fears. They write that the GMO crops
are untested and have the potential cross-pollinate with non-GMO crops in an
irreversible way, thereby permanently changing the local non-GMO ecosystem.

