It's easy to consider those that have different perspectives as plain disinformed, stupid, "uneducated" or anything along those lines but I would request you to be careful with that judgement. There are plenty of informed people who disagree with GMO for various reasons.
I'm open too but careful regarding GMO. It's clear the agricultural practices used in the US and China and in particular by the corporate giants are totally unsustainable and exploitative, often catching farmers in unexpected dependencies to buy new seeds or fertilizer/insecticide products each year. Not to speak of the monoculture, the negative impact on overall flora and fauna, etc. Often.the GMO crops are rather sensitive to specific conditions, leading to more such monocultures and the adaptation of agricultural lands to their specific cultivation (eliminating everything else in the process).
As much as you like to think you're scientific, science should be careful and jumping on every new plant that comes from a lab (no matter how promising) is not scientific but rather each plant should be field tested for several generations. Elwr don't understand genetics well. It's simply a lie to think we know the effects - we don't know what inserting genes from one plant into another does in the long term. Specifically, CRISPR & co are very imprecise and pretty much a matter of lucky shots, i.e. they normally insert much more than the intended genes. Moreover natural processes continue, so you get those plants pollinating other non-GMO strains. It's not like a website you can shut off - you introduce something into the environment and there's no way back.
See e.g. insect apocalypse and the nightmares Monsanto and it's likes have brought to smallholder farmers across the globe (promised big harvests but the seeds are castrated so that the farmers have to buy new ones each year), or the patent (!) lawsuits against farmers that have fields adjacent to GMO crops.
I would consider myself pro GMO, but only under the right conditions. There are plenty of other ways forward than just GMO - and we should try and use each path with care, not bet just on what is easiest. Moving away from the monocultures that caused these issues to begin with - rather than to go all in on mass-monoculture of new GMO crops - is a better way forward.
I'm open too but careful regarding GMO. It's clear the agricultural practices used in the US and China and in particular by the corporate giants are totally unsustainable and exploitative, often catching farmers in unexpected dependencies to buy new seeds or fertilizer/insecticide products each year. Not to speak of the monoculture, the negative impact on overall flora and fauna, etc. Often.the GMO crops are rather sensitive to specific conditions, leading to more such monocultures and the adaptation of agricultural lands to their specific cultivation (eliminating everything else in the process).
As much as you like to think you're scientific, science should be careful and jumping on every new plant that comes from a lab (no matter how promising) is not scientific but rather each plant should be field tested for several generations. Elwr don't understand genetics well. It's simply a lie to think we know the effects - we don't know what inserting genes from one plant into another does in the long term. Specifically, CRISPR & co are very imprecise and pretty much a matter of lucky shots, i.e. they normally insert much more than the intended genes. Moreover natural processes continue, so you get those plants pollinating other non-GMO strains. It's not like a website you can shut off - you introduce something into the environment and there's no way back.
See e.g. insect apocalypse and the nightmares Monsanto and it's likes have brought to smallholder farmers across the globe (promised big harvests but the seeds are castrated so that the farmers have to buy new ones each year), or the patent (!) lawsuits against farmers that have fields adjacent to GMO crops.
I would consider myself pro GMO, but only under the right conditions. There are plenty of other ways forward than just GMO - and we should try and use each path with care, not bet just on what is easiest. Moving away from the monocultures that caused these issues to begin with - rather than to go all in on mass-monoculture of new GMO crops - is a better way forward.