From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed May 01 2002 - 12:08:16 MDT
Hal Finney wrote:
>
> It's your group so you can do what you want, but...
>
> ...I don't see why, of all the threats facing us in the world today,
> organic foods are high on the list! Why beat up on people who just want
> to eat healthy?
The 'organics' industry is the core of unscientific luddism. The claim
that 'organic' food is any healthier than other food of the same species
and breed is entirely unsupported by scientific evidence. The industry
is at the core of using anti-technology scare tactics to boost the
perceived value of its products to the consumer, and organic farmers are
the grassroots of support for luddite terrorists, providing an
underground railroad for transportation, shelter and off-books
employment of individuals engaged in luddite terrorism.
>
> And I don't think the argument you are implicitly making is valid.
> Specifically you are saying, in effect, that modern genetic engineering
> is not fundamentally different from the techniques of hybridization and
> cross-breeding used in the past. But the obvious difference is that
> modern techniques have increased the scope of possible genetic mixings
> by many orders of magnitude.
Orders of magnitude are irrelevant. Bacteria and virii are known to
trade DNA with their victims and each other, which is a primary
contributor to evolution and genetic drift. Hybridization is a man-made
technique for speeding up the process, and gene splicing in the
laboratory is similarly simply skipping millions of years of
evolutionary time. Hybridization is a technology for altering the
genetic makeup of a breed of organism. As a technology, it is
non-natural and non-"organic". Therefore, true "organic" farmers should
not use any domesticated plants or animals, they should only use the
most wild varieties.
>
> In the past you might be able to cross one grass with another. Now,
> you can cross that grass with a legume, or a tree, or a bacterium, or
> for that matter with a human being. A technology with such an expanded
> scope is really a totally different technology.
>
> Oh, well, as I said you can do what you want...
Corn was entirely created by interbreeding several different plant
species, starting with a Teosinte plant which is markedly different from
its modern relative. As such, it is an entirely non-"organic" species.
Modern cattle and sheep are similarly highly modified from several
closely related interbred species.
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