[p2p-research] controversy: GM foods and organic agriculture

[Michel Bauwens]

Thanks Roberto, I am now convinced of the soundness of remaining anti-GMO,

Michel

On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 5:53 PM, Roberto Verzola <rverzola at gn.apc.org>wrote:

> > My point is: would it be different, if GMO where part of an
> > open commons, not part of corporate profitmaking. So if we
> > assume open and participative science, not under the control
> > of privatizing companies, would that make GMO different?
> >
> > Imagine for a moment Monsanto was not there, and GMO
> > investigations are practiced by farmer-scientists ... does
> > that change anything?
> >
> > Michel
> >
> Hi Michel,
>
> I am less sure of my answer, as far as your question is
> concerned, but here it is anyway:
>
> There are three main issues against genetic engineering today:
> - the safety issue
> - the control/ownership of life issue
> - consumer choice issue
>
> I will cover these from the last to the first.
>
> Whether GE is done by corporate monopolists, a public institution
> (as part of a commons), or by individual working in the kitchen
> or backyard lab -- they will be novel foods and therefore must
> be differentiated (through mandatory labelling, for instance)
> from natural foods that humans have coevolved with over the
> centuries. This is a consumer right issue. The burden and cost
> of this differentiation must be borne by those who introduce
> these novel foods, and not by traditional producers --
> the "polluter pays" principle.
>
> Control/ownership can be established in three major ways (often,
> they are used in combination): 1) through law, using the patent
> system in the case of most GE products; 2) through technology,
> using some form of technological locks like hybrid technology,
> or genetic-use restriction technologies (DRM in the
> life-sciences); and through financial restrictions, when the
> resources and investments required master the technology as so
> huge that only a few (corporations or governments) have the
> means to do so. Your hypothetical question may resolve one or
> two of these methods, perhaps all three, but the details remain
> to be worked out.
>
> Finally, the safety issue. Among our technology options, there
> are a few technologies that seem, at this time, to be BEYOND
> HUMAN SCALE. One example is nuclear power, which produces deadly
> radioactive wastes with half-lives in the order of thousands,
> tens of thousands or maybe even hundreds of thousands of years.
> Clearly, given the human lifetime of less than a hundred years,
> the satisfactory management of such wastes is beyond human
> scale. This is why I am against nuclear power, unless it is at
> least a hundred million kilometers away from my own backyard.
>
> I will argue that GE may, at this time, belong to this class of
> technologies which are beyond human scale, because it is next to
> impossible to control the spread of a GE virus, bacterium or
> other microorganisms, or even macro-sized living material like
> pollen, especially since these modified organisms can reproduce
> themselves, mutate and evolve.
>
> I have also, at one time or another, imagined some positive uses
> of GE. My favorite is an inedible broad-leafed indoor plant
> engineered for photolumiscent leaves, which would give off just
> enough light at night so we don't have to rely on light bulbs,
> lamps etc. Unfortunately, the potential for GE to create
> pathogens, intentionally or otherwise, is so great that I
> believe it should be seen, like nuclear technology, as beyond
> human scale, and therefore to be for the laboratory only and not
> for field release or commercial deployment. Bio-mimicry, which
> would utilize those amazing biological features (aside from
> reproduction), in non-living materials, might be a safer way to
> go (photoluminiscent wall-papers?).
>
> As a final argument, let me compare genetic engineering with
> software development. Genetic modification mimics hand-coded
> software modification, the equivalent of modifying a few lines
> of code in a million-line software system. If we can do it with
> software, we can also do it with DNA, right? But there's a huge
> difference. Most software are well-understood, well-documented,
> well-structured for modification, and are NOT SELF-MODIFYING.
> Often, if a software is not well-understood, poorly-documented,
> poorly structured (spaghetti code), or is self-modifying, it is
> better to junk the system altogether and start from scratch. Or
> if you absolutely must modify such a system, you must assume
> that you will create various side-effects ("bugs") from any
> modification. Genomes are very poorly understood at this time,
> the designer did not leave any documentation, genetic logic does
> not at all follow the usual tenets of programming for
> maintainability, and if course, they are self-modifying. Those
> of us who have actually done software maintenance can almost say
> with certainty that genetic modification will create bugs in the
> genome.
>
> While genetic engineers imagine themselves to be mimicking
> software modification, software engineers have also mimicked
> natural evolution, with better results. Genetic algorithms have
> been used in software development, and the resulting products
> are also supposedly more robust and resilient than hand-coded
> software. However, evolved software via genetic algorithms do
> not produce "clean" code, the way it is defined in software
> engineering. The resulting code is also extremely difficult to
> understand, and its logic very often not at all apparent. This is
> very important: if you want to improve software generated
> using genetic algorithms, you do not modify individual lines of
> code. Instead, you rerun the genetic algorithm. This is the
> equivalent of conventional breeding. So the experience of
> software development through genetic algorithms teaches us that
> conventional breeding is better than genetic engineering! It
> will produce fewer bugs, and is therefore safer.
>
> Greetings,
>
> Roberto
>



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