45% of Americans are Morons

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Odin
GMOs will actually HELP the enviroment because farmers will not have to spray as much pesticides.

Like with those Roundup Ready™ soybeans? While what you say is claimed by those promoting GMOs, the fact is that the plats are being made to be resistant to pesticides, so that agrobiz can flood their fields with pesticides. The last thing that these companies want is to make their pesticides redundent. GMOs aren't about helping people or farmers. They are about helping big business to more money.

[Sava]

Originally posted by MOBIUS


Of course it's condescending...

Seriously, you have to be either incredibly stupid or utterly misguided to believe the whole claptrap about the world being less than 10,000 years old and the fact that god created it in six days - how totally ludicrous can you get!!?

(But at least I generally hold my tongue about people believing in God/Gods etc - people are perfectly entitled to be misguided and waste their time believing in that sort of crap as long as they don't impinge on my life.)

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Its been my experience as a scientist that for the 'common man' science and religion are the same things, i.e. belief systems. The condescending attitude by some poly-posters toward the funde's for their misguided but genuine beliefs is a symptom of those posters own ignorance.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Like with those Roundup Ready™ soybeans? While what you say is claimed by those promoting GMOs, the fact is that the plats are being made to be resistant to pesticides, so that agrobiz can flood their fields with pesticides. The last thing that these companies want is to make their pesticides redundent. GMOs aren't about helping people or farmers. They are about helping big business to more money.

So? In this case making more money is consistent with helping the environment.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Odin
Huh? I could of swore I rember reading about a school of post-modernist thought that said that Science is "just another belief system."

While there may be such a school (I have no idea), to blame all relativstism and post-modernism (including those that embrace science... ie, people argue that scientists that engage in cloning are relativists and post-modernists) for an anti-science movement is absurd.

It be like blaming the Democrat Party for Lyndon LaRouche.

[Odin]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Like with those Roundup Ready™ soybeans? While what you say is claimed by those promoting GMOs, the fact is that the plats are being made to be resistant to pesticides, so that agrobiz can flood their fields with pesticides. The last thing that these companies want is to make their pesticides redundent. GMOs aren't about helping people or farmers. They are about helping big business to more money.

Thats the fault of the capitalist system, not the concept of genetic engineering itself. Thats like saying pharmacuticals are bad and shouldn't be used just because the greed of the drug companies.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
So? In this case making more money is consistent with helping the environment.

No, it isn't. It allows the agrobiz companies to dump more pesticides without having to worry about harming the crops. Did you even read?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Odin
Thats the fault of the capitalist system, not the concept of genetic engineering itself. Thats like saying pharmacuticals are bad and shouldn't be used just because the greed of the drug companies.

The fact that GMOs have the potential to cause less damage to the enviroment is a far cry from what you oroginally wrote. The fact is, GMOs will be another weapon in the hands of agrobiz to further consolidate their hold over agriculture. That is their purpose, not feeding the world or helping prevent blindness or all the other BS that the GM companies like Monsanto peddle.

GMOs also reduce genetic diversity, thus increasing the possibility of losing whole crops when the right disease comes along.

[Alexander's Horse]

Spencer is right - the condescending attitude of the left and the educated is part of the reason the heartland votes for Bush and says things like they believe in creationism. They're giving us the bird.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Its been my experience as a scientist that for the 'common man' science and religion are the same things, i.e. belief systems. The condescending attitude by some poly-posters toward the funde's for their misguided but genuine beliefs is a symptom of those posters own ignorance.

(and this comes from an atheist)

[Az]

Its been my experience as a scientist that for the 'common man' science and religion are the same things, i.e. belief systems.

Perhaps, but it's a sad reflection on our education system, not on the scientific method.

The condescending attitude by some poly-posters toward the funde's for their misguided but genuine beliefs is a symptom of those posters own ignorance.

How so? I am hardly ignorant of religionists' and creationists' beliefs, since I was part of that system in my childhood - but even then I rapidly realized they were spewing incoherent garbage, backed by "if you ask inappropriate questions you are not a true believer" cover-your-ass taboos, keeping the "theologists are crippled philosophers" paradigm well alive. When I see the more recent innovations of creationists and religionists, I clearly recognize the same crap, rebranded.

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

No, it isn't. It allows the agrobiz companies to dump more pesticides without having to worry about harming the crops. Did you even read?

No, he's blinded by his faith in science, which just as dangerous as religion if not more so if not properly kept in check...

Statements like that merely expose the poster's extreme ignorance of the subject or a willful disregard for the checks and balances that must be in place when one tampers with nature in an unnatural way.

Personally I have no problems with the concept of GM as such - but what I do have a problem with is the fact that it is being championed by extremely profit driven companies with a track record of dubious ethics that have a dangerous amount of leverage with govts around the world (e.g. Monsanto - US Govt).

As Che points out, many of the latest trials concern giving crop plants pesticide resistance so growers can effectively nuke their land with poisons and still grow a healthy crop.

There are any number of problems relating to this, such as actual weeds potentially gaining pesticide resistance thru cross fertilisation - if you thought weeds were bad, imagine one that you can't kill with weedkiller!

Chemical runoff from the fields. Where does that poisonous **** go after it's done its job? One of the biggest pollution contributors to rivers, lakes, seas, oceans etc is agricultural runoff.

That's not to mention lost of wildlife through monoculture, patents issues, poisons etc entering the human food chain etc, etc...

The point is that whenever the GM companies say a certain negative effect is impossible, it usually has an unfortunate habit of 'cropping up' soon after the 'spaced out hippy luddite' in question raised the concern.

I just don't think that many of our GM related research is safe enough given the fact that it is so profit driven in the 1st place...

This needs a thread of its own!

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Az
I am hardly ignorant of religionists' and creationists' beliefs, since I was part of that system in my childhood - but even then I rapidly realized they were spewing incoherent garbage, backed by "if you ask inappropriate questions you are not a true believer" cover-your-ass taboos, keeping the "theologists are crippled philosophers" paradigm well alive. When I see the more recent innovations of creationists and religionists, I clearly recognize the same crap, rebranded.

Does that mean you are in favour of the settlers in Gaza and the West Bank being kicked out because it is basically their religion that has them living there in the 1st place?

[Az]

No, he's blinded by his faith in science, which just as dangerous as religion if not more so if not properly kept in check...

"Faith in science" is probably an oxymoron, and doesn't fit this, anyway.

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Az

No, he's blinded by his faith in science, which just as dangerous as religion if not more so if not properly kept in check...

"Faith in science" is probably an oxymoron, and doesn't fit this, anyway.

Really that depends on how much of a pedant you want to be doesn't it...

The definition of faith encompasses but is not exclusive to:

# loyalty or allegiance to a cause or a person
# complete confidence in a person or plan etc

The fact that you have sought to argue against its use when talking about science in a thread about religion shows why it is the correct word to use in the first place...

I think it is true to say that many people out there are just as zealous about their science as many people are about their religion.