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MOBIUS
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Prifysgol Caerdydd
Dec 1999
time: 15:37
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quote:
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!
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Az
"Faith in science" is probably an oxymoron |
I disagree. All belief systems (be they religions or spiritualities) are trying to explain the world for the human mind, to make out sense out of the world.
Science is the most modern, and the most satisfying method we devised so far to explain how our world works. Its great superiority over the other systems is its adaptability, and the lack of dogmatism among real scientists.
However, there can be a "vulgar" form of science, which basically believes that science has the potential to explain everything (though this potential is unreached as of yet). Among the holders of this belief, there is no skeptisicm toward science itself (even if this belief allows for skepticism toward specific scientific results).
When you believe that a system-explaining-the-world can find the absolute truth, when you don't doubt its ability to do so, you do have faith.
On 'Poly, I know that St Leo shares this faith, and I believe Kuci does too.
I agree that the word "faith" doesn't fit the current particular situation, where Odin supports the GMO (I have no idea whether Odin is a believer in Science, or whether he admits that science itself has its limits)
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shawnmmcc
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Odin quote:
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. |
We already have genetically engineered rice with added vitamins to fight the deficiencies so prevalent in parts of the third world. They are working to develop "vaccine plants" that would take the place of some of the standard vaccines that could save tens of thousands of poor children per year.
They are already spewing poisons, and unfortunately free trade and a lack of regulations has led to many introduced, agressive weed species around the world. For example - can you say "kudzu"? The ability to spray herbicides and not lose a years crop is very nice for farmers. Also, it permits no-till systems that produce less run-off, conserves the soil, and is generally helpful.
Now, there are problems. For example, many of the herbicides and perticides that are used by American farmers today require special liscensing. The idea is to prevent these from getting into the environment. Properly done it largely works. But in the abscence of effective sanctions, some rural politician will run on "freeing small businesses and farmers from all that pesky regulation" and prevent the rules from having any teeth, i.e. penalties. That is NOT the fault of the agribusiness, but of the involved farmers, who are only a small subset of farmers in general.
The superweed problem is legit, and so is the problem of contamination of wild stocks, i.e. maize. However, those can be worked around, and the potential of biotech crops is huge. Now Monsanto's ties to the government, preventing effective regulation - that is a major problem.
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Az
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MACEDONIA - It's the name of the sovereign country to the north of Greece
Apr 2000
time: 07:37
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quote:
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.. |
witty saying etc. etc. - I thought that 'faith' was used instead of 'blind faith' or 'almost blind faith' - and 'science' was used in the form of 'findings and accomplishments of the scientific method in modern times' - Thus making it an oxymoron, because the scientific method is about getting as close to the truth as possible, but never thinking that you've undoubtably got the full picture.
quote:
I disagree. All belief systems (be they religions or spiritualities) are trying to explain the world for the human mind, to make out sense out of the world.
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The fact that all belief systems are "trying to make sense of the universe", doesn't mean that all mental constructs and/or algorithms that try to make sense of the universe are belief systems.
quote:
Science is the most modern, and the most satisfying method we devised so far to explain how our world works. Its great superiority over the other systems is its adaptability, and the lack of dogmatism among real scientists.
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"science" is nothing more than the only genuine attempt to realize the truth by looking at the world so far. Even the cruder attempts of the ancients were science, and although they didn't perfect the "algorithm" of processing reality into theory, they were also doing science.
It's like the silly "what's outside the universe" question - with the universe defined as everything, the question carries a false assumption - Just the same, science isn't "another method of attempting to make sense of the world", but the definition of attemting to make sense of the world by observing it neutrally.
Again, BY DEFINITION, If you're not trying to observe the world neutrally, You're not observing the world, but the world+ your emotions. This is where religions, and many philosophical schools of thought are separated from science - the major body of their work is words and human emotions. This is also a problem of the social sciences.
quote:
However, there can be a "vulgar" form of science, which basically believes that science has the potential to explain everything |
If anything can explain everything to us, it's only science - maybe in a different from from the questions we ask today, it's possible, but it still will be science, because looking for rules of existance in the universe neutrally is the definition of science. This is true, again, by definition, because it's scope of vision is much less self-oriented. It's looking where you need to look in order to understand the unverse - it's looking at the universe. Not at yourself.
quote:
When you believe that a system-explaining-the-world can find the absolute truth, when you don't doubt its ability to do so, you do have faith.
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This is a boring deconstructivist attempt to place science together with other "attempts to understand the truth", again, for the Nth time, because science is qualitatively different - it looks at the things it's trying to explain.
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shawnmmcc
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As I said - the weeds are a good point. So is BT - it turns out that the farmers DO NOT follow the protocols for planting it, they are a bit of a pain, and now we have maize insect pests developing resistance. We agree the problem is regulation, and sadly the environment in the US is a trifle, shall we say, inadequate (as I mentioned about Monsanto getting to write the regs due to bribery, oops, I mean access to the Bush administration. The Dems are only slightly better - as in sl*ts instead of wh*res). Feeding antibiotics to chickens for cheaper weight gain - now that qualifies as moronic.
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shawnmmcc
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Mitochondria, different types of DNA structures (bacteria versus protozoa, for example), chloroplasts, plus various other organelles in various kinds of independent, non-bacterial cells. Plus some of the weird crap out there, like ricketsia (did I spell that right after almost 30 years?), etc. I suspect Kuci is even more up to date than I am, he's been in school alot more recently.
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14-08-2005 02:52
I could of swore I rember reading about a school of post-modernist thought that said that Science is "just another belief system." 
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