"Genetically engineered products are an abomination of God's creation"

[LTX]

". . . God created every species and intended them to reproduce after their own kind. Genesis 1:11-12 says so:

And God said, Let the earth put forth [tender] vegetation: plants yielding seed and fruit trees yielding fruit whose seed is in itself, each according to its kind, upon the earth. And it was so.

The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed according to their own kinds and trees bearing fruit in which was their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good (suitable, admirable) and He approved it.

Mankind can not play God by genetically modifying seeds without some form of repercussions. It is common knowledge that genetically modified seeds are not good for us. The well known Dr. Mercola has reported on his website that a Russian study has linked cancer to genetically modified potatoes.

By cross transplanting genes mankind is creating variants of organisms that God never intended to exist. It is a sick and twisted corruption of life. In Leviticus 19:19 it specifically states not to let domestic livestock with other kinds of livestock. Therefore it is obvious that mixing genes at a genetic level is also something that should not be done.

You shall keep My statutes. You shall not let your domestic livestock breed with a different kind [of animal]; you shall not sow your field with mixed seed, neither wear a garment of linen mixed with wool.

Furthermore the word of God states in Deuteronomy 22 -11 that fields should not be sown with diverse seeds. Another obvious no-no would be to use seeds that have been genetically engineered!

Thou shall not sow thy vineyard with diverse seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou has sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard be defiled. Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. Thou shalt not wear a garment of diverse sorts, as of woollen and linen together.

If you observe in the last verse, if a field was plowed with an ox and an ass it was a direct violation of God's laws. If the bible is that specific on this subject can we expect to violate God's laws and not reap the consequences? If a field was planted with various mixed seeds, it too was a defilement and violation of God’s law.

Since God's law is adamant about not mixing what we plant, how we plow, or in the clothes we wear how do you think he views gene splicing? When DNA is taken from one organism and put into another it can be considered a defilement in God's eyes.

May God have mercy on us for forsaking his word and not obeying that which he has told us. While we are living in the age of grace, that does not mean that God's law does not give us good guidance to live by."


http://www.examiner.com/article/genetically-engineered-products-are-an-abomination-of-god-s-creation

___________________________________________________________________


Creationism and the anti-GMO movement are, as aptly evidenced by the above, joined at the hip.

[hobbit709]

1. Some of us don't believe in the heat induced hallucinations of itinerant sheepherders.

[JayhawkSD]

11. :-)

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Thbpt.

If you're a 'true believer', then you have to believe God also gave mankind the intelligence and the curiosity to learn genetic engineering, and thus that what is done is 'God's Will'. Plus, as you note, even people who consider themselves 'creationists' already tend to ignore Biblical scripture on 'mixing what we plant, how we plow, or the clothes we wear'.

The reality is that the Bible is a conflicting mass of writings that can be twisted around in debate to support about any position you care to hold, on any topic.

So no, Creationism and the anti-GMO movement are not 'joined at the hip', no matter what one particular person wrote somewhere.

Nice attempt at 'guilt by association', though.

[LTX]

3. The plethora of posts here about

"taking genes from one species and infecting another species with them" reflect creationist thinking by any definition. They betray an unabashed belief that there exist "flounder genes" and "tomato genes," etc., and that mixing of genes unique to severable "kinds" (what is fairly clearly meant when the word "species" is invoked) is antithetical to "nature." These iterations of anti-GMO thinking reflect a deep misunderstanding of genetics, evolution, and speciation, a misunderstanding that effectively mirrors the misunderstandings of creationism.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. Some people might think of it that way. You obviously do.

I don't give a rats about what 'antithetical to nature'. What I care about is actually understanding all of the consequences of what we do before we start doing it everywhere. Mankind has a pitiful track record there. We've got anthropogenic climate change because we have an energy policy that was created before we actually understood the consequences of our actions. We've had decades of cancer because we didn't understand how tobacco affected our bodies. Ditto asbestos. Ditto x-rays, which used to be used in shoe stores for all that may or may not be holy. Mankind simply has an enormous track record of jumping into the deep end before we actually know what we're doing and how it will play out, and then having to spend far more time trying to fix the problems we created for ourselves.

The biosciences are still in their infancy, and we simply don't even know what we need to test for in many ways. A good parallel might be colony collapse disorder in bees, where all sorts of tests seemed to show that various toxins weren't the culprits, because you couldn't even find them in measurable quantities in the dead and dying bees. It took years to find out said toxins might actually be causing birth defects in larvae that left them vulnerable to parasitic mites. And we still don't actually know for sure. But the possibility is there, despite all the past testing that seemed to indicate the toxins were 'safe' and not to blame.

It doesn't matter where the genes come from. What actually matters is how they interact with the extremely complex systems of humans. And we just don't have enough data yet, because we still don't even understand everything about our own bodies.

[bemildred]

9. +1. nt

[LTX]

10. Do you apply this same reasoning to

the unregulated health-supplement bazzar at Whole Foods , to vaccinations, or to the myriad of legitimate applied sciences that have made human life longer and healthier? Or is this ostensiby prudent "caution" unique to GMOs?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

13. Various of them, yes.

I think we've got a fairly good body of evidence spanning many decades at this point for vaccination safety. There might be specific vaccines that have unexpected problems, just as various prescription drugs turn out to have. But vaccines in general have an enormous body of proof to show that they're far better than being unvaccinated.

I don't do 'health supplements', and personally try to avoid any medication that hasn't likewise been tested for a couple of generations on other people to develop plenty of evidence as to potential dangers. I'm not an 'early adopter' when it comes to risking my health.

So you want to gorge on GM foods? More power to you, be my guinea pig. But I want to know what is and isn't GM so I can avoid it til I feel that enough testing has been done to satisfy my personal risk-reward calculation.

[LTX]

16. But of course, you eat genetically modified foods

every day. Unless you have a paleolithic garden and livestock ranch in Flintstone-ville.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

17. Troll, troll, troll your boat, gently down the stream...

As a matter of fact, I do plant heritage varietals of plants in my garden, although I wouldn't refer to them as paleolithic. Most are have only been under cultivation for a hundred or more years.

But let's get to the heart of it. You simply can't stand that people disagree with your stances on GM, and don't care WHY they don't. You feel that they should only base their decisions on the things that are important to you, not what's important to them.

Hell, if I didn't want to ever eat foods whose names (in english) began with the letter R, that would be perfectly legitimate, no matter what my reasoning. People who are vegan, vegetarian, only eat Kosher or Halal... They would be 'illegitimate' food consumers in your eyes, because the reasons on which they based their decisions of what to eat are not the same reasons you want to proclaim they should be happy to eat whatever foods you think they should be willing to eat, and that there really is no real reason to label foods to prevent them from eating anything they don't want to.

I'm not trying to force you to eat the foods I want to eat, so why do you so fervently wish to make it impossible for me to choose the foods I want to eat for myself? I don't even ask for bans on GM, just labeling so I can make my own free market choices. People who oppose labeling are simply anti-free market. They don't want consumers to have the options to choose, but want to protect megacorporations' rights to get rich marketing GM seed and the pesticides that go along with them.

[HuckleB]

19. You are trying to force government mandates based on your preferences, not on the science.

That's lame, to be kind.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

21. We have all sorts of labeling that is not based on science.

Should it all be removed?

What is lame is protectionism for agribusiness and pesticide profits.

[HuckleB]

22. Name these labels.

I'm not protecting anyone. I am pro-science, and I am not going to work for some corporations in their attempt to use the government to scare people so that they can more money for a supposedly safer product, even though the evidence base does not support the fear. Why do you?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

23. Why do I what? Want labels?

So that I personally can avoid being a guinea pig for foods I consider insufficiently tested.

I'm pro-science too. That's why 5 of my 6 college degrees are in the sciences. It's why I have a few articles in peer-reviewed journals, back before I went into computers.

And I've learned enough about the human body to know we don't know enough yet to fully understand the possible results of what GMO may yet be, because we don't know every mechanism of action in the body, every metabolic pathway, every little kink of how even folding can change protein expression.

So because I'm pro-science, I want more studies to be done. I don't just throw up my hands and say 'Everything is safe! We've done all the studies we need to do! A decade of studies have 'proven' all is well!'

And heck, I'm not even asking for GM foods to be labeled. I'll be happy just with the ability of people to simply label GM-free foods GM-free, and let the free market decides whose foods are bought, and whose aren't.

[HuckleB]

25. Thanks for you usual mindless anti-GMO cliches.

You have not learned enough to understand the matter. You have simply bought into fear mongering.

No type of plant has been researched more, and is more predictable from the outset.

It really would make sense for you to realize that you are ignoring the majority of the evidence base.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

29. My 'usual', eh?

So I'm consistent, at least.

What exactly are your qualifications in the field?

Have you taken even a single pathophysiology course? A single microbiology course? Anything in the biosciences at all?

Or are you lecturing based upon your vast knowledge of the pro-GMO websites?

[HuckleB]

34. "Pro-GMO websites?"

You mean the actual science of the matter as found in the peer-reviewed literature?

My qualification are well beyond yours, but I don't play that logical fallacy. You either support your claims or you don't. You've never supported your claims. I have.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

37. My claims were

that we likely don't know enough yet to know how to test for all possible problems. I fail to see how I can provide support for that except to say 'wait and see'. It's like you're asking me to prove a negative.

I provided a number of examples of where science didn't catch up with the dangers of products until they'd been in use for decades. But until science DID catch up, there was no 'proof' for anyone to provide.

So I'm saying GMO might well turn out to be like so many other things in human history. Released into the public before we actually understood every nuance.

Your support for your claims has been papers that showed 'the specific things for which we tested did not display any harm'.

[HuckleB]

42. Under that justification, we should be "waiting and seeing" for every type of hybrid available.

We're not. GMOs are actually more predictable, and no other hybrid type has anywhere near the amount of research done on it.

Thus, the focus on GMOs seems really off base.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

24. Oh, and I named those labels in the comment above.

Foods are allowed to be labeled vegan, vegetarian, halal, kosher. None of those is required by 'science'. They're labeled because people want to know that what they're eating fits their preferences.

[HuckleB]

26. So you can't name any actual labels mandated without a scientific basis.

Got it.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

27. HUh?

What is the 'scientific basis' of halal or kosher?

Those are RELIGIOUSly based labels. There is no scientific difference between a cow slaughtered by having its throat cut versus having a bolt into its forehead.

[HuckleB]

28. Those are voluntary labels by manufacturers.

Sheesh.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

30. So exactly what is wrong with voluntary GMO-free labeling?

Other than the fact that your preferred GM-using manufacturers wouldn't be able to honestly put such labels on their products?

[bemildred]

31. You are wasting your time, however, if you want to know about food labels:

http://www.fda.gov/food/guidanceregulation/guidancedocumentsregulatoryinformation/labelingnutrition/ucm2006828.htm

[HuckleB]

33. And what does that have to do with the promotion of government mandated labels for GMOs?

[bemildred]

36. You got me. nt

[HuckleB]

32. I've never said anything is wrong with voluntary labels.

Using the government to force mandatory labels is the problem. Please respond to the actual content of my posts.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

35. Well, wait then, we may have just come to something we agree on.

I'll be happy with voluntary labelling, and you maybe don't have anything against it? I don't need mandatory labeling, just a lack of opposition to voluntary labelling. If so, that sounds like the compromise that works for both of us?

I assumed you were against any such labelling, since in similar situations with milk, the people who used bovine growth hormone fought tooth and nail to prevent voluntary labeling of BGH-free milk.

[HuckleB]

41. I have nothing against voluntary labels, as long as they're accurate.

Inaccurate labels have been in the news regarding the misused term "natural" lately. Saying something is non-GMO seems pretty cut and dry, so I don't see how that would be a problem, sans corporate malfeasance. Same BGH free milk.

Of course, I've also learned that going with the organic isn't very smart. It's no safer, and no healthier, and so I've stopped the practice generally. One exception to that is the purchase of organic milk. Oddly, it's not the organic part that makes it healthier, but the type of food organic cows tend to eat compared to conventional milk cows. Blah. Blah. Blah.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

43. I actually don't do milk much at all.

I stopped eating cereal a decade or two back, and that was really about the only place I ever used it much.

My organic comes from my back yard, since I came to realize how much tastier various heritage varietal crops were than the usual monoculture modern versions we get in stores, and I've got pets, so I don't want them licking chemicals off their feet. They get enough of that with their habit of licking the flame-retardant furniture.

[HuckleB]

45. I don't drink milk either, but my kid does.

I grow a great deal of vegetables, for a good nine months of the year. I don't even bother with the supposed "natural" stuff, which isn't necessarily safer, regardless of the claims. I just pull weeds, let off a few lady bugs, and cut fungus back. Do so might cut back on my production, but I'm not trying to feed the world.

PS: If you're on facebook, check out this group. Lots of great, constructive discussion on food and farming, with many farmers included in the discussions:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/FAFDL/

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

51. Do you can?

We lay down ever more black raspberry jam, and just started adding strawberry jam to our canning period as well. The slugs end up getting about a third of the strawberries, but that's still leaving us with about 50 jars a harvest of each type of jam.

The black raspberry is a good producer, especially given that the initial seeds were from wild canes I found growing out in the woods.

Sadly, I'm not on facebook, I know enough of my own foibles to know that if I got sucked into that, I'd never get anything done offline.

I've been trying to figure out how climate change is shifting my zone. I actually got a halfway decent crop of schronce's blackskin peanuts last year, and SW Ohio is not your typical peanut area. But the brutal winter aced about half of my garlic crop, killing everything in the raised bed, and about a third of those directly in the ground. My latest experimentation has been with hugelkultur. We had sheer winds take down a cherry tree a decade or so back, and I kept all the wood. We'd been using it for firewood, but a lot of it got exposed and started to get fungused up, so I buried it, and it's decomposing nicely back into the soil. Mustard grew very well on it, but the tomatoes I tried on that mound were pretty stunted. The funky weather this spring also meant that neither of my cherry trees bloomed this year, and only one of the two apples, and I'm not even seeing any swelling buds on that one yet. So no cherries and very few if any apples this year. I'm going to try and get more of the mulberries in this year, and not just eat them all right off the tree.

[HuckleB]

55. I have not quite been that motivated.

I did make a great deal of tomato based sauce last fall and froze it. And we also freeze blueberries for the winter. So, good on you! I wish I had the gumption. It's funny, I worked hard to get rid of our blackberries when I first moved into the house in the last century. I dug a serious ditch digging it out. The backyard has become a bit of a jungle the last couple years, as I can only grow food in the front yard, with all the shade back there. There are blackberries coming back. I think I'm going to enjoy the fruit, at least this year.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what happens with the weather. I'm in western Oregon, so we do get a long growing season. Most years, my annual flowers come back the next year. Our winter was nothing like you folks dealt with this year, but it was colder than it's been in five years, and I'm kind of bummed I have to replant things I'm supposed to replant every year.

OTH, while I can grow beans, peas, herbs, corn, and greens like there's no tomorrow, every summer is a bit of a crapshoot in terms of whether we'll get enough heat to get a good crop of tomatoes and peppers. I've learned to grow several plants of small tomatoes, and small "frying peppers," so I know we'll always get a bunch of those tasty dudes, at the very least.

Interesting that those trees didn't bloom. Does that simply mean one year with no production, or something worse?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

56. One data point.

We'll just have to wait and see if it becomes a trend. I think it resulted from a whipsaw of temp changes the week before/into the start of bloom onset, but I'm not sure. If that turns out to be the case, it would make it a total crapshoot on a year to year basis. First thing would be to see if I can't get more specific data on cherries, and black lapins in particular from one of the agricultural extension offices. I know I've had brown rot issues in the past, but we didn't even get to that point this year.

I actually tried a new variety of corn last year (not to eat, of course, given my biases, but as an ornamental) - 'glass gem'. But it turns out the local wildlife liked it very much, and both plantings I tried got totally destroyed by hungry somethings. I also need to read up on temperature effects on chlorophyll energy production. I saw something in passing that suggested that really high temps inhibit the cycle, and wanted to see if there were specific plants I shouldn't even bother with given that we're starting to see weeks-long hundred+ temps midsummer.

[HuckleB]

57. Yup. The majority of my corn does become squirrel and raccoon food.

The first year I grew it, I was gone backpacking when the corn was coming on. My neighbor said he enjoyed watching the wildlife show. Later, he gave us a few cobs to grill up. It is funny, we do it on the cob slathered in butter three or four times a year, and my wife makes a mean corn risotto, but, otherwise, we don't eat much corn, though I can't say it's a purposeful choice. I mean, not completely, I know it doesn't hold a serious swath of nutrients, but I think I've also become a green fan.

Of course, my mother can't believe how many veggies I eat as an adult. She still doesn't understand that I never hated veggies. I just hated canned veggies.

Oh, the boy asked for corn in burritos a few times in pre-school. About the third time, we figured out that he just wanted to see how many kernels he could see in his bowel movement. Kids are entertaining.

[LTX]

38. I don't care what you choose to eat. But you are advocating a position

that attempts to outlaw (or at the least regulate into unavailability) what others choose to eat. And you are doing so on the alleged basis that the "genes" in those foods have been improperly manipulated.

Yet curiously, you don't offer any rational distinction between "proper" and "improper" gene manipulation, and you assiduously avoid the fact of your own consumption of radically modified foods.

Instead, you offer only the rather bizarre notion that the foods you choose to eat "have only been under cultivation for a hundred or more years." Are you joking with that? Do you think wheat was genetically unchanged from its moment of speciation to 1914?

For crying out loud, where do you think contemporary bananas (perhaps the most singularly, genetically manipulated concoction we have yet to create) came from? Hell, they aren't even really classifiable. Or the beef, chicken, pork, tomatoes, wheat, squash, apples, pears, peaches, etc. etc. that you regularly consume? Did they come into their current iteration in the last hundred years (or did you intend that "hundred or more years" to be an escape clause that lets you push back genetic modifications by 5, 50, or 500 thousand years, give or take)? We (and nature itself) have been radically altering the genetic makeup of every damn thing we put in our mouths for thousands of years. But I suppose the horizontal gene transfer in GMOs are just too darn overt and sciencey to accept, as opposed to the horizontal gene transfer that you otherwise accept without questioning because, well, to put it bluntly, you don't know anything about it.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

40. Actually, my position is that

I want people who do not use GM in their products to be able to voluntarily label those products as GM-free, and for people who do use GM in their products not to be able to label their products as such.

There's no 'outlawing' there. No 'regulating into unavailabilty'. Simply the free market at work.

[LTX]

44. So how, exactly, do we label bananas? n/t

[HuckleB]

46. Why "Gluten Free," of course!

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

47. Hah.

A good example of where later science appears to have disproved earlier science.

Thankfully, I don't have celiac disease, so I never really cared about gluten.

[HuckleB]

49. And poor, overly dramatic science reporting.

Unfortunately, scientists are humans, too, and they can get sucked up into the press, even when they're findings are very preliminary, as they were with the gluten sensitivity stuff. I have to give the scientist credit for following up with other research, and admitting he was wrong. I certainly hope he divested himself of any companies that have used the craze to increase profits.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

52. Yup.

The best thing ever to do when you see science reported in the news is to go back and read the source. Seems like most of the time, journalists go off on crazy tangents or have really weird interpretations of what the research 'means'.

[HuckleB]

54. Exactly.

And they report every "latest study," no matter how small or preliminary as the be all, end all. They never bother to inform the public that scientists are looking at the preponderance of evidence based on all the studies on said topic. Of course, it would be nice if we taught that to people, too!

[LTX]

48. Or maybe, "genetically modified in the extreme,

but not by anybody you know."

[roody]

4. LOL

[bemildred]

5. There is more to this thinking business than just slapping a couple ideas together. nt

[LTX]

7. Indeed. A lesson often lost

on many in the anti-GMO movement.

[bemildred]

8. Fat chance of that, right? nt

[JayhawkSD]

12. I'm inclined to dislike genetic modification which...

...protects monopolies. I'm not certain of details, but there are seeds that are genetically modified to resist pests, I believe, and then the maker prohibits saving part of the crop to be used as seeds for following years. Doing that for a year or so might make sense to recover the cost of breeding the pest resistence, but then they prohibit the use as seed pretty much forever. Maybe someone who knows more about it than I do can fill us in.

As far as genetic modification being unsafe to eat... I seriously dount it.

[HuckleB]

58. Seed companies have not allowed seed saving for 50 years.

It has nothing to do with GMOs. GMO/GE is simply one of many technologies used to create hybrid plants for various reasons. It is the most studied technology, and the most predictable, yet Internet fear mongering is obsessed with it. Oddly, that fear mongering focuses on one specific company that puts out a single digit percentage of GMOs. Something is very, very wrong with the anti-GMO movement. The anti-GMO pages are now becoming famous for also pushing anti-fluoridation, anti-vaccine, pro altmed nonsense, and even goofier conspiracies like chemtrails.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. Who knew that the EU was controlled by "creationists"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies#European_Union

European Union
See also: Regulation of the release of genetic modified organisms § Europe

Genetic modification has been the subject of international trade disputes, one of which arose between the United States and Europe in the early 2000s. Until the 1990s, Europe's regulation was less strict than in the U.S.[422] In 1998, however, the use of MON810, a Bt expressing maize conferring resistance to the European corn borer, was approved for commercial cultivation in Europe. Moreover, in the 1990s a series of unrelated food crises created consumer apprehension about food safety in general and eroded public trust in government oversight of the food industry - most importantly, the infection of cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy and the mishandling of food safety by European authorities.[423] In 1998, a de facto moratorium led to the suspension of approvals of new genetically modified organisms (GMO) in the European Union pending the adoption of revised rules to govern the approval, marketing and labelling of biotech products.

The approval of genetically modified crops in the United States in the mid-1990s precipitated strong public concern in Europe and led to a dramatic decrease in American exports to Europe. "Prior to 1997, corn exports to Europe represented about 4% of total U.S. corn exports, generating about $300 million in sales. Starting in 1997, however, the U.S. largely stopped shipping bulk commodity corn to the EU because such shipments typically commingled corn from many farms, including genetically modified varieties not approved by the EU. The change was dramatic. For example, before 1997, the U.S. sold about 1.75 million tons of corn annually to Spain and Portugal, the two largest importers of U.S. corn in the EU. But in the 1998–99 crop year, Spain bought less than a tenth of the previous year’s amount and Portugal bought none at all."[423]

In May 2003, the United States and twelve other countries filed a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization that the European Union was violating international trade agreements, in blocking imports of U.S. farm products through its long-standing ban on genetically modified food. The countries argued that the EU's regulatory process was far too slow and its standards were unreasonable given the overwhelming body of scientific evidence showing that the crops were safe. The case was also lobbied by U.S. biotechnology giant Monsanto and France's Aventis, as well as by US agricultural groups such as the National Corn Growers Association. In response, in June 2003, the European Parliament ratified a U.N. biosafety protocol regulating international trade in genetically modified food, and in July agreed to new regulations requiring labeling and traceability, as well as an opt-out provision for individual countries. Afterward, the approval of new genetically modified organisms began again in May 2004. While a number of other GMOs have been approved since then, approvals remain controversial and various countries have utilized the opt-out provisions. In 2006, the World Trade Organization ruled that the pre-2004 restrictions had been violations,[424][425] although the ruling had little immediate effect since the moratorium had already been lifted.

In late 2007, the U.S. ambassador to France recommended "moving to retaliation" to cause "some pain" against France and the European Union in an attempt to fight the French ban and changes in European policy toward genetically modified crops, according to a U.S. government diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks.[426][427]

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

18. Don't forget China and Russia.

Both of which have rejected GMO in various ways.

Apparently the only non-creationists around work for Monsanto. Whoda thunk?

[HuckleB]

20. It's certainly not controlled by those who care about the science of the matter.

A Decade of EU Funded GMO Research
http://ec.europa.eu/research/biosociety/pdf/a_decade_of_eu-funded_gmo_research.pdf

[GeorgeGist]

15. Abracadabra

[MisterP]

39. and by that logic pro-GM is all Hooveroids

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Henry_I._Miller
http://fooddemocracynow.org/blog/2012/oct/15/no_on_37_spokesman_has_extreme_views/

[jmowreader]

50. Deuteronomy 22.11 doesn't mean what you think it does

Christianity is the youngest of the major world religions. The first Christians were basically forced into it, often at the tip of a sword. They'd go to Christian church in the morning and practice the rituals their conquerors demanded, then go home and pray to the gods they'd always prayed to. This had to be stopped if Christianity was to become the dominant religion, so passages telling people not to "mix" things were inserted into the Bible. (The early Christian leaders also liked co-opting the traditions of other religions, which is why Pagans gave each other decorated eggs to celebrate fertility and Christians give each other eggs decorated the same way to celebrate the risen Savior. Same egg, different message.)

Anyone who's ever set a vegetable garden knows better than to follow the "do not sow a field with two types of seed" directive; if you want peas, beans, tomatoes, spinach and corn from your garden, you are "sowing a field with two (well, five) types of seed" if you don't own five fields. Anyone who owns a suit has a garment woven from two different fibers; extremely rare is the suit jacket lined in wool. And if you need to plow a field and all you've got is an ox and an ass, you move the pivot point a few inches in the ox's direction to give the ass a mechanical advantage, and hook 'em up.

[LTX]

53. Right. And properly directed to ... ?