GMOs: Safe?

[Braixen]

Yes unfortunately scientists are notoriously bad at communicating research to the general public and it is not well taught in schools, so there is this fear and uncertainty surrounding a lot of science which really holds us back as a society. You can't blame people for being cautious, but we really need to get better at teaching the general public more about it.

I find it interesting that you think scientists don't like to communicate. Science itself is a public idea, it should not be privatized. The scientific method itself relies on communicating to others in order to ensure science is operating at its maximum potential and people are debating, discussing, and trying to find ways to give evidence for or against what others are presenting. I can imagine that, in context to this discussion on GMOs, you believe that the public isn't being given enough information on GMO research? I can understand that for sure! GMOs are mostly a corporate venture, so inherently the science related to them is hushed up a bit when money is involved. To me this really isn't the scientists failing to communicate, but being unable to communicate based on their employers and where their funding comes from.

This leads me to my thoughts on GMOs. When money is involved then research is delegated as opposed to being universal! This means that GMO scientists take a reductionist approach, they attempt to "fix a crop" (maybe make them disease tolerant, or temperature tolerant) but they don't look at the "big picture" or take a holistic approach with other scientists. This means that they do well in integrating the GMO aspect and improving the plant in a agricultural view BUT they mess up other areas. They may fail to ensure the rest of the environment is safe. For example in isolated areas (such as islands) where fruits are grown farmers cannot consider their crops GMO free if GMO crops are spreading their pollen in close proximity. This means their fruits are "infected" with the GMO genetics. Unless GMO crops are severely isolated then this will occur! You can always make it so the plant aborts seed production early on to make the seeds unable to produce offspring but there are a ton other factors to replace this issue with to make GMOs a bit worrisome. You cannot control everything in your environment and GMOs need to rely on very very careful work that is almost impossible to isolate completely, especially when the science doesn't have access to other experts as easily due to the nature of GMOs as a business.

GMOs are not natural and have the capability to knock out other species of plants or cultivars. There's a lot of potential but it's dangerous in my opinion. GMOs also represent moving forward with massive crops, factory farming, etc. We need to be moving away from that and going to a more local food source as much as possible - although it's impossible to revert everything back. There will always be people wanting their "fresh bananas" everyday regardless of their location in the world. Myself included.
@Corey
There's actually a true difference between selective breeding and GMOs! A GMO has genetic information from one organism inserted into another organism artificially. Selective breeding with crops to produce bigger yields, or breeding dogs to produce specific characteristics is not the same as a GMO. For example one attempt at a GMO involved a gene from a freeze tolerant fish being inserted into a tomatoes to make it more freeze tolerant! This GMO failed but you can see how this genetic insert would be impossible without human hands. I think you understand this based on your post but because organisms have selective breeding that doesn't make them a GMO crop/organism.
@Pokemon Trainer Sarah
Things made available to the public aren't always "safe" in a holistic sense. They may be safe to eat but there often is not safe farming practices involved! For example, there was a GMO made that made a crop release its own "pesticide" to kill off a pest that was causing the crop a major financial issue. The pests became immune to the "pesticide" over time and then a LOT of spray had to be given to these crops. Workers were hurt by this, the surrounding population was hurt by this, and their drinking water was contaminated with the pollutants and also the pesticide that the tree gave off, killing fish, etc. So when you call something safe it may be safe and you may experience no immediate consequences but the toxins may have an effect on your body years down the road and there may also be devastating effects to the area where the crop came from. Science isn't perfect so even when a product is approved as safe they're approving it as "safe as they know", this means long term effects may be unclear. I won't tell you that all GMOs are evil and may hurt you, but you cannot always assume that if a product is on the shelves it is safe/healthy in the long term.

Tl;DR This is a huge post but at the end of the day it's important to recognize that GMOs can be useful BUT the real money is in making something very unnatural and potentially dangerous in the long term. We cannot predict the effects these innovations will have on us, nor the quality of the food. A huge tomatoes full of water might provide more food in terms of weight, but does it provide more nutrition, does it taste better? It might not kill me in the long term or other people (some GMOs do~) but it might not be the quality we require as humans. This isn't exclusive to GMOs though, selective breeding is included. It's important to note the differences between the two and not think about them completely interchangeably.