Genetically Engineered Salmon Approved for Consumption
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Such behavior would not be unheard of. See similar accusations against Monsanto: http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/gm-seed-accidentally...
You mean patent infringement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases
edit: TL;DR: Monsanto sues farmers, not seeds ;)
this is how typical selection works. And the same way like the antibiotic resistance develops.
You might not care; that's fine. This link might save us an unproductive round-trip:
But I'm not engaging with that argument.
All I'm saying is: the thing that does not happen, but that everyone on the Internet seems to think happens all the time, is Monsanto seeds blowing onto some random field, and then Monsanto suing you when you sell the resulting crop.
Everyone who has been sued by Monsanto has taken active steps to capitalize on their "unauthorized" seeds.
> Everyone who has been sued by Monsanto has taken active steps to capitalize on their "unauthorized" seeds.
Those are the same thing. That's what farmers do with crops, they capitalize on them by selling them.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost,_mislaid,_and_abandoned_p...
Yes, there are a lot of unknown unknowns, as you stated. So, not quite sure how you're concluding it's all good.
It should. You can think of a GM species as akin to introduce a foreign species to a new environment. Except in this case, instead of coming from some other continent, it came from a lab.
So, how does introducing foreign species go? Often, it's fine. But often, it's catastrophically destructive.
Think kudzu in the Southeast, rabbits and cane toads in Australia, killer bees, carp in the Mississippi, and rats pretty much everywhere they've been introduced.
A new, aggressive species that the ecosystem hasn't had time to get used to can decimate an area and cause species to go extinct before they have time to adapt.
1: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...
http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/fda-approves-first-gm...
Key part:
"The agency also assessed potential environmental effects and the proposed containment method. In accordance with the FDA’s approval, the fish must be kept in inland tanks, specifically tanks at two facilities—one in Canada and the other in Panama. The Canadian facility will keep the breeding stock, and the Panama site will be used to raise the fish to market-size.
Both facilities have multiple, redundant physical barriers to keep the fish and eggs from escaping, the agency noted. Tanks have covers, nets, jump fences, covered drains, and closed septic systems. In addition, conditions of natural water systems surrounding the Panama site, particularly the warm temperatures, are expected to be lethal to the salmon. The Panama site will raise all-female, sterile fish."
But some scientists have dismissed these concerns. William Muir, a professor of animal sciences at Purdue University, said the fish posed no risk to the environment. “In contrast, the current practice of using wild caught salmon as a food source is not sustainable; our oceans are overfished,” he said in a statement. “This development provides a safe and sustainable alternative.”
"AquaBounty has radically altered Atlantic salmon by inserting genetic material from an eel-like fish and a chinook salmon, designed to make the fish grow faster … an advisory panel of scientists … found major errors in AquaBounty's science and the FDA's data analysis. Scientists were especially critical of the small sample sizes used by AquaBounty — often only six or seven GE fish were used in comparisons.
… The FDA has chosen to regulate GE animals as a veterinary drug rather than a food, a decision that severely limits the scope of the agency's risk assessment. For example, the agency has not conducted a single feeding study to assess health risks associated with eating GE salmon … Before AquaBounty researchers physically examined GE salmon for health problems, they selectively killed off irregular fish, biasing the data set and severely compromising the integrity of the data.
… Acknowledging the threat of escape, AquaBounty has attempted to render GE salmon sterile, which would prevent sexual reproduction in the event that the fish are released into the wild. However, the company's regulatory submissions indicate that up to 5 percent of GE salmon will not be sterile … AquaBounty appears to be the biotech industry's sacrificial lamb — securing regulatory approval of a product that will likely be a market failure, but that will pave the way for other bioengineered food animals."
I like to think I'm not overly paranoid about genetically modified things as long as proper due-diligence is conducted, but these quotes here make me think that is not the case, or is being intentionally subverted.
At the very least, I'd take reassurance in my ability to avoid eating this.
> AquAdvantage salmon are triploid (having three chromosomes instead of just two) female Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), with a single copy of the opAFP-GHc2 construct, which codes for a promoter from ocean pout and a growth hormone from Chinook salmon., 8 These transferred genes allow the genetically modified fish to achieve accelerated growth rates, which confer longer survival and reproductive success.
At what point do we stop calling it salmon? Reminds me of the Ship of Theseus:
> The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, in so much that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.
— Plutarch, Theseus
Plutarch thus questions whether the ship would remain the same if it were entirely replaced, piece by piece.
If those ashes are then mixed with other substances to form construction material from which a home is built, is it still a ship?
If wood from a forest is never assembled into a ship, is it still a ship?
State and identity seem intrinsically linked.
But, the Nobel medals did cease to exist, as did the ship.
The gold could be refashioned into more medals. But, they would not be the same medals. The gold could also be fashioned into a necklace, or two necklaces.
If this were not so, then the statement "state and identity are not the same" would be meaningless, because there would be no need for the word "identity" in any case.
They aren't. Two dollar bills are equal, but not identical; they are only coincidentally related. Things that are identical are always equal but things that are equal are not always identical. To compare identity, a thing must be compared to itself in the real world, thus is the ship still the same ship it was before, even if all the parts have been replaced. The answer is open to debate, both sides have valid arguments.
If you dissolve the ink from a dollar bill such that it's just a piece of paper, would you still say it's a dollar bill? I would say no. Its state has changed and, thus, has its identity (i.e. how we identify it).
But, if you say, "yes, it's still a dollar bill, albeit in a deteriorated condition", then you have to answer the question, "when did it first become a dollar bill?" In so doing, you must acknowledge that it underwent a state change at some point which changed its identity in the first place.
Identity is something we impute, based in no small part on the state of a thing.
Lastly, I think your mention of equality vs identity is flipped. They are only equal by one coincidental (arbitrary) measure: monetary value. But, you could just as soon measure the physical dimensions or weight.
But, while they are not necessarily equal, they are identical: that is, we identify them each as dollar bills.
That's not what he means by identity; it's still the same piece of paper and thus it's identity has not changed, even though it's state has. That it's a dollar bill has nothing to do with its identity because he's not using the term in that way; he's literally using a programmers definitions of those words. The Mississippi river is still the Mississippi regardless of the fact that the water it's completely different water each day. Identity is independent from state. Two dollar bills have equal state but independent identity. You are still you even though the cells in your body are not the same cells you were born with. Your identity is the pattern of electricity that make up your personality and consciousness, not the cells you are built from. The cells are state, not identity.
But, looking at the more quantifiable world, I don't see how state is completely independent of identity. Can there be some variance in state, while the identity remains unchanged? Sure. But, it appears to be a question of degree, in both quantity and quality.
A fundamental question is, can a thing ever cease to exist? If so, then can a change in state precipitate its demise? Or said another way, can it cease to exist, yet retain its state? So, I would say that there are state changes which can alter or completely destroy identity.
But, if you say that a thing cannot cease to exist, then you are effectively saying that there is not such a thing as identity in the first place.
EDIT: Wait, maybe I am getting your point. Are you saying that a thing may cease to exist, but its identity doesn't? That, if the Mississippi is filled with cement such that it is no longer a river, we would still use its identity as a pointer to something which was, but no longer exists?
I gave you an example, two dollar bills have equal state but completely different identity. The identity obviously has nothing at all to do with state.
It's clear you're not a programmer or you wouldn't be having the issues you're having understanding this distinction. Programming 101, state and identity are different things.
> A fundamental question is, can a thing ever cease to exist?
That depends on how you define thing, and that question has nothing to do with the issue at hand, state vs identity.
> If so, then can a change in state precipitate its demise? Or said another way, can it cease to exist, yet retain its state?
That's a bad example that mixes in unrelated issues, flip it around. Can it maintain its state yet lose its identity, and the answer is yes it can, by being copied. A copy of a thing has all the same state as the original thing but has a different identity. If I clone you, the clone is not you, you and the clone have distinct identities but equal state. Therefore identity and state are clearly distinct, QED.
> So, I would say that there are state changes which can alter or completely destroy identity.
True, but irrelevant and merely coincidental.
> But, if you say that a thing cannot cease to exist, then you are effectively saying that there is not such a thing as identity in the first place.
No I'm not. Get off the cease to exist point, it's confusing you; look at the copy angle, copies make it clear that state and identity are not the same thing and are completely independent of each other.
Yes, it's possible to think of state changes that affect identity by killing a thing, but that's coincidental and tangential, it doesn't mean state and identity are the same thing, only that they both rely on existence of a thing.
Things can and do have equal state and distinct identity, money is a prime example; state and identity are distinct, accept it.
2. I was making a different point. Your example that references programming 101 is unrelated.
3. State and identity are distinct from one point of view (yours, here), but not all possible points of view. Perhaps because you are a programmer, you are having difficulty seeing alternative interpretations.
4. I acknowledged my understanding of your point of view in my EDIT at least a day before you posted. However, you seemed to have overlooked that even while meticulously quoting my other statements and re-making your point with added snarkiness and pseudo-programmer elitism.
I get it. We all need a win sometimes. So, let's just say you've won and call it a day.
You have a strong tendency to put words in people's mouths, insist they mean one thing when they clearly state they mean another, omit their key points to make your own, and generally browbeat them over often narrow sub-points that you refuse to release.
You appear to enjoy envisioning yourself to be superior, yet you seem to operate largely in a binary mode, and have great difficulty seeing shades of gray. So, the other person must be approached as a zero to your one (or vice-versa).
I still enjoyed some of your comments, but that style makes it really tough to have a real discussion, as evidenced on this thread and many others where bewilderment and frustration are expressed over your "style".
I hope you'll consider allowing others ownership of their own thoughts, opinions, and ideas, and trust that same actually are as expressed by them.
Abraham Lincoln.
The long answer:
Consider, if the ship (which is called, for example, the Medusa) burns, we still can talk about The Medusa as a ship using its identity. People will know what we're talking about even though the ship has been destroyed. The ship is still a ship even though its been turned to ashes; its identity is not the same as its corporeal form.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution#Present_day
"The detachment estimates that approximately 10–15 percent of the timber in Constitution contains original material installed during her initial construction period in the years 1795–1797."
I generally trust the biologists on this subject that don't have a conflict of interest. That said, I'm uninterested in GMO food for my family and we don't eat it whenever we have the power to choose.
As an aside, what is your reason for not consuming GMO foods if you also trust that many biologists feel that they can be safe? Genuinely curious not trying to be snarky.
Since we can't even get basic labels, let alone information on how extreme the modification is- I just choose to outright avoid.
What is the definition of "genetically altered"? I assume that cannot cover selective breeding, for example.
That's it.