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Comment by oskarth | Hacker News Reader

It's frightening how many people don't understand the arguments against GMOs.

Read this: http://fooledbyrandomness.com/pp2.pdf and before making arguments, make sure your argument hasn't already been responded to in the "Fallacy" section.

Of course, there are many non-scientific arguments about GMOs. I'm not talking about those.

EDIT: Someone asked for a tldr. It's a useful skill to learn how to read a paper (start with the abstract and the conclusion), but I'm pasting the conclusion here anyway:

This formalization of the two different types of un-certainty about risk (local and systemic) makes clear when the precautionary principle is, and when it isn’t, appropriate. The examples of GMOs and nuclear energy help to elucidate the application of these ideas. We hope this will help decision makers to avoid ruin in the future.

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TL:DR Abstract —The precautionary principle (PP) states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing severe harm to the public domain (affecting general health or the environment globally), the action should not be taken in the absence of scientific near-certainty about its safety

It is pretty important if you want people to read a random link, especially 24 pages of reading. You have to give a LITTLE context for why anyone should read something that is contrary to scientific research. It sure looks like there is Scientific certainty that their is 100% no observed harm caused by a GMO. THis has been going on since 1940s. https://gmoanswers.com/ask/how-long-have-genetically-modifie...

When the authors are the following:

School of Engineering, New York University

New England Complex Systems Institute

Institute of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, C.N.R.S., Paris

School of Philosophy, University of East Anglia

Why is it Mathematics, Physics, and Engineering important for me to feel that they are experts for a study in GMO. I get the Philosophy part and agree that should be more utilized, but this isn't based on medical and or scientific facts. This is based on theoretical harm though we have had decades to see its effects already.

It is because the industry has done a great job as labeling the critics as anti-science. Yet the source of the controversy for anyone who spends enough time to look into it is other scientist.

It is somewhat ironic, that most everyone agrees the GMO companies are quite evil in nature when it comes to their business practices. Yet the same people say we should absolutely trust the same companies when they make claims about their products benefits or safety.

I think part of this is because progressive science fans see the potential of GMOs and latch on to the possibilities and ignore that we are still quite immature with our understanding and implementation of the technology.

> It is because the industry has done a great job as labeling the critics as anti-science.

It's not "the industry" doing the labeling, scientific consensus isn't so easily bought - if it were oil companies (who have far more money than Monsanto et al) would have made sure the science on climate change was on their side.

In another comment[1] I provided several links you may find useful in making a more informed opinion.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9451873

I think you highly underestimate the influence of the this industry and the pressure it can exert. "U.S. Government Planned To “Retaliate & Cause Pain” On Countries Refusing GMOs" http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/07/30/wikileaks-cab...

> It's not "the industry" doing the labeling, scientific consensus isn't so easily bought - if it were oil companies (who have far more money than Monsanto et al) would have made sure the science on climate change was on their side.

You are confusing the complexity and difficulty of bending the truth around climate change VS GM.

Interestingly enough, I've been a very vocal proponent of GMO labeling here in Oregon. When the labeling issue made the last ballot, and of course I voted FOR it, my ballot mysteriously got pulled and I had to prove that I was the one that submitted it (based on my signature). I was told that Monsanto lawyers were staked out in the counting offices and demanding that particular ballots be pulled for further "authentication".

TL;DR please. I'm definitely not going to read this and I would be surprised if many did. Just being honest.

Exactly the reason what is wrong with the world in general. You can't be arse to read a few pages, but I bet you feel entitled to an opinion, right? I bet you have opinions on many things. How did you form them? By reading tl;dr versions in the newspaper and discussing with friend on the dinner table?

What are you even talking about? Who said anything about opinions? I asked for a TL;DR, that's all.

I also think it's interesting that you choose to rant when it's about a long and advanced scientific article full of terminology I don't even understand. Shouldn't this be a case where a TL;DR is justified if anything?

Papers come with their own tldr. It's not because people are lazy, but because that's all most people reading it actually need.

This is in contrast to many op-eds, blog posts, and even news articles, which intentionally make it hard to find a summary, disperse shallow content between ads, just like to hear their own voice, or other such behaviours that are worth avoiding.

I think asking for a tldr here is mistaking the former for the latter (an honest mistake).

Finally read the thing. It's pretty interesting.

To be honest, I only read it because one of the authors is Nassim Taleb and I liked his books.

Anyway, the gist of it is that there are different kinds of risk. Some risks can be calculated with certain probabilities, and you can do cost-benefit analysis with them.

For example, you should only spend money on a security system for your home or business if the cost-of-being-attacked times the probability of attack exceeds the cost of the system, right?

However, there is another kind of risk for which you can't do that, because their cost is so high that nobody will live to tell the tale and collect the statistics (extinction events), or maybe they will but it will be too late (global financial crisis).

The paper argues that monocultures present that kind of risk. You can't calculate "probability of massive blight that kills all our genetically homogeneous food" for example because we don't have much of a sample size. And by the time we do have the sample size, it will be too late.

Then, the paper points out some other risks and explains why the risks of artificial selection are different from the risks of GMO. Long story short, it's because a bad mutation in a "natural" crop only kills a few people before they realize that they should plant something else.

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