"Peter Ashby" wrote in message
news
In article ,
"W K" wrote:

BUT the real and less exciting aspect is that it allows crops to be
sprayed
with even more herbicides.
There's evidence that thats bad.

To whom or what?
From an earlier discussion about glyphosate:

uh oh another one

BTW animals are not plants so the term herbicide might indicate that the
toxicity is not directed at animals.

Making big assumptions there.
This is the kind of "modernist" thinking that should have been thrown out in
the 50's.

It gave science a bad name back then and still does.

In article ,
"W K" wrote:

"Peter Ashby" wrote in message
news
In article ,
"W K" wrote:

You are lying in your teeth. Prove me wrong by pointing to any
scientific
paper which proves that glyphosate has deleterious effects on humans
if
used
correctly.

You seem to be assuming that I am talking about the effect on human
health.
I am not.

Then state the things you think are bad about it or shut up.


Hmm. rather a narrow thinker if you can only do this in terms of LD50.

Hmm, someone who cannot follow an argument since you imply above that
effects on human health were not what you were hinting at. Since you did
not specify the nature of what may be 'bad' that I posted the LD50s does
not in any way indicate that this is 'only' what I can do either.

Read up on what the RSPB thinks about this issue. Its to do with effects
similar to those we already see with increased intensification of farming.

Links? or maybe some indication of how herbicides are 'bad'? Or maybe
you cannot actually substatiate that claim?

Peter

--
Peter Ashby
School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Scotland
To assume that I speak for the University of Dundee is to be deluded.
Reverse the Spam and remove to email me.

In article ,
bigboard wrote:

Peter Ashby wrote:
In article ,
bigboard wrote:

Bully for you. What has that got to do with it?


What it means is that if you think eating GM might be bad for you then
stay away from all conventional crop varieties since we don't know what
genetic changes happened to yield the required characters, unlike GM.
Also don't eat cauliflower, Brussel sprouts or broccoli, all mutant
cabbages. Who knows what genetic sequences caused these? some may have
happened because, gasp!, a virus went haywire and disrupted some vital
genes. Oh and also stay away from organge carrots, nature meant carrots
to be green.


I don't think that eating GM crops is necessarily bad for you, so the
above paragraph is irrelevant. 1/10 for the patronising attitude, I've
seen it done much better.

Well since you think that then the first sentence indicates the above
was not aimed at you ;-)

Peter

--
Peter Ashby
School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Scotland
To assume that I speak for the University of Dundee is to be deluded.
Reverse the Spam and remove to email me.

On Wed, 01 Oct 2003 16:22:14 +0100, Peter Ashby
wrote:

In article ,
"W K" wrote:

"Peter Ashby" wrote in message
news
In article ,
"W K" wrote:

You are lying in your teeth. Prove me wrong by pointing to any
scientific
paper which proves that glyphosate has deleterious effects on humans
if
used
correctly.

You seem to be assuming that I am talking about the effect on human
health.
I am not.

Then state the things you think are bad about it or shut up.


Hmm. rather a narrow thinker if you can only do this in terms of LD50.

Hmm, someone who cannot follow an argument since you imply above that
effects on human health were not what you were hinting at. Since you did
not specify the nature of what may be 'bad' that I posted the LD50s does
not in any way indicate that this is 'only' what I can do either.

Read up on what the RSPB thinks about this issue. Its to do with effects
similar to those we already see with increased intensification of farming.

Links? or maybe some indication of how herbicides are 'bad'? Or maybe
you cannot actually substatiate that claim?

You may have your head so far up your arse you cannot see reality,
luckily every single environmental group in the world hasnt, and they
highlight the dangers in triplicate.

http://www.google.com/search?q=glyph...&start=10&sa=N

Will do for starters.

bigboard wrote in news:bleq4k$bg3p3$1@ID-
133281.news.uni-berlin.de:

stay away from organge carrots, nature meant carrots
to be green.

I thought carrots were naturally purple?


Victoria
--
gardening on a north-facing hill
in South-East Cornwall
--

On Wed, 01 Oct 2003 16:23:55 +0100, Peter Ashby
wrote:

In article ,
bigboard wrote:

Peter Ashby wrote:
In article ,
bigboard wrote:

Bully for you. What has that got to do with it?


What it means is that if you think eating GM might be bad for you then
stay away from all conventional crop varieties since we don't know what
genetic changes happened to yield the required characters, unlike GM.
Also don't eat cauliflower, Brussel sprouts or broccoli, all mutant
cabbages. Who knows what genetic sequences caused these? some may have
happened because, gasp!, a virus went haywire and disrupted some vital
genes. Oh and also stay away from organge carrots, nature meant carrots
to be green.


I don't think that eating GM crops is necessarily bad for you, so the
above paragraph is irrelevant. 1/10 for the patronising attitude, I've
seen it done much better.

Well since you think that then the first sentence indicates the above
was not aimed at you ;-)

Peter

--
Peter Ashby
School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Scotland

You taking the **** or what? ha ha ha. what is it you do there,
gardening?

To assume that I speak for the University of Dundee is to be deluded.

If you advertise the fact, then you do, otherwise lose the
assosciation. Have they authorised you to talk a load of ******** on
their behalf?

On Wed, 01 Oct 2003 16:23:55 +0100, Peter Ashby
wrote:

In article ,
bigboard wrote:

Peter Ashby wrote:
In article ,
bigboard wrote:

Bully for you. What has that got to do with it?


What it means is that if you think eating GM might be bad for you then
stay away from all conventional crop varieties since we don't know what
genetic changes happened to yield the required characters, unlike GM.
Also don't eat cauliflower, Brussel sprouts or broccoli, all mutant
cabbages. Who knows what genetic sequences caused these? some may have
happened because, gasp!, a virus went haywire and disrupted some vital
genes. Oh and also stay away from organge carrots, nature meant carrots
to be green.


I don't think that eating GM crops is necessarily bad for you, so the
above paragraph is irrelevant. 1/10 for the patronising attitude, I've
seen it done much better.

Well since you think that then the first sentence indicates the above
was not aimed at you ;-)

Peter

--
Peter Ashby
School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Scotland

You taking the **** or what? ha ha ha. what is it you do there,
gardening?

To assume that I speak for the University of Dundee is to be deluded.

If you advertise the fact, then you do, otherwise lose the
assosciation. Have they authorised you to talk a load of ******** on
their behalf?

I doubt it but we'll ask.

Following up to Peter Ashby

Then stay away from conventional crops then, very far away. Because the
uncontrolled genetic changes used in their production must, using your
own logic

"uncontrolled" genetic changes by selective breeding and crosses
with similar plants hardly amounts to components of a fish in a
tomato.
--
Mike Reid
"Art is the lie that reveals the truth" P.Picasso
UK walking "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Spain,cuisines and walking "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

In article m,
"" wrote:

Links? or maybe some indication of how herbicides are 'bad'? Or maybe
you cannot actually substatiate that claim?

You may have your head so far up your arse you cannot see reality,
luckily every single environmental group in the world hasnt, and they
highlight the dangers in triplicate.

http://www.google.com/search?q=glyph...F-8&oe=UTF-8&s
tart=10&sa=N

Will do for starters.

Yes and the second item down nicely illustrates the problem. It is the
surfactants in the prep that it is obsessing about, not as the title
suggests, the glyphosate. So I ask again, what is bad about glyphosate,
a herbicide?

Items in the peer reviewed literature would be preferred to the confused
scare stories from environmental groups. We still haven't had an answer
from WK as to where the problem might lie, apart from a vague disclaimer
that he wasn't talking about humans. Since we know its a herbicide we
can exclude plants since that is a bit of a no-brainer. So what is
harmed then?

Peter

--
Peter Ashby
School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Scotland
To assume that I speak for the University of Dundee is to be deluded.
Reverse the Spam and remove to email me.

In article ,
"W K" wrote:


"Peter Ashby" wrote in message
news
In article ,
"W K" wrote:

BUT the real and less exciting aspect is that it allows crops to be
sprayed
with even more herbicides.
There's evidence that thats bad.

To whom or what?
From an earlier discussion about glyphosate:

uh oh another one

so are you actually going to detail or provide evidence for anything
'bad'? or maybe you are just going to cast aspersions and hope in all
the noise noone will notice that your rhetoric is empty?

Peter

--
Peter Ashby
School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Scotland
To assume that I speak for the University of Dundee is to be deluded.
Reverse the Spam and remove to email me.

Peter Ashby wrote in news.r.ashby-
:

GM is simply the application of extremely selective, controlled genetic
change in place of non selective, uncontrolled genetic change which
characterises conventional crop breeding. We could argue about dubious
benefits for some particular applications of the technology, but that
does not mean all uses of the technology are bad.


I don't think bigboard said that all uses of the technology were bad, or
that food created from GM crops was dangerous to human beings.

Some of the applications to which the technology has been put so far seem
to me rather unimaginative and risky to things we'd like to protect.

We are not a subsistence culture. We do not need to grow GM crops in the
UK in order to feed ourselves, or to prevent economic collapse.

So, why not be cautious, in the way that so many previous introducers of
other plant varieties have not been? Late is better than never.


Victoria

In article , Peter Ashby
URL:mailto
In article ,
Reid? wrote:

Following up to Paul Rooney

Hang about - GM is good, isn't it?

that's very much a matter of opinion isn't it Paul?

Efficient crops, disease-resistant veg, etc. Any evidence that it's
bad? Or is that just a *possibility*?

Indeed, its a risk, an unquantified one that could have
catastrophic results or might not. Then there are issues about
the way farmers loose the ownership of their seed and the
environmental damage of using pesticide resistant crops coupled
with the pesticide. To my mind, its not worth it.

Then stay away from conventional crops then, very far away. Because the
uncontrolled genetic changes used in their production must, using your
own logic, carry vastly more unquantified risk than a plant in which one
gene has been inserted under controlled conditions and then subjected to
rigorous testing and analysis to show it differs from its unmanipulated
cousins only by the introduced trait.


I agree with you that to have major health concerns because a product is
labelled as "GM" and to implicitly trust "organic" is not a sensible
position to adopt. After all many people already accept the use of GM
products with regard to everyday pharmaceutical products, or even
recombinant rennet (chymosin) as used in the production of many
"vegetarian" cheeses and dairy products. If vegetarian cheeses made
with GM chymosin [in which an enzyme from a cow is put into a yeast] are
considered safe, why are GM tomatoes [in which a protein from a fish is
put into a plant] considered dangerous? It obviously isn't a logical
reaction based on any scientific appreciation of the facts. Many
everyday non-GM plants are dangerous, and for example many beans and
lentils which we use every day in our food would kill us if we didn't
cook them properly to destroy the natural toxins they contain.

However there are other issues behind GM crops that go beyond a simple
consideration of the consequences to health. I consider a major point to
be the way that laws governing intellectual property rights are used to
manipulate commercial interests. Many GM crops are produced by
commercial organisations who are driven by market forces and who wish to
dominate the market place and eliminate their commercial competitors.
The driving force is often a simple consideration of profit for the
company and its shareholders, and doesn't necessarily put a strong
emphasis on what is best for the consumer or the farmer. The fact that
many GM crops contain tolerance to herbicides (and/or pesticides), which
are also protected by patents means that the same company can prevent
the farmer from sourcing products from rival companies by forcing him to
buy the seeds and the herbicide, and the pesticide, on their dictated
commercial terms.

So if you are debating whether GM is good or bad, don't just make it a
discussion centred around the health issues.


Mike URL:http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/
--
M.R. Clark, PhD. Division of Immunology
Cambridge University, Dept. Pathology
Tennis Court Rd., Cambridge CB2 1QP
Tel.+44 1223 333705 Fax.+44 1223 333875

"W K" wrote in message
...

"Franz Heymann" wrote in message
...

"W K" wrote in message
...

"Paul Rooney" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 01 Oct 2003 14:21:41 +0100, Reid©

wrote:

Following up to Paul Rooney

Hang about - GM is good, isn't it?

that's very much a matter of opinion isn't it Paul?

Efficient crops, disease-resistant veg, etc.

Swallowed the hype then?

In what way are the crops more efficient?

Any evidence that it's
bad?

Well, The rats eating too many potatoes stuff was rubbish.
BUT the real and less exciting aspect is that it allows crops to be
sprayed
with even more herbicides.
There's evidence that thats bad.

You are lying in your teeth. Prove me wrong by pointing to any
scientific
paper which proves that glyphosate has deleterious effects on humans if
used
correctly.

You seem to be assuming that I am talking about the effect on human
health.
I am not.

Then point me to a scientific paper which proves that glyphosate has any
deleterious effect on the ecological balance of where it is used, excepting,
of course, for the eradication of plants not wanted by humans.

And don't quote the one referring to fusarium. We both know that's
irrelevant.

Franz

"Reid©" wrote in message
...

[snip]

Indeed, its a risk, an unquantified one that could have
catastrophic results or might not.

Nonsense. It is quantified: It is less than can be detected by any
experiment so far performed. That makes it compatible with zero to within
present experimental limits.

Franz

"bigboard" wrote in message
...
Franz Heymann wrote:
[Snip]

I don't know why you are shy of indicating who you are, but what I do
know
is that Mother Nature has been modifying the genes of all living objects
since the beginning of life, and Homo sapiens has been doing the same at
a
vastly increased rate for the past three thousand years or so.

Franz

Bully for you. What has that got to do with it?

It appears to have escaped your attention that this thread has to do with
the genetic modification of plants.
Read before you write.

Franz