Topic: POTD: 2014-01-13 (issues)

[charlie]

which we've seen they are more than willing to do.

We have? Honest question.

BTW, I'm not convinced Monsanto is really that bad, either. Typical company doing what it can to protect its patents and profits, but some of the horror stories aren't actually true.

[Jake]

This forum has liberals, science/technology fans and cynics. Not that surprising.

Also, vaccines don't cause autism, but deciding not to get the flu shot is no big deal. Of course, you apparently voted that you think they are dangerous and can cause severe problems.

did it on my phone and didn't read the entire sentence of that option

[Betazep]

I'm quite surprised that the GMO and global warming are as split as they are on this liberal fucking forum

Many hippie liberals think GMOs are bad.  (and the poll is kind of poorly stated... GMOs are genetically modified organisms which transcend only food) They are actually superb at keeping mass quantities of humanity alive and there is no indication that GMO based food is in ANY way bad for you.  There have been a LOT of very good studies about GMO crops, and not just ones started by Monsanto.  They had horrible business practices that impacted many farmers... but the problem with them isn't GMOs... the problem is greed, money and power.  You don't get that by searching for "the truth about GMO's."  You get a lot of poorly conducted *scientific* studies on the efficacy of genetically modified foods.

I try listen to real science... and real studies (double blind, peer reviewed... taking into account negative bias).  Most people do not take the time to actually review these kinds of things.  They throw their trust in the first article that confirms their suspicion that science is bad and organic, natural, I-built-a-garden-in-my-backyard-and-planted-seeds-that-passed-through-my-colon-while-listening-to-Mozart crops are God's gift to food perfection.

Take 10 minutes to read this blog... he provides links to the studies... maybe read those too if you have the time.  http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/06/17/bad-science-about-gmos-it-reminds-me-of-the-antivaccine-movement-revisited/

Good luck finding studies about food/nutrition that don't have some shady connections.

I find that no matter what I eat... I still get the feeling I will die someday.  It is quite strange. 

BTW... I am more-or-less a hippie liberal.  I just like science too. 

[charlie]

P.S. Saw this today:



Arbitrary endpoints and all that, but the basic idea is pretty compelling.

[Mike]

  Global warming is micah and someone else...

Hey! I thought this was a secret ballot!

which, for some reason made me think of this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZjJHbE_N4k&feature=youtu.be&t=24m36s

I didn't need any special admin abilities for that.  Small population, issues we've touched on before, pretty decent idea of where people stand.

which we've seen they are more than willing to do.

We have? Honest question.

BTW, I'm not convinced Monsanto is really that bad, either. Typical company doing what it can to protect its patents and profits, but some of the horror stories aren't actually true.

1) High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Probably one of our biggest scourages.  And it is in almost everything.
2) The USDA food pyrimad were created by politicians under the "advise" from interested corporations.
3) A corporation's responsiblity is to maximize profits for its shareholders and not the public interest.  Yet they are the ones funding the research and shaping public policy.

I find that no matter what I eat... I still get the feeling I will die someday.  It is quite strange. 

BTW... I am more-or-less a hippie liberal.  I just like science too. 

I like science as well.  I'm just dismayed that there is so little unbiased research being done.  Even the research that agrees with my position is biased.

[charlie]

Nothing wrong with high fructose corn syrup other than the fact that it's cheaper and easier than regular sugar so it makes it easier to make empty calorie foods. (Or something like that.) The food pyramid is better now. I generally agree with you, though, that profit motives mean oversight is necessary. Where did they fuck up our food supply, though?

[micah]

It's interesting how people are willing to see the political and economic bias in food science but vehemently deny that the science behind global climate change could be similarly tarnished.

[Mike]

Nothing wrong with high fructose corn syrup other than the fact that it's cheaper and easier than regular sugar so it makes it easier to make empty calorie foods. (Or something like that.)

Pretty sure I posted this before.  HFCS is poison:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

The food pyramid is better now.

Better in a minute amount.  Still advocating over 25% to grains.  Fat is still considered this huge evil even though it is better than carbs.

I generally agree with you, though, that profit motives mean oversight is necessary. Where did they fuck up our food supply, though?

Take a look at the ingredients in a loaf of wheat bread.  A lot of them contain HFCS.  Mad cow was caused by feeding cows (herbivores) meat and bone meal.  And of course the gradual push towards cheaper, but less healthy, foods as a regular part of our diet.  Look at the garbage (tasty tasty garbage) that companies like KFC, Taco Bell, and McDonalds (ok the last one isn't so tasty) produce and advertise.  Hell, take a look at how gatorade has changed since PepsiCo bought it.

[Mike]

It's interesting how people are willing to see the political and economic bias in food science but vehemently deny that the science behind global climate change could be similarly tarnished.

Oh we see it, but we've really only seen the questionable studies coming from the denier sides.  Do you have a good example of a neutral study?  And I'll freely admit that I think there is a huge difference between "are we causing global climatet?" and "what should we do about it?"  I'm personally on the side of "reducing the amount of pollution would be a good thing regardless".  So I don't need the "we are causing global climate change" issue to be true to think we should take action to reduce the amount of pollution.

[charlie]

It's interesting how people are willing to see the political and economic bias in food science but vehemently deny that the science behind global climate change could be similarly tarnished.

And vice versa.

Most of these topics *are* examples where liberals tend to be fighting with the scientific community, even though they back the scientific community on many other issues. It shouldn't come as a shock that that happens, though. There are hypocritical people blinded by ideology all over the place. Maybe what you meant to say was, "It's interesting how people are willing to see the political and economic bias in one area of science but vehemently deny that the science in another area could be similarly tarnished."

So far the "winners" in the poll are all in favor of the current scientific consensus, though, so there's not necessarily much of that going on here.

And of course, there's different levels of potential tarnish. AGW studies could be tarnished, but when there are thousands of scientists all coming to similar conclusions, and only a handful disagreeing, then the likelihood is really low. Perhaps in other areas the level of consensus or abundance of evidence isn't quite as high. In that case it would be appropriate to have different levels of skepticism.

[charlie]

Pretty sure I posted this before.  HFCS is poison:

I don't have time to watch an hour and a half show, but he's saying all sugar is poison, no? He apparently thinks HFCS and sugar are basically the same. Also, his viewpoints are hardly consensus. I have a hard time thinking food companies fucked up our food supply by using sugar, especially when regulatory bodies don't seem to consider it (or HFCS) to be a poison. He might be right and all, but I was wondering if there were more mainstream and widely believed examples.

The food pyramid is better now.

Better in a minute amount.  Still advocating over 25% to grains.  Fat is still considered this huge evil even though it is better than carbs.

Yeah... I'm not convinced that's true, either.

Which is fine, I get where you're coming from. But if I don't think those things are actually as bad as you think they are, then that won't be a reason for me to worry about GMO foods following the same path.

Where did they fuck up our food supply, though?

Take a look at the ingredients in a loaf of wheat bread.  A lot of them contain HFCS.  Mad cow was caused by feeding cows (herbivores) meat and bone meal.  And of course the gradual push towards cheaper, but less healthy, foods as a regular part of our diet.  Look at the garbage (tasty tasty garbage) that companies like KFC, Taco Bell, and McDonalds (ok the last one isn't so tasty) produce and advertise.  Hell, take a look at how gatorade has changed since PepsiCo bought it.

I don't think the food industry is perfect at all, but the point of this discussion was about genetically modified foods. It sounds like you're saying they're potentially dangerous because they can be abused like regular food has been. Even if we disagree on the level that that has happened, that would still mean that GMO foods aren't much different than GMO-free foods, which was the crux of the question.

[kermi3]

Totally agree with you on bias Micah - but for global warming, the scientific consensus is so extreme...and it's easy to forget how competitive peer reviewed research and grant funding is.  People ARGUE! I'm not sure who is set to gain economically if global warming is real...but if they are, and if they're biasedly funding all the research....they'd still run into trouble because there's real incentive for researchers to tear each other's research apart both before and after publication....  If someone could disprove warming - they'd be a scientific tenured rock star.  If someone could show how their peer was wrong and prevent them from publishing - they'd do that too, and thus far no dice...

[kermi3]

...same thing happens in education...there are some new ideas in special Ed/learning disabilities that are decent ideas but have gone too far in some areas.  They were slow to publish at first because they went against the money makers, but then the money makers changed to take advantage of the new direction and perhaps it went too far... and now you're seeing an uptick in research cautious of the change.  It's a good change overall (RTI) but it's not perfect for everything....

[Mike]

I don't have time to watch an hour and a half show, but he's saying all sugar is poison, no? He apparently thinks HFCS and sugar are basically the same. Also, his viewpoints are hardly consensus. I have a hard time thinking food companies fucked up our food supply by using sugar, especially when regulatory bodies don't seem to consider it (or HFCS) to be a poison. He might be right and all, but I was wondering if there were more mainstream and widely believed examples.

You really should find the time as he goes into the science of it.  Basic break down:  Sugar is one part fructose and one part glucose.  Fructose is metabolized as by your liver as a toxin.  I don't remember if it was this talk or not but fructose doesn't cause the same triggers for insulin production as glucose.  He explains the whole process better than I can.

[ober]

AGW - I think it is warming, but I don't think a massive shift in what we do on a day to day basis will stop it or change it.  I think there are many factors involved and we are only a very small part of it.  I'm not saying we should stop taking the steps we're taking but I think there are natural factors at play as well.

Vaccines - I'm pro general vaccines but very against the flu shot.  I think it's total BS and a waste of time and money.

GMOs - I'm on the fence but leaning towards being against them where food is concerned.  I don't think we have enough data to really say if they are good or bad.  I recently heard that the non-organic chicken that most of us buy has been, for YEARS ... like 30 or 40 years, been fed with trace amounts of arsenic that was added for some specific reason but is now being thought to be one of the underlying causes in the uptick in food allergies and several other ailments facing us today.  Who is to say that GMOs won't result in the same problems years from now?  Yes, they result in massive food efficiency and huge booms in yield in some crops but at what cost?  I don't think we know yet.

Fracking - I've heard enough shit about polluted water and contaminated regions as a result of fracking to think that it's bad enough that we should find another solution.  If you've done the research into how fracking works, you know that it's a NASTY process and it introduces some pretty awful chemicals and uses a SHIT TON of water in the process.  If you know how the whole process works, I don't see how you can say that it's not bad for the environment where it is done (and downstream from those locations).

Nuclear energy - other than a few instances, it is the safest, cleanest, most efficient model of producing power.  I'm totally behind it.