Fair point.
I like both Volairina and your takes on the non-rational world. I was having a lot of trouble working something out.
That said, while Voltairina's world is a bit more horrifyingly extreme than yours, it seems to me more probably that cause and effect simply did not exist. I can envision a structure of elementary physics that simply change--functionally randomly--far more easily than that causality does exist, but operates in the inverse. I have more trouble envisioning the elementary physics that bring that into existence without a observational intellect directly upsetting motivated plans.
All that is to say, might not your case be the more extreme one?
This comment is going on a decade old, and if you still access this account, I would be curious about your stance on your above statements now.
I completely agree that breeding methods have their own flaws, which we certainly have seen come to dangerous fruition (pun definitely intended).
I also concede that breeding is quite slow in improving a plant, where direct modification would be much faster.
I furthermore agree that direct genetic modification is the future of crop improvement. Given that we better master the techniques and better understand the genomes in play every year, eventually direct gene modification will lack any of the uncertainty that I invoke right now.
But I likewise think it is not unreasonable to say that it is more likely that we would stumble upon a sudden unfortunate side-effect of our modifications by direct modification,... (read more)
I would agree with you that the quoted statement is not terribly persuasive. I was simply encapsulating the actual argument at hand, instead of the straw-man argument of "method versus outcome." And while the vagueness diminishes the magnitude of the evidence, I don't believe it makes it non-zero.
To your second point:
in the context of "it's been fine for 20 years but we're not sure about the really long term", I don't see how the "rapid and intricate" quality is relevant.
I would add to ChristianKI's apt reply that while conventional modifications via breeding can eventually have monumental effects, direct genetic modification can rapidly--over the course of a single generation--have monumental effects that may have unintended side effects attached to them due to a lack of understanding of the intricacies of genetic interactions.
You will note that I said that they have the same "objectives" not necessarily the same "outcomes."
Granted, I agree that if we have two genetically and biologically identical organisms, one created by traditional methods and one created by direct genetic modification, then no, I would not care at all.
The argument is that--despite sharing the same objective of improving food production for humanity--traditional methods have a lower likelihood of unforeseen negative outcomes due to the rapid and intricate methods by which GMO are altered.
We care about differences of method because of potential differences of outcome.
I think you're drawing two specious conclusions:
First, "traditional food engineering" and GMO do refer to various practices, but there is a very clear distinction of method drawn by those terms. The "traditional" method short circuits natural reproductive process to cultivate desired traits, where as GMO methods entail the direct modification of genes by means external to the reproductive process. To say that repeatedly selecting the largest head of wheat and breeding from that stock is "the same" as injecting new DNA into an organism with a gene gun is absurd in the extreme. They share the same objective, of course, but the method is wholly different.
Second, the Green Revolution was the adoption... (read more)
I agree: there is no "forever guarantee," especially as our life spans increase to experience new problems and our ability to detect problems improves, we discover new things that may be killing us or may have been harming us in the past.
That said: I'm unclear on the double standard you were pointing out. Was it something that I said indirectly? If that is the case, the point of my statement is that we have a longer body of evidence for traditional food engineering (selection, cross-breeding, etc) than we do for direct genetic modification by several orders of magnitude--conservatively: 50 years compared to ~5,000 years. That is A) not to say we haven't... (read more)
Thanks, Ishaan. That was a lot of good directions to come at this from.
I especially found a few of them novel ways to eke out more confidence from an insulated problem:
If it's a political issue, try to find out what people who might plausibly be expertish in the area yet don't seem to be invested in debating the issue think about it.
check what known superforecasters in the field think (people who have a track record of successful predictions in that area). Superforecasters need not actually be loudly engaging with the issue, just ask.
check if people who have different types of knowledge tend to say different things (e.g. economists vs. sociologists)
I'll try to... (read more)
Basically: How does one pursue the truth when direct engagement with evidence is infeasible?
I came to this question while discussing GMO labeling. In this case I am obviously not in a position to experiment for myself, but furthermore: I do not have the time to build up the bank of background understanding to engage vigorously with the study results themselves. I can look at them with a decent secondary education's understanding of experimental method, genetics, and biology, but that is the extent of it.
In this situation I usually find myself reduced to weighing the proclamations of authorities:
Not the best place to put this comment, but there's a confusing mistake on the PLACE FAQ where the pie candidate shows a voting option for "Other Ice Cream Candidate" instead of "Other Pie Candidate."
Does anyone have an electorama account to remedy that?