NEW VIDEO: Are GMOs Good or Bad? Genetic Engineering & Our Food

I do not think we really have a choice. GMO's can solve a lot of future problems

Dan Lee

Excellent!

Mary Severinghaus

Amazing video :-)

Connor Monaghan

Thank you for clarifying a murky subject!

Nicolle Melanson.Powell

Awesome vid, great job on it :)

Alex Aguilar

Great video! You guys did a top notch job, as always. Glad you guys mentioned the Hawaiian papaya example.

Greg

I think you're presenting a false dichotomy based on conjecture and hyperbole. There doesn't seem to be any evidence to support your supposition that interfering with genetic structures is going to cause mass destruction and catastrophe. Indeed, we can infer from the genetic interference that occurs naturally that this is unlikely to be the case – bear in mind that each step of the evolutionary process is a mutation; that is, an aberration, something that went 'wrong' but had a benefit nonetheless. Progressing genetics through design rather than happenstance would seem to be safer to my mind. At root this argument seems to come down to an 'appeal to complexity' fallacy, on a base of an appeal to nature. Instead of broad sweeping hyperbole, one should deal in specifics.

Jesse Richardson

Are the short-term gains of the last few decades worth risking potential catastrophic damage to the biomechanical system that defines our existence, and has existed and developed on its own for millions of years? This seems ridiculously short-sighted and lacking in perspective.

Dale Mahalko / Plawerth

Thanks for the awesomeness and swag you guys distill with every video. I love y'all!

Chema Pastrana

Thanks for the thoughtful argument, Dale! However, I guess if we were to wait for us to understand it all before acting, we wouldn't have the medicine or the technology we have today..

Chema Pastrana

The very specific problem with GMOs is that our science still does not understand every last detail of cellular organisms and how they work. We do not (yet) have absolute knowledge of what every molecule of a DNA chain does. We are messing with an extremely complex biomechanical system that has developed by itself within its own limitations for millions of years. Due to our lack of knowledge, our tinkering has the potential to introduce damaging new gene sequences that, if they escape the organism where it was installed, could cause systemic failure and widespread damage of unknown consequence to all life, including us. The effects of our messing with a massively complex system we still do not fully understand has the potential to be possibly more harmful than even what viruses can already do. And once released from a controlled lab environment, our changes are potentially unstoppable and could continue to harm the biology of the entire planet for the rest of our existence. Evidence of the continued survival of the biomechanical systems we call life, from over the last several millions of years, indicates that the natural mechanism for trait development and expression does not have the same potential to cause irrecoverable and widespread systemic damage. This is the specific difference between the "natural" gene development process through mutation, and our direct GMO tinkering with things we still do not fully understand.

Dale Mahalko / Plawerth

For a long time I've been against the use of GMOs because of all the harm it caused long-term. But this video showed me that GMOs don't have to be bad, as long as they are used the right way. Good work guys!

Mere

Awesome job as always! Thank you so much for laying out the facts about GMOs as clear and entertaining as you did, let's hope that people watching this video get a more informed opinion about this amazing techology. GMOs aren't important just for food production, but they are also fundamental for plant research that has many applications in agriculture, ecology and medicine. Nevertheless, as with any tool, we have to be very vigilant for what it is actually used for: improving everyone's lives or only the profits of a few?

Pavel Salazar

Thank you for this, great work as always. You deserve all the support in the world

Mathias Reiersen

Is there a danger that the modified genes could wipe out a whole species of insects?

Torodes

Thanks again for a great work! I love the part saying: "GMOs could be the new organic". We tend to forget how many nitrates are being used in current farming and how much they pollute underground water. Any help to reduce that or the amount of pesticides on crops, it's more than welcome!

Guillermo Biot

I see a problem in that you're touting GMOs as a way to "mitigate our irresponsible behavior". Which is likely true but assumes that it's OK to continue that irresponsible behavior in the first place. If we could produce a drug that instantly cured hangovers and mitigated liver damage it would still be irresponsible to binge drink oneself into a stupor. Likewise I believe it's a viable argument that GMOs sap scientific and social resources away from other solutions that would remove or lessen the irresponsible behaviors in the first place.

DrWex

This is why you guys rock and why I enjoy supporting y'all. Topics like GMO are getting more difficult to learn about due to heavy partisan stances. Trying to cut through a lot of that partisan spin takes a lot of work and glad we have video's like this to help with that and point out that a lot of opposition aren't with GMO but business practices.

Bryan Goodwin

Awesome, awesome video, with a subject that is really important. Having said that, I think that the argument of "forcing the farmers to buy seeds every season" is treated poorly, since I think the economics of buying them every season vs storing them all year are still being debated, aren't they? I've seen articles arguing that it's cheaper to buy seeds every season but also articles saying that subsistence farmers don't have means to buy them, and prefer storing. But anyway, great video and keep up the great work!

Vitor Takayanagi de Oliveira

A great topic you picked! You beautiful bastards!

Maxim Ciebiera

you magnificent bastards.