chadn737

You keep repeating this assertion without support and its wrong. I previously linked you to several long-term studies in animals of all sizes (some multigenerational) that have tested the safety of these products. Furthermore, it should be noted that every new GMO event has to undergo safety testing and approval....not just by the FDA, but all the markets it will end up (Europe, Japan, Korea, China, etc). All told there are about 18 or so different groups that evaluate GMOs for safety to humans (not to mention testing by EPA, USDA, etc for other concerns). Many of these studies are later published. Each GMO undergoes testing for possible allergic reactions. This includes determining the structure of the transgenic protein and searching it for any known structural components that could cause allergies. More testing has been done for health effects on GMOs than any other food source....far more especially than the potentially dangerous foods/supplements/health fads that are sold in so many organic food stores and places like Whole foods. Now as I said, I linked to multiple long-term studies above. I have pointed you to more recent studies as well. To continue to reassert the false claim that testing has not been done is nothing more than an argument from repetition and fallacious. You can address these claims by showing actual danger using real research or you can retract the claim, but I am not allowing you to get away with making unsupported arguments. That simply does not follow and is nothing more than an assumption. If the seed companies both increase the genetic base of their lines and the different lines in which their GMOs are present, then that will encourage genetic diversity, not decrease it. Your entire argument is based on the assumption that GMOs are introduced only into a small number of lines with no subsequent outcrossing or use of wider genetic base to improve them. As I have pointed out numerous times now, this is directly contradicted by the fact that seed companies have increased the base of their genetic stock and are continuing to do so. Once again, you need to either provide direct and tested evidence that crop diversity has and is declining because of the use of GMOs or retract your statement. The continued repeating of unsupported assumptions is fallacious and has to stop. 1) The run-on sentences....seriously.... 2) Also....this is nothing more than more scare mongering. You don't offer any support or facts. Again you are using scary words meant to invoke fear in readers. Words like "Chernobyl" or "bizarre world". This is nothing more than classic fear mongering. It has no place in a science forum where topics should be discussed based on fact, not appeals to emotion. 3) What "hybrid seed trap"? You do realize that non-hybrid seed simply cannot compare, correct? Companies like Pioneer have the best inbred lines in the world, but these still are not as good in agronomic characteristics (including yield and disease resistance) as the resulting hybrids. Its biology. When you cross two different species or two divergent lines, the first generation offspring are often larger, more robust, and more productive than either parent. This effect is known as heterosis and its still not understood at all why it happens. When hybrid corn seed was first being commercialized, it was a game changer. This figure is a perfect example. It shows two parental lines in maize and rice and the resulting hybrid. I'll talk about the maize, as I know it the best. Here you have the maize inbred lines B73 and Mo17. Both of these are very well studied, high-producing, and publicly available lines that any farmer could get ahold of and plant. In the middle is the F1 progeny (first-generation) cross of the two. Its twice as high, yields far time more, etc, etc. Thats the power of heterosis and that is why farmers choose to grow hybrids rather than lines like B73 and Mo17. If it were not more profitable for farmers, if it did not help them, then they would not do it. If you think that this is some big scheme or "trap" then you really need to take the time to understand agriculture and the biology behind it. No...the lines too. B73 is a publicly available line...pretty good too. Farmers have access to these things, but talk to any farmer out there...none of them want to grow their own seed, clean that seed....they sure as hell don't want to waste time and money on making their own hybrids. My family use to grow hybrid corn seed. We would plant the female lines and the male lines, detassle, harvest, etc. Its a ton of work and my father does not regret not growing it anymore. Blame the high cost of development.....$35 million in regulatory fees alone. This destroys any potential for competition from small farmers or even universities. You seem to want a double standard. You cry foul about the market is driven by corporations, but then ignore the fact that the impossibly high standards of testing that you want make it impossible for anyone but large corporations. You want to have your cake and eat it too. The vision you paint of agriculture is incredibly naive. The assertion that there has been a corporate take over of genetic engineering is also wrong. ~80% of the products in the pipeline are from the academic end, not industry. Take for instance Golden Rice or virus resistant cassava....all developed by academic researchers for humanitarian purposes and free distribution in third world countries. All facing off against intense anti-GMO pressure from groups like Green Peace who think it better that millions die or go blind from vitamin A deficiency rather than let GMOs be used freely by third world farmers. Those facts are overlooked by you and all anti-GMO activists.

Neither one of those assumptions are sufficient to conclude that a trait has been selected for or rapidly evolved under selective pressure. You have to be able to distinguish actual selection for a trait from demographics. Consider what has happened in the African American population. The Average African American has 10% or more of their ancestry from white Europeans due to slave owners back in the day taking advantage of them. If we were to sample from this population the skin tone of modern African Americans and the skin tone of ancestral African populations, you would likely find some differences. If you were to compare skin tone of modern African Americans to the 10% or so European ancestry, you would find bigger differences. If you look at this naively, you would wrongly and foolishly conclude that there has been rapid evolution due to some environmental selection. When in fact, its all a matter of demographic history, not actual natural selection. I'm not even going to get into how badly you are butchering terminology here, but the fact that all these factors are "unknown to me, and irrelevant to my argument" is disgraceful. If you do not know these factors, then you really know nothing about how something evolved or how rapidly it evolved. Unless you actually test your assumptions, test for actual selection in the genome, prove population continuity.....you don't know whether or not a trait was actually selected for or against, you don't know if it evolved due to natural selection or if it is merely fluke of demographic shifts. I find it disturbing that you constantly avoid trying to support your arguments. Trait does refer to phenotype. Even in the wikipedia article it is referring to the phenotypes. You used it in your posts to refer to phenotypes and when challenged on it, you chose to change your argument rather than simply admit you were wrong. If you truly meant it in some other fashion, then you need to educate yourself in the correct terminology before talking about it.

Follow the money. Who gains the most from a population in fear of GMOs?

This is more fear mongering and a classic example of guilt by association. You are making an appeal to ignorance, continually claiming that it must be dangerous because we don't know. However, we have an extensive body of research, but despite that, you just assert that we don't. I'm not going to argue about trans-fats, potato famines, or anything that does not have relevance to the science behind GMOs themselves. The use of language like "supermarket shelves pregnant women shop from" says nothing about the actual safety or lack thereof or the the science of the matter. The use of such language is only to induce scary images in the minds of readers. This is fear mongering tactics meant to appeal to people's emotions rather than rational thought. This sentence is nearly incomprehensible with lots of separate issues mashed together into one sentence. Also, if you are going to reference something, please provide the actual source. I don't know why it is that I have to always ask you for sources, in a scientific discussion, it should be standard practice. What is the 2012 study you are referring too? The claim that these have been studied for only short term periods is false. There have been multiple such studies, some lasting up to two years and others across multiple generations. For instance there was two year study on feeding Bt corn to lactating Dairy Cows. There was three year study in mice that spread across three generations....from conception to death. Consider the study done in quail that spanned 10 generations....hows that for long term? More fear mongering. Scary language and vague allusions unsupported by scientific fact. As I pointed out above, long term studies and multigenerational studies have been conducted and are being conducted. Add to that the continued anti-corporatism that ultimately has nothing to do with the actual science. Can you not separate your politics from the science? 1) The EPSPS protein is found in all plants. Given a basic understanding of biochemistry and how digestion works, one simply would not expect that a different variant of the protein to be necessarily toxic. But we also don't have to rely on that, because there have been numerous studies and trials of the glyphosate resistant crops showing no toxicity or ill-effect. I linked you to several studies, including long-term multigenerational ones above. Some of these were conducted for glyphosate resistance, some for Bt. 2) The use of the word "shotgunned".....classic fear mongering language. You could use the actual terms, like "biolistic transformation", but the "shotgunned" invokes images of violence into the minds of readers. Big scary language meant to appeal to emotion so that people overlook fact. It has no place in a scientific discussion. 3) Those educated in the field know that there are several methods to know exactly how many copies of a gene are inserted and where. One way is to simply follow the inheritance of the trait over multiple generations and back/outcrosses. If there are multiple independent copies, then the inheritance will differ than if there is a single copy. The most powerful way to detect copy number is by Southern Blot. Different copies will show up as different bands. Another approach is to use Fluorescent in situ hybridization. This approach can not only show you copy number, but the exact location of every copy. There are PCR based methods of cloning transgenes and determining their location. Such methods were used by Monsanto from the start to develop their first transgenics. 4) You are making ad hominem attacks on my character. 1) It really makes it difficult for me to comprehend what you are saying when you mash a bunch of different things together into one giant run-on sentence. 2) "Shotgunned"....again using scary language to appeal to emotion rather than fact. Classic fear mongering. 3) What is a "sequestered herbicide complex"....this term makes no sense. In the case of glyphosate resistance, the EPSPS protein is not the herbicide. It merely is a resistant form of the EPSPS protein (the native form being susceptible). How this becomes "sequestered", a "herbicide", or a "complex" (its a single protein, not a complex) makes no sense. 4) What "possible effects" on the "human intestinal flora"? Glyphosate resistant soybeans and maize have been used in numerous studies with no toxicity or ill-effect. See my previous links above for examples of some of these studies. You are again using an argument from ignorance to imply possible effects despite all the studies to the contrary. 5) The development of herbicide resistance is not a health concern or risk. 1) It really makes it difficult for me to comprehend what you are saying when you mash a bunch of different things together into one giant run-on sentence. 2) Studies were done on the possible effects of Bt on honeybees back when the technology was first being introduced, so the claim that it has not is false. 3) The risk of antibiotic resistance marker genes has been assessed numerous times since the very first GMOs were being introduced. This is yet another false claim. 1) An attempt at guilt by association (tetraethyl lead) and more fear mongering. 2) The rest of this is nothing more than classic anti-corporatism and completely ignores scientific fact. Your view of the subject matter and rejection of scientific fact seem to be driven first and foremost by politics and anti-corporatism, not science. Lets discuss the science rationally. Actually it doesn't, but even so, I'm open and honest about the science. Thats why I provide sources for all my claims, so that everyone can investigate it for themselves and come to a rational conclusion. You should do the same and be open with the sources you use rather than dodging every time i ask for them. 1) You are poisoning the well with language like "dubious (in a corporate dominated field like this, you have to be careful about selective publication even, let alone "selection" from the published)". 2) You are merely dismissing evidence out of hand because it contradicts you. This is a vast body of research, sufficient for scientific consensus and there is a scientific consensus as the authors point out. 1) How does one determine irrelevancy through random selection and brief glances? You've admitted your own ignorance of most of the papers listed, yet from this you are able to conclude there has not been enough research? Absurd. 2) Safety studies were conducted in the 1990s. 3) The argument that because more recent research is publishable is not evidence of your claim. Especially in fields regarding product effectiveness and safety, validating studies continue to be publishable. This is even more true as new GMOs are developed and have to be evaluated. Furthermore, these new studies continue to support the safety of these products. I appreciate that those guys want to cover ass, considering; I also appreciate that English is maybe not their native language, so that when they write "hazards" they really meant "harms" or "damages" or the like, 1) This is what is called quote mining. Its the fallacy where one selectively quotes people out of context. The research, as they state, has not shown any hazards. Furthermore, the fact that there is intense debate does not mean that the research overwhelmingly favors the safety of GMOs, but rather points to the fact that this subject engenders a lot of debate outside of science. Lets look at the actual context of that quote: The technology to produce genetically engineered (GE) plants is celebrating its 30th anniversary and one of the major achievements has been the development of GE crops. The safety of GE crops is crucial for their adoption and has been the object of intense research work often ignored in the public debate. We have reviewed the scientific literature on GE crop safety during the last 10 years, built a classified and manageable list of scientific papers, and analyzed the distribution and composition of the published literature. We selected original research papers, reviews, relevant opinions and reports addressing all the major issues that emerged in the debate on GE crops, trying to catch the scientific consensus that has matured since GE plants became widely cultivated worldwide. The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of GE crops; however, the debate is still intense. An improvement in the efficacy of scientific communication could have a significant impact on the future of agricultural GE. Our collection of scientific records is available to researchers, communicators and teachers at all levels to help create an informed, balanced public perception on the important issue of GE use in agriculture. As we can clearly see from the context from which you took that quote, the authors are referring to the public debate of GMOs and how the scientific research has been ignored. They state that the purpose of this paper was to provide a collection of records and resources for people of all levels with the goal of improving scientific communication. They even state within this context that there is a scientific consensus: "trying to catch the scientific consensus that has matured since GE plants became widely cultivated worldwide." Thats the nice thing about actually posting your sources, its very easy to go back to the original source and show when its being misused and misrepresented. That you quote mined this paper is now evident and on record for all to see. 2) I'm not sure if you are making a thinly veiled ad hominem on the authors or just trying to insert your interpretation into their very well written paper. 1) No research to detect? Thats nonsense. Lets say you spray roundup, but being a cheap ass you spray less than the recommended rate and then it rains for the next 5 days. No weeds are killed. Is that because of resistance or the fact that you sprayed too little and at the wrong time? Yeah...you need research to confirm actual herbicide resistance. 2) Herbicide resistance is not a hazard in the sense that it does not effect human health. A roundup resistant weed poses no health risk to humans or animals. Herbicide resistance develops naturally (evolution) and is a risk of any herbicide usage. However, if you don't use herbicides, then its irrelevant. The hazard of herbicide resistance is to the effectiveness of the herbicide itself. Tell me, what are the ecological consequences beyond the fact that a farmer can no longer use that herbicide? Having your views challenged by actual evidence probably does set your teeth on edge. In response you merely deny the vast body of evidence just presented to you and try to read your views into the paper, despite what they actually say. It reminds me a lot of how creationists and global-warming deniers continually claim that there is a lack of evidence, no scientific consensus, and quote mine statements. This is nothing more than guilt by association and more arguments from ignorance. 1) There certainly has been misuse of Bt and this has led to the development of resistance. However, that is not an argument against the technology itself, but its misuse. 2) I remember when the Bt corn was first released and when my family first started using it on their farm. Farmers were obligated under contract to plant 5-10% of their acreage to non-Bt varieties to create a refuge. The use of refuges was to help prevent the development of resistance. It was the seed companies that pushed the use of refuges and made it obligatory. However, many farmers did not plant the refuges or did so incorrectly. They did so deliberately because they wanted the full benefits of Bt. The paper you cite supports this: Although regulations in the United States and elsewhere mandate refuges of non-Bt host plants for some Bt crops, farmer compliance is not uniformly high The paper you cite actually spends a great deal of time examining the theory behind methods of delaying resistance, including the use of refuges. The refuge strategy has been the primary approach used worldwide to delay pest resistance to Bt crops and has been mandated in the United States, Australia and elsewhere8, 16, 23. Despite implementation of some resistance management practices for conventional insecticides, the mandates for the refuge strategy are part of an unprecedented proactive effort to slow resistance to Bt crops that recognizes both their value and the strong threat of resistance. The seed companies have also taken other means of preventing resistance, including pyramiding different Bt proteins into one plant. This is a strategy similar to triple drug therapy for HIV. First-generation Bt crops each produce a single Bt toxin, but many second-generation Bt crops, named pyramids, produce two or more distinct Bt toxins that are active against the same pest21, 47. The funny thing is that it is the biotech companies that stand to lose the most resistance and they are very familiar with how evolution works. That is why they have spent great deals and much time into developing ways to responsibly use Bt crops and prevent resistance. As much as I love farmers, its really them that have misused the technology. 1) This is why it pays to use correct terminology. "common code" is vague and given the context in which it was written, I could only assume you were referring to the plant genome itself, not the transgene. I would strongly encourage you to learn the proper terminology and use it. It makes communication so much easier. 2) This image of transgenes being "moved en masse whenever possible, taken off the shelf and plugged into the latest GMO" is yet another example of fear mongering. You are trying to paint a picture that is very inaccurate and also somewhat disturbing to readers in order to appeal to emotion rather than fact. In truth there is nothing routine about it. Do you have any real idea what is involved in genetic engineering? I would hope that anybody taking the time to actually write on the matter would bother to understand how it is done first, but that does not seem to be the case. 3) What do you mean by "easily accessible organelles in the leaf"? This makes no sense to me. Bt is localized in the cytoplasm of cells, while organelles are specialized subunits of cells...not leaves. I definitely have no idea what you are trying to imply by "easily accessible" other than it seems to be yet more fear language. 4) What are you talking about when you say "get a retrovirus that spreads from cotton to corn to rice like that. It's not likely, but it's a vulnerability - even a kind of vulnerability"? What does this have to do with Bt being in "easily accessible organelles in the leaf." What is the connection here? You seem to be jumping from one thing to the next without any connection and certainly lacking clarity. Its senseless. 1) The entire purpose of increasing these seed collections is to integrate them into breeding programs to increase the genetic diversity of the seeds sold. 2) The decline of genetic diversity, southern corn blight in the 70s.....all of this happened prior to GMOs. 3) Provide me with actual evidence, I want actual research papers that show the decline in genetic diversity is the result of the introduction of GMOs. You are merely making an unsupported assertion. In contrast, I have shown several times now in this thread that these declines occurred before the use of GMOs and were driven primarily by factors such as conventional breeding. 1) Nothing prevents farmers from planting their own seed. It is not difficult to obtain public lines and varieties and the farmers are free to plant these to their hearts content, propagate the seed, etc. A farmer if he so chose, could even produce his own hybrid seed by crossing public inbred lines like the maize lines B73 and Mo17. Farmers choose to buy their seed every year because its very laborious and expensive to produce high quality seed let alone hybrids. It requires expertise and often specialized equipment to clean and sort the seed for optimal results. 2) Many of the companies have spent billions and decades developing their lines. Pioneer's founder lines have been in continuous development for 80 years. What a farmer can produce from such lines and their hybrids far exceeds whatever they could obtain from growing their own seed, so farmers choose to buy their seed. 3) As I pointed out to you earlier, genetic engineering is being used to speed up breeding. Did you just ignore that post entirely? For instance, the use of transgenic CenH3 to create doubled haploid lines. Not only that, but the CenH3 technology is available to academic researchers. We have several lines ourself. 1) "not yet the further narrowing via their GMs" In other words....not caused by the use of transgenics. 2) Both links refer to a transgenic rubber tree that is still in development and not used in the field. So logically, the lack of genetic diversity in rubber tree monocultures is not due to the use of this transgenic plant when it isn't even available commercially yet. You have failed to demonstrate the GMOs are the cause of reduced genetic diversity.

1) If you don't know what the selection coefficients are for these other populations then statements like this: "I simply observed that skin colors in human populations have evolved rapidly quite often in the past" are unsupported. You don't know that skin color evolved rapidly in these other populations. The rate of evolution is a measurable quantity, not one that you simply claim to be so. Because multiple factors play into this, you don't know that it evolved rapidly. For example, lets say that there is population discontinuity because one group of a different color migrated in and basically wiped out the previous inhabitant and replaced them. This is exactly what happened in North America and Australia. In a handful of generations you have nearly complete replacement of one population by another. If you do not account for possibilities like that, you would erroneously conclude that there was rapid evolution. Hence my continued harping on the importance of population continuity/discontinuity. You are going around and making unsupported claims about human evolution and then saying that these results are not unique...you can't do that overtone, your argument needs to be supported by actual research, in this case you need those selection coefficients, you need the evidence of population continuity or discontinuity. 2) This: "the genetics are plastic (set up to allow sensitivity to selection pressure, unlike, say, design height or digestive tract physiology)" is nonsense. How are the genetics "set up allow sensitivity to selection pressure"? What is the mechanism of such sensitivity? These traits are under the same rate of mutation. Scattered around the genome, there is unlikely to be a unusual recombination for these specific loci. The way you are describing this simply makes no sense from the standpoint of genetics, but instead, seems to imply an almost Lamarkian sense of evolution. If this claim made any scientific sense, we could actually discuss, but as it stands it sounds like hand waving nonsense. What determines response to selection is the phenotypic trait, because it is there that selection operates and that is determined ultimately by environment and external factors, not some vague "sensitivity" at the genetic level. This and the subsequent quote from wikipedia: have absolutely nothing to do with your claim of genetic plasticity. Explain to me how quoting a textbook definition of genetics explains why you referred to "plasticity" in the context of phenotype? It doesn't. I'm about to give up trying to make sense of your posts, if thats what you mean. You clearly wrote about plasticity in reference to phenotype. Every time you used the term "plastic" in your original posts, you were referring either to the word "trait" (phenotype) or specific phenotypes (skin tone, vitamin D production, tanning....). You are trying to change your argument midstream and claim that you meant something other than what you clearly wrote.

Nothing like soiling a thread honoring a great man with politics. I have no desire to see this thread derailed by the dirt of politics. This man was a true humanitarian and inspiration, lets focus on that.

1) Not enough time? 30 years of research is not enough time? Since when? The consequences have been under study for 30 years. We have 1800 papers addressing all aspects, many from completely independent groups. Your continued assertion that we can't or don't know, that this technology is too new is unfounded and is nothing more than "fear" language. Its the sort of headline grabbing claims that are used to induce fear into people so that they ignore the facts. How about we stop making unsupported claims and start looking at the actual research? 2) I challenge you to support this claim: "The unanticipated event of human metabolism releasing chewed up pieces of both the code for glysphosate resistance and expression created chemical complexes in consumed food, directly into the intestinal flora, provides an illustrative example, but one would hope that among reasonable people none is needed - the potential is simply and blatantly obvious." First off, its not obvious. The "code' for glyphosate resistance amounts to a different variant of the 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase gene which is already found in all plants. If you eat organic GMO-free food my friend, you are eating the EPSP protein. So no, the potential is not "simply and blatantly obvious". Furthermore, there has been extensive study on the effects of this the glyphosate resistance....its safe. I gladly eat it. So either provide some actual evidence that there is a danger due to glyphosate resistance or retract your statement. I am challenging you to provide support and I will insist upon it. This is an unsupported assertion and nothing more. We can come to a consensus on the safety and benefits of GMOs. Thats why so many scientific groups and organizations have done exactly that. This technology has been around for 30 years and studied so extensively that we have nearly 1800 papers and studies alone on the safety of the technology. If you want to assert that we don't or can't know anything then you must address how we have such a vast body of evidence and research on the subject. Otherwise you are just making an argument from repetition. 1) I didn't say either one was dangerous, I merely pointed out where the real market dynamics are that drive agriculture. 2) Unsupported claims that Monsanto is closed or secretive are exactly that....unsupported. Such claims have no place in science forums which should be driven by evidence, not unsupported accusations. 1) Are you arguing that third world farmers who have little access to GMOs don't have the option to plant non-GMOs? Because you wrote this in reply to this comment by me: "Except that farmers have the option to simply not plant these crops [GMOs]." If third world farmers do not have access to the research and breeding, then they don't have access to GMOs and are already planting non-GMO crops. So obviously they have access to non-GMOs. If you are arguing that third world farmers don't have the option to plant GMOs...well that actually is the result of anti-GMO organizations and foreign governments. Non-profit organizations and Academics have developed a life saving crop called Golden Rice, which will be made freely available to farmers in third world nations suffering from vitamin A deficiency. The reason this crop is being blocked and held up is because of all the environmentalist and anti-GMO groups that go around ripping up test plots and forcing governments to oppose the dissemination of Golden Rice. Furthermore, GMOs are made available to many third world farmers. For instance BT cotton is grown and made available in Southeast Asia, most notably India. As I mentioned earlier, groups like VIRCA are developing transgenic Cassava resistant to viral infection. If you are simply arguing that third world farmers don't have access to better breeding...that's true, but it has nothing to do with GMOs and is a completely different topic. Furthermore, seed companies are partnering with public organizations and charities to make higher-yielding varieties available in places like Africa. The implication that farmers do not have options is false. As for first world farmers, there are non-GMO options available from the same companies that market GMOs. Pioneer has an entire line of GMO free soybean varieties. And that was my real point. These farmers have the option to buy non-GMO seeds and if farmers decided to plant non-GMOs because it was advantageous, then the seed companies would focus on those. Nobody is forcing farmers to plant these varieties, they do so because of the advantages they give farmers. So which one of these are you arguing? Either way, its wrong. 2) What do you mean by "the destruction of Bt pesticides at the hands of GMO promulgators"? What is this statement referring to? Link a source or some sort of new story to clarify whatever it means. Otherwise its just nonsense as is the vague accusation directed at Monsanto. What exactly is Monsanto supposed to be paying damage for? Otherwise, you should retract this statement. There are a lot of false statements in this one paragraph, so lets go through them one by one. 1) Most landraces are not grown period, regardless if they are GMOs or not. That is because most landraces lack optimal agronomic traits and yield-potential. As I have already pointed out, crops like maize were already heading for a genetic bottleneck 25+ years before the first GMO maize. GMOs are not the primary cause for these GMOs not being planted. 2) Companies like Pioneer are actually improving landraces and other varieties and so expanding the genetic base. I already proved this in my first reply to you: "The largest corn hybrid company, Pioneer, has assembled one of the largest collections of maize varieties in the world, which they are using to improve and diversify the lines they market." 3) That research and effort are not being put into non-GMO improvements is simply false and completely ignores what the seed industry actually does. First, just see point number 2 above. The larges corn hybrid company is working on a vast collection of maize varieties which they use for interbreeding and improving elite lines. This is conventional breeding and research into non-GMO improvements. Pioneer spends a vast amount of time and research on conventional breeding and trait mapping. Most agronomically important traits are QTLs, as such its not so simple to breed these into new lines. The aforementioned use of CenH3 lines to speed up the creation of new isogenic lines, is a major advancement in this area. Actually read up on Pioneer's technologies and research areas, much of it is related to non-GMO research and development. For instance the use of marker-assisted selection is used in conventional breeding. Even Monsanto is heavily invested into non-GMO research and conventional breeding, particularly through the seed companies that it owns. They too are also using diverse germplasms to widen the genetic base of the varieties they develop. Monsanto has been doing this especially in vegetable crops. 4) As for the claim that "large blocks of common code are being widely distributed throughout the entire narrow band of genetic varieties commercially promoted and made available"....again false. See points 2 and 3. The major seed companies are doing the exact opposite, seeking out a wider genetic base. 5) Finally, the claim that varieties are being "bought up by the major GMO developers, who then take them off the market - forcing the farmer who wants the best seeds etc to use the GM product or do without"....is nothing more than false propaganda that has long been promoted by anti-GMO activists. Can you name for me a single variety that has been bought up and made unavailable? Landraces and publicly developed varieties are available to everyone. Companies cannot patent the non-GMO public lines or take them off the market. In fact, anyone can get access to these lines because they are public and many are kept in stock at Universities and the USDA. The only varieties that are not publicly available are those that were developed privately by the companies themselves. Pioneer's parental lines have been in continuous development for 80 years and have never been publicly available...even before GMOs. Furthermore, these same companies offer GMO-free varieties and sell them commercially. See the link earlier in this thread to the certified non-GMO soybean lines that Pioneer sales. Secondly, this claim contradicts the others. If these companies are buying up these varieties and using them, then they are actually widening the genetic base....so your arguments contradict. So lets summarize. All the claims you have just made are false and easily shown false by simply looking at the research that the companies are doing and by looking at the products they offer. 1) As I demonstrated earlier (with actual evidence and support), the reduction of genetic diversity occurred before the introduction of GMOs. 2) As I demonstrate earlier (with actual evidence and support) the seed companies have invested heavily into widening the genetic base through the use of extensive collections of different germplasms. That is indeed worrisome, but the fact that a narrow genetic base was established long before the generation of GMO varieties demonstrates that the cause of this was not GMOs. For some reason you and other GMO opponents conflate any narrowing of the genetic base with being caused by GMOs even when its not. This is the fallacy of "guilt by association". Secondly, can you provide actual sources that there is a narrowing of the genetic base of rubber trees due to GMOs? I want you to support this claim, because right now it is unfounded. In the case of maize and soybeans, the biotech and seed companies have worked to increase the genetic base of both their GMO and non-GMO products, contrary to the continued claim that GMOs are narrowing the base. First off, lets dispense with the ridiculous hyperbole and irrelevant attacks about Fox News or Megan Kelly. Its irrelevant. Its also nothing more than poisoning the well....a variant of the ad hominem fallacy. Again this is a science forum is it not? Our discussion should be driven by evidence and fact, not political ideology. Leave the leftist rhetoric out of this. Restricting what farmers can or cannot plant directly affects what is planted on the farm and hence the crop diversity present. This farmer was taken to court for planting wheat, when he was not allowed too. These sorts of restrictions, which persisted for decades were instituted during the New Deal under FDR. That's just a fact. The federal government has driven the increase of "monocultures" through subsidies and crop insurance. Federal Crop Insurance is not available for every crop in every county/state. This is a critical component of agriculture. I have seen farms lose money because of crop loss and not having insurance. That is why farmers use it. If you grow an unapproved crop, you take on the full risk. Farmers are businessmen trying to make a living. They will minimize risk and so National policies like federal crop insurance are huge drivers of what crops are planted where. The Land Grant Universities are wonderful institutions, I have been at three different ones the last 11 years...but you overstate their influence. These Universities were first founded back in the 1800s. While they have helped farmers improve their practices, they have little to no influence on the market or the profit incentives available to farmers. That is why federal programs like federal crop insurance, subsidies, etc have had a far larger effect. You are looking in the wrong direction for the decrease in the types and diversity of crops planted, this has entirely been driven by market forces. A few years ago when farmers increased the number of corn-on-corn acreage, this was driven entirely by high corn demand due to increased ethanol usage because of federal mandates.

This is a false statement and ignores the realities of plant genetics and the advancements over the years....it is notable that ignoring the realities of transgenics and plant breeding you simply jump to the conclusion that seed companies are not doing this and aren't because of profit motive. First off, Plant Transformation is being used to speed up plant breeding and improve basic traits, such as drought resistance. 2013 saw the first release and use of transgenic plants engineered to have increased drought resistance. Specifically towards the goal of speeding up conventional breeding, Pioneer is already using a transgenic technology/method for generating doubled haploids within only two generations compared to the traditional seven. This is based on the use of a transgenic CenH3 protein, the method being first developed by the late great Simon Chan (I remember when he presented this method at an Arabidopsis conference several years ago). The way this method works, the resulting plants are not themselves transgenic, as the transgene is lost during the doubled haploid process, but it relies on a transgenic. Another transgenic technology, that is used to improve conventional breeding is Pioneer's Seed Production Technology Process. The details of this are not shown on the site (I am familiar with it from a conference two years ago), but it relies on a transgenic approach to prevent pollen shed in female plants....the transgene then being lost in the seed sold to farmers. These technologies have been in use for a couple of years now, having taken years of development. However, you don't hear about them because the transgenes are not carried on into the marketed seed, they are only used in the breeding and seed production end. Secondly, there are basic technological difficulties in developing transgenics. Most agronomically important traits are quantitive traits, having multiple genes control them. The more genes or the bigger the DNA you try to insert into a plant, the more difficult it becomes. There are all kinds of technological and biological barriers. Stacking genes, although increasingly common, is difficult and only recently has it become more feasible. This has slowed the use of this technology in introducing more complex traits. However, the development of artificial chromosomes in crops like maize that are capable of carrying stacked traits with directed insertion could change this (the man who developed this technology was one of my PhD committee members, it truly is an amazing technology). Thirdly, conventional breeding itself has long been restricted until recently. The maize genome was only sequenced and published in 2009, the soybean genome in 2010.....other crops have only been published this last year and some are still unpublished. If you have ever done any sort of gene mapping, particularly as it was done prior to next-gen sequencing and prior to having a sequenced genome....its extremely laborious and difficult. Entire PhDs have been made on mapping quantitive trait loci (QTLs) down to regions that still contain multiple genes. Only recently has it become feasible to even map these traits to specific variants en masse. Transgenics requires one to know what sort of genes you are inserting....its just not feasible to develop a marketable crop with a 1 mega base insertion with many genes. So the ability to even do this has previously been limited by our ability to identify the responsible genes/gene variants in the first place. That's whats so misleading about the claim you have just made. It completely ignores the technical and biological realities and it ignores the fact that it is already being done. Just because you haven't heard about it, doesn't mean the technology has not been used to improve conventional breeding. Rest of my reply to come....

Do you have enough to test different temperatures?

Define for me what you consider a monoculture. This is surprisingly hard to define and probably does not mean what you think it does. Nearly all organic farms grow their crops in rotation, planting only one crop in a field at a time, but changing it each year. These farmers are not considered "monocultures". This is exactly what the majority of commercial farmers of crops like corn and soybeans do. Most GMO crops are annuals (corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, etc) and typically planted in rotation, thus breaking the year after year planting of the same crop in the same field. This is standard practice throughout the corn belt. In my opinion this is not a monoculture. In contrast, many non-GMO fruit vegetable crops are grown continuously without rotation in the same field, thus constituting a true monoculture. When corn prices began peaking a few years ago, driving many Midwest farmers to abandon the traditional corn/soybean rotation for some of their fields for a short-term period of a couple of years......this was entirely driven by basic supply/demand. The increased use of ethanol, mandated in part by federal regulations, greatly reduced corn supplies, driving up the price. It had nothing to do with GMOs. Current agricultural practices in the US have been shaped more by the destructive government policies that were imposed earlier in the last century by FDR to control production and today that shape the economics of farming than anything. Federal regulations have historically restricted what farmers could plant to the point of discouraging the planting of more diverse crops. Farmers have even been taken to court for planting crops they were not "allowed" to plant. Whether or not GMOs encourage or discourage crop rotations is not strait-forward. Consider the usage of Roundup Ready crops. Glyphosate has very low carry-over compared to other herbicides and its use makes it possible to actually plant more diverse crop rotations. Predictions point to effects in both directions. In truth, GMOs have little impact on the actual choice to rotate or not since cropping practices are driven first and foremost by market prices. The true determinants of modern farming are the companies and consumers at the end of the pipeline, not seed companies like Monsanto. Just consider the economic worth of the companies. Monsanto is worth almost $20 billion in total assets and had ~$11 billion in revenue last year. It must compete with other companies like Pioneer for the business of farmers. In contrast, Cargill, which buys and processes agricultural commodities is the largest privately owned US company and is bigger than companies like Ford Motor Company. Its revenue last year was ~$137 billion. It could buy Monsanto 6 times. Since Cargill buys commodities, if it decided tomorrow to not buy GMOs, farmers would stop planting GMOs immediately en masse and Monsanto and Pioneer would suddenly be pushing their non-GMO varieties (yes they exist). The entire GMO debate is confounded by misperceptions of what truly drives agriculture, farming practices, and who has the power. Except that farmers have the option to simply not plant these crops. Farmers are the consumers of the seed and drive what seeds are produced. That farmers gain economic advantages from GMOs is the reason they buy them. Monsanto can't force you to plant roundup ready crops. My father refused to plant roundup ready corn because he wants to be able to kill off volunteer corn in soybeans the next year in the rotation. And at the end of the day, it is the end user (Cargill, consumers) and federal policies that drive the economics of farming. This is as true for the small farmer as it is the corporation. Farmers are businessmen and their choices are what drives the market for seed. Furthermore, seed companies have to have a long term vision as well. The typical GMO takes around 13 years and $136 million to from conception to market. ~$35 million is spent in meeting regulatory costs alone, as does much of the time in development. Plant breeding is restricted by basic biology. Pioneer has been continuously developing their maize lines for 80 years. At best you can get two generations of maize in a year by planting in regions like Hawaii. Developing a RIL population for trait mapping typically takes ~8 generations (4 years). If you want to introduce a new trait into a line by conventional breeding, this could take as many generations of backcrossing, if not more. Scaling this then to the point where new hybrids are available for market takes a few more years. This sort of investment into development does not lend itself very easily to a very short-term view.

This year is the 100 years after the birth of agronomist and plant geneticist Norman Borlaug, one of the greatest humanitarians in human history. Norman Borlaug helped initiate the Green Revolution, developing dwarf varieties of high-yielding wheat which have been estimated to have saved 1 billion lives throughout the developing world from death by starvation and malnutrition. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work. He was an amazing and humble man. I had the pleasure of meeting him briefly twice before he died and he was an immense inspiration for the professional I have route taken. This man is a true hero and its a shame that his name is not better known. Lets change that. http://www.worldfoodprize.org/norm/#.UyXyr_SwKfA

The increasing debate and interest in the risk/safety of GMOs is typically tainted by anti-corporatism, making it difficult to address the actual scientific basis behind these issues. I am an advocate for the use of GMOs. My interest and involvement in this topic has been ongoing for many years. If you are interested in my professional and personal background in this, I am willing to discuss it. My specific expertise is plant genetics and I have longstanding personal connections and history in agriculture. I have never worked in the corporate setting, always having been in academic labs. I would very much like to discuss the actual scientific issues regarding the use of GMOs, especially those currently used, free of rhetoric regarding corporations. If there are specific scientific questions or arguments that people have regarding GMOs, then lets discuss them. I just ask that no blind arguments be made against corporations or corporate control, this is of no direct relevance to the actual science of GMOs.

Go to Google Scholar or PubMed and search for these terms. Avoid the hypochondriac websites from non-experts that are the typical top hits of a standard google search. Restrict yourself to the actual evidence. The papers on this subject will be scattered around in different journals, so you really need to use one of the above search engines to find them.

For once I would like to have a GMO discussion that is not poisoned with knee-jerk anti-corporatism, but I have long since given up hope. There are non-corporate GMOs, the most note-worthy being Golden Rice, but there are many others. For instance, the Virus Resistant Cassava for Africa (VIRCA) group at the Danforth Center. I know some of the VIRCA researchers. There are research groups in South Africa I spent some time with who are developing the Golden Rice equivalent in maize and sorghum for humanitarian purposes. All around the world there are numerous large scale efforts to develop GMOs for humanitarian purposes, run by private charities, academic researchers, etc. The only goal of Golden Rice is to save millions of children from blindness and even death due to Vitamin A deficiency. But in the GMO discussions, these example are ignored or swept under the rug, or even worse...implied to be part of some corporate conspiracy. From this point forward any vague, unsupported, knee-jerk anti-corporate argument regarding GMOs will simply be ignored as the unscientific, unsupported nonsense that it is. Now you have made one semi-valid point...the potential of genetic bottleneck in our crop species. I agree it is a concern. In fact, so do the corporations, thats why they have been spending a great deal of effort on preserving and utilizing genetic diversity. The largest corn hybrid company, Pioneer, has assembled one of the largest collections of maize varieties in the world, which they are using to improve and diversify the lines they market. The real question, however, is whether or not the loss of crop genetic diversity has anything really to do with GMOs or more practical underlying reasons. If it has nothing to do with GMOs, then this is an invalid argument against GMOs. Most of the loss of genetic diversity has been to the development of high-yielding elite lines by traditional breeding that out-perform any other variety. What people seem to forget is that the family farmer is first and foremost a business man. Farming is how they make their money, feed their families. If they can increase yields by 5% using variety A over variety B, then they will use variety A. I talk to so many people who have this cartoon image has the farmer being a somewhat dumb, wholesome person in a straw hat, more concerned about his chickens than his finances. Nobody forced farmers to grow the varieties they do...they chose so because it affected their bottom line. Breeding crops, particularly for complex traits such as yield, is a very difficult, expensive, and intensive process. The elite lines that are the basis for modern agriculture have been under development for decades by entire teams of geneticists. Pioneer's lines have been under continuous development for 80 years now. The yield potential in just one of these lines compared to some old landrace is incomparable and a farmer would go bankrupt trying to make a profit off of old varieties that yield a fraction of the modern ones. The loss of crop genetic diversity has been ongoing for decades before the introduction of GMOs. One of the most recent near disasters resulting from this loss was in the 1969-1970 due to the over-reliance of cytoplasmic male sterility in maize, which made the development of hybrid corn immensely easier and cheaper. The first GMO crop planted (Tobacco) was in 1983. The major GMOs you see now, were not approved for commercial use until 1995, including the first GMO maize. In 1972, the National Academies of Science commented on the dangers of Crop Diversity loss. So in the case of maize genetic diversity, we have a clear timeline and evidence showing that the genetic diversity had already eroded by 1969, a full 25-26 years before the first GMO maize was made available to farmers. In the 19 years since the introduction of GMO maize, the seed companies have put forth great effort to actually increase the genetic diversity and the preserve germplasm. This demonstrates that the cause of crop diversity loss is not a factor GMO use, at least not in maize, but of other factors, the primary one being that farmers want to grow the highest yielding crops. Other crops have also been studied for the potential of erosion of genetic diversity due to the use of GMOs. In soybeans, it has been demonstrated that there has been no loss of genetic diversity due to the use of the Roundup Ready trait. This is because the Roundup Ready trait has been introduced into numerous elite varieties. More diversity has been lost through the use of a few select elite lines than the use of GMOs. As in the case of maize, it is easier to introduce a transgene into a line than to develop a high-yield elite line. The biggest loss of genetic diversity in soybeans in fact came very earlier on through the bottleneck induced by their introduction into the US in the first place, rather than modern breeding or GMOs. If anything, GMOs have the potential to increase genetic diversity. It is easier to improve varieties with traits like disease resistance through genetic engineering than traditional outcrossing and backcrossing. So while I agree that the the loss of genetic diversity is a concern, the evidence shows that this is not due to GMOs and that this argument against GMOs is unfounded. 1) Brand new.......since when is 30 years "brand new"? This technology has been worked with and studied continuously for the last 30 years, with 1783 papers assessing different risk factors involved. For all interested, here is a spread sheet of all 1783 papers that studied the impact of GMOs. That is neither "brand new" or "completely unfamiliar". The use of this language is unjustified and meant to induce fear into readers. 2) I really have no idea what you mean by "one GMO is can be as different from another as one organism is different from another". Do you mean to imply that BT corn is as different from Roundup Ready soybeans....well of course...they are different species entirely. Or do you mean to imply that BT corn is as different from Roundup Ready corn, which biologically is nonsense. 3) I agree the risk of each GMO should be assessed independently....in fact it is. Every new trait is extensively tested and has to be approved. For the assessment of all the individual traits, there is a clear consensus of little risk and great benefit. Again, over 1783 papers have assessed the technology. You are poisoning the well, making vague, unsupported accusations about the scientists who have assessed the evidence. You offer no support, its vague, you make allusions to past mistakes. There is nothing here for me to even address other than to point out that its one big ad hominem. These arguments, however, are based on clear evidence. The scientific consensus on GMOs is based on the vast body of research on GMOs, which totals nearly 1800 different studies spread over thirty years. Its not just that its been 30 years of "no harm"....its that for the past 30 years people have been taking a critical look at GMOs, testing all levels of safety and risk, from environmental to health to genetic diversity, and have found clear evidence showing their safety. Within the species we eat, there are hundreds of thousands, millions even, of variants of different proteins. We eat them without fear, because they pose no health risk to us, even though they are of consequence to the plant. Yet when we introduce a new variant of a protein that are already in plants and the food we eat, suddenly we expect the worse? Thats simply not logical. This just seems like denial to me. That 30 years and 1800 scientific papers later the evidence supports the safety of GMOs is not enough, makes me believe that no amount of evidence would be sufficient for you. If you really want to have a discussion of GMOs overtone, lets dispense with the unsupported ad hom attacks on scientists and discuss the actual evidence. I just gave you a list of 1783 papers on the matter. I'm happy to discuss the science of any aspect of GMOs, as long as it does not boil down to knee-jerk anti-corporatism or unsupported neo-Luddism. Lets discuss the actual science. 1) As other members have pointed out, the use of monocultures is not a cause or even directly related to the use of GMOs. Just consider your own argument. The Irish Potato Famine. That occurred in 1845-1852....the first GMO used in a field was in 1983. That tells you that monocultures were preceding the first GMOs by 131 years...and in a period when the majority of people were small farmers and there were no large corporate seed companies or industrial scale agriculture. If you drive through the Midwest, there is a mix of corn and soybeans, pastures, hay ground, etc. Most of these farmers rotate the crops, breaking up the monoculture. These farms are amongst the heaviest users of GMOs in the world The largest monocultures are typically large scale fruit/vegetable plantations, such as bananas (as John Cuthbar pointed out). Several years ago I toured through Costa Rican farms as part of a university group, looking at tropical agriculture practice. There are entire valleys planted with nothing but melons, or bananas, or pineapple. None of these are GMO, all are true monocultures, planted year after year with the same crop. The amount of pesticide usage makes what we spray on corn and soybeans seem like nothing in both terms of amount and toxicity. The banana plantations are almost sterile. If GMOs were the actual cause of monocultures, then we should expect the exact opposite. GMOs can be effectively implemented into any polyculture farming practice and in fact can make it more effective. Consider double cropping, especially the winter wheat/soybean practice that is fairly common in certain parts of the Midwest. Roundup ready soybeans actually make this easier and more effective as one can avoid tillage. 2) I really have nothing to say about the corporations. Its not an scientific argument or actual assessment of the safety/risk and though you claim it is a political/economic risk, what is the hard evidence of this? I have a very different perspective of many of these companies, because my family has dealt with them and worked with them. My father is the third generation in my family to farm the same land. He has contracted for many years with companies like Pioneer to grow soybeans and corn for seed, while also growing these crops independently for commercial sale. What exactly are the political and economic risks? As I told overtone, I have nothing to say to vague or unsupported anti-corporate arguments. 3) I understand your concerns, but the technology is not new, having been around for 30 years with the number of studies into the various risks and safety of individual traits quickly approaching 2000. We know quite a bit about the risk. I am happy to address and debate specific questions and/or arguments, but what can one say to vague assertions of unknown risk? Nothing. 4) In Europe (and the US) you have the luxury of taking a cautious approach. You live in the first world. You may not be wealthy, but you are at no risk of starvation or malnutrition. Your food supply is not going to be wiped out by a virus. You have the luxury of paying more for more environmentally damaging and unnecessary foods labeled "organic". The consequences of anti-GMO sentiment has been that life saving technology, like Golden Rice, virus-resistant cassava, etc are being held up and destroyed while millions of children go blind or starve. Meanwhile, accumulating scientific evidence, including the consensus of many European scientific agencies, shows the safety and benefits of GMOs. I find Europe's approach to GMOs to be retrograde, unscientific, and ultimately damaging. Consider the fact that Europe take nearly a blanket approach to GMOs, imposing severe restrictions on all GMOs and treating them all as if they were the same rather than assessing the risk each individually as they pharmaceuticals.

The common usage of this word is in reference to traits. Consider the fact that a search for "phenotypic plasticity" yields over 20x more results than "genetic plasticity". That you can find published alternative usages of plasticity is not a surprise, I admit that using the word "always" was way to strong and wrong, but just because you can find examples, does not mean that this is the common or proper usage. Quite frankly, "genetic plasticity" implies a view of the genome that is very problematic and I take issue with it, but that is beyond the scope of this discussion. However, in your posts, you always used the word "plastic" in conjunction with "traits" or specific phenotypes, thus implying "phenotypic plasticity". So even if there are minor alternative usages of this word, the context of your previous posts clearly implies "phenotypic plasticity" not genetic. Let me quote you directly once again: "Not for such plastic traits (in humans) as skin and eye color." While there is arguably some ambiguity in the term "plasticity" there is no ambiguity in the term "trait" or in the specific phenotypes you listed off in reference to their "plasiticity". Perhaps you should reread what you actually wrote. If you meant something other than phenotypic plasticity, then you probably shouldn't use a phrase like "plastic traits". How do you claim to not have been talking about phenotypic plasticity when every time you use the words "plastic" or "plasticity" it is to modify words like "trait" or specific phenotypes. That skin color has evolved multiple times is not surprising. What is surprising is the strength of selection in this instance. Can you cite any other studies that show selection coefficients for skin color as strong as these? Again, the point is not that skin color has not evolved multiple times, its how strongly it was selected for in this instance. Its not enough to simply state "within less than X generations" because the strength of selection is not a simple function of the number of generations. As Arete pointed out earlier, crucial to knowing the strength of selection is the effective populations size (Ne). The assumption of population continuity or discontinuity also is crucial, as I have pointed out several times. So, just because it has evolved multiple times, does not mean that the selection on the trait has been as strong in the other instances. So unless you can show that the selection has been as high in all these other circumstances, its still surprising.

In the biological context, plasticity always refers to phenotypic plasticity, unless you are talking about neuroplasticity, which is also phenotypic. How else am I going to interpret that? As for what you wrote, lets look at the context: "Not for such plastic traits (in humans) as skin and eye color." Hmm, there you are talking about "traits" which in biology refers to phenotype: A qualitative characteristic; a discrete attribute as contrasted with metrical character. A trait is amenable to segregation rather than quantitative analysis; it is an attribute of phenotype, not of genotype. Not only that, but you refer to it specifically in the context of skin and eye color....those are phenotypes! How about this one: "They are among the most easily and quickly altered traits humans possess - so much riding on this plasticity that evolution has established a meta-level, an evolved ability to alter skin tone in response to environment (tanning)." You are still talking about traits (phenotypes, skin tone (a phenotype), and now tanning (another phenotype). "My observations were that we have very good reasons to expect strong selection pressure on factors affecting vitamin D metabolism among the released populations and colonizers of a post-glacial era inland northern Europe or west central Asia, and that skin color in humans (one of those factors, a major one) is plastic" Vitamin D metabolism and skin tone.....both phenotypes. Every time you have talked about plasticity you have talked about phenotypes or used the term "trait" which specifically refers to phenotype. Then there is the basic fact that biological plasticity refers to phenotype. So if you meant it to mean something else, you certainly did not imply as much and you certainly used incorrect terminology. Now when challenged on it you want to imply to me that you meant something else other than phenotypic plasticity? Come on man, you're changing your stories and if you're not, then you need to familiarize yourself with correct terminology. Very strong and rapid positive selection is not all that common. There is a reason so many human geneticists have been surprised by the strength of the selection. If you don't find it surprising, then so what. Has there been selection? You claimed it was a matter of selection, but never supported this claim. That there was migration and admixture is well documented, hence my point about the Y-chromosomes. But again, my entire point regarding India is that the history is the exact opposite. There you have population discontinuity, in this case, you have a claim of population continuity, the result being very different effects on allele frequency changes and how strong selection actually was.

1) This statement and your previous one regarding plasticity and genetics seems to conflate phenotypic plasticity with the idea that the underlying genetics is therefore hypervariable and somehow more prone to mutation/selection/frequency changes. Is that what you are actually saying? Because you can't simply assume that. There may be a large number of alleles in skin pigmentation genes, but just because the trait itself has some plasticity does not necessarily mean that the genes themselves are more variable than any other traits or that they should be under stronger selection. In fact, if there is a large amount of genetic diversity underlying a trait, that is oftentimes a sign of weak selection. Vitamin D is important, I don't deny that, but I'm taking issue with the emphasis you place on plasticity. There is reason to argue that highly plastic traits reduce the effects of selection because the phenotypes can change/adapt within a set range without the underlying genetics necessarily changing. If your body can produce more Vitamin D by simply not producing as much melatonin without genetic changes, then selection is not going to be as strong. So I am very confused by the unusual emphasis you place on plasticity. Perhaps you mean something different than the standard usage. Maybe you mean that because it is more variable between individuals that this is "plasiticity"? 2) Human skin pigmentation is not so simple of a trait. While a relatively handful of genes explain a large portion of the variance between such disparate populations as say Northern Europeans and Africans, there is likely a great deal more genes involved in the differences within populations. There are after all at least 77 genes in humans with evidence of playing a role in skin pigmentation and in one study at least 18 showed signs of positive selection. Many of the loci identified have been limited by the fact that the trait has been most extensively studied by taking candidate gene approaches and comparing disparate ancestral populations. In contrast, when admixed populations were studied, many new genes are identified. In comparison to other human quantitative trait, certainly skin pigmentation is more simple and straight forward, but that is only at a relative scale. 3) On what basis do you claim that the genetics skin pigmentation is not "lightly embedded elsewhere in the physiology". First of all, I'm not really sure what is meant by "lightly embedded"....this is a word choice that makes little sense to me. Do you mean that these genes are not involved in other physiological processes? Do you mean that there is little relation between the physiology of skin pigmentation and other processes? I have no idea... Many genes involved with skin pigmentation can have very profound effects on vision. KITLG is a crucial part of haematopoiesis. 4) Rapid evolution and strong selection is surprising. Just because it makes sense why a gene would be under selection, it does not follow that the selection should be so strong. There are lots of advantageous or disadvantageous traits that are under relatively weak selection, even though it makes sense why it would be. I think we should appreciate the fact that if there was population continuity, that the selection was very strong. You completely missed the point and this is a strawman. 1) I never said admixture and selection are mutually exclusive. 2) The point of bringing up migration and admixture is because migration changes allele frequencies independently of selection. If we recall the rules of Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium, in order to have equilibrium, there has to be no selection and no migration. In the absence of selection and with migration, allele frequencies will change. The way the selection coefficients are calculated, especially in the case of this study, was based on changes in allele frequency from ancient samples and modern samples. The authors assumed no migration in this instance based on mitochondrial DNA samples. However, if there was migration, then this could drastically alter the changes in allele frequencies alone. In this case, the strength of selection would actually be lower than those calculated in this study. I bring up the example of Y-chromosome lineages in India as an example, because the Y-chromosome, like the mitochondria, is inherited from one parent. In the case of Y-chromosome lineages and India, if one were to base population continuity off the Y-chromosome, you would likely conclude incorrectly that there was population continuity. The same difficulty lies with doing so with the mitochondrial genomes. So do you see my point? Nobody claimed that admixture and selection are mutually exclusive....what is at issue here is whether or not migration occurred and what effect that had on the strength of selection.

Distinct from extant eukaryotes yes, but there is nothing in the definition of eukaryotes that suggests that they have to be monophyletic. The bacteria and archaea are both prokaryotes, yet they are two different lineages. By the definition of eukaryotes, what I have described would also be eukaryotes. There are distinct lineages of human lactase persistence, but the result is the same. In evolutionary terms, the independent evolution of the same traits time and again shows that evolution can reproduce itself, just by different paths. We are down a rabbit hole now and the original point I made about the time necessary to transition from prokaryote to eukaryote has been lost.

I disagree with your first assertion regarding plastic traits. There is no reason to believe that plastic traits normally have higher selection coefficients and this is still remarkably fast evolution and strong selection regardless of the plasticity. The case of the Indian groups is actually one of migration and admixture. This is why in India you find an abundance of Y chromosomes from Europe, but in the rest of the genome, there is clear evidence of admixture. As I stated earlier, if not properly taken into account, migration and admixture can appear as very strong natural selection when in fact it is a matter of migration. The study here claims that there is population continuity and thus what is observed is selection and not migration. The two situations are rather distinct.

We are not talking about multicellularity. All eukaryotes are are organisms that possess nuclei and membrane bound organelles. There is absolutely no reason to believe that it is impossible that nuclei could not evolve twice. The nucleus is merely a molecular phenotype and as evolution has shown time and again, convergent evolution is quite common. If the nucleus evolved a second time independently, then you would have a distinct origin of the eukaryotes, but they would both be by definition eukaryotes. Homoplasy has long confounded the construction of phylogenetic trees and with genetic evidence, it has been shown that many old lineages were in fact polyphyletic, misclassified because of convergent evolution. If evolution can evolve complex traits in multicellular organisms many times independently, then why not evolve molecular traits many times independently? If one lineage of eukaryotes went extinct, then you wouldn't know that it had happened. So tell me why its impossible for eukaryotes to evolve multiple times?

What do you mean nothing will evolve twice? There are many cases of the same adaptations evolving independently and even the same mutations arising independently. Lactose tolerance evolved at least twice in humans independently, in both cases resulting in the activation of lactase in adulthood. Convergent evolution is very widespread. I once did two separate mutant screens, separated by about 4 years and in two different lines and obtained the exact same mutation in both. Eukaryotes are defined as a nucleus and other membrane enclosed structures. There is no reason why this could not have evolved multiple times in an act of convergent evolution. The endosymbiosis of plastids appears to have happened multiple times.

If we take a dispassionate examination of the evidence.... Its not a simple matter of 1.5 billion years for prokaryotes to evolve to eukaryotes. The prokaryote precursors of eukaryotes would be many times more complex than the very first life forms. In fact, it is probably not reasonable in any fashion to compare the early life forms to our modern conception of prokaryotes. Much of that 1.5 billion years would have involved the evolution of various biochemical pathways and other complexities that were necessary to even sustain a eukaryotic organism. Along the way, there would have been many catastrophes and other environmental setbacks. Eukaryotes may have even evolved earlier, been wiped out, and evolved again before landing on the ancestral population that gave rise to us. There are also many factors that probably slowed down evolution. With increasing complexity, there is a lot more that can go wrong and as a result, the evolution of life gets funneled into a narrow path which restricts what is viable and possible. Especially as life developed the proteins to repair DNA damage and maintain the fidelity of the hereditary material, the number of mutations themselves would decrease, slowing evolution. Also, as the reproduction of life begin to be delayed by intermissions of growth and development, you will necessarily have lower rates of mutation. A pool of chemicals can undergo billions of reactions in a very short period of time, while within the context of an organism, those reactions are now restricted, regulated, and ultimately the process will be slowed. Consider the reproductive ability of elephants to that of e. coli.... So taking a dispassionate examination of the evidence and facts....why shouldn't we expect it to take longer? Secondly, how do you know the difference between non-life and life is greater than that of prokaryotes and eukaryotes? We really know nothing about how life originated and that division could be very small indeed.

The calculated selection coefficients (essentially how strong natural selection is operating) for the three genes in question are on par with the selection coefficients for lactase tolerance, genes involved in high-altitude living, and the sickle cell genes in malaria areas (although this latter is actually a case of balancing selection so its more complicated). These are all cases of very strong and recent selection, so it is very interesting. The real debate is whether or not there is actual population continuity in the area. Migration could mimic at some level the effects of selection. Though this group showed strong evidence of population continuity through the mitochondria, there is a possibility that its paints a false picture. There are known instances where based on Y-chromosome inheritance, one would assume population continuity, but looking at the entire nuclear genome this assumption breaks down.

Actually, you have: "This increase appears to have been disproportionately in the lower scores..." This is actually a matter of basic statistics. If you have a distribution of scores around a mean and there is a disproportionate increase in one tail of the distribution, then the variance is going to change. The only way for the variance to not change is to have an equivalent change of scores throughout the distribution, but that is not what you are claiming. And I'm surprised that you are asking the question "So?". As CharonY and I explained at the beginning of the thread, heritability is a measure that explains the variances of a trait. Whether or not the variance changes is of quite importance to the measure of heritability. I reiterate my request for specific sources. The problem is that because the variance has not really changed, that suggests that there have been increases in the IQ scores in a rather proportionate manner. There are multiple possibilities. I don't think it is appropriate to talk of heritability as a set score, but rather as a range, given that it is context dependent. I agree with you that a changing IQ score likely reflects a changing environmental factor. That these scores have been increasing in the matter of only a couple of generations is far to rapid to really be explained by a significant genetic shift. Earlier you stated that you would expect that heritability measurements would have been stronger in the past than today: "If the heritability of IQ is 50% now, after ten decades of presumably non-heritable Flynn increase in the scores, it must have been much higher in the 1940s - is that reasonable?" If as you claim, there has been a disproportionate increase in scores at the lower end due to environmental changes, this actually suggests a reduction in the environmental sources of variability, so heritability would be higher today than it was in the 1940s, not lower, since we reducing one source of variance. But why might heritability not have changed despite an increase in the mean and no change in the variance? One possibility is that there has been the introduction of a factor which affects IQ scores in a rather uniform manner, while previous sources of variance remained unchanged. To use my bucket analogy. We have two buckets, one filled 1/4 with oil, 1/4 with water, the other with 1/3 oil, 1/3 water. Now lets say you add 1/3 the volume of sand to both. The mean volume for both increases uniformly, but the variance remains unchanged, as does the relative contribution of oil to that variance. Another possibility, albeit less likely, is a systematic change in both the genetic and environmental factors. I am not denying that heritability hasn't changed, I think it entirely likely, however, it would be in the exact opposite direction than you suggest. I also think that you have not ruled out the possibilities I just suggested, so it does not follow to me that heritability is significantly different today than it was in the 1940s. As Rodger's points out, if there is a change in the variance, than the Flynn Effect could be explained simply by the effects of sampling, rather than an overall change in IQ scores (see the figure below). The argument that variance does not explain the Flynn Effect supports Flynn's own original Model of unchanging variance and a uniform increase in the scores. As to the argument that IQ tests are manipulated to produce a certain standard deviation. Lets examine how this would play out in terms of the distribution of variance. According to standard practice, 1 SD is set to 15 points above or below. In this case, we would not expect the variance to remain constant. If there were a disproportionate increase in scores from those on the lower scale, than this would increase the number of individuals within -1 SD of the median and a decrease within +1 SD. As a result, the distribution of the variances would shift and not remain constant. So your argument that this is all explained by the normalization methods does not hold up, because any real shift in the variance would still be evident in the data itself as a changing distribution. Thats a strawman. Nobody claims to have made a "cross-cultural" comparison. In fact I have made the exact opposite argument. Accounting for environmental effects is not an illusion. These are well established methods that deal with unknown environmental effects very well. You and I have gone back and forth on this quite a bit and not once have you provided a solid case that environmental effects will masquerade as genetic effects in well designed studies. Have there been badly designed studies....yes...that is true in all fields, but the papers I have cited, most notably Davies et al. are not poorly designed studies and they have gone to great lengths to account for compounding factors. How exactly did they fail to account for environmental influences? Please explain in detail, it would benefit me greatly. This seems nothing more than an argument from incredulity with vague unsupported claims that environmental influences have not been accounted for.

You mean a link to a wikipedia article????? You need to be a lot more specific than that. Specifically which ones? Yes....I need more than a vague reference to a wikipedia article with no specification of which sources you are citing.