I find the ‘refutations’ fascinating. According to two scientists who have set themselves up as an authority, not one of the 65 accusations against the biotech industry in the book Genetic Roulette has the slightest bit of merit, despite being a well-researched work fully involving scientists at every step. You’d imagine that out of all of those chapters, that there has to be at least a few points of merit. But no!

It’s pretty clear to me this isn’t a truly objective and scientific response, but rather one with a clear agenda that was decided before they begun their work. The first link you supplied tells me the same story – it’s a personal attack, not reasoned objectivity.

Jeffrey Smith is following up on this on HuffPost. Keep an eye on it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/pseudo-scientific-defense_b_528477.html

I say follow the money to figure out motivations behind such an attack on this work. The people who sell these seeds, and the chemicals they won’t germinate without, are determined to get a royalty on every mouthful of food eaten worldwide.

http://permaculture.org.au/2009/03/31/the-food-crisis-spurs-gene-patenting-race/

It’s not a time to be talking semantics. Let’s turn the argument around, and actually ask ourselves – of what benefit are these genetically modified plants anyway?

http://permaculture.org.au/2009/07/20/gm-crops-failure-to-yield-report/

http://www.celsias.com/article/gm-crops-pesticides-and-the-poor/

http://permaculture.org.au/2009/12/15/bayer-admits-it-is-unable-to-control-spread-of-gmos/

The actual solutions are not based on GM technology that cannot be contained and that is inherently reliant of waning supplies of fossil fuels and which persevere with the intervention-intensive monoculture culture, but are instead based in biodiverse systems – small scale polycultures rich in microbial life.

http://permaculture.org.au/2010/05/08/regeneration-an-earth-saving-evolution/

Scientists will argue from here to forever (especially those that are well financed by Big Biotech), but it’s really not that complicated.

We don’t need genetic engineering. Natural plant breeding techniques have shown to be far quicker and cheaper and they come without issues of horizontal gene transfer issues, allergy issues, collateral damage issues, etc. etc.

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

… The Nebraska study suggested that two factors are at work. First, it takes time to modify a plant and, while this is being done, better conventional ones are being developed. This is acknowledged even by the fervently pro-GM US Department of Agriculture, which has admitted that the time lag could lead to a “decrease” in yields.

But the fact that GM crops did worse than their near-identical non-GM counterparts suggest that a second factor is also at work, and that the very process of modification depresses productivity. The new Kansas study both confirms this and suggests how it is happening. — Independent

He’s not a scientist, and his points have been refuted one by one.

See:

http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-individuals/jeffrey-smith/

http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-content/genetic-roulette/

I’ve always been disgusted by the idea of Bt corn – take an organic, long used pesticide then make the plant produce it ALL THE TIME. What a way to ruin a great tool by causing insect resistance. Turns out even that hasn’t happened.

I encourage everybody to do searches on Google Scholar rather than normal Google, to get scientific and peer reviewed papers rather than ‘bloggers’ and other commentators.

As Permaculturalists, we have to be careful to evaluate evidence fairly, even if it flies in the face of our usual “nature knows best, industry is dangerous” beliefs.

Just piping up as someone who’s learned something (and changed his mind) recently…