GEO Watch | Modify; qualify | Politics in the meaning of GMO

Is Tyson the Red Queen of GMO myth-making?

Big Bang
About Chilling-Out?

ASTROPHYSICIST
TYSON WAXES POETIC ABOUT GMOS

Devon G.
Peña | Seattle, WA | August 1, 2014

In an interview posted on YouTube on
July 24, astrophysicist Neil
deGrasse Tyson, the charming and brilliant host of the popular TV documentary
series, Cosmos, defended the  use of genetically
modified organisms (GMOs) for food crops. Tyson emphasized that opponents
needed to “chill out” and characterized opponents as unwitting victims or
manipulative purveyors of the “fear factor”.

Responding to a question from a French journalist,
the usually humorous interlocutor seemed somewhat stumped at first and then
responded by rifting away with an explanation of how humans have been
genetically modifying plants for more than ten thousand years; ever since
people first domesticated wild plants and animals in the invention of
agriculture. Fair enough.

Are conventional (Mendellian) breeding techniques and
the beautifully varied and highly localized forms of cultural selection really
the same in nature as a technology derived from lab-based gene-splicing, qua recombinant DNA (rDNA), of genetic
materials engineered together from plant, animal, bacterial, and viral sources?
Hmmm. Maybe astrophysicists don’t understand that this sort of combination
across the boundaries not just of species but phyla does not occur in
conventional breeding, so any presumed similarities end there.

Mother Jones
Magazine was first to report on
the videotaped interview in which Tyson makes several erroneous statements:

Practically every food you buy
in a store for consumption by humans is genetically modified food. There are no
wild, seedless watermelons. There’s no wild cows...You list all the fruit, and
all the vegetables, and ask yourself, is there a wild counterpart to this? If
there is, it’s not as large, it’s not as sweet, it’s not as juicy, and it has
way more seeds in it. We have systematically genetically modified all the
foods, the vegetables and animals that we have eaten ever since we cultivated
them. It's called artificial selection.

Was Tyson chilling-out on ‘deGrasse’ he must have
smoked before the interview? Either that, or he needs to confine the
articulation of his views to areas of expertise in physics and cosmology. This
is a very poor rendition of the long process required to transform wild
relatives of our plants into sweet, and juicy delectable foods and it
oversimplifies the process. It also inadvertently invokes one the main reasons
why so many of us – as farmers, plant breeders, and seed savers – are opposed
to GMOs: The domestication and continued diversification of our food crops
depends on the genomic integrity of the original land races and their wild
relatives. GMOs are a threat to that integrity.

Moreover, one should also consider the traits that
are selected versus those that are engineered. Farmers and plant breeders may
not all agree on what traits to select, which is wonderful since it leads to
diversity of varieties. Not everyone wants that fruit to be as sweet or juicy as
possible; for e.g., some cultures and their cuisines prefer tart or sour apples.

The selection of bio-engineered traits in GMOs tend
to serve the interests not of the farmer or consumer, e.g., diversity of crops
or their adaptability to a regional cuisine, but of their corporate owners such
as resistance to the herbicides and insecticides sold by the same companies. GE
traits serve corporate interests and this has very little to do with the
ability for farmers to select for traits like sweetness, juiciness, or the
value of the stubble as fodder or green manure.

What is also left unsaid here is that there is
actually no “designer” need for GMOs; anything you wish to accomplish through
the risky use of rDNA technology can be done through agroecological and
ethnobotanical methods and practices, but this important fact slips past Tyson’s
conceptual radar.

Tyson’s statements about GMOs are not based on a fair
accounting of the current status of risk science and predictive ecologies
involved. Given his stature as a respected public intellectual, Tyson really should
exhibit a bit more modesty and restraint about a technology pocked by
uncertainties inherent in the complexity spawned by the laws of nature – e.g.,
gene flow. Tyson’s rant betrays an apparent limited awareness of the state of
the actual risk science on GMO crops.

While it is true that humans have been modifying the
wild relatives of domesticated plants and animals to produce food for thousands
of years, this always has involved crossing within the species or a closely
related one. Thus, for e.g., the plum and apricot can be mixed to produce the
so-called pluot. This is genetic modification through cultural practices that,
however radical and innovative they may appear, are actually based on the
conservation of genetic integrity within the species.  In contrast, the production of GMO crops
requires that the bio-engineer combine genes taken from different species and
indeed from different phyla and even “kingdoms” (plant, bacterial, viral, etc).

Tyson uses the term “artificial” to make it seem like
conventional and GE selection are the same. But the process of breeding for
selected traits is not really “artificial” as much as a “cultural” practice based on observations of patterns in nature.
There are broad sweeping fields of ecological science and ethno-science
that illustrate this complex interplay of humans with the natural conditions of
existence. The fact that selection is a cultural practice  is a distinct principle of the “ethnoscientific”
study of indigenous knowledge and representative of systems that Tyson
surprisingly discounts; surprising because his Cosmos series early on acknowledged the splendor of arts and sciences in the
Islamic Renaissance. Let’s not forget, Neil, its al-jabr (algebra)!

My preference for the more accurate term “cultural
selection” derives from the fact that in my fields of agroecology and
environmental anthropology, the choice of words actually matters. It is an
epistemological error to qualify cultural practices that modify traits through
selected breeding as “artificial”.

Tyson’s use of artificial creates a false equivalency
that opens the door to the illogical conclusion that genetic engineering is
really pretty much more of the same – another perhaps less simple form of
artificial selection. And this is not true.

But selection is not the only process that creates genetic
changes in animal or plant populations. Mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift
are also critical processes that create change and the scientific evidence against GMOs is perhaps the strongest on
this point: The bacterial, viral, and even human transgenes used to produce GMO
crops are very unstable and “promiscuous” [sic]. This results in a higher level
of risk of genetic contamination through the natural process of ‘gene flow’
including what is commonly termed ‘horizontal gene transfer’.

The science on gene flows is decisive and
determinative: Transgenic introgression happens
all the time and is an actually existing threat to native cultivated crops
and their wild relatives, especially in their centers of origin.  Note: The center of origin is a
geographical area where a group of organisms, either domesticated or wild,
first developed distinctive properties. Thus, for e.g., Mexico, Central
America, and the American Southwest are considered the center of origin for
Zea mays (corn), Phaseolis vulgaris (common bean), and Cucurbita spp. (Mexican
squash and pumpkin). Also, see our entry of March 31, here.
Tyson ignores this scientific fact, which shatters his simplistic argument about
genetic modification and reveals a certain naiveté about the actual risk
science on GMOs.

Gene flow is the central problem emphasized by the science-based opposition to GMOs. Credit: Biosafety Clearinghouse

Tyson commits these mistakes because of an apparent
lack of familiarity with the trajectory of research on introgression ever since
Quist and Chapela (1999) first studied the contamination of native land races
in Oaxaca. Introgression from GMO transgenes into the genome of the local
(center of origin) land race varieties and their wild relatives is now a well-documented
threat.

The risk science on the introgression of transgenes
in native populations has led more than 160 countries to sign the Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Cartegena Biosafety Protocol. The goal of
these treaties is to prevent this sort of genetic pollution from undermining
the genomic integrity of the world’s sources of native agrobiodiversity.

How can Tyson ignore the science of gene flows and
how this affects the risk analysis of GMOs? I can’t because I am also a farmer
and a plant breeder and seed saver; I am concerned that introgression makes it
difficult for me to protect our seed library for acequia farmers of the Rio
Arriba in Colorado. Surely Tyson understands that artificial [sic] selection is
an obvious example of precisely such gene flows and the opportunities and
threats they pose?

Tyson’s rant may have the effect of obscuring the
existence of a very serious peer-reviewed scientific discourse that the
opposition to GMOs relies on. The evidence is mounting and the number of
independent studies is rapidly expanding that indicate serious human health and
environmental problems associated with the production and consumption of GMO
food crops.  

Tyson fails to acknowledge or appreciate the
existence of this “dissident” science. Given the celebration in Cosmos of persecuted scientists like
Galileo, one would think Tyson would at least keep a more open minded and
respectful tone that allows that we all do indeed need to chill-out and
precisely so that we can study and review the science on both sides of the
argument instead of erroneously pretending there is a lack of science-based
reasons for opposition to GMOs and lying
to the public by attributing this to fear.

Shame on you, Dr. Tyson.

Here is the issue: This is a significant public
intellectual; a darling of progressives and liberals. Yet, in this case, Tyson
merely repeats a decidedly non-scientific refrain that the opposition is largely
driven by an irrational “fear factor”. This has become the current standard
spin-line of GMO corporations and their advocates.

The assumption of this refrain seems progressive
because it expresses concern for lay people who do not have access to the
original sources of scientific information. However, I take issue with those
who assume that the only possible response for a lack of democracy in science
discourse is fear or withdrawal.

A note to Tyson on the actual evidence: There are
plenty of social scientific attitudinal surveys suggesting that opposition to
GMOs has very little to do with fear as an emotional driver and instead
reflects a set of alternative food system values that champion democracy and
localism and are guided by a sense of rational skepticism informed by one irrefutable
contextual fact: Current risk analysis on the health and environmental harms of
GMOs is largely limited to studies done by the very same corporations that are
promoting the technology in a brazen display of neoliberal self-regulation. We
do offer centuries of proven agroecological knowledge and practice; ready to
continue as the source of agricultural resilience. Even one of the most recent surveys conducted by a group funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that fear is not a factor determining attitudes toward GMOs (see Hallman and Aquino 2003).

Despite the limitations imposed by corporate control
of seed for the conduct of scientific experiments on GMO risk factors, there are tens of dozens of
peer-reviewed scientific articles that have found serious evidence of human
health and environmental risks. For some good sources see gmoevidence. On March 3, we posted an
annotated bibliography of a dozen peer-reviewed studies that challenge the orthodoxy
of GMO safety; for that go here.

Why did Professor Tyson suddenly abandon his usual
insistence that we rely on scientific evidence? He applies that standard to
other areas of knowledge. In the somewhat flippant response to the GMO
question, he instead unwittingly conformed to the ideological line that the
biotechnology industry is unethically masquerading as scientific consensus.
Oldest trick in the book, and he fell for it!

The anti-GMO movement – actually, a better moniker would
be the food justice movement – is comprised of a large portion of indigenous
and traditional farmers who are not afraid. We are legitimately pissed off
because the scientific fact of gene flow is already implicated as a threat to our
land race varieties and wild relatives we cultivate in the centers of origin. That is science, and Tyson is not even
recognizing it.

Scary monsters unnecessary for a person to express rational concerns about GMO biosafety.

The GMO advocates – and this is a point Tyson
conveniently would have to continue ignoring to avoid changing his position – are
guilty of dismissing and downplaying the actual results of risk research
studies and especially the repeated confirmation of transgenic introgression
events involving grave damage to the genomic integrity of land race varieties
and the native farmers that protect these in their centers of origin. On the
matter of the threats posed by introgression to the genomic integrity of land
races and their wild relatives, some recent studies include Heerwaarden et al (2012),
Brandt (2014),
Wegier (2012),
and Mezzalama, Crouch, and Ortiz (2010).
I should note that this problem is so severe that even some of the official proponents
of GMOs, like CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) in
Mexico, qualify their research on risk as focused on “the threat of
unintentional gene flow”.

Nothing could be worst than for a smoke and mirrors
pro-industry campaign, ostensibly designed to quell discussion of the actual risk science, to stump Tyson, who really needs to study up and then clarify his position after
reviewing the risk science on gene flows and the preservation of wild and
agricultural biodiversity.