Talk:Monsanto/Archive1

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Interesting

This seems possibly interesting. Do you have any sources for the bits about the GMOs? I'd like to read on and perhaps help expand the article. Aboriginal Noise ^{Theist, barely hanging by a nail} 11:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Could laso be worth putting in some info on the whole Golden Rice scandal. I Pilger did some a few investigative articles on their involvement in this in south and S.E. Asia, IIRC. I had some publications on this, but they are stored over at my parents place. -- 12:27, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

GMOs

Fine, got not problem. Corporate whitewashing... yeah, I got a problem with that. Тy^Talk. 16:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I've got a serious problem when somebody turns up on the site and starts changing the view of articles 180 degrees with absolutely no discussion. Changes of scale that Tweenk has been making should be discussed on the talk page. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 16:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Correct. Тy^Talk. 16:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Evil Corp.

Did you know that Monsanto had something to do with Agent Orange in Vietnam? This company, no matter what they do, seem to be one of the worst corporate entities in existince. They won't be satisfied until all the vegetables that we have are derived from their freakishly mutated GMO crops, and they also will not be satisfied until they have a monopoly over the food market. They need to be stopped, and fast. User:Lefty

What is scary about Monsanto is that they have a virtual monopoly on corn production. Believe it or not corn is one of the most important recources we have (right up there with oil). It is used in agriculture as feed for livestock, the food industry to make cornstarch (corn by products are in almost every processed food) fertalizers, and evin in the energy industry. The idea of one company having this much power and abusing it so readily is scary--BenB (talk) 15:32, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Rationale of previous changes

Previously I added some language defending Monsanto, which was automatically regarded as "whitewashing". I think I should clarify my position before someone calls me a "corporate lickspittle" again:

• Of course Monsanto is not the epitome of social responsibility, but neither is it super-evil. It looks like it often gets blamed because it is a convenient scapegoat - nobody likes megacorps. To some extent this resembles the situation with Microsoft, which gets bashed by radical free software advocates and ascribed an ulterior motive even when they do something positive. Terminator technology is a prime example. It would solve the problem with GM traits turning up in places where they are undesirable, exactly the concern voiced by Greenpeace et al, but because of the evil image of Monsanto everyone thought its purpose was to extort farmers in the developing countries (Some really sloppy thinking here: How exactly would this prohibit farmers from continuing to plant their traditional non-GM varieties?), so it was rejected.
• Some people protesting against Monsanto should actually protest against overly broad patent law. I don't like patents in general and I think genes should not be patentable, but blaming a company for using a law to their advantage is misplaced.
• Big controversies, such as the case of Percy Schmeiser who was reportedly sued when his field was "contaminated" with GM seed, are misreported as a struggle of one individual against the oppression of a megacorp, while in reality it was a clever guy who thought he could get away with using patented technology without a license, then made a lot of money from free publicity.
• The dominance of Monsanto is at least partially caused by anti-GMO activists. They have successfully lobbied for absurdly strict requirements for testing of GM crops, bringing imaginary concepts such as "genetic contamination" into law, and spending millions of dollars on absolutely pointless exercises, such as identifying traces of GM crops in products or extensive trials of every variety. As a result, nobody except a handful of multinational corporations are able to bring a GM crop to market.

--Tweenk (talk) 17:09, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The "terminator seed" talking point is indeed a staple of anti-GMO sites. There are also the really nutty conspiracy theorists who think Monsanto is part of the New World Order and secretly tainting food with poison and/or mind control substances. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:54, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Armondikov liked this!

You should have just reverted them. --85.78.46.20 (talk) 03:06, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

comparing an entire industry to one company in one industry

ORavenhurst makes a valid point. However, I would like to propose this idea be added: because GM products are of heavy contention, many other smaller companies can't get off the ground because of bad PR. Monsanto remains the giant it is and sort of the dictator of the industry because there is nobody to challenge its monopoly: they can't get started very well. There are hardly any other GM companies that could be considered Monsanto's peer. And as such, it dominates the industry. To the point where universities and unaffiliated parties often have to ask Monsanto to use their facilities and equipment and research grants.

So no, the entire industry is not dictated by monsanto. It's actually dictated by fear and woo that puts Monsanto in a position of more power than other companies would otherwise get in an industry. ±KnightOfTL;DR^{longissimus non legeri} 15:11, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with everything above, and wouldn't object to something similar in the article, but the way it was presented made the argument way to easy to criticize and kind of undermined the point it was trying to make. — Unsigned, by: ORavenhurst / talk^{Do You Believe That?} 15:16, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

At the top, it says that Monsanto has 90% of all GM seed sales, so it's the dominant player. If more than 10% of its revenue comes from activity unrelated to GM crops, its total revenue is actually an overestimate of the value of the GM seed market. But that's slightly besides the point here. Since the anti-GMO talking points are often contextualized as a battle between Monsanto GMOs vs organic farming, my intention was to point out that the common guess which side of this 'battle' has has more money is wrong. --Tweenk (talk) 16:17, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

That's cool, I'm now convinced of the merits. — Unsigned, by: ORavenhurst / talk^{Do You Believe That?} 17:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Two million?

Qoute:

On May 25, 2013, a 'March Against Monsanto' protest took places in numerous cities across the world. Approximately two million individuals took part in the movement formed almost entirely via social media [1].

I am extremely skeptical of this 'two million' number, especially since third party sources state that the largest events e.g. in London drew a few thousand people. --Tweenk (talk) 22:21, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Bias?

There is a possible conflict of interests in the article mentioned as source 15.^{— Unsigned, by: ‎75.74.177.239 / talk / contribs}

How so? I don't see any conflict of interest. Wehpudicabok (talk) 04:34, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm talking about the source cited for the line "The GMO's have not been shown to be detrimental to anybodys health". I'm not done researching but this is what I have so far, and it may just be coincidence. Ms. Chelsea Snell works at the University of Nottingham which seems, since 2001, to have formed a partnership with or to have been in talks with Monsanto and in general Biotechnology Industries. This is seen by the amount of signatures on a petition detailing European Plant scientists, though it is a list signed by mostly corporate, funded, PR firms type persons or scientists that want GMO's to be accepted by the government, by the conferences and lectures held by the University that are pro-GMO and also the partnership in funding research formed with Syngenta USA. Mr. Gerard Pascal has been on the board of trustees for International Life Sciences Institute along with many corporations while also spending time working for AgroParisTech. This is all I have, thats why I'm doubting the credibility of the claims made by the article and whether or not they should be posted on a site like this with no proof that the article cited has the proper intentions at heart.

Here are the links. http://www.ilsi.org/documents/2010_ilsi_bot.pdf

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/changeeugmlegislation/signatures/page/10

http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/6021-nottingham-university-in-talks-with-monsanto?format=pdf ^{— Unsigned, by: ‎75.74.177.239 / talk / contribs}

I'm too tired to look at this. Anyone else want to check the IP's claims? Wehpudicabok (talk) 08:06, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Nottingham's Biosciences department has been working in GM research for decades. It's unsurprising that Monsanto would take an interest. It's also unsurprising that academics in the department would hold pro-GMO lectures or sign a pro-GMO petition (which is signed by academics from many universities & institutes, not corporate PR firms as you claim). This doesn't mean that Monsanto are pulling the strings or invalidate research carried out at the university. Same goes for other co-authors in that peer-reviewed paper. Wěǎšěǐǒǐď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 10:57, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

The IP is playing Six Degrees of Monsanto. I would say this is a standard tactic used to attack this type of research. Most researchers who work on GM crops will have some sort of association or contact with at least one biotech company. This does not indicate that they are paid or bribed by said companies. --Tweenk (talk) 19:26, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

The reason why i say corporate PR firms is because two internet bloggers stirred up a storm after Chapes and Quintos had their article published, it turned out that these two bloggers where in reality PR firms hired by Monsanto to smear the researchers and that the PR firms had been setting up dummy websites to divert web searches away from bad press. http://gmwatch.org/latest-listing/51-2012/14514 Now it seems Jean Baptiste-Berge is not affiliated with any research institute, but worked straight out of his home and he passed away in September of 2011. http://www.antipolis-tethysloc.fr/lang1/anthala.html Marcel Kuntz has been, in the past, had suspected ties to Monsanto, though it has not been proven and is only worthy of passing notice, though still mentionable in this context. http://vigilanceogm33.over-blog.com/pages/Les_liens_entre_lAFIS_et_MONSANTO_la_preuve-395233.html Please have the statement "Their is a mountain of evidence..." removed. This page represents a commitment to academic dishonesty that is intolerable for a website named "Rationalwiki" In response to the statement: "Most researchers who work on GM crops will have some sort of association or contact with at least one biotech company. This does not indicate that they are paid or bribed by said companies." No, but this is a website that promotes rationality and rationality is defined as an aversion to superstition and reliance on trust. The researchers who have an association or contact with companies like Monsanto, especially in context of current events, would know that the honesty of an entity that is interested in profits, is suspicious. By neglecting even the mention of a possible conflict of interests the motives of the research rise above coincidence and enter into suspicion. Rationality calls for evidence that could not be in anyway tainted, that could be clearly seen to be above politics. ^{— Unsigned, by: 75.74.177.239 / talk / contribs}

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How do you propose that scientific research is funded in order to put it "above politics"? Wěǎšěǐǒǐď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 21:44, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

It seems that scientists already have a method of ensuring that research is above politics. Any research that is blatantly political has that researches' authors lose credibility in the world of research. It's the public who might have trouble understanding what is being said in the article and through that whether or not the article is trustworthy and in turn whether or not the authors of the article deserve credit for doing science or peddling politics. My only solution is to make the names widely known of whoever supports a political stance instead of a fact.Template:22:01, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

"the honesty of an entity that is interested in profits, is suspicious"

This research is NOT done by the entity interested in profits. A lot of it is done by other people at publicly funded institutions. There is only a tenuous connection between them and biotech companies.

"By neglecting even the mention of a possible conflict of interests (...)"

The vast majority of research showing the safety of GM food does NOT suffer from conflicts of interest. You are making this assumption only because you don't like what this research says, and are looking for rationalizations that would allow you to reject it. Moreover, a conflict of interest does not automatically mean that some study is untrustworthy, merely that it merits some extra scrutiny.

"Rationality calls for evidence that could not be in anyway tainted"

How do you determine which evidence is "tainted" and which is not? For me it is obvious that you consider all data showing lack of harm from GM to be "tainted", while considering all data that shows harm to be "not tainted" and "independent". --Tweenk (talk) 16:07, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Mr.Tweenk, what do you consider a conflict of interest to be? What do you consider fact and fiction to be? What do you consider bribery to be? What do you consider negligence to be? I consider any study where no business is involved to be untainted. If you'd like to look at history, you will find that businesses have no problem with undermining or ignoring research so as to be able to sell a product. Tooth paste, Sigmund Freud's Nephew and Breakfast food's, New age medicine , Tobacco companies, RCA suppressing FM and Philo Farnsworth, Thomas Edison suppressing Tesla's free power. Why do you even support Biotechnology? If researchers with no known link to GMO publishes research on GMO's and another article is published refuting the first one, but these authors can be shown to have links to Biotechnology, then why would you trust the latter? It's like watching bullies tell the teacher that a child hit his head on the concrete on his own and on purpose. {{75.74.177.239 (talk) 07:27, 17 June 2013 (UTC)}}

"Why do you even support Biotechnology?"

For the same reason I support clean water, universal health coverage, access to electricity, evidence-based medicine, space exploration and human rights.

"If researchers with no known link to GMO publishes research on GMO's and another article is published refuting the first one, but these authors can be shown to have links to Biotechnology, then why would you trust the latter?"

Because the latter article pointed out severe errors that invalidate the first article's conclusion. The criticism can be valid even if the CEO of Monsanto makes it.

It seems that for you it's more important whether the author has links to biotech companies, or in fact whether his study shows harm or not, than whether his study is methodologically sound. You consider all studies which show harm to be free of bias (even though in fact many of those authors actually had undeclared conflicts of interest, like Seralini), while all studies which show no harm are a result of bribery. --Tweenk (talk) 13:15, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Groups which endorse GM crops but oppose Monsanto

I don't know of any such groups. In anti-GM materials Monsanto is always bad because GM is bad, and the line about questionable business practices tends to be used as an escape hatch used when opponents are called on their bullshit.

Moreover, we don't actually have many examples of their "questionable business practices". The only definitely bad thing in the article is waste dumping, and it refers to events which happened quite a long time ago, before they refocused their business from chemicals to biotech. Terminator is actually a good thing, patent enforcement is something that a lot of people support if it's not about Monsanto and reframed as "protecting against theft of intellectual property", and I don't see how Agent Orange was their fault. --Tweenk (talk) 18:40, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Pro GMO but anti-corporate ownership of GMO's is pushed by a few people such as Kurzgesagt. Apart from that, no other voices.--Boredsocialist (talk) 13:09, 22 June 2020 (UTC)