Twianto, I am not going after you.  I am trying to make what I feel is an important point about the personal responsibility of scientist to not simply look at their research as objective cool research stuff that smart people do no matter who for, or what. Science is not objective because the research facilities are not shared, the university tracking programs are sponsored etc. All of the access to the latest proprietary knowledge is predicated on the vulturous nature of Monsanto ownership as a profit driven corporation with no place in their bottom line for sustainability, human health etc. Monsanto provides lip service but the proof is in the pollen.

This is your paragraph

“Now I don’t like Monsanto, but please accept that everyone’s sense of morality is different. ”

I do accept it and have labeled instances of scientist choosing profit and personal advancement over the literal future of food the morality of a sociopath. This action on my part is very different than not accepting.
-
“Monsanto does some cool stuff that many researchers would kill to be part of.”

Many researchers also are raised in a false bubble of research is not political its just research. I would argue that to a certain degree this is correct, scientist should be left to roblem solve, but with Monsantos aggressive ownership and privatization of the very fabric of life this pretense fails because the research is muted and forced into a singular direction. To endorse this model as a scientist is to endorse a lopsided pursuit of knowledge, a knowledge in chains.
-
“Also, their products are indeed immensely valuable for their customers, most of whom choose them because they get higher yields. It’s that simple.. ”

Its not that simple though it would be more convenient. This argument only works on a very short term basis. Because Monsanto legal lobbied and revolving-door-shortened their experimental time frames in order to get their “valuable products” to market quickly they  were not able to know how truly destructive of value and temporarily helpful their genetic manipulations were. so much writing about this. blah blah. I am not splitting hairs and arguing details because the big picture is that these scientist are not “smart” without “sociopath” as a context for the smart.

there are a couple of other weak arguments I see in your post. “the BP attendant” is the lab floor custodian. no he is not a sociopath he mops floors and if he left the science would march on.

“every single business entity will do things you cannot identify with. ” this is likely true but every single business entity that does things I dont identify with do not also threaten the future of food, or the DNA of all life forms.. only a few business entities do this and I give them extra attention.

I agree with you the world is not black and white ..

Next, did you even read the article?  Every example of Indian farmers they gave that drank pesticide had multiple crop failures.  That has absolutely nothing to do with a Terminator gene.

Lastly, how is a terminator gene any different in result than the F1 hybrid seeds that have dominated agriculture for 100 years?  Both result in the farmer having to buy seed every year.   The terminator because of sterility the hybrids because the F2 generation is going to have wildly different characteristics than the F1 generation.  

Now I don’t like Monsanto, but please accept that everyone’s sense of morality is different. Monsanto does some cool stuff that many researchers would kill to be part of. Also, their products are indeed immensely valuable for their customers, most of whom choose them because they get higher yields. It’s that simple.

I can’t even begin to understand your logic. I did IT work for a research lab that had lab mice in its basement; did I like that? No, but they actually found cures for heart conditions; every single business entity will do things you can’t identify with.  Do you condemn every single BP gas station attendant as a psychopath because he — here come the caps, how very articulate BTW — “LACKS A SENSE OF MORAL RESPONSIBILITY OR SOCIAL CONSCIENCE”?

The world’s not black and white.

WRONG!

The terminator gene was responsable for the deaths of thousands of poor indian farmers who were talked into using it not realizing that it would leave them without a crop to plant the following year.

Then management stopped research and increased their marketing spending. They dropped the ball and took their eyes off of it but it didn’t stop bouncing.

The makers of ammunition are not interested in funding the development of surgical techniques which enables survival of getting hit by their ammunition, but people are walking away with injuries that would have been fatal just ten years ago.

so·ci·o·path   [soh-see-uh-path, soh-shee-] Show IPA
noun Psychiatry . a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who LACKS A SENSE OF MORAL RESPONSIBILITY OR SOCIAL CONSCIENCE. ( my yelling )

The thing about living systems is that they are constantly adapting and shifting their genetic makeup. The illusion that they aren’t is caused by a lack of perception and memory on our part.

Come on… I’ve worked in biotechnology research facilities and the people I met there are some of the most intelligent folks I’ve ever seen.

Come Now! Lets not mistake information specialization and walled garden logic for intelligence or smarts for truly they are worlds apart. Everybody knows the most critical department keeping Monsanto on its “cutting edge” is the legal  department successfully defending the stunningly inane and frighteningly reckless permanent experiments of their money grubbing science and marketing departments.

http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/10/superweeds-revive-old-highly-toxic-herbicide

It’s worth going back 10 years to read about Monsanto’s alleged plot to use Terminator technology to commit global genocide by (random word) a (random word) which would (random word) the world’s (random word).  No really, it was just random words.

Some of the bitterest critics seemed to want a tool to do their own particular brand of social engineering.

In any event, I didn’t mean to imply that glyphosate is benign in its effects; I just meant to say that I don’t think it is carcinogenic, and it’s not acutely toxic to humans. Other effects I don’t know about, but I’ve read enough to feel certain that it has larger environmental effects beyond its specific purpose.

That said, I think glyphosate is merely a type species; this pattern of agriculture as industrial chemistry is much more pervasive than that, and really ought to be understood in that context. Monsanto is not a “bad egg” – the whole clutch is rotten. An industrial relation to our food production is bad for the earth, it is bad for our health, and it is bad for the relationship between us and the earth. Organic food is okay, but personally I’d rather reintegrate the way we grow food with the way we live. Cities could be agriculturally productive if they weren’t so full of cars and trash.

Really, it just amazes me how some people when arguing about resistance forget that mechanical removal is an amazingly effective means of weed eradication.  You just have to get them before they go to seed.  Farmers and gardeners know this better than most.

“…they were found with between 5 and 20 times the “acceptable” limit.  While companies such as Monsanto give people lines like,”RoundUp is practically totally non-toxic”, it is most certainly not true.  Glyphosate is a poison, extremely deadly for most plants, and quite toxic for people, especially over time.”