I feel I know a lot about GMOs and can handle myself pretty well in an online debate. I know that GMOs allow farmers to increase their yields using less land. Combined with the use of less toxic pesticides, this is good for the environment. I know that GMOs allow farmers in impoverished parts of the world to grow crops and feed their families. Other GMOs may render vitamin A deficiency a thing of the past, saving thousands of lives.
Certain industries, like the papaya industry in Hawaii, were saved by GMO technology. I know that GMOs are exhausted tested, while other breeding techniques that completely scramble DNA in unpredictable ways are not tested at all. Despite this substantial knowledge, there is one anti-GMO argument I cannot rebut.
I first encountered it while debating someone named Taleb Nassim. Before I could even present the information that GMOs were safe, I was called a Monsanto Shill. Wow. Let me repeat that. I was called a Monsanto Shill. This was a brilliant, unexpected, original move. I was completely unprepared for the wit and wisdom contained in those five words:
“You are a Monsanto Shill.”
I realized in an instant that all the “science” I thought I knew was no longer valid. I realized that tens of thousands of studies on GMOs were instantly invalidated. I realized that the real-world experience of countless farmers who chose to grow GMOs in the real-world was now meaningless.
I’ve done a lot of thinking in the past few days, and I have to hand it to my opponent. His unique and devastating insight renders all my knowledge meaningless. I am now forced to concede that GMOs cause cancer.
