Guest Blog Post: In Defense of GMOs, by AbdulKareem Musa Alaba

Guest Blog Post  

In Defense of GMOs, by AbdulKareem Musa Alaba

GMOs or "genetically modified organism," is an organism, with the exception of human beings, in which the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination. This alteration of the genes usually entails inserting genetic material into an organism through biotechnology technics without natural mating, breeding or reproduction. Instead of breeding two plants or animals together to bring out certain traits in the offspring, the plant, animal or microbe has DNA from another organism inserted. Creating GMOs is one type of genetic engineering.

There are two types of GMOs: A transgenic organism is a GMO that contains DNA from another species. A cisgenic organism is a GMO that contains DNA from a member of the same species, and is generally regarded as no risk type of GMO. GMOs have been used in various ways, including creating mice with certain traits for the purposes of vivisection, but the GMO debate is centered on food products for direct human consumption and on feed for livestock.

Genetic modification of organism, like any other new technology, should be viewed in the light of what has gone before. Mankind has been manipulating the genetics of crops for thousands of years. Wheat, for instance, the world's major crop, is a hybrid of different species. It probably arose from a rare natural occurrence but has subsequently been maintained artificially.

The modern (non-GM) wheat is unable to exist in the wild because it cannot disperse its seed. Furthermore, plant breeders have spliced in pieces of chromosomes from several other species. The new GM technology allows genes to be added more precisely than before and their effects to be studied more carefully. However, because it also allows almost any source of genes to be used it is an extremely powerful technology that has to be treated with care and respect.

GMO technology can develop crops with higher yield, with less fertilizer, less pesticides, and more nutrients. Traditional breeding can be very slow because it might take several generations before the desired trait is sufficiently brought out and the offspring must reach sexual maturity before they can be bred. With GMO technology, the desired genotype can be created instantly in the current generation.

GMOs may not be natural as many critics say, but not everything natural is good for us, and not everything unnatural is bad for us. Poisonous mushrooms are natural, but we shouldn't eat them. Washing our food before eating it is not natural, but is healthier for us.

The argument against genetically modified foods is that it contains novel proteins that could trigger allergic reactions in people who are either allergic to one of the components of the GMO or in people who are allergic only to the new substance. But this is not totally true because GM technology is the only technology to be regulated from its inception, before any mishaps had occurred. Scientists who developed the technology set up a series of voluntary regulations in 1974 which have generally become officially incorporated by governments throughout the world.

Another point raised by critics is that GMOs pose a threat to the environment. They exist and take valuable natural resources from native and unaltered organisms. But as it's practiced today, agriculture damages the environment more than any human activity. GMO crops will ease that negative impact. Insect resistant GM crops, such as those containing the bacterial Bt gene (which makes the plan itself toxic to key pests), allow farmers to dramatically reduced their use of spray insecticides and which will allow next-generation seeds to maintain high yields while using less water and chemical fertilizer. Today, genetic engineering is playing a critical role in protecting finite soil and water resources, staving off crop diseases, and responding to the pressures of climate change.

The fact is; the majority of arguments against GMOs based solely on emotion and rhetoric NOT scientific facts. There are no proven examples of GMO products adding ricks. In contrast, there are many examples of the technology reducing ricks. GM technology is not safe – nothing is – but it has a very effect records.   

~AbdulKareem Musa Alaba is a Research Assistant at National  Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Egypt

 Read: Series on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

BLOGGER'S NOTE:
1. For further reading on Defense of GMOs, readers are encouraged to read Sarah Zhang's position, accessible through this link. 
2. The next blog post, soon (in sha Allah), will be on the case against GMOs, and finally (the third series) will be on the world politics of this topical issue.
Thanks for keeping a date...

Series on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

Series on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs): (1) In defence of, (2) the Case Against, and (3) the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and Politics of GMOs

The Background

The need for this modest attempt to inform and educate ‘us’ about GMO is provoked by a status update I came across on June 18, 2014, on Synopsis’ wall. Synopsis (on Facebook) is one of the few groups on social media that serve as teleclassrooms. It is a repository of diverse and ‘intimidating’ intellectuals –young and old. It is a rare privilege for students like me to be part of such intellect-stimulating forum, drinking from the knowledge of the giants.

This status update is made by Sadiq Mohammed, and the words in quote are credited to Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri; one of the numerous opinion pushers in Nigeria blogosphere. For proper understanding of the context, I reproduce the words here:

“Governor Nyako has more important work to do other than throwing darts and accusations about the genocide in the north. Its maniacally bewildering that Governor Nyako has remained silent ever since GMO seedlings were introduced and mass-planted in farmlands across the northern region. These seedlings containing genetically-modified and scientifically altered seeds will yield poisonous crops that will decimate the northern populations even faster than the Boko Haram insurgency (sic). In the next few years, cancerous tumours, organ failures, malignant tissue growths and other incurable diseases will be witnessed at a scale never seen elsewhere, in the north and across Nigeria where these crops will be sold.
ALL western nations have banned GMO seedlings and crops, and it’s a surprise that northern governors have embraced this lethal agricultural “innovation’ without as much as a whimper.

Not even a murmur.

Insurgency has driven many farmers planting natural crops away from their farmlands, while fertilizer is hardly within their reach. Have you wondered why these farmers planting the GMO crops have never been attacked? Northerners and their leaders should search deeper for their true cause of their problems. They seem to be looking at the wrong directions, for now.
We are at a time that everyone wants to be politically correct. I have a solemn duty to tell this truth. Thank me later…”

Reading this update, even at its first instance, I knew all is not well with its claim. I could unequivocally see: (1) proof-bereft proposition (GMO seedling…will yield poisonous crops), (2) unconditional and hasty conclusion (decimate the northern populations… cancerous tumours, organ failures, malignant tissue growths) and (3) fallacy of hasty generalization (ALL western nations have banned GMO seedlings). 

Without any heuristics knowledge, I remembered vividly, my experience during an academic visit –in company of my colleagues and high school students – to International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, in late 2010.  We were made to know, and we were shown these genetically modified orange and palm trees, cultivated so as to fasten its harvest period. We were all wowed, not only because many of us were just seeing such pretty cultivation of palm and orange trees, but also for its business and investment sense. Again, in Malaysia, I later found out that many of the species of the oranges available for consumption here has no seed (lings) whatsoever. My curiosity found that we are consuming genetically modified oranges.

So, reading Victoria’s proposition, I was imagining in my wildest dream, the number of people that have consumed these poisonous crops, the ready to be decimated statistics, and the victims (or to-be) of organ failure. Even, if I am not absolutely certain of Nigeria’s sensitivity to her citizens’ health, I am cock-sure Malaysia will never toe such path of ignominy. The statement that ALL western nations have banned GMOs is a naked error. Even when one is not conversant with world geography, it is in public knowledge that United States of America (USA) is a leading figure in the promotion of this biotech practice. One will have to wonder if USA is unqualified to be part of Victoria’s geographical characterization of western nations!

However, this is not to absorb the possibility that such scientific cultivation will not be totally free from bad effect, but rather to observe that there is much ignorance (than knowledge) about the GMOs: the varieties for classification that will properly unveil the extremely hazardous ones, the actual quantification of its hazard, and what have you. It is against this backdrop that I decided to do some ‘clicking’ (apologies to Pius Adesanmi), and contact a friend who is a biotechnologist. 

These taken steps led me to some findings, and the piece peened by my friend with others found on the internet resulted in three phases of treatises that I will be publishing on my blog about GMOs. The first will be its defence, the second, a case against it, and the third, the WTO’s case and politics of GMO. I have endeavoured to ensure that each of these treatises presents a scintillating representation of ideas about each of the subject matter, at least for the purpose of education so as to power a knowledge-based decision of the side each and every one of us finally pitch our tent with.

Read: In Defense of GMOs, by AbdulKareem Musa Alaba

Computer Science (CS), Information Technology (IT) or Information and Communication Technology (ICT): Solving the conundrum, Semiu A. Akanmu

I do often receive questions –most especially from higher institutions’ applicants– about the difference(s) in these courses; CS, IT and ICT, and which of them is more promising, lucrative and interesting. Measuring lucrativeness of a course as a requisite for its choice is not an uncommon practice among young ones. But the most important to me is responding to probes concerning the technical differences of these courses and necessary information to be sought by an applicant in view of making the right and intending choice.

First, these branded names are not exhaustive list of possible encounter of labels given to courses in or related to Computing. We also have Information System (IS), Business Information System (BIS), Management Information System (MIS), and Software Engineering (SE). There are cases whereby narrow fields of specialization in Computing are pursued as full-fledged undergraduate courses. Examples like Network Engineering, Game Design and Development, Database Administration, and Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, among others, can be experienced under such circumstance. 

With this indefinite course label experience, the first most important inquiry by an admission-seeking student must be tamed towards the understanding of the course synopsis and teaching structure of the course s/he wishes to study in that particular university of his or her dream. By synopsis I mean: the content of the course, outlining what will be taught from the first to the last semester, while the teaching structure characterises how this will be taught. We have schools whose teaching structure in theory-practical ratio can be placed as 20-80, and some as 60-40, as the school decides. So, it is important to seek ‘in-house’ knowledge of what is obtainable in the school. Also to be noted is: The particular university. Even when these courses are intertwined and can be addressed in different forms by two different universities, there are cases whereby the same course (by name) will have (slight) different content, depending on the philosophy of the institution. Though the difference is always negligible, must the omission or commission might be your point of interest. For example, if you are an intending Computer Scientist who wishes to specialise in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) where you will learn how to develop interactive systems as assistive and haptic technology, undergoing the suggested due diligence will be profitable. There are universities that teach HCI as multimedia technology course, while some restrict the content to core computer scientist approach, where gaze reflection and image sensor, voice processing and recognition are the interaction-supported inputs.  These discrepancies, as afore-explained must be religiously observed.

Be it as it may, there are fundamental differences among CS, IT and ICT –as I have observed and witnessed as a practitioner and researcher in the field. However, without fear of contradiction, we can safely substitute SE for CS, while IS, BIS and MIS largely represent the same course synopsis, and their difference in comparison with IT is that the former concentrate on business-centred information systems and applications, while the latter focuses on a more broad horizon like education, governance, health, social, and what have you. ICT, with its inclusion of communication –the C in the initialism– is biased towards communication technology, and this makes it to focus more in Networking or Communication Engineering which coincidentally is a specialization in Electrical/Electronic Engineering.  This suffices for a lay-man understanding.  

Now, a bit further and technicalities-driven! Apart from ICT that concentrates more on data (image, voice, text, file, and packet) transmission from one point to the other with due respect to the underlying architecture and technologies, CS and others –as listed earlier– have a common point of intersection. They all address programming language, the art of coding and system/application design and development. They all espouse data structure and algorithm design and analysis as routes to understanding the core of programming languages. However, the difference lies in the preferences and the intention of each of these courses content. While IT and its related fields concentrate on application development to solve human problems, Computer science prefers to concentrate on developing methods, algorithms, protocols and architectures that will help in proffering betters ways of solving the problems. For instance, in developing a social media application, an IT student will be concerned with users’ requirements analysis and system design, sorting, editing and writing codes, and building a working application that will meet the users’ needs and satisfy their experience. This solves the human quest for social relationship. It is the Computer scientists’ role to design security methods that will resist phishing and other social media application-related security breaches. Also, photo tagging, suggesting friends and graph search (using Facebook as an illustration) that helps “you find more of the people, places and things you're looking for and discover new connections based on what others have shared with you” are computer scientists’ works, done to make the performance of the application better and satisfying. There is no gainsaying, as shown above, that CS is ‘some steps’ farther from IT. I doubt if anyone will contend this.

As described above, the responsibilities on the shoulders of the Computer scientists necessitate the mathematics-heaviness that always accompanies CS as a course. They should and must have a grasp of discrete mathematics, numerical operations, and differential equations methods as problem-solving tools. This is why it is not surprising to see that majority of all winners of the Turing award; the Nobel Prize in Computing, are Mathematicians. Leslie Lamport, the current holder of this award, is living supporting evidence. He is famously known for his works on Timestamp, Concurrency, and Deadlock resolution in Distributed Systems. While works like: Designing Android system for Tax calculation, Developing menstruation monitoring system, inventory management systems, and others in that realm can be safely categorised under IT, works like image/voice recognition, information retrieval/search, computer graphics, computational and mathematical  modelling, information security, and their ilk are categories of CS.

Therefore, CS, IT, and ICT and others that have been mentioned can be seen to be closely interrelated and intersected. CS is bothered more about the performance and optimization of the underlying technologies; IT is interested in its functionalities.