Strongest opponents of GM foods know the least but think they know the most

Re:Strongest opponents of GM foods know the least but think ... by Fargren on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @01:34PM (#18923519)

Plant is a vague polysemic word. In this context I would take ti to mean as not animal or mineral, as it's not uncommon to divide things into those three categories.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Strongest opponents of GM foods know the least but think ... by imh on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @01:48PM (#18923686)

Here's wikipedia's take from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant:

> Historically, plants were treated as one of two kingdoms including all living things that were not animals, and all algae and fungi were treated as plants. However, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria).

I totally agree that it's often used as you describe, but on a test of scientific knowledge, yours is probably not the relevant definition, especially one with questions about bacteria and viruses. In this case, it was though!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Strongest opponents of GM foods know the least but think ... by JAlexoid on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @03:31PM (#18924813)

I don't think scientific definition strictly matters, in this context.

We're not meticulously trying to catalogue life on Earth.

You know... It's a case of is tomato a fruit or a vegetable.

[ Parent | on HN ]