About as long as it takes for people to stop believing in homeopathy and other snake oil.
Worse yet, even if there were some as-yet unknown health risk, it would have to be a plague-level threat to counterbalance the benefits to food production. That added food production can save millions of lives.
"Invoking the risk of "famine" as an alternative to GMOs is a deceitful strategy, no different from urging people to play Russian roulette in order to get out of poverty. While hunger is a serious threat to human welfare, as long as the threat remains localized, it falls under risk management and not the PP [precautionary principle]." [1]
[1] "The Precautionary Principle," a paper coauthored by Nassim Taleb of Black Swan fame. Link: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8nhAlfIk3QIbGFzOXF5UUN3N2c/... Also referenced elsewhere in these comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7985787
As a side note, I've always been a bit of a technophile, so eating genetically modified food seems really cool, and I can't wait until they perfect lab-grown meat.
Which says a lot about the media you read.
> Which says a lot about the media you read.
Apparently he only reads scientifically valid media, and not tinfoilhat publications.
(But unfortunately it is true, at least here in Europe, that even respectable media easily echoes totally unscientific falce claims about GMOs occasionally.)
Would you care to elaborate?
If we had scientists with as big an audience as these celebrities, I think we'd stand a chance of having a logical discussion but instead these ideas spread like wild-fire without any critical thought involved. Very sad :(
There is still a huge sentiment against GMOs, everyone think they are harmful to health here in France. I don't know how long it will take for the mentality to change.