Project Three Outline

In the post below I will be creating an outline for project three.

Jan-Mallander. "Kittens." October, 2014 via Pixaby. Public Domain Dedication.

Introduction

Think About Your Situation 

• Talk about how GMOs affect everyone

• Talk about major breakthroughs with major seed companies like Monsanto

• Generally introduce topic

Body 


1. List Down Supporting Arguments

• The FDA wouldn't allow the production of GMOs if they were not safe

• Despite the production process, the actual product isn't technically unsafe

• New non-browning apples do not conceal GMO identity ==> not unknown to public

• No evidence to show harmful effects of consuming GMOs

• High-calorie, low-nutrient foods provide more harm; foods can cause food borne illnesses ==> could be potentially worse than GMOs ==> not one case of illness from GMOs in the last decades

• Traditional breeding techniques are more used than genetic modification so it's hard to say they will pose a threat

• Uses genes from native organism==> still natural 

• Technology produces "less surprises" because scientists can isolate one gene with genetic engineering rather than crossing multiple genes in traditional breeding==> able to understand gene and monitor how it will change 

2. List Down Major Criticisms

• Altering a single gene could cause toxins and allergens

• No evidence to prove they are safe

• Long term affects are subtle but cannot be linked to GMOs===> Alzheimers and cancers

• Hard to prove altered gene doesn't enter into human genome 

3. Select Your Key Support and Rebuttal Points
Support

• GMOs are not unknown ==> FDA would't allow unsafe products; identity is not unknown and practice has been around for years

• Sustainable farming

• No evidence to prove harmfulness ==> no studies shown; scale compared to selective breeding is too small to show harmful effects

• Still natural process; uses genes from native organisms; able to isolate, monitor and understand behavior of genes; more likely to be affected by unhealthy food or food-borne illnesses 

Rebuttal

• Although some cancers and diseases have been rumored to be caused by eating GMOs, there are still no tests or evidence to prove they are harmful

• Long term effects of illness cannot be directly related to GMOs

• Too many other factors involved

4. Write Out a Topic Sentence for Each Support and Rebuttal 
Support

• Regardless of labels, genetically modified organisms have been around for decades and their presence, composition and identity is not unknown to the public.

• Genetically modified organisms can also benefit our environment by creating sustainable farming and new means or agriculture. 

• There is still not enough evidence to prove harmful affects of consuming genetically modified organisms. 

• Regardless of the "unnatural" production, genetically modified products are still made of natural materials and can even be better for personal health compared to other food products.

Rebuttal

• Although some cancers and diseases have been rumored to be caused by eating GMOs, there are still no tests or evidence to prove they are harmful.

• Some may be skeptical about the effects of GMOs, however, long term illnesses cannot be directly related to the consumption of genetically modified organisms. 

• There are too many other factors involved in genetic composition and testing GMOs to officially prove they are harmful. 

5. Gather Evidence

• "The use of GM crops “has lowered the price of food,” Zilberman says. “It has increased farmer safety by allowing them to use less pesticide. It has raised the output of corn, cotton and soy by 20 to 30 percent, allowing some people to survive who would not have without it. If it were more widely adopted around the world, the price [of food] would go lower, and fewer people would die of hunger.” 

• "The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the world will have to grow 70 percent more food by 2050 just to keep up with population growth. Climate change will make much of the world's arable land more difficult to farm. GM crops, Zilberman says, could produce higher yields, grow in dry and salty land, withstand high and low temperatures, and tolerate insects, disease and herbicides."

• The human race has been selectively breeding crops, thus altering plants' genomes, for millennia. Ordinary wheat has long been strictly a human-engineered plant; it could not exist outside of farms, because its seeds do not scatter.

• this precision makes the technology much less likely to produce surprises.

• Most plant molecular biologists also say that in the highly unlikely case that an unexpected health threat emerged from a new GM plant, scientists would quickly identify and eliminate it. 

• The bacterium B. thuringiensis, for example, which produces proteins fatal to insects, is sometimes enlisted as a natural pesticide in organic farming. 

• people have consumed as many as trillions of meals containing genetically modified ingredients over the past few decades. Not a single verified case of illness has ever been attributed to the genetic alterations.

• every single news-making food disaster on record has been attributed to non-GM crops

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, along with its counterparts in several other countries, has repeatedly reviewed large bodies of research and concluded that GM crops pose no unique health threats

• it is not true that the GM process is less likely to cause problems simply because fewer, more clearly identified genes are switched ===> a genome often continues to change in the successive generations after the insertion, leaving it with a different arrangement than the one intended and initially tested.

•  the research has not shown any evidence of harmful health effects resulting from the consumption of GMO foods, even after two decades of their presence in the food supply.

• The clean track record of GMO foods stands in contrast to the list of more urgent food-associated threats that we face: food-borne illnesses, which sicken more than 40 million people and cause several thousand deaths in the United States annually, and the enormous public health toll of poor diets dominated by highly processed, low-nutrient, high-calorie foods.

• These snippets trigger a natural cellular process called RNA interference

• Unlike the vast majority of GMOs on the market, Arctic Apples don't conceal their GMO identity from consumers.

• will offer foods that really are an improvement over non-GMO varieties, with healthier fats, more nutrients, or, like the potatoes already approved by the FDA, reduced levels of carcinogens.

6. Create a Map of Your Argument

A cluster map of my argument can be found here.

Conclusion

For my conclusion, I would do a call to action. I will explain to my readers why they shouldn't be scared of genetically modified organisms and that consuming them would not be bad. I will encourage them to accept the benefits along with genetic modification and how their acceptance will ease the debate for everyone. 

Reflection: 

Morgan's outline is different in mine in her evidence section. She is using personal stories as her support, whereas I am using outside information to support my argument. In addition, she is appealing more to emotion and I am appealing more to logic for my argument. She also is using the "future of debate" approach for her conclusion which should be the most effective for her topic. Isabel has a little different outline than my project as well. We are both using the "thinking about the situation" approach to introduce our topic. I feel as though this is the easier way to relate the reader with our topics. Isabel, just like Morgan, is using the future of debate approach to conclude her project. This is the best way to cause the reader to consider where this controversy could potentially lead.