Denial of Science when it doesn't conform to your persepctive

[Brainonska511]

The NYTimes ran this piece yesterday. Briefly, it's about a councilman from the main island of Hawaii and his quest to justify a yes or no vote on a local attempt to ban GMO foods. In the end, he votes no to the ban, based on all the scientific evidence that shows that there are really no problems with GMO.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/us/on-hawaii-a-lonely-quest-for-facts-about-gmos.html

What I find interesting about the whole debate is just the rampant denialism. The shouts of conspiracy when studies don't conform to people's preconceived notions. Any scientist that comes out in favor of GMO (either in opinion or an actual researcher) is immediately labeled an industry shill. Public opinion and the councilmen were favoring the anecdote over the evidence. And frankly, to put it in political perspective, the left denies the science behind GMOs much like the right denies the science behind anthropogenic climate change, simple because it doesn't conform to their 'gut instincts'.

As a scientist, it saddens me to see public debate poisoned by so much misinformation and outright denial of facts that contradict the position that someone wants to hold.

 

[OverVolt]

And this is why science isn't supposed to put persuasive writing in their research because next think you know a bunch of nerdy scientists are in the thick of the he said she said BS.

 

[Greenman]

We'll, sometimes the scientists are wrong, or the results are manipulated to get the desired result. I clearly remember studying the coming ice age when I was in junior high school, we had long discussions about how the human race would survive. They missed the boat on that one. Then global warming came along with it's unique set of problems and results that may or may not have been completely accurate, then they changed the name to "climate change", which sounds pretty vauge.
So it's not so much the science being denied, as the conclusions being questioned.
With climate change, the worst possible proponent was the the guy leading the charge. Al Gore personally took what may have been very solid science, and made it into a dog and pony show. His motivation was extremely questionable, and his never ending assertion that he was "carbon neutral" was such an absurd joke that it brought scorn and disbelief to the entire concept. So in this particular case, it wasn't so much the message that was denied, it's that the messenger made it sound like he was lying.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I wonder what is the harm in labeling GMO foods? Consumers seem to want to know. I wrestle with this often on food, its pretty arrogant to say we don't want it at all and it should be banned when we live in the land of ample food. I'd bet a starving family elsewhere would gladly grow and eat any GMO food particularly if it grew better or more food.

 

[sandorski]

The reason these controversies exist is because there have been so many examples of business interests manipulating Results. Pharmaceutical, Tobacco, Auto, Energy, and other Industries have manipulated results in pursuit of Profit. Too many times with tragic consequences.

Science does work as intended, but only when it's open to scrutiny and not subjected to non-scientific manipulations. The problem with GMOs is largely just the fact that it is based upon something that is so fundamental to everyone's Life. One mistake can affect millions. It also has potential serious concerns regarding other things like Genetic Diversity amongst crops and there's a legitimate Monopolistic concern as well.

 

[Paul98]

I wonder what is the harm in labeling GMO foods? Consumers seem to want to know. I wrestle with this often on food, its pretty arrogant to say we don't want it at all and it should be banned when we live in the land of ample food. I'd bet a starving family elsewhere would gladly grow and eat any GMO food particularly if it grew better or more food.

That label would tell you nothing meaningful. Just being a GMO can not cause any harm. It all depends on the changes made if something is better or worse for you.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

That label would tell you nothing meaningful. Just being a GMO can not cause any harm. It all depends on the changes made if something is better or worse for you.

We seem to have no problem with labeling foods "organic " why not label foods as GMO? We need to encourage more people to ask questions about their food.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

The reason these controversies exist is because there have been so many examples of business interests manipulating Results. Pharmaceutical, Tobacco, Auto, Energy, and other Industries have manipulated results in pursuit of Profit. Too many times with tragic consequences.

Science does work as intended, but only when it's open to scrutiny and not subjected to non-scientific manipulations. The problem with GMOs is largely just the fact that it is based upon something that is so fundamental to everyone's Life. One mistake can affect millions. It also has potential serious concerns regarding other things like Genetic Diversity amongst crops and there's a legitimate Monopolistic concern as well.

When has the bolded above ever happened in the history of mankind?

 

[sandorski]

When has the bolded above ever happened in the history of mankind?

It happens all the time. The Cold Fusion spike of the late '80's early '90's is the perfect example.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

It happens all the time. The Cold Fusion spike of the late '80's early '90's is the perfect example.

And where exactly are we with cold fusion today? My point is, science doesn't happen except through the support (and control) of those companies that influence it.

 

[OverVolt]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/12067423/

I will just leave that there

 

[sandorski]

And where exactly are we with cold fusion today? My point is, science doesn't happen except through the support (and control) of those companies that influence it.

Science happens in Universities, in backyards, peoples Garages, and many Public Institutions.

Cold Fusion is where it should be at this time. Someone claimed to have achieved it, others stepped in and proved that claim was incorrect. That's Science at work.

 

[crashtestdummy]

We'll, sometimes the scientists are wrong, or the results are manipulated to get the desired result. I clearly remember studying the coming ice age when I was in junior high school, we had long discussions about how the human race would survive. They missed the boat on that one. Then global warming came along with it's unique set of problems and results that may or may not have been completely accurate, then they changed the name to "climate change", which sounds pretty vauge.
So it's not so much the science being denied, as the conclusions being questioned.
With climate change, the worst possible proponent was the the guy leading the charge. Al Gore personally took what may have been very solid science, and made it into a dog and pony show. His motivation was extremely questionable, and his never ending assertion that he was "carbon neutral" was such an absurd joke that it brought scorn and disbelief to the entire concept. So in this particular case, it wasn't so much the message that was denied, it's that the messenger made it sound like he was lying.

The great thing about science is that results are supposed to be repeatable. This means that there is nothing particularly special about the conclusions created by one group of scientists. Don't think an experiment was performed correctly? Repeat it yourself or create an alternative experiment with better controls. If you produce a better model for what's happening than what exists currently, the consensus will shift in your direction.

In isolation, individual studies may or may not be wrong, but over time we circle closer and closer to a model that accurately describes reality.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

We seem to have no problem with labeling foods "organic " why not label foods as GMO? We need to encourage more people to ask questions about their food.

Organic foods are self-labeled by the producer as a selling point; it's a marketing strategy. GMO-labeling is about having the government require the disclosure of information that has no functional bearing on the product being sold; it's simple fear-mongering with a lack of evidence supporting it. There are plenty of non-GMO products that voluntarily self-label as a marketing strategy as well, so it's not as though non-GMO foods are hard to find. I'm all in favor of requiring disclosure of important things on food labels, but requiring a GMO label flies in the face of scientific testing which has repeatedly shown no difference.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

That label would tell you nothing meaningful. Just being a GMO can not cause any harm. It all depends on the changes made if something is better or worse for you.

That label would tell you its a GMO product and if somebody wants to avoid them for whatever reason could. If GMO foods have trouble selling then its the producer/manufacturer/businesses issue to convince people its a good product.

 

[Brainonska511]

That label would tell you its a GMO product and if somebody wants to avoid them for whatever reason could. If GMO foods have trouble selling then its the producer/manufacturer/businesses issue to convince people its a good product.

The label is about fear-mongering. Look at the blatant ignorance that surrounds the issue. The well has been poisoned and honestly, there is no reasonable basis to include that information on the package.

 

[DrPizza]

We seem to have no problem with labeling foods "organic " why not label foods as GMO? We need to encourage more people to ask questions about their food.

The organic label is optional, nearly meaningless, and mostly marketing. Ditto many other labels, such as free range.

Forcing a GMO label is fear-mongering. You and I both know that if you had two competing brands, with equal market share, and you forced one to carry a cautionary, "contains dihydrogen monoxide," that their market share would drop due to the number of ignorant people out there.

If someone wants to know if the crop was hand picked by immigrants vs machine picked, why isn't that on the label? If someone wants to know every fertilizer and pesticide applied to that product, why isn't that on the label? The drive to get GMO on the label is led by people trying to create an image of the food being unsafe - unfortunately, once people "learn" something wrong, relearning the correct information that now conflicts with their preconceived ideas is much more unlikely. I.e., the well has been poisoned.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

It happens all the time.

 

[HomerJS]

The label is about fear-mongering. Look at the blatant ignorance that surrounds the issue. The well has been poisoned and honestly, there is no reasonable basis to include that information on the package.

How about the consumers right to know.

 

[shortylickens]

Last year Harvard released the results of a long study about guns.
They concluded an increase in so-called assault weapons does NOT lead to an increase in violent crime.

It was ignored by the anti-gun groups.

 

[SMOGZINN]

How about the consumers right to know.

Consumer’s right to know was superseded by their inability to understand.

 

[crashtestdummy]

How about the consumers right to know.

I don't think anyone here would argue that it isn't within the public's right to legislate such things. Certainly, we have no provision in the constitution forbidding such labels, explicitly or implicitly. The question is, it is a beneficial contribution to our society to have it? Take, for example, an ingredients list. We require disclosure of all components used in making food. The primary benefit is that people with a food allergy or other kind of dietary requirement can make sure they don't consume food that will really hurt their health.

The goal of such labeling is to create a stigmatization of GMO crops. You can say it's all about consumer choice, but embedded in there is the assumption that there is something bad about genetically engineered food. This statement is, as far as anyone has been able to show in controllable experiments, entirely unsupported.

We are left, then, with the following cost/benefit analysis for stigmatizing GMOs:

Pros:

• Consumers are able to make an arbitrary choice on their purchases.
• Monsanto makes a bit less money. (Is this a benefit?)

Cons:

• Crop yields go down, meaning that we tear up more wilderness to make our food.
• We produce more CO2 to make our food.
• We use more insecticide per hectare of land.
• Lower, less stable incomes for farmers.
• Certain foods, such as the papaya and the orange, become unavailable or very expensive due to to disease.
• Potentially wonderful humanitarian developments, such as golden rice, protein-containing cassava, and rice that can grow in contaminated soil, will not receive funding and/or will be shunned by other countries following our lead.

I think people forget how important technology is to food production. As anyone old enough will tell you, we were convinced the world was going to starve just 50 years ago. The reason it didn't was Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution. Now there were certainly consequences to the introduction of pesticides (particularly DDT), but they were far, far, outweighed by the billion lives it likely saved. Things like BT corn and cotton provide much of the benefits of the green revolution without the consequences. Other developments have the ability to drastically increase the nutritional value of our staple crops.


Before you jump in with "but genetic engineering changes plants in ways we don't understand", realize that any changes made this way are much smaller than those we create through selective breeding. Take wheat, for instance. Most wild species of wheat are diploidic, meaning that they contain two copies of their genetic code (like us). This wheat, while reasonably nutritious, doesn't contain enough gluten to make any kind of bread beyond a tortilla. In order to make the wheat more easily consumable, it has been repeatedly hybridized to either tetraploidic (four copies, durum wheat) or hexaploidic (six copies, bread wheat). That means that one plant of "modern" (i.e. last 10k years) wheat contains the genetic content of at least three wild plants. This is a far more drastic change than what we do with genetic engineering, yet no one worries about it. If you want other examples, look at strawberries (hybrid species), almonds (wild almonds contain a substantial amount of cyanide), corn (the wild ancestor is almost inedible and tiny), and apples (since they are triploidic, nearly all members of an apple variety are grafted clones). You'll find the amount of genetic modification we've done to our food well before this century to be astounding.

 

[sandorski]

GMO is already stigmatized.

 

[soulcougher73]

If GMO is as awesome as they claim, they would want to advertise as its clearly superior to its non-GMO counterpart. Clearly they dont want to advertise. I wonder why.

 

[JEDIYoda]

If GMO is as awesome as they claim, they would want to advertise as its clearly superior to its non-GMO counterpart. Clearly they dont want to advertise. I wonder why.

you really wonder why??
That is like saying if you have nothing to hide you will not mind the Police doing unauthorized searches of your home...