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The Gap Between What The Public Thinks And What Scientists Know
First time accepted submitter burtosis writes Despite similar views about the overall place of science in America, the general public and scientists often see science-related issues through a different lens, according to a new pair of surveys by the Pew Research Center in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). From FiveThirtyEight: "The surveys found broad support for government to spend money on science, but that doesn't mean the public supports the conclusions that scientists draw. The biggest gap between scientists and the public came on issues that may elicit fear: the safety of genetically modified (or GMO) foods (37 percent of the public said GMOs were safe, compared to 88 percent of scientists) and the use of pesticides in agriculture (28 percent of the public said foods grown with pesticides were safe to eat, versus 68 percent of scientists). There was also disagreement over the cause of climate change (50 percent of the public said it is mostly due to human activity, compared to 87 percent of scientists). Here’s a full list, via Pew Research Center, of the scientific issues the survey asked about."
Sterile plants are almost never used.
Monsanto developed that system and last I checked they had NEVER used it for any regular seeds. It was only used in test fields to prevent genes escaping into the wild during testing.
My view on gene patenting is that any natural gene should not be patent able but the process for insertion should be. However, for any custom developed gene that should be patent able.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
This I agree 100% with.
This is why I can't support the GMO labeling laws I keep seeing. So many just want to label something as GMO which is just based on fear and does not lead to any understanding.
For ALL kinds of food (organic, gmo, etc) I want to know exactly what is in the food. I want to know the DNA sequence so I can search it or write an app to test it against things i don't want. That is true for GMO and Organic foods. Remember that pink grapefruit was a random mutation. There was no guarantee it would be safe. Same with organic certified chemical mutagens used on organic foods.
I want all food help to the same high standard. Not this fear based approach that thinks that GMO is different.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
I am an engineer with chemical and biological background. I've seen more than I want to in commercialized conclusions by PhD scientists that were really just hired guns, corporate and academic. In some cases they got unhired because I proved things otherwise and showed long stretches of repeated, highly biased results.
I think paycheck corruption in science today is even worse, like with the CAGW promoters.
No one has genomic techniques to successfully create a protein from whole cloth.
That used to be true, but science marches on...
http://www.princeton.edu/main/...
I've read a lot of journal articles, and granted, they arne't Science or Nature since I don't have expertese in those fields, but more like IEEE transactions. In those journals, I'm always shocked as to the piss poor quality of the a lot of the articles. And honestly, some of the most interesting articles I've read weren't in top tier journals. They went against the mainstream and IEEE wouldn't touch them. If you think groupthink isn't a thing in science, you're massively naive.
- and it didn't work out too well, as cross pollination with nearby fields of similar crops suddenly sprouted new breeds, which were carrying Monsanto's patented genes. Monsanto then went on to successfully sue the farmers for patent infringements. Madness, indeed, but there's the truth of it.
That doesn't even begin to answer the true horror of GMO. Monsanto's seeds won't even germinate without Monsanto's Roundup Ready (illegal in some countries, and rightly so). Do a google search for rat/mouse experiments where they were fed GMO corn exclusively, versus the control that were fed non-GMO exclusively. you very quickly wonder what the hell we're putting in our bodies. It might look like corn, it might even taste like corn, but it's not corn, as in edible.
http://www.naturalnews.com/037249_gmo_study_cancer_tumors_organ_damage.html
The rampant degenerative practices of mass farming, are going down Monsanto's road - leading them to produce crops of poison, not produce.
They look to Monsanto for solutions to problems such as super-weeds (look it up) which are problems caused entirely by Monsanto.
Their solution? More Roundup-Ready!
So have a read about it, - here's a start : http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/06/09/monsanto-roundup-herbicide.aspx
You'll join the ignorant masses in believing GMO is bad, but for good reason. Doesn't matter what level they say is safe in drinking water - since when is poison considered safe? Keep in mind that washing your food before cooking or cleaning won't change the fact it grew in poison, and so contains poison.
The real reason farmers are going down this path, is ignorance of their soil. Nutrients are not being replenished as fast as it's taken out. As a consequence, we get weak plants that fail to grow or get disease. Hence the need for a more "rugged" plant that can handle the "global warning"... But that's another story.
This aspect is called soil degradation. It's a world-wide problem, wherever we have mass farming practices. Very few known how to correctly manage this, so try looking up "super organic", if you're really interested. http://www.snofa.net/
The only issue there is that if pollen blows into my field, I don't think it is reasonable that I have to pay you a licensing fee.
Take for example a bull that breaks through a fence and breeds with some of my cattle. Do I have to pay a breeding fee for you bull's "service" to my herd? No.
And the thing is that Monsanto has done that in the past. What is more, they'll have funny genes that will not only not fertilize my crops but will literally make them sterile. There are terminator genes that won't breed true. And so that bull that hopped the fence not only bred with my cattle but effectively implanted defective genetic material that will miscarry.
In regards to corn specifically, the GMO corn should probably not produce pollen. Or if it does, that pollen has to not screw up non-GMO corn and has to not incur any fee to Monsanto etc.
If a farmer is just trying to grow his crops and wants nothing to do with the whole thing, these GMO crops often make that very difficult. If the GMO crops don't spread their DNA to non-GMO crops then they're fine. I really don't have a problem with GMO in theory. The issue is that in practice it tends to have a lot of problems that are not okay.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
"Scientist" is a woefully ambiguous term. As I scientist, I think GMO food is perfectly safe. I am a nuclear scientist and know little about the GMO process, but that doesn't matter. My opinion does.
Good point. The glaring assertion that the sanctity of scientific authority would carry forth across disciplines, and that those in different branches of science carry more weight than say --- a layman who has put effort to research a specific subject --- is dubious.
One might even say this tabloid appeal to authority is religious... but I would not grace it like that. I have too much respect for my religious friends. I may not share their faith but I can easily see that they deliberately and carefully choose their sources of information (such as the Bible, ancient text and modern sermons) and consider the messenger with each message. They would not inherently revere a reverend with 'priest' rubber-stamped on the forehead any more than we should defer to the results of a poll whose categories are drawn from the presence or absence of a University degree in fields the pollsters considered to be 'sciency'.
Whatever the criteria for being one, scientists are part of the demographic 'public' in the real world.
There is also the fact that people who have read a fair amount in certain fields may understand the questions in a poll but because of their background they may have different perceptions as to the meaning. For example, when I saw the article "Americans Support Mandatory Labeling of Food That Contains DNA"... I did NOT spot it a mile off as a malicious trip-wire question to expose duh-idiots (which it apparently was). I recalled the recent scientific controversy over whether microRNA uptake in digestion might change gene expression in a harmful way, and whether any specific GMO food (by virtue of its narrow genetic origins) might, as an unintended consequence, be able to deliver such a payload. It was all over the news in the US a few years ago and the 'public' had every right to be concerned. Though the science is pretty well settled (see this excellent article) it turns out that the hysteria was fed partly by a failure of the scientific process, among other things. Years ago when the microRNA article was published it was refuted, too casually, even though its implications if true may be dire. Our DNA mechanisms are well-adapted to deal with these fragments and they are indeed very prevalent. This was never explained well enough to the public, who were thinking in terms of a new type of man-made 'contaminant' that had suddenly appeared in the food supply.
It is the "4 out of 5 dentists surveyed recommend Trident Sugarless Gum for their patients who chew gum" phenomenon, where the fifth dentist's opinion does not fit the message and is not even revealed. Could the fifth dentist have known or glimpsed something that would have blown all the others away, convinced them or shamed them? (the survey was actually 1,700 dentists).
If you show most anyone -- including 'scientists' --- a list of major Yellowstone eruptions over time and point out that it has been ~640,000 years since the last, and asked the question "Would you say that an eruption is overdue?" they will tend to say YES. They may even sense it is a trick question. But a geologist would shout "NO!!" and if another Geologist says yes, they would form a mob with pitchforks-mob and march to the door. Geologists are aware of the fuzziness of geologic time scales but above all, their too-casual answers have been used to dupe-scare people.
These polls have been taken before. And the tendency is to perceive them as a sort of exposé of how stupid the 'public' is. But for a few of
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Have you ever spoken to farmers?? The half dozen farmers I've talked with all say the same thing (I grew up in a small, rural community), most of them were older than 60 and had been farmers for decades. They don't have the time, money, or resources to collect, process, and store seeds, they always buy them. These guys LOVE GMO crops because of the increased yields and predictability.
It may be an extremely small sample and anecdotal, but it makes a lot of sense. I recall having small gardens growing up, and we always bought seeds every year. Plus, farmers want consistent crops every year and better yields if they can, they don't want some wild child of something they started growing 10 years ago when Monsanto has created a new product that makes more money for them.
I would think a sterile plant would be a good thing for modern farmers, who want's corn stalks popping up in a soy bean field. Farmers rotate their crops, I used to remember scenes like this growing up. I don't see them as often now.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
There is no health benefit to taking a perfectly useful plant and adding more poisons to it.
There could be, if the poison displaces a chemical pesticide that is more harmful. Bt corn is an example.
We already grow more than enough food.
Then higher productivity can allow us to grow the same food on fewer acres, leaving more fallow land for wildlife.