Those Opposed To Scientific Consensus Bolstered By 'Illusion of Knowledge' (edmontonjournal.com) 432
The Edmonton Journal reports:
Recently, researchers asked more than 2,000 American and European adults their thoughts about genetically modified foods. They also asked them how much they thought they understood about GM foods, and a series of 15 true-false questions to test how much they actually knew about genetics and science in general. The researchers were interested in studying a perverse human phenomenon: People tend to be lousy judges of how much they know. Across four studies conducted in three countries -- the U.S., France and Germany -- the researchers found that extreme opponents of genetically modified foods "display a lack of insight into how much they know." They know the least, but think they know the most. "The less people know," the authors conclude, "the more opposed they are to the scientific consensus."
Science communicators have made concerted efforts to educate the public with an eye to bringing their attitudes in line with the experts," they write in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. But people with an inflated sense of what they actually know -- and most in need of education -- are also the ones least likely to be open to new information.... Extreme views often come along with not appreciating the complexity of the subject -- "not realizing how much there is to know," said Philip Fernbach, lead author of the new study and a professor of marketing at the University of Colorado Boulder. "People who don't know very much think they know a lot, and that is the basis for their extreme views."
Slashdot reader Layzej links to Rational Wiki's article on "The Backfire Effect," to illustrate Fernbach's observation that "People double down on their 'counter-scientific consensus attitudes'.
"Epecially when people feel threatened or if they are being treated as if they are stupid."
Science communicators have made concerted efforts to educate the public with an eye to bringing their attitudes in line with the experts," they write in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. But people with an inflated sense of what they actually know -- and most in need of education -- are also the ones least likely to be open to new information.... Extreme views often come along with not appreciating the complexity of the subject -- "not realizing how much there is to know," said Philip Fernbach, lead author of the new study and a professor of marketing at the University of Colorado Boulder. "People who don't know very much think they know a lot, and that is the basis for their extreme views."
Slashdot reader Layzej links to Rational Wiki's article on "The Backfire Effect," to illustrate Fernbach's observation that "People double down on their 'counter-scientific consensus attitudes'.
"Epecially when people feel threatened or if they are being treated as if they are stupid."
Dunning-Kreuger effect at work (Score:5, Informative)
Duh!
(by the way, First Post!)
Re:Dunning-Kruger effect at work (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
English speaking people tend to misspell certain German digraphs by swapping the letters, for example ie (writing weiner instead of wiener) or ue (Kreuger instead of Krueger). I have no idea why, though.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
English speaking people tend to misspell certain German digraphs by swapping the letters, for example ie (writing weiner instead of wiener) or ue (Kreuger instead of Krueger). I have no idea why, though.
German "wie" is pronounced roughly like English "we". IMHO, the same logic applies to a lot of other common misspellings: you know how the word sounds, then you try write it as if it were a word of your native language. To me, this always gives the impression that the person never studied any foreign languages, because (omg) different languages have different logic for spelling and pronunciation.
Re:Dunning-Kruger effect at work (Score:5, Informative)
> German "wie" is pronounced roughly like English "we".
In what region of which German speaking country?
I've heard it many times, on the East side of the Rhine river, and in Vienna (the Wien in Wiener, by the way)
In both places, the 'Wie' is pronounced as a straight 'Vee'. There is no hint of anything like a rounded vowel, such as in the English 'we' or French 'oui'.
Re: (Score:3)
Makes research like this even more important. If we just say, yes, we know about Dunning-Kruger, lets move on, the human race will vanish due to suicide by stupidity. There were already a few close calls and several new ones are coming up (climate, renewed risk of nuclear war, the next authoritarian catastrophe are the ones I can see).
The human race urgently needs a way to get the Dunning-Kruger sufferers under control, and in particular make sure they do not get into positions of power. Yes research in the
Re: (Score:2)
This goes a little deeper though. It goes beyond just the DK effect describes and investigates the hypothetical consequences of such an effect, such as the view of science and knowledge that these people hold.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Smug fake-science Monsanto shills sneer "nah nah, you're a stupid-pants!!"
You nailed it. I tried reading the linked article, but was quickly disgusted by how obviously pro-Monstanto the bias was. The article may as well have been paid for by Monsanto-Bayer (I would not be at all surprised to find out that it was), it was so obviously tainted all the way from the fake headline onward.
The fake headline is designed to encourage people to emotionally arrive at a Dunning-Kreuger conclusion, then manipulate those emotions to conclude that anti-GMO sentiment is unwarranted. But no pa
Re:article summarized (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting that you immediately jumped to the conclusion that the article is pro-Monsanto, then offered up a conspiracy theory that it might have been paid for by Monsanto and then concluded that it was obviously tainted and started blathering about fake headlines.
In one sentence, you went from "may as well" to "I wouldn't be surprised" to "it's obvious" without any evidence whatsoever, which exactly the kind of uninformed reactionary response that the article is discussing. It's no wonder you felt called out and got pissed off.
But you forget... (Score:3, Informative)
It's also notable that they have knowledge that Dunning-Krueger *is* a thing.
Accurately describing how your detractors would react even *before* they start doing it is the best way of discounting anything they have to say. You *knew* they would, so you're smarter than them by default, right?
It's really just a way of psychologically profiling people ahead of time to make yourself sound reasonable: better to be the one who calls the behaviour out first because it gives your information the ring of truth just
Re: (Score:3)
There were plans to use GURTs, but they were shelved due to public controversy.
And the benefit is precisely what you are calling its drawback. Let me make an analogy with cars: how do you think they'd sell cars if they had to create each one brand new?
Forcing farmers to buy new seeds each year was precisely the goal.
Re: But you forget... (Score:5, Informative)
Forcing farmers to buy new seeds each year was precisely the goal.
Btw, farmers already buy new seeds each year for many crops.
For example, the only way you know you are growing the right sweet corn is to buy new seeds every year. If you plant from last year's crop, 25% to 50% of the crop won't have the right alleles.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Even more concerning is the trope that a political faction has anything to say about scientific facts. The fact is that GMO is mostly harmless as any half assed study of the subject and the safety tests done on it will reveal. The political fact is that Monsanto is a predatory capitalist corporation that uses GMO to enforce a distastefull business contract. Untangling the two issues has become impossible because everybody has been polarised by the politics first and is unable to discuss the science objectiv
Re: (Score:3)
Genetically modifying a plant to produce a pesticide was insane but they did it. There will always be intentioned consequences. For example make a plant herbicide resistant, and that resistance spreads to weeds in the same species and more and more herbicide is required and becomes toxic to us. How far will that genetic modification spread, what will be the consequences of turning out environment into a big ole trial and error lab.
I like GMO in algae, grown in a tank and not in the wild, specifically engin
Re: article summarized (Score:4, Insightful)
I like how selling seeds and pestices to people who want them is suddenly "a distastefull business contract". Monsanto derangement syndrome still in full swing, even though the company doesn't even exist any more.
Re: (Score:3)
The article may as well have been paid for by Monsanto-Bayer (I would not be at all surprised to find out that it was), it was so obviously tainted all the way from the fake headline onward.
Well, given that buying Monsanto apparently was a really bad deal, they are getting desperate and any last shred of ethics they may have had are going out the window.
Re:article summarized (Score:5, Informative)
For new technologies to be fairly tried, the company introducing it has to reap the profit from selling the new technology, but also need to be liable for damages due to any problems the new technology causes. Separating the risk from the reward causes technologies to "succeed" regardless of any negative problems they cause. The problem shows up in other areas as well.
Re: (Score:3)
The "frankenfood" is actually fine.
The part they don't want you to open your mouth about is the terrible business practices, such as making the plants purposefully infertile so you have to keep buying monsanto seeds, the part where you get sued if a monsanto crop accidentally grows on your terrain, the ol and good monopoly by infinite patenting everything...
But the strategy of calling their things frankenfood is not that all a bad strategy.
Re:article summarized (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a bad strategy. It misinforms (lies to) people about GMOs for the purpose of trying to constrain Monsanto's villainy which is a different but related problem. It would be better to tell people the truth: FDA-approved GMO foods pose no inherent risk to your body, and GMO crops are no worse for the environment or farmers than traditional crops, but Monsanto is a corporation trying to gain control over the world's food supply, and they sell the seeds for most GMO foods.
It's a bad idea for the same reasons that lying about global warming to try to trick the idiots into supporting the scientifically correct position would be.
Re: (Score:3)
Humans have been breeding crops into "frankenfoods" for thousands of years. The tennis-ball-sized tomatoes we have in stores now were bred from wild tomatoes the size of grapes. The big purple things we call eggplants used to be small white things that actually looked like birds' eggs. Corn is the biggest freak of all - look up Teosinte to see what that used to look like. We've been making "GMOs" since prehistoric times, just with more primitive "GM" methods. If there were dangers we should've found them by
Re: (Score:2)
No farmer that actually financially supports themselves from growing hundreds of acres of crops "save their seeds". They buy every year because they know commercially produced seed (even non GMO seed) is more productive as it nearly eliminates the risk of seeds not germinating under proper conditions (AKA Dud seeds).
Re: article summarized (Score:3)
No, it's even worse. Rather than introduce a terminator gene, they let the seeds spread to neighboring fields so they can sue any farmer who doesn't get with the program.
Terminator genes would be a blessing.
Re: (Score:2)
You are completely misrepresenting what happened. You also ignore that food patents have been common for decades well before GMO was even a glint in the eyes of anyone. You can, and people do, patent foods that were created via "traditional" means....Honeycrisp Apples are an example of this....Now....If a bird ate one of those apples, shat it out on another farmer's field and a tree grew...no one would sue that farmer....if that farmer then harvested those apples and started planting HC trees to commerciall
Re: (Score:3)
they let the seeds spread to neighboring fields so they can sue any farmer who doesn't get with the program.
Re-read my post (which was modded down despite being accurate and giving citations).
Monsanto has never sued anyone for unintentional infringement.
The myth that they did comes from the film David vs. Goliath [amazon.com], which was a wildly inaccurate documentary.
Terminator genes would be a blessing.
They would indeed. They were a good idea, and were stopped by protests from anti-GMO activists, including Greenpeace, because they took away one of their best arguments against GMO: That the genes might spread into the wild.
Re: (Score:2)
How you got an insightful is beyond me. You are literally an example of Dunning-Kruger.
Re: (Score:2)
I find it interesting that it is supposed to be ok to tamper with the food source, oh, but not the environment.
Humans have been tampering with their food sources for at least 10,000 years.
Re: article summarized (Score:3)
Transgenic frankenstein technology is qualitatively different from previous techniques of plant and animal breeding.
The experts (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: The experts (Score:3, Insightful)
The largest issue with GM crops right now is the modification itself. Its highly unlikely the gene that coveys resistance to âoeround-upâ is dangerous.... what is dangerous is dumping hundreds of tons of round-up herbicide on everything!!
We just need an approval committee for GM work.
Story 1)
âoeHi committee , we at Monsanto would like to release a GM crop that is resistant to an herbicide. Oh and by the way we have a patent on the herbicide too...
Story 2)
âoeHi committee, we here at the u
Re: The experts (Score:4, Informative)
The genetic modifications are unlikely to cause many problems.
However, glyphosate (Round-Up) is used on these GM crops by the millions of tons and it is toxic. It ends up in all of our food. It causes cancer and endocrine disruption in humans and is decimating insects.
Farmers spray it on crops during growing season to kill weeds then they spray again before harvest to dry out crops to make them easier to harvest.
Re: The experts (Score:5, Informative)
However, glyphosate (Round-Up) is used on these GM crops by the millions of tons and it is toxic. It ends up in all of our food. It causes cancer and endocrine disruption in humans and is decimating insects.
Learn some science. Almost everything you said there is false. Insects are not being decimated by glyphosate, neither in the literal nor the figurative sense.
Re: (Score:2)
What most people don't realize is that nature performs millions/billions of genetic modifications daily. This includes mutations and also phage injections which can insert genes from other species. Most of these are a dead end. Sometimes an organism will be improved by the change. The selective breeding and GM efforts by humans are a vanishingly small percentage of genetic changes.
I'm not worried about human or natural GM. These things will survive or fail on their merits and the fears of a "frankenfood" ar
Re: (Score:2)
Selectively bred is not the same as genetically modified.
Yes it is.
We have NOT been eating genetically modified bananas.
Yes we have. I have actually eaten a wild banana. It was red, about 3 inches long, and tasted like a really tough potato with pebbles in it.
Re: (Score:2)
No, the largest issue with GM crops is the Government Regulatory enforcement of who can own the modification making something that can naturally grow automatic property of someone or a business.
I have less problem with GMO than I have with the regulatory landscape letting companies like Monsanto gut our agricultural industry with lawsuits to force farmers to become their personal farmers when their "government granted ownership" of the DNA in those seeds spread into the wild which is exactly what nature lik
Re: (Score:2)
I don't "religiously believe" anything, being a scientist, atheist, and a skeptic... You have brought up an entirely different corporate overreach that goes beyond this single issue. Allowing corporations to legally protect genes ( and other designs ) as IP is a big detriment to innovation in general. This is true not only in the GMO space.
I do think that regulations are appropriate and somewhat effective. Like any common rule of civilization, those rules will be open to corruption and manipulation. I am n
Re: (Score:2)
"I do think that regulations are appropriate and somewhat effective"
I share you views on the detriment of IP protections on this, but I think it is going to be clear that your definition of what is appropriate or effective are likely going to be radically different from mine.
"One example of a simple yet effective change in Intellectual Property law that helps innovation is disallowing certain things from being patentable."
A good idea and one that I would agree with on its face but it won't work all of the w
Re: (Score:2)
The largest issue with GM crops right now is the modification itself. Its highly unlikely the gene that coveys resistance to âoeround-upâ is dangerous.... what is dangerous is dumping hundreds of tons of round-up herbicide on everything!!
I assume you missed a "not" in there, specifically "...is not the modification...
If so, well done. I wish other people were more specific about what exactly is the problem they're trying to solve. I concur, the Round Up ready corn is certainly no more or less healthy and nutritious than non-Round Up ready corn, and that the real issue is whether spraying more Round Up on corn fields is a good idea (assuming that's in fact what happens, which I don't actually know).
I was talking with my brother yesterday and
Just a reminder... (Score:5, Informative)
"Why Most Published Research Findings Are False"
John P. A. Ioannidis
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Further reading:
"There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias".
- Dr John Ioannidis (“Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”) August 30, 2005 http://journals.plos.org/plosm... [plos.org]
"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine".
- Dr. Marcia Angell, New York Review of Books January 15, 2009. http://www.nybooks.com/article... [nybooks.com]
"The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.
Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness".
- Richard Horton, Editor, “The Lancet” April 11th 2015 http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/... [thelancet.com]
"Scientists these days, especially but not only in such blatantly corrupt fields as pharmaceutical research, face a lose-lose choice between basing their own investigations on invalid studies, on the one hand, or having to distrust any experimental results they don’t replicate themselves, on the other. Meanwhile the consumers of the products of scientific research—yes, that would be all of us—have to contend with the fact that we have no way of knowing whether any given claim about the result of research is the product of valid science or not".
- John Michael Greer
http://thearchdruidreport.blog... [blogspot.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
People need to get this. If it's consensus, it's not science. If it's science, consensus is irrelevant. The model is predictive or it's not, popularity doesn't enter into to.
I've never seen so much smug in a Slashdot comment section. So many people preening and bray that they have the popular opinions, so they must be smart! That's not how any of this works.
Re:Just a reminder... (Score:5, Insightful)
People need to get this. If it's consensus, it's not science. If it's science, consensus is irrelevant. The model is predictive or it's not, popularity doesn't enter into to.
All of this is true, but the above argument (predictive or isn't) it used by people to attack the theory of AGW on the specific basis that the models don't accurately predict what's going to happen on their block. They don't actually claim to, but that person is still going to use that argument and then sit back like they've accomplished something other than willful ignorance.
Re:Just a reminder... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem has been that the AGW models don't very accurately predict what their supposed to predict, either. Oh, they're not hopelessly off, by any means, but the correlation and predictive power is that of a young science. They've gotten a bit better than psychology, in terms of statistical accuracy, for what that's worth.
But people don't want to talk about the accuracy of the models. People want to proclaim tribal membership, either holding them as holy scripture, or dismissing them as garbage, to show which side the speaker of on. That sort of talk is religion (or perhaps sports team fandom), not science.
Re:Just a reminder... (Score:5, Insightful)
People need to get this. If it's consensus, it's not science. If it's science, consensus is irrelevant. The model is predictive or it's not, popularity doesn't enter into to.
That's technically true while managing to be mostly wrong in practice.
Yes, it is true that predictiveness is the only thing that matters at a fundamental level. On the other hand most non experts do not have anything like sound reasons for disagreeing with a consensus of experts. Sure you might be more like the plate tectonics guy, but there's a much higher chance you're more like the timecube guy instead.
As the saying goes, they laughed at Einstein. They also laughed at Bozo The Clown. The mere act of disagreeing makes you no more likely to be the former than the latter and statistically you're gonna be the latter.
So many people preening and bray that they have the popular opinions, so they must be smart!
Don't worry, there a small but ardent contribution from those that preen and bray over how having contrarian opinions makes them smart.
That's not how any of this works.
Quite so.
Re:Just a reminder... (Score:4, Insightful)
People need to get this. If it's consensus, it's not science. If it's science, consensus is irrelevant. The model is predictive or it's not, popularity doesn't enter into to.
Bullshit.
The Scientific Method is literally built on consensus. You come up with a hypothesis, test it, tweak it until it matches observations, others test it and come to a consensus that it is correct. It then generally will be integrated into a theory and tested to ensure the theory still matches observations and accepted or tweaked further depending on the consensus of all those who have tested it.
Scientific consensus, while not able to escape human nature, generally means everyone agrees that there have been no other observations to disagree with whatever is being discussed. Like everything else in science, if someone comes along with different data and observations, then there will be edits to incorporate them - after they have been tested and accepted.
Re:Just a reminder... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not "consensus", dammit! The scientific method is not dependent on whether an idea is popular. How many scientists agree or disagree has no bearing. It's nut a fucking popularity contest.
What you're talking about is "confirmation", not "consensus".
Truth is not a social construct. This is the fundamental point of disagreement between normal people and bizarre post-modernist ideologues.
Re:Just a reminder... (Score:5, Informative)
That's not "consensus", dammit! The scientific method is not dependent on whether an idea is popular.
Yes, it is consensus. But like many things in science, the commonly-used definition of a word does not necessarily apply.
Scientific consensus means that a similar result has been achieved from a variety of experiments, so we believe the matter to be true. It has nothing to do with popularity. Though things that have been repeatedly proven to be true tend to be popular.
Confirmation is what you do to a single experiment or hypothesis. Consensus is used when discussing a broader area of knowledge. Multiple confirmations of GMOs not causing harm have lead to the consensus that GMOs do not cause harm.
Re:Just a reminder... (Score:4, Informative)
The validity of a theory is tested by demonstrating its predictive powers. Repeated results
And when you do that a bunch of times you reach....a consensus.
Consensus in science has nothing to do with popularity. It means we've tested a particular subject from multiple angles, confirmed those tests, thus believe it to be true.
Experiments around the Higgs boson created a consensus that the Higgs boson exists. And that has continued the consensus that the Standard Model is accurate....for now.
Popularity doesn't come into play, except that things repeatedly shown to be true tend to be popular. Consensus in other areas (like politics) is about popularity.
Re: (Score:3)
But it has everything to do with contemporary politics over which country should kill its economy while other countries are let off the hook
So when you change the subject to a non-scientific area, the definition of the word changes? Whoa.
even the "do it a bunch of times" science types are the same crowd that all too often end up retracting their bogus white papers or changing their tune as soon as the source of their grant money change
You'll find that generally a consensus was not reached on such a subject. Far, far, far, far, far, far more rarely, something radically different was discovered, upending the old consensus. Such as the Standard Model in physics.
"But this could be that super-rare case!!!!!" makes about as much sense as "We can all get rich if we buy lottery tickets!!!"
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
That might be true if there was only one person in the world.
As it stands, any idiot can claim to have scientifically proved something, and be wrong. Other scientists must repeat the experiments, and agree with the result, before a model can be reliably considered predictive.
The word for that is "consensus."
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately the "experts" sometimes have a financial incentive to "know" what they claim is true.
So who funded this research . . . ? The government . . . ? Independent private university . . . ?
Or private industry . . . ?
"He who pays the piper calls the tune."
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately the "experts" sometimes have a financial incentive to "know" what they claim is true.
So who funded this research . . . ? The government . . . ? Independent private university . . . ?
Or private industry . . . ?
"He who pays the piper calls the tune."
Tie irony is that the paper claiming most papers are false is false.
Re: (Score:2)
And we're just supposed to believe your claim that the paper claiming the papers are false is false is true?
Well, it isn't in a paper, so it has to be true.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
There is also a secondary effect: Most politicians (and most people) cannot deal with conditional statements, risks, and uncertainty. Hence they select an absolute statement ("for" or "against") and then stick with it at all cost. That makes them hugely susceptible to being manipulated by those that crave money and power (and just do not care how much damage they do) and entirely disconnected from reality. Also, human history is full of really costly mistakes when manipulating the environment with incomplet
Re: (Score:2)
And "natural food" "experts" have financial conflicts of interest too. Poisoning the well is an attractive mode of thinking because it's so darn easy.
This kind of thinking follows a very simple and universally applicable process:
(1) Decide how you feel about the person speaking.
(2) If your feeling is good, believe everything he says; if it's bad, disbelieve everything he says.
Conspiracy theories are like crack cocaine; they give you a cheap and easy hit of self-righteous certainty. They are endlessly patc
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately the "experts" sometimes have a financial incentive to "know" what they claim is true.
What's that quote? The hardest thing to do it convince someone of something that's in their interest to not believe. Something like that.
IOW, if I have some stake in believing something, it's very hard to convince me otherwise. The stake might be financial, political, tribal, self-image, pride, or any number of things. Basically, humans are nowhere as rational as we want to tell ourselves.
Also history teaches us to be skeptical (Score:2)
What this article ignores is a long, long history of science telling us to do one thing, while eventually having to recant the whole thing,
How many people still believe that aluminum causes Alzheimers? That eggs are bad for your health? There are a lot of other examples where consensus has been wrong, and not just by a little bit.
So why should we not be skeptical of what climate scientists say now? Why should we not say, even if the prognosis for warming is right, what if they are wrong about root cause?
Re: (Score:2)
Companies spend more buying non experts like actors, youtube stars, pr people, players, etc..
That's true of both sides. Count how many "experts" you see supporting causes like PETA or anti-vaccination versus the number of actresses, strippers, etc.
Re: The experts (Score:2)
Take a cheat of paper and a pencil (Score:2)
Take a cheat of paper and a pencil ...
Draw a box, draw a box around it.
Put some labels inside: inner box "stuff you know that you know it", outer box "stuff you know that you don't know", rest of the paper "stuff you don't know about that you don't know".
The inner box would e.g. be your native language, the outer box would be "you know there are other languages, but you speak none or know their names", or "you don't know angels blood type" ... the rest of the paper is the "unknown unknown" ... things you ha
Re: (Score:2)
Does the paper cheat at cards or dice? Or perhaps on its spouse?
Or can you just not spell? Inquiring minds want to know....
The corralary ... (Score:2)
Those most invested in promoting it are the most economically invested in its success.
Re: (Score:2)
And that is just the problem: Greed makes people blind. (Well, more blind that they are already as a matter of routine.)
Red Foreman said it best (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with this world is that wise people are full of doubt, and dumbasses are full of confidence.
Re:Red Foreman said it best (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
I trust the actual experts (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't trust neonicotinoids because scientists were suppressed by corporations. Call me old-fashioned but I don't trust ignorance and I don't trust those who promote it. The experts were abused, trolled and hounded. That doesn't tell me the experts were right, but it sure as hell gives me cause for concern about the corporations. Particularly as the corporations prefer ignorance, trade secrets and suppression of data.
If we are to hold experts as different from non-experts, then I must regard scientists who
Re: (Score:2)
Not asking the right questions (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as I welcome this study, it didn't really ask the right questions and unfortunately kind of insinuates that knowledge of GM technology is the most important factor in judging whether GM food should be allowed. That's not true in general, my arguments against GM food have almost nothing to do with the way the genetic modifications work or with direct environmental impacts, they are political and philosophical. I'm pretty sure others have similar doubts.
The philosophical argument is a bit complex, involving several steps and premises. First, there is not much doubt that in the far future humans will drastically modify species including their own, given that almost every technology that has ever been invented has been used. Second, nevertheless it seems possible to kind of limit the impact of technologies, as for example the bans against nuclear proliferation show. Not every nation has nuclear weapons -- at least not yet, and that seems a good thing. Third, the larger the possible negative and positive long-term consequences of new technologies, the more you will need to err on the side of caution. (Technically, this could mean that you should use possibility theory instead of Expected Utility principles, for example.) Fourth, the more a technology is accepted and used in a society for one purpose, the more likely it will also be accepted and used for other purposes. Once GM food is ubiquitous, maybe animals will be modified next, and then humans, and so forth. I'm not claiming that there is an inevitable slippery slope, but some caution seems advisable. Fifth, human history has shown so far that humans are incapable of judging the very long-term impacts of technologies correctly. Both the net positive and net negative effects are blatantly misjudged once we're talking about time spans of 100-200 years. If you combine all those points, especially the third and fifth, then it seems that not being too liberal about GM technology and thinking this through in a bit more detail could be advisable. You certainly don't only want geneticists specializing in GM food in your expert panels for evaluating the technology. At the very least, we should perhaps delay or restrict technologies with a potential to have a high impact on the ecological system in the light of point five and point four. Again, the claim is not that a slippery slope is inevitable, but point five is still something to take into account. It's naive and irresponsible to make this a debate about "GM food" only.
The political point is simpler. The corporations who most fervently lobby for GM food have a proven history of not necessarily having the best interests of their consumers in mind, neither the interests of farmers nor those of end consumers, and have in the past been involved in all kinds of shady business about pesticides, seeds that make farmers dependent on the company, aggressive lawsuits against customers and aggressive patent policies, and so on. They also are lobbying very intensively against labelling GM food, even though there is almost no sane reason against such a requirements. In fact, their attempts to explain this rationale are mostly ridiculous despite the fact that they spend so much money on P&R. For example, they frequently argue that "there is not enough space on the packaging". In reality, their motivations are purely economical, they want to ensure that in mass production GM modified and non-GM-modified resources can be freely mixed in order to save costs. This is only a benefit to large food corporations, of course, who destroy smaller farmers and companies by sheer numbers. Irrespectively of the more philosophical worries, this alone should give you reason to think twice. Do you want no mandatory labelling, no free consumer choice, and instead laws that favour large corporations with a shady past? Do you wish to support Nestle and Bayer instead of local farming? Then maybe you should politically support GM food. If not, if you think that large food corporations are not necessarily the best choice for consumers
Science Is About Evidence, Not Consensus (Score:5, Insightful)
There was once widespread agreement about phlogiston (a nonexistent element said to be a crucial part of combustion), eugenics, the impossibility of continental drift, the idea that genes were made of protein (not DNA), homosexuality was a mental disease. and stomach ulcers were caused by stress, and so forth—all of which proved false.
Science, Richard Feyman once said, is “the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
Today's Scientists are Yesterday's Priests (Score:2, Interesting)
Scientists today purport to tell us how the world works, just as yesterday's high priests did. Those without means to directly confirm what is said (the majority of us), need to take their word for it.
Of course today's scientists support their contentions with data, facts etc. which supposedly were collected without any bias; just like yesterday's priests supported their contentions with "evidence" collected (charred stuff, etc.).
Finally today's Scientists corroborate each other's findings, just as yesterd
Tautology (Score:2)
Yes, if you disagree with the scientific consensus, then you will get a lot of facts wrong (which are based on scientific consensus - or at least science). It's like saying flat earthers get the question about the earth being round wrong. This may be true, but you could have deducted this without doing any research as it's a tautology.
Re: (Score:2)
Flat earhters don't get the question if the earth is round wrong.
How do you come to that retarded idea?
The earth is a circular plate. Everyone knows that. ... are the elephants placed on a big turtle, or are there only turtles all the way down?
The only open question is: is the plate placed on elephants or turtles
Of course there are metaphysical questions, e.g. if all the water is flowing over the edge ... where does it go to? How does it get replenished? What do the turtles eat? Where does the elephant poo
Re: (Score:2)
You kid, but realistically, if they were right, they would still show up as wrong in a research like this as they don't match popular opinion among scientists. Obviously a lot of the time people that disagree with 'scientific consensus' are just flat out wrong, but not necessarily always.
AFAIK, this is a Stephen Hawking quote... (Score:3)
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” Stephen Hawking
Then again, maybe he repeated some other quote he read and I'm now victim of the illusion of knowledge myself?
Bad study design. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Good post!!
That is why we have in all TV shows where a scientist is questioned all the lab material, instruments, assistances etc present to show the public that every of his word is right.
And when they diagnose breast cancer in my right breast (yeah, men can get breast cancer) I spent about 5 years in research, and ask my friends to fund it, to confirm the results.
Hint: "if you don't trust in *experts* ... what is your job? How can I prevent meeting you?"
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Bad study design. (Score:4, Insightful)
A real scientist doesn't even give a shit about "experts".
What if the true scientist is also a Scotsman?
No scientist should "believe" any other scientist.
Very typical black-and-white thinking. Degrees of belief go with degrees of credibility.
Show me the EXPERIMENT, show me the DATA, and let me reproduce it for myself.
No one has time to reproduce everything everyone has done. A lot of scientists believe those who have gone before them to some degree. Whether or not they believe them depends on a variety of factors. If they don't believe them at all they won't even try to replicate their work. If they do believe them then they try to build on the work.
Sometimes building on the work reveals the underlying theory to be unsound. The more credibility the oriignla scientst has, the more someone will assume the flaw lies elsewhere and the longer they will go before looking at the underlying assumptions.
anything on the cutting edge is generally regarded as dubious. Newton's laws are not. And there's a whole scale inbetween.
Re: (Score:2)
I really don't have time to go back and verify say, Archimedes work.
No you don't. But if you eventually figure out that what Archimedes said doesn't make sense in some new context, you should at least be able to go back and reproduce his experiment and either - obtain exactly the same result he did, leaving you to try to figure out WHY it doesn't make sense, in light of your new insight, or if you can't reproduce his results then you realize that even ancient Greeks were prone to falsifying their experiments.
No one has time to reproduce everything. However one should be v
I am not opposed to GM food in principle (Score:3)
I just trust the people that decide what to modify and how not at all. First, they will not have the best interest of the consumer at heart, they will want to maximize profits and, if they can, make people as dependent on _their_ product as they can. So the incentives are already utterly perverted. Second, they will not care about long-term environmental impact, they will care about short-term profits. With the power of modification that comes with GM, that could cause huge disasters that society (not those causing them) will then have to pay for. Now, I know that it is hard to cause such disasters. Most dangerous stuff is not viable in the field. Most modifications are small. But it just takes one instance (e.g. by a bad actor desperately trying to get rich) and we are screwed.
With that, I am very much opposed to GM food production (not research) at this time. Incidentally, this is also my main objection to the nuclear-industrial complex. It is not the tech, it is the people I have a problem with.
Specifics Matter (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
balaam's ass is right on the money here.
Not only that, but once a business has this shit locked down they are just going to hide behind the government skirts when people lame blame at their feet by just saying... we followed all regulations.
Businesses like Monsanto have little reason to do better, unless that doing better means they make more money or gain more power/monopoly over something. Improving the agriculture, science, or society is absolutely NOT a goal.
How do I know? (Score:2)
Scientists are Humans Folks (Score:2)
When someone says "they are the professionals" or "I am the professional" ignore them. They have nothing intelligent to say. Everyone is a human and they have the same problem... wanting to be right regardless of the outcome of the argument to get there.
First is the gate-keeping... the idea that if you are not credentialed in some way to speak on the subject then your input is not valid.
Next comes the Sheeplism... if you say something that is not "group-think" approved then you must be marginalized or dis
Dunning Kruger (Score:2)
....has been well documented for 20 years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]â"Kruger_effect
Re: (Score:2)
Feel free to Google it for yourselves!
Googling will only show me answers from several billion dumb-asses, o queen of the swords.
Re: (Score:3)
Although many EU countries do not grow GMOs, Europe is one of the world’s biggest consumers of them.
And that includes France.
Re: (Score:2)
"You are wrong [geneticlit...roject.org], whilst growing GMO crops in France is prohibited, their import and consumption is perfectly legal: "
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the observation about their wheat and its effects on friends and acquaintances who have visited there, is as real as it gets.
Being wrong about France and their use of GMO products is embarrassing, but I will accept when I am wrong.
I still stand by the statement about GMO wheat no longer being food for people through its modification.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh the idiot again.
Why don't you read your damened link, and try to comprehend it.
For animal food GMO is ok.
All food that is tainted with GMO food must be labeled. Allowed level for GMO food in human consumer products is at the 1% range ...
Most all over GMO growth is banned. No one really has an issue with eating it. Growing and destroying the local eco systems are the problem.
We don't eat it because we do not want to support that unnecessary industry. That is all. Oh, but that changed since a few years. Wi
Re: (Score:2)
Well... One little thing might be that insects aren't mammals. There are great numbers of things insects can eat that you cannot. There are also a great number of things you can eat that **specific** insects (or classes of) cannot. Take a Monarch caterpillar and put it in a container of nice, fresh fruit - and watch it die. Your sentence exposes your physio
Re: (Score:2)
A monarch caterpillar does not know it can eat fruits.
Pretty stupid example.
Most insects can eat 100 times per gram of weight the poison that would kill you ... should give you to think about what is going on with GMOed food hat produces its own poison or GMOed food that is resistent to poison put on it.
Re: (Score:2)
There are a lot of people who are "allergic" to MSG, but despite it's formidable sounding chemical name (monosodium glutamate), it is simply the sodium salt of glutamic acid, one of the most abundant amino acids in the human body, involved in a wide variety of physiological processes. Double blind studies show the Chinese Restaurant Effect is equivalent to a placebo.
Nonetheless I do not doubt for a moment that sensitive individuals experience a variety of food allergy responses after the consume food they
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Oh look, a perfect example of what the article claims.
You have zero knowledge of the subject, and claim that if it isn't suited for insects that that somehow has any bearing on suitability for humans.
Re:Freeman Dyson (Score:5, Informative)
And the "models" are a straw man argument. There are much more elementary arguments for Global Warming that don't need complicate models. For instance, we can measure the absorption spectrum of Carbon dioxide, and it's even possible to calculate it down to ten digits, and in accordance to the actual measurements. We have the Venus and the Mars (both have about 95% Carbon dioxide in their atmospheres, and we can measure the Greenhouse effect there. Actually, all celestial bodies with an atmosphere have a Greenhouse effect, even the Saturn moon Titan.
We know the development of the Carbon dioxide contents of the atmosphere during the last 120 years. In 1900, it was about 270 ppm, in the 1950ies, it was 300 ppm, in the 1980ies 330 ppm, and it's 410 ppm now. We can easily find out how much additional Carbon dioxide we need to add that much to the atmosphere (about 700 billion metric tons). We also know how much coal and oil we have mined (270 billion metric tons) and burned since the year of 1900, and how much Carbon dioxide it has generated (1000 billion metric tons). So about 70% of all that Carbon dioxide is still in the atmosphere, and 30% has disappeared (e.g. has acidified the ocean waters, increased the plant mass on Earth or formed compounds with minerals in the Earth's crust).
See? No complicated models. Just pure numbers and basic Arithmetics. The models serve a totally other purpose. They try to predict which effects the increased Greenhouse effect has: How much warming will actually happen? How strong will the melting of the glaciers be? How will weather patterns change? What will be the new layout of the climate zones? And when will we experience how much of what effect? And yes, here we have lots of uncertainity, and partly, we have large error bars. But the general statement stays the same: Global temperatures are rising, the ocean levels are rising, coastal areas will experience more flooding and will be lost, conditions for crops will change, and all that will lead to a large amount of resettlements of people, e.g. much more migration than today.
Re:Trust the Scientists! (Score:4, Insightful)
This guy needs to read the essay "the relativity of wrong".
Science is the only way of knowing we have. It's far from perfect but it's much less wrong than everything else.
Ths attitude of "scientits have been wrong so you should believe someone with a much worse record" is utterly facile.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Does this qualify as "not even wrong"? It's not wrong but it's certainly barking utterly up the wrong tree.
'consensus' has no place in science. [...] Even fundamental scientific 'facts' need to be reevaluated and questioned all the time with no emotion or attachment either way.
That's functionally incorrect. I mean it sounds nice but it's a way to ensure no progress. There is no need to keep evaluating the correctness of Mawell's equations or Newton's Laws (at low velocities).
You can't make progress if you
Re: (Score:3)
This reminds me of how older children are most likely to die in a survival situation (lost in the woods in the winter etc.) because younger children follow their instincts and adults have enough knowledge to reason out their survival. Older children attempt to reason out their survival but don't have the knowledge/wisdom to do so as successfully as if they had just followed their instincts.