21 ms·

Strongest opponents of GM foods know the least but think they know the most

89 points by ozdave 8y ago

chendii 8y ago
I'm pro science and evidence. But anti GMO bad website, but these anti-GMO scientists / academics have compiled a meta review of scientific literature (free pdf and book to buy): http://gmomythsandtruths.earthopensource.org/ http://gmomythsandtruths.earthopensource.org/ there's a short news article that has some of the arguments here https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/genetically-modified-food-organic-agriculture_us_5a539e90e4b003133ecac8e1 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/genetically-modified-fo...
trophycase 8y ago
I'm sure this is true but let's not let this strawman detract from the fact that none of us really know that much about GM foods
imh 8y ago
Not to detract from the main take-away of "GM food extremists have poor and poorly calibrated knowledge" which seems reasonably robust, but the questions themselves are interesting and knowledge is harder than they give credit. One of the questions was "the oxygen we breathe comes from plants" (true). This one gave me pause and sent me down a google rabbit hole. I know a huge amount (most?) of the oxygen we breathe comes from the oceans and algae, but I don't know if those are considered plants. Googling around, it's still unclear. Some sources group it all under the term "marine plants," but those sources mostly seem to group cyanobacteria under the term "plants" which is stretching it, so they aren't quite trustworthy. What about green algae? Well they aren't part of Plantae either, but sources seem even more conflicted there. I feel like I'm more likely to get this question "wrong" the more I know, or the more precisely and scientifically I treat the statement. Elementary school me would think I'm sure of the answer they're looking for, and I'd probably get it marked right. Current me? I know the answer they're probably looking for, but don't know the right answer. Knowledge is weird.
- Fargren 8y ago
  Plant is a vague polysemic word. In this context I would take ti to mean as not animal or mineral, as it's not uncommon to divide things into those three categories.
  - imh 8y ago
    Here's wikipedia's take from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant: > Historically, plants were treated as one of two kingdoms including all living things that were not animals, and all algae and fungi were treated as plants. However, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria). I totally agree that it's often used as you describe, but on a test of scientific knowledge, yours is probably not the relevant definition, especially one with questions about bacteria and viruses. In this case, it was though!
    - JAlexoid 8y ago
      I don't think scientific definition strictly matters, in this context. We're not meticulously trying to catalogue life on Earth. You know... It's a case of is tomato a fruit or a vegetable.
- staplung 8y ago
  Do you have a pointer to the questions? I've wondered how I would fare but none of the articles I've read seem to link to them.
  - imh 8y ago
    Yup. For the record, after writing this comment, I read the rest of the questions and either they're more clear cut, or I'm ignorant of the ways they may not be. Here's the paper, which isn't linked from most journalists reporting on it: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0520-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0520-3 Google "sci-hub" if you want open access to it, using it's doi https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0520-3 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0520-3 Here's one of the surveys they used. It appears they all had the same science questions. https://osf.io/9gztf/ https://osf.io/9gztf/ (Study1 Survey.pdf) Here are the questions: The center of the earth is very hot: True The oxygen we breathe comes from plants: True Antibiotics kills viruses as well as bacteria: False All radioactivity is man made: False Almost all food energy for living organisms comes originally from sunlight: True All insects have eight legs: False The earth orbits the sun: True Men and women normally have the same number of chromosomes: True The continents have been moving their location for millions of years and will continue to move: True Lasers work by focusing sound waves: False Electrons are smaller than atoms: True All plants and animals have DNA: True Humans share a majority of their genes with chimpanzees: True It is the father’s genes that decide whether the baby is a boy or a girl: True
maxxxxx 8y ago
You could generalize this to "Strongest and especially loudest opponents/proponents of anything often know the least or have a hidden agenda"
blakesterz 8y ago
I read that headline and wondered if it's generalizeable to just about anything, and not just GM foods... “This is often used to explain why many Americans refuse to believe in evolution and why so many Americans feel that vaccination is harmful to children,” O’Dwyer said. “It also figures into the debates on global warming and makes correcting erroneous beliefs highly challenging.” Apparently it is.
- bb2018 8y ago
  At the same time I'm sure the following statements would also be true: "Those who know the least about the intricacies of lizard people conspiracy theories are most likely to deny it" or "Those who know the least about Bible-based curing methods or most likely to reject it" I am pro-GMO and don't go out of my way to eat GMO free, but at the same time I think it misses a greater point that those who are against something for larger meta or ethical reasons of course are not going to know the exact mechanics of it (because for them that would be missing the point).
- Konnstann 8y ago
  That's exactly what I thought. Conspiracy theorists like moon-landing deniers, flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, etc. have endless "research" to quote, but zero real knowledge on the subject. Obviously if they knew better they wouldn't hold that belief, but the bubble that they live in contains enough "data" for them to think they are informed.
- akvadrako 8y ago
  Actually it doesn't apply to global warming. From the abstract: > Similar results were obtained in a parallel study with representative samples from the United States, France and Germany, and in a study testing attitudes about a medical application of genetic engineering technology (gene therapy). This pattern did not emerge, however, for attitudes and beliefs about climate change.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  I thought it was interesting that the UK-based professor restricted the scope of these statements to refer to Americans. It seems that anti-vax sentiment may be the strongest in France,[1] and that it is also quite active in Italy.[2] The professor teachers US and UK politics, so I can see why he'd want to stick to his area of expertise. At the same time, his statements seem to imply that Americans are unique in these beliefs. 1: https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/09/france-leads-world-anti-vaccine-beliefs-10135 https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/09/france-leads-world-anti... 2: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/anti-vaxxers-italy-vaccine-measles-epidemic-europe-us-vaccination-global-health-security-agenda-a8560021.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/anti-vaxxers...
gok 8y ago
> Among the statements the participants had to wrestle with were: “Ordinary tomatoes do not have genes, whereas genetically modified tomatoes do” Yikes.
bdz 8y ago
Strongest opponents of [insert hot/controversial topic] know the least but think they know the most
- akvadrako 8y ago
  Of course, like guns, torture, war, ...
mjevans 8y ago
Maybe I'm the exception then; I don't really care /if/ something is GM, but I do care /why/ it's GM. GM something so that LESS pesticides are required or that it has higher nutritional content? Sounds good. GM something so that megadeath chemicals weed killer product doesn't affect it? That's a problem.
- pitaj 8y ago
  Why is that a problem?
- docgonzo 8y ago
  This raises an important issue. The megadeath weed killer that you are likely referring to is in most cases round-up, also called glyphosate. Glyphosate is considerably less toxic [0] than other pesticides used in the past, such as paraquat. In general, I agree with your statement, but I believe that it needs some fleshing out Food Evolution [1] touches on the topic of pesticide use and relative safety issues. I find the idea of BT crops more compelling than round-up ready crops as well, however my reasoning here is more on a feel good basis and the desire to avoid breeding resistance. The topic of resistance I have not fully explored and am not sure where the field stands on since it rather distant from my expertise. [0] https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/does-glyphosate-cause-cancer/ https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/does-glyphosat... (popsci with links) [1] https://www.foodevolutionmovie.com/ https://www.foodevolutionmovie.com/
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  That's the big lie about GMO. I always heard that they would use less(!) pesticides because the plant was more resistant but when you look at Roundup it's exactly the opposite.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    An even bigger lie is "we need them to feed the poor" -- when it's merely to control IP and increase profit margins.
    - 8y ago
SerLava 8y ago
People like creationists, conspiracy nuts, or racists consistently know nothing about their pet topics, or if they know a lot, they suffer from incredible flaws in reasoning. It's always surprising to me how consistent this is, but then I remember that those positions pretty much by definition can only exist if you have a glaring defect in knowledge or reasoning. You've already found an ignorant person when you've found someone who thinks crazy stuff.
- porpoisely 8y ago
  Except that at one point in time, creationism and racism were considered official truth and people who thought otherwise were attacked as the conspiracy nuts. Between two of the smartest men to have ever lived, Isaac Newton was a creationist and Albert Einstein was a racist. Neither are what I'd call "ignorant persons". In my opinion, it's the politically motivated who eschew discussion, logic and reason.
  - SerLava 8y ago
    That's pretty irrelevant. It's a good heuristic for finding an idiot right now, not in the Bronze Age.
- Shekelberg 8y ago
  Criticizing creationists and racists in the same sentence... you clearly haven't thought this through. Only a creationist could believe that there are no differences between human populations that have been separated for tens of thousands of years living in vastly different environments.
  - SerLava 8y ago
    Oh boy
netcan 8y ago
It's not a coincidence that in a war, most people come to the conclusion that their side has the moral high ground. If you speak to most of them, you will get detailed rationalisations, facts and such supporting their position. You, and they, will pretend that these reasons determined their opinion. Obviously though, the opinion precedes the "reasons" for the opinion. IE, they are "rationalising". In war, this is obvious to us but it applies pretty widely. People's opinions/conclusions are based on identity and group membership. The "reasons" for opinions are applied retroactively in a lawyerly, best-available-agrument fashion. This probably applies to you too. What you believe about Brexit, border walls, Chinese political reforms, the free market, #metoo, agile... the reasons for your opinions are probably not your reasons, and your social sense probably plays an uncomfortably large role in determining them.
- sho 8y ago
  What's also interesting is how a casus belli can evolve after a war, when the facts finally become clear. Consider America's entry into World War II. Ask a modern American, or anyone really, what the justification for entering the war was and they'd probably say to stop Hitler. Asked why they'd care about stopping Hitler, and the answer might be that Hitler killed several million Jews. A pretty good reason. But Americans in 1941 had no idea about the Holocaust. Yes, there had been reporting on persecution of Jews under the Nazis, and there's still controversy over who knew what, when, and how, but in general they didn't know. So why did the USA still go in? Well, no doubt there were still good reasons. But they become a lot less cut and dried when we take into account what was known at the time. The real reasons at the time were geopolitical. Only later did the moral case become obvious, and retroactively applied. I sometimes wonder what might have gone differently if the Nazis were not quite so cartoonishly and stupidly evil, confining themselves to "just" taking over Western Europe and not trying their hand at genocide quite so enthusiastically, or if Japan had not been so foolish and arrogant as to attack Pearl Harbour. Would the USA have stirred in this alternate universe, if Hitler had one less screw loose and Tojo had one fewer bottles of sake? If not, history could have easily turned out very differently.
  - agabara 8y ago
egwynn 8y ago
This headline slightly overgeneralizes. From ArsTechnica’s coverage[0]: To replicate this finding and expand its scope, the researchers performed a similar survey in the US, Germany, and France. The results in the US were the same, and the researchers also saw genetic literacy go down as the vehemence of GMO opposition went up. But there was a subtle difference. In the two European countries, the gap between actual knowledge and self-assessed knowledge no longer correlated with the strength of opposition. In other words, the strongest GMO opponents in Germany and France may not have known much about genetics, but they were at least a bit more realistic about their lack of knowledge. 0: (https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/on-gmo-safety-the-fiercest-opponents-understand-the-least/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/on-gmo-safety-the-fi...)
mistrial9 8y ago
this tag line is about people, not the GMO issue itself; the Precautionary Principle[0] holds with or without "proof" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
jstewartmobile 8y ago
From the article: "Fernbach and others analysed surveys completed by nationally representative samples..." From Fernbach's directory profile: "Prior to pursuing his Ph.D., he worked with consumer goods companies as a strategy consultant for two boutique firms in Boston."[1] Don't want to cry "astroturfing" here, but if the shoe fits... [1] https://www.colorado.edu/business/philip-fernbach https://www.colorado.edu/business/philip-fernbach
- quxbar 8y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out! Very informative and I would have missed it otherwise.
  - jstewartmobile 8y ago
    Anything that starts out with "public surveys" is up to no good.
zeteo 8y ago
You don't need to know a lot about something in order to reject it. If a Finance PhD calls you with a super complex investment strategy you have no obligation to put all your money into it. In fact, it's probably prudent to reject it out of hand.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  >You don't need to know a lot about something in order to reject it Ok, but in that case you also shouldn't hold an opinion as to whether or not it's a sound investment. The discussion here is concerned with people who hold strong opinions based on poor understanding and reasoning. I could use your logic for anything really. How about vaccines? "I don't understand medical science or chemistry and the ingredients sound super scary. No vaccines for my kid!"
  - zeteo 8y ago
    You can hold an opinion as to whether it's a sound investment for yourself. E.g. Warren Buffett was, for a long time, notoriously reluctant to invest in tech. I'm not sure I understand the counter-argument about vaccines. The crucial point there is herd immunity, which doesn't apply to many other fields.
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      >You can hold an opinion as to whether it's a sound investment for yourself. E.g. Warren Buffett was, for a long time, notoriously reluctant to invest in tech. You're only reasoning would be "I don't understand this thing, so I'm staying away." You can reasonbly hold an opinion as to how the investment will perform if you don't understand it to begin with. That is not the view of the people described in the article. These people throw around falshoods and severley misunderstand the subject they claim to be well informed on. That's the entire point.
zyxzevn 8y ago
"The strongest opponents of Astrology know the least but think they know the most.."
Pimpus 8y ago
I don't think it's unreasonable to want to eat real food, the same we've eaten for thousands of years, or to think it's the healthiest option for us. It's common sense, which doesn't require years of indoctrination in high school and university. On the other side of the coin, it's also not surprising that people who do not know much about something might feel threatened by it -- not exactly a groundbreaking discovery. That said, I have a strong scientific background and still find the idea of genetically modified food to be inhumane and abhorrent. Anecdotally, it's kind of funny that many of the scientifically "ignorant" people I've met have better values and ethics than many scientists.
- fghtr 8y ago
  >I don't think it's unreasonable to want to eat real food, the same we've eaten for thousands of years, or to think it's the healthiest option for us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_fallacy
  - pretendscholar 8y ago
    I would argue its a bad logical technique but a good heuristic if you didn't want to invest a lot of time diving deep into the science.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > I don't think it's unreasonable to want to eat real food, the same we've eaten for thousands of years, or to think it's the healthiest option for us. It's common sense, which doesn't require years of indoctrination in high school and university. I think people need to be taught in school that there is no such thing as eating "the same we've eaten for thousands of years". Ever since people first started doing agriculture those thousands of years ago, the food we grow has been constantly changing on genetic level. Wheat today isn't the same wheat it was 500 years ago, and wheat 500 years ago wasn't the same as it was 1000 years ago, all because farming applies a new set of selection pressures. The difference between "real food" and GMOs is that genetic engineering is a scalpel, where our age-old farming practices are a combination of sledgehammer genetic engineering, and throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks.
vbuwivbiu 8y ago
I suppose this headline is meant to imply the opposite is true too well, rest assured that corporations care deeply about your nutritional needs and safety, and would never compromise for profit or make mistakes in production
- sigstoat 8y ago
  > corporations ... would never ... make mistakes in production it is reasonable to assume you're sarcastically suggesting that corporations make mistakes during production? if so, what method of organizing human labor ensures that mistakes are _not_ made?
  - vbuwivbiu 8y ago
    I'm suggesting for evolution to control the production of plants and animals, as usual
zackmorris 8y ago
Keep in mind that there are a near-infinite number of ways that crops can be genetically modified. I'm personally against each of these: * Roundup Ready - studies are finding that glyphosate causes endocrine disruption, yet farmers saturate their fields with the stuff: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19539684 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19539684 * Splicing pesticide genes into crops - there are the unintended consequences of having no long-term epidemiological studies. In this case, they put a gene into peas to act as a pesticide, which of course triggers an immune response in other animals (like us): https://responsibletechnology.org/genetically-modified-peas-caused-dangerous-immune-response-in-mice/ https://responsibletechnology.org/genetically-modified-peas-... * Splicing animal genes into plants - they are putting animal and custom-tailored genes into plants that produce compounds that humans have never eaten, so our gut doesn't recognize them, which can trigger autoimmune diseases: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1070817/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1070817/ Each of these should scare the crap out of anyone who knows anything about science and evolution. These genes will likely spread into neighboring crops (which is why GMOs are starting to be banned in many countries). What worries me the most about this is that staples (all grains, many legumes and nightshades) are being hit hard with GMO tinkering because they make up such a large part of our diet. Which means that to save a few pennies on the dollar, the food industrial complex is willing to offload the externality of the cost of these health impacts onto all of us. Forcing us to buy organic, which cost 2-4 times more. I feel that this was all by design. It started sometime around the late Clinton or early George W Bush years, and ended up transferring wealth from the masses to a few patent-holding firms in big agribusiness. We've started seeing increases in allergies, asthma, autism, and other sensitivities to things like gluten (which may have been triggered by GMO compounds and increased use of pesticides, though this is still being researched). Food was already cheap by the 1950s. I just can't believe that we're still exploring dangerous cost-cutting measures like GMO, while ignoring the fundamental causes of world hunger like wealth inequality. That's why I think that the article is propaganda.
socrates1998 8y ago
I am very skeptical of any study about "how only dumb people don't trust GMO's" Monsanto very infamously sponsored studies all over the world and with prestigious universities and professors that "found solid proof" that GMO's plus RoundUp was "non-toxic", but now we know that RoundUp in large quantities clearly causes cancer. It's too bad because now, I am honestly can't tell if any study on GMO's is valid or sponsored by these large corporations.
- shhehebehdh 8y ago
  > but now we know that RoundUp in large quantities clearly causes cancer. I don’t think we do know that. Unless Wikipedia editors and European regulatory agencies are Monsanto shills. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
  - poilcn 8y ago
    Ironically one section of the article refers to an article by Guardian which states that one of these regulatory agencies copy-paste Monsanto's texts. It reminded me of one of Richard Feynman's stories where he was part of the commission for reviewing new school books which were according to him complete garbage, but other members of the commission approved them. Turned out their reviews were in fact written by the publishing houses and they just published what they were given. It wasn't a case of corruption, rather, people were lazy to even open the books.
    - socrates1998 8y ago
      Yup, basically, Monsanto does the study, writes the report, then give the Professor thousands of dollars to put his name on it. He doesn't have to lift a finger and gets credit for a study plus thousands of dollars. Corruption at it's most efficient.
  - socrates1998 8y ago
    >Unless Wikipedia editors and European regulatory agencies are Monsanto shills. If you saw how far Monsanto's reach was, you would know that Wikipedia is child's play. And they infiltrated other governments, so the European regulatory agencies are clearly within their wheelhouse. Here is one example of when they corrupted a Harvard professor. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/01/harvard-professor-failed-disclose-monsanto-connection-paper-touting-gmos/lLJipJQmI5WKS6RAgQbnrN/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/01/harvard-profess...
seltzered_ 8y ago
Devang Mehta had a great essay on why he had trouble being a researcher in GMO - not due to GMO but the negative perceptions of culture/people around him about it: https://massivesci.com/articles/gmo-gm-plants-safe/ https://massivesci.com/articles/gmo-gm-plants-safe/
MagicPropmaker 8y ago
"The most vocal proponents of NoSQL know the least about SQL"
deogeo 8y ago
So much of the focus is on science, and so little on how GMO further expands the domain of businesses whose interests do not align with consumers'. Perhaps we should fix the incentives first, otherwise we will see the equivalents of perpetual copyright, DRM, and food stuffed full of salt and sugar, replicated in life itself.
thdxr 8y ago
Technically has no bearing whether being opposed to GM foods is the correct stance

89 points by ozdave 8y ago

I'm pro science and evidence. But anti GMO bad website, but these anti-GMO scientists / academics have compiled a meta review of scientific literature (free pdf and book to buy): http://gmomythsandtruths.earthopensource.org/ http://gmomythsandtruths.earthopensource.org/ there's a short news article that has some of the arguments here https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/genetically-modified-food-organic-agriculture_us_5a539e90e4b003133ecac8e1 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/genetically-modified-fo...

trophycase 8y ago

I'm sure this is true but let's not let this strawman detract from the fact that none of us really know that much about GM foods

imh 8y ago

Not to detract from the main take-away of "GM food extremists have poor and poorly calibrated knowledge" which seems reasonably robust, but the questions themselves are interesting and knowledge is harder than they give credit. One of the questions was "the oxygen we breathe comes from plants" (true). This one gave me pause and sent me down a google rabbit hole. I know a huge amount (most?) of the oxygen we breathe comes from the oceans and algae, but I don't know if those are considered plants. Googling around, it's still unclear. Some sources group it all under the term "marine plants," but those sources mostly seem to group cyanobacteria under the term "plants" which is stretching it, so they aren't quite trustworthy. What about green algae? Well they aren't part of Plantae either, but sources seem even more conflicted there. I feel like I'm more likely to get this question "wrong" the more I know, or the more precisely and scientifically I treat the statement. Elementary school me would think I'm sure of the answer they're looking for, and I'd probably get it marked right. Current me? I know the answer they're probably looking for, but don't know the right answer. Knowledge is weird.

Fargren 8y ago
Plant is a vague polysemic word. In this context I would take ti to mean as not animal or mineral, as it's not uncommon to divide things into those three categories.
- imh 8y ago
  Here's wikipedia's take from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant: > Historically, plants were treated as one of two kingdoms including all living things that were not animals, and all algae and fungi were treated as plants. However, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria). I totally agree that it's often used as you describe, but on a test of scientific knowledge, yours is probably not the relevant definition, especially one with questions about bacteria and viruses. In this case, it was though!
  - JAlexoid 8y ago
    I don't think scientific definition strictly matters, in this context. We're not meticulously trying to catalogue life on Earth. You know... It's a case of is tomato a fruit or a vegetable.
staplung 8y ago
Do you have a pointer to the questions? I've wondered how I would fare but none of the articles I've read seem to link to them.
- imh 8y ago
  Yup. For the record, after writing this comment, I read the rest of the questions and either they're more clear cut, or I'm ignorant of the ways they may not be. Here's the paper, which isn't linked from most journalists reporting on it: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0520-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0520-3 Google "sci-hub" if you want open access to it, using it's doi https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0520-3 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0520-3 Here's one of the surveys they used. It appears they all had the same science questions. https://osf.io/9gztf/ https://osf.io/9gztf/ (Study1 Survey.pdf) Here are the questions: The center of the earth is very hot: True The oxygen we breathe comes from plants: True Antibiotics kills viruses as well as bacteria: False All radioactivity is man made: False Almost all food energy for living organisms comes originally from sunlight: True All insects have eight legs: False The earth orbits the sun: True Men and women normally have the same number of chromosomes: True The continents have been moving their location for millions of years and will continue to move: True Lasers work by focusing sound waves: False Electrons are smaller than atoms: True All plants and animals have DNA: True Humans share a majority of their genes with chimpanzees: True It is the father’s genes that decide whether the baby is a boy or a girl: True

maxxxxx 8y ago

You could generalize this to "Strongest and especially loudest opponents/proponents of anything often know the least or have a hidden agenda"

blakesterz 8y ago

I read that headline and wondered if it's generalizeable to just about anything, and not just GM foods... “This is often used to explain why many Americans refuse to believe in evolution and why so many Americans feel that vaccination is harmful to children,” O’Dwyer said. “It also figures into the debates on global warming and makes correcting erroneous beliefs highly challenging.” Apparently it is.

bb2018 8y ago
At the same time I'm sure the following statements would also be true: "Those who know the least about the intricacies of lizard people conspiracy theories are most likely to deny it" or "Those who know the least about Bible-based curing methods or most likely to reject it" I am pro-GMO and don't go out of my way to eat GMO free, but at the same time I think it misses a greater point that those who are against something for larger meta or ethical reasons of course are not going to know the exact mechanics of it (because for them that would be missing the point).
Konnstann 8y ago
That's exactly what I thought. Conspiracy theorists like moon-landing deniers, flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, etc. have endless "research" to quote, but zero real knowledge on the subject. Obviously if they knew better they wouldn't hold that belief, but the bubble that they live in contains enough "data" for them to think they are informed.
akvadrako 8y ago
Actually it doesn't apply to global warming. From the abstract: > Similar results were obtained in a parallel study with representative samples from the United States, France and Germany, and in a study testing attitudes about a medical application of genetic engineering technology (gene therapy). This pattern did not emerge, however, for attitudes and beliefs about climate change.
gnicholas 8y ago
I thought it was interesting that the UK-based professor restricted the scope of these statements to refer to Americans. It seems that anti-vax sentiment may be the strongest in France,[1] and that it is also quite active in Italy.[2] The professor teachers US and UK politics, so I can see why he'd want to stick to his area of expertise. At the same time, his statements seem to imply that Americans are unique in these beliefs. 1: https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/09/france-leads-world-anti-vaccine-beliefs-10135 https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/09/09/france-leads-world-anti... 2: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/anti-vaxxers-italy-vaccine-measles-epidemic-europe-us-vaccination-global-health-security-agenda-a8560021.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/anti-vaxxers...

gok 8y ago

> Among the statements the participants had to wrestle with were: “Ordinary tomatoes do not have genes, whereas genetically modified tomatoes do” Yikes.

bdz 8y ago

Strongest opponents of [insert hot/controversial topic] know the least but think they know the most

akvadrako 8y ago
Of course, like guns, torture, war, ...

mjevans 8y ago

Maybe I'm the exception then; I don't really care /if/ something is GM, but I do care /why/ it's GM. GM something so that LESS pesticides are required or that it has higher nutritional content? Sounds good. GM something so that megadeath chemicals weed killer product doesn't affect it? That's a problem.

pitaj 8y ago
Why is that a problem?
docgonzo 8y ago
This raises an important issue. The megadeath weed killer that you are likely referring to is in most cases round-up, also called glyphosate. Glyphosate is considerably less toxic [0] than other pesticides used in the past, such as paraquat. In general, I agree with your statement, but I believe that it needs some fleshing out Food Evolution [1] touches on the topic of pesticide use and relative safety issues. I find the idea of BT crops more compelling than round-up ready crops as well, however my reasoning here is more on a feel good basis and the desire to avoid breeding resistance. The topic of resistance I have not fully explored and am not sure where the field stands on since it rather distant from my expertise. [0] https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/does-glyphosate-cause-cancer/ https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/does-glyphosat... (popsci with links) [1] https://www.foodevolutionmovie.com/ https://www.foodevolutionmovie.com/
maxxxxx 8y ago
That's the big lie about GMO. I always heard that they would use less(!) pesticides because the plant was more resistant but when you look at Roundup it's exactly the opposite.
- coldtea 8y ago
  An even bigger lie is "we need them to feed the poor" -- when it's merely to control IP and increase profit margins.
  - 8y ago

SerLava 8y ago

People like creationists, conspiracy nuts, or racists consistently know nothing about their pet topics, or if they know a lot, they suffer from incredible flaws in reasoning. It's always surprising to me how consistent this is, but then I remember that those positions pretty much by definition can only exist if you have a glaring defect in knowledge or reasoning. You've already found an ignorant person when you've found someone who thinks crazy stuff.

porpoisely 8y ago
Except that at one point in time, creationism and racism were considered official truth and people who thought otherwise were attacked as the conspiracy nuts. Between two of the smartest men to have ever lived, Isaac Newton was a creationist and Albert Einstein was a racist. Neither are what I'd call "ignorant persons". In my opinion, it's the politically motivated who eschew discussion, logic and reason.
- SerLava 8y ago
  That's pretty irrelevant. It's a good heuristic for finding an idiot right now, not in the Bronze Age.
Shekelberg 8y ago
Criticizing creationists and racists in the same sentence... you clearly haven't thought this through. Only a creationist could believe that there are no differences between human populations that have been separated for tens of thousands of years living in vastly different environments.
- SerLava 8y ago
  Oh boy

netcan 8y ago

It's not a coincidence that in a war, most people come to the conclusion that their side has the moral high ground. If you speak to most of them, you will get detailed rationalisations, facts and such supporting their position. You, and they, will pretend that these reasons determined their opinion. Obviously though, the opinion precedes the "reasons" for the opinion. IE, they are "rationalising". In war, this is obvious to us but it applies pretty widely. People's opinions/conclusions are based on identity and group membership. The "reasons" for opinions are applied retroactively in a lawyerly, best-available-agrument fashion. This probably applies to you too. What you believe about Brexit, border walls, Chinese political reforms, the free market, #metoo, agile... the reasons for your opinions are probably not your reasons, and your social sense probably plays an uncomfortably large role in determining them.

sho 8y ago
What's also interesting is how a casus belli can evolve after a war, when the facts finally become clear. Consider America's entry into World War II. Ask a modern American, or anyone really, what the justification for entering the war was and they'd probably say to stop Hitler. Asked why they'd care about stopping Hitler, and the answer might be that Hitler killed several million Jews. A pretty good reason. But Americans in 1941 had no idea about the Holocaust. Yes, there had been reporting on persecution of Jews under the Nazis, and there's still controversy over who knew what, when, and how, but in general they didn't know. So why did the USA still go in? Well, no doubt there were still good reasons. But they become a lot less cut and dried when we take into account what was known at the time. The real reasons at the time were geopolitical. Only later did the moral case become obvious, and retroactively applied. I sometimes wonder what might have gone differently if the Nazis were not quite so cartoonishly and stupidly evil, confining themselves to "just" taking over Western Europe and not trying their hand at genocide quite so enthusiastically, or if Japan had not been so foolish and arrogant as to attack Pearl Harbour. Would the USA have stirred in this alternate universe, if Hitler had one less screw loose and Tojo had one fewer bottles of sake? If not, history could have easily turned out very differently.
- agabara 8y ago

egwynn 8y ago

This headline slightly overgeneralizes. From ArsTechnica’s coverage[0]: To replicate this finding and expand its scope, the researchers performed a similar survey in the US, Germany, and France. The results in the US were the same, and the researchers also saw genetic literacy go down as the vehemence of GMO opposition went up. But there was a subtle difference. In the two European countries, the gap between actual knowledge and self-assessed knowledge no longer correlated with the strength of opposition. In other words, the strongest GMO opponents in Germany and France may not have known much about genetics, but they were at least a bit more realistic about their lack of knowledge. 0: (https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/on-gmo-safety-the-fiercest-opponents-understand-the-least/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/on-gmo-safety-the-fi...)

mistrial9 8y ago

this tag line is about people, not the GMO issue itself; the Precautionary Principle[0] holds with or without "proof" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

jstewartmobile 8y ago

From the article: "Fernbach and others analysed surveys completed by nationally representative samples..." From Fernbach's directory profile: "Prior to pursuing his Ph.D., he worked with consumer goods companies as a strategy consultant for two boutique firms in Boston."[1] Don't want to cry "astroturfing" here, but if the shoe fits... [1] https://www.colorado.edu/business/philip-fernbach https://www.colorado.edu/business/philip-fernbach

quxbar 8y ago
Thanks for pointing this out! Very informative and I would have missed it otherwise.
- jstewartmobile 8y ago
  Anything that starts out with "public surveys" is up to no good.

zeteo 8y ago

You don't need to know a lot about something in order to reject it. If a Finance PhD calls you with a super complex investment strategy you have no obligation to put all your money into it. In fact, it's probably prudent to reject it out of hand.

EpicEng 8y ago
>You don't need to know a lot about something in order to reject it Ok, but in that case you also shouldn't hold an opinion as to whether or not it's a sound investment. The discussion here is concerned with people who hold strong opinions based on poor understanding and reasoning. I could use your logic for anything really. How about vaccines? "I don't understand medical science or chemistry and the ingredients sound super scary. No vaccines for my kid!"
- zeteo 8y ago
  You can hold an opinion as to whether it's a sound investment for yourself. E.g. Warren Buffett was, for a long time, notoriously reluctant to invest in tech. I'm not sure I understand the counter-argument about vaccines. The crucial point there is herd immunity, which doesn't apply to many other fields.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    >You can hold an opinion as to whether it's a sound investment for yourself. E.g. Warren Buffett was, for a long time, notoriously reluctant to invest in tech. You're only reasoning would be "I don't understand this thing, so I'm staying away." You can reasonbly hold an opinion as to how the investment will perform if you don't understand it to begin with. That is not the view of the people described in the article. These people throw around falshoods and severley misunderstand the subject they claim to be well informed on. That's the entire point.

zyxzevn 8y ago

"The strongest opponents of Astrology know the least but think they know the most.."

Pimpus 8y ago

I don't think it's unreasonable to want to eat real food, the same we've eaten for thousands of years, or to think it's the healthiest option for us. It's common sense, which doesn't require years of indoctrination in high school and university. On the other side of the coin, it's also not surprising that people who do not know much about something might feel threatened by it -- not exactly a groundbreaking discovery. That said, I have a strong scientific background and still find the idea of genetically modified food to be inhumane and abhorrent. Anecdotally, it's kind of funny that many of the scientifically "ignorant" people I've met have better values and ethics than many scientists.

fghtr 8y ago
>I don't think it's unreasonable to want to eat real food, the same we've eaten for thousands of years, or to think it's the healthiest option for us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_fallacy
- pretendscholar 8y ago
  I would argue its a bad logical technique but a good heuristic if you didn't want to invest a lot of time diving deep into the science.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
> I don't think it's unreasonable to want to eat real food, the same we've eaten for thousands of years, or to think it's the healthiest option for us. It's common sense, which doesn't require years of indoctrination in high school and university. I think people need to be taught in school that there is no such thing as eating "the same we've eaten for thousands of years". Ever since people first started doing agriculture those thousands of years ago, the food we grow has been constantly changing on genetic level. Wheat today isn't the same wheat it was 500 years ago, and wheat 500 years ago wasn't the same as it was 1000 years ago, all because farming applies a new set of selection pressures. The difference between "real food" and GMOs is that genetic engineering is a scalpel, where our age-old farming practices are a combination of sledgehammer genetic engineering, and throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks.

vbuwivbiu 8y ago

I suppose this headline is meant to imply the opposite is true too well, rest assured that corporations care deeply about your nutritional needs and safety, and would never compromise for profit or make mistakes in production

sigstoat 8y ago
> corporations ... would never ... make mistakes in production it is reasonable to assume you're sarcastically suggesting that corporations make mistakes during production? if so, what method of organizing human labor ensures that mistakes are _not_ made?
- vbuwivbiu 8y ago
  I'm suggesting for evolution to control the production of plants and animals, as usual

zackmorris 8y ago

Keep in mind that there are a near-infinite number of ways that crops can be genetically modified. I'm personally against each of these: * Roundup Ready - studies are finding that glyphosate causes endocrine disruption, yet farmers saturate their fields with the stuff: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19539684 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19539684 * Splicing pesticide genes into crops - there are the unintended consequences of having no long-term epidemiological studies. In this case, they put a gene into peas to act as a pesticide, which of course triggers an immune response in other animals (like us): https://responsibletechnology.org/genetically-modified-peas-caused-dangerous-immune-response-in-mice/ https://responsibletechnology.org/genetically-modified-peas-... * Splicing animal genes into plants - they are putting animal and custom-tailored genes into plants that produce compounds that humans have never eaten, so our gut doesn't recognize them, which can trigger autoimmune diseases: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1070817/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1070817/ Each of these should scare the crap out of anyone who knows anything about science and evolution. These genes will likely spread into neighboring crops (which is why GMOs are starting to be banned in many countries). What worries me the most about this is that staples (all grains, many legumes and nightshades) are being hit hard with GMO tinkering because they make up such a large part of our diet. Which means that to save a few pennies on the dollar, the food industrial complex is willing to offload the externality of the cost of these health impacts onto all of us. Forcing us to buy organic, which cost 2-4 times more. I feel that this was all by design. It started sometime around the late Clinton or early George W Bush years, and ended up transferring wealth from the masses to a few patent-holding firms in big agribusiness. We've started seeing increases in allergies, asthma, autism, and other sensitivities to things like gluten (which may have been triggered by GMO compounds and increased use of pesticides, though this is still being researched). Food was already cheap by the 1950s. I just can't believe that we're still exploring dangerous cost-cutting measures like GMO, while ignoring the fundamental causes of world hunger like wealth inequality. That's why I think that the article is propaganda.

socrates1998 8y ago

I am very skeptical of any study about "how only dumb people don't trust GMO's" Monsanto very infamously sponsored studies all over the world and with prestigious universities and professors that "found solid proof" that GMO's plus RoundUp was "non-toxic", but now we know that RoundUp in large quantities clearly causes cancer. It's too bad because now, I am honestly can't tell if any study on GMO's is valid or sponsored by these large corporations.

shhehebehdh 8y ago
> but now we know that RoundUp in large quantities clearly causes cancer. I don’t think we do know that. Unless Wikipedia editors and European regulatory agencies are Monsanto shills. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
- poilcn 8y ago
  Ironically one section of the article refers to an article by Guardian which states that one of these regulatory agencies copy-paste Monsanto's texts. It reminded me of one of Richard Feynman's stories where he was part of the commission for reviewing new school books which were according to him complete garbage, but other members of the commission approved them. Turned out their reviews were in fact written by the publishing houses and they just published what they were given. It wasn't a case of corruption, rather, people were lazy to even open the books.
  - socrates1998 8y ago
    Yup, basically, Monsanto does the study, writes the report, then give the Professor thousands of dollars to put his name on it. He doesn't have to lift a finger and gets credit for a study plus thousands of dollars. Corruption at it's most efficient.
- socrates1998 8y ago
  >Unless Wikipedia editors and European regulatory agencies are Monsanto shills. If you saw how far Monsanto's reach was, you would know that Wikipedia is child's play. And they infiltrated other governments, so the European regulatory agencies are clearly within their wheelhouse. Here is one example of when they corrupted a Harvard professor. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/01/harvard-professor-failed-disclose-monsanto-connection-paper-touting-gmos/lLJipJQmI5WKS6RAgQbnrN/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/01/harvard-profess...

seltzered_ 8y ago

Devang Mehta had a great essay on why he had trouble being a researcher in GMO - not due to GMO but the negative perceptions of culture/people around him about it: https://massivesci.com/articles/gmo-gm-plants-safe/ https://massivesci.com/articles/gmo-gm-plants-safe/

MagicPropmaker 8y ago

"The most vocal proponents of NoSQL know the least about SQL"

deogeo 8y ago

So much of the focus is on science, and so little on how GMO further expands the domain of businesses whose interests do not align with consumers'. Perhaps we should fix the incentives first, otherwise we will see the equivalents of perpetual copyright, DRM, and food stuffed full of salt and sugar, replicated in life itself.

thdxr 8y ago

Technically has no bearing whether being opposed to GM foods is the correct stance