During a great speech, Michael Specter at TED asks the question. The answer you give might tell me more about you than you really want me to know.
But in a speech well worth your time, he goes further than that. When I've gotten worked up about issues in the past, I've been asked "why worry about what people want to do. Let them make their choice, even if they are silly." Specter gives a great response.
I won't spoil it, you'll have to watch to see the answer.
I think he makes some really great points, but I have some argument for his genetically modified food discussion. While I am neither for nor against it (but I do read a bit about it), I think he forgets one important fact. He says that GM foods are science, not politics (etc), but politics, ethics and all that are part of our lives. He says he understands that we cannot trust companies to do the right thing, but often the science is BACKED by companies, so how can we trust that their science is not a slight of hand or something worse?
ReplyDeleteWe can talk about this more on Saturday.
The problem stems from miss using or misunderstandng the word politics. He - and often others - use it as some dirty word unto itself. Money often has this problem, as in "money is the root of evil."
ReplyDeleteBut politics is just attempting to exert your will/beliefs over a topic. Science rarely - if ever - proves something beyond a reasonable doubt. Maybe only in the cases of gravity and the like.
I don't think GM's are bad: I don't think the science shows it, and I don't think it that different than what we've been doing for years outside the lab. But surely I can see where 25 years from now we have an "oh shit" moment.
I think generally a bias for the past and against the future colors most views of technology, and probably is with GM foods. But Asbestos, plastics, and nuclear power/radiation have all had their day in the sun only to wake up to "oh shit" moments.
Also, "company" backed science is a misnomer.
ReplyDeleteFirst off - advocacy groups or other interested parties, even governments populated with anti-GM leaning individuals can also sponsor studies. Not to mention that anti-GM food companies - read: Organic - can also sponsor possibly biased studies.
And while I don't think you are doing it, to me, when someone lambbast one side or group who might be biased by a broad label like that - "companies" - the speaker is usually relying on their own confirmation bias.
People who worry that "companies" may be biasing GM food studies never seem that worried that Organic companies could be doing the same.