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Re: [Phys-L] NYT on GMOs



Since you mentioned it, the situation has worsened:
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/12/30/publics-views-on-human-evolution/
Between 2009 and 2013 the people who identify as Republicans have gone from
54% acceptance of evolution to 43% acceptance, a 10% change.
This is an anti-science issue and not just a political issue. Notice that
PEW forum comments on the trends, but does not editorialize. They attempt
to be very neutral and let the reader draw conclusions. So it is a fact,
not an opinion, that the religious right and the Republicans have allied and
are attempting to legislate anti-science into the schools. As a matter of
fact it has gone so far that in TX there are now public schools promoting
specific religious sectarian views in supposedly neutral state authorized
"bible study" classes. This may make me appear to be anti-religion, but I
am actually against the religious "majority" promoting their views in public
school classes. This should be reserved for the families, sectarian
schools, and churches.

Fortunately after a huge push by the ACLU and scientists, the TX board of
education accepted the science books without any changes to sow doubt on the
scientific consensus. But the review board was 50% anti-evolutionists
reviewing books that they did not have the competence to review. For
example a chemical engineer, a fellow in the cration institute, reviewed and
demanded changes in a biology book. Of course the opposition is religious
from the evangelicals who now have a virtual lock on the TX state
government. Basically all Lt Governor candidates expressed anti-science
views. Conservatives who accept the scientific consensus are afraid to
speak out. And fortunately they didn't object to physics/astronomy. But
that may be coming.

The flap over GMOs is certainly understandable. In the case of Hawaii, they
probably strongly want to preserve their unique ecosystem from further
changes by importing new organisms. I personally have no strong arguments
against GMOs, but there is a problem with the way food stuffs are treated in
the US. The FDA can not require that "natural" products be tested for
safety, and the testing of food stuffs for safety is behind Europe. The FDA
can only step in after people have been sickened or killed. So have the GMO
grains been tested for safety and for the effects on other species? I would
think that some of these new food products could just be labeled GMO, and
let the public decide. It might be wise to prevent wholesale replacement of
the more traditional crops with the new ones until there is sufficient
evidence of no harm to either us or the environment. A go slow approach
might be reasonable. So far the food industry has completely blocked
labeling laws, as they have blocked attempts to allow the FDA jurisdiction
over "natural" products. And in the report citing that two Nobelists
testified in favor of the GMOs, what were their credentials? Biology would
be good, but how about one a biologist and the other a medical researcher.
You need both sides of the scientific fence. With respect to the
legislators that had to make the decisions, they expressed dismay that the
situation was confused. As to this being just a liberal vs conservative
issue, we do not know the political affilition of the various groups. The
only group that we do know something about is the agribuisiness consortium
which is driven by money much more than other considerations. There
certainly was a lot of unscientific evidence being promoted by the
opposition to GMOs. In reality it just shows how difficult it is to use
scientific fact to change individual paradigms. I see this article as an
unfortunate flap with people being afraid of new technology, not a
liberal/conservative fight. In a sense the ones who wanted to prevent
change were actually conservatives.

And as to my bias agains the anti-evolution crowd, I have also pointed out
that some parents have prevented their children from being vaccinated for
fear of autism. This tends to be more a liberal anti-science, or perhaps
anti-technology bias. However, this bias has not resulted in attempts to
legislate bias into education, so while it threatens those families with
possible disability and death, it has not been taken up by legislators.
Indeed vaccination is mandated for school attendance in most states.
Certainly this is a case of disinformation being promoted, but not
legislated. There are other examples of legislated disinformation, but I
only know of the ones promoted by conservatives, and they are not relevant
here.

The right-wing has changed from the time of Eisenhower, Goldwater, and
Nixon. At that point in time it was not strongly allied with the
fundamentalist religious conservatives. The anti-science nonsense needs to
be opposed by both the right and the left, and denying that there has been a
shift is a very unrealistic view. Fortunately even the conservatives on the
Supreme Court generally recognize that the anti-science education
legislation is sectarian and have banned it. Thinking conservatives need to
stand up against this sort of nonsense, but they are afraid to do so.
Buckley would most probably have skewered the anti-science crowd.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


In view of the steady drip from Houston about
right-wing/religious/Republican (or all of them together)
scientifically-ignorant Neanderthals, I found this New York
Times piece from today is pretty ironic.