Maddening Media Misinformation on Biotech and Industrial Agriculture (Part 2 of 5)
August 14, 2007
ACSH
By Thomas R. DeGregori
August 14, 2007
Here’s Part 2 of a 5-part article series by Tom DeGregori focusing on the affects media misinformation has on both biotech agriculture and industrial agriculture.
The media mania for “both sides” of an argument means that one has to balance informed opinion with misinformed opinion. This frequently allows the public to believe that there is a controversy among scientists on an issue when there is not. And if scientists appear (at least in the media) not to agree on the safety of genetically-modified (GM) food, why should I as a consumer “take a chance”? In fact, though, there is no more controversy among knowledgeable scientists on the basic issues of transgenics in agriculture and medicine than there is among biologists and physical anthropologists about the basic fact of evolution. Nor is there controversy as to whether HIV is responsible for AIDS.
Of course, in these instances, there are differences among scientists on various issues within a larger framework and often differences about some of the components of the framework. There is a critical difference, though, between debate on various aspects of evolution or biotechnology and opposition to the basic ideas. Given the number of scientists in the world, it is always possible for an anti-evolution or anti-transgenic movement to find a few scientists who will take up their cause. Most of these are very minor or marginal figures in the field or are in another field altogether, as in the case of a mathematician or physicist who opposes evolution. Unfortunately, the cultural bias on things “organic” allows food and gardening writers to put forth an activist line without any requisite balancing opinion.
There are many other advantages that the activists have that allow them to get their point of view into the media, often to the exclusion of any contrary perspective. To put it bluntly, even in countries with high levels of education, there is too often a high degree of scientific illiteracy. Given various trends in academia such as postmodernism (which may now be ebbing), being highly educated can still entail a condition of extreme scientific illiteracy or what Thorstein Veblen called “trained incapacity.” All these give the skillful activist speaker the opportunity to appear to score points against a scientist in a debate.
Rhetorical Masterstrokes, Scientific Absurdities
There are few questions where scientific illiteracy by the public is more crucial than the issue of food safety. A standard rhetorical ploy in a debate on transgenic food production is to ask whether the persons defending the technology can guarantee that no harm will ever come from the production and consumption of genetically-modified food. To many, this sounds like a straightforward honest question from someone seeking to protect the public from harm. However, the fact is that there is no human endeavor, food production or otherwise, for which there is zero risk. The real question is what are the comparative risks and benefits to the farmer or the environment from growing a transgenic crop, compared to other varieties, and what is the risk to the public from the consumption of transgenic food compared to the same crop from conventional seeds. On these grounds, genetic modification is more than defensible, but to the scientifically uniformed listener it sounds like one is waffling, trying to avoid answering the question.
One can say that transgenic food production is “safe” if one understands the only possible meaning of safe. I explain to my students that I cannot say that there is a zero probability that the building in which the class is held will collapse on them during the course of the semester. Given adequate construction, one can simply say that the probability of harm is so minuscule that one need not consider it among one’s daily risk assessments. It is a safe but not zero probability. The students can understand that for the classroom, but try using that to explain the safety of biotechnology and some will think that you are trying to pull a fast one on them.
Scientific Illiteracy Suits the Media Just Fine
For the public to be scientifically illiterate is deplorable; for the media it goes beyond deplorable to being irresponsible. One does not expect the media to negate the natural advantages of the activists, but the least they could do is be responsible and not repeat unscientific propaganda or leave it unchallenged. They can challenge it by contacting scientists and giving them the opportunity to offer a scientific perspective on an issue. While most scientists use their time to do science and not to propagandize the public, it is not that difficult to find scientists who will respond to media inquiries and share their expertise with the public.
With few exceptions, reporters do not understand the use of statistics in scientific inquiry. The oft-quoted expression (attributed to Mark Twain among others) is that “There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Unfortunately, scientists have inadvertently contributed to this belief through incorrect use of statistics. However, for many in the public, all statistics are mistrusted — don’t give me any of your statistics, just give me the facts. The anti-GMO activists have played on these sentiments to frighten the public about the use of transgenics in food production. In any animal feeding study with a large number of variables, one can expect that randomly there would be what appear to be adverse outcomes. Indeed, with a large number of variables, it would be strange if there were not a number of what appeared to be statistically significant adverse outcomes. To the activists, statistics are meaningless except for those statistically significant adverse outcomes.
In one infamous study with thirty variables, there was, as would be expected, one variable with an adverse outcome that at the 95% confidence level had a one in twenty chance of being random. It was a thickening of an organ, with no identifiable pathology associated with it. There was an organ-thickening in the control group, too, but that was left unmentioned. The primary article about the study was an outgrowth of a press release roughly eighteen months previously in which there was a sizable list of alleged pathologies. In the litany on the Internet, the original claims of harm from the press release have somehow migrated to the journal article in the activists’ retelling and retelling of the horrors of GMOs.
Fear Feels More Real Than Numbers
To the public, the harm is real; the statistical explanation, however basic it may be, is someone’s attempt to “massage” the data. If there is, say, liver or kidney damage, there has to be a cause. Well, that’s true, and how convenient it is that the activists accept a belief in cause and effect when it suits them. What is not understood and rarely if ever explained to the public, is that the “cause” may be a trait of the test animals rather than what is being tested.
A misunderstanding of statistics by the public has long been used by activists to create fear where there should not be any. There seems to be a general belief that random means uniform. Thus, if in the distribution of some phenomenon, such as a particular form of cancer, there is what appears to be a cluster — a larger number than would be expected by an even distribution — then many leap to the conclusion that there has to be a local cause. From there, the assumption inevitably becomes that the cause is some product of modern life such as a synthetic chemical. An inordinate amount of medical resources has been wasted seeking a cause for clusters that are not statistically significant. The cluster itself may have been what is called a Texas Bull’s eye, where one shoots a number of rounds at the side of a barn and then draws a target over the tightest grouping, if there is one.
Prolapsed Rectums as Political Theatre
It does happen in animal studies that an anomaly in the test animals necessitates its being removed from the research and the data derived from it censored. It may be censored, that is, but it is still part of the research record. In one case of which I am aware (it had absolutely nothing to do with transgenics), a small number of mice in the control group developed prolapsed rectums and had to be removed from the study. Nevertheless, the censored data itself remains as part of the record of the research for all to examine. The number was small enough that even with the censored data removed, the study could continue. The study was completed, published in a prestigious peer-reviewed journal, and widely accepted. Let us imagine that this had been a GMO feeding study for regulatory approval and at least some of the mice with prolapsed rectums had been fed the GMO under investigation — and that the data for them was appropriately censored, with the resultant study results sent off for statistical and biological analysis, leading to product approval.
Can one imagine what would follow when Greenpeace or a similar organization discovered the prolapsed rectum in the data? (I hesitate to even use this example as a counterfactual as I fear that as with other activist mythology it might soon be repeated as a real incident.) There would be charges of a cover-up, creating a scandal of monumental proportions. The public would be warned that they too would be victims of prolapsed rectums if they ate GMOs. For years to come, the prolapsed rectums would be brought up in most every discussion of GMOs. There is now an urban legend sparked by a photograph of a weightlifter who allegedly suffered a prolapsed rectum at a most inconvenient moment. I have no doubt that in the case of the scandal I’ve imagined, there would soon be “photographs” of the prolapsed rectums of the innocent victims of GMOs.
Much of what the activists do is defined by them as theater. A butterfly costume makes a great visual and has a lasting effect, illustrating the alleged danger to the monarch butterfly from GM corn. The fact that the monarch butterfly was recorded in the United States in record numbers or that there were at least six research articles showing no harm to the monarch from GM corn was no match for the visual imagery of the costume. In spite of a couple of bad years for the monarch as a result of cold, wet weather in the forests in Mexico where they reside for the winter, the species is once again at record levels — as is the planting of GM corn, a dozen years after it was first planted.
This does not mean that there is not a real long-term threat to the monarch butterfly. The forest in Mexico where they reside in winter is being slowly cut down by farmers needing land to grow crops. If our activists had the slightest scintilla of concern about the monarch or poor farmers, they would put on their butterfly costumes in support of the scientists in Mexico who want to use the latest and best in plant breeding (including transgenics) to increase crop yields, reducing the pressure on the forests lands.
(More to come on these topics tomorrow. See the prior entry in the series here. Go here for part 3.)
Thomas R. DeGregori is a Professor of Economics at the University of Houston and a member of the Founders Circle of the American Council on Science and Health. His homepage is: http://www.uh.edu/~trdegreg
Source: ACSH.
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