
Strongest opponents of GM foods know the least but think they know the most - ozdave
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/14/gm-foods-scientific-ignorance-fuels-extremist-views-study
======
imh
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
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
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
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.

------
mjevans
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.

~~~
linuxftw
Another understated problem is the intellectual property issue. Saving seeds
is usually prohibited (and those seeds might not be viable anyway), farmers
have been successfully sued.

More and more staple crops are being hybridized (hyrbids whose offspring are
sterile/nonviable), we're losing biodiversity in our crops, and large
corporations are providing 'seeds as service' instead of agriculture being
self sustaining.

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
This is a perfect example of the original article's conclusion: you simply
don't know what you're talking about.

You might be vaguely aware of hybrid vigor, which is of crucial importance for
many crops, especially cereal crops, and is a major part of the 'green
revolution'. Hybrid crops have driven much of the yield increases we've seen
over the past several decades. This is due to a very specific phenomenon
called heterosis, and is still fairly poorly understood but is known to be
mediated by epigenetic mechanisms. That is, it's not a magic combination of
traits or more heterozygous loci, but a genome-wide phenomenon that affects
gene expression in ways that are generally favorable to growth.

But! You're confusing this with sterile or semi-sterile inter-species hybrids
like mules, or perhaps sterile triploids like banana. These are completely
different phenomena that have _nothing_ to do with 'hybrid corn'.

Corn of all kinds that see significant cultivation is perfectly fertile,
Monsanto products included. What you don't get is any hybrid vigor in the F2
generation, only the F1. There's nothing about the IP or companies that make
this the case, it's fucking biology. You can seed-save all you like, you won't
run a farm like that because you won't make any money. Even if you aren't
using transgenes (i.e. 'GMOs'), you'll still use seed made from directed
crosses from parental lines known to produce hybrid vigor when crossed. Seed
saving ended because of this, not some loony conspiracy about 'evil' seed
companies.

One confounder: Terminator seed. This is a technology that _does_ make F1 seed
sterile. Oddly enough, this was done for reasons of environmental
responsibility; if you make your transgene products terminate, the transgenes
can't spread into the environment. Unfortunately this technology was never
commercialized because of reactionaries like yourself.

As for genetic diversity, your impression has no basis in reality. Breeders
have only become more zealous about gathering wild accessions to use in
breeding programs, namely for disease resistance traits. These programs would
be wildly more effective if, instead of back-crossing for many generations
over many years, you could simply pop in the relevant loci in a transgene. But
that's another foolish pipe dream due to the reactionaries.

Final point; you're aware traditional crops have just as much IP protection as
transgene crops, right? Plant variety protections last in the 15-20 year
range, are respected by most international treaties, and are ubiquitous in
crop breeding, ornamental flower breeding, etc. Utility patents provide
slightly different protections for transgene crops, but it's not much
different. Those trendy apples or 'Sunshine raspberries' at the grocery store?
100% patented. Why is your trendy beer so expensive? Patented hops. It fucking
boogles the mind that anyone thinks transgenes have a thing to do with this.

~~~
yorwba
> What you don't get is any hybrid vigor in the F2 generation, only the F1.
> There's nothing about the IP or companies that make this the case, it's
> fucking biology.

While that's true, it also happens to be economically convenient for the
companies producing hybrid seeds, because they get recurring sales. So there's
a lot of incentive to focus on finding new combinations to hybridize, while
neglecting research on other options. After all, there's no guarantee that
"hybrid vigor" actually improves the metrics humans care about (such as
yield), rather than causing some other traits (such as leaf size) to be
expressed stronger. So hybridization is just a different way to generate
variants for selective breeding and a lot of its popularity is just due to the
built-in DRM.

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
> After all, there's no guarantee that "hybrid vigor" actually improves the
> metrics humans care about (such as yield), rather than causing some other
> traits (such as leaf size) to be expressed stronger.

I can assure you in strongest terms that, yes, hybrid vigor is unique in this
regard. 'Solving' hybrid vigor in a way that you can capture the benefits in a
stable inbred is a multi-billion dollar innovation.

The most innovation in breeding is happening in maize. It's responsible for
the most high-throughput sequencing, the most automated greenhouse metrology,
the most funding in general (esp. in China). About 10-15 years ago any plant
biologist was basically guaranteed funding if they put the words 'epigenetics'
and 'heterosis' in their grants. Everyone figured that the recent
understanding in DICER, the plant RNA Pols, DNA methylation and histone
modifications, etc. would lead to a solid working model of heterosis.

It didn't happen.

 _Every_ conceivable growth and yield trait in maize has been analyzed. The
qTLS have been found, the regulatory elements mapped, the chromatin
environment understood, etc. It's very difficult to explain how well maize has
been studied; in many ways the field is vastly ahead of any other model
despite the absurd difficulty of doing genomics in such a repetitive and large
genome.

The notion that leaf width/area hasn't been analyzed to death with regard to
yield is laughable. Sidenote: the plant breeders have been wiping the floor
with animal breeders because they naturally perform group selection in crop
rows. Things like broad leaves are _bad bad bad_ because they cost a lot and
just end up shaded by their neighbors and higher leaves on the same plant.
Animal breeders fail here and have been selecting for hyper-aggressive animals
that fight and stress everything to all hell, much to their detriment.

The fact is that heterosis matters, and any high-performance inbred will be
beat by even a moderate-performing hybrid by any reasonable metric.

------
egwynn
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-
fi...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/on-gmo-safety-the-fiercest-
opponents-understand-the-least/))

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

Yikes.

------
seltzered_
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/)

------
socrates1998
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
> 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
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
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.

------
SerLava
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
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
That's pretty irrelevant. It's a good heuristic for finding an idiot right
now, not in the Bronze Age.

------
Pimpus
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
>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
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.

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

------
netcan
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
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
> Ask a modern American, or anyone really, what the justification for entering
> the war was and they'd probably say to stop Hitler.

I'm pretty sure this is false and that most people know the US entered WWII
because of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

~~~
TeMPOraL
GP's point may be rescued by changing this to: Americans may have entered the
war because of Pearl Harbor, but the reason why the Allies were the "good
guys" is that they "fought the nazis". The reason why nazis needed to be
fought is genocide and concentration camps. But, in 1941, most people didn't
know (or believe; reports were coming out since 1930s, but fell on deaf ears)
in all the atrocities the nazis committed. Back in 1941, for most countries
involved this was just a regular war; the extra moral significance was added
post-war.

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

~~~
akvadrako
Of course, like guns, torture, war, ...

------
mistrial9
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)

------
blakesterz
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.

~~~
Konnstann
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.

------
zackmorris
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-...](https://responsibletechnology.org/genetically-modified-peas-caused-dangerous-immune-response-in-mice/)

* 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.

------
deogeo
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.

------
vbuwivbiu
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
> 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
I'm suggesting for evolution to control the production of plants and animals,
as usual

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

------
chendii
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-
fo...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/genetically-modified-food-organic-
agriculture_us_5a539e90e4b003133ecac8e1)

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

------
trophycase
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

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

------
zeteo
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
>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
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
>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.

------
jstewartmobile
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
Thanks for pointing this out! Very informative and I would have missed it
otherwise.

~~~
jstewartmobile
Anything that starts out with "public surveys" is up to no good.

