Trust in science at an all time low

In summary, the article discusses how the lack of trust in science by conservatives has been on the rise, and how it may be related to the recent controversies around global warming and other scientific issues. It suggests that other factors, such as religion, may also be contributing.
  • #106
Galteeth said:
This discussion relates to the major point in my opinion. Policy recommendations can too often take on an air of infallibility when "science backs them". More often, any policy will have benefits and drawbacks, with necessary cost/benefit analysis being factored in, which will also be dependent on value judgements. Alot of people then, learn to "distrust science" when what they're really doing is distrusting people who believe their recommendations on social or political matters are infallible because they are backed by science.

My argument is not that science can't be trusted, but that the base of science is skepticism, especially when it relates to extrapolating broad conclusions from data. The results you see in terms of public perception are a reflection that there is a problem here. I am very much of the Feynman mindset; to be sure of something is a very difficult thing indeed.

From my experience, policy makers distort science. Generally, they talk about the risks of the other persons view but never their own.

Some benefits of gm crops:
Ability to create plants more able to survive extreme weather events.
Crops have a higher yield.
GM food can have a greater shelf life.
Crops can have higher nutrition.
Increased profits by some farmers.

Some risks:
New allergies could be created.
Cross-breeding of gm plants with the wild.
Creates a market to abuse herbicides.
Pesticide resistant insects.
Cross contamination with non-food crops like gm crops for medicine.
Health effects - minimal research has been performed on acute or chronic health effects.
 
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  • #107
You present that as if there is a level-ground debate, but the reality is that the benefits are well established facts while the drawbacks you listed are a mixture of irrelevant, wrong and idly speculative: science vs scientific sounding crackpottery.
 
  • #108
russ_watters said:
You present that as if there is a level-ground debate, but the reality is that the benefits are well established facts while the drawbacks you listed are a mixture of irrelevant, wrong and idly speculative: science vs scientific sounding crackpottery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

Edit: Inapplicable question withdrawn
 
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  • #109
Certainly not. If you think it applies here, please explain why.
 
  • #110
I liked feynmans description of science, science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. And when he said that to have scientific integrity you have to go out of your way to prove yourself wrong. Aslong as science says they have the complete truth, and aslong as that science can't ever be proven wrong, since if it warms it proves it, if it cools it proves it, if the weather is extreme it proves it, if it is mellow it proves it, this layman will have no faith in it! I apologize for bringing weather into the discussion, since I know that is a banned topic, but that is one more reason I don't trust science, the phrase the discussion is over.
 
  • #111
Russ, how bout the down side that if your neighbor plants pantented gm crops and they mix with your crop you can be sued since you didn't pay for the right to grow said crop?
 
  • #112
That's certainly an issue, but it is a business/legal one, not a science issue and certainly not relevant to the example I gave (no one is suing Africans over it).
 
  • #113
russ_watters said:
You present that as if there is a level-ground debate, but the reality is that the benefits are well established facts while the drawbacks you listed are a mixture of irrelevant, wrong and idly speculative: science vs scientific sounding crackpottery.

Please link some of these scientific facts.

What do you disagree with when considering these risks? I'll give you that some are probably minor, but a lot of it depends on a crop by crop basis. But most of these have been demonstrated at one time or another.
For example:
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/14/u...f-crops-can-spread-allergies-study-shows.html

Or seed contamination:
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_genetic_engineering/rice-contamination-a-mystery.html [Broken]

Seed contamination also has a great deal of potential legal problems, and we have no clue how those will be resolved. And these arguments apply for your appeal to emotion with gm crops=food for the hungry.
 
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  • #114
russ_watters said:
You present that as if there is a level-ground debate, but the reality is that the benefits are well established facts while the drawbacks you listed are a mixture of irrelevant, wrong and idly speculative: science vs scientific sounding crackpottery.

There is a ground-level debate over GM food crops to be seen if one expands one's view to span the Atlantic ocean to observe our cousins in the European Union. In my opinion the potential drawbacks to GM food crops are not "irrevelant, wrong, and idly speculative". Of course there are benefits from the new GM food crops. But this a new science, and as with all new areas of science, there are often unforseen consequences that only appear after the introduction of the new techniques. A balanced and unbiased consideration of all the evidence seems reasonable and prudent considering the potential harm to humans and our biosphere that may result.

"There are many other potential benefits and risks to GM foods, which you will likely learn about as you investigate the topic further and decide whether or not you want to support or avoid GM foods and related technology.

Reading a brief fact sheet is a good way to familiarise yourself with the purported benefits and issues related to GM foods. In this way, you can equip yourself with an overview of the knowledge needed to make an informed decision about GM foods and how they will affect your life."
http://www.geneticallymodifiedfoods.co.uk/fact-sheet-pros-vs-cons.html

"GM Products: Benefits and Controversies
Benefits
• Crops
o Enhanced taste and quality
o Reduced maturation time
o Increased nutrients, yields, and stress tolerance
o Improved resistance to disease, pests, and herbicides
o New products and growing techniques
• Animals
o Increased resistance, productivity, hardiness, and feed efficiency
o Better yields of meat, eggs, and milk
o Improved animal health and diagnostic methods
• Environment
o "Friendly" bioherbicides and bioinsecticides
o Conservation of soil, water, and energy
o Bioprocessing for forestry products
o Better natural waste management
o More efficient processing
• Society
o Increased food security for growing populations

Controversies
• Safety
o Potential human health impacts, including allergens, transfer of antibiotic resistance markers, unknown effects
o Potential environmental impacts, including: unintended transfer of transgenes through cross-pollination, unknown effects on other organisms (e.g., soil microbes), and loss of flora and fauna biodiversity
• Access and Intellectual Property
o Domination of world food production by a few companies
o Increasing dependence on industrialized nations by developing countries
o Biopiracy, or foreign exploitation of natural resources
• Ethics
o Violation of natural organisms' intrinsic values
o Tampering with nature by mixing genes among species
o Objections to consuming animal genes in plants and vice versa
o Stress for animal
• Labeling
o Not mandatory in some countries (e.g., United States)
o Mixing GM crops with non-GM products confounds labeling attempts
• Society
o New advances may be skewed to interests of rich countries"
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/gmfood.shtml

also see, http://www.buzzle.com/articles/genetically-modified-foods-pros-and-cons.html
 
  • #115
Bobbywhy said:
***"There are many other potential benefits and risks to GM foods, ***

You may want to add Colony collapse disorder, decimating the populations of honeybees to that list, which may or may not be caused by gm crops. However the problem is that anybody researching this may be biased due to vested interest. So you will find scientific papers proving and disproving this causation, which obviously will not help trust in science.
 
  • #116
SixNein said:
Please link some of these scientific facts.
It's your list, SixNein! I'll not do your research for you.
What do you disagree with when considering these risks? I'll give you that some are probably minor, but a lot of it depends on a crop by crop basis. But most of these have been demonstrated at one time or another.
For example:
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/14/u...f-crops-can-spread-allergies-study-shows.html
While legitimate, this issue of spreading allergies is nonetheless a red herring. Why? Because it isn't a new risk, inherent to GM. Any time you use material derived from peanuts, there is a risk carried of spreading allergies, whether you are using actual peanut extracts or the DNA that creates those extracts. Certainly people need to be made aware of use of potentially allergenic substances in their food, whether they got there via GM processes or baking processes. And a warning label is necessary -- but it could be worded pretty much the same as existing warning labels.

But blaming GM for this risk is like blaming desalinization for drowning risk or saying raincoats create a risk of getting wet. It is highly misleading to say that that is a new allergen risk, as you did, or imply it is inherent to GM. It is not: it is a transferred risk.

Others:
Cross-breeding of gm plants with the wild.
This "risk" is an issue of taste. If shown an artistic-looking photo of the Eiffel tower and a picture of the Grand Canyon, no doubt an environmentalist would consider the Grand Canyon to be the more beautiful. Not everyone agrees.
Creates a market to abuse herbicides.
That's oddly worded, but again the problem is a secondary effect that actually proves that the GM is doing its job. Using more herbicides is a benefit of the GM. You use more herbicides on purpose because the GM crops allow you to.
Pesticide resistant insects.
Similar to above, in order for insects to become resistant, a lot of them have to die. That's the pesticides doing their job.
Cross contamination with non-food crops like gm crops for medicine.
This is more or less legitimate. But again, this is a constant battle everywhere drugs are made, regardless of if they are made with GM crops or not.
Health effects - minimal research has been performed on acute or chronic health effects.
This one is simply a lie of extreme exaggeration/goalpost shifting. To an "environmentalist", no amount of evidence is sufficient evidence, so they can always just say its not enough. There is a lot more evidence than they are willing to admit and GM has been around for longer than they are willing to admit. And that's even if we leave out general hybridization, which has been around for thousands of years and serves exactly the same purpose. We're just getting better at it.

Even if you improve that by wording it the way Bob, did ("unknown effects") it becomes so broad as to be completely useless.
 
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  • #117
Bobbywhy said:
• Labeling
o Not mandatory in some countries (e.g., United States)
o Mixing GM crops with non-GM products confounds labeling attempts
This one is another red-herring fallacy thrown-in by "environmentalists" in an attempt to create doubt/controversy. Why label? Because when you label something, you create in the readers the assumption of risk or inferiority.

This is a common one in marketing with ingredients -- Bryers has used in commercials when they say their iced cream contains nothing more than vanilla beans, milk and sugar. No added preservatives...nevermind that those preservatives are added to make the food safer. Marketters twist a good thing into a bad thing by appealing to the naturalistic fallacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy

Many of the objections to GM in one way or another point back to this fallacy.
 
  • #118
russ_watters said:
This one is another red-herring fallacy thrown-in by "environmentalists" in an attempt to create doubt/controversy. Why label? Because when you label something, you create in the readers the assumption of risk or inferiority.

This is a common one in marketing with ingredients -- Bryers has used in commercials when they say their iced cream contains nothing more than vanilla beans, milk and sugar. No added preservatives...nevermind that those preservatives are added to make the food safer. Marketters twist a good thing into a bad thing by appealing to the naturalistic fallacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy

Many of the objections to GM in one way or another point back to this fallacy.

I will not attempt to judge whether GM food crops are OK for humans and our environment or not. I am not so qualified. But I am qualified enough to reject the above trashing of reasonable objections to their use. The unknown and unforseen consequences are not red herrings and IMO deserve our consideration. The naturalistic fallacy does not apply here because this is simply a matter of thoughtful and reasonable risk assesment. Below are some other examples of "concerns". I am not claiming they are truly worrisome, but only that they (among others) deserve to be considered when deciding this issue.

Edit: quoted article unacceptable and removed - no sources or evidence for claims
 
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  • #119
Imho, people who don't trust science are people who are, more or less, ignorant wrt it. Science is the best method of inquiry into the truth of the world devised by humans. It's an evolving discipline. There is no comparable method. So what if a bunch of religious fanatics don't trust science?
 
  • #120
This thread is spinning it's wheels.
 
<h2>What is the current state of trust in science?</h2><p>According to recent studies, trust in science is at an all-time low. This means that people are becoming increasingly skeptical of scientific findings and the credibility of scientists.</p><h2>Why is trust in science declining?</h2><p>There are several factors that contribute to the decline in trust in science. Some reasons include misinformation and fake news, political agendas, and the increasing complexity of scientific research.</p><h2>How does the lack of trust in science affect society?</h2><p>The lack of trust in science can have significant impacts on society. It can lead to the rejection of scientific evidence and solutions, hindering progress and advancements in various fields. It can also create confusion and mistrust among the public.</p><h2>What can be done to improve trust in science?</h2><p>To improve trust in science, it is essential for scientists to communicate their findings clearly and transparently. It is also crucial for the public to have access to accurate and reliable information from credible sources. Additionally, promoting scientific literacy and critical thinking can help combat misinformation.</p><h2>Is it important to have trust in science?</h2><p>Yes, trust in science is crucial for the advancement of society. Scientific research and discoveries have led to significant improvements in various aspects of our lives, such as technology, medicine, and the environment. Without trust in science, we risk hindering progress and finding solutions to important issues.</p>

What is the current state of trust in science?

According to recent studies, trust in science is at an all-time low. This means that people are becoming increasingly skeptical of scientific findings and the credibility of scientists.

Why is trust in science declining?

There are several factors that contribute to the decline in trust in science. Some reasons include misinformation and fake news, political agendas, and the increasing complexity of scientific research.

How does the lack of trust in science affect society?

The lack of trust in science can have significant impacts on society. It can lead to the rejection of scientific evidence and solutions, hindering progress and advancements in various fields. It can also create confusion and mistrust among the public.

What can be done to improve trust in science?

To improve trust in science, it is essential for scientists to communicate their findings clearly and transparently. It is also crucial for the public to have access to accurate and reliable information from credible sources. Additionally, promoting scientific literacy and critical thinking can help combat misinformation.

Is it important to have trust in science?

Yes, trust in science is crucial for the advancement of society. Scientific research and discoveries have led to significant improvements in various aspects of our lives, such as technology, medicine, and the environment. Without trust in science, we risk hindering progress and finding solutions to important issues.

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