Until recently, I was only vaguely aware that empty accusations of shilling were used as arguments in sensible lines of reasoning. To be honest, I didn’t quite believe such an allegation could be realistically considered and then put forth by a sincere and thoughtful individual. I was brusquely yanked from my naivety when I decided to cross post a couple of my GP articles at Daily Kos. In no time, there were a few hundred comments on two of my GMO posts with accusations of shilling flung one way, support for GM tech the other way, and everything in between. There are a few basic fallacies in these comments.
The first fallacy is the all-too-common Argumentum Ad Monsantum. To paraphrase: Monsanto Company has produced harmful products in the past and their current business practices are exploitative (I disagree with this but won’t expand on it here.) Therefore anything Monsanto does is evil. Monsanto is heavily involved with the GMO domain and is a multi-billion dollar company. Therefore GM food must be inherently evil and Monsanto’s huge monetary standing applies similarly to all players in the GMO game. Based on this conclusion, it would logically follow that no objective party could possibly speak in support of GM technology or GMOs in general.
The other reason why the shill accusations are depressing? If any GMO proponent is automatically assumed to be a shill then if we extrapolate, no employee should have the autonomy of mind and freedom of speech to have any thought or belief at odds with her employer. This, my friends, is not the type of society I plan for my children to inherit.
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Since I’m on the topic of shilling, let me make a few brief points to turn the tables for a moment: If the fallacies I’ve described hold true, then organic proponents should be called “Whole Foods shills” or “Big Organic Shills.” A far cry from the romantic notion of local and quaint businesses, Big Organic is a $63 billion dollar industry.
Read the full, original article: Monsanto shill mom?
