David Ropeik, an internationally respected expert on risk, has been going head-to-head with ‘black swan’ proponent Nassim Taleb over Taleb’s dire concerns about GMOs–and his slashing attack on anyone and everyone who dares raise questions about his content or style–including the GLP’s Jon Entine.
We reviewed round one on the Genetic Literacy Project.
Now Ropeik responds in a feature piece at Medium. Ropeik agreed to the GLP’s request to post short excerpts from his long article, and we hope that will spur you to read his entire post–it’s very thoughtful.
The noted Nassim Taleb and colleagues, in The Precautionary Principle (with application to the Genetic Modification of Organisms), suggest that GMOs pose a “ruin” problem, “in which a system is at risk of total failure”. Taleb and colleagues believe that the risks from GMOs, even if small, can mount up and spread because our agricultural and natural systems are globally connected. So even though each risk may be “small and reasonable”, they “accumulate inevitably to certain irreversible harm.” Taleb et.al. say these potential threats pose the “risk of global harm”. Not just local harm, which we can live with, but global.
Intellectually that makes perfect sense. But when a reader looks for evidence that GMOs potentially portend “total irreversible ruin”, such as the “extinction of human beings or all life on the planet” or “an irreversible termination of life at some scale, which could be planetwide”, the evidence that actually shows up is evidence of advocacy masquerading as objective argument. They argue that these characteristics warrant a strong Precautionary Principle approach, essentially a ban on GMOs, at least while much more research is done.
So the whole case that GMOs could cause catastrophic ruin is based largely on speculation, mixed with a handful of mostly suspect studies from known GMO opponents. None of those studies, by the way, portends the “ruin” or “irreversible termination of life at some scale” that Taleb and colleagues establish as their criteria for warranting a strict PP for GMOs.
Read full, original article: Taleb’s “The Precautionary Principle (with application to GMOs)”. Advocacy Masquerading as Rational Argument
“based largely on speculation”… try based on RISK because we have just begun to understand the genetics of the human microbiome, animals and insects.
The absolutist, saviour complex of the status quo is flabbergasting.
The long-term effects of GMOs have just started to be researched. The current industry-led science ignores that we are 90% bacteria (like plants) and only 10% human cells. Big Ag research ignores this and only observes our cells reactions to Roundup/Glysophates. Well… like plants, our stomach bacteria, needed to process our nutrients, is disrupted. All the new gut (Microbiome) science that is being mapped, realizes the important pathways our flora is to our whole health.
Obvious to most… BUT… the industry and it’s huge supply chain have a lot to lose. So there are many reason for them to be employing the social engineering that has created this culture war.
The industry continue to discredit multi-disciplinarian thinkers (Ropeik, Seneff, Shiva, now Nye etc.) that are looking at the broader genetics of our ecosystems and understand the most influential science in our current food system… POLITICAL.
Big Ag is spending millions paying politicians and other mouthpieces (Mark Lynas) to read a teleprompter and to change their minds about GMOs. Read these leaked documents outlining the plan (w/script) years before Mark Lynas made his public charade in the EU. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2011/oct/20/gm-food
And we need all this for what? For higher yields, profits, dirty paychecks, and papayas without spots? We have a surplus of GMOs and the much of the world does not want their economies destroyed by our smut imports?
Have we not learned from history? There have been many times in the history of science where correlation is causation. Rachel Carson’s correlation on Monsanto’s DDT in the 60s had scientists calling her a crackpot. How could Nobel prize winning science be wrong everyone asked?!?!? It takes mavericks like Ropeik and Seneff that are looking at broader systems through correlation because science is not available to give us causation.
I’m going to look at our current health crisis, trust my gut, and eat organic.
Excerpt from wiki on Correlation as Scientific Evidence: “Since it may be difficult or ethically impossible to run controlled double-blind studies, correlational evidence from several different angles may be the strongest causal evidence available.[20] The combination of limited available methodologies with the dismissing correlation fallacy has on occasion been used to counter a scientific finding. For example, the tobacco industry has historically relied on a dismissal of correlational evidence to reject a link between tobacco and lung cancer.[21]”
If you have a problem with your microbiome, you can very easily integrate your diet.
Some tenths of year ago we learned how to grow bacteria and you can find them now even on the shelves of any Walmart store.
And, by the way, how does your microbiome interact with beta lactams, just to make one out of a million of examples, which for, apparently, you are not asking PP?
David Ropeik wrote a blog post about himself that starts with “David Ropeik, an internationally respected expert on risk…”
I almost fell out of my seat laughing.
-John Green, internationally respected astronaut, cryptochemist, and teleportation master.
This is a summary posted by GLP of Ropeik’s article; it wasn’t written by him. You’d know this if you read to the 3rd paragraph.
This summary has credited as its author “David Ropeik”. Either that is a mistake or he referred to himself in the 3rd person. Unless the name of the author is changed we assume option 2. – Rick, great wizard of the northern lands.
Fine, Ropeik does not appear to be as keen on risk as Taleb.
But what DOES Taleb know about biology?
In the past philosopher had demonstrated a bunch of different things, including that no depth in an ocean might be greater than the tallest mountain.
Taleb argument, apparently, boils down to “we do not know the effects of the [natural] proteins GMO produce and we do not know how much we do not know”
So what?
About the effects on human bodies, we do not know the effects, for instance
– of radio frequencies and electro-magnetic fields in general
– of refrigeration of food
– of the many chems we use now in agricolture
– of the products of combustion of hydrocarbons
– of the changes in nutrition habits (but that people do not starve)
– of eating species not originally grown in the same region as our ancestors’
– of cross breeding of crops with wild-uneatable version
About the effects on society we do not know the effects of
– widespread alphabetization
– widespread knowledge accessibility
– democracy
– depth knowledge, by few, of habits, relations, opinions and attitudes of many
– advanced technology applied to military purposes
And that not to mention GW or vaccination or many others.
As a concequence, should we adopt PP for GMO I pretend it to be adopted to
– any kind of combustion, especially of hydrocarbons
– any use of electro-magnetic field of any frequency but that of light
– any kind of information technology
– any technology related to high energy (atomic, as well as chemical etc.)
– especially any experiment with high energy concentration (CERN et al.)
– any form of mass-whatever (marketing, decision making, information, media, production)
– any concentration of economic or infomation power (i.e. companies or organizations, included states, greater than 25.000 people)
The PP is also incompatible with freedom of speech. It cannot allow any exchange of information that might lead to the advancement of any technology deemed to risky by the PP. Such exchanges, to wit, speech, could not be tolerated until it was proven that it would not increase the chances that such activities deemed risky, even if no negative outcome had yet been demonstrated, would become a reality.
Hence, according to the PP, all speech and all materials of such activities would have to be destroyed, even burned in massive piles in the courtyards of libraries. The PP police will have to constantly patrol and all communication tapped and leaked, lest even a single drop of said activities leads to its realization. All papers must be PP filtered and only PP approved shows and PP movies be allowed. The PP will gush through all and all will be forced to hold the PP above all!
For some reason, this reminds me of the story of the engineer that proved by some fancy math that bumblebees can’t fly. To my peasant reason, since I am not impressed by fancy math, the problem lies in unexamined assumptions about bumblebees and GMOs.
Come back once you learn introductory level set theory you idiot.
It’s been a while since I learned it. How does set theory make the examination of assumptions unnecessary?
David Ropeik is a true guardian of science!
…
as long as the science is profitable
…
and especially if the science is most profitable the less regulated it is :P