It's a shame that the basic concept of how science works is so poorly understood by society as a whole.
It's simply impossible to conduct one single piece of research on the entirety of GM. Instead the scientific community as a whole will perform many different tests looking at different things, and they will all get different results for all different reasons; random chance, bias, errors in the experiment e.t.c. (So often research is repeated to check that a result can be reproduced.) It's then the job of governments to look at all of this different data from many different studies, bring it all together and use it all to make a decision on whether or not they think it is safe and worthwhile licensing it in that country. If after all that they decide it isn't safe then fine, but I rarely see this kind of process taking place when these decisions are made, more often the decisions are made for political reasons, because banning GM products will gain them votes from certain people but is unlikely to lose them many. And Greenpeace itself (just like Monsanto) has significant lobbying powers.
One single study shouldn't ever be used as a reason not to do something, just as it shouldn't be used as a reason to do something.
What I do take an issue with is people burning fields and ripping up crops before tests and studies can even be conducted because apparently they know best.
Re. your point on opponents not being convinced... it's my opinion (brought up earlier) that the core of the anti GMO campaign is people/corporations with a vested interest in seeing GM fail, companies involved in the organic food business which could stand to lose out if GMOs reached a mass market. Just like Monsanto lobbies governments in ways it wants, so other companies do the same. The rest are made up of highly radicalised environmentalists who oppose GM on principle rather than because they have specific security concerns.
Environmentalists today talk about GM with the same kind of emotion and sensationalism as they did Nuclear Power 20 years ago, today views on Nuclear are much softer as most have realised that it is not the evil they thought it was, and it is my opinion that in time GM will also become accepted, it's just a shame we have to put up with so much scaremongering nonsense in the meantime.
One other issue is that Science as a whole isn't very good at dealing with the media and PR, something environmentalists are generally much better at. Science generally struggles to put across to the public an idea of how it operates, and the genuine benefits GM can provide in some circumstances as well as the fact that it aims to be innovative and is very responsive to genuine concerns about safety.
I agree. All of which leads me to the conclusion that we cannot really know if GMOs are safe or not. It confuses me how it can you lead you to the conclusion that they are safe. But each to their own I suppose.
I agree. All of which leads me to the conclusion that we cannot really know if GMOs are safe or not. It confuses me how it can you lead you to the conclusion that they are safe. But each to their own I suppose.
