Science and scientists are often put on a pedestal, respected as the provider of impartial, evidence-based answers to our questions.
Science is supposed to be above politics, prejudice and dogma.
However, when scientific research produces results that go against strongly held preconceived notions, too often people look for ways to discredit it.
The latest high profile example of “science is great until we disagree with it” comes from Australia, where local Greenpeace members wearing mock hazard suits broke into a research farm of the country’s national research body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, and mowed down a test plot of genetically modified wheat, setting the research back by a year.
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The GM wheat was altered to improve its nutrition.
Greenpeace said it took the action because of concerns about health, the potential for contaminating regular wheat, secrecy around the trials and corporate influence over CSIRO decisions.
CSIRO, Australia’s gene technology regulator and others said Greenpeace’s claims were false and that the 11 small scale wheat trials in the country were strictly monitored and were approved after a rigorous science-based risk assessment.
Greenpeace says its actions were not anti-science, but it is hard to see the destruction of a trial designed to test the human and environmental safety of a GM crop as anything but. How can you allege that GM crops are unsafe if you destroy the research designed to test their safety?
Greenpeace counters that the CSIRO trials were approved while two members of the crop protection company Nufarm sat on its board. Other GM wheat trials in Australia are being conducted by companies that Greenpeace says have links to Monsanto.
Corporate influence taints the research, Greenpeace says.
This is a “he who pays the piper calls the tune” type argument.
That recalls a line of criticism against climate change research. Those who don’t believe in human-caused climate change allege that all the money available for climate research is tied to government-funded global warming policy so researchers craft their results to confirm the premise so as to keep their labs funded.
It is important to follow the money in science. Money determines what gets done. In agriculture for example, there is lots of private money for herbicide development because it leads to a product that can be sold for a profit. But private companies are less interested in researching crop management because while it might generate better returns for farmers, there is no way to monetize it.
A United Nations report this spring said great gains in food production can be made in developing countries with what it called agroecology, which includes integrated pest management, soil and water conservation and agro-forestry — areas unlikely to receive private investment.
That’s why it is important to have a mix of private and publicly funded research. Both are required as the world faces the need to double food production by 2050.
Research should not be rejected simply because it is motivated by the potential for profit or because it takes advantage of political priorities.
Research should be assessed by the standards that all science must meet: Is the methodology valid? Are the findings measurable, verifiable and repeatable? Can they withstand peer review?
If they can’t, they are junk science. If they meet these measures, then they should be given weight.
The vast weight of scientific evidence shows that GM crops do not pose a danger to people or the environment. Greenpeace should give up its dogmatic opposition.
