GMOs under attack Professor says many consumers aren’t educated on benefits of the technology so they take an opposing view
People tend to believe myths more than facts, said a McGill University professor.
Joe Schwarcz, a featured presenter at the Food and Farm Care Conference in Saskatoon Dec. 11, said it’s important to present scientific work to disprove agricultural myths.
“By definition, faith requires no evidence. But in science we don’t go by belief. We go by evidence and evidence may not be as emotionally attractive, but it is data that we go by,” he said.
“Once something is out there, it is very difficult to take it back, no matter how incorrect it is.”
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Schwarcz, who discussed glypho-sate and organics in a phone interview, said the myth currently drawing the most attention is GMOs.
“The lay view is that this is untested, untried technology and we’re overstepping the boundaries of science and that just is not the case.”
“The problem is that it’s not so easy to explain genetic modification to people who are not well versed in science,” he said.
When people hear about problems with GMOs and don’t see the benefit, Schwarcz said it’s easy for people to say they shouldn’t be used.
“How do you make people understand that everything they eat is genetically modified through cross-breeding and is not significantly different?”
Schwarcz said there have been papers written recently that vilify glyphosate, one of the most widely used herbicides. He expressed concern with one written by an MIT electrical engineer.
“People are looking for an explanation for why bad things happen and she provides that, even though it’s totally wrong,” he said.
Schwarcz said products can be made to sound “evil,” depending on how the data is cherry picked and what literature is read.
Graphs have been used that show an increase in glyphosate alongside an increase in diseases, but Schwarcz said this same conclusion could be drawn by replacing the herbicide with cellphones or flat screen televisions.
“Correlation is not the same as causation,” he said.
People buy organics for often faulty reasons such as a belief that no pesticides are used or because they have more nutrients.They also believe they are better for the environment, “which is more or less correct,” he said.
