GM Food debate – Melbourne
By Jason Major
TechNyou
Melbourne this week: The Monthly Argument is having a face off between proponents and opponents of GM crops
Date: Thursday 10 February
Venue: The Function Room, Dan O’Connell Hotel, 225 Canning Street (corner of Princes Street) Carlton Melway 2B J4.
Time: 6.30pm for 7.00 pm start.
Free Admission. No Need to book.
More details at Monthly Argument web site
TechNyou
TechNyou has nothing to do with the organisation or support of this event. I am advertising it as it is relevant to our purpose – ie engagement of the public on emerging technologies.
I do have a concern that the arrangement of a panel of those for and those against will result in a he says-she says argument rather than any rational discussion. My experience of such things is that you get an audience of people with firm views that are seeking information to support those views, which they take from the relevant speaker and disregard anything that challenges their view. The few that go along to actually learn and participate in a discussion come away more confused as all they hear is one side swearing black, the other side swearing white. Who do you believe, trust, acknowledge?
Regardless I will trot along to be part of the audience. I could be proven wrong.
Hi Jason, My husband is rearranging his work schedule to pick up the children, so I can leave early to make the 2 1/2 hour drive to Melbourne to be a speaker on the evening. I have no interest in making these efforts in the absence of anticipation of successful transfer of information on the topic. I don’t know what the other speakers from the other side intend. Looking forward to seeing you again.
Madeleine
My comments are just based on past experience and the findings of academic literature. As I said I hope I am wrong and it is a vigorous and rational discussion
What academic literature formed the basis for your comments above?
Madeline
re: papers. There are loads, some of which are talked about in previous TechNyou blog posts. There are two below, but I will reply to you offline with a more detailed response.
http://technyou.edu.au/2010/07/natural-bias-and-proof-that-science-is-broken/#comment-1097
http://technyou.edu.au/2010/09/facts-take-back-seat-in-science-controversy/
Though I am not in total agreement with the conclusions drawn in this paper.
Jason
TechNyou
So Jason, in your view, was it a ‘he said she said’ debate? Did the discussion move on at all?
Hard to know as I needed to chat more with the audience before I could even get an insight let alone say anything definitive. As it turns out the people around me were there because they were friends of the organisers and weren’t particularly interested in the topic. The panel was definitely he says-she says, but it was a debate and that is what is supposed to happen. I did note that you said hello to fellow MADGErs in the audience, so you might be able to find out their thoughts: did they trust David Tribe as a reliable source, did they think anything he said had merit or value and was worth investigating or did they reject it simply because it was supportive of GM? Were they prepared to have their views challenged? The only person I knew there that arrived as a definite pro- was Albert Langer and I am pretty sure his views didn’t change, not that this is about changing people’s minds. Hopefully it makes them think and be more able to critique or critically evaluate information. I am unsure how to get info from other audience members. To know for sure if my theory holds, one would need to do a proper evaluation of the audience pre- and post-event and then have a more qualitative chat with some of them. Until then I am only speculating. Even then, it is a small audience on a specific topic, so how much you could extrapolate from that I am unsure.
Jason
TechNyou
And re: discussion moving on – no. The same stuff was still being debated.
Jason
TechNyou
There were three MADGE’s that I knew of – I’d met two before, and there was a friend of Jessica’s.
There was a table of pro-GM Uni people at the back. I saw the MADGEs respond to David Tribe on commonsense comments, and the MADGE I knew reported that the pro-GM’s responded thoughtfully on a couple of our comments. I think everyone probably left with more information to think about. I haven’t had time to reflect but I don’t know if such a forum is an appropriate place to put across info. There were a lot of promotions from the other side that I had no opportunity to answer – a lot on vitamin A, on Gates, on Indian cotton, on grain fed animals and consequent out of balance o3:o6.
I thought the most interesting insight is that MADGE people were more concerned about me putting stuff on my blog that might help Monsanto than finding the whole truth about the issue. The criterion should be is it the truth and the whole truth. And as far as vitamin A rice, we have still to see any realistic assessment from anti-GM groups about how useful the Golden rice rice might be. The estimates mentioned by MADGE at this discussion evening are wrong by a factor of 5. If they get these estimates so wrong how can they claim to be demystifying the issue? One mistake is to assume the recommended daily allowance is needed to get a benefit, when this has safety margins built in, and a much lower quantity could stop ill-health. MADGE seem to be missing a lot of the Golden Rice story.