On 2/10/2015 12:26 PM, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at 9:17:46 AM UTC-5, net cop wrote:
"Mayayana" writes:

| Chemophobia, I love it.
| Don't scare anyone telling them that there are chemicals in their food.
|
| I was just reading recently about how 80% of
| Americans are in favor of labeling food that contains DNA:
|
| http://tinyurl.com/p3catnx
|
| Since that number is at 80%, I must mention that everything that
| is alive contains DNA.
|

Be careful about feeling superior to 80% of the public.

First, the survey was done by Oklahoma State University
Department of Agricultural Economics. That is, a school
in the middle of farm country, where nearly everyone
has a vested interest in not labeling GMO foods. Why
do you think they did this survey in the first place?
It's propaganda masquerading as science -- business
as usual.

Second, the question was a trick question. It asked
whether people agreed with a government policy of
mandatory labeling of foods with DNA. The respondents
were led to believe that there was or might be such a
policy. The DNA question was used to offset the GMO
question and just happened to be the only nonsensical
question in the survey.

So what does the survey tell us? That most people are
not very knowledgeable about these things and don't
want to be seen as stupid, so they try to give what
they think will be an intelligent answer. That's interesting,
but the researchers are also trying to lead the reader
to a false conclusion that therefore opposition to GMO
is rooted in stupidity and ignorance. But shouldn't we
actually conclude that people need to be educated about
GMOs so that they can assess the issue sensibly? Unless,
of course, we have an irrational, ignorant propensity to
defend GMOs without having actually thought about the
issue ourselves. Or unless we don't feel that American
citizens have a right to have a say in regulation of the
food supply.

So 80% of people may be unsure what DNA is. Yet
probably 95%+ of people will assume a "scientific study"
is, indeed, scientific as long as it's given the appearance
of being so, with statistics, technical language, and so on.

How much of science is scientific? Given that science
is the closest thing modern society has to religion,

So, I'm reading and reading and wondering what all this
spew of words is about, then I get to the gem immediately
above.

Clearly you have an agenda or cognitive problems.

I think it's the former.

Are you capable of reflecting on the essential differences
between believing without evidence and understanding based
on evidence?

Obviously your statement is false. In fact, in the context
you've used the words, the 2 things are opposites.

But as long as you have an agenda, I don't think you can
see that.

--
Dan Espen

Good grief. "Science is the closest thing modern society has
to religion"? WTF? You're right, that's a classic. And then M
is telling us about GMO, glyphosate and God knows what else?


All that is lacking is a response from Fran Farmer