Here
is an objective look at the GMO debate (I know its coming from me but I
am trying to be as objective as possible here). Right now there is a
huge disconnect between what the bio tech folks are saying and what the
anti-GMO folks are hearing. You can read it all over the internet in
threads from articles about GMOs (both for and against). The reason for
this disconnect are the motivating factors
behind the beliefs. Let's look at the anti-GMO folks. Their big
motivation is fear. Fear of disease, of allergies, of neurological
disorders, of environmental disaster, of corporate monopolies of paid
politicians, of the unknown. Fear is a huge motivator. Especially when
you have children. Many of the anti's (as they so lovingly call us) are
parents and now have the responsibility of protecting our offspring the
best we can. One of the biggest ways we can control this is by what we
give our children to eat and if there is a shred of doubt as to the
safety of a certain product, we will not give it to our kids. We don't need to drown ourselves in scientific studies to create or assuage this fear either, frankly, its human nature and this is very important to understand.
Now lets look at the pro-science guys (I'm supposed to call them that
because pro-GMO isn't fair apparently). What is their motivator? What
motivates them to spend HOURS upon HOURS refuting the anti claims,
slamming studies down their throats and claiming they know more than
anyone else on the subject? I would suppose its money. I mean, no sane
person would spend that much time on this unless there was some reward
or paycheck at the end of it all. I have come to find that most of these
pro-science folks work for bio techs, food companies or chemical
companies and the like. The know that the burden of proof lies with them
otherwise they will be out of a job. They work hard at trying to prove
with scientific studies (double blind, peer reviewed) that GMOs are
safe, do not increase the use of herbicides, benefit the farmer, feed
the starving and are sustainable. However, whether that is all true or
not is not the issue, the issue is their delivery. They come off as
condescending, smug, glib and downright pompous. They insult the
intelligence of the anti's by calling them anti-science when frankly,
this is just not true. These bio tech folks need to take a page out of a
marketing text book and realize that they need to start appealing to the
fears of the anti's and stop attacking them with character insults.
This derogatory behavior only leads to strengthening the anti's position
and making them distrust the bio techs even more.
So to
summarize, its really the way the pro-science guys are speaking to the
anti-GMO crowd that seems to be the issue. The key for them will not be
with their science, it will be with psychology. But they don't seem to
know or understand that and therefore they will most likely lose this
battle. I do believe there is a huge food revolution growing right now
and its in the opposite direction of where the GMO's are going. (OK this last part wasn't so objective....sorry, it is a green blog after all ;))
