Power games, GMO, science and politics

robindch

A Hawaiian politician goes up against anti-GMO campaigners:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/us/on-hawaii-a-lonely-quest-for-facts-about-gmos.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all

Banbh

I read that GMO puff piece but can't see any reference to Hazards of Belief.

robindch

Banbh wrote: »

I read that GMO puff piece but can't see any reference to Hazards of Belief.

The hazards there being emotional arguments taking precedence over scientific evidence on the anti-GMO side.

Banbh

The hazards there being emotional arguments taking precedence over scientific evidence on the anti-GMO side.

So are unemotional arguments on GMO appropriate to this thread? What about nuclear power, global warming the exchange rate of the yuan?

AerynSun

I believe, I believe, I DO believe in the puff pieces

robindch

Banbh wrote: »

So are unemotional arguments on GMO appropriate to this thread?

There's a problem when the arguments ignore the science and base themselves only upon emotion.

Banbh

And are scientific arguments appropriate on this thread or can only certain people post their favourite hobby-horses?

robindch

If you want to open a thread on GMO - fire away

Banbh

Thank you but that might be divisive. I'll stick to the subject - A agus A.
Regards,
B.

robindch

Banbh wrote: »

[...] might be divisive [...]

I don't think that's ever stopped A+A regulars and visitors from commenting on anything.

If not GMO, then next up is windfarms.

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

I don't think that's ever stopped A+A regulars and visitors from commenting on anything.

If not GMO, then next up is windfarms.

No more bloody threads on Ayn Bloody Rand! :mad:

Sarky

Surely the market will decide when there have been enough Ayn Rand threads?

Hotblack Desiato

robindch wrote: »

I don't think that's ever stopped A+A regulars and visitors from commenting on anything.

If not GMO, then next up is windfarms.

Or nooocuuueler :rolleyes:

The woo on this one is so strong, the Irish Times ran a scare story yesterday "Irish gov pays for nuclear reactor" oh noes! But it's ITER. And so what if we were paying to develop a fission reactor, it'd be a lot more reliable than bloody wind turbines.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/government-contributing-to-development-of-nuclear-reactor-1.1645240

"Oppposition to nuclear" long ago ceased being about facts, it's just an article of faith for the green movement, very few of whom dare question the dogma.

norrie rugger

ninja900 wrote: »

Or nooocuuueler :rolleyes:

The woo on this one is so strong, the Irish Times ran a scare story yesterday "Irish gov pays for nuclear reactor" oh noes! But it's ITER. And so what if we were paying to develop a fission reactor, it'd be a lot more reliable than bloody wind turbines.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/government-contributing-to-development-of-nuclear-reactor-1.1645240

"Oppposition to nuclear" long ago ceased being about facts, it's just an article of faith for the green movement, very few of whom dare question the dogma.

Oh FFS, sensationalist nonsense

Turtwig

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging, commonly referred to as MRI. Got to drop the association to 'nuclear' because of all the connotations that word brings. If people can't deal with nuclear in something that has no ionising radiation, how can they actually be expected to behave rationally when ionising radiation is actually involved?

robindch

Teetering on the edge of an "energy" thread...

Hotblack Desiato

robindch wrote: »

Teetering on the edge of an "energy" thread...

Or maybe a 'hazards of commonly held non-religious beliefs' thread??

Turtwig

ninja900 wrote: »

Or maybe a 'hazards of commonly held non-religious beliefs' thread??

That's still pretty much a hazard of belief thread though innit?

Turtwig

PrimeTime is discussing Pylons if any of yous are interested in the "health" risks.

Bannasidhe

Jernal wrote: »

PrimeTime is discussing Pylons if any of yous are interested in the "health" risks.

Back in my rugby playing days there was a pylon slap bang in the training pitch behind the uprights. The fecking noises and ftzzzzz of light off that thing when it was raining (Limerick - it was always raining) were enough to convince me I wouldn't want to live near one.

Turtwig

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Back in my rugby playing days there was a pylon slap bang in the training pitch behind the uprights. The fecking noises and ftzzzzz of light off that thing when it was raining (Limerick - it was always raining) were enough to convince me I wouldn't want to live near one.

I think I recall once a Young Scientist project that actually went around measuring the noise levels on ground level off them.

Bannasidhe

Jernal wrote: »

I think I recall once a Young Scientist project that actually went around measuring the noise levels on ground level off them.

It did add a certain frisson to place kicking practice...

Hotblack Desiato

Jernal wrote: »

That's still pretty much a hazard of belief thread though innit?

I'd always presumed this thread was intended for religious stuff, though. I'd be happy to have it officially extended to cover all types of delusion


Meanwhile... :mad: our Minister for Health embraces pylon woo.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives/2014/0104/opinion/electricity-pylon-troubles-are-piling-up-254216.html

Last Monday, this newspaper published extracts of a letter Reilly sent to his Cabinet colleagues, Phil Hogan, in Environment, and Pat Rabbitte, in Energy — the department with responsibility for electricity supply.

Reilly was referencing an earlier phase of pylon erection, last year, which crossed into his constituency in North Dublin. He expressed grave concerns about the health risks.

Reilly emphasised his relative expertise, saying that he was writing as "a doctor and Minister for Health".

Reilly cited a study by public health expert, Professor Anthony Staines, who had said "it is well-established that the low-frequency magnetic fields increase the risk of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia". Effectively, the doctor briefed with caring for the nation’s health was endorsing a view that these pylons caused cancer.

"I recognise that this national infrastructure project is important, but I can’t ignore the health concerns," Reilly wrote.

If the project goes ahead, how can Reilly continue in government?

If his words are to mean anything, he would be party to a decision to wantonly expose a large chunk of the population to a serious risk of cancer. He could also be betraying his Hippocratic oath as a doctor.

It’s far more likely that Reilly doesn’t believe there are health concerns. Perhaps he just wanted to generate a letter to colleagues purporting to give a fiddler’s about the issue. Perhaps he just cynically used his medical background to heighten the tone of concern in his letter.

Perhaps his sole interest was to give the impression to his constituents, who were objecting to the pylons, that he was doing something on their behalf.

Reilly may surprise everybody and resign on a matter of principle. Look skyward as the pigs hop between clouds.

Brian Shanahan

ninja900 wrote: »

Meanwhile... :mad: our Minister for Health embraces pylon woo.

Reilly is made of a giant stinking pile of concentrated woo. Of course he's going to embrace other people's. It's his daily sustenance.

Turtwig

It plausible that there is some mechanism of something biological that is suppressed by a magnetic field that increases the chance of cancer cells reproducing. Currently though the evidence is incredibly weak and we can only makes decisions on the best information available at the time. There might be some truth to the claim or there might not be. For now, there's little or anything to indicate the claim is true. Nevermind, significant.

Also, I'd be curious to know how the magnetic field of pylon compares to ordinary household appliances.

Turtwig

ninja900 wrote: »

I'd always presumed this thread was intended for religious stuff, though. I'd be happy to have it officially extended to cover all types of delusion

I always just assumed it was for all forms of extreme belief that wrought hazards upon society. If not, then I apologise about my posts about Homeopathy, MMS, anti-vax and some other alternative medicine quackery.

Oh wait! I'm mod now. I don't have to apologise for anything.

Hotblack Desiato

Jernal wrote: »

It plausible that there is some mechanism of something biological that is suppressed by a magnetic field that increases the chance of cancer cells reproducing. Currently though the evidence is incredibly weak and we can only makes decisions on the best information available at the time.

We're back at the scenario of proving a negative. 'They can't prove that mobile phones don't cause cancer' is exactly the same as saying 'scientists can't prove there is no god, therefore something something.'

What we do know is that any possible effect from using a mobile phone must be tiny indeed - and almost everyone is happy to use one (i.e. sticking a transmitter next to their brain) but some eejits simultaneously object to having a transmitter 500m away from their kids' school. Heck, my old school has masts on its roof, that's how things roll in Dubland

We could study ten million people for their entire lives and still not be sure that the effect is zero. But if it's there, it's right down in the statistical noise.

As far as I'm aware, the position with pylons is the same. Contradictory studies demonstrating or denying possible effects, but all at an extremely low occurrence, to the point where we have to start asking, even if we do accept that a risk exists, what would the point be of trying to eliminate it when many other everyday activities have effects on the health of the population which are orders of magnitude greater.

There are pylons (220kV at least) at the end of my street with people living within 10m of them. Nobody is going to tear them down and dig up the ground for this cable and it probably wouldn't be possible anyway.

The computer scientist Peter Gutmann wrote a good article about the major outage in Auckland some years back, caused by the unreliability and difficulty of reparing underground cables. This took five weeks to repair, three years before the power network was resilient again.
Auckland - Your Y2K Beta Test Site
1998 Auckland Power Crisis

kylith

Jernal wrote: »

It plausible that there is some mechanism of something biological that is suppressed by a magnetic field that increases the chance of cancer cells reproducing. Currently though the evidence is incredibly weak and we can only makes decisions on the best information available at the time. There might be some truth to the claim or there might not be. For now, there's little or anything to indicate the claim is true. Nevermind, significant.

Also, I'd be curious to know how the magnetic field of pylon compares to ordinary household appliances.

What gets me is that the woo-peddlers will claim that pylon's magnetic fields give you cancer, then try to sell you a magnetic bracelet to 'cure' your arthritis. They should be either embracing the pylons or binning the bracelets, otherwise it's just a double standard.

mikhail

I seem to recall reading a few years back that the rather weak links between pylons and cancer had been explained as due to a carcinogenic weed-killer used on the bases of them in certain parts of the US. Anyone able to back me up?

recedite

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Back in my rugby playing days there was a pylon slap bang in the training pitch behind the uprights. The fecking noises and ftzzzzz of light off that thing.. .

This is the St. Elmos's Fire that used to be seen in the masts of sailing ships during an electrical storm. Its now called a corona discharge and one effect is to produce ozone, which is not too good for the lungs.

ninja900 wrote: »

The computer scientist Peter Gutmann wrote a good article about the major outage in Auckland some years back, caused by the unreliability and difficulty of reparing underground cables....

That was an obsolete type of cable wrapped in paper and filled with oil, used pre 1960's. Modern cables have plastic insulation. Once laid underground there is no need to maintain them, unlike overhead cables which can be damaged in a storm.

Hotblack Desiato

recedite wrote: »

That was an obsolete type of cable wrapped in paper and filled with oil, used pre 1960's. Modern cables have plastic insulation. Once laid underground there is no need to maintain them, unlike overhead cables which can be damaged in a storm.

Very rare for a 220/400 kV line to be damaged here, I can't recall ever hearing of one. Minor lines get blown down all the time but that's different.

I think one of the lines that failed in NZ was oil and paper insulated, but two of them were gas insulated. Yes they were obsolete and approaching, or past, scheduled end of life but that's kind of the point - the cost of replacing an entire underground cable was very considerable, so they put off doing it longer than they should. The grid was much less resilient than it should have been, too, and again the cost of underground cables is a factor here.

Overground lines can be renewed cheaply, and if they do develop a fault the location of it is immediately obvious.

robindch

...thread for topics where science goes up against politics...

Dave!

I've seen someone make the interesting point that, while conservatives might embrace woo and pseudoscience in relation to evolution and climate change, it's often liberals who do it on the subjects of vaccines, GMO and water fluoridation.

On a related subject, has anyone followed the "Girl Against Flouride" campaign? Seems to be linked to all sorts of insanity, which Geoff Shorts is doing a good job of highlighting in his blog and on Twitter.
http://geoffsshorts.blogspot.ie/

magicbastarder

i'm dubious about GMOs, but more from a socioeconomic standpoint.

someone mentioned the young scientists exhibition above (this is vaguely related to food safety) - when i was discussing possible topics with a science teacher when i was quite a bit younger, he suggested one which he reckoned would be dead in the water - borrowing a sensitive geiger counter, and measuring radioactivity levels in grass around the country, but especially in the midlands; and see if there was any correlation with wind direction.
it was something he'd wondered about before - would you see a slight spike in radioactivity in grass (and thus in meat products) if the wind changed to blow coal power station fumes from the likes of poolbeg over the country, where they could be rained out, instead of over the irish sea.

Qs

robindch wrote: »

A Hawaiian politician goes up against anti-GMO campaigners:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/us/on-hawaii-a-lonely-quest-for-facts-about-gmos.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all

Considering they were protesting Monsanto I'd tend to side with the campaigners, even if some of their motives may be ill-considered.

norrie rugger

Yeah.
Why would they need a private army http://politicalblindspot.com/yes-monsanto-actually-did-buy-the-blackwater-mercenary-group/
Evil f*ckers

Qs

Monsanto buys Blackwater, its like the pitch for a low budget sci-fi horror movie.

robindch

Qs wrote: »

Considering they were protesting Monsanto I'd tend to side with the campaigners, even if some of their motives may be ill-considered.

I've seen a lot of stuff from the anti-Monsanto crew -- and especially, lots in my fb feed from an old friend of mine -- but nothing that stands up to much scrutiny and I'm interested to know what the scientific arguments are, rather than the emotive ones.

PopePalpatine

I dunno about you, but genetically engineering seeds so that they can't reproduce (and therefore you'd need to buy those seeds again) sounds like pure greed to me.

Qs

If I were in Hawaii I'd be very worried about Monsanto coming in with their patented seeds. Seeds as I'm sure you are aware spread, they find their way into the fields of farmers who don't hold their patents and then those farmers get sued by Monsanto.

norrie rugger

Taking legal action against farms, where wind spread seed has been found is not very nice

Qs

Nor is suing farmers who use your seeds for more than one harvest.

robindch

PopePalpatine wrote: »

I dunno about you, but genetically engineering seeds so that they can't reproduce (and therefore you'd need to buy those seeds again) sounds like pure greed to me.

Been a while since I looked, but didn't at least some biotech companies created "terminator" seeds (seeds that produce sterile plants) in order to address concerns that people had about GM seeds escaping into the wild?

And are farmers being forced to buy terminator seeds? Or are they free to buy and plant whatever seeds they want?

And what about the biotech company's investment in new seeds -- is it fair for these companies to spend huge amounts of money developing biotech, only to have it copied wholesale once it's released? That doesn't seem quite fair either (there are plenty of things that are subject to copyright - medicines, software, media - and don't the people who produce them do have a right to a return upon their investment?)

Mark Hamill

Qs wrote: »

If I were in Hawaii I'd be very worried about Monsanto coming in with their patented seeds. Seeds as I'm sure you are aware spread, they find their way into the fields of farmers who don't hold their patents and then those farmers get sued by Monsanto.

I've heard this claim before but is there any evidence of this actually happening?

Qs

Terminator seeds (V-GURT) are not made to stop the spread of patented seeds, they are made to enforce copyright. Monsanto have sued people when seeds have spread to their land through no fault of their own.

Are you really willing to trust a company who dumped chemicals in the US and UK for decades with this kind of responsibility. A company who's most famous product is Agent Orange.

Qs

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I've heard this claim before but is there any evidence of this actually happening?

The Percy Schmeiser case would be the most famous.

timbyr

Qs wrote: »

The Percy Schmeiser case would be the most famous.

You may want to read what that case was actually about.
Schmeiser found Monsanto seed on his land. Once he realised it was Roundup Ready seed he then proceeded to purposefully separate and cultivate it apart from his own crops.
Monsanto approached him due to his unlicensed use of it. There was no accidentally contaminated crop except the initial one Schneider purposefully cultivated the crops that were the subject of the case.

I may not agree with patenting of specific genes or Monsantos other business practice's but no need to be dishonest in the discussion of GMOs

robindch

Qs wrote: »

Terminator seeds (V-GURT) are not made to stop the spread of patented seeds, they are made to enforce copyright.

Do the biotech companies not have a right to have a return on their investment in new technology? Or is it fairer for a company to make an investment in some product, then have everybody copy it for free?

And aren't farmers free to use seeds which are not terminated?

I don't quite see what the problem here is.

Qs

timbyr wrote: »

You may want to read what that case was actually about.
Schmeiser found Monsanto seed on his land. Once he realised it was Roundup Ready seed he then proceeded to purposefully separate and cultivate it apart from his own crops.
Monsanto approached him due to his unlicensed use of it. There was no accidentally contaminated crop except the initial one Schneider purposefully cultivated the crops that were the subject of the case.

I may not agree with patenting of specific genes or Monsantos other business practice's but no need to be dishonest in the discussion of GMOs

How was I dishonest?

Qs

robindch wrote: »

Do the biotech companies not have a right to have a return on their investment in new technology?

Not when the only reason for their research is to create a false need for its product. What benefit is this technology to anyone?

robindch wrote: »

And aren't farmers free to use seeds which are not terminated?

Monsanto created a monopoly and then hiked up prices by up to 500%.

robindch wrote: »

I don't quite see what the problem here is.

Well I have no idea of your politics but to me most of this behaviour is pure corporate greed and I'm not a big fan of that sort of thing myself.

Mark Hamill

Qs wrote: »

How was I dishonest?

Schmeiser wasn't sued because seeds ended up on his land without his knowledge, he was sued because after he found the seeds he intentionally continued to cultivate them. The case only concerned the crop he purposefully grew in 1998 from the seeds he found in 1997, not the seeds he found themselves.

I wouldn't be hasty to say you were dishonest, most people misunderstand the case.