Internal and external factors

I think most scientific controversies have both internal and external factors contributing to the disagreements. Internal factors are those which are within the scientific community itself, whereas external factors are ones outside of the scientific community – mostly public created/driven.

GM certainly has aspects of both internal and external, but I believe the major controversy is mostly external.

There is some debate within the scientific community as to things like terminology (what exactly defines a weed, etc) and probably on what the best techniques to use for various processes are.

External factors are rife, however, ranging from advocacy groups; religious groups; disagreements over risks (see previous post); public misunderstanding, not understanding, or not willing to try to understand... this list can go on for as long as you can think about such topics.

There is also the factor of lack of research into various aspects of GM; however I think this is not really an internal or external factor, as it is not a question of scientists disagreeing with each other or public view, but more a question of public demands not being met by scientists.

Understandably, much of the external factors are probably driven by the internal factors – the public want to know everything they can about this new technology, but how can the scientists explain it to them properly when there is some debate amongst themselves? If there is any disagreement within the scientific community, the public is going to become confused and eventually lose confidence in the scientific community as a whole.

Of course, some external aspects such as religion have nothing to do with any internal factors – they are protesting the entire idea, not just some small aspect of it (such as those who demand more testing or control methods).

External factors are probably driving some of the internal factors as well – the public demands to know more about things, so the scientific community is pressed to explain through experiments/observations (in other words – prove that it is or isn’t safe/good/better etc). If there are disagreements amongst the scientists, this will become public knowledge, and the public will lose confidence... the circle continues.