Controversy progress

This post will briefly discuss how the controversy started, what is keeping it going, and how it could potentially be closed.

As mentioned before, this is an external controversy, meaning that the controversy is between scientists and the wider public, rather than within the scientific community.

I believe it started because the wider public did not understand the science behind the concept and how it all works. This has lead to misinterpretation of scientific results, and general confusion.

So what’s kept it going? Primarily, the media and advocacy groups that are against it. We all know that the media will choose the most shocking angle of a story in order to make greater sales, and we all know that to do this often involves stretching the truth a little, or taking things slightly out of context.

When the wider public reads such stories, because they have no or little knowledge of the science itself, they don’t find it hard to believe that what the story is telling them is the complete truth, the whole story.

This sort of thing provides fuel for the advocacy groups, and there is nothing to stop such groups doing the same sort of thing themselves.

I believe we could call this a form of selective education – they will choose certain points to tell people, and not even mention the fact that other (sometimes contradictory) points exist as well.

But the media and these advocacy groups are not alone in this behaviour – science does it too. As seen in a previous post, sometimes scientists will interpret their results in certain ways, or only present certain data, in order to reach a particular goal. I believe this causes far more problems than it could possibly solve – particularly to do with trust (again, see previous post).

I also believe that scientists are not doing enough to make sure the wider public is being well informed about GM.

One way this controversy could be solved would be for scientists to communicate their research to the public in such a way that they are able to understand it.

This way, the wider public would be better able to understand what they are reading in the media, and it could help them to pick the truth from the hype.

I guess this is a job for us science communicators!