New posts tomorrow

Sorry for not posting new material over the past week or so, I've been away on holiday.

I'll get on top of things today and should have new posts up from tomorrow morning.

This is why we need better communication

http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/15803/genetically-modified-foods-need-government-regulation

The above article is chock full of ridiculous statements that have absolutely no basis in science, or are just plain wrong.

Yet I have no doubt that the average non-scientists would find it very hard to pick out the truth from the non-truths in articles such as this.


This is why we need to push for better communication of the science of GM...


The sentence that really caught my eye was this one: 'Another risk with GM foods involves ingesting antibiotics to the point that humans and animals could become immune to antibiotics.'


Plants don't get given antibiotics. 


People get given antibiotics. 


Antibiotics are designed to kill off disease-causing bacteria in people and animals. 


It is physically impossible for a human to become immune to antibiotics - the bacteria within you potentially could with prolonged use, but the only thing the human body would become immune to would be any side effects from taking the drugs in the first place.


Now here's a task for you at home - read the article in question and see how many other wrong things you can find, simply from what you have learnt from my blog.

Is it worth teaching the science of controversies?

Reading through a paper for an education subject, I came across this very interesting paragraph:

"In addition, the science needed for an understanding may be so recent as to post-date the school years of most adults: for example, this was the case with the recent SSE (mad cow disease) controversy. If we teach young people the science they need to understand a current-day issue, it is very likely that the scientific knowledge involved will last them for a very few years after leaving school: either the science will be dated or the controversy will be overtaken."

So in other words they are saying that there is no point teaching the science of current controversies (such as Mad Cow, or Swine Flu, GM, climate change etc) because in a few years the science will be outdated, or it won’t be a controversy any more.

Let’s look at the Mad Cow controversy – people were getting sick and even dying from eating beef. The science told us that bacteria cause Mad Cow disease, and that you should cook beef at around 70 degrees Celsius, because at that temperature the bacteria that causes the disease would die. Even though the controversy came to an end, anyone who learned that little bit of science could continue to use that scientific knowledge throughout the rest of their lives, and pass it on to others.

So I wonder how true that paragraph is? Surely big, long standing controversies such as climate change and GM won’t be solved quickly or neatly. I think they will be around for a long time, purely due to their nature.

No matter if they linger or come to a quick close, I think teaching people some of the science of these controversies would be beneficial, and last them for a long time. Even if the scientific knowledge becomes outdated, if a person understood that outdated knowledge, they should be better able to understand the newer knowledge.

But then we circle back to my last post – how much of what should we teach people?

The paper that the quote came from was:

Smith DV, Gunstone RF. Science curriculum in the market liberal society of the twenty-first century: ‘Re-visioning’ the idea of science for all. Research in Science Education. 2009;39:1.   Link

How much of what type of information?

In the previous post I asked these questions:

What type of information should non-scientists know?

How much do they need to know?

Why should they need to know it in the first place?

I believe the public should know enough about the actual science of GM in order to make reasonable, well informed decisions. To do this, they should understand what GM is, how it works, and how it may affect them going about their daily lives.

In class we discussed how there are three types of information when it comes to science: the raw data, the information that comes from interpreting that data (This one is a bit tricky, because different people, even different scientists, may interpret data in different ways. For the sake of this post, let’s assume that all information is interpreted correctly by everyone.), and then there is the knowledge that comes from combining various sets of information.

With GM, I think the public has no need to know of the raw data, as they most likely wouldn’t know what to do with it. 

When raw data is presented, it will be interpreted by the person reading it from their past experiences – if they know nothing of the science, how can they interpret the data? This can lead to misunderstanding, which in turn can sometimes lead to hysteria. 

For example, pretend a test showed that 1 out of 1000 mice died during an experiment where the mice were fed GM food. To the scientists, this may be completely insignificant, but a person who doesn’t understand the science or the test may interpret that as ‘1 in 1000 people will die from eating GM food’. This could then be expanded to say that, ‘if 1 in 1000 people died, and every person ate GM food, then because there are 6,868,900,000 people in the world, 6,868,900 people will die.’ As you can see, things can easily get out of hand.

The next level is the information that comes from interpreting the data. A lot of what you see in the media is this sort of information. A journalist has seen a scientific paper, or media release, that mentions some piece of information, so the journalist writes an article based on this. Again, this can be misinterpreted if the person doesn’t understand the science.

The final level is the knowledge that comes from combining sets of information. I believe this is the best place to start when trying to educate the public. For example, when trying to teach someone about DNA, you wouldn’t start by giving them raw data, or the interpretation of that raw data, you would give them the knowledge that has come from all of that. Once they understand that knowledge well enough, they may be able to understand the information; and once they can comfortably understand that information, they may be able to look at the raw data and make some sense of it.

So in answer to the questions at the start of the post, I believe the public needs to understand DNA and the basic process of genetic engineering. From there, they can better understand the risks and benefits (when presented fairly).

What communication problems are involved?

This question has a two-pronged answer.

Firstly, the scientists are not doing much to ensure their research is presented to the public and critics in a timely manner. When the science is presented, often the critics will pick out individual word choices as evidence that the science is ‘bad’. For example, the scientists might pick up on something that is very small and of no real significance, yet the critics may take this and blow it out of proportion.

Secondly, adequate general information about GM is not being presented to the public. Much of the general public still has no idea exactly what GM is or how it works. Those that have some idea generally do not understand it in any great detail, and so misinterpret information. The media are especially prone to this type of behaviour – I wonder how many journalists who write articles about new developments in GM actually understand what it is?

But then comes the questions of how much of what type of information should non-scientists know? How much do they need to know? Why should they need to know it in the first place? These I will discuss in the next post.

What features of scientific practice contribute to the controversy?

This is an interesting question. 

You could say that the entire science of GM is contributing to the controversy surrounding it.

Critics of this technology will pick out any bit of the science behind GM and say why it’s bad/wrong.

For example; the process of inserting the gene isn’t specific enough, the process of isolating the gene isn’t specific enough, safety testing procedures aren’t good enough, etc.

These critics will pull apart anything they can (rightly or wrongly), and if scientists defend it, the critics will either push for more ‘proof’ or move on to something else. (Proof is an interesting thing, as we discussed in class. I’ll touch on it in another post.)

I think the biggest feature of scientific practice that’s contributing to the controversy is the lack of adequate communication. I’ll talk about this in the next post.

Is FSANZ failing at communicating GM to the public?

While searching through the FSANZ website, I found this booklet. It looks like it has been produced to inform the public about GM technology with regard to food.

Looking through it, it seems to explain everything pretty well, from how it all works to potential risks to what they are doing about those potential risks.

This is the first I've seen of this booklet, and I only found it by searching through their website - it is only present on one page, in a little box saying 'related links'. I wonder, if it was intended for the public, then why have I only come across it now, and why was it in such a hard place to find? (considering I've spent all semester looking up GM info) Shouldn't something like this be posted everywhere it possibly can, to ensure as much of the public sees it as possible?

I think this is a case of bad communication - the fact that such a helpful and easy to read document isn't readily available to those who might want to find it. I didn't even know FSANZ existed until I came across them by accident. I think they should be doing more to communicate GM to the public, so the the public gets scientific information about this topic directly from the people who make the decisions on it, rather than getting a watered down, altered view from the media. They are essentially the front line for GM into Australia and New Zealand markets.

Here is a link to the booklet:
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/_srcfiles/GM%20Foods_text_pp_final.pdf

Please read it, it might explain things better for you than I have.