Science questions for liberals

Philosophy Forums Science, Technology, and Math
41

WEll since you say generally it seems fortunately there are exceptions, which means any particularly conspiracy theory needs to be looked at individually.
But let’s just look at that sentence: it is built around a term that is irrational and used to suppress contrary opinions. Obviously there are conspiracies or most legal systems are simply foolish given the large numbers of crimes of conspiracy. So a theory that there is a conspiracy should not be pejorative term. It should be a neutral term. But it is not, and it is a term created by critics of non-mainstream hypotheses for the causes of certain events. Like say the theories about the real motivations for the Neo cons going into Iraq and the administration conspiracy theories about Hussein conspiring with Al-quaida and having WMDs. This was a mainstream conspiracy theory, and of course not wrong because it was a conspiracy theory, but wrong because it was bullshit as is clearly accepted even in the mainstream press itself, though it took a long time.

The truth is that 9/11 has two main conspiracy theories. 1) that this group of Muslim fundamentalists did it or 2) that some agency or group within the government of the US did it or allowed it. (the last is really a combination of both theories)

So if we look at your statement we know you mean the pejorative use of the term. You mean that what gets called a conspiracy theory in the mainstream press is not good for prediction. This would be poor science on your part.

What I mean is that the category is made by people in a vague, hard to pin down real world specific variables way. It puts all kinds of theories from Flat Earth to reptile illuminati to yes, that issue with WMDs in Iraq to critics of GM corps to people who think there were immoral conspirational aspects to how Aspartame got passed by the FDA and so.

IOW hypotheses made by different people with varying degrees of evidence and thoroughness that are different from mainstream CURRENTLY accepted explanations.

These all get batched as conspiracy theories and these are dismissed by you and others as a batch.

Here couched in a what might be considered epistemologically as scientific terms.

But for you to conclude this in this batched way you 1) make the error of batching and 2) have no doubt reached this conclusion via non-scientific intuitive methods, unless you have done incredibly research.

First you would need a control study. How well do conspiracy theories of the mainstream work predictively? What could we predict based on the 9/11 mainstream conspiracy theory with the Muslim team? How did you verify the predictive value of that theory? What events since 9/11 that you have verified with that and how does this compare with one of the better conspiracy theories on the other side?

Easy to do intuitively. But damn hard in any off the cuff not actually carefully reading both theories and then analyzing events since to see which is better predictively.

How much harder to do this when one wants to lump all non-mainstream conspiracy theories and make a conclusive statement about their predictive value.

But that corporations put financial goals ahead of people’s health at least, often, is easy to verify. And I will bet we can predict rather well using that hypothesis.
The hypotheis that Monsanto has incredible control of the very agencies meant to regulate them is already demonstrable.
That Monsanto has lied, and for years, about the risks of its products is also historical fact.
That Monsanto has bribed and threatened government officials of other countries is also a demonstrable fact. That Monsantos products already cause much damage to soil, people’s health and financial status is already demonstrable.

Monstantos theory that their products help people has had NO PREDICTIVE VALUE AT ALL.

If you demanded as much predictive value from Monsantos claims as you do for what you are calling conspiracy theories, you would stop making statements about being in favor of GM as tool without at least including a serious critique of the usefulness and safefy of GM products now. You would not feel responsible leaving the real world current status out.

Monsantos claims about what they can do, are doing, and will do are not a conspiracy theory, per se. But is it a theory about what a group of people are collaborating on and the motivations. I do not see that theory holding up in the least.

It will take introspection on your part to find out why you treat epistemologically the claims of corporations known to be liars with less rigor than you do the entire batch of theories of people how vary greatly in expertise and background.

I hope you can do this introspection.

42

WEll since you say generally it seems fortunately there are exceptions, which means any particularly conspiracy theory needs to be looked at individually.
But let’s just look at that sentence: it is built around a term that is irrational and used to suppress contrary opinions. Obviously there are conspiracies or most legal systems are simply foolish given the large numbers of crimes of conspiracy. So a theory that there is a conspiracy should not be pejorative term. It should be a neutral term. But it is not, and it is a term created by critics of non-mainstream hypotheses for the causes of certain events. Like say the theories about the real motivations for the Neo cons going into Iraq and the administration conspiracy theories about Hussein conspiring with Al-quaida and having WMDs. This was a mainstream conspiracy theory, and of course not wrong because it was a conspiracy theory, but wrong because it was bullshit as is clearly accepted even in the mainstream press itself, though it took a long time.

The truth is that 9/11 has two main conspiracy theories. 1) that this group of Muslim fundamentalists did it or 2) that some agency or group within the government of the US did it or allowed it. (the last is really a combination of both theories)

So if we look at your statement we know you mean the pejorative use of the term. You mean that what gets called a conspiracy theory in the mainstream press is not good for prediction. This would be poor science on your part.

What I mean is that the category is made by people in a vague, hard to pin down real world specific variables way. It puts all kinds of theories from Flat Earth to reptile illuminati to yes, that issue with WMDs in Iraq to critics of GM corps to people who think there were immoral conspirational aspects to how Aspartame got passed by the FDA and so.

IOW hypotheses made by different people with varying degrees of evidence and thoroughness that are different from mainstream CURRENTLY accepted explanations.

These all get batched as conspiracy theories and these are dismissed by you and others as a batch.

Here couched in a what might be considered epistemologically as scientific terms.

But for you to conclude this in this batched way you 1) make the error of batching and 2) have no doubt reached this conclusion via non-scientific intuitive methods, unless you have done incredibly research.

First you would need a control study. How well do conspiracy theories of the mainstream work predictively? What could we predict based on the 9/11 mainstream conspiracy theory with the Muslim team? How did you verify the predictive value of that theory? What events since 9/11 that you have verified with that and how does this compare with one of the better conspiracy theories on the other side?

Easy to do intuitively. But damn hard in any off the cuff not actually carefully reading both theories and then analyzing events since to see which is better predictively.

How much harder to do this when one wants to lump all non-mainstream conspiracy theories and make a conclusive statement about their predictive value.

But that corporations put financial goals ahead of people’s health at least, often, is easy to verify. And I will bet we can predict rather well using that hypothesis.
The hypotheis that Monsanto has incredible control of the very agencies meant to regulate them is already demonstrable.
That Monsanto has lied, and for years, about the risks of its products is also historical fact.
That Monsanto has bribed and threatened government officials of other countries is also a demonstrable fact. That Monsantos products already cause much damage to soil, people’s health and financial status is already demonstrable.

Monstantos theory that their products help people has had NO PREDICTIVE VALUE AT ALL.

If you demanded as much predictive value from Monsantos claims as you do for what you are calling conspiracy theories, you would stop making statements about being in favor of GM as tool without at least including a serious critique of the usefulness and safefy of GM products now. You would not feel responsible leaving the real world current status out.

Monsantos claims about what they can do, are doing, and will do are not a conspiracy theory, per se. But is it a theory about what a group of people are collaborating on and the motivations. I do not see that theory holding up in the least.

It will take introspection on your part to find out why you treat epistemologically the claims of corporations known to be liars with less rigor than you do the entire batch of theories of people how vary greatly in expertise and background.

I hope you can do this introspection.

43

The impartial evidence does not back up this claim. As the study I posted earlier shows, yields are significantly higher, costs significantly lower, profits significantly higher, pesticide use significantly lower. As for harm done, no comparably strong studies support those claims. The studies that have porported to find harm have been debunked and withdrawn (although one was republished after being retracted, the problems identified by its critics were not changed: the republished version relied on the same data from the same flawed experimental design).

I don’t disagree with this (though it’s risky to apply human psychological diagnoses to non-human collections of humans). But as you note, that does not mean that they are evil, only that they are ruthlessly pragmatic. But that ruthless pragmatism entails a deep concern for appearances. Companies perceived as evil don’t survive. That’s why every major corporation makes corporate giving and dogoodery a priority. Even Monsanto has a charitable arm in its Monsanto Fund. Certainly they value the tax write-off, but the charity is a net cost, which they undertake to maintain neutral-to-good public opinion.

Because remember: human moral intuitions evolved in a competitive system. Human are moral because cooperation is important, and being good to others means gain allies, support, etc. Monsanto’s greatest incentive to not be that evil is that their business would suffer much more than the evil would pay. Goodness is much more profitable.

I did this, and I don’t find your source to be a fair representation of what the act did. The wikipedia page has the actual text. This language does not make anyone “immune from lawsuits”. The effect is quite a bit narrower: If a crop that has been approved for use by the USDA is the subject of a court order vacating that approval, this law gives the Secretary of Agriculture the power to allow the continued use of that crop in the interim while the court-mandated review is conducted. Thus, (1) the Secretary has discretion to condition the use as necessary, (2) it applies to crops that have already been approved, and (3) it applies only during the period while the review is conducted. Certainly this is something that Monsanto wants, but given the way administrative law works in the US, it is also not a totally unreasonable provision: administrative decisions are regularly struck down on purely procedural grounds, and the re-reviews can be time consuming and will often reach the same conclusion anyway. This law prevents the procedural hurdles from impacting GMOs that can be useful now.

I can see why people would oppose this law; on the assumption that courts will mostly be striking down GMO approvals on findings of harmful effects, it could allow continued use of harmful GMOs. But that’s not how most administrative rulings are likely to be grounded, and in any case if that situation ever came up, the USDA could add significant conditions to the temporary permits that would effectively restrict the use to experimental settings.

Re: your remarks on conspiracy theories, you are correct, I was using the term unscientifically and pejoratively. By it, I mean that the worry that tyrannical governments or corporations might use GMOs to quietly exterminate particular groups of people is not a concern I see as having much merit, and certainly it is not one supported by any evidence. It should be trivially easy to detect such attempts, e.g. is produce sold in poor areas or covered by food stamps more likely to have compounds know to cause infertility? I am open to a study advancing that finding, but I am very confident that no such finding has been or will be made.

If the best argument against GMOs is that a global or even national conspiracy to target certain groups for extinction might employ them, I would consider the net benefits of GMOs to be established.

44

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p5A30sufZQ[/youtube]