Once A Believer, Always A Believer?

Bill Nye ‘the science guy’

I have been reading articles and posts lately about the recent ‘debate’ between Bill Nye the Science Guy and Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham.  If you don’t know what I’m referring to, just google “Bill Nye Ken Ham” and you’ll get a long list of articles and posts to choose from, all with a slightly different spin on the event. (The full debate video is available here.) Yes, I sat through all two-and-a-half-hours of it.

Many in the science crowd question whether giving open air space to the absurd and ignorant assumption that the earth is only 6000 years old could be counterproductive, meaning should science even give any credence to it whatsoever, especially via a public forum debate?

The young earth creationist argument presented by Ham is of course absolutely annihilated by Nye’s organized reserves of evidence-based facts.  Long story short, Ham’s only evidence for his young earth is, “because the bible says so” and specifically, its first book, Genesis.  The origin of the universe is all explained there and that’s all one needs, apparently.  Fun little facts like, oh, I don’t know, dinosaur bones, layers upon layers of sedimentary rock, radiocarbon dating, the ineptitude of the builders of Noah’s Ark who still somehow constructed a ship that could withstand a horrendous flood with so many animals on board, the fact that there are trees alive today older than Ham’s earth, to name a mere few – are put before Ham but he is not having any of it. [1]

In a post I read at the Richard Dawkins Foundation blog, authors Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay claim that regardless of who won the debate, and of course Nye did by a landslide of evidence, but regardless of that, the most telling statements came from the duo when asked what it would take for either of them to change his mind.  Nye said that any piece of evidence could get him to change his mind.  Ham said that nothing would ever make him change his mind.  Nothing.

Boghossian and Lindsay write:

Beyond creationism or evolution, a vital lesson from this debate should be understanding the consequences of not being able, or not being willing, to change one’s mind in the face of evidence.  Ham and others, whether creationists or global warming deniers, hold the beliefs they do precisely because they refuse to revise their beliefs when presented with new data. What was on stage that night was a tragic display of willful ignorance. […] The way forward is to help people recognize the virtue of being willing to change their beliefs when presented with new evidence. Without that willingness, discussion is impossible, and all we have are “debates” that entrench the beliefs of those already committed to one side of the issue. The critical component, then, to taking someone’s view seriously is their sincere articulation of what it would take to change their belief.

At Sleuth4Health, my takeaway is that there are many parallels between this debate and the one concerning what the public believes about GMOs.  Beliefs are tough nuts to crack, and even if crushed by evidence, they still persist.  It seems to be the rare person who can consider evidence and change views accordingly.

Truth be known, I changed my own beliefs about God many years prior and it was only recently I finally admitted, out loud, to no one but myself, that I am an atheist.  This took 25 years from the time I first questioned my beliefs!  And by no means is it easy to maintain this evidence-based knowledge without constant reinforcement. The whole God thing gets caught in my cross hairs often and doesn’t shake off easily.

So changing my beliefs about GMOs was a cakewalk by comparison, but I am convinced that had the monumental shift in my spiritual beliefs not preceded my examination of evidence regarding GMOs, the conversion to pro-science would never have happened.  Now, taking a step back and looking at all of it, I realize that the two go hand in hand.  If you’re really pro-science, you have to entertain thoughts of atheism just as you have to accept that GMOs have their purpose.  You can’t not.  The evidence says so.

I was recently involved in a comment thread regarding regulation in the organic food industry.  Because I underscored a few comments made by someone else about the gray area in organic regulation, a commenter flung a “god damn you” at me personally because I dared say something in opposition to the organic food industry.  He went on to tell me that I don’t care about health at all and that all I do care about is getting paid by biotech.   So funny, as I have never been paid even one dime from biotech but this shill accusation, which I’ve encountered numerous times elsewhere, persists because, oh I don’t know, there is no better argument maybe?  They’ve taken their best shot and it missed and sputtered into the bushes.  Yet it’s what they believe, that the only type of people who would speak in favor of the use of GMOs are people getting paid to do it.

Try to change the anti-GMO crowd’s beliefs.  Show them reams of evidence.  Usher them to the information that will teach them.

Show creationists the radiocarbon dating of a dinosaur fossil or a tree that has more than 6000 rings.

For most ‘believers’, it still won’t work.

Julee K/Sleuth4Health

email:  sleuth4health@gmail.com

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[1] It should be noted that long time television evangelical host of the 700 Club, Pat Robertson, spoke out strongly against the ‘young earth’ position of creation science.  So, now there is infighting amongst the Christian ranks over this.  Ken Ham then made this statement on his facebook page:

This is really sad. I wonder why Pat Robertson spoke about evolution and the age of the earth on the 700 club yesterday? I wonder if the debate on Tuesday had anything to do with this!

Pat Robertson is so misinformed and deceived. Sad that so many will believe him (who is neither a scientist, nor a Bible scholar rather than open their Bibles and see that evolution and millions of years are totally incompatible with the first 11 chapters of Genesis and rather than think for themselves and check out creationist web sites like Answers in Genesis.

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GMOs In The Land Of Oz

I guess anything and everything is acceptable in the name of entertainment.

Tell people they can lose weight by taking an herb three times a day.  Educate them about the finer points of medicine with gigantic models of body parts, colored liquids and little balls flying around.  Dr. Oz, king of daytime television, trusted physician sporting rock star status.  He seems to be able to say whatever he wants on his show and his viewers lap up his every word and wait with wagging tails in front of their screens for more.

For a period of time, I, too, tuned into this show on a semi-regular basis.  And admittedly, I thought the over-sized medical examples were sophomoric but I still watched.  I was constantly frustrated, though, at how many supplements I was supposed to be taking to be healthy.  Though he claims to not have any ties to the supplement industry, he peddles more snake oil than the best of them out there.  Whether or not he receives kickbacks for reccommeding supplements A to Z probably isn’t even an issue because what he does receive is worth far more  – ratings.  For the period of time that I actually respected Dr. Oz and watched his show in earnest, I collected a basket full of supplements.  I should have known better.  I’m a terrible pill taker – herb, vitamin, prescription drug, doesn’t matter.  A few years from now the colorful pill jars will still be sitting there and I will agonize over whether to toss them or check back with them in another two years.

GMOs In The Land Of Oz

OK, so on to GMOs, Sleuth4Health’s favorite topic!  To my knowledge, Dr. Oz has done three shows on GMOs, or at least a segment of at least three shows has been devoted to GMOs.  The latest iteration of this was a few days ago, February 13, with the main gist of the segment being that GMOs should be labeled and gosh darn it, we have a right to know!  Clearly, that is Oz’s position and he doesn’t even try to conceal it.

Meanwhile, Oz asked for tweets on the subject.  Miles of comment threads simultaneously broke out on his facebook page – a facebook page that boasts 4.1 million likes!  There was no shortage of verbage flying around and as one might suspect, most of it was against GMOs, lauding Oz for speaking out and informing the poor, unsuspecting public on how the food industry is duping us.

I made the decision that since I was once one of these people I should do what I can to inject reason into the comment threads.  I encouraged science types to join me.  I knew I’d get hammered, and I did,  but there were just enough rational thinkers in the thread to keep sanity close and who knows, maybe we reached a few.  It was fun anyway.  It was refreshing to see that our comments were not deleted.

The remainder of my post today consists of a few choice screen grabs from the comment frenzy that ensued and is still going several days later.

To eliminate any confusion, Julie Kay = Julee K/Sleuth4Health.  My first comment on the thread, shown first below has miraculously stayed at the top as a favorite and seems to have received more ‘likes’ than any of the others.  So here here to that!  There is common sense out there in the Land of Oz.

I blacked out all names except for mine.

So far so good.  At this point of course I could post any number of fear driven comments about health dangers, Monsatan, corporates in bed with government and the ever present revolving door, blah blah blah.  It’s all there and chances are, anyone reading this post has seen hundreds of them already.  But I’m going to surgically pluck a few choice comments – for entertainment purposes!  If Oz can do it, so can I.

The last three comments were posted by the same person and kept appearing over and over.  Hence the following comment.

Enter the ol’ “Genetic Roulette” card.  Someone had to play it and it set me off.

I don’t think many people bothered to read the whole thing… so I’m posting it here!  I was on a roll 🙂

The comment thread is still up so you can go and see these and hundreds more.  I don’t think it was a waste of my time.  Like I said earlier, one never knows what influence their writing might be having on someone.  Words can be SO powerful and people can and do change their minds.  I am living proof of that!

~Julee K/Sleuth4health

email:  sleuth4health@gmail.com

Excellent, Compact Interviews on the topic of GMOs

Awhile back I did a two-part video interview series regarding my views on GMOs with Greenstate TV.  You can view parts one and two (in reverse order) here and here.

Today I am posting Greenstate TV interviews with two other people whom I admire greatly.  Specifically these two were absolutely instrumental in my realization that GMOs can actually benefit our planet.  Fourat Janabi did an excellent 3-part interview with Greenstate TV just before I completed mine.  Kevin Folta is the most recent hot-off-the-press interviewee,  in two parts so far, with, I am assuming based on his vast knowledge,  more likely to come.

Part two of Folta’s interview appears first below.  He is one of the esteemed scientist involved with Biology Fortified, mentioned in my last post, but also mentions the very topics I touched on in said post titled GMOs Can Be Fun!

Dr. Kevin Folta, is one of the most outspoken voices of science one will encounter in any type of media.  What I really admire about this guy is that he just won’t let people go on being wrong.  He does everything he can to present the facts.  Folta is a true teacher.  I am a teacher myself so I don’t make that claim lightly!

Here are the Janabi interviews, conducted before mine were:

Fourat Janabi Part One

Fourat Janabi Part Two

Fourat Janabi Part Three

Disclaimer:  Yes, Greenstate TV is sponsored by the biotech firm Syngenta.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good interview series.  It is a good interview series.  All it needs is a bigger audience.

GMOs Can Be Fun!

Frank N. Foode – Now you can take him home!

It’s been just short of a year since I’ve had the pleasure of being among an at-large group of people who regularly speak up in favor of science.  Specifically I am referring to genetic engineering, transgenic technology, genetic modification – call it what you will – in the realm of crops and food.  This ‘group’ is worldwide and is comprised mainly of plant geneticists, farmers, industry professionals, other scientists and pro-science types who wish to spread the word that science really does have our backs here.  I have met only one of these individuals face to face but am in steady contact with the others via blogs and social networking.  It is my hope to meet more of this esteemed group over time.

I respect these folks a lot.  Their message – that genetic engineering is a useful tool in agriculture – is clear and makes sense to me.   (It is also no secret that that was not always the case but that’s a whole other story and you can find it on my blog if you poke around). [1]

One of the individuals I refer to above, PhD candidate Karl Haro von Mogel,  co-founded the website Biology Fortified, a site I have linked to numerous times here at Sleuth4Health.  It is the place to get educated about GMOs.  Do you want research?  User friendly articles written by experts?  You’ll find it all there, along with an impressive board of directors and list of contributing authors.  Karl knows his stuff.  He is not a shill for the industry, is not on the payroll of Monsanto,  DuPont or any other multinational.  He, like other plant geneticists, is someone I can unequivocally say deserves our public trust.  Yes this is a strong statement I am making but I stand by it wholeheartedly.  I’ve been in contact with too many scientists now and to put it simply, they aren’t out to poison us!  What they want is to use the best that science has to offer to help the food supply, do more with less, help the planet, help people.  And sometimes that ‘best that science has to offer’ is genetic engineering.  The technology is a tool among other tools.

Let me offer a close-to-home example of just one of the multitude of ways biotech can be a tool we really need right now.  Lately I’ve been reading and hearing a lot about the severe drought conditions in California.  I live in Oregon and we are experiencing a bit of that drought ourselves this year.  Most of the produce I see in stores in my area comes from California, with Oregon and Washington a close second and third.  Drought conditions mean more demand, less supply and higher prices.  That affects me directly.  Biotech can offer us drought resistant seeds.  Monsanto has brought a drought tolerant corn seed to market.  (Once again, I am linking to Biology Fortified.)  It seems to me that this is a super relevant avenue for biotech research.  The Colorado River, a major source of water for California, is drying up!  I’m hoping someone in-the-know will comment.

I write all this because Karl Haro von Mogel has launched a kickstarter campaign regarding his cuddly creation affectionately known as Frank N. Foode.  Frank is a little plush character, eleven on the cuteness scale, designed to make genetic engineering approachable and dare I say even fun?  I love his approach here.  Lets take the stigma and fear out of one of the most promising technologies our planet has right now as we forge ahead into an era when the effects of climate change become the present and are nolonger off somewhere in the future.

Frank wants to hit the big time!

Here is information about the campaign and a lighthearted, funny video starring Karl and Frank.  Enjoy!  And if you believe in this cause, please support the effort!  I tried to embed the video but had no success.  To see it – and you must –  you’ll have to click here.

Julee K/Sleuth4Health

email:  sleuth4health@gmail.com

Here is a sample of the cast of science heavyweights involved with Biology Fortified and the kickstarter campaign.

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[1] See Science Is Laughing At Us

This Graphic Is Really Bugging Me

Okay.  I’ve seen this graphic one too many times and I feel compelled to counteract its very misleading and frankly, naive, message.  While in the science community it does little more than evoke chortles and eye-rolling, it is nonetheless a meme shared by hundreds of thousands of well-meaning but sadly under-informed consumers who place halos above organic food.  You’ll see the example below, followed by a graphic showing what it should be.  For more ingredient lists of natural, or whole, foods, see my post What Is a Natural or Whole Food, exactly?

Folks, I am certainly no science scholar and I remind readers of this often, but my common sense tells me that “strawberry” is not an ingredient!  A strawberry is organic matter that has cells, DNA, and is made up of a host of chemicals just like WE are!

Just like all living things are!

Widely circulated graphic claiming that “strawberry” is an ingredient. I don’t know its origin.

This is a little more in the ballpark – and funny too.

Thanks to Art Canfi for letting me use this.

~Julee K/Sleuth4Health

email sleuth4health@gmail.com