Friday, June 10, 2005

Science, Schmience

NO SURPRISES

Recent research suggests that rats fed with genetically modified corn exhibited health problems including shrunken kidneys and blood changes that could indicate immune-system damage or tumours. However, much information contained in the 1,139 page document announcing the findings will not be released. Monsanto claims it "contains confidential business information which could be of commercial use to our competitors," but the brief research summary was alarming enough that UK government ministers and scientists are pressing for more information. The study is likely to make the ongoing debate over GM foods in the European Union even more rancorous. It's also likely to be seen by some as vindication of the research carried out by
Arpad Pusztai, who seven years ago found similar results in rats eating GM potatoes, and was subsequently vilified and driven out of the scientific world.
(copied from Independent.co.uk)

The thing about Arpad Puzstai's work was that it was not treated by the scientific method. Science would have said "H'm this is odd and unexpected, let us repeat his experiments and see if we get the same results".

Instead his findings were treated with the Scholastic/Inquisatorial Method :
"AARGH, HERESY! bURN!! BIND!! TORTURE!! HIDE!!!! OBFUSCATE!!!!"

But people do not know this, because journalists, the class charged with the duty of informing the unblogged masses, think that science is what comes out of the mouths of people called scientists.

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