GMO's and the Naturalistic Fallacy

People that are particularly opposed to GMO's like to reference the original ideals of the organic food movement. As Stephen Barret, quoting Robert Rodale, describes it, organic originally means

Food grown without pesticides; grown without artificial fertilizers; grown in soil whose humus content is increased by the additions of organic matter, grown in soil whose mineral content is increased by the application of natural mineral fertilizers; has not been treated with preservatives, hormones, antibiotics, etc.

For the record, I think these are very worthy ideals. I just differ in how I think we can actually achieve them. Unfortunately, we can't actually feed ourselves using "purely organic" techniques activists advocate. This was already true probably 50 or so years ago. The modern organic industry admits this too. As it is defined in the US, organic amounts to little more than a label to make you pay more for a product that is essentially the same. It amounts to nothing more than a bunch of giant companies preying on your bucolic fantasies about food production. 

These fantasies can be effectively summarized as the "naturalistic fallacy." It is the insistence that anything grown in the "natural way," however that's defined, is somehow better for you. That's obviously not true. Plenty of things can be "natural" and incredibly dangerous. Thousands of plants are poisonous. E. coli is a naturally occurring thing and catching it is still a rotten experience.

Even though organic food companies love to play up the "natural" side of their products, It's a common myth that organic somehow means "chemical free." While many of the massive food companies peddling organic products prey on the fact that you think that, it's absolutely not true. Organic farming uses lots of chemicals, and many of them are incredibly dangerous to human health. The two most popular of these are copper sulfate and pyrethrum, both of which are highly dangerous neurotoxins. In a report to Parliament in 1999, the Committee on European Communities actually concluded that copper sulfate is more toxic to humans than any synthetic pesticide, and it provides no additional environmental benefits either. In fact, that toxic copper solution that organic farmers use as a pesticide is not biodegradable, staying within the soil forever.

By amount of food produced, organic farmers actually use more pesticides. This becomes especially true once you start considering the amount of pesticide reduction offered by the newest generation of GM products. The infamous Bt protein that Alex Jones rants about in corn is regularly sprayed by organic farmers. Since it's applied externally, you have to spray it a lot. In India, for example, switching to Bt cotton has cut pesticide use by something like 80 percent.

But that's just pesticides. What about fertilizer use, which is causing "eutrophication," the poisoning of our water supply by the addition of too many foreign nutrients? Organic fertilizers (i.e animal manure) are just as guilty as artificial fertilizers. We also know that these fertilizers are incredibly dangerous, since they contain things like e. coli and salmonella. The e. coli outbreak from organic bean sprouts that started in Germany is just one of many examples of the problems with organic fertilizer. So, no, in this regard we can't really consider the chemical agents used in organic fertilizer safer either.

If you go back to the Mark Lynas article, you'll see that land usage is not some trite issue. It's a fundamental part of the debate, as it is a direct measurement of the impact agriculture makes on the environment. And it's not just yields either. Organic farms use at least a third more land as conventional farms, since manuring means leaving unproductive fields to sit for long periods of time (and you need to have animals around to supply that). If we switched exclusively to organic farming, for example, pretty much all of the world's forests would have to be chopped down. How is this an improvement?

Food activists are creating a false dichotomy by insisting that organic farming is somehow superior to conventional methods. All forms of technology, including GMO's, have an important role to play if we are to address the very real environmental challenges of the next twenty years. Using genetic engineering, for example, we will be able to develop staple the crops with the ability to fix their own nitrogen in the soil. This would be a huge environmental benefit, eliminating the need for most fertilizers. We will get even better at developing crops that do not need pesticides, respond better to droughts and provide much-needed nutrients to the world's poor. But getting there requires a much healthier attitude towards science. We have to drop our gut reactions to things that might seem initially scary, while conditioning ourselves not to fall for common myths because we find the labeling (like "natural" or "organic") to be emotionally satisfying.

GMOs and Waste

Waste is another red herring in the GMO debate that often comes up. That's not to say that food waste is not a huge global problem. It is. As Rebecca Smithers writes in The Guardian,

In the face of United Nations predictions that there could be about an extra 3 billion people to feed by the end of the century and growing pressure on the resources needed to produce food, including land, water and energy, the IME is calling for urgent action to tackle this waste.

Their report, Global Food; Waste Not, Want Not, found that between 30% and 50% or 1.2-2bn tonnes of food produced around the world never makes it on to a plate.

In the UK as much as 30% of vegetable crops are not harvested due to their failure to meet retailers' exacting standards on physical appearance, it says, while up to half of the food that is bought in Europe and the US is thrown away by consumers.

And about 550bn cubic metres of water is wasted globally in growing crops that never reach the consumer. Carnivorous diets add extra pressure as it takes 20-50 times the amount of water to produce 1 kilogramme of meat than 1kg of vegetables; the demand for water in food production could reach 10–13 trillion cubic metres a year by 2050.

It would be really nice if we could solve of the problems in the global food system using only waste reduction policies. And I would love to see more food saved as it would lead to more environmentally sustainable outcomes in general.

Unfortunately, there's a couple of problems with ending food waste as a perfect panacea. Both are economic in nature. A good portion of the food wasted was purchased and then spoiled, so there is no way to stop that. The food wasted due to farming practices might not have any use since you would expect farmers to sell this at any available market if they could.

Expanding the market is an option, but understand that this is hard with perishable things like food products. (Non-perishable food items, by definition, are not easily wasted so they have to be ruled out of this issue). Without expanding the market, you need to somehow alter behavior in the West. This would also be hard, since they derive no direct benefit from this (you're doing this to feed the poor). Look, for example, how hard it is just to make Americans recycle.

There is a second economic issue. It does not benefit people in poor countries much to have Westerners flood their markets with cheap food. This reduces their GDP, for example, and it probably ensures that they continue to suffer from poverty. Instead, you would want them to adopt farming practices that increase yields, as this leads directly to economic benefits for poor farmers. This is the primary benefit of using GM products, and we have seen this happen across a range of technologies. A report from PG economics has some of the impressive conclusions,*

• Mexico - yield increases with herbicide tolerant soybean of 9 percent.
• Romania – yield increases with herbicide tolerant soybeans have averaged 31 percent.
• Philippines – average yield increase of 15 percent with herbicide tolerant corn.
• Philippines – average yield increase of 24 percent with insect resistant corn.
• Hawaii – virus resistant papaya has increased yields by an average of 40 percent.
• India – insect resistant cotton has led to yield increases on average more than 50 percent.

This isn't to say that people concerned with food waste are wrong, per se. The West would benefit enormously from saving more of its food, as it would allow us to grow enough food to feed ourselves with the minimum amount of inputs (the very definition of sustainability). Sustainability will also be important in poorer countries too, since they will want to preserve as many of their resources and natural places as possible.

But most importantly, if you care about malnutrition in poor countries, you want to help them develop. GMOs are not the exclusive cure to this issue (institutions, trade and capital expansion are also crucial too), but it is a technology that helps provide that possibility.

*Although being in the biotech industry themselves, PG Economics has incentives to overstate the benefits of its products. Buyer beware.

Empiricism and GMO's

Despite the overwhelming empirical evidence on the safety of GMO's some of my friends still refuse to leave organic foods for other alternatives. You may be surprised to hear this, given the content of my previous post, but I fully support them making that choice. My only problem is with those on the Left (and Greenpeace in particular) forcing their choices onto others and the usage of patent nonsense all along the way. And the methods they've chosen to use for this force-feeding of values are sick too. I've done enough talking about all that already.

That's the huge irony in the whole labeling debate: people that want to avoid industrial agriculture already have organic food. It's (mostly) clearly labeled. You might not like the organic standard (I think some of the exceptions are absurd), but the non-GMO food is basically labelled for everyone interested.

Your choice is there, and it's clear. Go and seize the day. No one from my side has any interest in removing your choice. Nor will that change.

But making the choice of organic and only organic, you're also committing an intellectual fallacy that needs to be addressed. All problems have to be treated with the same intellectual rigor and basic decision process. There are no exceptions. This process is pretty simple too, as you apply it every day, all the time to make the huge number of decision you need to survive.

Take the decision to talk on a cell phone, for example. Thus far, we have not proven that cell phones, if used consistently for 50+ years, will cause cancer. The technology hasn't been around long enough for that "test" to be undertaken yet. But there is a chance that when used consistently for decades straight, they might. There is also some chance that all of the current research about cell phone safety could become moot because of a particular quirk in 15G technology that allows our alien overlords to seize control of our brains. Who knows? The future is uncertain.

Similarly, I don't know with total certainty that my boss will never barge into my office, leap across my desk and bite my face off in the future. Lacking perfect foresight, I face fundamental uncertainty about this. Who knows what will happen when that chemical stash in the middle of the Aral Sea explodes?

In both situations, I use empirical observation about personal occurrences and similar accounts to make a forecast of the future. My cell phone has not caused a problem to me or anyone close to me thus far (although the aliens may want me to think that), so I go on using it. Similarly for my boss. Since there is a large number of observations about this particular incidence, I can conclude that I have a high probability of being safe.

Now, those examples may be trite, but look at what so many people are doing with GMO's. They are throwing out fundamental decision-making tools to make an argument they find emotionally satisfying. There is twenty years of data, hundreds of millions of meals consumed and the expert opinion of the world's leading scientific bodies all pointing to the conclusion that GMO's pose very little risk. My basic assumption, based on empirical analysis, following the same technique that governs all of my other decisions, has to be that they probability of risk from GMO's is very low. With each passing year, that probability also has to decrease.

Now, if something bad happens, all of these assumptions will change. As Keynes said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" If even a single person died of eating a GMO, my assumed personal risk has to increase. Similarly, if I was in a situation where there was not a whole lot of prior information to follow (like my future prospects in a cooking school) or the data was intentionally constrained (housing prices have increase for the last 5 years!!!), my assessment of risk has to be much higher. But with GMO's, we're not in that situation. We know, for the entire history of this technology, that the products delivered to market have been essentially OK. Those situations that stand out (like a type of tomato that caused allergic reactions in mice in testing), have all kept specific types of GM food off of the market because on the security measures we have in place. This should make you even more confident about their safety.

This is what I think is so great about Lynas' speech. The scientific method (and what I described above is essentially the Bayesian approach) should not be selectively applied based on our ideological preferences. At the same time, we also don't get to be intellectually lazy. A conclusion that something has a high or low probability of occurrence has to be backed by strong empirical evidence and that evidence has to be constantly refreshed. But this basic rule says GMO's are OK. Just like it says that climate change is a big problem, as are the resource constraints formed by a growing population experiencing broad economic development.

In the meantime, there are serious problems that GMOs can solve, and the people suffering from poverty and malnutrition right now don't need us to wait 10-15 years to solve them. They deserve better than that. It's ridiculous for governments to be still interfering with food products that have been in testing for 5 years within an industry that has proven, at least thus far, to be safe. It's time to end this debate. Take the technology we have and go solve our pressing problems. We have no excuse for waiting.

The Anti-Science Left

Environmentalist Mark Lynas delivered an amazing speech at the recent Oxford Farming Conference on the irrationality of the Left's opposition to GM food products. You should really take the time to listen to both the speech and Q&A, but the prepared speech gets to the heart of everything.



The key to his speech is the following paradox: when it comes to climate science, the Left is almost immediate to chastise the Right for being anti-science. But when things turn to food, the Left is now on the exact opposite side of scientific consensus. In fact, we should all be eating GM crops to reduce the impact that agriculture has on the greater environment. The damage to the earth through pesticides, carbon consumption and expanded land use are substantial, and GM crops offer the only viable way for reducing our impact in the future.

The internet is literally swamped by BS on GMOs. People are know to be especially touching about their food, since it touches a revulsion, a characteristic we developed for survival. Nonetheless, the view on among consensus bodies is pretty clear. There is nothing risky about consuming organic foods, and nearly every major health organization and scientific body confirms this.  What's more, there is no clear evidence that organic foods are any healthier.

Hundreds of millions of meals containing GM foods have been eaten over the last two decades, and there has not been a single documented case of someone getting sick because the food was GM. These products are already subject to an incredible amount of scrutiny and review. This will continue into the future, just as it continues for every product meant for human consumption. There is literally nothing to be gained by forcing further scrutiny, or banning these products.

Maybe you disagree. But understand that you disagree with every major scientific body when doing so, including the Royal Society, the National Academies of Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, three of the most prestigious scientific bodies in the world. The left often accuses the right of being anti-science, but by being irrationally anti-GM, you're doing the exact same, progress-inhibiting thing.

Doing so, for example, the Left has ruined the livelihood and threatened the lives of scientists in China, by stirring up GMO fears about a vitamin-A carrying form of rice that could dramatically reduce malnutrition in that country. They have convinced autocratic governments that scientists should be imprisoned for trying to develop a more sustainable food system. They attack public research foundations (literally tearing publicly-funded test crops from the ground) and encourage bureaucratic interference so great that only the biggest corporations in the world can actually conduct this kind of research. They falsify data and stir up controversy, treating science the same way tobacco companies did in the 60s and 70s.

Not only is their behavior irrational, ideological and plainly stupid, it is morally reprehensible. They force their aesthetic views onto a food system where other people would dramatically benefit from different choices, and they have no concern for the extensive damage that they cause. This is the worst kind of zealotry.

Climate change and continued population growth will put tremendous pressure on the planet to produce enough food over the next few decades. We should be doing everything we can to meet these challenges, and we should be utilizing every resource that we have. Instead, the environmental left insists on discarding our most promising technologies for reasons that have literally no scientific justification. They are on the wrong side of progress, and it's time for this to stop.