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sabotabbyIt's almost New Year's! I don't do resolutions or year-in-review posts anymore; I guess I just don't see much of a point. I always end up roughly the same person, if drastically more hungover, on the 1st as I was on the 31st. Case in point: I'm up, drinking my morning coffee with a cat on my wrist, and arguing about conspiracy theories at The Other Place.
This is mostly a post about Monsanto, if you are going to be upset by my opinions about Monsanto and/or GMOs. A lot of people tend to be.
A fellow educator posted a link, with his added commentary, "Very disturbing."
The original post linked to an article from Health Impact News (no, I'm not going to give them the hits), a site which boasts that it brings you, quote, "News that Impacts Your Health that Other Media Sources May Censor!" Sounds legit, right? The headline, "MIT Researcher: Glyphosate Herbicide will Cause Half of All Children To Have Autism by 2025" sounds even more so.
Wake up, sheeple!
The cool thing is that I don't even need to read the article to know it's bullshit. I can just look at the headline. I read it anyway, but it was exactly what you'd expect. I posted a quick response last night, "On the plus side, it's almost certainly not true!"* and left it at that.
The fellow responded, Eeyore-like, "I hope you're right."
I replied that I was, because it was pseudoscience. The thing with the conspiracy inclined mind, though, is once they get a bone, they don't wanna let go of it.
Him: So are you of the opinion that Monsanto's claims are solid?
The stats reported from their CDC in the article are valid. The rate of autism in children born in 1992 was 1 in 150. Born in 2002 was 1 in 68. That's an astonishing change. Whether from round up or another cause it needs to be understood.
At this point, I was unconscious, but fortunately another woman had stepped in to point out various factors that have nothing to do with Monsanto that lead to a higher rate of autism diagnoses.
Him: Thanks [Sensible Lady]. I've been considering that possibility also. But how do we know if the hypothesis you offer here is correct? What evidence is there to support this? And if it is correct does this increase represent a recognition of something that has previously existed but gone unrecognized or is it a manifestation of overzealousness in finding medical/scientific explanations for everything that is not considered "normal"?
Here you can see a fundamental contradiction in woo-mentality. They are fucking terrified of autism. But! They are also terrified of the mental health system and are against psychiatric drugs under any circumstances. You can see the gears frantically turning in opposite directions—on the one hand, our tampering with nature is causing mental health problems, on the other hand, mental health problems don't really exist. Um um BIG PHARMA something something.
Him: Additionally I find this article disturbing because of the reported increased use of round up in food production. This in itself is cause for concern in my mind. Monsanto's claims that it is not harmful are not reassuring to me.
Me: It's not that I trust Monsanto's claims about anything. It's that there's a booming industry devoted to making claims about Monsanto and health in general and I trust that even less.
So, eh, don't know if it'll get through. But maybe I planted a little seed of critical thinking, there?
And since that seed is a GMO, science and skeptism will almost certainly triumph!
Happy New Year, sheeple!
* I'd take out the "almost certainly" if I hadn't been hungover at the time.
This is mostly a post about Monsanto, if you are going to be upset by my opinions about Monsanto and/or GMOs. A lot of people tend to be.
A fellow educator posted a link, with his added commentary, "Very disturbing."
The original post linked to an article from Health Impact News (no, I'm not going to give them the hits), a site which boasts that it brings you, quote, "News that Impacts Your Health that Other Media Sources May Censor!" Sounds legit, right? The headline, "MIT Researcher: Glyphosate Herbicide will Cause Half of All Children To Have Autism by 2025" sounds even more so.
Wake up, sheeple!
The cool thing is that I don't even need to read the article to know it's bullshit. I can just look at the headline. I read it anyway, but it was exactly what you'd expect. I posted a quick response last night, "On the plus side, it's almost certainly not true!"* and left it at that.
The fellow responded, Eeyore-like, "I hope you're right."
I replied that I was, because it was pseudoscience. The thing with the conspiracy inclined mind, though, is once they get a bone, they don't wanna let go of it.
Him: So are you of the opinion that Monsanto's claims are solid?
The stats reported from their CDC in the article are valid. The rate of autism in children born in 1992 was 1 in 150. Born in 2002 was 1 in 68. That's an astonishing change. Whether from round up or another cause it needs to be understood.
At this point, I was unconscious, but fortunately another woman had stepped in to point out various factors that have nothing to do with Monsanto that lead to a higher rate of autism diagnoses.
Him: Thanks [Sensible Lady]. I've been considering that possibility also. But how do we know if the hypothesis you offer here is correct? What evidence is there to support this? And if it is correct does this increase represent a recognition of something that has previously existed but gone unrecognized or is it a manifestation of overzealousness in finding medical/scientific explanations for everything that is not considered "normal"?
Here you can see a fundamental contradiction in woo-mentality. They are fucking terrified of autism. But! They are also terrified of the mental health system and are against psychiatric drugs under any circumstances. You can see the gears frantically turning in opposite directions—on the one hand, our tampering with nature is causing mental health problems, on the other hand, mental health problems don't really exist. Um um BIG PHARMA something something.
Him: Additionally I find this article disturbing because of the reported increased use of round up in food production. This in itself is cause for concern in my mind. Monsanto's claims that it is not harmful are not reassuring to me.
Me: It's not that I trust Monsanto's claims about anything. It's that there's a booming industry devoted to making claims about Monsanto and health in general and I trust that even less.
There are a few ways to test claims made on online only sources. If the title is "X drastic thing will happen by X specific date," it is almost certainly exaggerated or fabricated. If I can't find corroboration on legitimate websites (this link appears to be from a conspiracy site), the information in it is likely questionable. And if it references something that intrinsically causes panic but is not all that well understood like autism, I'm going to feel very comfortable calling hoax.
What [Sensible Lady] said re: autism rates. Actually, there is a correlation between sales of organic food and autism:
Which is a neat explanation of why correlation does not equal causation.
I don't know if this particular pesticide is more harmful than those traditionally used or not. Pesticides generally are, which is why, unlike most lefties, I support more research into GMOs, which reduce the need for pesticides.
I do know, however, that autism-related scares are harmful in two ways. The "vaccines cause autism" belief, published in a fraudulent study and promoted by Jenna McCarthy, has killed children by allowing a resurgence of preventable diseases. It has also sent the message to people with autism that we, as a society, would prefer they die of polio than be non-neurotypical. That scares me so much more than anything Monsanto does. My favourite kid in the world has autism, and difficult as his life is, I'm not sure that anyone who knows him would want his weird little brain to be different. I guess that's why this issue resonates so much with me and scare articles send me into a rage; because I think they devalue unique lives like his.
Finally, here's a useful checklist on how to spot pseudoscience:
So, eh, don't know if it'll get through. But maybe I planted a little seed of critical thinking, there?
And since that seed is a GMO, science and skeptism will almost certainly triumph!
Happy New Year, sheeple!
* I'd take out the "almost certainly" if I hadn't been hungover at the time.
