Keith – you mention the “wide-ranging” political agenda associated with the “food movement.” It seems to me that thus far your focus related to that agenda is pretty much limited to what you consider “fear-mongering” about “junk science.”

It seems to me that other aspects of the agenda, as discussed in the article you linked, are also certainly worthy of mention. In fact, I’d say that they are, potentially at least, far more important. I’ve mentioned to you in the past that there are some folks doing good work with urban farming – in particular educating inner-city youth about diet and nutrition. If you’d like to write something about that, I could give you some contacts.

Oh. Look at that.

I think you are being noticed. Required reading the the halls of academia.

Nicely done.

Can’t wait to watch it, but it probably won’t be until the weekend. Will need to have more plant-based ethanol in the house for an hour+ of Pollan.

Hmmm.

“I understand that the more conservatives adds …were the most effective… I think that pushing too hard on that study…..when I said there was something unfair about the attack on the study, the important thing to know is, this study in the judgement of a lot of scientists I respect, was not adequate in terms of the number of animals in terms of the protocol….however, the scientist was actually using the exact same protocol same kind of rats as used by Monsanto used to get the products approved in Europe…”

So the reason that Pollan said the criticism was in “some ways unfair.” — because on the one hand the protocol was deemed adequate to justify the technology (in Europe) but on the other hand deemed inadequate to reject the technology. Perhaps an argument you disagree with – but I’d say more “nuanced” than how you presented it.

Pollan is clearly making an argument about political expediency. That doesn’t mean, however, that he  believes that the choice provided by labeling is meaningless, and your certainty that you can know that what he says is different than what he believes is an inherent weakness to the argument you’re presenting. You can’t know such things for certain.

From what I’ve seen, some of the arguments against labeling have some merit, but:’(1) I think that skepticism that GMOs have been proven safe beyond any shadow of doubt is understandable – even though I also accept the argument that GMOs have not scientifically been proven to be dangerous, and even though some people have promoted “junk science” or other weak strategies  to make that argument. This is a question about decision-making in the face of uncertainty. Minimizing uncertainty doesn’t work in either direction.

(2) I think it gets tricky to when you try to determine on what scientific grounds the freedom of choice should be determined/limited. If people hear the arguments on both sides and want a choice about GMO labeling – even if others think that choice isn’t based on sound science, that’s the messy part of living in a democracy. Is there a potential downside from a “tyranny of the majority” standpoint? Sure. But the messiness of democratic processes doesn’t mean that they are worse than the available options, IMO. 

(3) Are there potentially better ways forward than simplistic, binary labeling requirements resulting from popular-vote referendums? Sure, maybe. Popular-vote referendums are inherently problematic, especially in how they play out in Cali, and certainly so in this case. But on the other hand, I don’t buy the downside arguments I’ve seen some on the other side of this issue present. The potential for  better options does not mean that the type of labeling associated with the referendum would have  produced worse outcomes than the status quo. I haven’t yet seen a convincing argument in that regard. Do you have a link that to something that you think makes a solid case? 

On any side here, what I think is most problematic is when people take such complex and messy issues and simplify them to promote an agenda. I don’t see Pollan doing that. I see him advocating for exploration of the nuances.

@Joshua #11:

The question of choice is a fundamental political and philosophical issue.

Precisely. This is a political and philosophical issue. And we do not do mandatory government labeling for political and philosophical issues. We label for evidence-based matters.

If you have philosophical issues with this process, then you and the folks who have this philosophical issue should set your rules, monitor them, punish the breeches, and pay for the label. See “Kosher”.

Making the government label things for any groups philosophical objections is a very unwise strategy.

After all, has the precise human contribution to greenhouse gas
warming been established “beyond any shadow of doubt”? Has climate
sensitivity been established “beyond any shadow of doubt”? And have the
projected impacts of climate change been established beyond any shadow
of doubt?”

The obvious answer to all three is no.

I agree. The answer is no. So what is your point?

Yet if we apply the standard
you have for GMOs to climate science, then skepticism of climate change
would be warranted. 

I really don’t understand what you mean here about applying “the same standard.” Skepticism of that sort that accurately reflects uncertainty is warranted w/r/t climate change. In fact, the iconic statement of “most warming” very likely to be anthropogenically attributed reflects that kind of warranted skepticism (although whether it accurately quantifies uncertainty is a valid subject for debate, IMO).. I have no problem with skepticism.about climate change.  (It is “skepticism” that I have a problem with. Skepticism based on open approach to uncertainty is entirely justified. What isn’t justified, IMO, is when uncertainty is used in an unwarranted fashion to serve an agenda – and I would apply that standard w/r/t both issues.

But that all is really a side issue, IMO. The analogy doesn’t work, IMO – because the contexts are not parallel enough. My views on climate change are almost entirely unrelated to my views about labeling GMOs. I think it is more interesting and useful to look at the labeling issue unto itself without tying it in to finger-pointing, generalizations about “liberals,” etc. (btw, FWIW, although in today’s debates the term “liberal” is loosely applied to folks on the left – as a technical matter because of historical context, I don’t identify as a liberal).  I find simplifying these arguments to tie beliefs to “liberals” or “conservatives” to miss the more important point. The problems we see in how people reason in these debates is not particular to one political ideology or the other.

I am not saying that the safety of GMOs have to be held to an unreasonable standard (safe beyond any shadow of a doubt) before their use is allowed. To allow their usage, extensive study that proves no significant dangers is enough to allow for their usage, IMO. I’m not suggesting that GMOs be banned. I’m suggesting that if people vote to support legislation requiring labeling – because the safety of GMOs has not been proven to their satisfaction -  it is another kettle of fish entirely. There is a straight-forward argument that people have a right to have more information about their food, and that people have a right to make decisions on that basis. Government has a role to play in ensuring those rights and responding to the will of the electorate on such matters. Those rights, and the role of government in ensuring them, can potentially go to far – but I don’t see that being the case if a majority people want GMOs labeled. The protection of those rights doesn’t justify the promotion of “junk science” to advance the cause of labeling – just as concerns about the possible over-extension of  those rights doesn’t justify  hyperbole on the other side of the issue, such as arguments that millions will starve if labels are required. 

And on top of all of that, Keith – even if I am applying a double standard, my political identification is not the explanatory causality – well-established cognitive and psychological influences in how people reason in the face of controversy that connects to social, cultural, and political identifications is causal. You are making a basic error w/r/t conflating correlation with causation. Of course liberals apply double-standards. Do you think that is somehow a profound insight? I don’t think so. Isn’t it abundantly obvious that people of all political stripes apply double-standards?  Up to a certain point I think it is useful to point out that the habit of applying double-standards is something that liberals do – as a way of deconstructing arguments that such habits are exclusive to those of one political persuasion as opposed to another. But at a certain point harping on an association for one particular group, IMO, only becomes counterproductive, and only results in more flying Jell-0.

Mary -

Precisely. This is a political and philosophical issue. And we do not do
mandatory government labeling for political and philosophical issues.
We label for evidence-based matters.

Our government legislates based on majority support related to political and philosophical perspectives all the time. I agree that basing legislation on evidence is important, but evaluating evidence is inherently subjective and the evaluation of evidence is rarely (never?) the only criterion used to determine legislation. Expecting otherwise seems unrealistic, IMO. Ultimately, majority public opinion is the hammer. And that’s how it should be – as imperfect as such a system is.  If enough people want the food they buy in the supermarket to be labeled as to GMO content, so be it. If majorities don’t support such labeling, so be it. What I would consider unfortunate is if this issue becomes a distraction from the larger, and more important related issues. I don’t see that being the case, actually. As much focus as this issue of labeling has received, I think that people will move on pretty quickly to examine the more important underlying issues.

The thing is, fear is all that they’ve got. The idea that the modern world is out to get them is at the basis of all this. What else is there?

@Joshua #20: What you said:

Our government legislates based on majority support related to political and philosophical perspectives all the time.

Please show me the mandated food labels that meet this criteria. Or admit that you have moved to goalposts to talk about something else entirely. Evidence, please.

And this:

What I would consider unfortunate is if this issue becomes a distraction from the larger, and more important related issues.

Is also precisely what has happened. The GMO bogeyman has completely distracted people with misleading information. If you banned GMOs tomorrow would you eliminate monocultures, herbicides, or patents–all the things people want this labeling to do? Nope. Not a single one of those goes away.
Brazil labels, I’m told. Why don’t you tell me if that has reduced their monoculture farming.

Tom.  i don’t doubt that for some, the labeling issue is a proxy for fighting to eliminate GMOs. That said – i don’t attrbute that motivation to everyone in favor of labeling.

Waitaminnit. I’m a liberal–very liberal. I believe we need real oversight of food and drugs–we really should have an administrative body to conduct such oversight. 

I believe we should conduct testing to look for effectiveness and harmful side effects of food and drugs and act on the results of those tests. We should also be receptive to new information about them as it arises.

I also think truth in labeling is important–that companies should not mischaracterize the ingredients of prepared foods and should list known allergens.

But the developed world has all that. GMOs have satisfied all those requirements and more. They are safely used by hundreds of millions. As individual products come to market they are evaluated and tested.

If there is demand for foods that do not contain GMOs, then companies will see the opportunity and label their products as GMO-free. 

How does that not solve the problem?

How does that not solve the problem?

It doesn’t solve the problem for the subset of people who want to know whether something they buy at the supermarket contains GMOs.

So the issue was put to a referendum and didn’t pass. If a majority of people voting felt that such labeling should be mandated, would that have been a problem? If the referendum had passed, would there  be a problem with legislation enacted that reflected the wishes of a  majority of stakeholders? If it had passed, would there have been  some concrete problem as an outgrowth of labeling that would have trumped the right of a constituency to vote for regulatory mandates they wanted? Should such referendums be prohibited? If a majority had supported labeling, should it have been prevented in some fashion? How? 

I think that it is interesting to see whether people view direct democracy  processes differently depending on the subject. Are referendums OK on decriminalizing pot, using pot for medical purposes, gay marriage, limiting tax rates, etc., but not OK for labeling GMOs? What is the conceptual difference that isolates labeling of GMOs as selectively inappropriate for ballot referenda?

So just to make sure I understand: Those who want a referendum on labeling of GMOs are statists asking for governments to save us from a horrible future and to impose their will on others, but those who want a referendum to prevent two men from marrying are saving society from the destruction of traditional marriage?

How does the logic work, exactly?

@prasad #31;
Yeah, they learned a lot from the “Doubt is our Product” gang. Lately Jeffrey Smith has had a conference called “Seeds of Doubt”. Greenpeace just launched a video and campaign called “Growing Doubt” (growingdoubt.org). 

It’s such a sad strategy that all these groups hated and denounced when the tobacco companies employed it, and now they are using it.

Joshua -  I read you comment #18, which included this: 

“And on top of all of that, Keith ““ even if I am applying a double standard, my political identification is not the explanatory causality ““ well-established cognitive and psychological influences in how people reason in the face of controversy that connects to social, cultural, and political identifications is causal.” 

and it put me in mind of this quote from G.K. Chesterton: 

Most of the machinery of modern language is labour-saving machinery; and it saves mental labour very much more than it ought. Scientific phrases are used like scientific wheels and piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yet the path of the comfortable. Long words go rattling by us like long railway trains. We know they are carrying thousands who are too tired or too indolent to walk and think for themselves. It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable. If you say “The social utility of the indeterminate sentence is recognized by all criminologists as a part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment,” you can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the gray matter inside your skull. But if you begin “I wish Jones to go to gaol and Brown to say when Jones shall come out,” you will discover, with a thrill of horror, that you are obliged to think. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word “damn” than in the word “degeneration.

#33 Tom Scarf

I just don’t get why certain groups get so fired up over certain topics.

Because the war was effectively won(as you point out, we have organic labeling) but the ‘warriors’ have gone on fighting. Or maybe the war was never about food labeling to begin with. The ‘organic food’ group didn’t bring Monsanto, Dole, Heinz, ADM, General Mills et all to their knees.Personally I think the prior…the organic food movement did bring organic foods and organic labeling to the marketplace…but now that they’ve ‘won’ what are they going to fight for? What further purpose do their lives have?  If you spend 20 or 30 years fighting and organizing for something, what do you do with yourself when ‘the war is over’?

(35) Karl -

That’s a legit criticism, IMO – but even if he got the protocol aspect wrong, he does say that scientists he trusts were highly critical of the study.

Do you think there is any legitimacy to the arguments that the methodologies (at least often) and scope of  industry-funded  studies leaves something to be desired?

Joshua says “It doesn’t solve the problem for the subset of people who want to know whether something they buy at the supermarket contains GMOs.”Well why can’t I have my food labelled to say “it was washed with fluoridated water” or “picked by illegal workers” or “is from a company that contributes to The Republican Party” or whatever I feel like? The salient point is does GMO represent anything so extraordinary that it possess a health risk. Science says “no”. So you don’t get to enforce labeling.

absent any finding that there is a danger, I see no way one can make a case that people have a right to know whether the food is GM or not. It’s not like we tell food producers they must label heir food as Non kosher, even though there is a sizable population who really care to know whether the food is kosher or not. That group’s interest is well served by the market mechanism.
If there s a market for No GMO food, then the food movement should put some capital at risk and start selling it.

I have belonged to a food co-op for many, many years (my parents were founding members some 40 years ago).  A while back there was an initiative amongst some members to have products labeled so as to distinguish those products that came from, or might have come from, illegal Israeli settlements in “occupied”  Palestinian territories.  The issue was put to a vote. The initiative failed. The majority of members felt that such labeling was discriminatory towards Israel, harmful towards Israel, or based on an inherently selective criterion (the thinking was once you started labeling, there could many advocates for any number of various kinds of labels). 

People felt strongly on both sides of the debate. People disagree about these types of things. People advocate for their beliefs, what they want. Some times they win. Sometimes the lose. Life moves on.

What if you could get enough Americans to say they wanted labels that
said “Not Halal” and “Not grown in a Muslim country”. There are plenty
of places in the US you might be able to do that. You think the government should pay for that?

“Government” is comprised of citizens, who are elected to office. As such, I think it should pay for what the constituency says it should pay for. If there were enough votes to pass such a referendum,what would you suggest? Should government officials refuse to conform with the referendum? On what basis? How would it be determined which referenda they should refuse to abide by?

The majority holds the hammer. That’s how it should be, IMO, despite all the imperfections and dangers of such a system. MLK  spoke powerfully about a moral justification for disobedience against unjust laws. Somehow I don’t think that he would have applied that philosophical argument to argue that there is a moral imperative to refuse to label GMOs. 

Joshua makes a telling slide in his defense of labeling. He was asked _why it would be a good thing_ for mandated GMO labeling to exist, if the science shows there’s no health benefit to non-GM food. In response he simply says democratic majorities have the _legal right_ to do it.

Nullius in Verba makes the point that Joshua’s so called transparency is coming into contact with a very real liberty concern here – absent sound reason-based argument, basically Joshua’s side wants to bring the brute power of the state to bear upon producers and consumers who don’t want exactly what he does, instead of just entering the market himself. But set that to one side. Notice that he’s been asked why it would be right, good and proper for his side to impose its whims upon the populace at large without reasons. He simply sidesteps. Someone asks pointedly whether laws mandating “not made with fluoridated water” or “not picked with immigrant labor” or “kosher” (or evolution is a theory?)  labels should also pass by majoritarian fiat. In particular whether all of us would have good reasons to oppose such labels, taking to the courts and to the public to stop them from gaining support.

Again Joshua simply says majorities have rights. Yes Joshua, majorities have large (though contestable and contested) powers. Now answer the question.

I don’t think respect for “democratic authoritarianism” is a distinguishing feature of American liberalism. In California especially I can think of an important issue or two that’ve come up recently where liberals have (righly) opposed the notion that majorities should always prevail. I would diagnose differently: people (generically) think of transparency and think ‘consumers have a right to know.’ They’re not thinking ‘but producers have a right not to be dictated to needlessly.’ That’s not – I think – about any sort of visceral comfort with “authoritarianism.” It’s just all people are consumers, but very few spend much time as manufacturers. If you have legal schemes up for vote that say ‘all stenographers must use recycled paper’ or ‘all soda merchants should sell only small bottle sizes’ or ‘every taxi operator must buy a million dollar medallion’ the same people bridle.

I’d advocate that the best position for science would be on the free flow of information side of this debate. Which I would see as advocating in favor of both democracy and liberty.  To Nullis in Verba, or Prasad, I’d say don’t confuse a fascist corporatist controlled state with “liberty”.

Food labeling as it currently exists is very political with considerable lobbying efforts directed towards legal descriptors whose intent is to obscure rather than inform.

Examples would include the multiple descriptors of substances containing MSG, for example”hydrolyzed soy protein” ; or the current efforts of the corn lobby to back away from their choice of “high fructose corn syrup”.  Their current proposal is “corn sugar”.

Originally they apparently thought that made consumers of high sugar products such as sodas unaware that how much sugar was involved, now it is high fructose corn syrup that seems to have the negative connotation.

To be fair, it should also be noted that some organic luncheon  meat products advertise “no nitrites” but do include celery powder, which contains it.

In times of crisis, for example when cantaloupe was found to be contaminated with listeria, the government was capable, with time, to trace back this outbreak to a single manure contaminated truck on one individual farm, in Colorado.

It seems to me that in this modern era of big data the correct approach is to work to streamline and accentuate this system such that in time, a scan-able code on a supermarket shelf would yield field, water, seed, farming practices, food handling, processing and retail information.

Much of this information exists already, in corporate data banks.  In a democracy, the public has a right to know.

So in the not so distant future, it ought to be possible to know not only the genotype of your food, a broad analysis of its nutritional value and also obtain an analysis as to natural environmental constituents it may have absorbed, such as arsenic (or fluoride, for that matter).  As fields and irrigation waters “salt out’ both of those, and other chemicals, will be of rising concern.   There is considerable powerful science there.

If scientists want to convince the public that concerns regarding GMOs are not valid, the correct approach, IMHO, is more public information not less.  In my opinion, this would lead to greater, although perhaps selective, public acceptance of GMO products.

The corporate forces which opposed the California measure are, in many instance the same forces that have actively and are actively lobbying against chemical and/or food labeling in other venues.  It can’t be said that they always have nutrition, safety or environmental health at the forefront of their agendas.

There was considerable (and valid) griping by scientists that California’s Proposition 37 was poorly written.  The time to start drafting a more comprehensive measure is now. That would be a considerably more useful exercise than sniping at the “food movement”.

#51 Willard

I’d like to know the evidence basis for “made in china”.

Country of origin labeling requirements are for the determination of import duties.

Food ingredient labeling does not depend on some evidence that knowing the particular ingredients is pertinent.

Thank you, Harry.

And what kind of evidence basis does import duties provide?

“To Nullis in Verba, or Prasad, I’d say don’t confuse a fascist corporatist controlled state with “liberty”. Food labeling as it currently exists is very political with
considerable lobbying efforts directed towards legal descriptors whose
intent is to obscure rather than inform.”Gaythia, I would say heal your own movement. It’s goal here is precisely to get a label glommed onto food without scientific evidence, whose intent is to spread fear, in support of ideological goals many of the rest of us, including scientifically minded liberals, don’t share. One does not have to believe in “fascism” to think you shouldn’t be bringing the force of the state to the question of what Pepsico (say) may or may not legally sell me, unless you’ve demonstrated some genuine public interest. And no, that interest isn’t to be found ouroboros-fashion in the very fact that some people like you care for your proposed label. Such people can ask for that label on the marketplace the same way kosher or halal eaters do.

#50,

“I don’t think respect for “democratic authoritarianism” is a distinguishing feature of American liberalism.”

Not as a general moral principle, no, but I would say that there is a distinct and growing authoritarian streak in American (and European) politics. However, in a way, I agree with your diagnosis. While libertarians hold it as a general principle, authoritarians tend to take it more expediently. Their aim is that society should act in accordance with their own wishes, morals, standards, etc. Authoritarians believe that the State should support them in this, and enforce those standards on other people. When it comes to the State enforcing other people’s moral standards on them, they suddenly become more liberal. They work to increase the State’s power over people when in power, but resist it and seek to change the policy when it works against them. There is a continuous spectrum of views, and many positions fall between the two extremes.

People’s positions vary with the circumstances. Even fairly pure libertarians accept the power of the State on pragmatic grounds and the need to bring about change through democratic channels where available even when issues of liberty are involved, and authoritarians will accept there are limits beyond which resistance to the State is moral (Joshua’s MLK reference). But the difference between real-life authoritarians and libertarians is mostly not an ‘always/never’ distinction but a ‘sometimes/never’ one.

There is no, or at least not very much, safety concern with most of the ingredients on food labels.  Those for whom there is a concern, in many cases, such as with allergens, form a very small segment of the population.  I wonder if Mary and others would have supported a voluntary system there.   What a corporation picks as “most profitable” ought to include transparency so that the true social cost could be evaluated.  The absence of secrecy can also lead to greater trust.  So that even in cases where there is no safety or other  negative issue involved, disclosure can serve a constructive purpose in building consumer confidence.  It demonstrates you have nothing to hide and reduces risk perceptions.  David Ropeik has an interesting piece on this over at Big Think.Disclosure is an important value in a democracy.   Rampant capitalism does not lead to free markets.  Secrecy is one mechanism that can be used to short circuit the system.  What were food or medical supplies like in the days before the FDA?  Did consumers really have an informed free choice?  An informed populace is needed to govern effectively. Fostering an attitude of: trust we’re the experts, we’re the ones with economic and political clout, will undermine both democracy and the pursuit of science.

he was simply taking the standard “˜democratic authoritarian’ position
that the majority has the right to impose the rules of society, whatever
they might be.

I’m afraid that you are seeing what you want to see, and as a result read far too much into what I say. First, I am not a “democratic authoritarian. Hardly. In fact, I am quite anti-authority as a general rule. In contrast, I am only stating a simple fact, in the US we live in an imperfect manifestation of a majoritarian democracy. Imperfect as it is, it is better than the alternatives, IMO, and certainly better than some Shangri-La concept of a libertarian state which does not currently exist anywhere on the planet, and which has never existed in the history of the planet – except possibly in a less state-like form when people lived in caves and if they wanted something someone else had they clubbed them over the head or died attempting to do so.

The key difference between your conceptualization of what I think and what I actually think can be seen in your qualification of “…whatever they might be.” The power and/or the right of the majority to impose rules on the minority is not something absolute or static, but exists as a dynamic that changes on both short and long time scales, and that I personally view differently depending on a variety of factors. It is contingent, very much, on the specifics of what kinds of “rules” we are talking about. For example, although the majority at one time in this country had both the right and the power to enslave people based on their skin color, neither case is true any longer.

It is meaningless, IMO, to make some sort of comparison between such questions of majority power and right as referenced by slavery to those referenced by questions such as whether food products should be labeled if they contain GMOs. The sense of scale is so out of proportion, IMO, so as to make the comparison essentially meaningless. That was what I meant by my reference to MLK – and the notion that the context related to MLK could be described as “minor things” seems honestly, quite strange to me. The referendum for GMO labeling failed, but I have to say I find it quite amusing that it seems that there are some folks who feel that if it hadn’t, it would have represented some great injustice.

But no matter how I personally view these issues, the power of the majority, if not necessarily the rights (which are inherently subjective and an outgrowth of power) manifest independently of my beliefs as an individual. I might have some small measure of influence, and some individuals such as president Obama might have a relatively much larger measure of influence, but we don’t live in an actual totalitarians state (as opposed to a non-totalitarian state that some extremist libertarians, and perhaps extremist anarchists, in their binary mindset-Shangri La fantasizing confuse as totalitarian), and as such our reality is that the majority does decide these issues. Whining about that seems rather pointless to me. On another note, I have been thinking about something I said that I should change, however. I said earlier that referenda that create anti-gay marriage legislation is based on irrational beliefs. On second thought, I’m not sure I believe that is true – and saying so ultimately makes what else I’ve been saying somewhat hypocritical. Such legislation is based on beliefs that I disagree with, beliefs that I think are mistaken – but I guess in a sense they are rational. It is a line that is hard to distinguish – that line between beliefs I think are mistaken and beliefs that I think are irrational – but it is an important distinction, and it is a distinction that is lost, IMO, amongst  those who are hand-wringing about the prospect of GMO labels. There are those who distrust the science supporting GMOs and the sorts of corporations that produce GMOs and the science that supports them. There are rational underpinnings beneath such beliefs. This is similar to beliefs related to nuclear power, to vaccines, and a host of other issues related to risk assessment and decision-making under uncertainty. Just because I might draw lines in a different location than where someone else draws them does not make their beliefs in those regards less “rational” than mine.

Ultimately, in the end, no matter how we as individuals might assess risk, or even rationality, our society determines that the power of decision-making rests with the majority – as a collective assemblage of individuals who in broad strokes are equal in power and voice and agency. Now of course that equality does not exist in a pure form, but given the extent to which it does exist, it is better IMO than the alternatives. And certainly, the quote from Mill illustrates well how the destructive influence a “tyranny of the majority” can be, in many ways, far more impactful when they lie outside the purview of political structures such as seen with the GMO referendum. Consider, for example, the impact of majority power as seen through homophobia, isolation and ill-treatment of the mentally ill or the physically disabled, even people who are fat or exceptionally short or whose physical appearance are considered unattractive. 

IMHO, we are incuring huge public expenses due to the likes of Pepsico marketing and profiting from product without 

This speaks to what I consider to be a disproportionality in the extreme concern in these threads about those dirty hippie environmentalists. So much hand-wringing about how dangerous those GMO labels might have been. Why I half-expect that if Keith and the Toms, had they lived in Cali (I think Fuller does, doesn’t he?), they would already started on building their bunkers in advance of election day just in case. The lack of proportion is what I find problematic about what I see as an imbalance in Keith’s overall focus.

@harrywr2@65  I also suffer from allergies (anaphylactic level food allergies).  My point was meant to be in response to others advocating a voluntary system,  IMHO voluntary systems have not worked very well in the past and are not working well now.What coverage we do have is mandated by the Consumer Protection Act of 2004:  http://www.fda.gov/food/labelingnutrition/FoodAllergensLabeling/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/ucm106187.htmI favor widely encompassing public disclosure involving both food labeling and accessible data bases.@Joshua I do agree with those who believe that California’s Proposition 37 is poorly written.  I also think that public concerns regarding food safety and nutrition as well as agricultural sustainability represent valid concerns, even if some members of the public are a bit fuzzy on the details of their intended targets.   That is why I believe that now is the time for the science community to develop proposals that would be more informative.  This is also where I think science communicators such as Keith Kloor should focus their efforts.

@harrywr2, while I agree that personal vigilance is necessary, regulations for food labeling does help quite a bit.  A restaurant using prepared foods would have an easy solution, if the manufacturers were required to label the containers.  A clever chef incorporating yesterday’s roast beef and gravy into today’s hash, not so much.  There are restaurants I simply can’t eat in, others in which I stick to “safe” foods.  But restaurants certainly could come up with lists of which ingredients are not used, the flip side to the vague warning of  “may contain” on store food labels.I agree that public accommodations are a problem, but on the other hand, huge strides have been made since the days when no attempts were made to provide smoke free rooms. I carried my own pillow & sheet back then.  Maybe something similar would work for you. These rooms are actually regulated at least at the state level, see for example: http://www.iowasmokefreeair.gov/   So there may be recourse against false claims.  More work is needed, obviously.  After a recent trip back east I’m wondering how bedbug spraying is handled.I once encountered co-packaging of a room freshener with a furnace filter at a local big box hardware store, and finding both them and my initial contact person at the filter company unresponsive, I enlisted the help of the American Lung Association, as the filter in question carried their logo as a seal of approval.  The item was removed.   Regulations are not perfect (laws regarding murder aren’t perfect deterrents either).  But they do help.Would somebody please remind me how to insert paragraph breaks here?

Free the data, free the code, free the ingredients!

“And then Sku the same product up under a new brand, with GMO free labelling, and charge a nice fat premium to all the wacko leftist nut jobs.”+1

Free Willy!Free the Chicago Seven!

From Keith’s link under the words “In the California GMO labeling initiative, they saw a chance to galvanize support for a wide-ranging food politics agenda”:

Why has the food movement sprouted so rapidly, even as traditional environmentalism has stalled? Simple: it’s about pleasure. Before the political games, before worries about dead zones and manure lagoons, before concerns about obesity and trans fat, the food movement arose around a simple principle: food should taste better. Like their environmental brethren, foodies could be accused of trying to force people to eat their vegetables “” but these vegetables are more than metaphorical: they are from a local organic farm and they’re sautéed to perfection. The food movement has also directly jacked into that other great American obsession “” health “” in a way that distant concerns about climate change have largely failed to do. And there’s the simple fact that food is present in our lives in a way that endangered species or deforestation or Arctic melting simply aren’t. We buy food, we cook food (though less and less frequently) and three times a day, we eat food “” occasionally while watching cooking shows.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2049255,00.html

Tough spot indeed.

Perhaps we ought to get inspired by the masculine marketing of Maxim and sell GMO fortified products at a premium. Surreal food for surreal men. It could even come with a free plastic bag, one for each item you buy. Then Keith could blog about the kick he got from the looks he get while buying it.

In all probability there is a low level presence of GMO in all manufactured foods.  Our storage, handling and transportation system pretty much guarantees some presence in all processed foods. So beore you decide to label, decide the acceptable level of presence.

Thanks for that link: Fear-mongering at its very best, Willard.

> In short, Prop37 was entirely useless about any specific ingredient anyway. It was not transparent. It did nothing for monocultures, herbicides, and patents. It was really a stunt.

Indeed, since it is not solving everything, Prop37 solves nothing.

A fin example of evidence-based reasoning.

@ Jarmo 81,

No kidding about the GMO foofaraw being a side-show while other real problems & solutions get shoved to the back pages. For example the irradiation of beef in the US has been approved since 1999 & as of 2011 the amount being irradiated in the US for human consumption is a booming 0.1%. It’s used more for cat & dog food than for people!

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/09/is-it-time-to-accept-food-irradiation/

A good quote from the article, even if it is from a source with an obvious rooting interest: 

“I believe there’s 10 to 15 percent of the public who will never buy
irradiated food and 10 to 15 percent of the public who will always buy
it if available,” Clemmons said. “The rest don’t understand what
irradiation is, and if provided the information, I believe the American
consumer would accept it in most cases.”

Perhaps not an engineer-level derivation, but here’s what could be one important cause of hunger:

At the end of 2005, the global number of refugees was at its lowest level in almost a quarter of a century. Despite some large-scale repatriation movements, the last three years have witnessed a significant increase in refugee numbers, due primarily to the violence taking place in Iraq and Somalia. By the end of 2008, the total number of refugees under UNHCR’s mandate exceeded 10 million. The number of conflict-induced internally displaced persons (IDPs) reached some 26 million worldwide at the end of the year . Providing exact figures on the number of stateless people is extremely difficult But, important, (relatively) visible though it is, and anguishing for those involved conflict is less important as poverty (and its causes) as a cause of hunger. (Using the statistics above 1.02 billion people suffer from chronic hunger while 36 million people are displaced [UNHCR 2008])

Only GMO food has the power to end all this.

I agree with much of Willard’s point on hunger.  As someone interested in water issues, I personally favor greater research into possibilities of perennial grains.I don’t see GMO labeling as a sideshow.  I view efforts towards full transparency in agriculture (as well as in other areas) as essential to a democracy.  And as a side benefit, a vehicle towards gaining the public trust necessary to implement policies and provide research funding under which appropriate GMO technologies can be put to greater use.Given the state of the nation’s health, I think that having a food movement is a very good thing, and that rather than continued sniping over past issues, science communicators such as Keith Kloor could move on to advocate for future policies and propositions that are better phrased than California’s now defeated proposition 37 and do a better job of working to increase public knowledge of food sourcing.

I finally had a chance to watch the video. It wasn’t as painful as I expected. He called Seralini a “fringy French scientist” which made me even giggle.

And although it was better than most of the foodie post-mortems on Prop37, it certainly wasn’t deeply introspective about the failures. At least it didn’t blame the single bogeyman like most of them.
I just wish his acolytes could hear this point, at about 48min:

But I think the important point about GM is that, if there were no genetically modified food, the problems of industrial agriculture will
not go away. Everything would be kind of status quo ante….It wouldn’t solve a whole lot of problems.

And this is exactly what I keep trying to say. He needs to be more explicit about this being the wrong target to his flock and his thought-leader buddies. It is a distraction to the real issues that they claim to care about.

Here is shown that Prop37 was just footnotes to our old authoritarian man Plato:

Socrates: Exactly, my precocious student. As for modifying the genes of our plants, GMOs are qualitatively very different from selective breeding. While choosing the best crops for the next year does involve improving genes, these traits appear naturally and are more in tune with the environment in which they developed. Genetic modification in a biotechnology sense involves inserting genes into the organism in a lab. Some think that bringing in genes that are completely foreign to the organism and the ecosystem is much riskier. When’s the last time that you upgraded some software on your computer and had it work perfectly?

Demeter: Um, computers weren’t invented for 2400 years after you died, Socrates. I’m too old school to operate a mouse, how is it that you know anything about computers?

Socrates: I find Siri to be a fantastic partner for philosophical debate.

Demeter: “¦

Socrates: Well, the point is that technology is not always predictable. More alarming is that our law protects the technology that goes into our GMO crops, but not the work done by natural selection. This gives the GMO alchemists more leverage to control the market. It’s possible for farmers to get boxed into “the system”: prices are set for their seeds, fertilizer, and for how much their crops can be sold.

Demeter: That doesn’t sound so bad. They get a full package that works together, right?

Socrates: When you can’t choose another company’s products or services, economic laws break down: the prices for the package deal can be set however the supplier wants, even if it’s not possible for the farmer to make a living. Genetically modified crops help large companies remove choices: it’s the same reason that monopolies are a bad thing. Note that I’m not necessarily saying that suppliers do this, because I can’t afford a lawsuit for libel. It’s hard to earn money as a ghost. I’m merely stating that complete control over the supply chain is very powerful, especially when you can sell on one side and buy on the other, and some farmers are saying they’re experiencing this sort of problem.12

Demeter: Was the legal system so difficult to manage in your time?

Socrates: You have no idea.

http://soundbites.knifeandforkproject.com/proposition-37-a-socratic-dialogue/#more-467

Socrates preferred this organic treatment to fleeing where the skies had these so freewheeling shades of purple. Some alleges he had greater confidence in his integrity than in death itself.

Mary -

My  point in describing the situation with the Co-op is that it is a collection of stakeholders, just as is the electorate. The stakeholders got together to vote as to whether the organization, as a whole (via stakeholders elected as representative), should mandate the labels. If the vote had gone through, the organization would have mandated a policy that was contrary to the wishes of some stakeholders. Such is life! No one every promised us a rose garden!

This was a vote as to the policy for the entire organizational structure, where some % of the membership would have an outcome contrary to their wishes no matter the outcome. Think of having cakes and eating them too.

The decision via referendum was made based on majority sentiment. The Co-op vote seems as much a parallel to the referendum on GMO labels as the parallel you are focusing on , and seems to me to be quite a sensible strategy. Why do you feel that your example is more analogous?

I see little problem, relatively speaking and on this issue in particular – with putting it to a vote. In fact, with the referendum process there is an additional bulkhead against a “tyranny of the majority” that the Co-op doesn’t have: We have a court system to (ostensibly) protect against votes that violate founding philosophy.

The electorate voting for legislation to mandate GMO labeling is, precisely, “handled by those who care about it”: Those who came out to vote.

Sorry – I just don’t see how, if the referendum had passed, it would have been some kind of significant injustice. The fear-mongering on the pro-labeling side is not defensible, but while not a justification, I find a selective focus on that fear-mongering without similar acknowledgement of the fear-mongering on the other side to be insufficient. In addition, the problems with the pro-labeling advocacy should be accompanied, IMO, by an examination of the wider political implications on both sides (including the full-range of political implications of concentration of power in the hands of corporations like Monsanto). To do otherwise seems to me like promoting an agenda.

Mary -

You are missing the point: government mandated labeling of food based on philosophical reasons is a bad idea.

Sorry – but because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean that I miss “the point.” There is not only one “point” and you don’t get to determine which points are or aren’t of relevance.

I don’t agree with you. I don’t consider the exercise of democratic principles, through a direct democratic process, to be a “bad idea” or a “sad waste of time and money.” You are not the arbiter of what is or isn’t a “good idea” or a “good use of public resources.” When you get to Shangri-La – where democracy isn’t a messy process and aligns perfectly with what you deem to be good ideas – drop me a line.

As usual Joshua, your cognitive myopia gets in the way of constructive dialogue. Mary’s point is mandatory labelling on food or food products should be reserved for nutrition and safety. Your democratic right to label GMO free exists, use it to your advantage.

Brian -

The democratic right to have a referendum on GMO labeling exists.

Given that, and assuming that you will allow such democratic rights to continue -  perhaps if you post your email everyone considering a referendum can contact you to ask your determination about whether it is a waste of time and resources, a bad idea, etc.? No guarantees that they will follow your determination – but I guess it can’t hurt.

@Brian #140: Exactly. @willard #105. What is your point? If you are going to mandate a food label it should have scientific basis and evidence. But labels are not mandated on restaurant food. If they were, I would still think government mandating philosophical labeling would be a bad idea.

Mary,

My point is that Brian’s interpretation does not amount to your claim that we **should** (I am glad you made a prescriptive statement, btw) label food on scientific basis and evidence. In fact, if we’re to label food for security reason, we’d never label anything, unless we were allowed to sell poison as food. But we’re not.

Pending a example of a food label you **would** accept on scientific basis and evidence, I consider that you’re setting up a criteria that will never be met by anything.

As an aside, I will note that what we **should** do does not rest on scientific basis and evidence. Not yet. So your own criteria still rests of what you dub “philosophical”, an epithet that would make sense if we had some kind of conceptual analysis in the thread. So far, this is sorely lacking. What we have instead is merely above sloganeering.

Harry,

And how about 999 ingredients?

And 998?

You have not answered my earlier question: what is the scientific basis to label stuff “made in China”? Perhaps I should have chosen a more appropriate example. Let’s take a barrel of olives with “Product of Greece” on it.

The same question applies to the ingredients list: why have them? I mean, what is **the scientific basis** to have them listed?

If you feel that the last question is almost meaningless, chances are that the idea to list stuff based on scientific evidence makes little sense.

I take already too much of my time as it is, so I won’t help you out of your lack of analytical ground. You like to have an argument void of **any** conceptual merit, fine. Please leave the “philosophical” out of it.

Meanwhile, feel free to caricature as you please.