I’m told ipecac (a plant extract used to induce vomiting) tastes vile, while bananas, for example, taste good and are good for you. Yet a person deep in the clutches of the hair shirt fallacy might insist on consuming ipecac on a regular basis. If it tastes so bad, and makes me so miserable, they reason, it must be REALLY good for me. (Aside: I’m pretty sure this is why some “alternative health” clinics as so into enemas.)

It’s important to understand the hair shirt fallacy (I just made up the name today, someone let me know if there’s already a description for this), not because of its role in the appeal of whatever next years fad diet turns out to be, but because when it comes to debates about the future of our whole planet, far too many of those engaged in the debate seem to be in the grip of this kind of reasoning. While it has never been so humorously phrased, I’ve been accused plenty of times of being the equivalent of a “starry-eyed techno-utopian.” Wanting to solve all problems with scientific or technical quick fixes instead of the real solution (which usually seems to involve unpleasantries ranging from inconvenience to great personal sacrifice.)

Here’s the thing. Getting large groups of people agree to make even the smallest sacrifices for the greater good is HARD. Take, for example, those who say the world already produces enough food to feed everyone enough to live healthily, that it’s only a question of distribution. They’re right. If everyone in the developed world at a lot more rice and beans, and a lot less of everything else, there would be more food available to feed the hungry. But leaving aside some serious unintended consequences I could imagine with this scenario, it completely ignores the issue of how to bring about such a huge change in diet among hundreds of millions of people.

There are scientific and technical innovations that could alleviate some of the suffering caused by hunger and malnutrition we see in the world today. And if some people would care to hold their breaths for mass sacrifice for the collective good, they’re welcome to. Personally I think helping people (or helping our planet) is still a worthy goal even if doing so DOESN’T make us miserable. And now I have a three-word phrase to describe the people who disagree.

Read about it in:

• The Economic Times
• The Times of India
• The AP

How much difference a comma makes:

“It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary, principle-based approach.” <– Sounds like a reasonable person dealing with vocal discontent with the genetically engineered eggplants. Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh quoted in Times of India

“It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary principle-based approach.” <– Irrational standard* that can never be met. Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh quoted in AP.

I don’t know what else to say about this story. Letting facts that should be settled by science becoming matters of opinion is one of the prices we pay for democracy, a form of government that’s still a head and shoulders above anything else yet discovered by modern man. Also, I totally called it:

This would seem to be the week for vegetables I hated as a kid. Yesterday was onion, today tomato, if there’s a story about brinjal/eggplant in the next few days we’ll have hit all the big ones.

*The precautionary principle as it has been quoted to me in the past: “Activities that present an uncertain potential for significant harm should be prohibited unless the proponent of the activity shows that it presents no appreciable risk of harm.” In other words, any and every action can be considered guilty until proven innocent of all accusations levels against it, and since people can come up with new accusations a lot faster than science can disprove them, it would seem that adhering to this version of the precautionary principle would mean not doing anything. Event

Arabidopsis that carries broken copies of both the AP1 (apetala1) and CAL (cauliflower) genes. The flower bearing stems have been replaced by these cauliflower-head-like growths. Image from "Genome-Wide Analysis of Gene Expression during Early Arabidopsis Flower Development" by Frank Wellmer et al (in PLOS Genetics a creative commons licensed journal). Article here: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0020117

Just in time for me to put together my worksheet for Thursday! I’ve managed to work in the CAL gene, which I talked about last week in my discussion of Cruciferous vegetables:

Cauliflower plants (and broccoflower plants) have broken copies of the CAL gene, which (when it isn’t broken) is helps the plant decide to switch from producing stems that were bear flowers to the flowers themselves. Without a functional version of CAL, cauliflowers just keep making denser and denser stems, producing the distinctive heads of cauliflower. If you have journal access, you can read more about the CAL gene at this science paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.7824951

I also threw in a question that uses the shrunken2 gene (one of the two most common genes that convert normal starchy corn into sweet corn). From the question in question:

Note the shriveling of the yellow kernels that carry two broken copies of the shrunken2 gene, the purple kernels carry either one broken and one working copy of shrunken2, or two working copies. The change in color is controlled by another gene nearby on the same chromosome, shrunken2 itself has no effect on the color of corn kernels. Photo credit goes to MG Neuffer and MaizeGDB.

Corn kernels without a working copy of the shrunken2 gene can’t convert very much of the sugar provided by photosynthesis in the leaves of the corn plant into starch. Instead, sugar itself accumulates in the kernel making the corn taste quite sweet.

When sugary corn kernels are dried, they shrivel up, while starchy ones remain relatively round and smooth. This has to do with the fact that sugars are water soluble while starch is not. So, as I understand it, corn kernels with more sugar are also a greater percentage water than corn kernels that are made mostly of starch.

The mutant form of shrunken2 was identified by John Laughnan, a maize geneticist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The story of the discovery as told in Maize Genetics and Breeding in the 20th Century by Peter Peterson and Angelo Bianchi:

According to historical sources [E.H.C.] [This is Edward H. Coe], serendipity played a part in a practical discovery (1953) from which many sweet corn worshipers now benefit. Soaking and chewing upon a corn seed to aid in concentration is a pervasive but minor indiscretion in the profession, generally conducted surreptitiously and especially embraced when seeking rare mutations or recombinants. Muttering, so it is said, “that’s shrunken, too,” and “super, it’s sweet!” [John Laughnan] came upon the now popular and widely grown, high-sugar Super Sweet type. When next the reader has a table ear with butter (or better, corn oil margarine) and salt, it might be gratefully remembered that the sh2 factor is so close to A1 that it was originally attractive as a marker in intensive genetic analysis-else it might yet be only a phenotypic curiosity.

One of the things that sucks about moving into the area of comparative grass genomics is losing of the feeling of following in the footsteps of generations of maize geneticists. The maize community has, for lack of a better word, a sense of history.

Because SFUSD has focused on reducing fat and empty calories in cafeteria items, the meals are now very close to the USDA minimums, and are based on a meal which includes either 1-percent white milk or skim chocolate milk. “Replacing skim chocolate milk with skim white milk would cause the calorie count of the meal to drop below the USDA-mandated minimum,” says Woldow [A member of the San Francisco School District Student Nutrition Committee]

I feel weird thinking about this. Cutting sugar (regardless of whether it originates in sugarcase, or corn, or sweet sorghum, or the sugar beet) from school lunches is a laudable goal. But free and reduced price school lunches are also the closest thing some kids will have to a real meal all day. So San Francisco School District, in the push to make school lunches more healthy, if nothing else could you please increase the portions for healthy things as you cut out the foods you don’t approve of?

Cutting calories from a program that has a real impact on childhood hunger and malnutrition in our country isn’t something you should be proud of.

And just to be clear all that happened in the article linked above was to substitute sugar (produced from sugar beets, or sugar cane) for corn syrup on a calorie for calorie basis.

Case in point:

BP, for example, puts $1.3 billion to $1.6 billion a year into alternative energy projects. That’s about 1 percent of the company’s total $20 billion investment this year in future business prospects.*

I was going to beat up on the greenpeace blog where I read this sentence, but on a closer rereading I realized it was actually a direct quote from this article on the New York Times website. Come on people, 1% is easy, all you do is move the decimal place, you don’t even have to divide or multiply. Now there could be some obscure accounting reason that regular math doesn’t apply here, but if so it should have been mentioned and it wasn’t.

Now I don’t know if this is sloppy journalism or a typo or what, but at least three people (the author of the piece, the editor at the new york times, and the greenpeace press officer to copied and pasted 1.5 sentences of the article including that fundamentally impossible statistic) looked at it and didn’t realize that something was obviously wrong.

Typos can happen to anyone (I make plenty of them myself), but one this obvious shouldn’t be able to make it past three sets of eyes without someone catching it.

For the record I’m not trying to defend the publicity campaigns of oil companies here. (If you feel your blood pressure is too low I recommend watching one of the “We Call It Life” ads about carbon dioxide.)

*1.3 to 1.6  billion dollars is clearly not 1% of 20 billion. It’s 6.5% or 8% respectively. Not 2 + 2 = 5 but 2 + 2 = 32 and apparently 26 at the same time

• Year in with the largest wheat harvest in the US: 1981-1982 (2.8 billion bushels)
• Year in with the largest wheat corn harvest in the US: 2007-2008(13 billion bushels)
• The US’s share of global wheat exports in 1973-1974: 50%
• The US’s share of global wheat exports today: 20%
• Percentage increase in yield per acre of wheat 1969-present: 45%
• Percentage increase in yield per acre of corn 1969-present: 90%
• Estimated earliest year a program to develop genetically engineered wheat, launched today, would be able to win regulatory approval for any variety of GM wheat: 2018
• Year in which Monsanto’s patent on their first generation Round-up Ready Soybeans expires: 2014
• Number of lawsuits filed by Monsanto against individual farmers it claims infringed on its seed patents in the past decade: 125 (same source as above)
• Number people threatened with legal action to force a settlement/sued by the RIAA in the same time period: more than 28,000
• Amount the RIAA sued the russian website allofmp3.com for in 2006: $1.65 trillion
• The gross domestic product of India in 2008: $1.2 trillion
• First time the world knew what the far side of the moon looked like: 1959

Check out the article in The Guardian about wheat farming and the future of genetically engineered wheat.

Refuting every post across the web that makes false claims about agriculture, genetics, or plant biology would be, firstly impossible, and secondly, incredibly tedious. Once a piece of misinformation escapes into the wild it is far harder to call back than the horrible trans-genes of anti-GMO activists nightmares. A false idea will spread far faster among those who want to believe than it can be refuted (at length and in detail) by those who know better.

But this morning (or afternoon, or evening, or dead of night), I came across a wonderful example of what I believe has the potential to be an entirely new false fact that could float around the web, and obscure corners of the public consciousness for years to come (or be forgotten in a week, it’s hard to pick which facts will escape and thrive in the wild until they actually have.)

Consider this article posted on Greenpeace’s website, provokatively titled “US court ruling on GMO rice affirms danger of Bayer crops”.

As a person (for the purposes of this example) already convinced of the dangers of GMOs, I see this headline and think: “A-ha! I always knew those evil genetically modified crops were a disaster waiting to happen!” And I click through to read about the details.

The article I find covers a number of subjects:

• Bayer recently lost a court case in the US, two Missouri farmers were awarded two million dollars (total, not each), because the discovery of a variety of genetically modified rice developed by Bayer in the food supply has reduced foreign demand for US rice, driving down the price of rice for US farmers*. Lower prices  = smaller profits (or bigger losses), and so the farmers sued Bayer and a jury found that Bayer was at fault.
• In the Philippines (and presumably a bunch of other countries) Bayer has filed to get their variety of rice approved for human consumption. Once it’s approved, imports of rice from the US can resume, without any special testing. Increased exports of rice bring up prices back up for US rice farmers.
• Greenpeace opposes the approval of Bayer’s rice in the Philippines.
• Feel free to point out in the comments section any other points from the article that I skipped over

Notice anything missing from the story … like any mention of a US court ruling that the rice was dangerous as stated in the headline? I did, but I was reading the article looking for it, because I don’t think Bayer’s crops ARE dangerous and wanted to see what reasoning a judge (or judges) had used to reach the opposite conclusion. And it wasn’t in there.

If I’d already been convinced GMOs weren’t safe I very much doubt I would have noticed the article didn’t actually address the issue raised in the title. Instead I would have read an article about the evils of GMOs, and the concept, put forward by the title (that even the american judicial system agreed with me) might have stuck in my head. In future conversations with like-minded people I’d repeat it as fact, and they, also excited to hear that the courts were on their sides would repeat it to their friends, with details, if any were included, mutating with every retelling**, evolving and spreading faster than any DNA sequence ever could.

Depending on how many people read the original story, how talkative they are, and if the (false) fact sounds interesting enough to pass on, in a day or two anywhere from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of people could hear from someone they trust that courts have ruled that GMOs are dangerous. It could become one of the myths (like the idea that modern corn in sterile as a result of genetic engineering, when terminator technology has NEVER been used commercially) that people like me must spend time and effort refuting over and over and over again.

An article with such a big, yet not immediately obvious, disconnect between what the title claims and what the story says is either the result of incompetence or intentional dishonesty, and either way it’s an great example of why I don’t take Greenpeace seriously anymore. Intelligent people can disagree and learn from discussion why they disagree. On the other hand, productive discussion is NOT possible with people who substitute tricks and misinformation for real data and logic.

*This was a case about whether Bayer should be liable for the harm caused by reduced prices for rice. No one was arguing the rice truly wasn’t safe for human consumption.

**If you have ever played the game of telephone as a child, where a message is whispered from one child to the second who whispers it to a third and so on, you know how quickly ideas can be misunderstood and distorted as they’re repeated from one person to another.

But, like any non-profit, the work of the CGIAR centers depends on the funding they can secure. The news today is about a structural reorganization of CGIAR which, at least in theory, will make research more efficient. Previously donors who wanted a say in how their money was spent would give grants to individual researchers. Which had two undesirable consequences:

1. Scientists at the CGIAR centers had to spend more and more of their time both applying for funding, and then writing and filing updates for their sponsors.
2. As more and more funding transitions to individual research projects, it’s harder to pull the money together to maintain or upgrade facilities. (A charity or government organization might support the development of flood tolerant rice or stem rust resistant wheat, but it’s harder to find someone willing to pay for re-roofing an old building, or buying a new Illumina sequencer.)

Both of those are also problems that confront research at universities, but for CGIAR it’s worse because there’s no funding coming in from other sources. The reorganization creates two separate organizations, one that actually does the research and a separate trust fund. The trust raises money based on an overall set of goals put forward by the research organization. Then the money goes to the researchers who can spend more of their time working towards those goals. That’s the theory anyway, I’d welcome anyone with more insight into how these changes will impact the work of the CGIAR centers.

One of those centers, the International Rice Research Institute (based in the Philippines), is playing a key role in developing flood resistant rice which will soon be available to farmers in India and Bangladesh. To reemphasize the point, neither the IRRI or CGIAR makes any money from such new rice varieties.

Another is CIMMYT (a spanish acronym) in Mexico which actually predates the organization of CGIAR. CIMMYT develops new varieties of maize and wheat, and was the home or Norman Borlaug during his work sparking the Green Revolution.

A third, ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) employed Gebisa Ejeta, who went on to win the World Food Prize this year. While at ICRISAT he developed new drought-tolerant varieties of sorghum (with yields up to four times as high) which are now grown throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

Also of note, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has already made a new pledge of $80 million a year in funding for the new reorganized CGIAR. (More than 15% of CGIAR’s total funding last year).

The reorganization has been covered by both Science and Nature

The segment is available streaming from the BBC’s website and it’s a fascinating listen. (Budget ~25 minutes, the stream is a little longer, but the end is just bookkeeping and transitioning to the next show.)

If you don’t have the time to listen to the whole thing (and you really should), here are a couple of key quotes:

The honest answer is that we’ve had [applications] in the system for approval since 1996 and they’ve recieved four scientific opinions that have been positive. … one of the problems of course is that moving from the science into the political debate changes the dynamics completely and the argument just hasn’t been won at a political level or indeed amongst the public. – Sygenta guy

Thirteen years in bureaucratic limbo. The science says it’s safe, but the decision makers who are supposed to base their decisions on that science know it’d be political suicide to approve any of these crops.

What we would like is to see decision makers taking into account the decisions of this authority [European Food Safety Authority] which have always given postive opinions to every GM crop ever submitted. But also to other independent scientists, national competent authorities, to public opinion, to evidences provided by NGOs and to social economic impacts of this technology. – Greenpeace European Policy Director for Genetic Engineering and Sustainable Agriculture [emphasis mine]

I’ve got several problems with his statement. But I’m only going to make two comments.

First of all, I agree that any science that’s sufficiently solid to make it past peer review should be included in decision making. Publishing frighteningly titled reports without given any uninvolved scientists the chance to point out errors in methodology does not qualify.

Secondly, note the portion I’ve highlighted in bold. If my outrage requires further explanation see footnote.*

What’s frustrating for the scientists is that this is no longer about the science but the messier world of politics and opinion. Although they claim the bulk of scientific evidence is on their side, that’s not how the decisions are being made. – Reporter (Richard Hollingham)

You, sir, have captured my feelings on the subject precisely. Thank you!

I apologize for any errors in my transcription and I once more urge everyone to listen to the whole segment.

*If simply having a majority of people think something was enough to make it true, we wouldn’t have to worry about man made global warming, as a majority of people either believe it isn’t happening at all or is “natural” (and we all know all natural things are good <– sarcasm), but we wouldn’t be able to enjoy our man-made global warming free world because since a majority of Americans also don’t believe in evolution *poof!* life has ceased to exist. Don’t get me wrong, I believe democracy is the most free and just way for a people to govern themselves, I just don’t think opinions should be a substitute to evidence when it comes to discussing facts.

“It was believed impossible to create a blue rose, since roses lack the gene to produce the color blue. However, a Japanese company spent 14 years in research and finally succeeded in developing the world’s first blue rose. I explained to President Obama how this blue rose, which holds the meaning ‘to accomplish the impossible,’ was created and said, ‘Let us work together to accomplish the impossible.’”

-Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama as quoted here (and boy will I feel silly if the whole story is a hoax)

“To accomplish the impossible”. When it comes to assigning meanings to flowers (as well as picking life goals), I’d call that a pretty good one.

The blue rose was actually developed by an Australian company called Florigene which has been acquired by a Japanese company called Suntory. I went into more detail about Florigene’s products here.