[jjoonathan]

The trouble is that it encourages the kind of "critical thinking" that we often see regarding, say, GMOs and nuclear energy. To most of the population "skepticism" seems to mean "believing the loudest, scariest person in the room," not "I've got some reading to do." When people do decide to read, they use google which heavily skews its results away from the expert consensus and towards sensationalist outsiders.

We have to do a great amount of work to fix "skepticism" before encouraging it will be a universally good thing.

[pyre]

> The trouble is that it encourages the kind of "critical thinking" that we often see regarding, say, GMOs and nuclear energy

Let's be fair here:

1. Companies like Montsano aren't exactly doing wonders for the 'face' of GMOs.

2. Nuclear energy could be made safe, but many of the reactor designs that people tout have not been proven, and they also don't take into account the human factor. Much of what happened in Fukushima can be chalked up to the human factor. I think that it's disingenuous to only talk about nuclear power from the technical side without considering lax oversight on the human factor.

3. I think that there is a very real fear that as the barriers to entry come down on 'garage' genetic modification, we could see someone accidentally (or purposely) create a deadly disease in their garage.

[jjoonathan]

1. How heavily have you actually looked into this issue? The first time I was forced to do my homework on this subject was for a school project (5 years ago, IIRC) and I was blown away by two things that ran completely against the "informed" opinion I had developed by passively consuming media. First, the professionalism, restraint, and abundance of goodwill gestures I saw coming out of Monsanto (see: their press releases, their research papers, and their stance on terminator genes). Second, the extent to which Monsanto's political adversaries were willing to lie and intentionally mislead in order to pursue their objectives (see: Percy Schmeiser, the Seralini paper, Greenpeace's Terminator Gene media sprint). My preconceptions going into the project were astonishingly far from the truth -- they were the exact opposite of it. If your intent is to be fair, that means considering both sides of the story and trying to determine where the truth lies. Be honest with yourself: have you actually done this for the Monsanto/GMO debate? Or have you let your political view align itself to that of the news articles that occasionally percolate through your feeds (as I had done)?

2. I don't recall disingenuously talking about nuclear power from only the technical side. You are correct to note that the discussion should revolve around whether or not we have the technology to account for human error. You are incorrect to assume that the discussion in the corresponding academic, industrial, and regulatory circles does not revolve around this matter. "Technology has failed to take certain kinds of failures and human errors into account, therefore technology can never be expected take enough failures and human errors into account to be made safe" is a very defeatist attitude of the precise variety that TFA was complaining about. It's the lazy conclusion that dystopian SF authors default to in order to sound profound and relevant without wading waist-deep through boring technical analysis (which is what you need to do to actually be profound and relevant).

> Much of what happened in Fukushima can be chalked up to the human factor.

Straw man. Just like software engineers don't dismiss UX problems by saying "there's nothing to be done about stupid users," nuclear engineers don't dismiss catastrophes (hypothetical or actual) by saying "there's nothing to be done about stupid regulators." Instead, they find a way to fix the human problem by using the technology at their disposal. That's their job and they're quite good at it.

Unfortunately, there is ~50years of lag between industrial best practices and the point at which we can evaluate the safety record of said best practices. The first academic nuclear reactor was constructed 70 years ago. The first commercial nuclear reactor was constructed 60 years ago. Fukushima was built 50 years ago. 45 years ago, the mode of failure that did it in was discovered and corrected in new designs. Still, it's quite correct to note that the safety practices of nuclear engineers 50 years ago were not robust to mismanagement (which would have retrofitted or retired the reactor). But that has little bearing on the question of whether or not the safety practices of nuclear engineers today are robust to poor regulation, and that's the question that is relevant to our policy regarding new reactors. I'm convinced that today's safety practices are robust to poor oversight. Robust enough to make them an extremely compelling alternative, in any case.

3. How is that relevant to commercial GMO development?

[pyre]

> I don't recall disingenuously talking about nuclear power from only the technical side

I apologize for my wording. It wasn't directed at any specific individuals.

> "Technology has failed to take certain kinds of failures and human errors into account, therefore technology can never be expected take enough failures and human errors into account to be made safe" is a very defeatist attitude

I never said that. I am not personally anti-nuclear, but I do tend to see people pop up that sweep issues under the rug in their pro-nuclear comments. To be fair, these aren't necessarily the academics that are working in the field. [

[Also to be fair, I think that it's worth taking people whose livelihood is tied to the industry with a grain of salt too. Sure, they don't want the industry to sink, but that doesn't mean that they won't sweep issues under the rug that they don't think are relevant or that will "Never Happen" or that "The Liberal Media Will Blow Out of Proportion."]

> Straw man.

I wasn't intending it to be. I was just stating a fact.

> 3. How is that relevant to commercial GMO development?

Well, GMO stands for genetically-modified organism. It's not always food-/crop-related, so I tossed that in.

[bcoates]

People can, and have, made reasonably serviceable tanks in their garage and then terrorized cities, supervillain-style. If this doesn't result fearmongering about basic construction tools, why is everyone worried about less practical biological terrorism?