Debunking Food Evolution 2: Goal Evolution

-
What follows Tyson’s wildly mistaken opening are several calmly presented claims regarding population statistics, growth, and the impacts of climate change on the food debate.

An agitated female voice then shouts: “This is all about companies controlling our future!” The use of "all about" is a red flag scientifically. However, the shout doesn't sound like an assertion intended for a scientific context, and it could address a valid point, even if overstated.


Tyson then asks: “Amongst all this conflict and confusion... How do we make the most informed decisions about how we feed ourselves?”

What is especially good about Tyson's question here is that it states a relatively specific, plausibly valuable goal of “most informed decisions”. It also links our decisions on this topic to a pragmatic concern to "feed ourselves". The question is a good start and offers opportunities for improvement.

In asking how to accomplish a goal, we usually expect some process: first do this, then do that... a set of simple, step-by-step instructions would be ideal. We want to ensure our process produces good decisions.

While it is a good start, "the most informed decisions" needs tweaking.

The brilliant Willard van Orman Quine pointed out there is almost an unlimited amount of information that applies to any concept. Such information includes disreputable pseudosciences, propaganda, etc. we'd probably like to avoid, even if we had unlimited resources.

"Best informed" seems closer to the mark. This enables us to make the best decisions in terms of delivering the actual results we want:

 societal benefits that minimize harm



This film devotes a vast proportion of its time to anti-GMO information which is related to the GE debate, but unhelpful to the point of being confusing at best, probably misleading.

It is not the first time a production seeking to do good science missed the mark by failing to focus on the right goal. This same defect was notoriously preceded by Penn & Teller in their infamous "Bullshit" episode on Climate Change. Next, we will look at how bias impacted that episode, and some lessons we can draw.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Star Trek by the Minute 018: Vulcan Racism

-
Previous: Proud Mama In a great contrast, this segment makes a sharp cut from the warm light of Winona Horowitz's all-too brief close up appearance with a flash to a slanted, rotating and zooming medium shot in sterile cold blue lighting of a large amphitheater. The closely intimate, loving family interaction supported by soft cellos is juxtaposed with ludicrously high benches occupied by 3 stern-looking ministers and harsh silence. The bench is set against a backdrop of severe, angular architecture with the roof beams giving an appearance of cross-hatched cuts of a scalpel across cadaverous sky beyond. The voice of the male head minister echoes through the high-tech judgment cavern: "You have surpassed the expectations of your instructors. Your final record is flawless with one exception; I see that you have applied to Starfleet as well." It seems reasonable to question the characterization of an application to Starfleet as a "flaw". Without attempting to gath
Read more

Star Trek by the Minute 117: My Honor, Commander

-
Image
"Bones!" says Kirk, slapping his Chief Medical Officer: "Buckle up!"  McCoy rolls his eyes.  Kirk sits in the Captain's chair and calls engineering, "Scotty, How we doin?"  Does ANY ship actually require verbally checking with personnel in engineering in to determine operational status?  Would the Flight Director at NASA actually need to contact a launchpad engineer to make certain the rocket was fueled, or would fuel status be automatically visible in Mission Control? "Dilithium chambers at maximum, Captain," replies the Chief Engineer, who then turns to Deep Roy and yells "Get down!"  The obvious question regarding Scott's report is: how does a "chamber" vary from maximum to minimum?  I suppose if one knows very little of "Treknology", one might think dilithium is a fuel, like diesel or gasoline, in which case this report would make sense, like saying (of a car) "The tank is full."  Although trek
Read more

Star Trek by the Minute 019: Ladies’ Night

-
Previous: Vulcan Racism As Spock finishes his interview with the council, we cut to a car driving down a lonely Iowa cornfield with the last flames of dusk dying on the horizon. Without stopping (or slowing) at the crossroads, the car pulls up to a what we discover is a futuristic roadhouse bar. The driver appears to be the Uhura, and we follow her swishing red turtleneck mini dress through the club as she approaches the bar and orders a Clavian Fire Tea, 3 Budweiser® Classics (another shameful product placement), 2 Cardassian Sunrises, and what sounds like a "Slushle Mix" at the bartender's suggestion. Now we see there are women everywhere, but at least they're just functioning as scenery, and ordering drinks. At GirlBar in Hollywood one might see 5 to 1 ratios like this…but in Iowa? OK, it's the future in an alternate universe. The bartender goes to work on her order. "That's a lot of drinks for one woman" comes from our tipsy future hero James T.
Read more