sucky sucky junkscience.com

[Charlie Bell]

On 20/04/2008, at 2:14 PM, Wayne Eddy wrote:
>
>> If you think so. The overall purpose of the site is FUD, and it's
>> dishonest.
>
> Perhaps, who knows what another persons motives are.  Sometimes it  
> is hard
> to tell the difference between FUD and sincerely held beliefs.

It doesn't matter how sincerely a belief is held, if it's wrong...  
Jenny McCarthy seemed very sincere on Oprah when talking about her  
son's autism.
>  For example
> the much of the outcry against genetically engineered crops seems to  
> be FUD
> to me, but I'm sure that many people who are anti GM crops are  
> sincere in
> their beliefs..

Of course. Many people are genuinely scared by GM, as they are by  
human/animal cell "hybrids", by same-sex marriage, by vaccination.  
They are totally sincere. They are also either totally wrong or are  
worried about the wrong thing. Almost without exception, these sincere  
ordinary folks are getting their information from scare-mongers who  
are making money from their misrepresentations and lies.

GM, weirdly, is the exception. There don't seem to be that many  
professional scaremongers, maybe because there's so much ick factor  
already, so many mutant movies and weird urban legends, and so many  
natural freaks (for want of a better word) that the terror cause by  
ignorance is self-sustaining. And maybe also because most responsible  
scientists are naturally wary of the potential pitfalls of the  
technology, and have worked hard to communicate that.
>>
>> Very few think it'll be the end of the world. Most who think it'll be
>> a problem think it'll merely mean death or severe hardship for  
>> about a
>> third of the world's population, and a mass extinction... Where I  
>> live
>> in southern Australia, we're rebounding between long drought and
>> severe rain (which is mostly running off into the sea...). This is
>> only going to get worse as mean temperatures rise.
>
> In the absence of technological advances, I don't doubt that at  
> least a
> third of the world's population is in for a tough time.  I'm just  
> not sure
> that it is global warming that will be their main concern.

So what do you think that main concern will be?
>
>
> I agree.  It is uncontrolled population growth that is the root of  
> most of
> the worlds problems.  It seems to me that advancing technology  
> increases the
> world's carrying capacity, but not as fast as the world's population  
> grows.
> Hopefully technology will catch up one day.

Or, we'll be responsible, and breed sustainably in the future.

C.