Is the organic food movement the most anti-science social movement out there?

[Drake Tungsten]

Discuss.

[giblets]

It's amazing how well this troll is going to work

[Drake Tungsten]

Reason: What do you think of organic farming? A lot of people claim it's better for human health and the environment.

Borlaug: That's ridiculous. This shouldn't even be a debate. Even if you could use all the organic material that you have--the animal manures, the human waste, the plant residues--and get them back on the soil, you couldn't feed more than 4 billion people. In addition, if all agriculture were organic, you would have to increase cropland area dramatically, spreading out into marginal areas and cutting down millions of acres of forests.

At the present time, approximately 80 million tons of nitrogen nutrients are utilized each year. If you tried to produce this nitrogen organically, you would require an additional 5 or 6 billion head of cattle to supply the manure. How much wild land would you have to sacrifice just to produce the forage for these cows? There's a lot of nonsense going on here.

If people want to believe that the organic food has better nutritive value, it's up to them to make that foolish decision. But there's absolutely no research that shows that organic foods provide better nutrition. As far as plants are concerned, they can't tell whether that nitrate ion comes from artificial chemicals or from decomposed organic matter. If some consumers believe that it's better from the point of view of their health to have organic food, God bless them. Let them buy it. Let them pay a bit more. It's a free society. But don't tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertilizer. That's when this misinformation becomes destructive.

http://www.highyieldconservation.org/articles/billions_served.html

Borlaug was also featured in an episode of Penn & Teller: Bull****!, where he was referred to as the "Greatest Human Being That Ever Lived". In that episode, Penn & Teller play a card game where each card depicts a great person in history. Each player picks a few cards at random, and bets on whether one thinks one's card shows a greater person than the other players' cards based on a characterization such as humanitarianism or scientific achievement. Penn gets Norman Borlaug, and proceeds to bet all his chips, his house, his rings, his watch, and essentially everything he's ever owned. He wins because, as he says, "Norman is the greatest human being, and you've probably never heard of him." In the episode — the topic of which was genetically altered food — he is credited with saving the lives of over a billion people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

It takes a very special Iowegian to get a thumbs-up from me, but Borlaug complete deserves it.

[monolith94]

[loinburger]

I would say "no" to the question in the thread title, because I think that e.g. Creationists are more anti-science. I would say "yes" to the question in the poll.

x-monolithed

[giblets]

organic foods tend to cost significantly more

Organic foods are certainly not more nutritious [12]. The nutrient content of plants is determined primarily by heredity. Mineral content may be affected by the mineral content of the soil, but this has no significance in the overall diet. If essential nutrients are missing from the soil, the plant will not grow. If plants grow, that means the essential nutrients are present. Experiments conducted for many years have found no difference in the nutrient content of organically grown crops and those grown under standard agricultural conditions.

Many "organic" proponents suggest that their foods are safer because they have lower levels of pesticide residues. However, the pesticide levels in our food supply are not high. In some situations, pesticides even reduce health risks by preventing the growth of harmful organisms, including molds that produce toxic substances [12].

http://www.quackwatch.org/01Quackery...s/organic.html

Organic food: scam to make consumers pay more?

[Drake Tungsten]

I would say "no" to the question in the thread title, because I think that e.g. Creationists are more anti-science.

True; I guess I should've specified that I was thinking of social movements that aren't openly laughed at in the pages of the New York Times. My bad.

[giblets]

Organic farmers are an important part of farming. However, they are like the fundamentalists -- they ARE fundamentalists -- who think that agriculture must be done in a specific way. The amount of acreage devoted to organic farming is small in the total scheme of things.

Their opposition to genetic engineering is based on their "fundamentalist" approach to everything. The organic farmers have a "specific" way of doing things and anything that does not follow their "rules" is not organic, including conventional farming without genetic engineering.

Leaving their "fundamentalist" "ideology" aside, they are quite hypocritical.

http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech-in...hypocrisy.html

Definitely luddites

[ricketyclik]

As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere in between. (There should have been a poll answer to that effect).

I don't disagree with most of the pro-scientific/industrial food production arguments, but a couple of reservations I do have are:

1. The use of manufactured nitrogen fertilizers is very energy intensive - we may be building a house of cards by relying on them, and

2. There seem to be many adverse human (and ecological generally) conditions linked to the use of pesticides. Admittedly there are of course many benefits, but I'm just saying that just because there are, to adopt a stance that because they're good there isn't any bad about them is a bit simplistic.

[Fake Boris]

And this is exactly why the organic movement is evolving towards a better concept of eco-friendly agriculture — a bit like we went from "global warming" to "climate change" and now "carbon damage". Most "organic labels" tend nowadays to focus on the percentage of "organicity" of the product instead of conveying an all-white/all-black information.

You can't have enough manure to fertilize each and every field, but you can improve its management. You can't do without chemical fertilizers, but you can try to reduce their usage and improve their manufacturing process. You can reduce meat consumption so that you don't need more cultivated area to compensate for a drop in crop output (which would also mean reduced environmental damage per square mile).

And above all, if you think you're so smart, you can focus on what you can do instead of showing what morons won't.

[Drake Tungsten]

And above all, if you think you're so smart, you can focus on what you can do instead of showing what morons won't.

I'm doing my part. I avoid buying organic foods, so that I'm not supporting inefficient and unscientific nonsense.

[HalfLotus]

a bit like we went from "global warming" to "climate change" and now "carbon damage".

Speaking of anti-science dogmas...

[Fake Boris]

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF GREENHOUSE GASES HAVING THE POTENTIAL TO ALTER THE PLANET'S ECOSYSTEM IN UNPREDICTABLE WAYS, AS DEMONSTRATED BY THE FACT THAT WE CAN'T FIGURE OUT FOR SURE WHERE THE CHANGES ARE LEADING US TOWARDS.

[Elok]

Depends what you mean by anti-science, and the threshold of popularity required before you consider a theory's proponents a "social movement." You got your "free energy," your miscellaneous new age crystals quackery, some guy named Alex Chiu who thinks magnets can make you immortal--I think, I might have got his name wrong--and tons more.

At present, I'm feeling grumpy about hating on nuclear power. Radiation is dangerous! Yes it is, now drink your coal-runoff-saturated water, peons.

[Drake Tungsten]

Answer the poll question, then.