认清反转基因逻辑，你将学会批判性思考_风闻

前言：在前一篇文章《为何不证明“转基因是安全的”的逻辑推导》中，我们了解到了为何在逻辑层面，许多反转基因的理由是站不住脚的，如同我们无法以相同理由证明一杯水是绝对安全的一样。这些逻辑上的硬伤是构成当今反转基因理论的致命漏洞，本文由国外作者发表的文章重点分析了反转基因势力的主要几个观点，并从中分析了13个自我相互矛盾以及逻辑层上的误区，来指明了反转基因观点到底在什么地方是荒谬和错误的。文中总结的许多反转基因舆论战特点在我国的反转基因舆论场中也同样适用。本文引用部分为UP本人根据国内反转基因团体的真实行为补充了一些观点。

友情提示：Alt + F4 键可以迅速关闭本文并封闭自己的视野。我认为可以帮助某些人节约不必要看文章的时间。

原题：有关转基因生物的争论是体现批判性思维的一个重要研究案例。

反转基因运动的考验期到了。在过去的几年中，Amy Harmon, Nathaneal Johnson, Keith Kloor, Micheal Specter等人国内知名科学记者已经把抵制转基因运动相关言论批得体无完肤了。三周前，Slate杂志就禁用、标注转基因食品一事也提出了诸多质疑。

值得称赞的是一些转基因批评者，似乎愿意接受反转基因运动改革了。作为Just Lable It（标注转基因）运动的领导者，Gary Hirshberg因为一些毫无科学依据的言论被转基因支持者攻击了。但他最新文章已有迹象表明他厌恶了“转基因食品危险有害”这类言论。他正在试图重新把焦点转移到有关（转基因食品生产与销售）透明度，除草剂的应用，长期监测问题的争论上来。

还有一部分人一意孤行地抹黑转基因的安全性。Claire Robinson是他们的头儿，他是GM Watch的主编并且还是地球资源研究所的研究员。两年前，Johnson为了Grist杂志的系列报道，就转基因运动的论战双方展开了调查。 Robinson当时指责Johnson是在美化（转基因）产业链。现在Robinson已经为Slate杂志完成了系列文章的撰写。Robinson的论点站不住脚，但他们这样做还是有意义的。通过探究这些常见的反转基因的错误，你至少可以学到很多关于如何批判性思考的知识。以下是一些经验之谈。

1）不要迷信权威。

Robinson曾说过你不应该轻易相信科研机构的模糊判断。我同意她的观点。这也是我为什么要深入探究四个案例以寻求确切证据的原因。我指的是证据，而不是什么担保，我要的是能揭开转基因争论的真面目的确凿证据。因此当Robinson试图通过呼吁权威而掩盖证据，引用伪造的诸如美国环境科学组织时（该组织是一个伪装成学术仲裁协会的冒牌组织），不要上当受骗。

在国内，一些反转组织和博客经常性歪曲甚至篡改国外发布的科研数据报告，比如比较著名的“直言了（一个反转博客博主）歪曲美国国务院报告数据进行造假。因此在查阅这些看似由权威机构发布的观点时，要求对方能够提供原文全文，并且让自己有一定的原文阅读能力是非常必要的。（UP补充注释，后同）

2）小心概念泛化。

Robinson引用了世界卫生组织的一份声明：“不同的转基因生物包括不同基因按不同的方式插入生物体内。这意味着，个别转基因食品及其安全性的评估应该具体问题具体分析，因此我们不可能对所有转基因食品的安全性一概而论。”她把上述声明作为需要更加严格规范转基因生物的论据。Robinson犯了个错，其实那个声明仅仅是说：不可过于粗糙宽泛地对食品进行分类隔离，每种食品都应根据自身特点进行评估。转基因标识才是犯了这样的错误，分类隔离其实是完全不必要的。

3）仔细阅读细则。

为了用草甘膦来吓唬人。Robinson从自然杂志上节选了一个标题：“癌症和广泛使用的除草剂有关”

。她把标题放在图表之中，这样你就不能点进网页链接进一步阅读原文。如果你去查那篇文章，你又会发现很多警告性的词句“风险是无法定量的”，而且那篇文章所援引的科学家自己都说“此处援引的证据显得有点薄弱”。孟山都公司指出，草甘膦已经被划分为类似咖啡，手机这类可能致癌物质之列。不要相信公司的把戏，但也不要相信反企业的把戏。

与国内反转势力的观点如出一辙，凡讨论转基因，反转人士势必会抬出“孟山都罪不可赦”的观点来。虽然孟山都在转基因作物方面有许多成果，但并不能抹杀其他企业在这个行业努力的成果。而反跨国公司的把戏本质也是一种阴谋论。

4）尊重证据。

Robinson说，“你们不能相信我，因为我曾说过无人驾驶飞机减少了平民伤亡。”我的证据显示上述结论是正确的。但你**可能会用不同的方式去解读。**但重要的是，我把事实都摆在桌面上，这样我们就可以对它们进行讨论、检验我们之前的数据假设。如果遵循Robinson这种可笑荒谬的先验命题，那么你将一无所获。

先预设立场，再寻找证据，当证据出现相反或者不符合他们需求的时候，选择性无视。这个问题在许多反转势力中经常出现，许多反转人士会发表许许多多观点，许多观点也一样是从网上摘抄的，但他们在摘抄这些观点的时候，从来就没考虑过从相反观点搜索一下，许多他们发表的这些观点，早就被别人批驳过反击过，已经是过时的了。更甚的当然是选择性无视，这在许多持反转基因观点的论文中经常出现——即无视了那些无法与论文观点应征的实验数据。相关例子有许多就不再举出。

5）保持开放的思想，愿意听取他人的意见。

Robinson指出，我最初支持伊拉克战争，后来后悔了，最后写了一篇关于我从错误中学到教训的文章。她自嘲有一个很糟糕的历史观，还让读者们不要轻信她。她的手段已经落伍了。你不该相信那些自己都拒绝接受新知识的人。当事情没有按照你期望的方向发展时，你必须重新思考你的假设，否则你会一直死守教条。

在国内，理性的转基因话题讨论是不存在的，这点就是我之前的签名观点，如今仍然在坚持，所以我始终不认为我能说服几个反转人士，我发文章从来就不指望是给他们看的。

6）仔细检查每件事。

在Slate的文章中，我对转基因批评家选择性的监督行为表示了不满——**他们一方面夸大转基因的风险，而另一方面却对非转基因替代品的风险轻描淡写。**其中有一个例子是关于植入了病毒基因的木瓜。评论员们把那个转基因木瓜描述得十分危险可怕，尽管人们其实已经安全食用含有同样病毒的木瓜好多年了。Robinson做的这组对比存在漏洞，因为通过基因工程技术改变结构的病毒与天然病毒并不相同。她声称转基因的嵌入过程和随后转基因过程中的组织培养会产生突变。这些会引发植物产生生化反应，反过来也可能使得植物意外产生毒素或过敏物质。但是突变并不是转基因生物所特有的，突变是随处可见的，尤其是在植物育种上更是十分平常。如此说来，非转基因生物过敏或中毒的可能性其实更大。

我也很早就在评论区指出，对于转基因食品的安全需求，同样应当用于验证非转基因食品，而反转人士对此的反驳只能是一句“老祖宗吃了几千年就是没问题的”苍白无力的回复。因为他们知道，他们提出的这些安全指责站不住脚，也不可能实现，提出这些观点，并不是他们真正关心食品安全，而只是故意给转基因食品找茬，给转基因食品竖起一个不可逾越的门槛罢了。

7）比较选项。

如果有人告诉你某件事情很糟糕，那你就用同样的标准来判断它的替代品。**以草甘膦事件为例，转基因评论员说草甘膦有害，但奇怪的是他们对草甘膦的替代品——其它除草剂的毒性却缄口不言。**Robinson质疑我引用美国农业部报道，农业部报道说“抗除草剂作物已经使农民们不得不采用一种毒性更大，药效更持久的除草剂来代替原先的草甘膦了。”

Robinsn认为美农业部的报道并不意味着草甘膦“相对良性”。但农业部就是这么说的“相对良性”。你调查一下就会发现随着草甘膦的使用越来越广泛，其他很多毒性更大的农药除草剂使用量越来越少了。如果你研究了世界卫生组织的农药安全性等级排名，你就会发现草甘膦其实属于第二等危险品，大多数之前被草甘膦取代的除草剂毒性更大。

我之前也一直重复过，反转人士认为草甘膦不好，是否能提出一个比草甘膦毒性更低，效果更好的除草剂来取代草甘膦，而再另一篇不相关文章中，甚至有舆论开始为毒性更强的百草枯强行洗地。

8）留意改变规则。

Slate报道过那些自诩为专家的反转激进分子在夏威夷提供虚假证词（他们中至少有一个曾经得到过Robinson的保护）。那几个人作证说转基因木瓜从来没有接受过动物安全监测。我提供了发表在农业和食品化学杂志的一项研究予以回应，那项研究里面提到了用转基因木瓜喂食过老鼠。Robinson不仅不承认证词是假的，她还抛出了另一个大胆言论。她声称老鼠研究的证据刚好与转基因木瓜的安全性相矛盾。看来她又犯了一个错误。那份研究报告（报告需要付费才能查看）指明了“没有遗传毒性”、“没有生物显著差异，”和“无生物的不利影响。”

Robinson还说，在老鼠身上做的这项安全监测研究太短了。以防万一科学家会继续研究下去，Robinson也准备好了对策---再次转移目标。即使在牛身上持续做两年研究也是不够的（Robinson称牛两年寿命相当于人类八年）。指控和要求是没完没了，如果一直你试图找寻更高的标准和新的合理性借口，那你只是在为你的观点做伪证而已。

转基因食品没有做过安全检测 —— 不正确，转基因做过，我可以拿出相关实验的报告 —— 没用！做了两年完全不够，要百年三代。前面这个情景总能出现在大量反转人士发表的观点中。没完没了的借口。

9）注意政治动机。

Robinson完全无视黄金大米缓解维生素A缺乏症的功效，她眼中的黄金大米就是一个转基因海报的代言人、一个用以攻击生物技术产业评论员的武器。**但是如果你硬要从政治层面看每件事情，你无疑无法看到根本现实。**大米是食物，维生素是一种营养素。**如果你仅仅因为你认为黄金大米是另一方的武器而反对一个营养项目，那你才是玩弄政治手腕的人。**这种“我们”对抗“他们”的思维方式可以带坏任何人。在转基因生物的案例中，它已经带坏了太多的环保主义者和公共健康倡导者。

政治阴谋论，扣帽子，你是孟山都的枪手，拿钱发帖，光观网自己的评论区，这些低劣的观点就屡见不鲜，我都被扣过无数顶这样的帽子，这是所有反转人士在拿不出实证攻击转基因后的最后手段——人身攻击，污名化。虽然即便我从来都没说过孟山都如何如何，我说的最多的都是国产转基因作物。

10）小心商业动机。

Robinson不相信任何与孟山都公司有联系的人做的转基因研究。但她对于自己和有机消费者协会的关系却觉得没什么，有机消费者协会代表着几千家天然食品和有机市场企业，这一协会也会从强制性的转基因标识中受益良多。Robinson还称转基因木瓜的失败是因为“市场排斥”，但正是反转基因群体大大推动了市场排斥。在这场论战中，孟山都不是唯一操纵市场的公司，**反转基因群体同样影响着消费市场。**请睁大眼睛，从正反两个方面来看这个问题。

崔永元的淘宝食品店给我们上了一堂该观点的真实生动的课程，不再重复。

11）谨防阴谋论。

Robinson说，Slate的那篇报道是“政治”产物，因为共和党领导的众议院前脚刚公布全面禁止强制性

打转基因标签，Slate的报道随后就马上发表了。对于我而言，这还真算得上是一个新闻点，我当时都还不知道众议院要表决了。至于Robinson还暗示我是一个狂热的共和党人，并且我的同事们都在与共和党合作，任何读过Slate杂志的人大概都会觉得此番言论很有趣吧。不要成为痴迷阴谋论的傻瓜，阴谋论总是貌似给你敲警钟，但事实上你正在一步步掉入陷阱而浑然不觉。

任何话题只要进入阴谋论环节就没啥可以讨论的了，转基因也一样，毕竟拿不出实证来辅佐自己观点，总能靠阴谋论的逻辑来掩盖。诸如转基因是美国灭亡中国的阴谋的这样的观点，在中文网络中多如牛毛。

12）检查你的行为是否有悖价值观。

如果你发现自己对抵制高营养价值作物失败耿耿于怀，还振振有词不成功绝不停止抵制这些作物。或者说你可以完全漠视15%的菲律宾的幼儿和学龄前儿童缺乏维生素A，觉得这事儿也没什么大不了的，你最好扪心自问你是怎么才有这种抵制想法的。

我不信美国转基因，我支持国产的，我只反对转基因主粮，我支持国家对转基因的研究。这三点我已经批驳过很多了，事实上反转人士挂在嘴边的这三点除了与事实相反，也与他们自身相互矛盾。

13）顾全大局。

Robinson毫不理会Slate报道中涉及的两项案例研究。那两项案例指出转基因木瓜是“小范围种植”和并且黄金大米也并没有在市场流通。**但如果你无视一项技术的最佳应用方法，并且你限制或者禁止它因为你也不喜欢其他的应用程序，你排除了所有可能性。**那为什么你要给转基因食品贴上一个转基因标签，把转基因大米，木瓜，和土豆划分到耐除草剂的类别中去？基因工程是一种技术，不是一类食品，禁止转基因技术是在把这项技术带给人类的福祉拒之门外。

**我无法保证任何转基因食品都是安全的，而Roinson却能保证每一个非转基因食品都是安全的。**这一点上，我输给她了。我写这篇文章不是为了向各位读者输入某种理念或者打赢一场口水战。我只是想让大家学会批判性思考。如果你遵循了以上13条法则，在抵制转基因运动中，你就能避免犯大错。而且你就能摆脱教条主义的束缚，包括那些宣称代表怀疑的人们也是如此。

原作者： William Saletan 是Slate杂志的专栏作者，为该杂志撰写政治、经济、科学、科技等相关话题内容； Bearing Right一书的作者。原文链接：http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/08/critical_thinking_lessons_for_the_anti_gmo_movement_generalizations_evidence.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top

编译：杨宁

翻页查看英文原文

Food for Thought

The debate over genetically modified organisms is a great case study in how to think critically.

By William Saletan    

It’s gut-check time for the anti-GMO movement. In the past couple of years, some of the  country’s best science journalists—Amy Harmon, Nathanael Johnson, Keith Kloor, Michael Specter, and others—have shredded many of the movement’s claims and arguments. Three weeks ago Slate poked more holes in the case for banning or labeling genetically engineered food.

Some GMO critics, to their credit, seem open to reforming the movement. Gary Hirshberg, the chairman of Just Label It, has been pounded by GMO advocates for unscientific statements. But in his latest essay, Hirshberg shows tentative signs of turning away from allegations that GMOs per se are dangerous. He’s trying to refocus the debate on transparency, herbicidal applications, and long-term monitoring.

Others are clinging to the same old discredited attacks on GMO safety. Chief among them is Claire Robinson, an editor at GMWatch and researcher for Earth Open Source. Two years ago, when Johnson investigated issues on both sides of the GMO debate for a series in Grist, Robinson accused him of parroting industry spin. Now Robinson has written a three-part series leveling a similar charge at Slate. Her arguments fail, but they do so in an instructive way. By exploring these common anti-GMO errors, you can learn a lot about how to think critically, and not just about GMOs. Here are some of the lessons.

No. 1: Don’t rely on authority. Robinson says you shouldn’t settle for vague assurances from scientific organizations. I agree. That’s why I drilled down into four case studies to look at specific evidence. The evidence, not the assurances, is what debunks the arguments against these GMOs. So when Robinson tries to drown out that evidence with her own appeals to authority, citing bogus “science-related organizations” such as the American Academy of Environmental Medicine—a quack group dressed up as an association of scholarly referees—don’t fall for the act.

No. 2: Beware of generalizations. Robinson quotes a statement from the World Health Organization: “Different GM organisms include different genes inserted in different ways. This means that individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods.” She portrays this as an argument for regulating GMOs more strictly than non-GMOs. She’s wrong. The statement means exactly what it says: Instead of segregating food into clumsy, overbroad categories, each product should be assessed on its own merits. That’s the problem with GMO labeling: It’s unwarranted segregation.

No. 3: Read the fine print. To scare you about glyphosate, an herbicide that is used in tandem with some genetically engineered crops, Robinson displays a headline from Nature: “Widely used herbicide linked to cancer.” She puts the headline in a graphic, so you can’t click through to read the article. If you look up the article, you’ll find caveats: The risk is unquantified, and according to an expert quoted in the story, “the evidence cited here appears a bit thin.” The article also debunks a claim from Monsanto, which has implied, misleadingly, that glyphosate has been put in the same possible-carcinogen category as coffee and cellphones. Don’t trust the corporate spin. Don’t trust the anti-corporate spin, either.

No. 4: Respect evidence. Robinson says you can’t trust me because I’ve “claimed that drones cut down on civilian casualties.” Guilty as charged. Here’s my evidence that the drones claim is true. You may interpret it differently. But the important thing is that I’ve put facts on the table so we can debate them and test our assumptions against data. If you follow Robinson’s approach—ridiculing propositions as absurd a priori—you’ll learn nothing.

No. 5: Keep an open mind. Robinson points out that I initially favored the Iraq war, later regretted it, and eventually wrote about lessons I learned from my mistake. She says this shows I have “a history of bad judgment calls,” and therefore you shouldn’t trust me. She has it backward. The people you shouldn’t trust are those who reject new information. When events or experiments don’t turn out as you expected, you have to rethink your assumptions. Otherwise you end up clinging to dead dogmas.

No. 6: Scrutinize everything. In the Slate article, I accused GMO critics of selective scrutiny: playing up the risks of GMOs while playing down the risks of non-GMO alternatives. One example was a papaya engineered with a gene from a virus. The papaya has been portrayed as dangerous, even though people have safely eaten non-GMO papayas loaded with the same virus for decades. Robinson says the comparison is faulty because “the genetically engineered form of the virus is not the same as the natural virus.” She claims that “the GM gene insertion and subsequent tissue culture processes used in genetic engineering create mutations. These can result in biochemical changes in the plant, which in turn could make the plant unexpectedly toxic or allergenic.” But mutations are hardly unique to GMOs. They’re ubiquitous, especially in plant breeding. You’re no more likely to get a toxic mutation from a GMO than from a non-GMO.

No. 7: Compare the options. When you’re told something is bad, apply the same standard in judging the alternatives. Glyphosate is a good example. GMO critics say it’s hazardous, but they’re strangely quiet about the herbicides it has replaced. Robinson says the USDA report I cited—which said the adoption of herbicide-tolerant crops “has enabled farmers to substitute glyphosate for more toxic and persistent herbicides”—doesn’t mean glyphosate is “relatively benign.” But that’s exactly what it means. If you look up which pesticides have declined in use as glyphosate has increased, you find many that are far more hazardous. And if you study the World Health Organization’s pesticide safety ratings, you’ll see that glyphosate is in the second-least-hazardous category. Most of the herbicides it has replaced are worse.

No. 8: Watch for moving goalposts. The Slate article reported that anti-GMO activists who present themselves as experts (at least one of whom Robinson had previously defended) gave false testimony in Hawaii. They testified that genetically engineered papayas had never been tested for safety in animals. I pointed to a study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, in which the papayas had been fed to rats. Rather than acknowledge that the testimony was false, Robinson simply throws up another claim. She says evidence in the rat study contradicts the “belief that the GM papaya is safe.” This, too, is false: The paper (which is paywalled, sorry) reports “no genotoxicity,” “no biologically significant differences,” and “no biologically adverse effects.”

Robinson also says the study was too short. But just in case scientists follow up with a longer study, she’s ready to move the goalposts again: Even a two-year study in cows (“equivalent to around eight years in human terms,” according to Robinson) isn’t enough. The allegations and demands are endless. When you keep reaching for higher standards and new rationalizations, you’re just protecting your beliefs from falsification.

No. 9: Beware of political agendas. Robinson dismisses Golden Rice, which is engineered to relieve vitamin A deficiency, as “a poster-child for GM” and “a weapon to attack the biotech industry’s critics.” But when you see everything in political terms, you lose sight of the underlying reality. Rice is food. Vitamin A is a nutrient. If you campaign against a nutritional project because you see it as a weapon for the other side, you are the one playing politics. This kind of us vs. them thinking can corrupt anyone. In the case of GMOs, it has corrupted too many environmentalists and public health advocates.

No. 10: Beware of business agendas. Robinson discounts GMO research by anyone who has ever been linked to Monsanto. But she sees no problem with her own connections to the Organic Consumers Association, which represents “several thousand businesses in the natural foods and organic marketplace,” which would benefit from mandatory GMO labeling. Robinson also calls genetically engineered papayas a failure because of “market rejection.” But that’s a circular argument, since anti-GMO groups have been driving much of the market rejection. Monsanto isn’t the only one manipulating the market in this debate. Keep your eyes open, and look both ways.

No. 11: Beware of conspiracy theories. Robinson says the Slate article was “political” because it “was published just before the Republican-led House of Representatives considered a complete ban on mandatory GMO labelling.” That’s news to me, since I didn’t even know the House vote was coming. As for Robinson’s suggestion that I’m a rabid Republican and my colleagues are in cahoots with the GOP, I bet that’s pretty funny to those of you who actually read Slate. Don’t be a sucker for conspiracy theories. They make you feel vigilant, when in fact you’re being credulous.

No. 12: Check your behavior against your values. When you find yourself rooting for the failure of nutritionally enhanced crops, arguing that it’s OK to try to block these crops as long as you don’t succeed, or dismissing vitamin A deficiency in 15 percent of Filipino toddlers and preschoolers as no big deal, it’s time to ask yourself how you got to this point.

No. 13: Think about the big picture. Robinson brushes aside two case studies in the Slate article, noting that genetically engineered papayas are “little grown” and Golden Rice is “unavailable.” But if you ignore the best applications of a technology, and you restrict or ban it because you don’t like other applications, you foreclose its possibilities. Why would you demand a label that puts the rice, the papayas, and safer potatoes in a category with products engineered for herbicide tolerance? Genetic engineering is a technique, not a type of food, and banning it would shut down all the good things it can do.

I can’t promise you every GMO is safe, any more than Robinson can promise every non-GMO is safe. I’m not here to sell you an ideology or win a fight. I’m here to encourage you to think critically. If you follow these 13 rules, you’ll avoid the worst mistakes of the anti-GMO movement. And you’ll free yourself from dogmatists, even those who claim to speak for doubt.