Tom Wakeford reflects on the GM saga
 
Historians will see 15 April 2008 as a milestone in science policy. It was the date when the GM crop dream was officially judged to be a fantasy. The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), the agricultural version of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), concluded ‘that data on some GM crops indicate highly variable yield gains in some places and declines in others’ – as the Guardian put it. Of course the door was left open that, in future, it would be unwise to rule out GM crops; but, as the widely-respected Practical Action (1) group commented, ‘the report rightly concludes that small-scale farmers and ecological methods provide the way forward to avert the current food crisis.’

Popular rejection

It’s time for lots of science policy-makers to start eating GM humble pie. Urgent questions must now be raised about the lessons that policy-makers have drawn from the GM debate. With the exception of John Battle, every UK Science Minister and Chief Scientist since Labour came to power, together with media-friendly scientists and policy wonks, have assumed that the public, to use an oft-heard phrase, ‘misunderstood the facts’ in rejecting the current generation of GM crops. In reality, in virtually every deliberative process undertaken from Brazil to Bangalore, Mali to Medak, the jury went out, and it came back saying no to GM. And it was broadly correct.

I should declare an interest. Together with Andy Stirling from the Science Policy Research Unit, Sussex, I was involved in the first citizens’ jury to discuss GM exactly ten years ago. Its 1998 report concurs with the 2008 IAASTD findings.

We’ve had ten years and, I suspect, tens of millions of pounds, promoting transgenic crops as a solution for world hunger and sustainable agriculture. This in the face of the balance of scientific evidence, the findings of at least twelve deliberative democratic processes, and even the elaborate GM Nation process commissioned and controlled by the UK government, which had all come to a very different conclusion about transgenics. 

Deficit model returning

The Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills (DIUS) is currently re-thinking the relationship between science and society. Some within government, though not the research councils, are still using the GM debate, alongside the MMR controversy, in support of attempts to send us back to the dark age of the deficit model. The irrationality of this model, contrasting officially-approved experts, the founts of all wisdom, with mere lay people, is now beyond argument. So how could it possibly return?

Judging by their practices, the model still seems to dominate large pockets of the BA, the European Commission, the UK government (especially DIUS) and much of the media. The philosopher Kierkegaard pointed out that the more ridiculous the dogma, the more ardent the belief that is required by those who support it. Completely preposterous arguments, such as those used to defend deficit thinking or that GM crops will feed the world, require unflinching faith. 

Collective denial

It’s not that the individual employees of these bureaucracies are the problem, but rather that their leaders have failed to develop systems that allow their organisations to learn. Like the ministerial aides who convinced themselves that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the science communication community has succumbed to what social psychologists call ‘group think’, a collective denial for members of tight-knit teams that there could be overwhelming evidence that contradicts the facts as they see them.

Our last Chief Scientist, Sir David King, seemed to think that most problems related to public trust in science could be solved by the application of the deficit model and his Ethical Code. ‘If every scientist followed the code’, said King, ‘we would improve the quality of science and remove many of the concerns society has about research.’ Analyst Sheila Jasanoff has commented that this amounts to no more than ‘boy scout’ ethics. 

Knowledge from experience

The funding councils are not without their deficit fans. They’ve even been known to support deficit fringe groups such as Sense About Science. Thankfully, wiser heads at the councils decided to set up the six Beacons for Public Engagement. Together we have four years to show that researchers at universities can welcome those whose expertise comes from experience, rather than formal training, as co-producers of useful knowledge.

I wonder how many hunger-related deaths in developing countries could have been avoided if science policy-makers had applied this philosophy to GM ten years ago.

References

(1) Formerly known as the Intermediate Technology Development Group
 
Tom Wakeford is Director of the Durham-Newcastle Beacon for Public Engagement