Can We Trust Our Scientists?

A few weeks ago while looking at the changes in the latest dietary guidelines, I asked whether we could trust our experts. In his latest post, The View From Outside, John Michael Greer asks a similar question about the  scientific community as a whole:

Within the community of researchers, the conclusions of the moment are, at least in theory, open to constant challenge — but only from within the scientific community.

The general public is not invited to take part in those challenges. Quite the contrary, it’s supposed to treat the latest authoritative pronouncement as truth pure and simple, even when that contradicts the authoritative pronouncements of six months before. …

Especially but not only in those branches of science concerned with medicine, pharmacology, and nutrition, the prostitution of the scientific process by business interests has become an open scandal. When a scientist gets behind a podium and makes a statement about the safety or efficacy of a drug, a medical treatment, or what have you, the first question asked by an ever-increasing number of people outside the scientific community these days is “Who’s paying him?”

Tom Whipple takes energy depletion very seriously. In addition to his briefs for ASPO, Whipple has been posting a series called The Peak Oil Crisis in his hometown paper, the Falls Church News Press. In his latest installment, The Mother of All Black Swans, he once again reports that unlimited energy is the only “way out.”

Coming down the road are a pair of technologies that will produce nearly unlimited amounts of cheap, pollution-free energy, and have the potential to change life-as-we-know-it.

I am talking about the twin technologies of cold fusion and hydrinos, each of which, when widely deployed, will constitute a revolution in the history of mankind fully equivalent to the discovery of fire, the wheel, the agricultural revolution, or the industrial revolution. Both of these technologies are based on turning the hydrogen found in water into virtually unlimited amounts of energy at very low cost and without any harmful pollution. …

So where are these technologies and when can we expect to hear and read about them in the mainstream media, especially if they are getting close to becoming commercial products? The answer to this is simple. Both these technologies are based on science that is beyond that generally accepted by scientific community, especially those who have never looked into the results of the experiments. While those few scientists who have tested and are familiar with the details of these technologies tell us that they are for real, the bulk are waiting for irrefutable proof that they actually produce large amounts of cheap energy before they are willing to accept that our knowledge of nature may not be as complete as we like to think and that some scientific theories may be wrong.

Proponents of Cold Fusion, or Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) persistently claim that mainstream scientists ignore them, but when mainstream scientists do take the trouble to debunk their claims, LENR enthusiasts have an almost endless list of additional links to supposedly irrefutable evidence that LENR is just around the corner. They also cite oblique indications that NASA or some private firm is funding LENR research as proof that we will all soon be drawing almost free kilowatts of electricity from cold fusion devices in our basements.

Many mainstream scientists are more impressed with controlled ‘hot’ fusion, which has been just around the corner since the H bomb tests, and characterize any doubts about the fusion research at ITER as anti-science. They cite news releases that Lockheed-Martin’s SkunkWorks has a new design for a compact fusion reactor to support their belief that we will all soon be drawing almost free kilowatts of electricity from compact nuclear fusion devices just down the street.

Yet other mainstream scientists still hold forth that some configuration of fission reactor will be inherently safer, cleaner and more efficient than the ones we have built so far. They cite news releases about Thorium-MOX reactors to support their belief that we will all soon be drawing almost free kilowatts of electricity from nuclear fission plants a few miles upwind.

Nuclear power is not the only technology that is supposed to save us, though. When environmentalists express concern about crops of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), some scientists insist that only GMOs promise to produce enough food for the increasing world population. They’ve been promising that for almost as long as the fusion camp.

On ScienceBlogs, Greg Laden linked to an Atheist Radio interview of “GMO expert” Dr Anastasia Bodnar. Laden will also interview Dr Bodnar, but the comments of a plant evolutionary biologist, going by Laurent, echo Greer:

… pro-GMOs advocates are too often a bit naively scientistic in their approach of the issue, and quick and prone to label any less optimistic contender with an anti-science stamp that is just plain unfair. I understand this is because they are not used to meet with “resistance” or “lesser optimism” from people that understand GMO technology correctly, since most of the time this is about stumping onto not-so-knowledgeable tech-deniers. But still.

When I read in your comment that golden rice’s failure has directly its roots from people trying to prevent its production, I really wonder if you’re not dismissive of the fact that part of the issue is also adoption by local producers of the new technology / variety. This step is often overlooked, even though there are strong cultural and economic constraints to change. Hypertechnophiles tend to view real world change as a logical and self fulfilling prophecy, and that’s where they are bound to fail. GMO’s don’t escape this, because some subtleties are not even considered of importance. (And in the golden rice case, rice colour was itself a troubling matter for people that would have benefitted from the product).

Beside, GMO’s will be an important convenience tool for the industry and the potent industrial agriculture occuring in the temperate western world, but one cannot assume that it will take over more complex agricultural spaces, especially in the tropics. We should stop arguing that it will put an end to starvation or local agricultural deficiencies, because their causes are way beyond the rather limited scope of gene-technology and involve many aspects of ecology, economy and culture that are actually far from understood.

GMO’s are an oversold technology, and should reasonnably be put back at their place (important, but not miraculous). First, researchers should be more carefull to not mimicking industry narratives as to how this tech will solve major societal issues. Yes, there’s some interesting potential, but no, we are not exactly filling the full bragged promises.

I remember as a youngie (that’s the previous millenium I realise), private industry breeders took scientists to the field trials for transgenic potatoes supposedly resistant to mildew in my homecountry. And guess what? GMO clones were the only diseased plants. Of course, we then discovered about gene silencing processes. We then discovered about RNA interference. We then discovered about small RNAi and transcriptional dynamics. All this knowledge came out thanks to transgene-tech. But on the other hand, there’s something quite disappointing: the discourse to promote GMO has never changed a iota over the first (and basic) failures, and never had any pro-GMO acknowledged these. Even you, you are saying words I’ve heard about twenty years ago already. To me, an unbalanced immutable narrative is not the sign of healthy or mature discourse.

Same happened when transgenes were not supposed to cross species boundaries, were not supposed to create environment selective for weed or insect resistance or lead to further the need for increased herbicide weed control, were not supposed to break free in human food tracks while supposed to stay in cattle grains and the list is still going on.

Of course, none of these documented events were that bad and catastrophic. But as the list was growing in the previous decades, it should have induced at minima a change in the narrative, so as to adjust to all the potential prescriptive bad luck events that had been correctly predicted by evolutionary biologists.

When you promise gold, people expect gold, not golden rocks. Frankly, while I completely understand how one is exasperated by anti-GMO bad arguments, I cannot despise the “anti”-crowd for thinking transgene tech is sort of a snake-oil. Because it sort of looks like it is.

Which lead to a question worth posing: in times of dire research funding, how much grant monney is diverted from potentially efficient alternatives to fuel biotech only approaches because of its inner narrative of miraculous solution?

I ask that, because it looks like conventional breeding has improved yield potential at a much larger scale, and GMO builds upon a success without acknowledging that part coming from hard blind genetics, taking gratification for a success it doesn’t compare to yet.

Alternative Cars at the Baltimore Auto Show

Light Rail commuters were able to get in free to the opening day of Motor Trend’s Auto Show at the Baltimore Convention Center. So I stopped by after work. The show seemed smaller than in years past. For one thing, it all fit on the Exhibition floor (Level 100) instead of extending up into the Mezzanine (Level 200) and Meeting Room (Level 300) as in the last time I attended. Even so, there was room for an indoor Jeep drive-around. There were far fewer small vendors. Geico had a booth, Save the Bay was selling license plates and MTA had one of their Clean Diesel buses that you could walk through. But the car paraphernalia vendors that were so numerous two years ago were not there. Not on Thursday, anyway.

My goal was to take the opportunity to open doors, sit in the driver’s seat and checkout the trunk – without being bothered by salespeople. I limited myself to EVs, hybrids, and fuel-efficient cars. I have to admit that I didn’t feel as interested as I did at least year’s DC Auto Show. Maybe the reality of an impending auto purchase is weighing too heavily. Maybe investing in fossil fuel tech seems worse than before.

Subaru has no hybrids or EVs. I took a quick look at the new Subaru Crosstrek — mostly because it was orange — which is essentially an Impreza WRX with much better ground clearance. 25/33 mpg isn’t bad, but isn’t exceptional, and I only drive over potholes.

I still love the curves of the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid (34/39) and found the interior spacious and well-appointed. It’s fuel efficiency just isn’t that great for a hybrid, and accordimg to Edmunds TCO, the 2012 hybrid costs $9K more over 5 years than a comparable combustion-only sedan.  The 2013 Elantra GT (27/37) is attractive and roomy enough for my 6′-1″ frame, but I would swear that a 2012 Elantra was just as roomy and got 28/40 mpg. A lot of those 40 mpg claims have been challenged in the last year.

A slim brunette was doing her Dodge Dart spiel, so I took a quick look at Kia’s Soul (25/30). It was surrounded by cartoon hamsters on foam core boards. When I opened the Soul’s front door it felt so light and cheap that I didn’t even want to sit inside. Kia also has the Rio (28/36) and Forte (27/37), but I only glanced at them. Kia offered the 2012 Optima hybrid, but I didn’t like its low slit of a windshield last year.

Dodge usually advertises their Dart in glossy red, but one on the floor was the ugliest shade of green I’ve seen in a while. They call it Citrus Peel. Another color is Header Orange. I didn’t come away thinking of Alfa Romeo design. The $20K Aero package with 1.4 Liter engine and six-speed manual transmission manages 28/41, but the less expensive Rallye, SXT and SE are rated from 24/34 to 27/39 mpg depending on engine and transmission.

I noticed the pale blue C30 Polestar (21/30) as I walked past Volvo. There was a lot of action around a dark blue Volt (Blue Topaz, I think), so I sat in a Cruze Eco (28/42). The interior was roomy enough, and the interior trim was low key. The last time I saw the Chevy Spark (28/37), which is really a Daewoo, it was a locked prototype. I opened the door, but it felt even cheaper than the Soul. I should have written down the fuel efficiency numbers because Chevy has this thing about only publicizing highway mpg. Fortunately http://www.fueleconomy.gov has them all. The Spark is so very narrow, I didn’t even try to sit in it.

Nissan’s new variable gear automatic Versa sedan (31/40) had a cavernous trunk, a roomy interior with decent plastic trim, and a very low price tag of about $14K. But the even cheaper 5 speed manual is only 27/36 and the 4 speed automatic is only 26/35. [Update: An Around the Block review at the NY Times finds the Versa’s CVT shifter very mistake-prone, so it might be safer to choose a less expensive, less efficient transmission.]

Mazda still has no hybrids. The Mazda 2 (29/35) or Demio, is about as stylish and roomy as the Elantra, with slightly poorer fuel efficiency. The Versa is cheaper and more fuel-efficient than either of them.

VWs always look good. The CC was new to me, but VW promised a Jetta hybrid last year. I finally found the turbocharged Jetta hybrid (42/48), a very attractive car with a roomy, well-appointed cabin. I think some of the trunk space was cut out for hybrid purposes, but it was still spacious. The sticker showed a base price of $16,675 but an MSRP almost twice that, $31,180. [Checking online, the base prices are as follows: Hybrid $24,995, Hybrid SE $26,990, Hybrid SEL $29, 325 and Hybrid SEL Premium $31,180, so I may have been sitting in the Premium.]

I tried to sit in a Honda Insight (41/44) mild hybrid. A salesman asked if I needed help, and I said, “The seat won’t push back,” but he just nodded and walked away. I did sit in the Honda Fit (28/35), which seems incredibly spacious for such a small car, and they had a Fit EV (132/105, 85 mile range) on the floor. The thin blonde Honda rep kept telling me about the Accord PlugIn, which wasn’t in the show, but was supposed to be available soon. The Fit EV is something of a compliance car, and only about 1,100 will be leased this year, but she claimed that a local dealer has several of them. The lithium-titanate Super Charge ion Battery (SCiB) is supposed to be very quick charging and long-lasting, though comparatively low in energy density. At $36,625, I could see the Fit EV eroding the Leaf’s sales, if they really tried to sell them.

I sat in both the Ford C-Max Energi (44/41, 100 in EV mode) plug-in hybrid and the Ford Fusion hybrid (47/47). The Energi was very spacious, like the Prius v, and the interior finish made no impression I can recall. The Fusion was roomy enough, but the interior struck me as plasticky like the old Ford Escape hybrid. There is no new Escape hybrid this year.

At Toyota, I saw the Avalon hybrid (40/39) in a cream color that reminded me of the 2012 Volt. I sat in a Prius (51/48) and Prius Plugin (51/49, 95 EV), and still think that the center console takes up a lot of cabin space. Feels like a coffin. The Prius v (44/40) is much more open, and surprisingly so is the Prius c (53/46). I had read that the Prius c shares chassis with the Yaris, but it is much roomier inside, almost on a par with the Fit. There was plenty of legroom and visibility was excellent. The Prius hatchback certainly carries more than the c, but for a one or two person commuter, the c is more than adequate.

I also sat in the Camry hybrid (43/39), which was comparatively elegant like the Sonata and Jetta. If you can spend many thousands more on a car, any of those three will be very comfortable rides. Edmunds quotes the Camry hybrid with a lower cost of ownership than the standard Camry, so to my mind, there’s no reason to buy the non-hybrid version.

For basic transportation with a low initial cost, it seems hard to beat the Versa sedan [though it might be better to choose the manual or automatic rather than the CVT]. For better fuel efficiency, the Prius c has moved to the top of my list.