Anyone who has been following global political trends cannot help but have noticed the emergence of what has been dubbed “post-truth politics”, in which debates are less often steered by calm and rational analysis based on established facts and more about deliberate distortions designed to elicit fear for political ends.
The United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum and the United States Republican presidential nomination process are just two of many examples of this phenomenon. UK cabinet minister Michael Gove helped exemplify this anti-intellectual trend when he said that “people in this country have had enough of experts” as he dismissed analysts’ predictions of significant economic harm if Britons voted to leave the European Union.
But now we are beginning to see a backlash by those who want facts to return to their rightful place in public debate. One example of this is the open letter by 110 Nobel laureates to Greenpeace, urging it to end its campaign against the use of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). The open letter said scientific opinion is settled on risks such as cross-contamination and GMOs are "as safe as, if not safer than those derived from any other method of production". The letter alleged that Greenpeace of having "misrepresented their risks, benefits, and impacts, and supported the criminal destruction of approved field trials and research projects". All but one of the signatories was a laureate in a scientific category.
This does not mean Greenpeace has no role in the field of GMOs. There remains legitimate concern about the commercialisation of seed use, in which plants are modified so farmers cannot use seeds from this year’s crop to plant the following year, thereby compelling them to buy new seeds from commercial enterprises.
But political debate on difficult subjects such as this works best if established facts rather than fearmongering are used to decide the best course of action. The world is hardly short of complex challenges, but the right answers will emerge from appealing to our higher instincts rather than our lowest fears.
