Get worried with David Cameron

According to The Guardian (found via Gristmill), David Cameron, the leader of the UK Conservative Party, identifies with consumers' worries about "what we eat, how it's grown and what it does to our children." He is particularly concerned with GM foods.

Instead he should perhaps be reassuring consumers that GM foods are perfectly healthy and that food these days is safer and cheaper than ever. Although perhaps not for long. The same news item tells us that the mayor of London, Ken Livingston, promises to impose "prohibitively high charges" to trucks bringing non-locally grown food to London. He wants Londoners to switch to locally-grown, organic food. If Londoners haven't done so already it is because they find non-local food more desirable. But Livingston thinks he knows better.

I am not we

Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution says:

David Irving, the British historian, was sentenced in Austria today to three years in jail for denying the holocaust in two speeches he gave in 1989. I have little sympathy for Irving but support the right to free speech. How can we in the West take a principled stand against radical Muslims who riot and kill to protest depictions of Muhammad when we jail those who attack our sacred beliefs?

1. I support the right to free speech.

2. I have nothing interesting to say about people who riot, kill and get killed to protest some cartoons.

3. I take a principled stand against politicians, European or otherwise, who want to suppress the right to free speech.

4. I can't understand how being part of the West can undermine my position. I haven't put Irving in jail and I don't vote for politicians who want to put people like Irving in jail. I am responsible for my own acts only, not my neighbors'. I refuse to apologise for what my neighbors do and think.

5. If, for reasons yet unknown to me, being part of the West undermined my stand for free speech, what should I do? Turn against free speech? Move out of the West into a place with even less freedom of speech?

Peer review market

Prompted by the Korean stem-cell research scandal, Klaus Jaffe argues for reforming the system of peer review of scientific papers (in Nature). He reminds us that "market forces are known to optimize complex systems where multiple players have conflicting interests" and goes on to suggest the following:

First, a central digital repository receives a paper for a fee 'x'. Potential referees then bid to review the paper, and, if approved by the author, receive a fee 'y < x'. Payments are made at the end of each month, allowing for exchanges where an author pays by reviewing other papers.

Referees who can recommend an appropriate journal for the paper and provide the required reference are given due credit and might eventually raise their fee. Authors wanting additional improvements to their work might also pay a higher fee.

Soon, an active exchange could take off where referees quote their position in the peer-market as eagerly as authors quote their citation impact. This system could diminish the workload of referees, by reducing the need to review the same paper for different journals. Eventually this system might be run as an independent peer-review exchange for a profit.

How science works

This cartoon by Dilbert reminded me of science. The most interesting breakthroughs consist of proving previous assumptions wrong.

WTO and GM foods

The European Union almost completely bans the import of genetically modified foods and crops. The World Trade Organization has ruled this week that the ban violates its agreements.

The WTO allows its member countries - or more precisely their governments - to restrict the trade of certain products in order to protect human, animal or plant life, but it requires that this be based on sound science. This is a good idea. Domestic producers are always looking for ways to exclude foreign competitors from their national markets. The requirement of sound science makes it more difficult for governments to surrender to the demands of domestic producers, and thus makes life better for consumers - all of us.

The ruling on the EU ban on GM foods and crops rightly says that it has no scientific justification. Friends of the Earth – U.S. has "criticized the ruling as an inappropriate intrusion into decisions about what food people eat." Its president, Brent Blackwelder, said: "The WTO is unfit to decide what we eat or what farmers grow." Blackwelder is right. And the WTO agrees with him. The WTO does not decide what we eat or what farmers grow. It has ruled that European consumers and farmers must be free to decide for themselves. The EU ban is the truly inappropriate intrusion into decisions about what food people eat.

You can read more at Prometheus, where commenters set Roger Pielke straight, and Muck and Mystery. Many other bloggers also comment the ruling. Several of them make two mistakes - that the WTO is forcing GM foods down our throats and that Europeans are the same thing as the EU governments. EU governments don't want GM foods, but you cannot say the same of "Europeans." Europeans who do not want GM foods will be free not to grow or eat them. Thanks to the WTO, the rest of us will hopefully be free to grow or eat them.

Farm subsidies and biodiversity

Agri-Environment Schemes are EU farm subsidies with the stated purpose of preserving biodiversity. In 2003 the subsidies amounted to about € 3.7 billion. In 2005 the program covered approximately 25% of the total agricultural area in the 15 older member states. A research team funded by the EU has now concluded that

Agri-Environment Schemes (AES) in Europe appear to be largely ineffective as policy instruments. Research in five European countries has shown that common species of birds, insects and plants do not benefit very much from this kind of nature management and rare species benefit much less. There are virtually no benefits for threatened species (listed in the Red Data Books).

Although they do not succeed in protecting biodiversity the subsidies do perform some function:

[I]t has turned out that subsidies for AES provide European countries with the possibility of indirectly supporting the agricultural community in situations where direct support is under pressure due to the resulting distortion of international trade.

In other words, as many had already suspected, the Schemes are just traditional farm subsidies dressed up as biodiversity protection measures.

Freedom of speech

Thomas Szasz writes this in the introduction to his The Untamed Tongue:

Indeed, faced with the pretentious solemnity of official Nonsense, evidence and reason are helpless. Our only effective weapon against it is laughter, especially the laughter of ridicule. "Nothing," observed Voltaire, "is so effective in crushing superstition as mockery. . . . Ridicule gets the better of anything; it is the most powerful of weapons."

It is refreshing to read this while several European and North American officials express their discomfort with freedom of speech. Voltaire also said "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."