Again with the False Equivalence

In an attempt to sound moderate and reasonable, Mark has once again fallen for the false equivalence that -- because some Democrats don't like nuclear power, vaccines and genetically modified organisms -- it means that they are just as anti-science as Republicans.

That's a load of crap.

Huge segments of the Republican base deny the very science of evolution (the basis of all biology) and large numbers of them deny the basic science of climate change. Their know-nothing bona fides are well-established.

Democrats don't oppose nuclear power because they don't believe in nuclear physics, but because they believe we don't have a handle on the technology.

The Democrats who oppose nuclear power do so not because they don't believe that fissioning atoms produces energy, but because they believe it's an inappropriate use of a technology that has a large number of extremely dangerous problems.

First, nuclear power plants have already had numerous accidents that have released serious amounts of radiation (Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island), plus a number of other incidents that the American and Soviet military won't own up to publicly.

On-site accidents, earthquakes, tsunamis and terrorist attacks could breach the reactor's core or break open the dry casks, releasing large quantities of radiation. The Fukushima reactors are still leaking radiation into the sea; the only way they have to slow this down is to build a giant freezer around the whole reactor and turn the leaking radioactive water to ice. And still radioactive water is getting to the Pacific.

A Fukushima-like meltdown at the Prairie Island nuclear plant in Minnesota could poison the Mississippi for centuries.

Second, and this is the real problem, we have nowhere to store the nuclear waste. Currently nuclear power plants across the country are just storing the waste in their reactors, or in dry casks on site, often on the banks of rivers that serve as water supplies for large metropolitan areas downstream. This is extremely dangerous. As we saw at Fukushima, storing the waste in the reactor is idiotic, because if the waste is exposed to air it will melt down and potentially cause a catastrophic explosion.

In the USA no state will allow a nuclear waste repository on their land because they don't want to be stuck with everyone else's waste. Furthermore, even if some state did allow storing it there, transporting all that waste to one location allows terrorists to know where it is and attack it anywhere along the route. Given how frequently oil trains keep derailing and exploding, how smart is it, really, to ship tons of radioactive waste around the country?

It would be a mistake to build new nuclear plants without any plan for dealing with the waste.

Now, I'm not in favor of shutting down every nuclear power plant at once. But it's clearly a dangerous technology that we don't really have a handle on, because we have no solution for disposing of the waste. Waste that will be dangerous for centuries. It would be a mistake to compound our problems and build new nuclear plants without any plan for dealing with the waste.

That's the difference between Republicans and Democrats: Democrats don't deny the science of nuclear power, they just don't trust that big businesses focused exclusively on jacking up profits can be trusted to guarantee our safety with an extremely dangerous waste product that will be around long after they have declared bankruptcy. It's basically the same reason environmentalists don't like coal and oil or Republicans don't like big government: they don't like the waste.

GMO foods are much the same. Democrats don't deny that we can insert certain genes into plants to alter their biology. The question is whether using that technology is wise.

The most common GMO crops are "Round Up-ready" corn and soybeans. These plants can be soaked in herbicides (glyphosate) that kill weeds. The problem is that herbicides and pesticides are poisons. Scientific research has shown links between these toxins and Parkinson's, birth defects, autism, and other developmental effects in fetuses. They also cause deformities in amphibians and play a role in Colony Collapse Disorder among bees.

GMO crops encourage overuse of toxic chemicals, create monocultures and make farmers completely dependent on big agro.

Then there's the economics: GMO crops are a bad deal for farmers. In the olden days, farmers could save some of the seed from their harvest to plant their next crop. The agro giants have sued farmers to prevent this practice with GMO seeds. Farmers can be sued even if they replant seed from their own plants, which accidentally bred with GMO plants from neighboring farmers fields.

The problem with agriculture being dependent on herbicides and pesticides is that weeds and pests develop immunities to these poisons, making them ineffective (due to that pesky evolution). These superweeds require farmers to use ever more toxic herbicides, poisons that the companies say are completely safe, but they never have to prove their safety. These products can only be forced off the market if someone else proves they are harmful, and that can take decades.

Finally, use of GMO crops promotes monocultures. Across the country there are only a few different kinds of corn and soybeans. If some new pest or rust shows up that these crops aren't protected from, we could lose the entire year's crop

Scientifically speaking, it is safer in the long term for the food supply to have more genetic diversity, and to use farming techniques that reduce the amount of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer and irrigation required. Arguments to the contrary are not based in science, but in business, finance and population control.

Nuclear power and GMO organisms are not "science," they are just technologies. They are tools we use to produce energy and food.

As for vaccines, I have heard just as many conservative nut jobs who believe vaccines and fluoridated water are communist conspiracies as liberals who think that they cause autism. At one time there was a valid concern about vaccines: they contained the preservative thimerosal, an organic mercury compound that causes neurological damage. Thimerosal has since been removed from childhood vaccines, but is still present in some adult vaccines and other products like contact lens solution. But since we know mercury causes neurological damage (see: mad as a hatter), why are we still using it?

Furthermore, even if you ignore the whole autism scare, the science says that some small number of people will have negative reactions to vaccinations (even including death), and it is possible (though unlikely) to contract a disease from a live-virus vaccine.

Any medical procedure poses a risk of injury or death, including vaccination.

The fact is, any time you have any medical procedure there's a chance something bad will happen. You run the risk of getting any number of diseases just going to the doctor to get vaccinated if some sick person coughs on you.

Statistically speaking, however, we are safer as a society and as individuals if everyone is vaccinated. But it's also true that some small number of kids will get sick and some will die as a result of a vaccination. That number is much smaller than the number of kids who will get sick and die from the measles, but it's still a risk that scientists have to acknowledge.

But that argument is hard to make to a mother whose child is screaming bloody murder because he got poked by that scary needle. Individual moms don't care about statistics and herd immunity, they only care about their kids. Yes, it's foolish, but can you blame them?

Questioning whether a technology should be used is not a statement against science.

Questioning whether a technology should be used is not a statement against science. The question is whether the benefits of the technology outweigh the risks. The answer is based on statistical analysis, and how much personal risk we want to take in order to benefit all society.

For vaccines it's clear that personal risks are worth the benefit to society. But for nuclear power and GMO crops in particular, all of society is being made to take potentially large risks so that a very small number of corporations can generate vast profits with their proprietary products.