Ed Dowding

Proof that older = wiser:

Age at marriage for those who divorce in America:

However, proof that we don’t learn from experience:

50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce.

Source: http://www.divorcerate.org/

I’ve just been watching ‘The World According to Monsanto’. It’s pretty compelling stuff. As one of the contributors says,

“Seed is more powerful than bombs, more powerful than guns”

and given that, you’d have thought that we’d be a little more careful about what we do it.

70% of the food in the USA contains bio-engineered ingredients. They are not allowed by law to label if a product contains GM ingredients.

Monsanto has repeatedly falsified studies, bribed, and spread misinformation, sometimes even allowing their agents to masquerade as scientists to run a smear campaign against those scientists who contest their studies.

This is simply bad science.

I’m not anti-GM crops, but I do think that progressing at such speed, with such scant and ambiguous positive evidence, is dangerous folly. This is, after all, the whole world’s food supply we’re talking about.

In fact this whole documentary is basically about bad science: tailoring interpretations to achieve economic ends.  It’s worth having a watch. It’s even conveniently divided up into bite-sized 10 minute chunks.

Summary of arguments against GM crops:

• Don’t do what they say
• Tested to only very low standards, riding on a ‘substantial equivalence’ test (NB this similar to how Thalidomide occured)
• Can not be contained and can thus undermine the genes of related and non-related organisms.
• Create dependency on chemical companies
• Take from the soil without putting back
• Reduce biodiversity and encourage monoculture
• Contribute to the spread of antibiotic resistance
• Genes can mutate with harmful effect
• “Sleeper” genes could be accidentally switched on and active genes could become “silent”
• They impact on birds, insects and soil biota
• Transfer of allergenic genes, triggering reactions in humans and animals
• Mixing of GM products in the food chain
• Transfer of antibiotic resistance
• Loss of farmers’ access to plant material since keeping seeds it not permitted both by legal terms, and terminator and / or traitor genes
• Intellectual property rights could slow research

Sources: ‘The World According to Monsanto’ Online For Free. | The Good Human and  http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/focus/2003/gmo8.htm

Have you noticed how if the Government is thinking of doing something, it leaks the idea into the papers, see how it goes down, and then a few days later we get a policy statement?

Were you ever told by your driving instructor that if you’re heading towards a crash, look for the gap between the obstacles not the obstacles themselves? We tend to turn towards that which we’re concentrating on.

As Orwell put it, “Myths which are believed in tend to become true.”

So I wonder if the world would be a nice place if the Bible ran backwards? And that struggling through fire and torment, we finally work our way back to Eden.

How we consider our position in time effects our outlook on life. Much like our use of language, really. More confirmation that the world is what we perceive it to be, and very little else.

As Hamlet says, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_prescribes_a_healthy_take_on_time.html

Why it’s not OK to promote the belief in mystic forces which go against all available evidence:

I can’t see clearly what is going on, but heavy smoke is rising from the ground and a horrible stench fills the air [...]

Suddenly an old woman breaks from the crowd, screaming for mercy. Three or four people go after her, beat her and drag her back, pushing her onto – what I can now see – is a raging fire.

I was witnessing a horrific practice which appears to be on the increase in Kenya – the lynching of people accused of being witches  [...]

I later discovered that the young boy who had supposedly been bewitched, was suffering from epilepsy.

His mother had panicked when he had had an attack.

Source: BBC News – Horror of Kenya’s ‘witch’ lynchings