Friday evening roundup

Luttwak's rules for arming rebels in Syria. And the legal case, in case you cared (courtesy of Rosa Brooks).

Can GMO defenders make their case without smearing their opponents as anti-science? Some excellent excerpts:

Moreover, the more scientific understanding the public has, the more sceptical they tend to be. This is because they have a sophisticated understanding of how scientific claims to certainty arise, and the more they know about science the more they recognise that it is not a simple process.

Debating science reveals the uncertainties that inevitably exist, and the public can quickly work out that there are social influences on how conclusions emerge. They recognise that who funds science, for example, will have an impact on its outcome. The results of clinical trials in medical research become biased if pharmaceutical companies don't publish negative results. Telling the public that industry-funded research finds GMOs are wonderful isn't going to convince them, because they recognise that they have every incentive to say that.

As a result, if you want to get the pro-science, technically sophisticated UK public to change its mind about a technology it is deeply sceptical of, you don't imply that they are stupid, unpatriotic Luddites who don't care that babies in developing countries will starve to death. By being so clearly in favour of a particular outcome, rather than being seen as an honest broker for a wider public debate, the minister may well have set the whole debate up to fail.

It is a bad idea to take a debate about the politics of food, and the politics of the global distribution of the risks and rewards of innovation, and narrowly focus on questions about risk. The issue isn't just risk, but about how risks and rewards are distributed. With medical genetic technologies there are obvious risks, but the public sees very obvious benefits for sick people and is very supportive of innovation. But with GMOs in agriculture, the social distribution of risks and benefits to the public and to farmers in developing countries is far less obvious. On the other hand, the benefits to large firms (whom the public don't trust because they made such a hash of the GM debate last time) is much clearer.

Speaking of risks: something to think about before you indulge in that beef jerky.

And speaking of shady science and interpreting research: chickens aren't smart, but neither are the people who thought they were based on that study.

The Chipotle case demonstrates the value of transparency--all sorts of things come out when companies have to be straightforward about their ingredients.

I (almost) always have my pasta with olive oil.

RomComs aren't what they used to be.

I would say that not being a martyr is an excellent relationship rule under any circumstances (in this case, it's about participating in the other person's hobbies). Why do you think your presence would be worth your whining?

Everybody's different, but I'm sure glad I didn't marry young, even though it wasn't a planned-out decision. As that article says, "We can’t all snap our fingers and have a good marriage and a stable career in our 20s because that’s the “optimal” age to have children." Of course, out come the trolls who delight in excoriating women for their independence.

Then perhaps we can push back against attitudes that women are “waiting too long” because they’re deluded or selfish or career-obsessed. That won’t be easy, though—there are comments even on Twenge’s piece like, “one thing is choosing not to have babies and another one is to wait too long and then complain that an IVF costs too much or think that your miscarriages are treatable with some sort of ‘cure’. Nope!”

Who are these people? I think at least some of them must be like my coworker (see yesterday's post). I was thinking about how maybe she's reverse-projecting, since she's moving across the country to follow her husband as he takes a promotion. I don't have an opinion on her decision--who is anyone else to say what's right for someone else's family--but perhaps she's not thrilled with it, so one way of justifying it to herself is by feeling sorry for the single ladies, who don't have to move for a partner. I also, for example, didn't have to negotiate my location with anyone (for example, move to the exurbs because that's what a spouse might have wanted). I maintain that if you're happy with your life, you don't have to crap on other people (especially not on the internet).