Let's scrutinize Adventist Today articles

Back in February I addressed the scientific incompetence of an article on Adventist Today.  My article began with this:

 “Adventist Today once again enters the world of pseudo science with their article Hermetically Sealed: Conspiracy Theories and Special Knowledge. Sadly this article is written by David Geelan an Associate Professor of Science Education at Griffith University on the Gold Coast, Australia. I say sadly because in the Big Ag section it is completely wrong. But it does not start out that well either!”

The same author has continued on with some of the same poor reasoning practices in his most recent article.  R.E.S.P.E.C.T.: What Respect Is Owed to Ideas and Beliefs? It is interesting that the title is about others' ideas and beliefs which are the reasons I chose to rebut his fallacies. As you might recall one of his beliefs from his previous article is that:

   “Big Ag and GMOsThe same applies to genetically modified organisms, particularly plants used in food crops. While the genetic modifications themselves are shown to be benign in terms of human health effects, there are real issues. One is that the corporations that make the seeds want to earn higher profits. One way to do this is to engineer the plants so that the seeds they bear are infertile. Instead of saving some seed from last year’s crop to plant next year’s crop, poor farmers must buy seed anew each year. Another is that plants can be genetically modified, for example, to be tolerant to RoundUp (glyphosate) pesticides, but this can mean excessive application of pesticides to fields, with attendant risks to both farm workers and consumers.”

As I pointed out there are no seed companies that are engineering seeds to be infertile. His earlier article about conspiracies included this conspiracy and due to the politics over at Adventist Today no one ever corrected David Geelan’s statement or even questioned as to where he got that idea. Since Adventist Today censors and removes people who disagree with their articles it appears to mainly leave people who will simply agree with those articles. After all, with their rules, anything they disagree with can be labeled as not civil conversation. So it just is not done, to correct an Adventist Today author on their Facebook comments page. If one wants to know more about this purposed technology check out the Wikipedia page. Here is how it begins:

Genetic use restriction technology (GURT), also known as terminator technology or suicide seeds, is the name given to proposed methods for restricting the use of genetically modified plants by activating some genes only in response to certain stimuli, especially to cause second generation seeds to be infertile.^[2][3] The technology was originally developed under a cooperative research and development agreement between the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture and Delta and Pine Land company in the 1990s and is not yet commercially available.^[4]

In David Geelan’s most recent article about respect he states:

“I seek to subject the ideas I hold to the most rigorous scrutiny I can. I want to believe things that are true, and I want to hold ideas and beliefs that make the world a better place. That is the two-fold test: is it true, and does it make the world better? (There are complex questions about ‘better for whom?’ and ‘better judged by what standards?’ but those are for another time.) I very much like Rotary International’s ‘Four-way Test’: Is it the truth?Is it fair to all concerned?Will it build goodwill and better friendships?Will it be beneficial to all concerned?”

I think that list is pretty good with the exception of the last one. I don’t think Geelan follows it at all, however. Obviously, his rigorous scrutiny into seed companies using GURT to force farmers to not hold over seeds they have grown to be used for the next planting would have been quickly revealed to be a myth should he have applied any scrutiny to the question. Likewise, it fails the is it truth test; the is it fair to all concerned test;  the will it build good will and friendship test and is it beneficial to all concerned test.

Nothing will ever be beneficial to all concerned. Some students of David Geelan will likely at some point search his name on the internet and come upon one of my articles pointing out the false information that he is writing and David Geelan will not think that this is a benefit to him. It is not a benefit to Adventist Today because they are propagators of false information. Now it could be beneficial should he or they learn from their mistakes, but you can’t depend on people looking critically at themselves and thus benefiting from correction.

Many times people think that their knowledge is sufficient in itself and they assume that they are simply correct. This is what Geelan does as he continues in his article to tell us how a belief may be harmful. He writes:

“…The idea that hydroxychloroquine is a safe treatment for COVID-19, for example, is not supported by good evidence, and there are cases of people with severe liver damage from participating in clinical trials… and of people who have died taking related chemicals without medical supervision… “

In fact there is practically no safe drug for any treatment. Penicillin, aspirin, ibuprofen, etc. Drugs are cost-benefit analysis. To disregard something by saying it is not safe it very disingenuous. It actually reflects a political viewpoint disguised as being honest.  Opponents of President Trump frequently deride it and ignore the French study that brought world attention to it. The drug is still being tested in trials however some with good results such as this:

A nursing home medical director in Texas said he has used hydroxychloroquine sulfate to treat 39 coronavirus patients, and all of them are doing well after five days, WFAA-TV reported. The Blaze

And a retrospective review, also referenced in the above French study link:

A study of the effectiveness of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine on veterans hospitalized with COVID-19 showed that the drug had no positive impact on those who took it when compared to patients who did not, Politico reported The Blaze

As trials continue it is very unscientific to reach a conclusion before the facts are in. Any new disease takes a while for therapies to be determined as the most effective. Equally concerning is Geelan’s attempt to attach what appears to be a murder attempt of someone to the drug because it has some similar ingredients as fish tank cleaner.

Gary Lenius, a 68-year-old Arizona man, tragically died March 22 after ingesting fish tank cleaner. Lenius's wife, Wanda, told police that she and her husband mixed the toxic cleaner, which contained chloroquine phosphate, with soda to make a cocktail they thought would stave off the coronavirus. The Blaze

  

It is a very interesting case and hard to not suspect murder. That the woman who was a Democrat who disliked president Trump quickly jumped on the chemical to be used prophylactically is equally suspicious. But the motives are often difficult to ascertain. 

But when something comes up and it is not really related to the previous conversation or article you can often tell that there is a political reason for it to be conveyed.  These kinds of subtle propaganda pieces tend to fool a lot of people who may not understand the political manipulation techniques that are being used. But in any case you can’t simply declare a drug therapy unsafe when trials are not complete or because a drug that you can get from veterinarian prescription is used by people who don’t even have the disease in question. That is simply faulty logic or propaganda. In this case, it may, in fact, be both.

Geelan’s conclusion:

We owe respect – of at least one kind and up to three kinds – to other human beings. But the appropriate kind of respect to apply to ideas is not to accept them uncritically, but to scrutinise them rigorously in terms of (a) whether they are the truth and (b) whether they cause benefit or harm in the world if acted upon. And applying this scrutiny to the ideas someone holds and actively promotes is not showing disrespect to that person.

I completely agree. It would be nice if Adventist media could feel that they could afford to allow rigorous scrutiny.