Treading the middle path

Controversies are part of public life.  Allegations and assertions fly in from multiple sides. Media   committed to   Breaking News every second,  is no help either. Common man is left too astounded at the revelations and too confused  to choose between true and false.   One knows truth is somewhere in between or everywhere, but  nebulous and evasive.

One would have thought  things are very different in the scientific world. After all, science is the pursuit of truth and scientists are driven by hard data alone, not mere speculations. So there should  be just black and white with sharp boundary and  no intervening grey area. If only this were true! State of things are no different in the scientific world either. Only difference is it rarely spills out  into daily newspapers or news channels.  For example the controversy about the genetically modified crops.(1-4) While one group is ready to wager  everything to advocate that  GM crops are man’s best answer to the impending global food crisis, their opponents would leave no stone unturned to prove the opposite. The huge chasm between this divide is filled by  the “maybe/may not be” population  who would keep on  demanding more proof to decide one way or the other.

Another debate which rages on endlessly is the climate change. Well, everybody agrees that  global climate is  changing, but not on the causes,  consequences nor on the urgency to confront the issue.  Of course there is a tendency to link  the occurrence of every natural disaster to climate change has resulted in the trivialization of the issue.   Kerry Emmanuel of MIT has done a detailed study  on the occurrence of hurricanes in the US  and remarks  that  “anthropogenic climate change may have a substantial influence on tropical cyclone activity around the world ” (5).  No conclusive reports have appeared as yet on the genesis of Hurricane Sandy that lashed the US east coast last week.  

These are only minor aberrations. Scientists have always taken decisions, one way or the other. Or else man wouldn't have stepped on the moon, nor  polio vaccine  made.

Tailpiece:  
L’Aquilla (Italy) is  an earthquake prone city, the residents are  aware of that. During March-April 2009, seismologists detected spikes in the activity of Earth’s underbelly, but top scientists of the   NCFPMR (National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, Italy) reassured the public not to worry,  nothing out of ordinary would happen.  But alas on 6^th April 2009,   at about 3.00 AM the town experienced one of the worst earthquakes ever in the last 30 years.  Seven members of the Commission now stand convicted of manslaughter though not willful.  Their crime, not that they misread the signals , but that they mislead the residents into a false sense of “ all is well”, one of them  even suggesting that they relax with a glass of wine.

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Sunset  from the shores of  Tungabhadra

References:

1.    Rat study sparks GM furore: Butler, Nature 27^th September,2012 489,page484

2.    Hyped GM maize study faces scrutiny: Butler  Nature 11^th October,2012, 490, 158

3.    Genetically modified plants and human health, Royal Society of Medicine 2008 vol. 101(6) .  290-298, Key et al

4.    Global Warming Effects on US Hurricane Damage: Kerry Emmanuel ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/wcas_2011.pdf