Re:We’re Scientists, Moms, And We Avoid Non-GMO Products
by ricksplat on Monday November 07, 2016 @02:14PM
(#12893958)
I noting that more and more meta-analyses are kind of falling out of fashion. They're increasingly being viewed as having dubious scientific merit and should be viewed similarly to "lit reviews". As well as some obvious biases there are other subtle issues, such as incomplete data or poorly matched data-sets. There's a list of short-comings on the wikipedia page which should provide a good primer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis#Problems
Basically, we need to be careful about accepting the results of meta-analyses as scientific fact. They are useful for illustrative purposes but really, at the end of the day if you're going to settle an argument you're going to need rigorous methodology, data-collection and reporting, as well as the all important reproducibility, falsifiability and verifiablity.
Key takes:
"On average, GM technology adoption has reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%, increased crop yields by 22%, and increased farmer profits by 68%. Yield gains and pesticide reductions are larger for insect-resistant crops than for herbicide-tolerant crops. Yield and profit gains are higher in developing countries than in developed countries."
So pesticide use goes down, yields go up, resulting in fewer acres planted for the same yield resulting in even further pesticide use.
[1]http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....