Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Genetically modified organisms

First RfC, problems summarizing the WHO

Petrarchan47, do you have a link to the first RfC? I have only a vague memory of it, and that there was something to do with the WHO not being summarized accurately. Once again, in the current options, the WHO has not been summarized accurately, so this RfC risks repeating the same errors. But I want to check that I'm not misremembering. SarahSV ^(talk) 16:13, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

It looks like there have been a number of them; I'm not sure which one Petrarchan47 is talking about. A quick search turns up this and this. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 16:16, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

The Wordsmith, thank you. It was this 2015 RfC that I was thinking of. SarahSV ^(talk) 16:40, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I added a link to the first RfC as the second RfC the The Wordsmith listed was already on this page. With respect to the WHO, the consensus from that RfC was,

"Broad scientific consensus" was most strongly supported by evidence that large-scale medical and empirical research organizations such as the AAAS, WHO, and AMA have issued statements that are consistent with the general opinion of the scientific community.

This was a good reminder to include that RfC to show more of the history in this topic and arguments that have been covered already. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:22, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

"Other comments" section

I'd like for the supervising admins to please take a look at the section that was created under "Other comments". I'm worried that this can be an invitation to threaded discussion. I think it might be perfectly OK for that editor's comments to simply be in a section for that editor, same as for the other respondents. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:56, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Agree, and just said as much, though I responded anyway. It's not a good idea though. Capeo (talk) 05:06, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

It's been fixed. Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:32, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Creation of this RfC (rules, organization, timing, etc.)

The wording of the rules, questions, timing, etc. for this RfC were made in these two places:

• Archive 1 (History)
• User_talk:The_Wordsmith/Archive_6#GMO_RfC

--David Tornheim (talk) 04:55, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Open discussion or comments directly about this RfC:

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment#Clarification_request:_Genetically_modified_organisms
• User_talk:The_Wordsmith#What_is.3F
• User_talk:The_Wordsmith#GMOs
• User_talk:Coffee#Small_edit
• User_talk:Coffee#Redactions

--David Tornheim (talk) 05:33, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

@KrakatoaKatie, Nakon, and Deor: I fail to see the date when the RfC closes to comments. It seems to be 30 days after 7 June. Does that mean an 11:59 UTC 7 July end time? When does it end? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

The The Wordsmith mentioned July 5th just when this question was just asked at their talk page,[5] but it looks like it's ultimately in the three closers' hands at this point. I'm curious too what the road map will be if we're for instance just going to answer question #1 in this round and have a follow-up set of comments on the proposal(s) that got the most support for any final tweaks. Maybe they'll be able to pull off recommending a proposal with relevant changes in their close without doing that too. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:07, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Please have all comments submitted by 18:01 UTC, 6 July, which should be 30 days after the opening of the RFC. Thanks, Nakon 03:23, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps some editors will not notice that here. Please let me suggest that the deadline be posted near the top of the RfC page. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:04, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I'll let a clerk do that, but I added the closing time/date to the RfC's listing at WP:CENT.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:14, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

There are no clerks, so I'll ping The Wordsmith (who is probably sick to death of hearing from me by now!). Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:37, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Introduction

Coffee, The Wordsmith: Please can we have a reasonably short (one paragraph, perhaps even just one sentence) introduction for this RfC, to be placed immediately after the {{rfc}} template. Based upon this edit, the introduction should be signed by The Wordsmith and timestamped 18:01, 6 June 2016 (UTC).

To see why such an introduction is necessary, have a look at how it presently appears at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Unsorted or Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maths, science, and technology - basically, Legobot (talk · contribs) has copied everything from the {{rfc}} template down to the first timestamped signature. Most of that consists of rules of conduct and other procedures, and the dire consequences which will befall those who step out of line. We don't need those on the RfC listing pages, what we need is a précis description of the problem.

When this introduction is added, please also remove the |rfcid= parameter. This will cause Legobot to issue a new rfcid, but it is the only known way of getting Legobot to remove the RfC from Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Unsorted, a page which should normally be empty. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:09, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Ouch. Yeah, that's a reasonable request. I'll take care of it, give me an hour or so to caffeinate. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 14:09, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that looks much better. Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:33, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

This amused me.

In a discussion that has at times been very fraught, I'd like to add a very unimportant note of levity – this now-reverted edit by an IP: [6]. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:56, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Notifications

Do we still want to add this to WP:CENT? Not sure how the decision on the watchlist notification ended up, but if it goes ahead it needs to be requested at MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-details. AIRcorn (talk) 09:53, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree. @The Wordsmith: @Coffee: It would be very helpful if one of you would add this to CENT when you have the time. Perhaps we should do the watchlist notice for 7 days a little later in the 30-day period, maybe around the middle, so that we do it after there is some equilibrium in new proposals being added. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:15, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

I'd also like to suggest a secondary RfC listing at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Politics, government, and law. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:23, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Aircorn, @Tryptofish: I added it to CENT using what I think is a catchy link title. That should attract some attention and get some more opinions here. As to publishing this elsewhere, I am considering adding this to watchlist-details near the final week if we don't have enough input at that point. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 23:40, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Warnings in Notifications

As a nitpick, I think that the small-font warning about the DS might scare users away instead of attracting them. Please let me suggest: "Warning:" → "Note:" --Tryptofish (talk) 23:59, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

If anyone has reason to believe their edits will be subject to sanctions, they likely shouldn't be editing. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 00:05, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

That's true, but I'm talking about human nature. If I saw something that said "Warning", my first reaction would be to move on to another entry on the list, not look more closely. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:08, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

And "Note" conveys the same information. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:09, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

• I agree with Tryptofish and, I believe Aircorn that the warnings should not be on the marketing for this RfC, and I agree it will scare others away. Besides, editors see the warning as soon as they try to edit; They cannot miss it. Warnings are not very inviting. Like "Warning: No Trespassing signs" or "Warning: toxic materials" or "Warning: Swimmers have drowned here", etc. Warnings often mean there is something to avoid. --David Tornheim (talk) 03:58, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

• I want to say thank you to David and Aircorn for their comments in this section. I really do believe that, because we want to encourage as many users as possible to contribute positively to this RfC, we should not be warning them about coming here. I understand Coffee's concern that we obviously don't want anyone coming here to make edits contrary to sanctions, but I think everyone sees the rules as soon as they arrive at the RfC page. I'd like some second opinions. Therefore, I want to ping @The Wordsmith:, as the other supervising admin, and @Casliber:, because of his comments in the earlier, archived discussion about announcements. What do you think about either changing "Warning:" to "Note:" in the link at WP:CENT, or deleting the word, or deleting the entire mention of sanctions? Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:13, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't think there's anything wrong with Warning, but I have no objection against Note. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:28, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, go with 'note'. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:49, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! I trust nobody will mind if I go ahead and make the edit now. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:55, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Lack of Notification

I am confused as to why these notifications did not go out concurrently to when the RfC was launched:

• talk pages of the affected articles
• talk pages of those who made proposals
• talk pages of those who participated in the Rule-Making phase

and possibly also:

• talk pages of those who had participated in the previous two RfC's on this same matter

I believe this is standard practice, no? This same lack of notification occurred in the rule making phase. In the rule-making phase, I ended up doing the notification, and ArbCom member GorillaWarfare complimented me on this. Will I need to do this again? --David Tornheim (talk) 04:11, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I saw the link from the controversies article and assumed the others had been linked as well. Was probably just an oversight, but the link to this rfc should definitely be added to the rest of the articles under Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Genetically modified organisms#Purpose of this RfC (list of pages). It might also be a good idea to ping or notify the editors who wrote the proposals and have not responded yet (Tsavage, RAMRashan and I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc). I would assume that those of us who participated in the formation of the RFC would still be watching this page or at least know that it was about to be opened soon. Without going through all the edits I can't think of anyone that isn't covered above and hasn't commented on or been made aware of this. Sometimes editors of previous rfc's are notified, but I don't think this is standard practice so am not concerned either way. I say we give some time for the moderators to decide on how to carry out these notifications first before one of us does it. AIRcorn (talk) 04:56, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

^Thank you for your comments. Though GM controversies is on my watchlist, I overlooked that notice. It is a pleasure to work cooperatively with you even though we sometimes disagree on content decisions. --David Tornheim (talk) 05:07, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I posted notifications on WP:AN, WP:RSN, WP:ARCA, and the talkpage of the article that hosted the last RFC. I probably should have done other article talkpages as well, but the thought didn't occur to me. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:28, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

The Wordsmith would there be any objection to me copying your notification from the controversies page to the other pages this statement is on? AIRcorn (talk) 05:39, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

No objection so I have just added a link to here from the other affected pages. AIRcorn (talk) 04:36, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that, Aircorn. Looks good to me. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Discussion about some sources

I want to thank Montanabw for what she has presented in the RfC, particularly with respect to the additional source cited in Proposal 10: [7]. In her comments, she also refers to this study: [8], although it is not cited in any of the proposals. It would be tl;dr for me to discuss this on the RfC page, so I'm posting here. I hope that editors can help me with a focused discussion about sources.

First, I would like to comment on some past discussion of that second, not cited, source. It has been discussed at some length in the past, and I'll link to an analysis that I made of it in evidence in the ArbCom case: [9]. In "Core of the dispute", I referred to "Critics of GMOs typically cite this paper...", meaning this paper, and I describe the affiliations of the authors. They come from groups like ENSSER, that are anti-GMO advocacy groups. I therefore think that it is not a reliable source about scientific consensus, although it may be reliable to source one "side" of the debate. Anyway, it is not cited in any proposal so far.

But about [10] in Proposal 10, I've read the whole paper and looked at who the authors are, and it does seem to me to be a reliable source as of 2013. The authors come from the Defence Food Research Laboratory, [11]. They seem to me to be mainstream. I've just spent a couple of hours (really) looking back through earlier discussions here, going back to before I started editing about this RfC topic, and the only prior discussion I can find of the paper was here: [12]. It was in the previous "no consensus" RfC, and it was dismissed without much examination. One editor mentioned it, and then another editor said it had an extremely low impact factor. In this RfC, I think that My very best wishes made a very helpful comment in his reply to Montanabw. As I said, I read the paper very carefully, and although it does not say that there isn't a scientific consensus, it also doesn't say that there is one. In the "Risks and controversy" section, they start by discussing escape of plants from farmlands, which is off-topic for us here, but they do go on to discuss food health issues in a way that indicates that they do not consider the science to be settled. They also do not seem to indicate that there are any actual documented risks, more like saying there are a lot of potential risks that could emerge with new GMOs, and that these risks need to be tested for, which is in keeping with multiple sources that say new GMOs must be tested case-by-case.

So I am still trying to decide what I think about the Bawa source, and I would welcome comments from other editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:33, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

• My thinking is that the Krimsky source was stronger than Bawa, and I haven't really dug into all the other literature reviews and meta-analyses that might be out there. But my take is:

1. The science is still in flux, and a lot of the "there is consensus" sources actually are dated more than 10 years back. I think that looking only at sources published since 2010, we are seeing less certainty.
2. there is a problem when corporate funded sources are viewed as unbiased ("there is a funding effect in science from corporate sponsorship of research. That means that corporate-funded science tends to produce results that are consistent with corporate financial interests.”) but sources with links to anti-GMO sources are viewed as biased. That is inconsistent. Each are biased.
3. I also read up on the Seralini case and "Pusztai affair" and again, it appears that they were being held to a standard that parellel studies that reached opposite conclusions were not held. I favor looking at the pure science and seeing where it leads, but here we have a clear political agenda out there.
4. IN the tone -- and the nastiness -- I am reminded of the old days of the tobacco lawsuits (I'm even old enough to remember cigarette ads on TV) and the tobacco companies used very similar tactics back in the day to argue that their products were harmless.

• In short, I think we are not talking a "consensus" at the level of, say the consensus on climate change. While it is perfectly fair to say there is a majority of studies out there still saying GMOs are OK, I think it is misleading to suggest that the science is settled, when the reality is that it looks like it's getting less settled rather than more settled. I think there is also the possibility that the "majority" are talking "tobacco consensus" here, and it is important that we do not push a POV in either direction. I think that presenting the evidence in a clear manner is important. Montanabw^(talk) 19:57, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Let me start by saying that I hope that you didn't mean that my tone was nasty. I find it helpful that you say that you do not regard the Bawa source as being that strong. As for Sheldon Krimsky, I believe that there is no question that his paper should be cited, but I also think that it is significant that he is not in any way a plant scientist nor a toxicologist, and that he is a critic of the scientific establishment. Thus, his views are significant views for our purposes, but he is not the most reliable source for summarizing the views of the scientific community. Indeed, he presents the work that was the center of the Séralini affair as work that significantly challenges the "scientific consensus", when in fact that work was discredited. I disagree with you that Séralini was held to an abnormally high standard; the sources completely contradict that.

I've been spending an awful (and I do mean awful!) lot of time getting into every source that I have found out about, and there are plenty of sources (in Proposal 1: Nicolia (2013), the United Nations (2004), Ronald (2011), Yang and Chen (2016), and Scott (2016)) that say verbatim that there is "a scientific consensus" or "a broad scientific consensus". (And Yang and Chen specifically cite the earlier Domingo paper, and pretty much dismiss it. Only the UN source is pre-2010.) They don't simply say that this is a "majority" view. And every one of these sources is independent of industry. When editors were drafting the early proposals, I was very attentive to excluding any sources written by authors connected to biotech companies. So, although I agree with you that there is a GMO industry (like the tobacco industry) position that is not RS for us, these sources are not driven by the industry. And when I follow the sources chronologically from Domingo to more recently, or looking over time at the AMA sources that go from 2001 to 2012), I see the science becoming more settled, not less settled. So, when I try to evaluate how to assign WP:DUE weight to the Bawa paper, I'm inclined to cite it (as Proposal 1 does in cite # 4), but to weigh it less than the sources I just listed. So I really do read the sources as saying that there is a scientific consensus, and not simply a majority opinion.

Thanks again, because your reply helped me in firming up my own opinion. I think that's how I now view Bawa, but of course it would be interesting to hear from other editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:42, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

In short, Tryptofish, you have been very gracious and I think you are sincerely trying to drill down on this question. While we may be stuck using a phrase such as "scientific consensus", I would definitely hesitate to add too many adjectives to the point that it sounds equivalent to the extremely broad consensus on climate change. I think that caution in phrasing is in order and would urge softer language, and if not "majority," than something like "consensus" minus modifiers, at least (or "important groups foo state that there is a consensus"). Some things, like the animal studies, take a lot of years to replicate, test, and generally assess. The issues with allergans (such as the problem with peanut genes) is something that is widely acknowledged even by strong supporters and though understood, IS an acknowledged concern. In short, my primary concern is a "nothing to worry about here, anyone disagreeing is just a nutcase, now move along..." tone. The reality is that while most studies do not demonstrate a risk, a few do, and many that do have been quite strongly attacked, with some of the most concerning held to a higher standard than the favorable studies. Remember not to fall into the same trap: Of course Krimsky was a critic, a non-critic would have never done the study. But look at it on its own merits; he was doing a metanalysis, not original research; as such he is as much a reliable source as is the UN or the AMA, where I doubt there are many plant scientists, either (LOL). Do not dismiss critics, they could be right. Montanabw^(talk) 23:10, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Also, keep in mind that corporate funding is a lot more sophisticated than it was back in the tobacco study days; now days, influence is more likely to be in the form of a large grant to the university to upgrade their lab, or an endowed chair, or a former lobbyist on the university Board of Directors, or something equally divorced from a single particular study: I remember drilling down on research about a different topic (not this one) where I traced the entities thanked in the acknowledgements section and bingo, the corporate funding was basically one "generation" back. Montanabw^(talk) 23:10, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the kind words, and also for your own thoughtful examination of the content issues. About Krimsky, I think that Opabinia's analysis on the RfC page is a good one. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:05, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

If we want to invoke corporations, the multi-billion dollar industries like organic and "natural" foods built around making other food sound scary would be a more apt parallel. The tobacco companies did a "good" job of making it seem like the scientific community thought tobacco was safe when the scientific community had actually settled on the opposite for quite some time. We could also compare to oil companies denying the consensus on global warming trying to say the literature is still in flux citing climate change deniers, etc. That's how well public relations can disguise scientific consensus.

In all honestly though, the spectre of corporations doesn't even need to be raised in content discussion with the current sources we're using. That's probably for the best. There are a lot of mistaken personal opinions about funding and academia in agriculture that tend to permeate such content discussions. That's much tougher content to work through than the scope of this RfC. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:49, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Domingo

Montanabw Your statement The reality is that while most studies do not demonstrate a risk, a few do is not in alignment with the best MEDRS source we have on the issue of GMO food safety. Domingo (Proposal 1; #4, in "but see also"), is a toxicologist, Editor in Chief of Elsevier*, and has done the most current and inclusive review of GMO feeding studies available. He found that roughly half of peer reviewed studies show "serious cause for concern". MEDRS favors the most recent reviews over all else. Therefore, Domingo and the claim that only half don't show cause for concern is in serious conflict with the idea that there is any agreement within the scientific community. Am I missing something? petrarchan47คุก 21:57, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

As documented in Proposal 1, cite #4, the Domingo study has been examined by subsequent studies, and the more recent sources pretty much reject what Domingo said. Nevertheless, the Domingo source is a RS, and it is appropriate to include it among the sources that are cited. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:52, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

What is your argument that Domingo (and thereby, all of the individual peer reviewed studies he reviewed) has been thoroughly debunked, if that is what you are claiming? Domingo has not been rejected, you making a leap between sources and coming to this conclusion alone. Please see my response to King just below.

Yes, Domingo meets WP:MEDRS, which is a requirement when talking about human health issues. I would agree with including Domingo in your sources, but disagree with not including (rejecting) his findings. Instead, you have added Pamela Ronald to the top sources supporting a consensus; Ronald is a GMO advocate*, and in 2013 had to retract two papers** for mistakes such as mislabeled bacterial strains. Regardless of the state of her reputation as a scientist, her position advocating for the acceptance of GMOs makes her a less than independent source, especially considering the heated debate around this safety claim. WP should not be hosting Ronald's words about GMO's without directly attributing them to her. petrarchan47คุก 05:00, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

First, please move your post (and mine as well) to the bottom with proper threading as it appears you were trying to reply to Tryptofish after what should be my earlier same level reply. I would do it myself, but that would also change the meaning of part of your post.

As has been mentioned before, Panchin reiterates there is a scientific consensus even after citing Domingo. Domingo's opinions just aren't given weight with respect to the safety consensus by the larger scientific community. As for Ronald, we need to be really careful about WP:BLP here as those retractions where initiated by the authors after finding out someone messed up (i.e., a good retraction) as opposed to cases like Seralini, Wakefield, etc. where the larger scientific community found issues the authors did should have dealt with prior. The former type of retraction tends to show the author has a good reputation as a scientist. I also don't think we're going to be excluding sources or consider them NPOV solely because they take a particular stance on an issue. Experts in science are supposed to do outreach in their field, with TED talks, etc. being pretty high-level outreach. We generally only exclude sources as unreliable or POV when they take a stances that fall into WP:FRINGE territory or fail WP:INDEPENDENT. In this case, Ronald is an independent source. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:47, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

More specifically, sources that say there is a scientific consensus, such as Panchin, cite Domingo for the controversy amongst the public, but do not weight it at all as something that legitimately contends with the scientific consensus even after acknowledging its presence. If we were talking just reviews alone, that would be enough to dismiss Domingo in relation to scientific consensus, but we also have higher level scientific organizations such as the FAO, WHO, AAAS, etc. where a single review or two cannot be used to refute the viewpoints of those organizations. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:54, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

@Kingofaces43: Where in Panchin does the author cite Domingo? --David Tornheim (talk) 01:52, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Your comment glosses over the fact that we don't know if the group of sources being considered represents NPOV. Further, there are many angles from which every source needs to be evaluated. When was it published, what were the dates of the papers included? Do their funding sources or histories make them less than reliable or independent?

According to policy (WP:MEDRS (unless it has been changed recently), the Domingo review is considered on par with statements from respected, independent organizations.

Regarding your WP:OR with Panchen, Tsavage has already expressed:

Tryptofish: As I read what Panchin concludes, the only way I can interpret it We shouldn't be interpreting it in the way you mean, if Panchin wanted to say, "Based on the re-examination of these six studies, for x-y-z reasons, we conclude that all such studies are flawed," he could have done that. Panchin did not do that. All the pieces to form your own conclusion may be provided, but it's not up to us at Wikipedia to form that conclusion and then commit it to content.

Further, he argues, My objection is that, in this consensus statement debate, we're picking studies to try to piece together or shore up something that should be clear in one source, using a combination of multiple sources, and working them in to Wikipedia sourcing rules. Panchin appears to be doing essentially the same thing, they believe we should pay attention to the overall amount of research, and not focus on single studies, and they have found a novel way to support that contention, one which has been accepted in a peer-reviewed journal. How we use Panchin is the issue.

These points remain relevant. The Panchen discussion never concluded before being archived. petrarchan47คุก 05:00, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure no one is going to argue about statements from high level organizations like AAAS, NAS, WHO, FAO, etc. being NPOV. Nor are arguments that sources like Ronald are "pro-GMO activists" for being an expert in the field (and a vocal expert) going to get much traction. As for Panchin, they do make comments on the broader literature in the main paper rather than in just the abstract. There's more going on than just commenting directly on six studies if people give the entire paper a read. The discussion on Panchin did reach a natural end as the arguments against Panchin never stuck in terms of consensus. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:25, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

We don't defer to anonymous editors as the authority for the claims you're making about sources. We have begged you to allow us to quote the WHO, in fact it is Proposal 7. You have opted to write your own summary based on your own chosen sources and interpretations. The FAO source is from 2003, per MEDRS we shouldn't be using it. When discussing sources, it's a waste of our time to be less than specific. Linking us to the sources you're referring to would help. You have ignored my request that you cite policy that supports elevating these organizations above a review paper. Because this is an RfC, it makes sense to discuss only PAGs, and how they relate to sources. Otherwise it can be seen as disruptive and is actionable. Further, if the scientific community reads Panchin as you do, we should have sources saying as much, but Panchin is only 6 months old, so it might be too soon to give it any weight beyond that suggested by Tsavage (sticking to facts, no interpretation or extrapolation by you and Tryp).petrarchan47คุก 08:45, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

On the points where Petrarchan47 and I disagree, for me, it all comes down to the sources, and we clearly read those sources differently. After so many discussions in which neither of us has convinced the other, I believe the best thing to do is to have this RfC, and get as many fresh eyes on the subject as possible. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:55, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Panchin

Tryptofish, you have not answered my question. Are you claiming that Panchin discredited Domingo, or were you referring to other papers that have? We can't talk about the sources used in your proposal unless you are specific. I'm in disagreement with the weight you have placed on Ronald, given her status as a GMO advocate, who profits from its positive image, and whose work was based on what turned out to be faulty results due to mistakes in the lab. To elevate her above Krimsky's review, which states that there is no consensus, makes me question your neutrality on this issue, and your ability to weigh sources.

It appears Tryptofish and KingofAces43 believe that Panchin debunks all studies that could be considered anti-GM or critical. Here is Tsavage from the Panchin discussion:

"[Tryptofish] and Kingofaces43...give far too much weight to Panchin. If we're not talking about their tenuous and exceptional claim to invalidate ALL research that suggests GMO effects, then we are just talking about reanalysis of six studies using a controversial method - journal publication doesn't automatically support us repeating whatever a study's authors have to say.

At some point, this type of protracted and literal negotiation over small pieces of content stops being about the content itself, and basic content policy like neutral weight and tone, and overall balance, and becomes mainly about editor preference for interpretation, which is OR and wrong.

If we want to bring in Panchin, a pretty well unrecognized study, and use it to offset Domingo and Krimsky, we should not start by giving Panchin relatively detailed coverage, while relegating, for example, an actual review study like Domingo, to "some studies" status. --Tsavage (02:26, 13 February 2016)

The abstract is riddled with caveats:

We performed a statistical reanalysis and review of experimental data presented in some [6] of these studies and found that quite often in contradiction with the authors’ conclusions the data actually provides weak evidence of harm that cannot be differentiated from chance. In our opinion the problem of statistically unaccounted multiple comparisons has led to some of the most cited anti-genetically modified organism health claims in history

To even a casual observer, it is shocking that an encyclopedia would consider theirs an acceptable take on the literature. Tsavage breaks it down further here for those interested. petrarchan47คุก 08:27, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

I can appreciate that it may look to you like I haven't directly answered some of your more recent questions to me. But that is because I know from past experience that you and I will not change one another's minds, and a detailed reply from me would just be tl;dr for other editors. As I said before, what I really want now is for the RfC process to move along and decide these issues. Other editors: please look at the sources and decide for yourselves. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:56, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Tryptofish, let me be clear: what I am trying to ascertain is how you have used sources in your Proposal #1. You were kind enough to answer me partially, by saying that Domingo had been debunked, and I believe you nodded toward Panchin. But it isn't entirely clear, and it also seemed that you loosely referenced another source. If that is the case, please clarify. We cannot 'vote' on the proposals without understanding how references are being considered and understood by the authors of those proposals. This, by the way, is exactly how the RfC process moves along. This talk page is to discuss sources, but I just need a bit of clarification from you regarding your earlier comments. Thanks, petrarchan47คุก 02:35, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

OK, the way that the sources such as Domingo, Krimsky, Panchin, and Yang are used in Proposal 1 can be seen in citation #4 of that proposal. I think (hope) that the way in which that footnote is written is self-explanatory. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:14, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. petrarchan47คุก 05:07, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I won't respond to comments on editors, but I do suggest looking at more than just the abstract. As has been discussed previously, there are broader statements by Panchin in the paper itself. Panchin comments on what it does even if they formally analyzed only the notable subset of studies while making broader comments elsewhere about the rest of the literature. We can't engage in our own peer-review of what they did as that opens us up to WP:OR problems. That was the core problem under discussion at the discussions you've linked to. As Trypto alluded to, there are many things we have discussed as involved editors with some things addressed, some dismissed, and some just unresolved. The uninvolved RfC respondents will weigh things as they will at this point. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:53, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Luckily WP:RS and WP:MEDRS are quite clear. If you have a paper (which I heave read) that proposes a theory, based on application of the Bonferroni correction, which the authors admit has a conservative leaning, a paper which at this point is cited by no one, you cannot use it to say anything beyond what the authors say, if that. In this case I cannot see how Panchin is representing anything but a fringe theory. Of course, a round earth was once a fringe theory, so this is not necessarily negative. But editors cannot use this source in this way according to our PAGs. "Votes" for proposals that include misuse of sources will have to be weighed accordingly. So these conversations are important to have, even though it's exhausting for everyone. petrarchan47คุก 02:35, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

A friendly ping for Opabinia regalis petrarchan47คุก 23:51, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Petrarchan, I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. Do you understand the statistical principles behind the Bonferroni correction? Maybe this is just clumsy wording, or it's Friday and I'm tired, but you describe the Panchin 2016 paper as "a paper...that proposes a theory". They haven't proposed any theories, they're just doing very straightforward statistical reanalysis of already-published data. Opabinia regalis (talk) 01:09, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

All of the literature I reviewed, including Panchin and our articles on it, agrees that the Bonferroni method is very conservative and in an attempt to reduce type I errors ("detecting an effect that is not present") increases the likelihood of type II errors ("failing to detect an effect that is present"). [13]. In epidemiology, the paper with the most citations (3503), What’s wrong with Bonferroni adjustments states: "this paper advances the view, widely held by epidemiologists, that Bonferroni adjustments are, at best, unnecessary and, at worst, deleterious to sound statistical inference." A similar reaction was made to Panchin's paper by Russian statisticians at National Institute for Genetic Safety (NAGS) for using this method. [14] (Yes, NAGS can likely be characterized as an advocacy group that is critical of GMOs.) --David Tornheim (talk) 12:36, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

• Opabinia regalis, yes it was indeed clumsy wording. I was asking if you would take a look at my understanding of MEDRS as it relates to Panchin. I'll elaborate: Panchin has not been reviewed yet, so we are using a primary source, and allowing editors to argue over its importance and weight, and its impact on Domingo 2011. We should not have to argue about their use of the Bonferroni correction, instead we should be discussing secondary sources that do. Panchin has two red flags in my mind: the authors admit that the Bonferri correction may be too conservative; the authors make a leap from their limited statement in the paper regarding the 6 studies they chose, to the title which claims that all studies showing harm can be explained away using the Bonferroni correction. As a casual observer, this screams for secondary coverage, especially if we are wanting to use it in one of these proposals. I question how we can judge Panchin's usefulness until we have RS. So my question again is strictly about MEDRS, and the use of a primary source to diminish a high quality review. petrarchan47คุก 05:07, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

• This may be the origin of the confusion. Panchin has not been reviewed yet, so we are using a primary source - that's not what "primary source" means.
  As for Bonferroni, it's just not possible to evaluate the argument based on nonspecific terms like "conservative". You have to understand the mathematical background. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:39, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

"you have to understand the mathematical background" seems like an appeal to authority. WP demands that authority come from a cite-able source. The authors mentioned that Bonferroni is conservative, and I have not seen RS from you showing otherwise. The authors jump from the limited claims in their paper to the sweeping claim made in their title, which does not immediately inspire faith. If readers come across this safety claim, unpack the refs and really dig in, they will not have access to your arguments about Panchin; they will likely see that Panchin is actually only speaking to 6 individual studies, and without a secondary source to tell us how Panchin impacts the weight of Domingo, they will wonder about WP's reliability with regard to its ability to properly summarize sources. Although arguments made here are convincing, they do the reader no good, and I fail to see how they can be used in our calculations. petrarchan47คุก 05:05, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Petrachan47. Panchin is a primary source, not a review of the literature. It only reviews 6 studies. That is not even a random sample of the literature. Additionally, it promotes use of the Bonferroni adjustment as the proper way to adjust for multiple comparisons. Panchin does not mention Domingo so cannot be used to dismiss it. To do so is WP:SYN.

Lastly, claiming "You have to understand the mathematical background" is not a workable argument for use or disuse of Panchin. We are equals here. We present what the RS says not any claimed expertise that cannot be verified or vetted. That said, I do understand the math. I used to tutor statistics and Petrachan47's arguments are sound and accurate, regardless of whatever understanding she has of statistics. The statistics books I have that do mention multiple comparisons prefer Duncan's new multiple range test or Newman–Keuls_method. Of five statistics books, zero mention Bonferroni_correction. ALL the RS I reviewed said it was conservative or "too conservative", RS which I provided. I spoke to two science professors about Panchin and both immediately said the title was a red flag, and not a statistical claim--which I agree with. They also said an insistence on universal use of Bonferroni was questionable given that the papers reviewed did not use it. How does one paper trump the other six? It only works if other papers cite Panchin's claims about the need to use Bonferroni favorable, which none have done. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:51, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

• Kingofaces43 said it succinctly:

"Per WP:MEDRS, we don't engage in this level of personal peer-review (i.e., WP:OR) of sources as none of us are afforded this special treatment on Wikipedia even if we are an expert editor in reality.*

In other words, if we are arguing over the Bonferroni correction at all, let alone whilst ignoring the giant leap from what is contained in the body of the Panchin paper, to its title, we are exemplifying the very reason WP requires WP:RS to do this peer-review for us. The fact that we don't have it in the case of Panchin, and have nothing but OR/SYNTH on any Panchin-Domingo connection, means that its usefulness is questionable. I have always maintained that if WP uses Panchin at this early stage, it should be done with attribution and stick to what the authors assert in the paper, not the title which is unsupported.

Instead Proposition 1 has skipped the need for outside RS and is using this source to diminish or overturn truly stellar MEDRS sources that speak to the many studies which call into question any consensus. This is a red flag, this is the reason I have protested an RfC which legalizes SYNTH, and which seeks to cement this into the "encyclopedia" in a way that makes ever correcting the misuse of sources nearly impossible. petrarchan47คุก 23:22, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Please do not misquote me. If an editor is arguing about the Bonferroni correction in the Panchin review being incorrect at all, that is not considered in content discussion per WP:OR, WP:MEDRS, etc. as that is personal opinion or personal "peer-review". A source is needed to specifically comment on Panchin's use to avoid that. That is where the conversation stops on that subject. Until such a critical source comes up, we consider the review reliable as we do with any new review that otherwise meets our reliability criteria. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:04, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

As a reminder, we are in severe WP:OR territory when editors are trying to claim the appropriateness of multiple comparison tests themselves. That being said, Duncan's test fell out of favor decades ago because it has too high of a false positive error (the very problem it's supposed to correct) among other reasons.[15][16]. If someone wants to discuss statistics and how they work, I'd be willing to explain that a little bit on my own talk page as I'd have no problem showing that the conclusions of Panchin hold true regardless of the multiple comparisons test used. However, anything beyond what Panchin says about multiple comparisons would be outside the scope of this RfC at the least until a source comments on Panchin. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:04, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

To add to KoA's post, there seems to be some confusion in the above discussion about what "arguing from authority" means and how original research works. We are all responsible as editors for having a thorough understanding of our source material, including how it fits in the context of the broader literature, and especially on a topic as important as human health. Ironically, it is arguing from authority to support one's interpretation of a source based on the comments of one's acquaintances and the contents of one's personal library.

Those with an interest the discussion of multiple comparisons and statistical methods in the GMO sources should really give the Doull 2007 paper a re-read. It's relatively easy reading, since it's specifically about Seralini's use of statistics rather than experimental design. Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:34, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

I would suggest those looking in on this discussion also read this excellent post by Tsavage, made here after I pointed out that we were misusing Panchin by overstating its reach, prompting this edit showing Trypto agreed. petrarchan47คุก 04:49, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Comment: After attempting to verify Kingofaces43's addition by reading the source, it seems entirely misrepresentative. (Please correct any ignorance displayed, I am a simple layperson attempting to verify what I read by following citations.)

The text, in citing Domingo and Krimsky, gives the impression that it is the studies mentioned in those reviews that are under consideration:

Some studies have claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm,[199][200] but review of these studies show the statistical methodologies were flawed and do not show evidence of harm or lack of substantial equivalence.[201]

In fact, counting, it seems that Panchin re-examines exactly six studies. Where is the connection to any other studies? I found none. The title of the paper should more accurately be (my bolded addition): "Six Published GMO studies find no evidence of harm when corrected for multiple comparisons".

Panchin first spends some time supporting the choice of critical tool, proposing multiple comparisons errors, evaluated by applying Bonferroni correction. Looking into Bonferroni, it is described as a simple tool that can at times produce overly conservative results. Hmm.. Then I discover What’s wrong with Bonferroni adjustments, an interesting read, which says:

This paper advances the view, widely held by epidemiologists, that Bonferroni adjustments are, at best, unnecessary and, at worst, deleterious to sound statistical inference.

Now I'm left wondering about Panchin's a basic premise: Is Bonferroni valid? Am I to believe Wikipedia and accept that these six studies are fatally flawed because Panchin's analysis says so, when a little looking casts such doubt?

Finally, Panchin's "Conclusions" seems to consist in large part of an ideological-sounding plea for people to wake up and look at sheer numbers, even if a big percentage of those studies may in fact be invalid:

It has been argued that we might be underestimating the number of false-positive results in science in general due to bias, improper use of statistics, analysis of highly improbably hypothesis and other factors.[26] The suggested solution was to take preference for large studies or low-bias meta-analyses and to take into account the pre-study probabilities of a finding being true.

We argue that the totality of the evidence should be taken into account when drawing conclusion on GMO safety, instead of far-fetched evidence from single studies with a high risk of bias due to a large number of multiple comparisons. Perhaps more focus should be drawn to clear and relevant outcomes such as mortality rates, life expectancy or reproductive success.

Unfortunately, it takes just a single article claiming a mild difference between GM and non-GM products to stir the public debate and cause a long-lasting hysteria. ...

In the first quoted paragraph, Panchin cites Ioannidis' Why most published research findings are false. That and his ongoing work in this area appear to be widely accepted,and Panchin appears to be acknowledging that, and saying that even if a large percentage of, say, Nicolia's 1500+ studies, are false, we still have a lot of studies left. I'm confused by where I have ended up - how is this argument arrived at from Bonferroni correction applied to six studies?

This is what a straightforward attempt to verify the source by reading it resulted in. I don't think this new, limited review should be used, at least, without direct attribution, adequate background (at least mentioning Bonferroni), and in a very limited way. -- Tsavage 18:29, 9 February 2016

In fairness, it should be noted that there were also replies to those comments when they were made, so there are divergent editor opinions about this, rather than a consensus that the quoted comments are correct. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:19, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

I also just noticed that a diff of my own was cited as indicating that I agreed entirely with those comments. It's actually more complicated and nuanced than that. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:24, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

It would be a good idea if editors wanting to participate here invested their limited reading time in reading the sources, rather than unduly large, out-of-context quotes from other Wikipedia editors. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:34, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

There are opinions about Panchin's use of the Bonferroni correction that differ from what editors are offering here. From the quote box above: This paper advances the view, widely held by epidemiologists, that Bonferroni adjustments are, at best, unnecessary and, at worst, deleterious to sound statistical inference. This point has no expiration date and is completely in context. It shows why we need secondary sources. I have read the paper, and no where in it do the authors go beyond what they have summarized in their abstract. Their leap to what is claimed in the title is a problem, and we need secondary sources published in RS such as PUBMED to tell us how much weight we can give this source, and whether we should follow their lead and claim that all studies showing harm should be ignored. I am told to trust anonymous editors on WP that this source is strong, that their leap is irrelevant, and that their use of the Bonferroni correction is a perfect choice. I tend to side again with Tsavage, I don't think this new, limited review should be used, at least, without direct attribution, adequate background (at least mentioning Bonferroni), and in a very limited way. This is in keeping with PAGs and with building an encyclopedia.

In general, I also agree with SMcCandlish' relevant comments at bottom of this page, reprinted here for convenience:

this seems to be the crux of the matter: "it is OR for editors to dismiss the preponderance of RS because the editors assert that other sources demonstrate that the preponderance of RS are incorrect." Doing so is a WP:AEIS failure, of using Wikipedians' own talk-page-debate hodgepodge of a pseudo-literature-review as if it were a valid primary source, and then using that as if it were a secondary source, of the kind that is required for such analytic/evaluative/interpretive/synthetic claims. Given this, it's also a WP:MEDRS failure.

Domingo 2011 has been silenced in Proposition 1, even though it is an unblemished MEDRS source perfect for the issue at hand. Panchin only looked at 6 studies, did not mention Domingo, but is said to affect the weight of Domingo. Domingo looked at 26 papers, finding that half of studies showed "serious cause for concern", but all of this is said to be irrelevant because he mentioned pre-2012 Seralini. These arguments that don't seem to have NPOV at their core. And without finding RS to support them, these arguments should not be used to form content on WP. A contentious statement like the one we are considering should first and foremost be neutral and include all sides, with due weight. Weight is determined by RS. Domingo has had no calls for retraction, no RS has claimed there are problems with the review, and Panchin is too new to have been reviewed.

Proposition 1 almost appears to bend over backwards, twisting our PAGs to come up with its summary of the sources. Advocates should be used with attribution (or not at all) for this statement which is in WP's voice, yet Proposition 1 uses one of the most well known GMO advocates, with 2 retractions in her career, for the "scientific consensus". Those sources who have a more skeptical view of the issue are not given the time of day. petrarchan47คุก 21:37, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Still not true. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

It's not clear what that terse sentence refers to.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:19, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Question to Moderators: Is threaded discussion and >800 words acceptable here?

@The Wordsmith:, @Coffee: (moderators)

During the rule making phase which was:

• Archive 1 (History)
• User_talk:The_Wordsmith/Archive_6#GMO_RfC

both Tryptofish and Kingofaces43 expressed dire concerns about the "disaster" [17] of allowing editors to have threaded discussion [18] and going over 800 words in this RfC [19]. Yet, it appears, that Tryptofish believes that threaded discussion and going over 800 words is okay on this talk page [20]. Is it okay, or is it not? --David Tornheim (talk) 19:03, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Per the Rules on the RfC page: Editors are encouraged to discuss and collaborate with one another on the RfC Talk page, where threaded discussion is permitted and there are no word limits.. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:06, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

That is correct; discussion without those particular limits is the purpose of this talkpage. Civility, aspersions, and content-focused rules are still in force, however. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 19:13, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Off-topic discussion. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 23:26, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
It's very reasonable to have asked that question, but I wonder whether David might reconsider the way that he referred to Kingofaces and me. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:25, 8 June 2016 (UTC) Could it have been worded more nicely? Probably. Is the way he worded things against the rules? No, I don't think so. Coffee is free to offer his opinion here as well, but given how smoothly things are going so far I'm not about to go making mountains of molehills. The WordsmithTalk to me 19:36, 8 June 2016 (UTC) I did not realize the rule was so explicit or I would not have asked. On my talk page, Tryptofish said his "interpretation" of the rules was that it was acceptable, which suggested to me it was not clear. I did not consider Tryptofish to have authority to interpret and clarify the rules, which I assume is under the authority of the moderators. If I had been aware of this explicit language, I would not have asked about it twice. My apologies for not carefully reading the long list of rules, which would also have avoided the need for both discussions. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:34, 8 June 2016 (UTC) No worries, the question was answered. The WordsmithTalk to me 20:39, 8 June 2016 (UTC) I'm fine with leaving this, this way. As I already said, I think David's question was a reasonable one. (Redacted) --Tryptofish (talk) 20:46, 8 June 2016 (UTC) (Redacted) --David Tornheim (talk) 21:00, 8 June 2016 (UTC) @Tryptofish: In the future you need to bring any concerns about editor behavior to our user talkpages or ANI (David did not violate that by mentioning an editor's opinion as part of his stated confusion). This is not the proper venue to ask us to review or redact comments. @David Tornheim: Please refrain from commenting on anything other than the RFC and related content from now on, no matter how antagonized you may feel; leave the moderating to to the moderators (that goes for you as well Tryptofish). - Thank you both for your anticipated cooperation. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 23:25, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

A shorter Proposal 1?

I observe that some editors support something like Proposal 1, but I also observe that some editors would like to see something shorter and maybe simpler. I was thinking that one option would be for me to make a proposal that would simply be the first sentence of Proposal 1, without the subsequent sentences. Are editors potentially interested in such a proposal? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:50, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Not me. Also, I urge editors to carefully read the RS and not rely on what they read in popular American science magazines and/or the mainstream media. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:57, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Please correct me if I am mistaken, but I think you oppose Proposal 1 in any form. (But I also remember that I added the sentence about differences in regulation between nations in response to your request.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:01, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Short Answer: No, I do not object entirely to Proposal 1 in any form. In fact, it is much better than >1/2 of the proposals so far.

Long Answer: I did not notice until only yesterday that you had improved Proposal 1 to include mention of regulations, bans and mandatory labeling, despite this previous discussion at GM crops--Talk, where my request that the 3rd sentence of Proposal 1 be added immediately to the ledes was rejected. I do appreciate that it is still Proposal 1, and forgotten that it had survived that discussion. Thank you. And I admit surprise that those who opposed inclusion of that language in the lede at that time do support Proposal 1.

Although I do think Sentence 1 is too strong and that Montanabw's Proposal 10 and my Proposal 4 are more NPOV and descriptive of the state of the RS on the science, I am on the fence about supporting Proposal 1 for the mere fact that it includes this important information about varying regulations, bans and mandatory labeling that is not currently in the article ledes and should be (as I have said many times).

Short answer to your Question: No.

Although, I have not made a statement to that effect at the RfC main, as I am waiting to see what other editors have to say first and review new proposals that come in and any negotiation over language. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:50, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the helpful input. I appreciate that you still have an open mind about Proposal 1, and I do agree with your reasons for not considering a shorter version to be an improvement. Myself, I would prefer to have something very close to the existing Proposal 1, instead of something like just its first sentence. I appreciate what Insertcleverphrasehere says just below, but I'm taking this slow, because I'm trying to assess editor opinions before making a new proposal. At the moment, I'm not hearing an outpouring of desire for a one-sentence version, and if that continues to be the case, I won't bother with it. But if it subsequently develops that a lot of editors oppose Proposal 1 but would support just the first sentence, then that would become my second choice and I would propose it. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:29, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Go ahead and make it proposal 11. Seems like a reasonable proposal to me.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  21:16, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Question for Collect Re Proposal 4

@Collect: you say of Proposal 4: "No pretense of neutral wording, and both long and unreadable. If the purpose is to provide a simple and accurate boiler-plate statement, no.". Please explain how it is not NPOV. Perhaps saying "embraced GMOs" should go--even though it should be obvious to anyone who reads their writing. Everything else is 100% consistent with the RS chosen. I was not striving for boilerplate but to avoid the one-side pro-GMO PR we currently have in the article and in the other proposals that ignores all the concerns raised by scientists and others about testing and regulation. The GMO articles make it seem like all GMO testing and regulation is the same everywhere which absolutely not true. (Note: This was originally on the Project page, but threaded discussion here is more appropriate.)----David Tornheim (talk) 03:47, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

1. "A number of major American scientific organizations (American Medical Association,[1] AAAS,[2] National Research Council[3]) and other international scientific organizations have embraced GMOs and assert that they are as safe for human consumption as food derived from conventional breeding, and hence should not require special testing or labeling if they are substantially equivalent to the conventional product." is not neutrally worded. The use of "embraced" is noted by you, but the use of "asserted" is generally viewed as "non-neutral." You also have "substantially equivalent to the conventional product" which is not the issue for all GMO foods.
2. "But other major scientific organizations disagree (e.g. British Medical Association,[5] Royal Society of Canada,[6][7] Public Health Australia[8]), stating that GMOs need medium and long term studies[9] or that current safety regulatory assessments are insufficient" has the problematic "But", and used "stating" which gives this the gravitas of "fact" as opposed to "asserting" opinion, furthering the non-neutrality of the proposal.
3. "Scientific review articles on GM food safety are divided between those following the American approach of assuming GMOs are Generally Recognized as Safe and those that are more skeptical." assigns equal weight to both views as being in the positions in scientific journals, while it is clear that the clear preponderance of articles find that GMO foods which have been tested, are, in fact, safe and are not just "assumed" to be safe.
4. " Numerous countries such as those in the E.U. use a different approach from U.S.,[13] following the Precautionary Principle by requiring additional testing and/or labeling under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety." furthers the non-neutral theme by asserting something special to that protocol, strongly implying that the US has insufficient testing ab initio.
5. " Some countries ban GM food imports and/or production entirely.[1]" is an aside not actually related to the safety of GMO foods, and in a few cases elides the fact that many countries make political decisions concerning agriculture for various reasons, and often not really about actual safety at all.
6. "International organizations (WHO[16] and the U.N.'s FAO[9]) state that GM food that has been approved is safe to eat and no significant health hazards have arisen from GM food" has the rather pointy "no significant health hazards" with a clear implication that actual health hazards have been shown, but that these organizations somehow just drew a line for "significant" ones.

Thus - the proposal includes a pretty clear presentation about GMO foods which is actually that "there is no consensus", that "there are hazards associated with such foods", that some countries assert reasonably that hazards exist, and that the organizations which accept such foods are almost all American, that only a few international organizations agree with the American position, and that the Americans simply "assert" safety, while those oppose "state" the fact that we have not made proper tests on such foods. The proposal is not neutrally worded, and clearly supports a claim that GMO foods are not tested enough, and that they do have some hazards. Quod erat demonstrandum. Collect (talk) 12:56, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed response. I have been away. I will take some time to respond to all of it, but feel free to respond to what I am writing now:

(6) You claim that Proposal 4 indicates there are "some health hazards". It does not say that, nor does it imply that. The language you called WP:pointy comes straight from the WP:RS. The sentence in question references Nicolia [18], the same source used in many of the proposals to claim a "scientific consensus":

We have reviewed the scientific literature on GE crop safety for the last 10 years that catches the scientific consensus matured since GE plants became widely cultivated worldwide, and we can conclude that the scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops. [emphasis added.]

So the language you are calling pointy is, in fact, exactly what the author is claiming the scientific consensus is--rather than what is in sentence 1 of Proposal 1. Nicolia is a review article of comparable significance to Domingo and the other review articles mentioned in Krimsky.

The only GMO health "scare" I am aware of is the StarLink corn recall where GMO Bt corn (containing Bt toxin insecticide) that was authorized for animal feed--but not authorized for human consumption--was accidentally sold to numerous Taco Bell customers. Was it a "hazard"? I do not know. But even water can be dangerous (See: Median lethal dose).

I will address your other other points later, but feel free to respond to this one at any time. --David Tornheim (talk) 00:13, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Proposal 11

@Rhoark: In your statement, you said, "State the facts, state there are disagreeing opinions, and game on.". I'm confused why your Proposal does not mention the disagreeing opinions of the scientists with regard to things like: (1) unintended and unforeseeable problem with GMOs that are different than conventional crops (2) concerns about lack of long term studies (3) concerns about allergries (4) BMA's call for a moratorium (5) Statement by the WHO that no generalizations can be made about GMO health safety (6) concerns even by the AMA that the FDA's optional pre-market consultation regulation process is not adequate and should be made mandatory. It's not just the public that has concerns. The RS clearly shows that many scientists do too, despite the number of statements, primarily by American scientists/org, that GMO food is not inherently riskier than food from crops from conventional breeding. If there was more balance and more NPOV, I might support your proposal. --David Tornheim (talk) 04:29, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

None of that contradicts the central claim of "no evidence of harm". Some of it supports the stated need for case-by-case testing and may be desirable as a supplementary citations. Rhoark (talk) 04:40, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Tryptofish reply to Jbhunley

@Jbhunley: Thanks for your question to me on the RfC page. Because of the word count limit, I'd like to reply here, and you can feel free to extend the discussion here. My personal opinion is that I want to have that many cites, right there in the proposed text. Having worked for some time in this editing area, I've become very aware that there is a serious matter of needing to demonstrate that any assertion is very well sourced. I'm aware of WP:OVERCITE, but my opinion is that this is a specific instance where the sources are needed, and the number is not excessive. But if you want to make a proposal with fewer citations, that would of course be fine. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:23, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

OK. I can understand the desire to have the citations right there. My concern is a practical one - the citations from those few sentences will add a huge bit of text to each and every page subject to this RfC.

If you do not mind me using your text and simply changing the method of citation I will put together a proposal that differs only in its cosmetics. Alternately, since I have seen several editors comment on citation overkill in general, would it be better to simply put up a proposal on using sub-page citations in general? Jbh^Talk 18:33, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I'd be interested in seeing a new proposal along your "cosmetics" comments. I don't understand how a sub-page would work. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:37, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I just saw how you set up a sub-page in your user space (should have looked there first, woops). Seeing that, I don't much like the idea. It would require creating a new page, and linking to it from each page in the RfC scope. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:40, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm... I see that as a feature rather than a bug. There would be a single page say, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Genetically modified organisms/Collected citations where everything can be centrally managed rather than 11 pages which need to be managed individually. It would also give a central place to add and/or challenge sources rather than such discussions happening at each page individually - if they are on each page then they can be challenged on each page, possibly by differing groups of editors. Ultimately I think it would make management of 'boilerplate' across so many pages much easier by keeping things consistent.

Plus, there is the readability/cosmetic issue, general readers can be intimidated by long chains of refs (we are not trying to convince editors in the article text) and it can give the impression of hammering them with the issue. Jbh^Talk 18:54, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, it's subjective. (You say "GM tomato" and I say "GM tomato"......) --Tryptofish (talk) 18:56, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Jbh^Talk 19:22, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I meant to say this yesterday, and then completely forgot. In your question to me on the RfC page, you described Proposal 1 as something that I wrote. It's definitely true that I did the largest amount of the work that went into drafting it, and of course I support it, but it was actually written collaboratively with quite a few other editors (see Talk:Genetically modified crops for the edit history). The drafting process went on over a period of several weeks, with multiple initial drafts proposed and then rejected or modified, and with input from multiple editors with a variety of views about the content issues. I think that's a comparative strength. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:11, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

On RS -- Rhododendrites

@Rhododendrites: you mentioned in your comment, "I did some research of my own a while back, but not enough, and certainly not all of the sources presented here." I commend you for doing your own research. I do fear that commentators have based their comments on articles they read in the mainstream media and popular science mags rather than the best quality RS available.

There is quite a bit there. I would like to hear about any articles you came across that are good RS that are not mentioned in any of the proposals. I would also like to hear which sources you think are the best RS.

There is a discussion above (that has taken place in many places) about the source Domingo (and Krimsky). Domingo is an expert in toxicology, now editor-in-chief of a toxicology journal who wrote two review articles on GMO food safety. Domingo is the best RS under the WP:MEDRS standard, yet a number of these proposals give no voice to in the text, leaving it out entirely or burying it in the footnotes. I would like your comments on what you think is the best RS and how to handle something like this. I can not see how anyone can legitimately call Domingo "fringe". Modern flat Earth societies, the prime example given in WP:UNDUE, have failed to get any of their b.s. published in peer reviewed scientific journals, much less a review article in a respected journal. Even editors who claims that there is indeed a "scientific consensus" have acknowledged that Domingo is the best RS. --David Tornheim (talk) 22:53, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

I might have missed it, but I don't think that I have seen anyone call the Domingo source fringe or to disagree that it is a reliable source. Instead, the arguments I have seen are that there are other sources that reach different conclusions than Domingo, that there are a lot of them that similarly examine the breadth of the scientific literature and reach different conclusions, and that several of these are more recent than Domingo, cite Domingo, and evaluate Domingo as being non-definitive. That's why we have policies like WP:DUE. Domingo should be assigned relative weight in relation to the source material as a whole. And that has nothing to do with popular media. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:02, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Kingofaces43 called Domingo and Krimsky both WP:Fringe. I wrote:

Also, per WP:MEDRS, we should be using the best secondary sources such as peer reviewed journal articles, ideally reviews (from the relevant subject field), such as Domingo(2011)and Krimsky(2015), right? --David Tornheim (talk) 17:50, 26 January 2016 (UTC) [diff]

King's immediate response was:

MEDRS says you use the best secondary sources, not poor fringe sources that conflict with the scientific consensus on GMOs. It would violate NPOV to use them in this fashion. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:15, 26 January 2016 (UTC) [diff]

That discussion took place here: Talk:Genetically_modified_crops/Archive_3#General_agreement

--David Tornheim (talk) 23:22, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

References

I don't think there any doubt Krimsky is an unreliable overall fringe source with respect to the scientific consensus due to being a non-expert in the field, low tier journal for such a claim, endorsing debunked pseudoscience, etc. It's an overall poor source when you rigorously apply the various guidelines behind MEDRS. As for Domingo, it does have some use as a reliable source (highly dependent on context) but using it specifically to say there isn't a consensus does bring it into fringe territory, especially when the much more recent Panchin review gives it next to no weight in regards to the consensus. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:37, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

King, again this is opinion but it is lacking evidence and specificity, making your claims difficult to weigh. What are you saying Krimsky "endorsed", and what were his words that support your claim? What is "debunked pseudoscience", specifically, and what beyond your own voice should we use to verify these claims? This: "I don't think there any doubt Krimsky is an unreliable overall fringe source" is a useless statement unless you provide refs. Please don't use this page to spout evidence-free beliefs. petrarchan47คุก 09:26, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

This has already been discussed in past conversations with you, and the evidence has been cited elsewhere on this RfC page already. I'm leaving it to RfC respondents to weight at this point. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:40, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

That answer is less than sufficient, I am asking you to clarify claims you have just made - claims which can't be clear to anyone but you. Thank you for taking the time. petrarchan47คุก 02:15, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

King I'm afraid I don't understand the following: especially when the much more recent Panchin review gives it next to no weight in regards to the consensus. Newer doesn't mean more reliable if the source is so new there is no review available. It is much more tricky to use at WP. In which paragraph does Panchin mention Domingo? Thanks again, petrarchan47คุก 04:16, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

The narrow scope of this RfC

Markbassett In your recent comments, you rejected Proposal 7 based on its lack of information about public perception. However, a quick review of the goal of the RfC reveals:

Each of these pages has language similar to: There is general scientific agreement that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food, but should be tested on a case-by-case basis. Editors are generally dissatisfied with this wording, but disagree about how to revise it. This RfC presents options for content to replace that wording, and is intended to determine community consensus about that.

Public perception was added to proposals in some sort of of SYNTH/OR/creep but is not how arguments and proposals will be judged. It could be argued that because OR SYNTH is a guideline violation, arguments supporting these proposals will carry less weight.

It might be advisable for authors to trim proposals to meet the RfC guideline and clearly stated goal. petrarchan47คุก 09:16, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Have you considered the possibility that "Editors are generally dissatisfied with this wording" partially because it does not address the issue of the clear an obvious disparity between the public perception vs scientific view of GM foods?  InsertCleverPhraseHere  09:48, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Recent discussions made it occur to me to add to my own statement that I oppose the existing language. Please let me suggest to other editors that you may want to make your own evaluations of "no change" explicit. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:00, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Mr. Bassett: You are spot on in your analysis in issue #1. The sources do not show a "scientific consensus" on the language of Proposal 1. Thank you for your thoughtful work. --David Tornheim (talk) 19:28, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Petrarchan47 - ??? Becomes clearer if you read the language of RFC and my comments closely. The RfC literally did not ask for a voting nor was public perception excluded from proposals, and my comments are to what the RfC asked for. The RFC asked for comments to address two numbered questions of first whether the preponderance of RS indicate scientific consensus, and second should the existing language be changed and which proposal if any representing the answer to the first question. To the first question I said no scientific consensus shown - as scientific consensus refers to a single statement of a specific scientific community, and the diverse cites including medical (an art or practice community) and broad scientific groups do not fit the term's narrowness and specific process/field. To the second question I comment with just follow the cites, a simple urging to convey what cites say in due weight. Among the proposals I highlighted a few more close and factually portraying the cites and I also said that generally due weight is not provided in proposals. It's a matter of what one can say appropriate to the cite. For example, the language you bolded I think echoes the WHO wording and could be reported as the WHO wording -- but to state it without attribution would be an unsupported claim, to state it as uncontested fact or as being more than WHO words would be inaccurate, and to state only it with nothing of the other cites or to emphasize it above all other cites would be inappropriate weight... especially if it gets stuffed into articles where WHO opinion has factually just not been present. Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 16:34, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I think it is useful for editors to consider how the phrase "scientific consensus" is treated in the source material. As the lead in our page about it makes clear, consensus is not the same thing as unanimity. Thus, whether or not there is "a single statement of a specific scientific community" can depend on how one encounters that "specific" part. Here, we have multiple mainstream reliable sources that say that a scientific consensus does exist, using the exact words "scientific consensus" or "broad scientific consensus", and many of these sources cite and assign low importance to other sources that dispute the consensus. I think that an argument can be made that it is WP:OR to change what those sources say to something like "scientific agreement" (the existing language on many affected pages) or "scientific majority". --Tryptofish (talk) 17:43, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Tryptofish -- thank you for agreeing the large varied buncha cites is not giving a specific scientific community; which is one of the points where for me it failed to match the wikilinked scientific consensus associated meaning, and what the RFC literally asked about. No, not about unanimity -- just about wording choice for a herd of cites that is here and whether wikilinking to that specific meaning is supported as opposed to not present or misreading chance similar phrasings. No, the cites in these that I pulled did not state or imply a "scientific consensus" in this meaning of the term. Most proposals here did not use the phrasing at all (#2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 12) and the ones that do (1, 5, 6, and 9) have not supported it -- having 7 items listed is not great, that they include a UN 2003 statement on collective evidence; and one from Italian policy writers in a healthcare pub casual language perhaps coincidentally uses the phrase; another cite refers to it as 'respected organizations' consensus meaning non-scientists... did not help either. The bunch of variegated supportive cites together might be described in article as 'scientific and health groups' or 'general scientific agreement' or something else though. Just not fitting the term scientific consensus. And again, I think just follow the cites and put in what they say at the articles topic, with due WP:WEIGHT of the actual occurrence in that topic. The 'one-size-fits-all' shoving it in or gathering of cites and proclaiming scientific consensus term they didn't use in this effort is still feeling a bit like WP:SYNTH. Markbassett (talk) 21:19, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I think where we agree the most is that it is best to "just follow the cites". But actually, you thanked me for saying something that I did not really say (although you're welcome anyway!). Just because there are a lot of sources that can be cited does not mean that they each represent differing views, or that it is SYNTH to cite them together. It seems to me that when sources say that there is "a broad scientific consensus", then they are indicating that there is a scientific consensus, without any SYNTH needed. And it seems to me when I take all of the sources together as a whole, then those that say that there is a scientific consensus weigh highly, because they include analyses of the dissenting sources in arriving at their conclusions. But it's fine if you read that differently than I do, because this is what the RfC is for. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:13, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Mark, some of your comments have confused me a bit, so hopefully you can explain. Are you saying that because there are multiple sources saying there is a scientific consensus, that means there isn't a scientific consensus? It can't think of a single instance where this logic would work (e.g. climate change, evolution, etc.), so am I misreading something from what you've said for what you're looking for? Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:25, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Kingofaces43 I'll try explaining one more time, but it's basically just not the appropriate phrase for describing the herd of cites nor is the phrase really appropriate for describing the external situation.

First, WP:WEIGHT and WP:SYNTH as the RFC really does not look to be trying just follow the cites for an article to convey the phrasings of items in proportion to their prominence on each topic, or seeking the right phrasing for an external situation. It seems asking for a creative writing drill to then push into articles where it is not externally present. Putting for example just the WHO wording at top of the overall situation seems incorrect as the world is firmly in the regulate and test camp with less-confident variations like 'generally regarded as safe' from the more influential and externally prominent government and medical lead players other than WHO ... and which applies most to different articles varies.

Second, the specific phrase wikilinked to is not appropriate term for the herd of cites. Wikilinking to the term scientific consensus is making a distinct association to "the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study", so it is linking to a very specific and privileged claim that at least one scientific community body made a statement. This isn't the right summation for a herd of cites shown, and factually the meaning seems not supported by the cites. There are numerous societies and academies and fields that would fit the phrase, even if the scientific community is within social sciences or formal sciences, and the wikilinked article also mentions National Academy of Sciences as suiting. But what I see on say proposal 1 seems just a vaguely collected herd of cites, the fourth cite being a collective list and three single cites of diverse types such as individual author article or government policy source or medical community. Not apparently focused to scientific consensus, not naming the learned society or academy or mentioning particular PhD field(s) and I'm not even seeing a particular theme or high significance to the items chosen. I see this even cites something saying no consensus where Krimsky, Sheldon (2015) "An Illusory Consensus behind GMO Health Assessment" talks about looking for scientific consensus and quotes BMA "absence of scientific consensus" and concludes "the putative consensus about the inherent safety of transgenic crops is premature".

Anyway, Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 14:57, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

What you just wrote actually supports the scientific consensus wording. When you have a scientific consensus, you're going to have multiple sources claiming that, and multiple sources citing those sources reiterating the consensus when it is well established. We expect to cite review articles and organizations per WP:RS/AC that explicitly state there is a consensus. We included citations for both those directly saying there is a consensus and the citations of other sources that were cited in the sources saying there was a consensus. There's no synth going on doing that. Read through the sources and you'll see that these are all interlinked for the relevant organizations and disciplines rather than being a disparate collection of our own doing. At the end of the day, the sources directly say there is a consensus in relevant fields.

Also keep in mind the 4th cite deals with WP:FRINGE ideas in the scientific community. Krimsky for example, as a non-expert in the field while citing pseudoscience tries to state there isn't a consensus despite more reliable and even more sources state there is a consensus. A similar example is Domingo, which editors here have used to claim there isn't a consensus even though a later review (Panchin) cites Domingo while still saying there is a consensus. We're basically addressing the idea that there are legitimate concerns, and that these are either dismissed or addressed by the scientific community in reaching the consensus. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:58, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Kingofaces43 No, my RFC input and what I just wrote is that the group of cites are not supporting scientific consensus. That wikilink is fairly specific about what such a claim means and the herd of random writings shown did not have such a thread -- even had one cite saying 'there is no scientific consensus.' These cites might support some other descriptive, but not that wikilinked phrase. And again, it still smells bad for WP:WEIGHT and WP:SYNTH here to craft up a phrase and shove it into articles rather than just follow the cites and report what all RS on an article topic say in proportion to their prominence. Markbassett (talk) 14:41, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

That one cite is the source by Krimsky. About "craft"ing up a phrase, there are multiple sources that say, verbatim, that there is a "scientific consensus", but I don't recollect any source that says, verbatim, that there is a "scientific agreement", which unfortunately is the existing language on many of the pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:34, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Mark, as many are aware I have been requesting that we add what the sources say to our articles rather than a summary of sources SYNTHed together in a way that is less than clear to both the reader, and other editors. This summary is extra difficult to check for accuracy and NPOV, unless like Proposal 7, it does not include editors' own take but sticks closely to neutral RS. My suggestion was, and remains, that we expand the content, after each source is discussed by the community, and build GMO articles in the normal process. A summary would then be very easy to write. My concern is that this RfC (as I've said previously) is asking editors to vote on what amounts to SYNTH/OR, which is not allowed. petrarchan47คุก 04:29, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

The way that I see it, the RfC is very useful because it allows more editors to look at the issues with fresh eyes, and to decide for themselves whether something is or is not SYNTH/OR. And as I have said a couple of times now, it seems to me that "scientific consensus" comes directly from the sources, whereas such existing language as "scientific agreement" is actually the original research. I also think that an examination of this discussion thread demonstrates clearly how various editors just don't agree about "consensus"/"agreement", and I think that the RfC is the best way to establish a community consensus that will settle the issue for some time. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:23, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break (scope)

It's true I began this section with a comment to MarkBasset, but the larger point extends well beyond his comment: (as I just said to Wordsmith) the controversial safety statement we are tasked with replacing never included anything about public perception or bans, nor does the present one, officially. IMO, the accidental extension, whose addition received no discussion by the community, should be remedied by Admins. It isn't an official addition, but is weighing in heavily according to editors' comments. This RfC doesn't need added issues; it is a very complex topic and very controversial claim.

From what I can tell, Mark rejected Proposal 7 (the WHO's statement) because it didn't address the other issues which aren't actually a part of this RfC -- I misread his comments, but the larger issue remains.petrarchan47คุก 02:12, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

petrarchan47 What I did was answer the RFC in the terms it gave, which are

• 1. Based upon the policies, guidelines, and concepts related to scientific consensus, listed below, do the preponderance of reliable sources (see citations in the listed proposals) indicate that there is a scientific consensus about the safety of genetically modified food with respect to human health?

Answer Me: No, scientific consensus is not shown (by the citations in the proposals)

I've since had questions and pointed out that the term wikilinked describes what will support it -- only the declaration of a scientific society or body like NAS -- and instead cites included: Krimsky saying 'no scientific consensus', an NCBI page mentioning controversy and 'mounting scientific evidence', a Domingo review of scientific literature saying 'a risk assessment of GM food generally has not been systematically performed', a Panchin work Critical Reviews of Biotechnology article behind a wall titled 'Published GMO studies find no evidence of harm when corrected for multiple comparisons', a Ronald article in Genetics claiming 'broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat', the UN State of Food and Agriculture 2003-2004 saying 'scientific evidence still emerging', and Nicolia in Critical Reviews in Biotechnology article "An overview of the last 10 years of genetically engineered crop safety" where the Italian Ministry of Agriculture collected up articles 'trying to catch the scientific consensus' and concludes "that the scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazard" which is somewhat less than the WHO-style language in the proposal. So ... no, the "preponderance" (m-w def: a superiority in weight, power, importance, or strength; superiority or excess in number or quantity/majority) of cites did not even claim scientific consensus, nor does it present a scientific society or NAS stateement, let alone to the "that currently available food derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food" statement which is the proposal 1 language.

• 2. Should the existing language be changed, and which content proposal(s), if any, best represent the answer to question 1 for inclusion in the articles listed above?

Answer Me: Best representing my answer to 1 (no scientific consensus) for inclusion in the articles listed ... for the article summary in numerous pages went with revise to appropriate WEIGHT on situation and public view and just follow the cites and state what is said accurately and in due WP:WEIGHT to their prominence on the topic. Proposals 4 and 10 do better at conveying the cites factually, 7 and 8 do better limited to just the WHO cite but that the WHO seems well below the relevance of regulatory and medical bodies or public opinion for these article topics.

petrarchan47 I do not know what you mean by your 'tasking' or 'officially' in "the controversial safety statement we are tasked with replacing never included anything about public perception or bans, nor does the present one, officially." I only responded to the RFC as asked, expected inputs to be taken not discussed at length or to be a puzzle. I think this has given me the ideas though that I should add a couple proposals for completeness -- first that better than any of these simply may be the existing if imperfect "There is general scientific agreement that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food, but should be tested on a case-by-case basis." and second that for simplification one can simply delete a disliked line. Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 14:21, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

First, WP:RS/AC is the relevant policy here, not the wikilinked scientific consensus. "only the declaration of a scientific society" would violate that policy, but we instead rely both on reviews and especially those scientific organizations. We have direct quotes from reviews and high level scientific organizations saying there is a scientific consensus statement, and they are further citing in those statements a plethora of scientific organizations that use implicit consensus language (i.e. every respected organization says GM food is as safe as conventional). The WHO, NAS, AAAS, FAO, etc. are all included in those consensus statements, so we have in reality satisfied your criteria for the consensus language as well. Weighting Domingo, Krimsky, etc. against all that to say there isn't a consensus would violate WP:FRINGE and WP:PSCI due to low source quality, etc. They are only mentioned in the proposals as a notable fringe view like we do as climate change deniers being a notable even if incorrect subset of views elsewhere. As mentioned elsewhere, using "scientific agreement" would violate WP:OR it isn't used in the sources, but scientific consensus is. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:47, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Why do you continue to assert that "Domingo, Krimsky, etc." are Fringe? Domingo is the top quality under the WP:MEDRS standard and cannot be dismissed without strong evidence. Domingo is an expert in toxicology. The paper was published in a journal with impact factor 5.6. Domingo 2011 is cited by 164 others according to Google Scholar. Domingo has numerous papers with a similar large number of citations of his work[21], showing he is a well respected scientist. He is editor-in-chief of the journal that retracted Seralini's paper, Food and Chemical Toxicology[22]. Although others have falsely claimed that Domingo 2011 was "discredited", those making such assertions could never supply any evidence it was true. Nicolia's review is of comparable level, so the two should be presented on an equal footing. We cannot dismiss high quality sources because they present views that differ with other RS. We must present RS of comparable quality according to policy WP:DUE. Only permitting RS that expresses a view you agree with and dismissing all other high quality RS as WP:Fringe simply because it disagrees is not WP:NPOV and does not follow policy. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:03, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

For me, WP:FRINGE has not seemed very applicable when I have examined the cited sources. But I do find it useful to examine how best to apply WP:DUE, when there are sources that are worth citing (particularly for the benefit of readers who want to read more) but not worth emphasizing, because of how subsequent sources have analyzed those earlier sources. I most definitely do not consider Domingo to actually be fringe; rather I see the source as having become outdated in light of later secondary sources, and consequently best weighted lower. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:18, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

What secondary sources do you see discounting Domingo 2011? How do you weigh their importance if, as in the case of Panchin, no reviews of this paper are yet available; it hasn't been cited by anyone yet Domingo 2011 is widely cited and Domingo highly esteemed? petrarchan47คุก 02:15, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

As I said earlier, in Proposal 1 cite #4 is the footnote in which this question is (hopefully) addressed. One can see there more recent secondary sources that cite Domingo and reach different conclusions. These sources are peer-reviewed just as Domingo was. That means that they were reviewed favorably as part of the publication process; normally papers in science journals do not get reviewed in the way that films or books get reviewed. As you correctly note, the longer ago a paper was published, the more citations (whether favorable or unfavorable) it will have. Consequently, simply counting citations is uninformative for the purpose of this specific question. The way science works, recent papers always build on previous work. Given that these papers are more recent, and given that they cite Domingo and thus are demonstrably aware of Domingo, they represent peer-reviewed analyses that are more current than Domingo's analysis and have taken Domingo's points into consideration. So as of now, they better represent the state of scientific knowledge. Then, in assigning due weight, one should consider how, furthermore, there are so many other reliable sources that say definitively that they see a scientific consensus in agreement with the papers that evaluated Domingo. That's where the weight of most sources resides. By the way, much is made of Domingo in our discussions, but all Domingo really says is that, as of several years ago, there was a rough balance in the numbers of primary studies that were favorable or were critical towards GMOs, and that it was only recently that there was enough data to start to draw firm conclusions. It was more like a numerical analysis of trends, than like a finding that GMOs are unsafe. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:23, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Kingofaces43 - No the RFC question was not WP:RS/AC - this RFC stated question 1 as whether the wikilinked phrase was being shown by the preponderance of cites provided, no, scientific consensus is not shown was my judgement with the wording and the cites shown. The wikilink says the phrase means an explicit scientific society or NAS statement -- and the herd of cites simply did not have that focus, one of the cites even SAYS no scientific consensus. If they just randomly or casually used the phrase 'consensus' without somehow showing it has that meaning then it really is not a support for the claim. Markbassett (talk) 17:52, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Actually, the question was based on RS/AC. We specifically made the question to say according to the relevant policies and guidelines listed above, of which WP:RS/AC is one of them as opposed to listing all the relevant policies and guidelines in the question itself. RS/AC is the policy that governs when the term scientific consensus is appropriate regardless of how the question is worded. The policy specifically states reviews are one area to appropriately source scientific consensus from in addition to the plethora of scientific organizations they (and we) cite. The only review saying there isn't a consensus is listed because it's a WP:FRINGE idea as discussed elsewhere on this page. WP:WEIGHT applies here in that regard too as it's no strong enough to oppose all the other strong sources saying there is a consensus. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:38, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Scope, con't

Allusions to other editors' behavior. Petrarchan47 is given a final warning for rule violation; any further disruption will result in a block or permanent ban from this RFC. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 06:21, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
To be very clear, the RfC is asking us to provide language to replace this disputed bit (that never had community consensus, by the way, only 2 people were involved in crafting the present wording) with whatever best represents a neutral assessment of available RS. The RfC does not ask us to go into the scientific versus public opinion. That is an argument that some proposals have added for no discernible reason and in violation of the rules of the RfC, as well as WP:OR (through the use of WP:SYNTH). This RfC and statement are far too contentious as it is for us to allow this extension, especially given that it was not approved. If Admins watching over the RfC fail to respond by asking editors to scratch this poirtion of their proposals, I will take this issue to the ArbCom committee. Each of these pages has language similar to: There is general scientific agreement that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food, but should be tested on a case-by-case basis. petrarchan47คุก 23:59, 17 June 2016 (UTC) Was going to stay out of all this, but as I was one of the editors that suggested the public consensus should be added to the statement I will comment here. The pew study clearly comments on the disparity between public and scientific views[23] (see key data in opinion differences between public and scientists), so I don't see this as original research. This disparity is discussed in other sources as well. I am also not sure how the addition of this violates any rules of the rfc, especially since the wording has been present since the formulation of the rules. AIRcorn (talk) 02:36, 18 June 2016 (UTC) Aircorn, the reason is simple: because this addition was never discussed by the community. It is curious to me, and POV. I would have raised these issues, as would others, if the addition had gone through a formal discussion process. To add another concept to the hotly disputed safety statement should not be considered trivial, yet it was treated that way, your comment only underlines this fact. Consider that if random editors are allowed to decide what additional points Wikipedia should add to this statement, it could just as easily be explanation of substantial equivalence as it relates to our claim of a safety consensus mention of the fact that no long-term human health studies have been performed on GM foods and that most studies are industry-funded and rely on 9 month trials mention of ongoing research in the EU to address valid, lingering questions raised by studies such as those reviewed in Domingo 2011 That only a couple of editors chose, through no formal process, which addition to make to this safety claim is a very serious oversight; the RfC rules don't include that addition, which is very good. Now we need to remove the additional language, which is a violation of OR - by way of SYNTH - and POV, or scratch this whole RfC. petrarchan47คุก 22:59, 18 June 2016 (UTC) Moderating Administrator comment - Petrarchan47, two things: 1. The rules clearly state: If you believe that a user is violating policy or the rules set forth by Arbcom or by this page, and you cannot work it out between yourselves, please speak to an Enforcement admin at their talk page or at ANI, not here or on this RFC's talk page. 2. No one delegated to you any authority to threaten other editors based on your misinterpretation of the rules. Continue, and you'll face a block. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 06:21, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

More on sources (from Opabinia)

I first read most of the proposals last week when the RfC went live, and wrote some brief thoughts on some of the sources used; moving them here to save space and spare the closers some tedious reading.

• Krimsky 2015: It is a notable view, but not a good source for the state of the science on the subject. It devotes significant space to attempting to rehabilitate scientific work so discredited that the dispute itself became independently notable (see Seralini affair). Even earlier in the paper, there are obvious cues that the author is not conversant with the literature in molecular biology and genetics at the level needed to evaluate the science. (See, for example, the last two paragraphs on page 890, and compare the discussion of the same topic in Nicolia 2013 in the section "Safety of the proteins encoded by the transgenes".)
• Domingo and Bordonaba 2011: Superior to Krimsky, and its emphasis on Seralini's work can at least be explained by the publication date. However, it's poorly used in the proposal, attached to a statement about the differences between the American and European regulatory paradigms, when in fact the paper is a literature review of animal feeding studies, describing such studies are roughly evenly balanced between those that find evidence of harm and those that don't. (Other reviews reach other conclusions; see also doi:10.1016/j.fct.2011.11.048 and doi:10.1038/nbt.2686.)
• Bawa and Anilakumar 2012: This source is interesting in that it contains discussion specific to India, whereas a lot of the literature on this subject focuses on the US and Europe even as GM crops become more widespread in developing countries. However, much of the text is devoted to a general overview of GMOs, rather than evaluation of their risks. There are also some strange statements in the text - e.g. "It is believed that consumption of these genetically engineered foods can cause the development of diseases which are immune to antibiotics." without a citation (perhaps it is believed by someone, but infectious disease is not a scientifically reasonable risk of GMOs). Similarly, "GM foods are useful in controlling the occurrence of certain diseases. By modifying the DNA system of these foods, the properties causing allergies are eliminated successfully." While I suppose it's possible to do that, this is a jarring description considering that the more common concern is that GMOs will introduce allergens into unexpected sources.

Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:27, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Regarding elimination of allergies: [24] --David Tornheim (talk) 08:09, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, CRISPR/Cas9 for genome editing has a lot of potential. As you probably know, having read many of these sources, this technique is extremely new and has become widespread for research purposes but is very different from the techniques used to develop the GMOs that are currently in commercial use. A couple of months ago a regulatory hurdle was passed in the US for a CRISPR/Cas9-based GMO, a button mushroom that resists browning: Gene-edited CRISPR mushroom escapes US regulation. However, this was developed in a research context; it's not yet in a position to be commercially available. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:24, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Having written this sentence:

Scientific review articles on GM food safety are divided between those following the American approach of assuming GMOs are Generally Recognized as Safe and those that are more skeptical.

refs

I agree with your criticism that this was not a great sentence for bringing out the key points of Domingo and Krimsky. I agree with your summary that Domingo is a "literature review of animal feeding studies, describing such studies are roughly evenly balanced between those that find evidence of harm and those that don't." I would support adding that sentence (to Proposal 4) to contrast with statements that are more optimistic on GMO safety.

I have read quite bit of RS on GMOs, and particularly on the differences in regulations in different countries. Reading my Proposal now months later, I can understand commentators concern that I put so much emphasis on regulatory differences, when I could have been more clear on what Krimsky and Domingo said in contrast to AMA, AAAS and NAS.

I was trying to all of these things simultaneously:

(1) incorporate as much of the important RS as possible (without using quote farms)

(2) articulate important themes, and major differences of opinions voiced in numerous articles

(3) identify the different voices (e.g. International orgs statements are often similar in calm tone and language; American groups such the AMA, AAAS and NAS medical/science groups are more forcefully pro-GMO; the BMA on the other side asked for a moratorium on GMOs under the Precautionary Principle; the review articles that focus more on the data or lack of it; and the many law review articles strongly disapproving of the American regulatory approach viz-a-viz E.U.'s)

Trying to do all three at once covering so much ground created some problematic sentences. Proposal 10 is closer to what I was trying to do, even though it under-emphasizes the difference between American and E.U. approach and attitudes that is so significant.

Anyway, I am open to trying to improve the deficiencies in Proposal 4, and welcome your suggestions. I have created a place to work on it here.

--David Tornheim (talk) 09:17, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

There is no difference in the American approach vs. European approach when it comes to scientific research. Regulatory bodies that answer to public opinion don't reflect the actual research. The bans and reticence in Europe have nothing to do with the science and everything to do their constituents and the potential financial implications on these countries very tiny farming industries. Now that's an interesting avenue to bring up but it has nothing to do with the actual research. Opinion doesn't matter. The fact that some countries are less receptive to GMOs (though they've likely been eating them for a couple decades now) has nothing to do with the safety of eating GMOs. The two sources: Domingo, who focuses on literally the worst scientific paper I've seen in years, and Krimsky who couldn't even get published in a journal of any impact and makes money off of selling intentionally contrarian books that exceed at ignoring the mass of research that disagrees with his premise. The idea that they're supposed to stand up against the most recent reviews (which include American and European and Asian and South American scientists as opposed to an American vs. European diametric) doesn't hold water. Capeo (talk) 02:59, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

^There are numerous problem with your statement that I hope are obvious to readers:

"There is no difference in the American approach vs. European approach when it comes to scientific research."

But there are differences in the regulatory approaches. Regulators are responsible for food safety, not exclusively scientists, or statements made by influential scientific or medical bodies or International orgs like WHO, U.N., FAO, etc. Regulatory stances are relevant.

"Regulatory bodies that answer to public opinion don't reflect the actual research."

This is a gross and inaccurate oversimplification of regulations. Regulations are a very complex system, enforced by the executive branch of government, requiring the assembling of expert opinion, hearings and review processes. [25]. There have been numerous cases where industry pressure has a disproportionate influence [26], especially climate change (See: Politicization of science#Global warming). Despite that there is overwhelming majority of Americans (as high as 93% [27]) want GMO labeling, the FDA will not budge [28]. The Senate passed a bill to preempt individual states from mandatory labels and overturn labeling requirements passed by Vermont voters. Our article Politicization of science shows numerous examples of how industry pressure has trumped science. To say that the regulators (and other government bodies) are making their decisions based primarily on public opinion is not even close to accurate, especially for GMO's.

Regarding Domingo and Krimksy

Your opinion of the sources is irrelevant, only the RS that comments on it is. As I stated below here, Domingo is of the top quality under WP:MEDRS. Your attack on Krimsky is similarly lacking in substance. One only need look at his c.v. here on Wikipedia (Sheldon Krimsky) and note that many of his books were published by university presses and he has had a number of high level positions.

--David Tornheim (talk) 21:21, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

The point of this RFC is to determine what the scientific research says not what government regulatory bodies say. Most EU regulatory bodies are far more sensitive to public opion due to how they are setup and how many of the positions are elected hence the differences in regulation from country to country. And that's why we go to the actual research and independent scientific organizations when available. To cut through the politicization. The RS say Domingo made clear statistical errors. Krimsky is an ethicist with zero background in biological and statistical research. As I said earlier, why we're even entertaining Krimsky is beyond me. Capeo (talk) 14:56, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

What RS says that Domingo made statistical errors?

The point of the RfC is not what you claim it to be. It is to determine if there is a consensus to change a specific set of similar sentences found in many ledes to something else. Even Proposal 1 that you support mentions regulations, as it should, because that is what the RS talks about.

Please provide RS for your claims about Krismky and Domingo. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:01, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Capeo, I'd like to underscore the need for sources backing up the statement "The RS say Domingo made clear statistical errors." petrarchan47คุก 06:35, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Better stated: Domingo overlooked the statistical errors in Doull and Seralini papers he cites thus gives them far more weight than they should have. The Panchin paper explains the commonality of this error in the papers that were finding evidence of health dangers. Capeo (talk) 15:33, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

We even have a source that explicitly states the consensus is in Europe too. There's another out of Kenya representing African scientists also saying there is a consensus, "Empirical evidence shows the high potential of the technology, and there is now a scientific consensus that the currently available transgenic crops and the derived foods are safe for consumption (FAO, 2004).". I can't remember why we decided to keep those two out of the proposals, but I think it was because we already had plenty of direct consensus quotes (e.g. the citation overkill claims). Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:24, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

The 13 year old FAO source is disallowed per WP:MEDRS, as well as subsequent studies. Sources no more than 5 years old are preferred (see your comments re Panchin). petrarchan47คุก 06:30, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

"The 13 year old FAO source is disallowed per WP:MEDRS" would actually violate MEDRS as we're mostly focusing on review articles in that recommendation. This is one thing we really haven't discussed here yet. High-level scientific organizations like FAO, WHO, etc. don't put out consensus statements every five years just for us if things are staying the same. What MEDRS recommends with high quality sources like this that are over 5 years old is to look for newer statements by the organization that show them doing a 180 saying there isn't a scientific consensus. If they haven't changed course, they're not going to repeatedly mention things are par the course. In a nutshell, statements from high-level organizations like this stay regardless of age unless they or other similar organizations say the science has changed direction. We've had quite a few conversations at MEDRS that taking the 5 year guidance to strictly mean any sources older than that are no good is not an appropriate use of the guideline.[29] Part of that is to prevent situations where the mainstream science moves on and doesn't publish as much on the topic, while adherents still try to make a case. Enforcing a strict 5 year rule in that case creates major WP:WEIGHT issues. Kingofaces43 (talk) 14:22, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Agree with KoA. This is a misunderstanding of the rules of thumb in MEDRS. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:24, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Admittedly, MEDRS has been a challenge, just when I think I understand how to apply it, I find out I have much to learn. Opabinia regalis, would you weigh in on the application of MEDRS (and Fringe) and check whether my reasoning is sound. I'll ping you to the section. Thank you. petrarchan47คุก 23:49, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Note: I've refactored my above comment to depersonalize it at Kingofaces43's request. They rightly pointed out that it was directed too much at the editor and not the evidence. Apologies to all. Frustration got the better of me. Capeo (talk) 12:55, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

• Opabinia, you said that Domingo includes Seralini. I have not been able to verify that, where is it located within the paper?
• Secondly, Seralini was retracted for reasons that are less than orthodox,** and has since been republished. The study replicated Monsanto's model that they have used to prove safety to government agencies. The only difference was that Seralini extended the time beyond Monsanto's 9 months. Problems were observed beginning at 10 months. The attacks on his work were somewhat unique in the scientific world, as Krimsky notes. He has not been discredited; the results are considered important. A large, full blown cancer study attempting to replicate his results is now underway in the EU (see:Reuters,Seralini's response,Industry response). He has won a few defamation lawsuits*:

"A scientific fraud where the methodology used to reinforce written advance results." These are the words written by Jean-Claude Jaillet and published in the magazine Marianne. Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini, author of a scientific study on the long-term chronic toxicity of Roundup, had filed a complaint for defamation following the publication of these two articles ... On 6 November 2015, following a criminal investigation three years, the 17th Criminal Chamber of the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris has sentenced the authors, the newspaper and its journalist, this charge carried by Marianne, for public defamation against a public official and public defamation of researchers and CRIIGEN.* petrarchan47คุก 05:41, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

"The study replicated Monsanto's model that they have used to prove safety to government agencies." This is factually incorrect. What commonly is referred to here is a study done by Hammond et al. that used the same number of rats, but used them for the appropriate length of time. Seralini did not replicate this because they did a longer term experiment that required more rats to have actual meaningful results.[30] The retraction occurred due to pretty standard reasons as much as Seralini supporters wanted to try to make it look like something nefarious. Kingofaces43 (talk) 14:22, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Krismky is an anti-GMO advocate who can be summarily dismissed honestly. Seralini's study has been discredited and it did not use the same methodology as the Monsanto's study. You can't simply extend a study using rats that are known for health issues after 10 months. There's a reason different strains of rats can only be used for set amounts of time and still give viable results. The EU study has nothing to do with Sealini's credibility and everything to do with the difference in public perception and fears in Europe. Something that has no bearing on the science. In the same vein Seralini winning defamation lawsuits has nothing to do with the credibility of his work and quite literally had nothing to do with his paper. Most European countries have extraordinarily strict defamation laws when compared to the US. Those cases would never have even made it to trial here. And, again, it doesn't matter because it had nothing to do with the actual study he conducted. It was simply that extremely strong wording was used and basically called him a charlatan which is enough to win a case on in many EU countries. No bearing on the veracity of his study at all. Capeo (talk) 16:03, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Capeo, That's a lot of OR on your part. Seralini's model is presently being replicated in a $23M study in the EU. It seems there is a preponderance of American editors working on the GMO issue, and Wikipedia could end up with a skewed view, one that, as is being suggested by many proposals, dismisses altogether the voices of GMO critics. If Krimsky can be dismissed due to his advocacy, certainly Pamela Ronald, with 2 retractions in her wake, open about her GMO advocacy, should also be summarily dismissed, Instead she is used as the number 2 source for Proposition #1's "scientific consensus" claim. petrarchan47คุก 04:32, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

I assume you're talking about the Factor GMO study? It's a study that's not even happening. Nothing has happened since the press conference in 2014. No results, no methodology, nothing. It was also organized by a Russian anti-GMO NGO to begin with and has zero transparency in it's funding, aside from soliciting donations on their website that has not been updated in over a year. It has no bearing on the science being discussed here. Krimsky can be dismissed due to his advocacy being of the paid variety in that he wrote a pop-sci book decrying GMOs that was very light on the sci and big on the fear mongering. Krimsky is an ethicist with zero bioligical research under his belt. Why he's even being considered is beyond me. Ronald is one of the most respected scientists in the country who has been doing actual research with actual results for decades. Her retractions were also exactly how good research works. Her own team discovered the errors, retracted the papers themselves then redid the studies with even more stringent constraints and independent validation. It's basically the complete opposite of the Seralini affair. Capeo (talk) 20:35, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Again, Capeo, this is not entirely accurate. Ronald had to, by her own admission,** start at "square one" with regard to her lab, because her work was based on erroneous results from having mislabeled a bacteria strain, one one instance, and another error - valid reasons for retraction. She admitted her mistakes, and media played this up, but it does not negate the fact that these papers were very important to her career, they formed the backbone of her work. I'm not sure your claim that she is highly respected has any weight without RS. This statement also needs RS, or probably shouldn't be printed here: [Krinsky wrote a] pop-sci book decrying GMOs that was very light on the sci and big on the fear mongering. Ronald's affair should not be compared with the retraction and republication of Seralini, whose work is being replicated, showing that his results are taken seriously, and that the science isn't settled. Here is proof: Seralini's response, Industry response You do realize Ronald makes money by promoting GMOs, yes? In my view, we shouldn't be using an advocate or critic for this safety statement using WP's voice. petrarchan47คุก 05:38, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Your timeline is off. You're ignoring the fact that Ronald's earlier work resulted in the Sub1 rice strain that today feeds millions and millions of people in some of the most impoverished and vulnerable populations. You're also ignoring the fact that after the retractions she was eventually successful in completing her research which will now likely lead to millions and millions more vulnerable populations being able to eat. And Seralini's work is not being replicated. For one your links are outdated. The project that won the grant is actually g-twyst and they haven't started a thing yet. They also outright distance themselves from Seralini. If it goes forward their models are massively more robust than Seralini. Ten times more rats, corrections for multiple comparisons and statistical correlations with shorter feed studies. Read this little gem: [31]. The first sentence from the first stakeholder comment, "At the stakeholder workshop, it was claimed several times that G-TwYST was initiated for political reasons in answer to the Séralini study rather than due to a concrete scientific concern." G-TwYST reply, "The G-TwYST agrees with the first sentence of the comment." Capeo (talk) 23:32, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Petrarchan47, I'm not sure what you mean by "have not been able to verify that"; the Domingo paper extensively cites Seralini's work. His name appears, by my count, 24 times in the text. If you mean the specific, discredited paper, obviously that isn't cited, because Domingo's paper was published a year earlier. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:24, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, glitch on my part. Seralini's 2012 paper was not retracted for reasons listed in the COPE guidelines. It cannot be considered discredited any more than the Wikipedia page about this affair can be considered reliable. Here are reliable sources that discuss what many say was an unfair attack on yet another scientist whose GM research found problems.**. The more important question is, how do you see mention of (pre-2012) Seralini impacting the reliability of Domingo 2011? If I've missed this, my apologies. petrarchan47คุก 04:32, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

The poor statistical practices identified in Seralini 2012 weren't new to that paper or study; they only came to wider attention due to the amount of publicity that accompanied the publication of the paper. Knowing that Seralini published poor statistical work in 2012 means it's worth being skeptical of his older work using the same techniques. Indeed, Domingo cites Seralini 2007 (doi:10.1007/s00244-006-0149-5, a reanalysis of data from a Monsanto study, not his own work) and contrasts Doull 2007 (doi:10.1016/j.fct.2007.08.033, a re-re-analysis that examines Seralini 2007) as if they are simply two different views of equal "weight". But in fact the criticisms in Doull are very serious, and closely parallel the concerns about statistics raised in response to Seralini 2012. For one thing, Seralini's reanalysis fails to correct for multiple comparisons, as well as either failing to perform or failing to document more subtle necessary corrections. What they present as adverse effects do not show the biologically expected patterns, i.e. consistency across sexes and dose-response effects. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:16, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

There was also a lot of handwaving by those in the Seralini affair about the paper not being retracted for "reasons listed in the COPE guidelines", even though the editor specifically cited the study as being unreliable as the COPE guideline justifying retraction.[32] I don't think we need to spend additional time with arguments trying to claim the debunked Seralini study was legitimate. There's also a difference between retracted pseduoscience of Seralini versus a voluntary retraction by Ronald who found errors and sought to actually correct them. The latter is what we expect reputable scientists to do, and such retractions are not a blemish on WP:RS. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:30, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Really there is no reason to discuss this twice, but I will say that comparing Ronald's 2 retractions with Seralini's single 2012 paper does not make sense. Ronald had to retract her work due to errors, these papers formed the basis of her lab's work, from what I understand. (I left sources for these claims in another section of this talk page.) She said she had to start at "square one" after these papers were retracted, and that as of 2012, there remained papers that partially relied on her now retracted work; they are still looking for the authors to let them know about the error. On the other hand, Seralini didn't agree that his 2012 work should be retracted, so it doesn't seem fair to blame him for not doing it willingly or in the same manner as Ronald. Another difference is that Seralini has been republished, and forms the basis of the present $23 million full-blown cancer study* in the EU (again sources have been provided in earlier posts - but ping me and I will repeat them here). Given Ronald is an outspoken advocate for GMOs, and considering the history I've just reiterated, it is troubling that she is being used to support our claim of "scientific consensus", while we are ignoring others of equal standing who claim that current literature and research supports the exact opposite - there is no consensus, the debate is active, research ongoing (see Blumberg, Schubert here). I reject the claim that Seralini is "rejected pseudoscience" given the current study and republication. King, if you haven't read these sources** on Seralini's retraction, you might consider doing so. Your viewpint (above) seems to run contrary to RS. petrarchan47คุก 06:25, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

So as not to repeat myself here's more recent info on the "Factor GMO" study [33]. I wouldn't recommend going to the factor GMO site itself on anything but a mobile browser. I just went there for the first time on my desktop and my virus software instantly quarantined a virus. Capeo (talk) 15:59, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Just to be clear here, the "$23 million study" being done "in the EU" is not, as far as I can tell, funded by any official EU body. I braved the Factor GMO website (on Linux ;) and found this in their FAQ: Up to this stage private individuals from across Russia and the EU have put forward the full funds (to be disclosed next year). We cannot disclose the exact amount of funds collected until now due to contractual agreements with the funders, however we can say that a high percentage of the total needed has been secured, allowing us to start the experimental phase in Spring 2015. This is the current version of their website. I am not sure if the total funds or the funders have since been disclosed or if any experiments have been started, since it is, after all, now over a year past their scheduled start. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:57, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

And to be more clear this, to date non-existent, study is being organized by NAGS. I invite anyone to checkout their website. There you will find claims that GMOs are going to lead to a Russian genocide and cause, among a host of other baseless claims, both Down syndrome and global warming. I see little point in bringing up them or this study going forward. Neither has any bearing on what's being discussed here. Capeo (talk) 22:58, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

As mentioned before, this comparison of Ronald to Seralini's retractions is running into BLP issues. Ronald's self-retractions were the kind we expect a reputable scientist to do when an error comes up for something minor and accidental like mislabeling.[34] That doesn’t discount someone as a reliable source either, especially since those "good" retractions aren’t even about the content at hand.

On the other hand, Seralini’s retraction was forced due to a purposefully designed study being woefully inadequate. Having a forced retraction instead of self-retracting for something like this is a stark polar opposite kind of retraction than what Ronald did. Coupled with the reputation Seralini already had for having a persistent problem with creating studies that were unduly biased towards saying there was some detrimental effect, we cannot be saying Ronald is as bad as Seralini as far as being a disreputable scientist due to retractions. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:49, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Agree with the above. At worst this is unfairly casting aspersions against Ronald, who was in fact widely praised for handling this issue smoothly and transparently (e.g. [35]); at best it's a misunderstanding of how retractions work. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:57, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

• So you're saying Domingo's take on Seralini means WP should give less weight to the entire paper (Domingo 2011)? Don't you need a secondary source that says this? Otherwise the suggestion that his mention of Seralini reduces the weight of his review seems less than useful here, and possibly OR. petrarchan47คุก 06:25, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
• I'm saying that the Domingo paper has to be read in the context of the broader literature, particularly the more recent literature, in order to understand how it fits in that context and thus the appropriate weight to give it. It heavily cites Seralini, whose pattern of statistical errors has been frequently noted and has since come to much higher prominence due to the 2012 paper. It is hardly "original research" to recognize that relevant events have occurred between 2011 and now. More recent reviews (eg, Yang) that look at the broader literature include Domingo and nevertheless use the "scientific consensus" wording. It is a relatively weak source, and must be used in accordance with WP:DUE. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:57, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

I do think we need strong secondary sourcing to say what you are saying. I don't think the strength of a strong MEDRS review by a toxicologist can be diminished by what appears to be a personal take, using layers of arguments, good arguments to be sure, but still we could argue in circles - we need to refer to literature or else it really is original research - unusable here. "He heavily cites Seralini". He looks at a good number of studies. Secondary sources that discuss these arguments for us are required, and when fully laid out, probably wouldn't paint this source in the same way you are doing. But can't know until these sources appear. For now, Domingo 2011 should be considered unblemished for our purposes. petrarchan47คุก 04:54, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Even if we considered Domingo unblemished, which it seems most don't, there is the matter of weight. We have more recent reviews that looked at Domingo and didn't give it much weight at all. We as editors shouldn't either. It's literally Domingo vs. a large swath of unblemished RS that arrive at a different conclusion. Treating it as though it upends the scientific consensus and that we should give it undue weight is simply not how WP works. Capeo (talk) 13:21, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Domingo is not alone: There are numerous other reviews mentioned in Krimsky that make similar conclusions to Domingo. From the way I read it, there are equal or perhaps even more scientific reviews of GMO health studies that are more like Domingo than are like Nicolia--I included some in my revised Proposal 20. Regardless of your opinion of Krimsky, the scientific reviews he cites are good and pertinent RS for this subject. He does not include Ronald, because her study is not a focused review study of GMO health, but a much larger overview to promote GMO use, concluding: "The path toward a future sustainable agriculture lies in harnessing the best of all agricultural technologies, including the use of genetically engineered seed, within the framework of ecological farming." --David Tornheim (talk) 19:53, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Krimsky is simply bad. He has almost zero research background in statistics or the biological sciences. He's a philosopher, or if you want to be generous, a "bioethicist". He cites already discredited papers and makes mistakes on the basic science to arrive at a conclusion that he'd arrive at no matter the evidence. Everything he cites have already been considered by the RS we have that use the terminology "scientific consensus". Domingo has also been considered by these same sources. We favor the weight of the sources. We don't overemphasize those contrary to scientific consensus. Capeo (talk) 22:39, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

• I agree with Petrachan47, that if you are going to claim that Panchin discredits Domingo, then you need RS that says so. Reading the broader literature of review studies of GMO food safety, mentioned by Krimsky, we find that Domingo is not alone, and many other scientists express the same kinds of concerns as Domingo did. The wider literature does not discredit Domingo and the other reviews like it. Indeed Yang is a low quality source and cannot trump all the previous literature. If you have other scientific review studies besides Nicolia or Snell that you are considering, let's see your sources.

As it is Krimsky is exactly correct that the review studies have differing opinions, and these kind of differing opinions have been going on since about 1980's when Reagan's committee came up with the industry-favored Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology regulatory scheme for the U.S. One new review that is on one side of the spectrum Generally Recognized as Safe vs. Precautionary Principle does not invalidate all the others that preceded it. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:23, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

That's not how WP works. If we have newer RS A that says the older RS B made mistakes we don't need an RS C that states A says B made mistakes. We'd never be able to cite anything if that were the case as we'd be always waiting for the next RS to confirm the last RS. If a new RS of sufficient weight comes along to contradict the current RS then we change the article to reflect it. Capeo (talk) 22:50, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Capeo. I've been trying to figure out how I could articulate that same concept, and you just hit the nail on the head. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:55, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

• The problem is that RS A=Panchin says that the older RS B=Seralini (and 5 other studies) made mistakes. We can't use that to say that RS C=Domingo made mistakes, as that is WP:SYN. RS A never mentions RS C. Petrachan47 is correct that the only way you can get RS A to discredit RS C via RS B=Seralini, is to use the Sketpic's "Seralini rule", which we cannot do. --David Tornheim (talk) 08:32, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

In general, I am hearing what sounds like a broad extension of "the Seralini rule", which doesn't have supportive RS, making it OR. Nowhere does RS claim that coverage of Seralini in Domingo 2011, nor any other problem with the paper, has been found to give it less credibility; as well, Domingo continues to hold an esteemed position as EiC of Elsevier, so his credibility remains intact. If he made such glaring mistakes, something in RS would reflect that. If the only place online that arguments such as the above can be found is in a Skeptics blog, that could be seen as a red flag. The Skeptics are notably biased (un-skeptical) when it comes to GMOs. petrarchan47คุก 07:03, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

WP:PSCI is the relevant policy here. Seralini's work has already been labeled as pseudoscience. We can't give sources endorsing pseudoscience undue weight, especially by using them to try to counter the scientific consensus. Also, do you realize that Elsevier is not a journal? You've been saying that Domingo is editor in chief of it a few times now as if it was. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:02, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Panchin/Tzuhikov v. Domingo

Above, it is claimed that the Panchin/Tuzhikov paper somehow dismisses Domingo [36]. Let me point out how weak Panchin is compared to Domingo 2011.

Domingo 2011 paper

• literature review article is top quality under the WP:MEDRS
• published in a journal with impact factor: 5.6
• cited by 164 [37]

Domingo, Jose L.:

• expert in toxicology.
• 614 publications; 16,100 citations; 1,650 impact points. [38] [39]
• editor-in-chief of the journal that retracted Seralini's paper, Food and Chemical Toxicology[40] (Impact Factor: ).

Panchin/Tzuhikov paper:

• only reviewed 6 studies
• Published in journal with impact factor: 7.2
• cited by: 0 [41] (Note: It was published only 5 months ago)

Panchin, Alexander:

• 13 publications; 37 citations; 35 impact points. [42]
• far fewer publication than Domingo. [43]
• does not specialize in toxicology

Tzuhikov, Alexander:

• 9 publications; 170 citations; 43 impact points. [44]
• does not toxiclogy; more focused on software engineering

I do not see how authors of so much lower stature can be able overturn the highly reputable work of Domingo. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:38, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

The best thing I can say about this is: a lot of people apparently need to reread the Panchin paper.

1. I think whoever said "Panchin cites Domingo" meant to say "Yang cites Domingo".
2. Your attempt at comparing the two papers misunderstands them. Panchin "only reviewed 6 studies" because the paper is about a specific statistical error common to those 6 studies. Ironically, the error is inappropriate comparisons.
3. That Panchin and Tuzhikov are not toxicologists is irrelevant. Their paper is primarily about statistics, and they have expertise in statistics.
4. The Panchin critique is definitive. This is not a matter of routine scientific disagreement over methodology; it is an unambiguous error. The studies discussed the Panchin paper failed to correct for multiple comparisons and therefore reported incorrect results.
5. The Panchin critique is not new. For example, as I mentioned in the section above, the specific criticism of failing to correct for multiple comparisons was made in Doull 2007 about Seralini 2007. Numerous commentators made the same observation about the discredited Seralini 2012. Panchin and Tuzhikov simply explained the issue in depth.
6. While it's certainly true that Domingo is a widely cited scientist, "impact points" are a metric unique to ResearchGate, a for-profit company trying to run a sort of "Facebook for scientists". It is even less meaningful than more traditional metrics like the H-index. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:10, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Repeating what I said above:

All of the literature I reviewed, including Panchin and our articles on it, agrees that the Bonferroni method is very conservative and in an attempt to reduce type I errors ("detecting an effect that is not present") increases the likelihood of type II errors ("failing to detect an effect that is present"). [45]. In epidemiology, the paper with the most citations (3503), What’s wrong with Bonferroni adjustments states: "this paper advances the view, widely held by epidemiologists, that Bonferroni adjustments are, at best, unnecessary and, at worst, deleterious to sound statistical inference." A similar reaction was made to Panchin's paper by Russian statisticians at National Institute for Genetic Safety (NAGS) for using this method. [46] (Yes, NAGS can likely be characterized as an advocacy group that is critical of GMOs.)

--David Tornheim (talk) 12:43, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Per WP:MEDRS, we don't engage in this level of personal peer-review (i.e., WP:OR) of sources as none of us are afforded this special treatment on Wikipedia even if we are an expert editor in reality. If we weren't on Wikipedia, I'd be happy to explain the plethora of flaws with the Seralini study and these arguments against multiple comparison adjustments at even an extremely basic level, but the purpose of this RfC is not a give a free extremely basic stats lecture. If someone has an issue with the use of multiple correction adjustments even though they are essentially taught as required material in any basic introductory stats course and are a general expectation when appropriate for any publication (similar to testing for normality), then someone will address that usage in Panchin in a later review. That's going to be a serious WP:SNOW case though considering Seralini didn't account for multiple comparisons at all, while the sources above not even mentioning Panchin are talking more about which specific multiple comparisons test to use and when. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:26, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Agree with Kingofaces, this is cherry-picking sources. Accounting for multiple comparisons is absolutely standard. Bonferroni is far and away the most common way to do it. The correct way to use an alternative technique is to mention in the methods section of your paper what technique will be used instead and why, not to omit mention of the matter altogether. The problem is particularly acute in these studies where the "significant" comparisons fail to meet reasonable expectations of biological mechanism - for example, by lacking dose-response effects. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:38, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Ugh, I knew that combining multiple cites in citation 4 was going to trip me up at some point. Looks like I goofed in my comments above and referred to Yang as Panchin sometimes. To clarify, Yang reviews the literature with respect Domingo and specifically states the scientific consensus. That basically shows Domingo's concerns are not considered legitimate by the larger community (i.e., not nullifying the consensus). Panchin specifically addresses the the statistical issues in the same literature Domingo and Krimsky comment on. Panchin is specifically meant to be weighted against Domingo and Krimsky as a source that well exceeds WP:PARITY requirements for tackling the fringe idea that there are studies showing legitimate concerns that something currently isn't safe. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:26, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

We've had many discussions at WP:MEDRS that this kind of analysis for weighting sources by citation count metrics is inappropriate.[47][48] We generally look at impact factor and sometimes citation count after an article has been out for awhile to only help assess reliability in a non-comparative fashion, but that's it. We don't weight sources in this manner though. Krimsky is not an expert in this field, so citations counts are largely irrelevant anyways. Plus Krimksy is on the editorial board[49] of the journal he published in (which is also a largely non-specific discipline journal). There are ways to partially manage that conflict of interest (not mentioned it was done in the source though), but the combination of being on the board, not being an expert in the field, and publishing in a mostly out of discipline journal doesn't bode well with respect to WP:RS to make such a grand statement that there is no consensus when experts writing other reviews and scientific organizations have specifically said there is a consensus. If Krimsky had a leg to stand on, we should be seeing this statement in journals he doesn't have partial editorial control over. In wiki terms, we now have WP:INDY and WP:SPS issues with Krimsky. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:40, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Way too many proposals

The first, and most important, issue to settle is whether or not there is a general scientific opinion on the safety of GM foods. That simple and basic issue is kind of lost in the plethora of proposals. Only after reaching a conclusion on the fundamental issue is it worthwhile discussing the nitty gritty of the exact wording. Forgive me if this is already settled, I have not been following this, but if that is the case, some of the proposals ought to be summarily removed. SpinningSpark 23:11, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. If it keeps going at this rate it will be near impossible to close. I haven't taken part in a lot of RFCs so I don't know if it's the norm but it seems every time I check back in there's a new proposal. Personally I feel it's obvious there are sufficient RS that use the exact terminology "scientific consensus" that the wording shouldn't be particularly controversial as can be seen by my votes. There's no shortage of current proposals that have no to minimal support but I'm not sure if there's a precedent for removing proposals that seem doomed to failure just for the sake of clarity. Capeo (talk) 23:42, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

It seems clear to most of us that there are plenty of sources using 'scientific consensus'. On the note of too many proposals, I agree and it is getting difficult to critique all of them without going over the 800 word limit. Could we perhaps have a knockout where we eliminate the lowest voted proposal one at a a time until only one remains. Single transferable support any one? :D  InsertCleverPhraseHere  00:03, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

When we set up the rules, we tried to lead the horses to water as much as we could by posing the two questions to answer for some focus. Proposal additions were left open during the RfC for better or for worse. I don't really know if anything can be done about people basically just giving yes or no votes on the proposals without commenting on the sourcing or just giving personal opinions, but those types of comments are likely to be ignored by closers.

I do agree though that people are too focused on trying to cover all the proposals rather than answering the core question on consensus and focus on the the best proposal(s) with any relevant tweaks in their comments. Editors shouldn't feel the need to comment on all proposals. I don't think we were expecting this many proposals either unless something had a good consensus on this talk page first. It's mostly out of our hands at this point, but since this was the general setup our supervising admins settled on, any thoughts from The Wordsmith who was involved in the setup entire process or Coffee on all this? Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:25, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Agreed that there are too many proposals and we should have addressed that potential problem in the rule-making. We probably should have had a vetting process before new proposals got added. Worse, when I revise my proposal 4 to address concerns others have raised, I am prohibited from changing it directly, and I have to make an entirely new proposal that is not easily connected to Proposal 4. Yuck. It seems like half the proposals are very slight revisions of Proposal 1 which do not improve it and, like #6, may add a sentence or phrase that is not found anywhere in the cited RS improve it. However, the bigger problem is that readers should be focusing on the RS rather than nit-picking verbiage. --David Tornheim (talk) 05:05, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

We have done a good job showing that there is NO SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS. The Domingo and Krimsky RS shows that clearly. Many of the proposals simply do not take this particularly high quality RS of Domingo the weight it deserves as being the highest quality that MEDRS demands. The arguments here against Domingo and Krimsky are extremely weak and self-contradictory.

The sources that say there is a consensus cannot agree on what that consensus is. Nicolia which is comparable to Domingo says that the consensus is "the scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops" which is not what the sentence of Proposal 1 says. The sentence of Proposal 1 is contradicted also by the WHO that says that no generalized safety statements can be made about GMOs, because each one is unique, and must be tested on a case-by-case basis. Other sources speak of the unique possible unexpected problems that GMOs might have. We *can* say that some scientific sources--particularly American (e.g. AAAS)--claim a "scientific consensus" but that other scientific sources give other opinions, like those I just pointed out. --David Tornheim (talk) 01:00, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't really think that the discussion up above represents showing that there is no consensus at all. There are a few cherry picked sources that disagree, but 'consensus' dos not mean 'unanimity' in any case, please don't use this section as another soapbox, this section was meant to discuss the expanding number of proposals, why the hell did you bring up domingo and krimsky here again when it has been discussed to death above?  InsertCleverPhraseHere  15:52, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

David Tornheim, maybe in the future it would make more sense to simply link to the discussions on sources above rather than repeating the same arguments in multiple sections. Otherwise the talk page is going to become quite unwieldy. Capeo (talk) 16:39, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the closers are under any obligation to read this talk page when closing. Otherwise it defeats the purpose of having a word limit. Editors would be best to present any evidence on sources in their comments section on the main page. AIRcorn (talk) 21:53, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

When word limits are imposed for things like ArbCom cases, it is explicitly part of policy that linking to current talk page discussions isn't admissible to include additional points past the 800 word limit. It's a question for our admins if someone really wants to do it, but I expect we'll have a similar answer that we should not be linking to this talk page as part of a proposal or our actual RfC comments. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:37, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

• Suggestion: Please let me suggest that editors who have submitted more than one proposal voluntarily withdraw any proposals that they no longer support. As long as it is purely voluntary, I think that this is acceptable within the rules. That would help with the concerns here. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:53, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

FWIW I actually think the number of proposals is a positive. We actually only started with five and a sixth was added during the development of the rfc. The 20 or so we currently have is evidence that editors are not just coming here and !voting but are actually considering each one carefully. It also shows that they care enough to suggest improvements. I certainly did not expect this sort of response. Not much that can be done about it now in any case, we will just have to trust the closers. AIRcorn (talk) 21:46, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Proposal 20 -- Revision of Proposal 4 (currently a Work-in-Progress)

As author of Proposal 4, I have listened to comments about it, and have started a revision of it to accommodate some of the concerns you have raised:

• taking out the word "embraced GMOs"
• changed "stated" to "contend" per Collect's comment 2.
• removed "but" per Collect's comment 2.
• taking out some of the language on regulations to reduce the size
• moving Nicolia review to a more prominent place

I am open to further suggestions that would make the revision more appealing to you. I won't spend long before releasing. I would have done this as a workshop but my requests for collaboration have been ignored.

Pinging some whose comments I have attempted to addressed above: @Tryptofish: (re: Nicolia placement), @Bfpage: (re: removal of word "embraced"), @Collect: I do intend to revise/simplify the regulation language some more to be more like Proposal 1.

• I am opening to removing the word "disagree" from sentence 2.
• I am considering deleting the last sentence to reduce word count, although the difference between the WHO/FAO language and the "not inherently riskier" language is IMHO significant and important.
• I will probably add the Bawa review -- I need to look it over, and some of the other reviews like Ronald (even though for good reason I think we should be skeptical of her statements on GMO safety given her focus on creating new GMOs rather than testing them for safety), to show that there is indeed difference of opinion in the scientific literature.

--David Tornheim (talk) 04:18, 21 June 2016 (UTC) Another Ping: @Montanabw: --David Tornheim (talk) 04:41, 21 June 2016 (UTC) @Colonel Wilhelm Klink: It may be harder to satisfy you, but I am willing to hear any further recommendations to make the language acceptable to you. I know you feel that the American and E.U. approaches are not different but the R.S. really does say otherwise. (See Talk:Genetically_modified_crops/Archive_4#Sentence_regarding_case-by-case_testing_in_different_countries) It may be too much to cover as a replacement for the language that is in the article, so I am considering taking it out to simplify. --David Tornheim (talk) 04:49, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

• • Responding to the ping... so much discussion here, can you just put the wording you propose into a quote box here so we can see the full proposal in context? Thanks. Montanabw^(talk) 04:56, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

@Montanabw: It's below. --David Tornheim (talk) 15:43, 21 June 2016 (UTC) @Hexafluoride: I'm working on fixing Prop. 4 per concerns like your own and welcome further feedback to improve it as Prop. 20. --David Tornheim (talk) 15:47, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Current Version of Prop. 20

A number of major American scientific organizations (American Medical Association, AAAS, National Research Council) and other international scientific organizations have embraced GMOs and assert that GMOs are as safe for human consumption as food derived from conventional breeding, and hence should not require special testing or labeling if they are substantially equivalent to the conventional product. But Other major scientific organizations disagree (e.g. British Medical Association, Royal Society of Canada, Public Health Australia), stating contending that GMOs need medium and long term studies or that current safety regulatory assessments are insufficient. Some scientific reviews of GM food safety conclude that GMOs are Generally Recognized as Safe. Other scientific review articles disagree. Scientific review articles on GM food safety are divided between those following the American approach of assuming GMOs are Generally Recognized as Safe and those that are more skeptical. Numerous countries such as those in the E.U. use a different approach from U.S., following the Precautionary Principle by requiring additional testing and/or labeling under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Some countries ban GM food imports and/or production entirely. International organizations (WHO and the U.N.'s FAO) state that GM food that has been approved is safe to eat and no significant health hazards have arisen from GM food. (See also .)

Citations
References

It is still unusable for the same reasons that I have noted in the main page, minor tweaks in wording won't change that.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  15:56, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

David, thank you very much for the ping. In my opinion, the changes you are making are improvements, are going in the right direction. But for me, this is a case of not going far enough in the right direction. For the reasons I gave in my comments on the RfC page, there are still aspects with which I disagree, and given how many other proposals come closer to my understanding of the sources, I think you would have to change this a lot more, before I would be willing to support it. But thanks for making the effort! --Tryptofish (talk) 17:47, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Way too much equivocating. Still has the false implication that science is conducted differently in different countries, Domingo is given too much weight and Krimsky shouldn't be in any of these proposals. Capeo (talk) 18:00, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

For some background, Krimsky is included in prop 1 not because it's considered valid, but mostly as an example of a fringe source that technically has some notability because it's a review. Respondents could make the push to say that Krimsky shouldn't be included in prop 1 while still supporting it overall by explaining how it's of questionable reliability. It might be difficult to have closers see enough push for that this late in the RfC though. I covered that aspect to some degree in my main comment, but our main reason for citing it was to tackle it head on. I'm perfectly fine is there is a consensus to excise that source from prop 1, but I'm personally just waiting for a source to come down the pipeline that directly cites Krimsky as being completely odds with the science considering the title they used. That's probably the easier course of action. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:14, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

For me, I hesitate to call Krimsky fringe, so much as less reliable and due less weight. I see no problem with including Krimsky, in order to present various sides of the issue. I would object, however, to presenting Krimsky's views as either factually correct or as representing the mainstream of the preponderance of reliable sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:40, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict): Thanks for the ping. After reading that talk archive, and the sources that went along with it, I realize more clearly that there are differences between the opinions of safety on the national scale. As such, this wording doesn't seem as problematic to me now, and I do feel it is better than it was. A few comments:

1: The main idea behind this proposal seems to be the fact that there is no scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs, and that the disagreements result in various and wide-ranging regulatory measures and guidelines, many of which contradict each other. Considering this is the main point, it makes sense to sum it up in a neat and tidy way in the first sentence. The phrase in reference 10 which has been bolded and italicized in the reflist ("The safety of GMO foods and feed is controversial due to limited available data, particularly for long-term nutritional consumption and chronic exposure."), or a rewording of it, seems like a good way to begin, as it emphasizes that this subject is far from settled.

2: Which is the next issue: there seems to be disagreement (both here and elsewhere) as to whether consensus within the scientific community has been established concerning GM foods. If one felt that consensus has been established, they may be against this proposal, as it seems to emphasize the opposite point. On the other hand, someone from the opposing viewpoint (that there is no consensus) would find it to be all good and well. The problem here is that, as Spinningspark mentioned above, we have not yet settled the issue as to whether there is or isn't scientific consensus on the subject. As such, I am still inclined to oppose this proposal, not because I'm not on the side it emphasizes, but because it emphasizes one view over the other at all. In my opinion, any attempt here to establish consensus over whether consensus has been established within the scientific community is doomed to fail, as (A) it would depend on original research, and thus be invalid, and (B) that it would be establishing a precedent here that has not been established elsewhere yet, since this debate rages on just about everywhere. In light of this revelation that I have just had, I'm changing my choice of proposal from 1 to 10, as it seems that 1 assumes consensus is established.

3: On a side note, this proposal has no mention the public's view of the situation, which, while it shouldn't be given the same weight as scientific publications or government regulations, is still relevant to the subject, and should at least be given a mention.

Well, I'm finally shutting up. ^{(Thank GOD!!!)} To summarize, this proposal, like many others, makes an assumption about the existence (or nonexistence) of scientific consensus on the subject. Perhaps it would be best to begin with "There is disagreement over whether or not scientific consensus has been established concerning the safety of GMOs," because it certainly seems to be that way. Anyway, thank you for your work David. While I hate to shoot down what you have spent so much time developing and constructing, I'm afraid it seems to be the best thing to do. Colonel Wilhelm Klink (^Complaints|_Mistakes) 20:21, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

It seems to me to be WP:SYNTH to say that what exists is something like "a majority position". There are multiple reliable sources that say outright that there is a "scientific consensus". The sources that say that there is "disagreement" at the level that would abrogate scientific consensus (which is not the same thing as unanimity), are pretty much all refuted by other sources. There are mainstream sources that note some degree of disagreement about the details, but for Wikipedia to elevate those differences to saying that there is not a scientific consensus seems to me to be original research. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:43, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

I second Tryptofish's position.

The proposal is still worded as if the two sides are equal; when it's Krimsky, Domingo vs. the other RS cited. The point I'm raising has been discussed before, on the RfC, and here on the talk page, so there's no point in repeating it. ¬Hexafluoride ^(talk) 09:40, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

@Hexafluoride: how would you change the wording so that it addresses your concern? --David Tornheim (talk) 19:47, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

@David Tornheim:

[...] Scientific review articles on GM food safety are divided between those following the American approach of assuming GMOs are Generally Recognized as Safe and those that are more skeptical. A 10-year review of GM crop safety has concluded that they are Generally Recognized as Safe. However, some scientific review articles on GM food safety disagree. [...]

Citations

How about this? ¬Hexafluoride ^(talk) 21:20, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I will do something like that. --David Tornheim (talk) 21:37, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Question: Should I delete the last sentence?

Would it be better to delete the last sentence or leave it in? I want to cut down the words, but the last sentence makes an important point in using the kind of language that you see in the Nicolia review and in WHO and other statements. If there is a way to combine it in to shorten it, I am open to novel suggestions. Otherwise, I might make one version with it and one without it. I really prefer not to do that! --David Tornheim (talk) 19:50, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Inquiry to CCamp2013

@CCamp2013: I see that you originally supported Proposals 4 and 20, and then struck out your comments in favor of Proposal 1. You had mentioned:

The others are quite honestly biased and do not put forth a neutral point of view. The research on whether GMO's are good or bad for living beings is far from being comprehensive. Frankly, I don't think it necessarily matters if GMO's are good or bad for anyone dealing with the entry on wikipedia. Both sides should be presented and sourced. This subject is too controversial to just state one side and say the scientific community have generally come to a consensus that their is no difference between non-GMO and GMO, in its current state.

I agree with you that the "research on whether GMO's are good or bad for living beings is far from being comprehensive." The RS says so. Although some RS also says that there is a "scientific consensus" other RS shows otherwise, as clearly identified in Proposals 4 and 20. Shouldn't we present "both sides" of the differing opinions in the scientific literature? I already commented on the public view here. --David Tornheim (talk) 05:14, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree, but i think Proposal 1 is the best, it just needs to be revised IMHO from saying "There is scientific consensus" to something less concrete because there are too many sources stating support for GMO's AND too many sources stating opposition. Chase (talk) 05:22, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

I suggest you say that in your statement. --David Tornheim (talk) 06:36, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Proposal 20 is coming along though. I would be inclined to support it pending more revisions. It is a little wordy ATM, but not too much. I think the structure of the paragraph needs re-organizing quit a bit. It's not aesthetically pleasing to the eye when reading it. Chase (talk) 05:22, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

@CCamp2013: Thanks for the feedback. I know this is a big favor, but would you mind rewriting Proposal 20 (or even just some of it) so that it is more like what you think should be there? If that is too much, can you make specific suggestions for further improvement? For example, I asked above if I should strike the last sentence to shorten things up, but no one has responded to that. We are working on fixing the sentence to eliminate the verbiage "American approach". --David Tornheim (talk) 06:36, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Inquiry to JerryRussell

@JerryRussell: Thanks for your support for Proposal 4. I have been working on revising it as Proposal 20 in this talk page section. I am about to release Prop. 20 and would like any feedback you have on improving it. Specifically you said, "On the other hand, proposal 4 is not WP:DUE because it gives nearly equal weight to the minority view that GMO's may be dangerous." I am open to any suggestion on how to address your concern. If you have not looked at Krimsky, I suggest you do. I think it is the most NPOV treatment of the scientific views in the RS, and it puts the most weight on scientific review studies consistent with WP:MEDRS reviewing 8 scientific reviews on GMO safety. --David Tornheim (talk) 06:56, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

I just noticed that Proposal 21 is a revision of (my) Proposal 4, and that one looks pretty good attempting to address all the same concerns I was trying to address. --David Tornheim (talk) 06:59, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Hello @David Tornheim:, thanks for the encouragement to read Krimsky. After following that recommendation, I'm not even sure that there is an actual majority of knowledgeable scientists (among those without strong financial COI) who are convinced that GMO's are safe for human consumption. On the contrary, many animal studies raise significant concerns. I was dismayed to find that there don't seem to be any long-term human epidemiological studies at all, and thus no reason for anyone even to have a basis for an opinion about safety for humans. All we can really say is that people don't seem to drop dead the first day they eat these foods. I believe I eat unlabelled GMO's at restaurants fairly often, so I can only hope that the more sanguine opinions turn out to be correct.

The conclusion to Krimsky's paper cites this European paper https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12302-014-0034-1 which specifically repudiates the idea that there is any scientific consensus. Perhaps this paper deserves to be mentioned in the lede as well? At any rate, I'm going to edit my remarks to withdraw my objection that proposal 4 doesn't comply with due weight.

Disclaimer: I am a landlord to several organic farms in Eugene, Oregon, so I do have a financial COI. (Or do I? I could possibly be getting better financial results if I managed the properties conventionally.) But on the other hand, before I read this paper, I honestly didn't know how uncertain the situation really is, from a scientific point of view. Until reading Krimsky, I was inclined to believe the reassurances that basic testing had been done, and had not yielded any actual proof of hazards. JerryRussell (talk) 15:48, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

• Note: In fairness to David, I want to point out that Jerry, in this edit: [50], inserted a COI disclosure into a blue link within David's post. In looking at the edit history, I initially thought erroneously that the COI was David's. It is not. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:24, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Oops, I did indeed do that. Newbie mistake with this old-style Wiki text editor. Sorry! JerryRussell (talk) 19:52, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

No worries! I just didn't want anyone to be confused, that's all. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:02, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Revision Complete -- Proposal 20 Released

@Tucoxn:, @Pgallert:, @Penwhale:, @Sminthopsis84:, @CCamp2013: You all had mentioned caution about voting on Proposal 20 until it was finished. FYI. Proposal 20 is now released here. --David Tornheim (talk) 09:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Geographical examination of sources

I've been noticing that several responding editors have been interested in possible nation-to-nation differences in scientific views about this subject, saying, for example, that there might be different scientific positions between the US and the UK, or that some proposals may be US-centric. So I decided to look at the sources with the national locations of the authors specifically in mind.

First, I think that it is overwhelmingly clear from multiple sources that there are significant national differences in the politics, government policy, and regulation. But I think the question here is primarily about the scientific literature on the subject.

Looking at the sources that are cited in Proposal 1 as saying that there is a consensus, there are:

• Nicolia ("...that catches the scientific consensus matured since..."): Italy.
• The United Nations ("These conclusions represent the consensus of the scientific evidence..."): well, The United Nations.
• Ronald ("broad scientific consensus"): US.
• Panchin (disputing earlier studies): Russia.
• Yang ("a broad scientific consensus"): US.

There is also a source that editors decided to leave out as superfluous during the proposal drafting, [51] ("there is now a scientific consensus"): Kenya.

I'm seeing a pretty much international range of author affiliations there.

As for the UK, please see cite #12 of Proposal 1. The Royal Society holds that health risks are negligible, but that GMOs need to be tested case-by-case. This is the same as the worldwide scientific consensus. The British Medical Association agrees that there is negligible scientific evidence of harm, but instead calls for the more stringent precautionary principle to be applied to regulation, instead of case-by-case testing. That isn't really a disagreement about the results of scientific studies. It's a difference in how they believe that governmental regulation should be formulated, as a matter of public policy.

There really is no such thing as national differences in science, in the sense that it's not like f=ma in some countries but not in others. If we specifically consider what the scientific literature concludes, as opposed to how people decide to apply the science to public policy, there are no geographical differences. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:09, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Science is pretty much global. Go to any university or lab in any country and you will generally find people from all over the world working and studying there. Scientists collaborate internationally and due to the way it is presented as long as a institute has the right equipment, funding and training anyone anywhere should be able to replicate any study they want. Regulation is a different kettle of fish and should not be conflated with the science. AIRcorn (talk) 18:11, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I believe Panchin and his co-author were in the U.S. when they published that paper. I am sure the co-author is in the U.S. now. --David Tornheim (talk) 18:46, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

If one looks at the Panchin source, there is an "author affiliations" listing (as there almost always is, for scientific papers). Panchin is identified as the corresponding author (the author to be contacted with questions or comments, who speaks as the principal author of the work). Both Panchin and the co-author are indicated as being at an institute in Moscow. The co-author, but not Panchin, has a second affiliation with a medical school in Miami, perhaps visiting there or having moved there after having worked with Panchin. Consequently, I was correct to indicate the work as coming primarily from Russia. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:22, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

You left out all the RS that says something contrary to a "scientific consensus". Much of the scientific RS does comment on the regulations, including Domingo (Spain, I believe). If you left it out of proposal one, or left it out here, that doesn't mean that the differences in approaches is not significant. I really do not get what you are trying to argue here. --David Tornheim (talk) 18:53, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Above, I pointed out how British sources treat the extension of science to public policy and regulations. But if you want to consider dissenting sources, we have Domingo in Spain and Krimsky in the US. Likewise, pretty global on both "sides". Really, the main way in which the US is different is in the politics, not in the results that come out of scientific laboratories. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:30, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

You're again mixing up public policy with research results. The point is research is conducted and published via the exact methods no matter the geography. Capeo (talk) 19:31, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that is very much my intended point. I recommend that editors consider that, whatever the many differences in public policy, it is simply incorrect to argue that there are geographical differences in the scientific results. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

No. This is an ideal concept that all scientific study and results is the same everywhere (like math). This might be taught in classrooms starting with elementary school as an idealized should or normative statement, but it is not what happens in practice. Scientific research is driven by grants, and science professors (at least in the U.S.) succeed in getting tenure by bringing grant money to their universities.

As we have noted, regulations vary by country, which affects what scientific testing must be performed to meet the regulatory requirement. A substantial amount of money for studies comes from drug companies who want approval, and that pressure skews the results [52]. (Plenty of RS on that.) Likewise the funding of research and development varies by country: List_of_countries_by_research_and_development_spending.

Or consider the kind of science in a totalitarian or authoritarian regimes, where it must serve those in power.

Consider the science that "proved" that certain "races" were inferior. Antisemitic scientists could use such "science" to show one cultural bias, while scientists in another region with different biases found another group to "prove" inferior. See our article: Scientific racism.

Consider science in the Middle Ages and what happened to scientists like Galileo or Copernicus: It is hard to argue that they were not under immense pressure to conform to what the Church wanted the science to say. One look at what the medical field practiced in the middle ages would make today's physician gasp. But then that was all good science. See Michel Foucault's The Order of Things.

This kind of religious pressure of the Middle Ages does continue to occur today, even in the U.S. (to a much lesser extent), where there is strong pressure to teach creation theory in science classes. Or the controversy over stem-cell research. Would scientists in strongly patriarchal cultures be studying issues related to feminism and find easy access to money for such research? Very doubtful.

So really this claim that science is that same everywhere just does not hold up to close scrutiny: It is affected by power, culture, religion, politics and money. --David Tornheim (talk) 06:30, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Bringing up pre-scientific method science has no bearing on the current facts. Nor does what research in particular gets funded. Research is conducted the same way, using the same methods and structural guidelines that have been agreed upon over the last 50 years or so depending on the type of research being done and statistical models that remove biasing factors are at the heart of that. There's also a massive difference between the hard sciences and sociology or philosophy of science. A properly conducted experiment that seeks a physically measurable result will look the same no matter where it's done or whose funding it. As will an improperly conducted experiment which will get weeded out or surpassed by a more stringent experimental protocol. Capeo (talk) 14:00, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree with some of what you said about the methods being standardized and that something like physics probably has fewer biases than social sciences and psychology, but what I wrote is still correct. Galileo's and Copernicus's observations were far closer to physics than psychology. Food safety is in between physics and psychology. What research gets funded is extremely important and has been mentioned a number of times in the RS for this subject, including Domingo. --David Tornheim (talk) 14:37, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

David, how about looking at it this way. Maybe there's a theoretical reason to say that science differs by country on the basis of there being politically pressured bad science in some countries. But here, we are dealing with a specific case about GMO foods, and I've shown that sources that assert a scientific consensus come from many countries around the world, and sources that dispute a scientific consensus come from many countries around the world. And if we hypothetically consider the opposite position, that scientific results should be characterized on Wikipedia in geopolitical terms, then that gets us into some strange editing territory. For example, for climate change, the majority political party in the US Congress holds that climate change is not real, but Wikipedia ought not to say that the scientific consensus in the US is that climate change is not real. (And climate change scientists in the US deal with more or less the same career pressures as agricultural scientists in the US, so it's not like one has more or less integrity than the other.) We should report what scientists say, based on sources, and we should report the politics, based on sources, but we should not confound them. My reason for starting this discussion was to refute the arguments of a few editors on the RfC page, that we should say that the scientific consensus about GM foods is different in the US and the UK. I'm fine with saying that the politics and regulation and (maybe) public opinion are different between the US and the UK. If we were to go into more detail, I'd even consider saying that US scientists and UK scientists hold different political opinions (if sources really supported that), but I favor citing scientists for the science and governmental groups for the regulation. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:57, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

David, WP states what the preponderance of RS state. It doesn't matter if it's true now or will be shown to be false in the future. Trypto draws a good analogy with climate change. If we followed regulatory bodies, politicians, non-experts and public controversy our article would likely say it's a myth. We don't do that though. We reflect the current scientific consensus and ignore the controversy when stating that consensus. To try to draw in funding bias, political bias, or public bias when we're examine the whole of current scientific research on a subject we're in danger of applying personal value judgements on the current scientific consensus. That's where WEIGHT and DUE come in. We state, when it comes to science, what the majority of RS state. What we can't say is that these RS arrived at their conclusions due to the potential bias you mention above as a declaratory statement. We can certainly mention that notable people have said that. We can certainly mention public opinion. Who knows? Tomorrow some study could come out that links GMOs to detrimental health effects that blows the doors of the scientific community due to it's impeccably structured experimental protocols that can't be called into question. If it's strong enough to sway scientific consensus then that will happen and it will eventually make its way into our articles. As of now though that hasn't even come close to happening. Capeo (talk) 23:30, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, of course looking at what is in the RS is what we are supposed to do, and indeed the RS does mention differences in scholarship by region. This document says of AMERICAN scholarly opinion:

B. Scholarly Opinion

Several scientific organizations in the US have issued studies or statements regarding the safety of GMOs indicating that there is no evidence that GMOs present unique safety risks compared to conventionally bred products. These include the National Research Council,[12] the American Association for the Advancement of Science,[13] and the American Medical Association.[14]

...A substantial number of legal academics have criticized the US’s approach to regulating GMOs.[18]

This is the RS for Proposal 4 (revised as Proposal 20), stated in very similar language in sentence 1.

Regarding the difference between Europe and U.S., the same report summarizes another report:

A US Council on Foreign Relations paper, The Regulation of GMOs in Europe and the United States: A Case-Study of Contemporary European Regulatory Politics, provides a comparison of the EU and US approaches to GMOs.[23] The authors opine that the EU’s current regulatory approach on GMOs is more restrictive than that of the US, which in general was more stringent until the mid-1980s. The authors examine the divergent approaches between the two partners from the perspective of the cultural approach to GMOs and on economic grounds. They cite the case of Monsanto’s introduction of nonlabeled GM food in the EU and its purchase of a large number of seeds as an influential factor that to a large extent shaped the negative attitude of EU consumers and farmers against GMOs. The authors conclude that the EU’s adoption of strict rules on GMOs have less to do with culture or economic reasons and more with a different overall approach to risk management during the last decade and more reliance on the precautionary principle.[24]

The RS is undeniably clear that the European approach to risk assessment of GMOs is very different than the U.S. approach, being far more restrictive, and that the three big American scientific organizations support the American approach to GMO regulation by and through their statements. Domingo of Spain speaks to how the substantial equivalence method (which is the U.S. preferred method) has negatively impacted the amount of research into GMOs. It is clear from the review studies that some scientists prefer the U.S. approach and some scientists prefer the E.U. approach. Unfortunately, using the "scientific consensus" language suggests that nearly all scientists prefer the American approach, which is not true.

Citations

--David Tornheim (talk) 06:27, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Reframe

It seems we have no agreement on wording or much else. The basic divide is over consensus/no consensus. The no consensus folks are starting to capitalize their statements. Not a good sign. We need to poll on just that point. We may also need to poll on the other specific points in the paragraph (regulation and public opinion), although they seem much less controversial. Lfstevens (talk) 00:10, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it's anywhere near as dire as that. I actually think that the RfC is working much better than I had expected. (That's relative to pessimistic expectations, mind you.) We are polling editors on those things, and editors will reply however they want to reply. I can see trends in how responding editors are responding. And we should trust the closers to make sense of the results. One has to understand that it was inevitable from the start that this would be a cat-herding type of process, in which opinions would vary widely. It's no surprise that we are seeing disagreements about the content. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:17, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

PS: If the closers decide that there should be a follow-up process, that's fine. That's up to them. But for now, we need to let this play out. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:20, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree with all this. We did our due diligence directing respondents to answer the consensus question first, then the wording. There was also direction not to turn this into a simple straw poll. If people disregard that, the closers are likely to just ignore those comments. I'm actually pleasantly surprised at how smoothly (relatively compared to previous) things are going even with that in mind. The closers will have their work cut out for them, but this still looks relatively manageable to weigh what's been said here if they start with the RfC directions. I think we'll get at least enough to answer question 1. We may need a second round to officially decide the exact wording, but even a general trend found by the closers on the wording will give guidance on where to go next. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:33, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the pep talk! I needed one. Lfstevens (talk) 05:32, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Caution about "as food," labeling

I want to suggest that the final text should specify that the safety being discussed here is effects on health from food consumption (as mentioned in Proposal 4: "as safe for human consumption as food") rather than "for human health." Many of the concerns raised about GMOs concern their place in the food system, and certain GMO crops' designed pairing with the use of toxic pesticides. These are also human health concerns, partially about pesticide residues on food and more directly about the health of farm workers exposed to these pesticides. (Such concerns do not always separate GMO crops with a given pesticide application from all conventional crops.)

Relatedly, I would suggest that the final text not roll in the question of mandatory labeling, since labeling is advocated as a way of informing consumers, not just due to human-health-consequences-of-eating-GMOs concerns, but also about other issues such as pesticides, patenting of organisms, agricultural research priorities, monocropping, agribusiness, etc. Labeling can and should be addressed in these articles, but the scientific consensus (or scientific majority view, as being discussed in this RfC) should not be connected too tightly to the labeling question.--Carwil (talk) 11:19, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree with paragraph 1 above, that "food" should be included. The FDA monitors food safety, but the EPA and USDA monitor things like pesticides. This is one of the reasons the FDA's policy of using substantial equivalence is so controversial compared to the EU's approach that treats GMOs in a similar way to the FDA's rigorous testing requirements for food additivies, as I explained here --David Tornheim (talk) 19:01, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Many of the proposals do specifically state that this is about eating food. A big part of the reason for that is that the affected pages pretty much all say elsewhere on the page that there are concerns about those other things, and those other concerns, unlike the specific question of eating food, are generally agreed upon by both scientists and non-scientists. Consequently this has not been particularly disputed by editors. And, being covered elsewhere on the pages, there is much less need to add yet more detail about it to the proposals here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:09, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I cannot quite agree that the "other concerns" are agreed upon at all, particularly when you look at the issues of pesticide resistance and potential cross-pollination of other crops (notably heritage food crops). I think that Carwil makes a good point. Montanabw^(talk) 21:48, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

I think I might not have been clear enough. I agree with you about pesticide resistance and cross-pollination (and some other problems we could list). So do the overwhelming majority of scientific sources. In other words, there is really no serious argument that GMOs are problem-free with respect to those issues. An editor who might want Wikipedia to deny the existence of those concerns would not be able to back that up with reliable sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:16, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

On the existence of "scientific consensus"

A number of editors, including most recently SMcCandlish, are asserting that the RS clearly shows a "scientific consensus". That is not the case.

It's true that a number of major American orgs have made strong assertion about GM safety (see Proposal 4 and this RS).

The scientific reviews articles of GMO food safety do not support a "scientific consensus". (See Krimsky.) Under WP:MEDRS, scientific review articles are the highest most reliable sources. Even if you disregard Krimsky's credentials for toxicology, one need only look at the reviews he refers to:

GMO's as Generally recognized as safe:

(1) Nicolia says the scientific consensus is "research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazard" (not what is in the Proposal 1).

(2) Snell

Unclear:

(1) EFSA 2012

Clear concerns about GM studies noted:

(1) Domingo

(2) Dona

(3) Magana-Gomez

(4) Bawa

(5) Maghari(added 08:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC))

(6) Zhang (added 08:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC))

Ronald is cited in Prop. 1 as a review, but it is not a toxicology review, and she is a pro-GMO advocate.

The RS does not show a "scientific consensus". Only some of it makes this claim.

--David Tornheim (talk) 22:19, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Citations

So some sources claim a scientific consensus, others claim a lack of one (I just confirmed this on Google Scholar); adjust the wording accordingly to reflect that there's debate about whether scientific consensus does in fact exist. Regardless, use and link to scientific consensus not the basically made-up phrase "scientific agreement" which has no clear meaning in the context. But our annotation of this off-WP debate about the matter has to be within WP:UNDUE's bounds. It's time to return to 2016 and late 2015 systematic reviews. Just because some things published in any of the tens of thousands of academic journals out there claim there's no scientific consensus doesn't mean that's the actual ground truth of the matter. You can probably find someone in some journal somewhere claiming no scientific consensus for the fact that cigarettes are carcinogenic. We need to evaluate the relative reliability of the pro and con sources for the scientific consensus claims.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:58, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

The origin of the old language "scientific agreement" is a separate issue which I will discuss elsewhere here on your talk page. (revised 09:41, 27 June 2016 (UTC)).

You suggest use of 2016 and 2015 reviews. I am not sure why, given that the disagreement on how to handle GMO safety has origins at least 20-30 years ago and has continued up to this day. The idea of substantial equivalence goes back to at least 1993, and the designation that GMO's are generally recognized as safe in 1992 (more likely originating in the 1980's with the creation of the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology by the Reagan administration to promote the technology without "too much" regulation) and is the basis for the approach used by the American regulators (See Emily Marden and Rebecca Bratspies'). A significant amount of the scientific literature, such as Nicolia or Snell, looks favorably on the American regulatory approach.

Taking a different position--the Precautionary approach--the E.U. in particular insisted on more rigorous testing of GMOs in their regulations, as is seen in the Cartagena Protocol (which numerous nations have signed on to, but which the U.S. will not sign on to). It is just as old. For each of the scientific literature reviews that look favorably on the American approach, there are an equal number that that advocate a more cautious regulatory approach to safety using the Precautionary principle and rejecting the generally recognized as safe approach to GMO safety, calling for more or longer tests.

So this disagreement both in the science and in the regulatory approaches has a long history. I do not see why you think only within the last year some huge shift has taken place that has wiped out all disagreement, especially when a number of European countries are trying to Opt-Out of having GMOs [53].

Those who insist on saying there is a "scientific consensus" in the literature have not provided more recent reviews that make all the old reviews obsolete. Although Panchin and Yang are mentioned these are hardly monumental: Panchin reviews only 6 studies and is not by toxicology experts, and Yang is from a low impact journal. (I have not read it yet but, the abstract has all the same phrases found in the older literature that goes with the American GRAS / substantial equivalence approach. I believe Yang is not a toxicology review of GMO health studies, so it is does not reach the level of quality of RS of Domingo (an expert toxicologist) and some of the other literature reviews above). I recently saw another paper of 2016 of similar impact to Yang that sounds more like Krimsky or Domingo, so Yang has not shown some major new change in science. Those who take the view that long-terms studies are required are not likely to change their view in the short-term. --David Tornheim (talk) 03:27, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

"You suggest use of 2016 and 2015 reviews. I am not sure why" – Because current science beats obsolete science. Much of the nature of the on-wiki disputation about all of this has to do with ingrained editorial beliefs based (on all sides) on material read a decade or more ago. It's a form of heavily disguised, and probably unwitting, faith-based argument. As I noted elsewhere, the precautionary approach is not anti-GMO, and does not even contradict a broad scientific consensus that GMOs are safe to eat, it's simply a position for longer-term studies, and moderation of safety claims. I don't see much point in my "entering the fray" of back-and-forth argumentation about this particular source versus that one. We appear to have enough recent sources to establish for WP purposes than a scientific consensus is broadly said to exist, and that some RS challenge it (which is what we would expect of a broad consensus, versus, say, a theory elevated to the status of a Law of Nature). WP will be doing its job properly if it describes the existence of the consensus and the extent to which it is challenged by sources of equal weight to those that assert it exists. We'll be doing our readers a disservice if we repeat the assertion of such a consensus and suppress any mention that there's disagreement with it coming from highly reputable sources, but we'd also be doing a disservice if, in material of such a sparse, summary nature, we included dissent against the consensus if it can only be found in lower-quality sources. Whatever the RS "verdict" on the consensus (even if it is "whether a [[scientific consensus] on GMO safety exists is disputed"), the term and link to use is scientific consensus, not some made-up wording like "scientific agreement" which can mean anything you want it to, and which will confuse readers, because there is no sourced article on the notion; "scientific agreement" is pure original research in the form of PoV-pushing neologism. Not sure I have much else to say on the matter.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:17, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Obviously, this issue has been going around in circles, which is the reason for this RfC. And a lot of what David just presented as facts has already been disputed by other editors in the talk above. But as for "asserting that the RS clearly shows a "scientific consensus"", it isn't really a matter of exactly that, as a matter of asserting, as I for one do, that an examination of the RS clearly shows that the RS assert a scientific consensus. On the other side of the coin, it is OR for editors to dismiss the preponderance of RS because the editors assert that other sources demonstrate that the preponderance of RS are incorrect. So here we have two sides of the discussion. Hopefully, the consensus of the RfC will settle it. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:10, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to be the crux of the matter: "it is OR for editors to dismiss the preponderance of RS because the editors assert that other sources demonstrate that the preponderance of RS are incorrect." Doing so is a WP:AEIS failure, of using Wikipedians' own talk-page-debate hodgepodge of a pseudo-literature-review as if it were a valid primary source, and then using that as if it were a secondary source, of the kind that is required for such analytic/evaluative/interpretive/synthetic claims. Given this, it's also a WP:MEDRS failure.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:26, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: You seem to be claiming that "the preponderance of RS" asserts a "scientific consensus". I would like to know which RS you are considering that does. Have you considered the above sources? If not, why not? --David Tornheim (talk) 21:15, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Plenty of them have been cited in the draft wording already, and there others; every time I look at this page, people have added more sources and arguments about them, pro and con. The ones you counter with above have already largely been criticized on this very talk page as insufficient. I'm not interested in you and me personally trying to prove opposing cases here (I lean almost neutral on the matter, anyway, of whether there is scientific consensus). Rather, I'm interested in everyone who cares about these articles coming to a WP consensus about how to write them, and about what sources for them should be used, on the basis of their relative reliability. I would, thus, much rather hear everyone else's take. Yours strongly advocates a very specific position; mine does not, but there are other positions that others advocate, so the whole thing should be discussed among multiple editors, and this seems to be happening. That's the process that should be followed if you and I both disappear out of existence right now, and the process that should be followed if each of us spend a full-time working week trying to prove a point. I suspect that the final result will read much like #1 but moderate the claim about consensus, while still using that term and link. I apply George Carlin logic to such matters: "Somewhere between 'Live Free or Die!' and 'Famous Potatoes' the truth lies. Probably, it's a little closer to 'Famous Potatoes'."  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:58, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I ask you because you seem like a competent science editor with much wiki-experience who is actually willing to look carefully at the RS. You also seem like someone who is open to changing your mind if the RS you review does not match your preconceived notions before you read it. You also acknowledge that industry can affect science. I have respect for you. Please observe that the number of editors who commented on the RfC Project page, only a fraction have commented here, a number of whom like me have been working the GMO stuff long before this RfC was launched. I do not consider the discussion here representative of what I read on the Project page. I think few editors read this.

No. I'm not trying to advocate any position. I simply want our articles to reflect what is in the RS. I think you do too. Proposition 1 does not. I have read nearly all of this talk page and the Project page, and I have seen the RS. Yes, there is a lot of RS. From reading it and weighing it based on WP:MEDRS, especially given that the review studies listed above are the most important, I do not see how one can conclude that a preponderance of sources claim a scientific consensus that GMOs are basically safe and to exclude mention of those that have raised major concerns. If one has not reviewed all the RS, but only looked at the kind of RS supplied by Monsanto [54], that is easy, because there is so much industry spin out there, it is impossible to miss their perspective [55] off-wiki.

The only review article of GMO safety of substantial weight that claims a scientific consensus is Nicolia. Proposal 1 also uses Ronald (a GMO advocate who creates GMO's and is not a toxicologist), and the FAO statement >10 years old, and Yang which is recent but from a low impact journal. Nicolia's claim of what the scientific consensus is does not match the others (it just says "no significant hazards" so far, not that GMOs are as safe as conventional crops). So, we have one strong source, Nicolia, and a few weaker sources to claim different versions of a scientific consensus on GMO food safety. That is not much. What else is there? Above I gave a number of other review articles that do not match the claimed consensus. Yes, a few editors vigorously disputed both Domingo and Krimsky, but their reasons do not succeed in dismissing an authority on toxicology like Domingo publishing in a significant journal. I believe you call it "hand waiving". The only comparable source to Domingo is Nicolia. There are weaker sources on both sides, so I do not see how we can choose one side only and consider the other basically fringe when there is very strong RS for each position.

If major organizations like AMA are included, then again positions are divided, when you consider entities like the BMA. And even the AMA says it is uncomfortable with the FDA's voluntary pre-market consultation process. The WHO takes a more neutral stance saying that "no generalized statements about GMOs can be made", yet strangely they are supposed to be part of the scientific consensus that makes a generalized claim GMOs are as safe as conventional food. So, there is not a general uniformity with major science and health organizations either.

Are you including other RS that I have not considered here? I just don't see how you can claim that there is not a nearly equal division between those who claim that GMOs are basically safe (or as safe as conventional crops) and those that do not take such a position (e.g. saying that not enough testing is done, that approval process is insufficient, that GMOs present unique problems, etc.) --David Tornheim (talk) 21:32, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

About the sources in Proposal 1, your perception of "substantial weight" is probably different than mine. But Nicolia, Ronald, and Yang are all reviewing the literature in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and the United Nations statement is based upon an evaluation of the scientific literature. And Ronald is an expert in the field; the accusations that she is an advocate and the slurs about paper retractions are just talking points from anti-GMO activists. I reject activist talking points just as I reject Monsanto talking points. I never considered anything from Monsanto when I read the source material. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:09, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Plus other stuff cited above and at various of the content talk pages. If you've followed my criticisms of MEDRS's one bit of problematic wording, you know I consider the UN position statement source a permissible but ultimately weak and essentially primary source, because no one has editorial control over the UN before the UN publishes its own statements, and it's a highly politicized body with nuanced reasons for saying what it says – it's an aggrandized self-published source the very point of which is to take a stand, not to neutrally review the published literature. However, these other sources seem to be just the kind of literature reviews we should be relying on, the best kind of secondary source for this sort of question.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:55, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I appreciate the words, David, and that your goal aligns better with mine than I thought. I just don't have the interest or time to spend all week poring over every available source (if I take on an issue with that kind of commitment, it'll be something more obscure, where what WP says on it might make a difference; we're going to have GMOs no matter what, so it seems like an ineffective use of my tie to try to micromanage WP article wording about them). I take the position that bucking the scientific mainstream is making extraordinary claims that require extraordinary sourcing. WP isn't a bleeding-edge venue, content-wise. If GMOs (as distinct from chemicals put on some of them) are less safe than the scientific mainstream (i.e., scientific consensus) thinks, this will become clearer over time. And, as noted, I'm okay with the idea that there may be sufficient contrary work published already for WP to say that whether there is a scientific consensus has become widely disputed in the literature – if that literature is really there and it's from top-quality sources, and is fresh. What we can't do is wish away the sources saying that this consensus exists.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:55, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

See also further discussion at User talk:SMcCandlish#"Scientific Agreement" vs. "Scientific Consensus". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:34, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

The subsection immediately above that also goes into this a little, as to why I take the position I do, and what it does for WP:ENC interests.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:17, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

RFC closure deadline approaching - a note from the Moderators

Just a friendly reminder from the Moderating Administrators that we're just over a day away from this RFC being locked down, in preparation for the Closing Admins' review. The exact time of the closure should be at or shortly after, 18:01, 6 July 2016 (UTC) - (the review will likely take several days after the close to finalize). Please ensure you have finished making any changes to your comments before the closure deadline hits. It is your responsibility to make sure you meet this deadline, as no exceptions will be granted for making any further comments (at the RFC nor at this talk page) after the protection is set. Thank you all for your participation in this process. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 23:26, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

No RfC should ever be done this way again

It's completely absurd to impose a strict length limit on comments while permitting people to keep adding proposals indefinitely. Over twenty competing proposals? Are you kidding me? I was barely able to even ID the problems in these proposals by just citing "WP:NPOV, WP:OR", without saying what in the content I was citing them about, within these limits. If there's going to be commenter length limits, there has to be a cut-off date for adding more proposals, and the limit needs to be raised anyway commensurate with the number of proposals.

RfCs are WP:NOTAVOTE but one enforced this way turns it into one, because we barely have room to do more than yea or nay on them without any detailed rationale about what we support or oppose in them, just vague hand-waving a policies and guidelines. It's not like all the policy problems in these proposals were obvious, or they would not been written the way they were.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:59, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

I feel saddened that you feel this way. (And I, for one, cannot wait to be done with the RfC.) But this RfC occurred under extraordinary circumstances, given the heretofore intractable nature of the content dispute, and I do believe that a useful consensus is going to emerge. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:12, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

To recap from user talk: I understand that some limits are necessary to prevent gaming or disruption. It's just that if there are limits, the ability to keep adding proposals and counter proposals also needs to be capped at some point, and if there are a huge pile of them by that point anyway, the limit made a bit bigger (for everyone). Some only want to !vote up/down, but some of us spend hours on analysis and need the room to convey the results of it. I'm also optimistic a consensus will emerge, but have concerns that it might be to just accept the most "popular" variant without modifying it based on respondents' detailed rationales for what parts of it have issues. I think a very solid bit of wording can be assembled from several of these proposals, but did not want to add Proposal #23, especially so late in the game.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:50, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

A lesson learned from this might be to also impose a deadline for proposals at the start of the RfC, and any proposed changes of them should be handled within the comments after the RfC start. This has been a bit of a leading a horse to water problem though. People decided to comment on all of the proposals when we tried to make it clear only two questions needed to be answered (neither of which said comment on all proposals). The general expectation was that newer proposals would have a severe handicap anyways since they wouldn't get as much attention to become the favored proposal for each editor. It's been a wild RfC, but the word limits did help a lot compared to previous RfCs where long discussions (like we have on this talk page) are likely to have closers just throw up their hands and say no consensus.

Even if this RfC has had some unideal aspects, I think it's been a surprising improvement over past RfCs. That's what we've needed, so thanks to The Wordsmith, Laser brain, Coffee for keeping things chugging along so far. Time to see how much patience the closers have in sorting through everything now. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:40, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

• Sure, some things didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. However, keep in mind that this RfC is basically unprecedented (I'm not counting Jerusalem, because that was a very different case and ordered by Arbcom directly). Assuming there's a successful resolution, this will become the precedent that future admins look to for resolving these sorts of issues. And they'll see what didn't work and improve on it. Even if not ideal, we've still accomplished something good and established a process that might, with some time to work out the bugs, avoid second and third Arbcom cases for contentious subjects.

After everything is over, I might write about this as part of an essay on different types of discretionary sanctions. I welcome all suggestions for improvement, keeping in mind that hindsight is 20/20. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 02:26, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Respectfully,I don't know if it's fair to treat problems raised so lightly. This is the first time in our history to lock in scientific content; Jerusalem is not a fair comparison. Moreover, there was no strife in this area. There was no reason to rush, especially when it means we cannot properly review sources. Jerusalem may have been a heated topic, but this RfC differs in many ways, namely, that there was no edit warring at all, no justification for such an unprecedented and rushed RfC. It does not seem fair to have ignored our pleas, nor to continue to say "there is nothing we can do now". There is no reason to keep pushing forward when so many editors are raising concerns. There have been many suggestions for improvement but all have gone ignored. This is just one comment from the early talk page:

@The Wordsmith:: Why the rush? Patience is policy, and there is no particular urgency here. There IS an ongoing discussion about the form of the RfC, with several editors clearly articulating problems with it - that's not filibustering (and why would anyone want to just generically delay?). There is no ArbCom mandate for haste in holding this RfC, no contentious editing in any of the GMO articles, no wars appear about to break out. In fact, perhaps the best quality article in the GM crop/food collection, List of genetically modified crops, was created from scratch in recent weeks - substantial, comprehensive, informative - with several editors collaborating, and no strife whatsoever. There are no BLP issues, no copyvios, nothing in the articles that needs to be urgently changed. So I'm not sure why there's a rush, why are we not taking the time to get it right, what is the reason for pushing this along, other than the urging of Tryptofish and Kingofaces43? Perhaps you could step in to do the monitoring once there is agreement on the RfC itself? --Tsavage (talk) 00:13, 3 June 2016

"other than the urging of Tryptofish and Kingofaces43" ← this seems rather a personalized, conspiracist angle. So far as I can see the RfC process is the result of wide community consensus and I for one am happy to see it follow its schedule and hope it will bring an end to the seemingly endless timesink this issue has become. Alexbrn (talk) 08:50, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: That comment is from the Talk archive (see date stamp). It was written before the RfC launched (and went unanswered at the time, and still seems relevant). That said, my mention of comments by Tryptofish and Kingofaces43 was strictly factual and directly relevant to my question: there's nothing wrong with T and K urging that the RfC move forward with all haste, and certainly nothing personalized or conspiracist in nature in noting that fact. Other than the arguments to proceed quickly from T and K, I was inquiring as to the reasons for the rush. Perhaps there's a problem with the word, "urging"? --Tsavage (talk) 18:38, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, this RfC is not very encyclopedic. We should encourage more investigation of sources, and more dialogue, as SMcCandlish has expressed, rather than to cut it short for no reason. The last RfC on the safety consensus statement had 18 sources to consider (but only one proposal), and to properly discuss them all took the entire month, and a good amount of text. It was a peaceful, adult conversation, so there was never any justification for this 800 word limit, to my knowledge.

Finally, I hope that people realize that this statement is contentious because there are reliable sources on both sides. The monetary importance of this statement to industry cannot be overlooked. The impact of locking our Jerusalem article was internal, it ended internal drama, but the impact of a potential GMO "clean bill of health" from the world's primary source of information (on most things, likely including GMOs) is enormous. This is why I think it would be wise to pause, and listen to the community as a whole. We cannot allow a SYNTH statement to be voted on when we can't be sure the participants were able to do a good job evaluating the hundreds of sources included in this RfC, and when they were disallowed from citing their findings. petrarchan47คุก 02:59, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I note you are not counting Jerusalem, but it weighed heavily on structure of this RfC, with the argument that the drama at each topic area was similar. petrarchan47คุก 03:12, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Some constructive follow-up responses since I started this, and was in need of coffee at the time, so I opened it in a bit more irritable fashion than necessary (I'm bolding some bits for easy "TL;DR" scanning, not to shout):

1. This result would be fine, if the second half happens: "this will become the precedent that future admins look to for resolving these sorts of issues. And they'll see what didn't work and improve on it." I can see using something somewhat like this RfC to resolve a number of seemingly never-ending fights, both about article content and internal matters, if the problem of comment limits but no proposal limits/deadline is fixed, and the next two items below are factored in.
2. It's not necessary to have stringent comment limits to prevent an RfC miring and coming to no consensus, though they may help if done right. A no-threaded-discussion rule is actually more effective in this regard, which is why ArbCom and AE use it and get things done, while ANI, which does not, is generally something like a circus of rabid monkeys on crack (unnecessarily), just like (necessarily) talk pages of contentious articles.
3. A lesson here: "we want these two questions answered" is not what will happen if entire passages of wording are proposed; people will naturally tend to ignore the questions and criticize or support the draft language. These are two completely different RfC models and should not be commingled.
4. An edit war does not have to be a 3RR screaming match to be problematic. I've been trying to get a "WP:SLOWEDITWAR" provision into WP:EDITWAR for some time, kind of half-heartedly because it's hard to write. I think it should be drawn up by AE, ANI, ANEW, NPOVN, and NORN noticeboard admins, who are the most frequent to apply the term. Search the notice board archives for "slow editwar", "slow edit-war", "slow edit war", etc., and you'll see that it is in fact a community-recognized, policy-level, sanctionable matter that we simply have not written down yet. Maybe it could be worked out at WP:VPPOL instead of WT:EDITWAR. Definitely WP's #1 missing policy, and its absence is constantly gamed.
5. I don't know what the urgency was either, but there has been a slow and mostly civil editwar about this central question of this RfC for years, and it did need to get resolved eventually. "If not now, when?" Slow editwars are, in my view, actually worse than the usual kind, because it's much more difficult to do anything to restrain any parties who are very, very carefully thwarting the core content policies and other P&G. (That's as a general matter; I'm not alleging anything about anyone in particular here. I'm thinking of a WP:TE that took 7 years to get topic-banned from MoS, a non-MEDRS biology WP:FACTION problem that took over 8 years to reign in, and various WP:FRINGE and "your tribe of humans vs. mine" ArbCom cases.)
6. This does not "lock in scientific content": At most, it simply comes to an agreement (if it closes with one) on what to say for now, with the sources at hand. If more sources come up a day later [see next thread!], it can change, but the RfC should discourage willy-nilly changes. At least, and more importantly, I hope it reaffirms some common-sense and encyclopedic principles in this topic area – like use (whether pro, con, or uncertain) and link directly to reliably sourced terms like "scientific consensus", don't make up our own fake lingo; don't name-drop this organization vs. that one in a summary paragraph, but save it for detailed pro and con sections; don't make "hive mind" generalizations about the public; don't port assertions from sources into statements in Wikipedia's own voice, etc.
7. The money, influence and impact issue is very real, but not "fatal". My #1 long-term concern on WP (see my little infrequent newsletter atop my userpage) is organized PoV pushing by industries, factions, governments, and advocacy campaigns, so I take this seriously. However, sources are king here. None of the following can be true indefinitely, if any of them really are now: A) that the scientists can't make up their minds if GMOs or safe, or even keep straight GMOs vs. the chemicals that were put on them; B) that the journals can't do literature reviews that consistently show an overall consensus (or demonstrate a lack of one); and/or C) that WP editors can't find and evaluate enough of these secondary RS to figure out A and B. In the interim we can be certain of lots of good and bad ways to approach reviewing the sources and writing up what they're telling us.
8. This is the real crux of the matter, for this RfC approach with comment-but-not-proposal limits, producing too much RfC content to comment on: "we can't be sure the participants were able to do a good job evaluating the hundreds of sources included in this RfC, and when they were disallowed from citing their findings." There was so much to go through that some editors like me could barely do a policy, logic, and tone analysis of the proposals at face value, much less get into the relative reliability of individual sources and whether they're being editorially interpreted and used correctly. Some RfC respondents just did a kind of drive-by "... oppose, support, oppose, oppose ..." vote (not really even !voting). This is why I said above that the RfC should be used to re-establish SOP principles about how to approach the topic, not legislate exactly what we're going to say about it long-term. We follow the sources for that, even if it takes follow-up RfCs on narrower questions. Maybe lots of them, over the next year or two, focused on specific sources or claims (not both at once – see #3 above!).

Anyway, I hope this is helpful. You all know I'm not a "GMO warrior" on either side. I'm coming from a WP:PROCESS angle, regarding the RfC itself, and WP:CCPOL + WP:BETTER one regarding the proposed wording options.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:50, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree with OP, this RFC was a mess, 20-odd proposals is too many, without enough space to make our cases. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 00:41, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

As someone heavily involved in the topic, I found just enough space (barely) to make my case focusing on the overall sources, what they say, policy, guidelines, etc., and to specify which proposal(s) best fit that. If people came in mistakenly thinking this was a comment on all proposals RfC, I can see how 800 words might not seem like enough space. I'm not sure how we can figuratively lead the horses to water better though. Language could be added to just simply say, "editors should respond to the following two questions, but they are not expected to voice their support or opposition on all proposals", but that also feels like we're instructing respondents too much given that the two questions were already put out there. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:55, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

In retrospect, I think there has to be some kind of balance between the number of proposals, and the number of words permitted per statement. One improvement in that regard might be to require editors who submit multiple proposals to withdraw all but the most recent one that they, themselves, authored. But overall, I think that the RfC went remarkably well (although I know some editors strongly disagree). I consider it remarkable that, in the context of the DS and of the heat of some disagreements, that no one had to be sanctioned by the admins. In context, that is really pretty remarkable, and the rules were quite successful in that regard. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:02, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree entirely. I'm mostly just nitpicking a bit, but as I've said earlier, this RfC actually rolled along rather smoothly relative to expectations from previous RfCs. Independent of the actual close, I'm for one happy to say this framework was a huge net improvement even considering some tweaks I'd want to see if this framework is used again. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:29, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

New review by Domingo

A new review by Domingo has just appeared (just in time for the RfC closing!). Here is the link: [56]. Domingo now says that the GM foods are just as safe as conventional foods, although further long-term studies are still needed. So it is no longer correct to cite Domingo's earlier review as disproving the scientific consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:06, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

You might consider revising Proposal 1 to include this new review: However, in spite of the notable increase in the available information, studies on the long-term health effects of GM plants, including tests of mutagenicity, teratogenicity and carcinogenicity seem to be still clearly necessary. This seems the opposite of a scientific consensus on safety. petrarchan47คุก 03:03, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

And you might want to consider what comes just before what you cherry-picked to quote. But Proposal 1 already does reflect that: that new GMs need to be tested as they come out, case by case. The fact that further studies are called for does not change what Domingo concludes about existing studies. --Tryptofish (talk) 03:15, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

This ends the discussion about consensus, no? If this is not sufficient, remaining opponents, please describe what such evidence would look like. Lfstevens (talk) 03:30, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, it is very significant that Domingo, who is most often cited as disputing the consensus, now pretty much agrees with the consensus. As for ending the discussion, at least I hope that the RfC close will provide some closure. --Tryptofish (talk) 03:39, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, that's timely of Domingo isn't it? Although now some of the statements in the proposals citing his earlier reviews are outright wrong. Not sure how we deal with that this late in the game. Capeo (talk) 04:55, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

This speaks directly to one of my central OR concerns about many of the proposals: "Domingo now says that the GM foods are just as safe as conventional foods, although further long-term studies are still needed." It simply is not the case that A) calling for more studies and caution can be equated to either B) opposition to the idea that there's at least a loose scientific consensus GMOs are safe, much less C) a stance that GMOs are not safe. I'm not entirely convinced there really is such a scientific consensus, though the sources I've seen so far lean me that direction. I can be very, very certain that leaping from A to either B or C is fallacious and not backed by the preponderance of the RS cited so far. At most, some (maybe even many) proponents of A have doubts about the facts behind the apparent consensus (thus the demand for more study) without challenging the existence of it. I.e., they know they are taking an outlying position, and swimming across the stream if not actually against it current.

The concern of "Not sure how we deal with that this late in the game" is why I suggested in the thread above this one that the RfC should be closed with a consensus about approaches to take and pitfalls to avoid, not legislating exact wording. New sources can change the wording in a single day.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:59, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

• Herein lies the problem. Per Tsavage's RfC comment, "For Wikipedia to declare a consensus, we need high quality, neutral sources that clearly says so (WP:RS/AC)." We are interpreting the new review as it pertains to our attempted claim of a consensus. But per our PAGs, Domingo would literally need to use this language in his review. Instead, he called for more serious testing.

This is far from a clean bill of health, and most certainly does not support "scientific consensus":

With only a few exceptions, the reported studies during the last six years show rather similar conclusions; that is to say, the assessed GM soybeans, rice, corn/maize and wheat would be as safe as the parental species of these plants. Therefore, based on the conclusions of the authors of these recent investigations, the use of the assessed GM plants for feed or human food should be as safe as that of their parental species. All the studies here reviewed were published in international peer-reviewed journals. Therefore, I do not question at all the results and conclusions of these investigations. However, in the same line that the authors of various recent reviews above commented, I feel that long-term studies are still clearly necessary in order to guarantee that the consumption of GM plants does not mean any health risk for the consumers. It must be noted that most recent investigations, for which no adverse/toxic effects were observed, were subchronic (90 days) studies. Notwithstanding, when long-term studies were conducted (i.e., Séralini et al., 2014b), the results were tremendously controversial. (Domingo 2016)

Daniel Hicks (AAAS scientist with the EPA), in his review of Krimsky 2015: An Illusory Consensus on GMO safety

"Even if one could identify a “practical consensus” on GM food safety (a “99% of published articles on the topic conclude they’re safe” kind of thing), it’s not clear that this consensus would mean much without agreement on what kinds of methods should be used to test for hazards."

"In his conclusion, Krimsky argues that the burden of proof should be on the claim that GM foods are safe...Since the burden of proof is on the safety claim, even weak, tentative evidence of hazards needs to be taken seriously" petrarchan47คุก 02:08, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I think we are minutes away from the close, and I for one, cannot wait. I don't think that the emergence of Domingo's new review generates any kind of urgent problem, except for those proposals that use Domingo's earlier reviews as demonstrating anything other than some outdated views. There won't be an urgent need to change whatever emerges as the consensus. And please note that the scientific consensus, as stated in the proposals that get it right, is not that every imaginable question has been answered and no new science is needed. It's that GM crops are no more dangerous than conventional ones, and that is what Domingo now agrees with. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:25, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

• I strongly disagree with Tryptofish. Petrarchan47, as usual, brings an important viewpoint to bear. SMcCandlish also raises a number of interesting points, but in the end I continue to regard this Rfc with deep suspicions and misgiving regarding any consensus and acts taken in Wikipedia's name. I urge closure with a decision of no consensus, based on the fact that it seems obvious that many Wikipedians are either unaware of this curiously-configured Rfc or intimidated by the walls of text and/or the warnings regarding discretionary sanctions. Most of us should agree on this: the Rfc is a failure on numerous levels, and should be closed as such. Jusdafax 18:29, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

• @Tryptofish and Jusdafax: I've redacted both of your comments. Discuss the RFC, not each other. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 19:02, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Let's have faith in the closers. I hope that the community will cooperate with what they decide. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:04, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Lfstevens - No, I'm not an opposition and that's not the RFC but in answer to your remark, this is not 'sufficient' support for the wikilink scientific consensus. I again point to the simple fact that wikilink fairly clearly states what cites will do. Overall though, this all just seems like pushing for a specific phrasing and linkage that isn't supported, and stuffing in a herd of disparate cites.

For WP Process, the RFC questions stated were 'do the preponderance of cites indicate it' and 'should the existing language be changed and which proposals best represent the answer to Q1'. Side mentions were that it was to go into many articles, and was largely to determine WP consensus about a specific question, but I think the RFC was a bit presuming there that the phrase and usage everywhere was OK and the actual WP discussion gave lots of input otherwise. Certainly any response that did not agree to 'preponderance' in Q1 would be simple for Q2. It might go better from a RFC process point to state one specific question for intended use at one article. Or maybe to have a separate RFC over the one-phrase-fits-all-articles as an approach.

But I suggest instead to just not seek support for a wanted phrase but to simply accept what exists out there -- just follow the cites and seek to convey what the prominent aspects are with the phrasing of prominent sources presented in due WP:WEIGHT and attributed, as specific to each article. CHeeres Markbassett (talk) 20:43, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you that we should follow the cites, and the cites say verbatim that there is a scientific consensus. But – shouldn't the RfC pages be closed by now? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:47, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure the closing admins will be along shortly. Standard procedure is that it stays open until a closing admin begins reviewing it to determine consensus, and since I'm not one of the closers I don't control that. I will ping them, though, just in case. @KrakatoaKatie, Nakon, and Deor: Just making you aware that we're at 30 days. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 22:09, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

The closers are discussing the matter via e-mail, and my sense is that we should have a closing statement sometime tomorrow (UTC) at the latest. Deor (talk) 22:26, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

In #RFC closure deadline approaching - a note from the Moderators, it sounded like the page and talk page would be full protected at or near the designated closing time, and that the closing statement about consensus would come later. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:57, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I've locked the main RFC page while we discuss the result. As far as the talk page goes, I'm going to leave it unlocked unless there are strong reasons to lock it. Thanks! Nakon 23:21, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! I removed the listing from WP:CENT just after you protected the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:23, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Does the Domingo 2016 review (and RS it cites) make this RfC Stale?

• This illustrates why locking in content with this RfC is so problematic, especially for safety assessment and science. Science evolves. ArbCom wisely rejected this RfC's proponent's request to lock in content for 3 years.

This RfC can already be called into question for being stale, given the release of a major review study update by Domingo while the RfC was open, but only reported here less than 24 hours before the RfC's closing. Domingo's 2016 update is the highest level/gold standard of RS under the WP:MEDRS standard, because it is a review study by an expert in the appropriate field--toxicology--and is current. Editors like myself, who have not been able to get access to a copy of Domingo 2016 (which is not even available in print yet), were unable to consider it in our comments on the Project page. Editors cannot appropriately take a position on the RfC's proposals if they are unable to review the most important and current RS.

A substantial portion of the talk page comments above involve Domingo 2011 are also stale/moot, because Domingo 2016 trumps Domingo 2011. (Domingo comes up 143 times in search of this version of talk preceding our being informed of Domingo 2016 here). So, if this RfC is not re-opened and respondents not asked to reassess and consider the most current RS, the results of the RS are stale as well. --David Tornheim (talk) 01:36, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

This RfC's proponent (was that me?) wants to note that the way that science works, there really isn't such a thing as a single review that would be the "gold standard". So if we were to reopen the RfC every time a new paper comes out, the RfC will never conclude. But what Domingo now says is that: With only a few exceptions, the reported studies in the last six years show rather similar conclusions; that is to say, the assessed GM soybeans, rice, corn/maize and wheat would be as safe as the parental species of these plants. And he also calls for more science about long-term effects. I don't think that makes for any kind of urgent problem, and I don't think that it even comes close to invalidating this RfC. There is no problem with those ideas already being reflected in some of the existing proposals. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:54, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

You correctly point out that--at least in the Abstract--that he calls for long term study. Why is that not mentioned in many of the proposals, such as Proposal 1, as it should be? We must under WP:DUE include such a statement. He also does not extend the claim about parental species to ALL GMO's, just "soybeans, rice, corn/maize and wheat". The statement only applies to papers of the last 6 years since the previous review. We need to see how the changes in the last 6 years affect his overall assessment of GMO food safety. Without reviewing the entire paper, including the conclusions, we are left guessing. We also need to know if he uses the word "scientific consensus" and if so, what he says it is. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:15, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I pointed that out, because I want to present the source fairly. Domingo does not seem to be saying that there are long-term problems, just that such studies are something that has been lacking in the literature. And Proposal 1 does emphasize that testing is still needed. My recollection from Domingo's earlier paper is that he focuses on those particular crops because those are the ones where there are the most papers to review, so I'm guessing he's doing the same here. That doesn't amount to casting doubt on, say, tomatoes. I read what he says as including the last 6 years, but not taking that time period out of context from the science that came before; again, that's not the way science works. I agree with you that we should wait for the full text before making any firm conclusions about content, so I advocate patience, but not invalidation of the RfC. In the mean time, Domingo 2016 appears to be a significant source, but it really does not outweigh other existing sources. If Domingo said something new that contradicted all the previous sources in what appeared to be an important way, then we might have an urgent need to reconsider. But it looks like all that is new is that he is saying more or less what other recent sources (that are cited in proposals) say. In any case, I think we are having diminishing returns in discussing the content in the RfC. It seems to me to be time to wait to find out what the three closers decide. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:28, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

And he didn't say all GM modifications soybeans, rice, corn/maize and wheat approved for market were assesed. Cathry (talk) 05:35, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

But if it really bothers you or anyone else, my advice would be to wait until the full paper becomes available (WP:There is no deadline), and then start a discussion on an article talk page about it. Per the rules here, if that discussion leads to strong sentiment for a revision, we can either have an RfC, or simply ask admins for permission via AE. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:57, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

The full paper is available, and we need to reconsider this RfC now, based in its contents, which impact much of our arguments and proposals.Coffee As David said, this RfC is already stale with Domingo's new review. petrarchan47คุก 09:09, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

@Petrarchan47: Thank you. I am looking it over. I see it mentions a number of literature reviews (gold standard of WP:MEDRS) that we did not consider (see "3. Recent reviews in the scientific literature on GM plants"). The absence of consideration of such important RS is yet another potential issue making the RfC stale. --David Tornheim (talk) 10:45, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

• I see no evidence that the RfC should be called into question. If any editors believe that text should actually be changed in a substantial way (beyond just adding another citation), I ask that you please propose here what the specific language should be. What would you add? What would you subtract? That could be useful to discuss, because we could thereby evaluate whether sufficiently many editors are actually eager to make such changes. On the other hand, vague statements that maybe something needs to be completely changed are just too difficult to evaluate. In the mean time, I urge the three closers to just go ahead with a closing statement. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:25, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Transgenic Soybeans

As an example, Domingo mentions this study which says The transgenic soybeans are also nonmutagenic and have protective effects against DNA damage similar to those of conventional soybeans but to a lesser percentage (64%-101% for conventional and 23%-33% for transgenic diets). Domingo refrains from evaluation in his article but provides numbers. This case is discussed Talk:Genetically modified food controversies. Formally we can say transgenic soy is safe,relying on this study. But obviously it may be less useful (e.g. both apple and blackcurrant contains ascorbic acid, but apple contains less, and it is significant if we are faced with vitamin deficiency).Cathry (talk) 06:34, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Actually, it is rather informative to look at the relative strengths of editor comments at that discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:41, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Except that as far as I can tell, neither Domingo nor the original study use those words. Are you quoting yourself, or something else?--tronvillain (talk) 16:38, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Cathry 'As an example' ? Unclear to me of what -- if this meant an example of what's new with Domingo or what's stale with the existing RFC. I don't feel this one item or author is significant in affecting the RFC or the article topic, since it is out of thousands of publications and major governmental regulators and medical organizations and so on. I'll suggest procedurally we're at this existing RFC will close as is and see where to go from there. Actually I think this RFC had value in highlighting RFC process/structure items and in surfacing a lot of alternative proposals. Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 17:35, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Markbassett, although we sometimes had different opinions about the content in the RfC, I am very happy that you and I agree about what you just said. Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 17:50, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Of what "safe" сan mean. Cathry (talk) 18:32, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

What editors are discussing is where a primary source shows data that the authors of the primary study say are different (in mouse DNA) between the conventional soybean and the GM soybean (I don't believe they draw any firm conclusions about "safe" in humans), and Domingo discusses this exact data in his new review and says that the data for conventional and GM were similar. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:47, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you

Now that the RfC process has been completed, I hope that all editors will work cooperatively with the consensus, and I think that it is wonderful how so many editors contributed to the outcome. I also want to say a very big thank you to Coffee, Laser brain, and The Wordsmith for their leadership during this challenging process, and another big thank you to Deor, KrakatoaKatie, and Nakon for sorting through all the comments and determining the consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. Sunrise (talk) 23:12, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Note about template

I see that Esquivalience has created Template:GMORFC notice, that can be put on the talk pages of pages affected by the RfC decision. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:25, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Also, admins may want to double check that what is says is OK. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:27, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks as well to Esquivalience for setting it up. I've gone ahead and pasted the text and talk page notice into the other listed pages. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:44, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

The 'editors must not change or remove any part or whole of the text above in the article' is overly strong. There may be some articles where the statement, and indeed any statement about safety, is off topic and unnecessary. The intention of the rfc was to codify language related to GMO safety, not insist upon its inclusion. If there is a local consensus on the talk page, the safety statement should be removable, and the template should be reworded to this effect.Dialectric (talk) 06:36, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I like the template, and I agree that the wording should be softened somewhat to account for instances where part or all of the language is not germane to the article. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 16:19, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I think that allowing editors to take out parts of the language without the kinds of discussion set forth in the RfC rules is asking for trouble. I realize that the intention is to allow customizing the language for pages that only deal with parts of the topic, but it will be an unenforceable mess if editors get to choose to take out what they want to take out. I just modified the template accordingly.

I also remembered that we need to keep a continuous edit history, since the language has been copied from page to page. I'm about to add that to the template, since that is a simple and effective way of documenting the edit history as required. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:23, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree that removing parts of the statement could pose problems. My concern is more focused on the prohibition on removing the statement altogether, apparently even in the face of article talk page consensus, in articles where any safety statement may be undue or irrelevant. The statement has already been spammed on a number of articles that I see as outside the scope of gmo food safety, and this could spread to even more tangentially related articles.Dialectric (talk) 00:02, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

@Dialectric: Have articles other than those on the original list (of 11) had the language added? If so, I agree with you that it is troubling if the DS and impossibility of modifying new added language is applied to articles that formerly did not the language mentioned here before the RfC started, and no notice of the potential change/addition. It is my position that only those articles identified in the RfC should be affected (and are hence they are the only ones under the jurisdiction of this RfC). In fact, those 11 identified articles should have had notice of this RfC posted on them at the start of the RfC as I pointed out here on this talk page.

Can you identify any articles that are not on the list here that have had the language (and possibly the DS) applied to them? --David Tornheim (talk) 02:23, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

If the content is being put on pages that are not listed in the introduction section of the RfC page, then that needs to stop and be reverted. The RfC decision applies, for the time being, to those pages, although it can also be applied more broadly in the future if content changes. Perhaps you could list here those pages where you feel that it should not have been added. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:11, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't think that's right: the DS log says that the RfC applies to "all relevant articles," and the closure seems to agree by saying "these discretionary sanctions...will be implemented, broadly construed, for other articles in the subject area." In the extreme, this could potentially be interpreted as enabling spamming, but on the other hand, if I think the statement should be added at e.g. Genetic engineering#Controversy, I don't think I should be able to freely modify it either. I think the key point might be that "relevant" is unspecified - maybe one option is to interpret this as saying that removal (but not modification) on grounds of relevance may or may not be permissible, on a case-by-case basis, at pages other than the ones on the list? Pinging The Wordsmith to request clarification. Sunrise (talk) 01:26, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

I think that's a reasonable interpretation. It must stay on the pages listed. For unlisted pages where it may or may not be relevant, that should be determined by local consensus with the caveat that it is either included or omitted as-is; no modified or alternate version is permitted. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 02:14, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree, as I just posted above. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:26, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree too. I think that those exact conditions get it right, and should probably be said formally wherever the right place for it is. I also continue to think that it would be helpful, if there are any pages other than the listed ones where the content was recently added, to list those page here so concerned editors will know about it. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:44, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

I see that there is further discussion about that at User talk:Coffee. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:49, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

@Dialectric: have you seen any pages where the language was added, that are not listed in the Introduction of the RfC? It would be good to clarify this issue. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:46, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

RFC interpretation question

What have I do if I want to add information from relevant, fresh sources not mentioned in result with data somewhat opposing present conclusions? Can I add it after RFC text or I must open new RFC (when?) Cathry (talk) 03:32, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Small updates

I was having trouble finding a link to it, so just a heads up to anyone that comes here that the text had a minor update for linter errors, etc. with no change to the text itself. It was approved by admins at AE here. Here is the approved text if anyone needs to reference it in case someone changes the text at an article and it gets missed:

There is a scientific consensus that currently available food derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food, but that each GM food needs to be tested on a case-by-case basis before introduction. Nonetheless, members of the public are much less likely than scientists to perceive GM foods as safe. The legal and regulatory status of GM foods varies by country, with some nations banning or restricting them, and others permitting them with widely differing degrees of regulation.

Citations

KoA (talk) 22:48, 4 June 2023 (UTC)