Before discussing this documentary, I want to make it clear that I have no personal feud with Mr. Cui Yongyuan, in order to avoid the prevailing motivation theory in China's online Jianghu. On the contrary, I admire his hosting skills and previous achievements. At least we have a good friend, Zhang Lixian, the publisher of the reading library. I don't believe Fang Zhouzi either. On the contrary, the other party doesn't agree with me on many issues.
Here, just talk about things. It should also be noted that the specific problems and controversies of the documentary on Science are limited to the academic background, and I don't think I am qualified to say so. I just want to talk about my personal news background. From the perspective of journalism, what can Xiao Cui do better?
Selection of interviewees. In the film, the first interviewee who has an obvious anti-GM attitude is Nancy Swanson, a female scientist at the Western Washington University. According to Cui Yongyuan's account, "She is a scientist who once worked in the US Navy (digression, I vaguely feel that Xiao Cui is superstitious about military background, because the film also specifically mentioned the military background of another interviewee), and she has five patents in the United States".
As an audience, the first reaction to seeing this is: what position does she hold in the US Navy? What does it have to do with transgenic research? If her academic background has nothing to do with genetic modification, let alone working in the US Navy, even in the Delta Special Forces? Doesn't it improve her credibility at all? You know, in today's increasingly detailed division of science, even real scientists, once interdisciplinary, are basically illiterate.
The problem is that the average audience doesn't think so much. Xiao Cui's introduction will make the ordinary audience conclude that "this is a credible scientist." As a journalism graduate, I have to think that the hint that Xiao Cui is trying to make here is a rather bad professional attitude. For another example, what are the five patents related to her transgenic research? If there is no connection, what is the significance of this background introduction except bad hints?
Fortunately, the search engine is developed. I can Google Nancy swanson and post the background information about her identity here: /gmo-in-seattle/nancy-swanson.
Dr Nancy swanson graduated from Western Washington University with a bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics (1986). She received a doctorate in physics from Florida State University. She later became a scientist in the United States Navy. After returning to Washington, Nancy taught physics at WWU University. She holds five American patents. She is the author of more than 30 scientific publications and two books on women in science. She is now retired and grows flowers.
It turns out that Ms Nancy swanson has never had anything to do with biology or genetic modification. When she graduated from Western Washington University, her major was physics and mathematics, and her Ph.D. was physics at Florida State University. Before she retired from Western Washington University, she also taught physics. Even her published monograph has nothing to do with biology, but about "women in science". It can be said that in this background introduction, the only thing related to biology is the last sentence: "She is currently retired to raise flowers at home."
Then, what about the five patents mentioned in the background introduction? Thanks to the search engine, we can also easily find Ms. Nancy's patents:/patents.html. She does have five patents, but strictly speaking, three of them are with B.D. Bilard From this, we can clearly see that most of these five patents are related to her physical research, but have nothing to do with biology and genetic modification. In other words, she "owns five patents in the United States", which is a meaningless misleading introduction to credibility.
In fact, there are many characters in Cui Yongyuan's films who seem to be scientific, but in fact they can't add any credibility. For example, at the beginning of the film, Cui Yongyuan said that he "visited six American regions, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Springfield, Seattle and Davis, for nearly 30 interviews from February 8, 65438 to February 8, 18."
Anyone who has studied journalism knows that no matter how many times you interview, it doesn't mean that the information you have interviewed is correct, because you may have chosen the wrong interviewee or your views are not universal. But for the ordinary audience, the implied information is obvious, which helps Cui Yongyuan to achieve his own communication purpose. However, this does not seem to be a professional news practice.
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The bigger problem of Cui Yongyuan's documentary is the logical error. For example, all Nancy swanson's inferences are based on correlation: the widespread use of glyphosate is positively correlated with the rising incidence of many diseases by more than 0.90. The problem is that correlation is not equal to causality. In fact, Nancy swanson herself said so in the film, but Xiao Cui didn't seem to care at all, and many viewers who were confused by him didn't pay attention to it. They were brainwashed by pyramid schemes and accepted the view that "the use of genetically modified products led to an increase in the incidence of these diseases".
The so-called correlation means that B also happened when A happened, but correlation does not mean causality, which means that "A is the chief culprit leading to B" cannot be proved. This logical fallacy can be traced back to ancient times, and there is a Latin phrase to describe it: cum hoc ergo propter hoc (translated into English, with this, there is this reason, and it happens with it, so it is this reason).
When a happens, b also happens. In causality, there may be five situations: 1, a leads to b; 2.b leads to a; 3. A C that we don't know leads to A and B; 4.a and B are mutually causal; It is a coincidence that A and B happen at the same time.
For a common example, statistics show that the sales of ice cream are positively correlated with the number of drowning accidents. Can this explain the drowning accident caused by ice cream? Obviously not, it's just because the sales of ice cream will increase in summer, and drowning accidents will increase in summer.
Another example: Statistics show that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been increasing since the 1960s, and at the same time, the obesity rate in the United States has also risen sharply. Can you deduce that "the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the increase of obesity rate"? Obviously not, these two things happen together, but there is no causal connection.
I don't know if there is a required course in logic in the journalism department of the university, but journalists should learn the basic knowledge of formal logic. In this film, there are many logical hints similar to this fallacy. Cui Yongyuan, for example, tried to prove that genetic modification is "not without controversy". This is really because there are too many theorists who support genetic modification in China. There are so many people on earth who believe everything. How can it be "uncontroversial"? In America, there must be people who believe that the earth is the center of the universe.
But what Xiao Cui didn't expect was that proving that GM is not "uncontroversial" doesn't mean that "all these controversies are meaningful" in turn. This logical jump is too dangerous. If we interview people who think that "geocentric theory" is reasonable in the United States, can we prove that our existing cognitive system of the universe is wrong?
In fact, the American embassy arranged for him to interview Martina? Professor McGlaughlin made it very clear that most scientists believe that genetically modified products are at least as safe as ordinary products, if not safer. When Martina mentioned the controversy, she used very few orders of magnitude. In English, few are very rare, and very few orders can be imagined. Moreover, Martina said that even the evidence presented by these very few people is not accepted by the scientific community.
Similarly, no one wants to drink glyphosate stock solution, and it is impossible to deduce the logical conclusion that genetically modified food is unsafe. This groundless suggestion is inappropriate.
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Journalism is a miscellaneous subject. It is necessary to learn not only logical common sense, but also a lot of psychological common sense, especially social psychological common sense. In psychology, there is a so-called "selective attention". A typical example is that when you are a pregnant woman, you will find that there seem to be more pregnant women on the street. In fact, the number of pregnant women will not really increase, but you ignored it before and didn't pay that much attention. Now that you are pregnant, you pay more attention, so you "notice" more pregnant women.
Therefore, when interviewing, we should pay special attention to our personal prejudice and remind ourselves not to be led into the ditch by prejudice. For example, Cui Yongyuan took a big bite of organic tomatoes from a private farm at the end of the film and said, "This is the taste of tomatoes I ate when I was eight years old." .
This literary style, which always thinks that "the golden years in the past were better than the present", encounters the most specific question: Are you sure that all the tomatoes you have eaten in China in recent years are genetically modified tomatoes? Are you sure your psychological cues didn't affect your taste? At this time, you think it is necessary to do a double-blind experiment (at least don't tell Xiao Cui in advance whether he is eating non-genetically modified tomatoes).
Xiao Cui doesn't seem to know much about social statistics. Such as how to conduct scientific sampling? Yes, news interviews often focus on arresting people. But now you face a scientific problem. You should at least pay attention to the scientific choice of the interviewee. For example, people who visit organic supermarkets are already paying attention to the so-called "pure nature" and other factors. It is impossible to get a universally representative answer when asking questions in this highly homogeneous crowd.
1948 In the US presidential election, Gallup poll made the most humiliating mistake in history: they predicted that Dewey would be elected president instead of Truman, but the actual election result was just the opposite. When reviewing their mistakes, Gallup found a problem: because they took a telephone sampling survey, and people with telephones were relatively wealthy families at that time, they were more inclined to choose Dewey. The problem is that relatively wealthy families cannot represent a wider range of public opinions. Xiao Cui's interview always reminds me of Gallup's mistakes.
In the specific interview, Cui Yongyuan also asked questions unconsciously. From the psychology of interpersonal communication, the interviewee will usually subconsciously cater to you and tell the most satisfactory answer within his own psychological permission. When you ask the street vendor, "Are you a lime?" The stall owner will observe your words and deeds, see if you like sour and sweet, and make corresponding answers. Although the interviewee's catering to the interviewer is not so exaggerated, the average person will instinctively avoid offending the other party or making conversation choices that are not conducive to him.
Therefore, when you go to the supermarket and ask "Do you have genetically modified soybeans here?", the other party will subconsciously think that "it sounds like genetically modified soybeans are not a good thing, so it is better to say no, and it is not a court testimony anyway." In addition, it is taboo to use professional abbreviations when asking questions to ordinary people. Ask the general American genetically modified, many Americans may not know what genetically modified is at all, and then listen to it as "genetic engineering". Okay, "that sounds complicated. Is it a good thing? To be on the safe side, I still don't want it. I don't understand anyway. "
On some key issues, Cui Yongyuan did not ask questions in depth. For example, about 4 minutes and 40 seconds, a woman said that she didn't buy organic food until she was sick. As a conscientious reporter, Xiao Cui should immediately ask: "Did the doctor say that your illness was related to your previous eating of genetically modified food? Which doctor said that? Is there any concrete evidence? After not eating now, are the conditions better? " But Xiao Cui didn't ask, but used a meaningful black field to go to the next scene.
Some details in the documentary also lack factual verification. For example, an old lady mentioned that she had eaten organic food for a month, and the tumor was in the house! However! Just! Out! Lost! Yes! Extraordinary things need extraordinary evidence. Has Cui Yongyuan followed up the fact check for such an example that obviously violates the common sense of modern medicine? If so, it should be published to solve the confusion of modern medicine. Similarly, the gallbladder color of pigs fed with genetically modified feed is darker than that of pigs fed with non-genetically modified feed. What are the experimental details when this lens flashed by? How do you compare? Didn't even explain.
There are some details in the documentary, such as translation. The reverse organization "Moms Across America" was translated into "Moms Across America" in the film, which was quite murderous. In fact, the word cross here only means "across America" and can be translated into "American mother". Of course, these are all sections, and the biggest problem with this film is not here.
To sum up, in my opinion, Cui Yongyuan failed to prove the "harm" of genetic modification. He just proved how far a wise man can go on the road of fallacy after adopting the wrong methodology. He just proved how far you can go south when your goal is the north.