"The authors present no new information, raise no new issues, and reiterate theoretical concerns that already have been dismissed by experts and regulatory authorities around the world."
http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/IJBS-GMO-health-risk...
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/01/15/gm-corn...
They mainly channel Karl Haro von Mogel, who notes on his blog "the authors have a little history of making mistakes with statistics with this same data set" and points to further information:
http://www.biofortified.org/2010/01/organ-failure-organ-dama...
I'd like to add that, partiality aside, the Monsanto's argument is fallatious and unconvincing (appeal to authority). Give me data from independent, properly designed studies, not the mere opinion of experts.
Define coherence K as cardinality of (P1 & P2 &... &Pn) | (D1 & D2 &...&Dn).
Varjag's conjecture: as n approaches infinity, K asymptotically approaches zero. Therefore if true, the argument from authority is rendered relevant.
(the proof is left as an exercise to a reader)
P_i and D_i are sets of proponenents/detractors for discipline S_i, right?
I so, I assume that the & and | boolean operators you use are substitutes for set union and intersection, respectively.
Assuming that the opinions on the various topics are independent, I would rather see K tend to
\sum |P_i| == \sum |D_i|
___
Also, for my previous post:
s/(appeal to authority)/(appeal to potentially corrupt authority)/Given enough controversial subjects people care for, no one is going to be knowledgeable in all of them. But people invoke "arguing from authority is a fallacy" only when they are not sided with the said authority.
This is just using an ad hominem to attack people who cite the argument from authority fallacy. Science is also based on careful examination of empirical evidence, not unsubstantiated pronouncements by authority figures.
Consider how long it took to get rid of phlogiston theory in physics, even when falsified by experiments. The physicists of the day were careful and rigorous, honest scientists, and their opponents did not have (initially) any alternative theory to replace it with.
And perhaps we are giving too much credit to most people involved in public debates for examination of empirical evidence. I can say honestly that I tried to read the whole IPCC report, but got barely 1/4th in (it is incredibly thick and dense with facts). Very few of my peers though even glanced as the cover, yet their opinions on it are not any less strong.
Still, I would not put as much trust in a study/debunking coming directly from Monsato than I would a study coming from other sources.