Quote:
Originally Posted by Thor
Scientific evidence is influenced by lobbying??? Peer reviewed science cannot be bought, it cannot be made to say one thing, because if a company releases a study into the peer review scientific journals, it has to meet very tough criteria and IF is bad science others will be quick to show the failings of such a study.
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I don't think I'd go quite that far (and I'm in the pro-GMO camp). Rather I'd say the truth eventually comes out. There are plenty of peer-reviewed studies affected by biases, and certain journals known to be "industry friendly" (or pseudo-science friendly for that matter). It generally isn't anything so crude as false data though - more often what I see is that the influence is on what questions are asked and what effects a study looks for. A lot of times it's things like sticking to standardized methodologies even when there are indications that the critical effects might not be detected by these methods. This isn't just on the industry side either - for example the study you mentioned earlier in this thread with the anti-GMO bias. However, for anything important if an obviously biased study comes out, others will challenge it, criticize the methods, and do more studies, and eventually the evidence will speak for itself.