Mocha Express
Commentaries
Thought provoking commentary on
Business, Technology, Organizations, and Organizational Dynamics
to clarify my thinking and engage in intelligent conversation.
Library: Commentary  Book: Elucidate

2.6 Lying With Statistics: CNN Article that Organic Food is Not "more nutritious'

August 22, 2008

Lying With Statistics:
CNN Article that Organic Food is Not "more nutritious'

In an undergraduate physics course, I was taught that the easiest way to get "the results you want" is to draw the curve then plot the data. That way, you ignore anything that doesn't fit.

CNN recently had a news story about a report by the University of Copenhagen published in Society of Chemical Industry’s (SCI) Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/08/19/organic.cooking.pv/index.html

Basically, carrots, kale, mature peas, apples and potatoes were raised 3 ways in adjacent fields and then fed to animals over 2 years to see about retention of minerals and trace elements. The three were
   - organic soil, with manure but no pesticide,
   - organic soil with manure and "organic" pesticides,
   - similar soil with mineral fertilizers and pesticides.

Result: no measurable difference.
While the researcher was circumspect in her conclusions, her funding agency was not.

So, what's wrong with this picture?

  1. no report of trace pesticides (ignore the man behind the curtain)
  2. they only measured known "major and trace contents"
    if you read Nina Plank's "Real Food" you quickly find that "science" can only talk about what they already know and don't really know all the pieces, much less measure them.
  3. they did quantitative measures not qualitative measures. Many organic molecules have "minor differences" that may be significant.
  4. what else was in the different products that wasn't measured?
    Remember: we gave up saturated fats to eat transfats because they were "better" and we have come to find that they are terrible for us!
  5. they drew broad generalities from very limited data
  6. they were supported by someone with an agenda and they conformed to that agenda.
  7. the supporting agency hyped broad conclusions.

Bottom line: here is yet another simplistic research result that causes distrust of "science".


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Elucidate
      Chapters

1   Clever, but not very Smart
  January 01, 1997
1.1   Mayberry Rules
    February 20, 2012
2   Random Elucidatons
  January 01, 1997
2.1   Stifle Free Speech
    November 16, 2012
2.2   Rewarding Accomplishing Goals
    February 17, 2013
2.3   Banana Slugs:The Law of Unintended Consequences:Protect and Lose
    August 02, 2009
2.4   Computer ate my Sbx Reward
    February 03, 2013
2.5   The End Of Innovation or How To Lie With Statistics?
    July 02, 2005
2.6   Lying With Statistics:CNN Article that Organic Food is Not "more nutritious'
    August 22, 2008
2.7   Everything Old is New Again
    June 28, 2011
2.8   Topical:just like Sub-Prime => Commodity Greed
    April 19, 2008
2.9   Tools:Spreading Knowledge That Can Hurt:
    April 14, 2008
2.10   Tools:Trying to Help While Still Selling Corn
    February 27, 2008
2.11   The Game is Rigged:Attacking with Speculative Analysis
    January 06, 2008
2.12   Getting your "Eyes On" to see ATV Damage
    November 26, 2007
2.13   US Forest Service - "Leave No Trace... or you will do Trail Maintenance with a Trowel!"
    October 13, 2007
2.14   Act Locally, Destroy Globally:Cultivate Disease Resistance
    March 04, 2007
2.15   Joisting with Self-Glorifying Windmills
    March 03, 2007
3   Analysis
  January 01, 1997
3.1   Analysis of Medical Insurance Discussion
    April 06, 2013
3.2    Degrees of Risk
    April 24, 2013
3.3   Qualifying Experts
    January 25, 2014
4   Finches:Urban Ones Smart??
  March 23, 2016
5   BBC - Propaganda
  June 10, 2016
6   BBC Propaganda, again
  June 15, 2016
7    Why did Agriculture Start 13,000 years ago
  June 23, 2016
8   Ice Core TimeLine Munge
  September 22, 2016
9   Ice Age Survival
  December 29, 2016
Carpe Diem: What you can envision, you can achieve!sm
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