Zen and the art of GMO Policy Making

Madagascar is an island known the world over for it's unique evolutionary pathway. A pathway fated early on from it's isolated location in the Indian ocean conspiring with it's natural geological diversity to yield an unimaginably endemic radiation of plant and animalian diversity. Yet this diversity was 'fated', as it were, by situational happenstance - not conscious intent. Then, some two-thousand years ago - waves of a species with a most curious cranium began to land on these bleeding red shores. Humanity has left it's mark on Madagascar is fascinating ways; some intentional, perhaps, some unintentional. The on-going march of domestication of plants and animals in Malagasy agricultural systems is perhaps the most beautiful and complex blending of such intentional and unintentional change. For example, the voanjobory bean is a unique culinary treasure. Selected each season by skilled Malagasy farmers; this richly nutty legume offers a world of flavor beyond the bean isle of any western supermarket. The voanjobory is just one crop of many selected in this manner by taste and performance each growing season. An intentional selection process, the rise of which has cultivated human civilization for over 10,000 years! But the world is changing quickly; the variety of crops today's farmer may select from is expanding. From farm to region, nation to the world; globalizing forces, for better or worse, have expanded the choices each farmer must select from for any given field. In addition to global trade in agricultural seeds; a faster rate of flow is occurring in the symbolic domain of information. Basic Internet infrastructure combined with robust international scientific (and media) networking, now serve as strong environmental forces of selection for the thoughts and feelings a given farmer, student, researcher, or public policy maker experiences. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are the new kids on the block in the agri-seed ecosystem; and their arrival on the world stage has been met with exactly the kind of tribalistic brow-beating one would predict from the science of our moralistic brains. 

When it comes to GMOs in Africa; Madagascar is an exquisite case study. While details on current public policy are still vague (our students are hard at work separating fact from fiction!); we do know that Madagascar has among the most strict prohibitions on this facet of biotechnology across the continent of Africa. There are currently neither production nor experimental field trials of GMOs on the island.

So what...

Is Madagascar a forward thinking paradise for organic and "sustainable" agriculture, keeping the health of it's citizens and environment on the forefront of agricultural policy? 

OR

Has Madagascar taken a knee-jerk anti-science policy position; a form a neo-colonialism brought on by anti-GMO activists from the western world (sensu Paarlberg 2009)?

Now - I could go on to offer you (and my students at the University of Toliara) an "evidence-based" review of the literature; and in doing so I could compose a (seemingly) coherent argument strongly supporting either of these conflicting positions. Indeed; from my experiences in higher education - the rule rather than the exception is for students to be educated in one tradition or the other; both under an explicit guise of "critical thinking". Obviously a "fair and balanced" approach where all perspectives are considered is the seemingly more 'honest' approach to teaching this complex content - yet it remains to be seen that a science-based pedagogy exists that can really engage students in such critical thinking.

The Agricultural IST Students at University of Toliara
The first organized University-level program to engage
the question of GMOs in Malagasy Agriculture!

One common solution is to force students into a "debate" on the issues; we tell them to use their reasoning skills to formulate a moral stance based on evidence. We then reward them for parroting the talking points of a given tribal position. This approach would be fine if  "GMOs in Madagascar" really were a black-and-white, yes-or-no question; instead this issue represents a world of gray, a world begging for nuanced civility in the discourse (Paarlberg 2009). As University of Minnesota Professor, Jonathan Foley says "We have to get it right on our first (and only) try".

What if we change the questions we are asking? What if instead of telling students to use their reasoning skills to join one tribe or another; we tell them a new story about the functioning of our moral brains, and we give them a new vantage point from which to explore the science. This is exactly the experiment we launched last month at the agricultural Institut Superior Technologique (IST) at the University of Toliara here in SW Madagascar.

If want to see a reasoned, rational debate on GMOs in Madagascar; the first place to start is with human irrationality! When the competing tribes of science evoke the rational "evidence-based" approach of their own side; they are demonstrating a profound anti-science stance regarding the human condition. Advances in evolutionary science and moral psychology over and over again tell us a different story of our moral and moralistic brains.

We are tribalistic intuitionists; most ALL of us. We believe first and reason second. Our brains are naturally social and emotional - not scientific. "Well of course most people are like that, but not me and not my friends; We use reason and critical thinking!" - you are saying to yourself. Well - with all due respect, this is improbable at best (Haidt 2012, Kurzban 2012)

So what is to be done in the classroom? Well; a new science of intentional change is emerging that opens a mountainous set of tools for the curious educator to explore. In short; if we view the full range of diversity in opinion (on say, GMOs in Madagascar) as the end result (phenotype) of proximate evolutionary processes governing behavior, emotion, and cognition - we can begin to formulate environmental changes to the classroom that select for our most core values, rather than the knee-jerk (unIntentional - with a capital I) intuitional responses that our brains are so so good at 'naturally selecting' for (Wilson 2011, Wilson et.al in press). HUH? WHA?

In simpler terms.... rather than telling students to try to pick a side; we can engage them in viewing the moral discourse (on GMOs in Madagascar) as an ecosystem, or an organism; with ebbs and flows of energy that can result in states of system health or disease. Or as Jonathan Haidt conceives for political discourse, as yin and yang, balancing forces, the wisdom of which only emerges from healthy interaction.

In an ancient wisdom context, I am talking about the Buddhist notion of Mindfulness, cultivated traditionally through meditation. Increasingly, however, this state of consciousness is being evoked through a diverse range of metaphors and exercises of the mind empirically proven by researchers in the field of Contextual Behavioral Sciences (Kashdan & Ciarrochi 2013).

Educators may be able to tap these heavily validated approaches to cultivating Mindfulness for the service of improving moral discourse at the classroom, and perhaps public policy making domain.

After studying the evidential and moralistic diversity on the impact of GMOs; my students are currently engaged in the Service-Learning component of the course. Contacting a wide range of professionals with some knowledge of, or stake in this issue, to better understand this most human ecosystem first hand. In the months to come, our top students will be selected to craft a report. NOT a report about "should Madagascar grow GMOs or not"; but rather, it is an analysis of the "health" of the moral discourse in their country. This report will be made available to our growing list of Governmental and Non-Governmental agencies critically shaping the future of Malagasy Agricultural Policy.

There literally is a zen to the art of making public policy on biotechnology, I hope you'll follow our experiences as we cultivate this art at the University of Toliara!

What are your thoughts on this approach? Please comment or e-mail me [Dustin@MythicMinds.us].... Despite my background in Organic Agriculture, the response has been clearly more strongly supportive from the "Pro-GMO" side, and decidedly more skeptical from my "Anti-GMO" friends. If you believe science is on your side of this issue, than this process can only help cultivate an evidentially informed perspective. Yet if you focus mightily on the notion that "my science is right, how dare this guy muddy the waters for these students".... then perhaps you disagree with this methodology. One thing is clear - in the science on GMOs the only rational approach for the majority of us non-experts is a rather weak stance, welcoming new evidence with a skeptical eye, and wary of overtly moralisitic simplification of the complex reality.


References:

Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. Pantheon

Books. New York, NY

Kurzban, R. (2012) Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind. 
Princeton University Press

Paarlberg, R. (2009). Starved for Science: How biotechnology is being kept out of Africa. Harvard

University Press. Cambridge, MA

Wilson, D.S. (2011). The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a

Time. Little, Brown and Company; Hachette Book Group. New York, NY

Wilson, D.S.; Hayes, S.C.; Biglan, A.; Embry, D.D. (in press). Evolving the Future: Toward a Science of

Intentional Change. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Cambridge University Press.

Kashdan, T.B.; Ciarrochi J.V. (2013). Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Positive Psychology: The Seven

Foundations of Well-Being. The Context Press, an Imprint of New Harbinger Publications Inc. Oakland