1.The Natural Why-Quirer (story map)

2.GM corn squabble

3.Nature pulls a U-turn

4.New news on old experiments

5.Madness in the method?

Sukitoshi Taba, head of CIMMYT's gene bank, examines a test plot of corn at the research center's test field in Poza Rica, Mexico. ©David Tenenbaum

Maize, or corn, is not just that familiar yellow stuff. The "land races" traditionally cultivated in Mexico include great genetic diversity, and are an essential resource for plant breeders. CIMMYT

Corn varieties drying before storage at a CIMMYT test farm. David Tenenbaum

How do we know what we know? Is something true, scientifically speaking, just because a scientist said so? Most times, these questions only bug philosophers of science, and maybe a few sociologists and historians.

Maybe we're talking 200 eggheads. Maybe 2,000. Whatever. This tribe couldn't support a community radio station, let alone a major tabloid like this one.

Once in a while, scientific disputes involve stuff that matters.

Like eating.

Then these arguments make headlines.

They should.

Squabbling scientists!
The tasty scientific brouhaha we're thinking about began last November with a report by two biologists at the University of California at Berkeley. Remember reading the tittle-tattle about genetically modified (GM) corn in traditional corn fields in Mexico.

Everybody knows how plant breeders move genes from these traditional "land races" of crops to fight diseases and boost yields. Well, lots of folks worry that genes from gene-spliced crops could pollute land races and ruin their genetic value.

CIMMYT, the international center for corn and wheat research, located near Mexico City, should know. And they say having different kinds of corn available is critical to anybody who plans to be hungry down the road.

After all, genetic problems can affect future generations: If, God forbid, a mutation gave Kirk Douglas a soprano voice, Michael and the other younger Douglases might be working at McDonalds.

The same may be true of traditional races of corn. Good genes can get polluted by bad ones.

At least, that's what many people began worrying about when they read the hubbub over the genetic engineered corn last fall.

Then everything started to fall apart, and we didn't know what to believe.

Unnatural Nature
The news that GM corn had moved genes to local varieties appeared in Nature, a scientific magazine that's older and even more respectable than the Natural Why-Quirer.

We figured that it was, well, kosher.

They don't send junk science to Nature. There are plenty of cheesy rags to publish that kind of flimflam, but we won't mention any names.

So imagine our surprise earlier this month, when Nature pulled an about-face. The editor, Philip Campbell, printed a letter calling the original report, well, bunk. "...Nature has concluded that the evidence available is not sufficient to justify the publication of the original paper."

The editor said readers would have to "judge the science for themselves."

Thanks, pal!

The flustered journal also published two letters accusing the original authors, Ignacio Chapela and David Quist, of error.

Then it printed a counter-attack from Chapela and Quist. They backed away from some of their claims, but said, you durn tootin'! Mexican land races of corn do carry GM genes.

Headline writers reacted with about as much restraint as a hungry china white hog in a corn patch:

"Suspect Evidence of Transgenic Contamination"

"Transgene Data Deemed Unconvincing"

"Maize Transgene Results in Mexico are Artifacts"

"Journal Raises Doubts on Biotech Study"

Well, we read those headlines and figured the article was a false alarm. The corn was clean. Knowing the value of traditional races to crop health, we heaved a sigh of relief and our minds wandered back to more important stuff: How come Russell Crowe, baddest man-child of Hollywood, was robbed of an Academy Award? Why did the talent-heavy Milwaukee Bucks sink like a stone this year?

It's not every day that Nature's editor throws up his hands and tells readers to decide for themselves. So we got thinking: Journal editors and scientists have made some other U-turns lately:

Three years ago, The Lancet reported that rats that ate gene-spliced potatoes had suffered injury. Then, in the same issue, The Lancet undermined its own report.

Last fall, several studies found that GM maize carrying the natural insecticide Bt did not harm monarch butterflies. An earlier report had said the opposite.

Last month, we read that fusion -- which powers the sun and hydrogen bombs -- can be started by intense sound waves. At room temperature. And that's despite the fact that hydrogen atoms don't fuse into helium until they get insanely hot. Shades of the old cold fusion debate. Then the editor said, well, maybe it ain't so. In the same issue! We'll get back to this one. Promise.

And on March 7, astronomers at Johns Hopkins said the universe is not turquoise. Maybe you didn't hear, but this same crew had revealed that important fact a few months before. You read it here first: The universe is a safe, sedate beige. In the best pass-the-buck tradition, the scientists credited their cataclysmic chromatic confusion to -- software!

Wasn't the scientific method supposed to prevent this kind of nonsense? Doesn't it allow scientists to serve up truth, unvarnished and uninterrupted?

We hate to have to break the news, but it ain't necessarily so. Science, it would seem, is a lot messier. Like celebs and gossip calumnists -- er, columnists -- scientists suffer preconceptions, misconceptions, and self-deceptions.

Corn in the Mexican state of Oaxaca is contaminated by genes
from genetically modified corn -- isn't it? Courtesy Tour by Mexico.

Good ideas like plate tectonics are rejected for decades. Bad ideas like cold fusion and "scientific creationism" just won't die, even when buried under a mountain of evidence.

And controversial stuff -- like the dangers of GM food -- stick around in the headlines because they are so hard to pin down and, if we may say, viscerally important.

Heard Rosie's planning a special on that tainted corn in Mexico...

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