After reading this article I felt that the author, Layla Katiraee, did not have a particular stance on
the issue. She merely just explained how research and testing hypothesis’s works and where the
burden of proof lies. She did an excellent job proving her viewpoint that it swayed me to agree
with her. I believe that in research it is very hard to prove something to be safe as a number of
things are not 100% safe. For example, water which is seen to be healthy for you is not 100%
safe. So asking someone to prove that something is safe is essentially asking someone to prove
the absence of risk. Additionally, if a study finds no difference to disprove the null hypothesis it
does not mean that the hypothesis is true. With that being said, there are many claims out there
about GMO’s and how they can cause cancer and male infertility, but there has yet been a well-
executed and well-designed study proving that they have a negative impact on human health. Not
only that, but the burden of proof lies on the researcher making the claim so it doesn’t make
sense for them to expect others to prove them wrong. It is up to them to prove their claim and not
the other way around. Instead of understanding and recognizing this system, a number of people,
specifically anti-GMO activists, chose to believe that the research is being silenced or that
researchers are being paid off. The reason why there’s an absence of such studies being
conducted is because the data that is currently on hand leads scientists to believe that it will not
generate positive results. This will lead to a waste of funding and time and has nothing to do with
being paid off or whatever anti-GMO activists believe. Due to the totality of research that’s been
conducted scientists has come to a consensus that the current crops on the market pose no greater
risk to health than their non-GMO counterparts. This will stand true until there is a study that
displays a difference and disprove this null hypothesis.
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Module 3 Article Response #1
