The Value of Warrants - Analyzing Debate

(WEEKLY WRITING NUMBER 4)

To understand the debate around food is to try to understand a highly complex process involving government subsidies, corporate interests and issues of human rights (good and bad). Therefore, upon delving head-first into the controversial debate, both sides are ready with ammunition and it is nearly impossible to pick a distinguishable winner. In my last analysis, I investigated the controversies surrounding genetically modified food species. Yet, despite my best efforts, it is an impossible to pin down the debate and really grasp the true and total spectrum of how large the issues surrounding American consumerism and the products that it consists of really is. Ultimately, it is important to keep investigating the issues and keep understanding both sides of the debate.

Karryn Sako, a writer for ActionBioscience.org presents a very compelling argument regarding both sides of the debate in her article The Debate Over Genetically Modified Foods, but insets her own personal bias’ into the piece to make her personal feelings towards the issue easy to distinguish. She first, breaks down the science of the process and goes into the debate, ultimately concluding that the process of Genetic Modification, while not fully understood is making revolutionary advancements in food development – and thus she supports it. She describes how the process is similar to that of selective breeding. While traditional breeding methods are slow, they essentially breed traits out. In this new genetics breeding, biotechnicians achieve unnatural boosting to the process by fusing DNA in plants. Thus, she goes into the benefits of the debate. She explains that through the process of genetic modification, growing GM crops is initially costly but cheaper in the long run. Further, farmers need less herbicides in GM fields and further with animals (she uses Salmon) they are shown to grow 30 times faster than average and may soon be approved by the FDA.

While she does introduce risks into her argument, the support and warrants behind her claims are substantial. For her support, as any scientific article does, she goes into scientific support for all her claims and looks into real time observations to back up her claims. For example, through interviews with farmers, she found that growing GM is economical by stating that while initially crops are expensive but money is saved on pesticides in the long run. While farmers need expensive equipment, they will ultimately spend less time producing the products and it is precise so unwanted genes are eliminated. To conclude her argument, she distinguishes one more time the reasons why her argument is substantial – recapping her previous claim. These arguments include improved storage and nutritional quality, pest and disease resistance, selective herbicide tolerance, improved animal welfare and higher yields and quality.

For ethos, an appeal based upon character of the speaker, she is very successful at conveying her argument. She is writing specially to a scientific audience, based upon the nature of the forum for which she is publishing her argument. She appeals to the nature of the magazine, giving concrete scientific data and gene processes but also many facts and figures. She assumes that the audience who is interested in this type of information will be able to understand the complexities of her scientific evidence. Additionally, the tone in which the language takes place is almost purely informational. While it is suggestive of her own personal opinion, you never hear a clear voice but rather facts to support a given conclusion. Logos in this instance ties directly into ethos. She is a credible scientific writer, and the forum here is purely scientific. She is only trying to appeal to our deductive reasoning surrounding economics, technology and the agricultural process. However, from a Pathos perspective, there is little to no emotion presented in this argument. This is pretty significant when the reader has a difficult time discerning the conclusion until the very end of the article because both sides of the argument are presented so thoroughly. For a reader who is not overly passionate about this topic, this article is informative, convincing and logical. However, it is not enough to persuade the other side to change their mind, because it is missing a very human element though extremely through and well written.

Looking at an entirely different perspective, I turned to the con side of the debate which appeals more so to Pathos, something the pro side has a difficult time doing. In the article Heads Monsanto Wins, Tails We Lose; The Genetically Modified Food Gamble, the title is relatively self explanatory. According to the article, author Robert Weissman, biotech crop is being grown today at astounding rates. For backers of the biotech revolution, this is cause to celebrate as they claim it helps farmers, promises to reduce hunger and poverty in developing countries. However, Weissman claims they are doing exactly the opposite. For all industry hype around the products, it is only four products – soy, corn, cotton and canola which are only bread to resist the Monsanto product ‘Roundup’ and only one naturally occurring pesticide. The benefits, however, stop there.

His support is vast. By quoting such individuals as Bill Freese, a science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety and author of Who Benefits from GM Crops, he has found that they do absolutely nothing to feed the hungry as they are only actually exported to rich countries, primarily as animal feed due to the price (Sakko also acknowledges the expensive costs which make her argument for GM’s feeding the poor seem counterintuitive). Additionally, he supports his argument, by saying that Glyphosate-resistance is supposed to enable earlier and less frequent spraying, but instead farmers must spray the particular herbicide more frequently and indiscriminately without fear of damaging the crop. What this does, it creates expenditures above and beyond, but reduces labor costs, which is good for industrial farms but bad for smaller operations. He further goes on to argue on behalf of the “social disaster of contributing to land concentration and displacement of farmers” as well as the ecological and sustainability problems with these type of crops that are already emerging. Most importantly, he discusses the idea and evidence supporting Monsanto’s “seed imperialism” which is occurring and putting farmers out of business.

His warrants are very effective. First, his argument importantly appeals to Pathos. As you are reading you envision large corporations who without hesitation are crushing the little guy, and further are putting them out of business due to legalities involving intellectual property of crops. This is not only something farmers can’t control (often GM crops will blow into their farms and breed with their own – a violation of the IP) but they don’t even know they are doing it. It is a sad picture to be painted, and paints the corporation in a very dim light. There is passion in his argument and it is convincing. Secondly, as an appeal to Logos, he draws a very successful case. For every claim he makes he takes the reader through the entire process of the crop, through the genetics involved to the cultivation process to the effects big and small. Our understanding of the process grows along with the development of his argument as he takes you environmental factors to substantial economic factors. However, in terms of ethos, the author is unknown, but supplements a famous author in his place to make his argument more credible. He posts this article on multinationalmonitor.org, so the credibility of him in particular isn’t quite there and you don’t know how extreme his views really are. Still, he supports all evidence with facts by experts which helps make his argument sound credible and refined.

The process of argument is so much more than simply providing facts and supplementing them with information. As an author, you need to appeal to multiple facets of the human emotion to create a convincing argument. In this examination, we found that it is one thing to provide the reader with facts and another to allow the reader to feel the passion of an author. This process, while simple, comes across as being a key element to persuasion by the reader.