According to John Ioannidis, most published research findings are false ((Ioannidis is likely of Greek extraction, perhaps even of Cretan blood?)). This is because of the Winner’s Curse: scientists need to oversell to get heard, published and funded ((Young, Ioannidis & Al-Ubaydli in PLoS Medicine; and discussed in The Economist.)).
Does this affect agrobiodiversity research?
Yes, it does.
Take this press release that came in today: “Research finds way to double rice crops in drought-stricken areas.” Right. Perhaps there were some extreme experimental conditions where this is true, but I find it hard to believe there is a magic set of markers that will let you select for double rice yield under normal drought conditions relevant for farmers. I think that’s a bit much. Perhaps the typical benefit might be as high as 10%, but that does not make for a good headline (even though it would be a staggering result, really) ((The paper’s abstract speaks of an effect of 40% in the extreme case, that’s more reasonable. I wonder if 40% means doubling to the person who wrote the press release )) .
If only, then we could also throw in the Hardy gene, for another 50% boost.
Here’s another example of overselling, say Stuart Orr and colleagues ((Stuart Orr, James Sumberg, Olaf Erenstein & Andreas Oswald. 2008. Funding international agricultural research and the need to be noticed. A case study of NERICA rice. Outlook on Agriculture 37:159-168.)) in a recent review article on NERICA — “New Rice for Africa”.
NERICA is a group of rice varieties produced at the Africa Rice Center (WARDA). They have been produced after a breakthrough in rice genetics, the use of embryo rescue to cross Asian (Oryza sativa) with West African (O. glaberrima) rice. The offspring of these crosses has been back-crossed a number of times with sativa parents such as IR64.
NERICA varieties have been referred to as “miracle rice” and are said to be higher yielding, have higher quality, compete better with weeds, be more stress resistant, etc. etc. etc. This has created a lot of interest, enthusiasm and funding for their continued development and dissemination. Orr says that all the hoopla about NERICA is not backed up by the (published) facts. This perhaps explains why adoption of NERICA varieties is not what was hoped for.
Wopereis and colleagues ((MCS Wopereis, A Diagne, J Rodenburg, M Sié & EA Somado. 2008. Why NERICA is a successful innovation for African farmers. A response to Orr et al. from the Africa Rice Center. Outlook on Agriculture 37:169-176.)) defend WARDA and NERICA saying that NERICAs perform well, that there are new published data, that the outlandish claims were made by others, and that there is nothing wrong with enthusiasm.
I do not know how good NERICAs are, but some farmers like them, which is good. And WARDA definitely has created a renewed interest in breeding rice varieties for Africa, where many, it seems, had given up. That’s good too. Better still would be to move beyond the NERICA brand, and try and disseminate a broad and diverse set of varieties. Let the farmers decide.
As the anniversaries of Darwin’s birth year (1809) and his Origin of Species (published in 1859) approach, London’s Natural History Museum has an exhibition on the great man. It takes you through his life and discoveries, paying equal attention to biography and biology. The exhibition opens with two mockingbird specimens, explaining their role in Darwin’s discovery of evolution. The famous finches are there, too, but apparently they played a less important role in the formation of Darwin’s theory. The most impressive part, I found, were the original letters exhibited, including a famous letter from his wife Emma, about religion, at the bottom of which Charles noted that he had cried about it for hours. The exhibition closes with a section on past and present responses to evolution theory.