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Survey respondents were given a brief description of an application
of biotechnology using rice (insect-protected rice that could increase
global food production) or tobacco (production of human serum albumin,
used for blood replacement in many surgeries). Included in the description
was a societal benefit in the form of the number of human lives
that could be saved worldwide should the technology be implemented.
Each subject was randomly assigned to one level of societal benefit.
The study employed a 50-cell design, with the number of lives saved
ranging from one to 1,000,000. A minimum of 12 data points were
collected per cell in the design.
The distribution of overall support for each technology application
(rice, tobacco) is shown in the figure below:
Both technology applications were embraced by a majority of the
respondents, with the pharmaceutical-producing transgenic tobacco
technology garnering greater support as compared to GMO rice.
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Level of societal benefit had little effect on support for the technologies.
Response trajectories across the levels of benefit are shown in
the figure below:
In tandem to the figure above, data were analyzed using nonparametric
tests for overdispersion (heterogeneity of proportions) and parametric
logit models. No convincing linear relationship was recovered for
either technology application (although the line in the figure for
pharmaceutical-producing transgenic tobacco hints of a weak positive
linear relationship). Variation in the observed proportions along
the benefit level continuum are consistent with sampling variability.
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