One of the main impediments to rational discussion of biotechnology is fear-mongering by anti-GMO zealots. The most outlandish claims (cancer! birth defects!) are couched in science and often peddled by activists like Jeffrey Smith, who is given the opportunity to air his baseless assertions to nationally syndicated TV audiences (on multiple occasions), courtesy of the popular but…Continue Reading…
The recent speech that Mark Lynas gave fleshing out his evolution on environmental issues–specifically his conversion on GMOs–continues to ricochet around the web. It’s a compelling story. If you’re just catching up, here’s a quick recap from Andy Revkin: The arc of Lynas’s fascinating career is in some ways neatly encapsulated by two acts at…Continue Reading…
Modern day heretics have it easy compared to their medieval antecedents (at least in the West). Denouncing dogma that they once propagated won’t get them tortured and burned at the stake. But they do stand a good chance of provoking hostile blowback, which is what Mark Lynas, the British environmental writer, has experienced this week….Continue Reading…
The British environmental writer Mark Lynas gave a speech recently that opened with this remarkable mea culpa: I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in…Continue Reading…
On Twitter, some smart people I follow alerted me to a post titled, “2012: The year crazy and stupid went mainstream.” It’s by a writer named Bernie Mooney who defines himself as a “progressive contrarian.” Here’s how he begins his post: I’ve always been of the mind that stupid should hurt, so 2012 was a hard…Continue Reading…
Get ready for another wave of anti-GMO mania. This one is about to rise up with the news that genetically modified salmon are on the verge of being approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There is quite an interesting backstory to this development, which Jon Entine revealed at Slate several days ago. The short version…Continue Reading…
At Slate, I have a short post that begins: The debate over genetically modified foods operates between two gradients: carnivalesque and politicized pseudoscience. I have some fun poking a stick at Bill Maher. I guess that makes me the David to his Goliath. Oh well. Enjoy.
We seem to be having a run of splashy, peer-reviewed GMO (genetically modified organism) studies that are of questionable merit. Several weeks ago, a team of French researchers published results that linked cancerous tumors in rats to the GM corn they were fed. But many scientists cast doubt on the study’s legitimacy almost immediately, and…Continue Reading…
In the science blogosphere, medical falsehoods and pseudoscience are routinely called out. The watchdogging is done by a mix of scientists and journalists, who are constantly rebutting a never-ending stream of misinformation about vaccines, autism, and other public health-related subjects. For example, the indefatigable blogger known as Orac (he is a medical doctor and cancer researcher) regularly…Continue Reading…
In Europe, anti-GMO activism has turned increasingly confrontational, which seems to have backfired in one recent case. In the United States, anti-GMO sentiment has taken a different form, which Amy Harmon of the New York Times wrote about last week in this excellent piece: For more than a decade, almost all processed foods in the United…Continue Reading…