I recently spoke at Cornell about the public GMO discourse–who has shaped it and how some commonly held perceptions have taken hold in the media. In one talk, I discussed the importance of thought leaders, such as Michael Pollan and Vandana Shiva. Pollan and Shiva are cultural icons who speak to (and on behalf of) people who…Continue Reading…
[UPDATE: See media reaction at bottom of this post. Also, be sure to read the correction at end of the NYT article and the response from the NYT public editor.] I’m racing to meet a deadline, but this story in the New York Times is so dismaying I had to take a few minutes to call attention to…Continue Reading…
A decade ago, Bill Nye, aka The Science Guy, did a segment on GMOs for his TV show. His approach surprised some who saw it years later. “It was weightily anti-GMO, something I wouldn’t have expected from Bill Nye,” one writer has noted. You can watch it yourself and decide. Others have rendered their judgement: Greenpeace,…Continue Reading…
A succession of stories in recent weeks involving scientists and open records requests have anguished many who cherish two ideals: academic freedom and transparency. I imagine that journalists have also been grappling with a tension between those two ideals. (I know I have.) More on that in a minute. First a recap. Two weeks ago, I reported…Continue Reading…
In the current issue of Science, I report that a dozen university academics recently received freedom of information requests from a non-profit group opposed to genetically modified (GM) products. Why were these 12 scientists selected? In my piece, I write: The group, U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) of Oakland, California, says it has no vendetta….Continue Reading…
Earlier this week I learned that a dozen public sector scientists working in the field of biotechnology were hit with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from a California-based group opposed to GMO foods. I spoke with many of the targeted scientists and also with the anti-GMO activist who filed the document requests. My story will…Continue Reading…
Bill Maher, the comedian and host of his own HBO show, is God’s gift to conservatives. Nobody makes liberals look likes asses more than Maher. You think I’m kidding? Try watching Maher’s latest show without banging your head against the wall (if you’re an evidence-based, science-minded-liberal). As Mark Hoofnagle observes at his Denialist blog, it…Continue Reading…
The Republican political strategy during the past six years has been simple and consistent: If Obama was for it, we had to be against it. No cooperation meant no bipartisan photo ops. The one guy who bucked that was New Jersey Governor Chris Christie during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when the Governor praised President Obama for…Continue Reading…
Last year, the late night talk show host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel added some levity to the contentious GMO debate. He went to a Los Angeles farmers market and asked passerby to define GMO. The responses were hilarious and perhaps revealing. Of course, this was a comedy skit, so make what you will of the ignorance…Continue Reading…
In the late 2000s, I spent a year in Boulder, Colorado with my family. At the time, my two sons were four and two years old. The older one was in a pre-school and the younger one attended a day care for the last six months of our stay. My wife and I were pleased with both…Continue Reading…