A freakish element has long colored the historically impassioned GMO debate. The “frankenfood” term was first advanced decades ago by anti-GMO activists to play into health fears about foods produced from the (then) new genetic engineering technology. (These concerns have not been borne out by science.) Today, the meme is an ingrained feature of the discourse, echoed widely in the…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…
Watching Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan and other books, engage on twitter, is like being ringside at a verbal boxing match with the intellectual equivalent of Clubber Lang, the snarling, contemptuous boxer played by Mr. T in Rocky 3. In the movie, Clubber Lang was so mean and nasty the performance was almost a…Continue Reading…
A decade ago, controversy erupted after it was revealed that a creationist book was being sold in six bookstores at the Grand Canyon National Park. It was a biblical explanation of the Grand Canyon. As Cornelia Dean reported in the New York Times, the book says God created the heavens and the earth in six…Continue Reading…
In the early 1970s, leading environmental scientists and writers argued that curtailing economic growth was necessary to save human civilization from eco-collapse. The material needs of society were exhausting the planet’s resources. The worrying trends were laid out in a hugely influential 1972 report and best-selling book entitled, “The Limits to Growth.” Its authors concluded (page…Continue Reading…
Of the all the famous names associated with climate change, there are two I would love to see headlined in a debate–against each other. Both of these individuals believe global warming presents an existential threat, both believe Big Green is part of the problem, and both offer a radically different path to decarbonization of the…Continue Reading…
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is embarking on a comprehensive study of genetically engineered (GE) crops. It will examine the historic development of agricultural biotechnology, assess the “purported” benefits and negatives of GE crops, review food and environmental safety issues, and explore where the technology may be headed. What is prompting such a deep dive into…Continue Reading…
In 2012, science writer John Horgan published a book called The End of War. Its premise is that we have it in ourselves to tame our violent impulses, at least enough to stop waging large-scale, collective war. At first blush, this notion seems as quixotic and naive as a famous John Lennon and Yoko Ono…Continue Reading…
In 1997, I was living in Manhattan when the New York Observer—a sardonic weekly—published a front page story entitled, “New York is Germ City!” As the Seattle Times recalls:
One of the best books I’ve read in the last year is “The Bet,” by Yale historian Paul Sabin. The author penned a New York Times op-ed around the time of its publication. As Fred Pearce wrote in his New Scientist review, Saban “has produced an absorbing narrative of how two people’s ‘clashing insights’ unleashed…Continue Reading…