GMO Opponents Are the Climate Skeptics of the Left is the title of an interesting article in the Left-leaning journal, Slate. Im a AGW skeptic but I have to post this.
1. Dont worry. Genetically modified corn isnt going to give you cancer.
2. I used to think that nothing rivaled the misinformation spewed by climate change skeptics and spinmeisters. Then I started paying attention to how anti-GMO campaigners have distorted the science on genetically modified foods. You might be surprised at how successful they've been and who has helped them pull it off.
3. Ive found that fears are stoked by prominent environmental groups, supposed food-safety watchdogs, and influential food columnists; that dodgy science is laundered by well-respected scholars and propaganda is treated credulously by legendary journalists; and that progressive media outlets, which often decry the scurrilous rhetoric that warps the climate debate, serve up a comparable agitprop when it comes to GMOs.
4. the emotionally charged, politicized discourse on GMOs is mired in the kind of fever swamps that have polluted climate science beyond recognition .A French research team purportedly found that GMO corn fed to rats caused them to develop giant tumors and die prematurely. Within 24 hours, the study's credibility was shredded by scores of scientists. The consensus judgment was swift and damning: The study was riddled with errorsserious, blatantly obvious flaws that should have been caught by peer reviewers. the study was "designed to frighten" the public.*
a. the lead author, Gilles-Eric Seralini, who, as NPR reports, "has been campaigning against GM crops since 1997," and whose research methods have been "questioned before," according to the New York Times.
5. .Seralini and his co-authors manipulated some members of the media to prevent outside scrutiny of their study. (The strategy appears to have worked like a charm in Europe.) Some reporters allowed themselves to be stenographers by signing nondisclosure agreements stipulating they not solicit independent expert opinion before the paper was released. That has riled up science journalists such as Carl Zimmer, who wrote on his Discover magazine blog: "This is a rancid, corrupt way to report about science. It speaks badly for the scientists involved, but we journalists have to grant that it speaks badly to our profession, too. ... If someone hands you confidentiality agreements to sign, so that you will have no choice but to produce a one-sided article, WALK AWAY. Otherwise, you are being played."
6. .concerns about GMOs, which are regularly echoed at other left-leaning media outlets, have little merit. As Pamela Ronald, a UC-Davis plant geneticist,pointed out last year in Scientific American: "There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops."
7. Some of these folks are worried about new genes being introduced into plant and animal species. But humans have been selectively breeding plants and animals pretty much since we moved out of caves, manipulating their genes all the while. The process was just slower before biotechnology came along .But people should know that GMOs are tightly regulated (some scientists say in an overly burdensome manner).
a. A recent 20-year study published in Nature found that GM crops helped a beneficial insect ecosystem to thrive and migrate into surrounding fields. For an overview of the benefits (and enduring concerns) of GM crops, see this recent post by Pamela Ronald. The bottom line for people worried about GMO ingredients in their food is that there is no credible scientific evidence that GMOs pose a health risk.
8. Such acceptance by lefties of what everyone else in the reality-based science community derides as patently bad science is just plain depressing, writes a medical researcher who blogs under the name Orac. He compares the misuse of science and scare tactics by GMO opponents to the behavior of the anti-vaccine movement.
9. This brand of fear-mongering is what I've come to expect from environmental groups,anti-GMO activists, and their most shamelessly exploitive soul travelers. This is what agenda-driven ideologues do .What's disconcerting is when big media outlets and influential thought leaderslegitimize pseudoscience and perpetuate some of the most outrageous tabloid myths, which have been given fresh currency by a slanted 2011 documentary that is taken at face value at places like the Huffington Post.
10. In a recent commentary for Nature, Yale University's Dan Kahan lamented the "polluted science communication environment" that has deeply polarized the climate debate. He writes: People acquire their scientific knowledge by consulting others who share their values and whom they therefore trust and understand. This means that lefties in the media and prominent scholars and food advocates who truly care about the planet are information brokers. So they have a choice to make: On the GMO issue, they can be scrupulous in their analysis of facts and risks, or they can continue to pollute the science communication environment.
Are GMO foods safe? Opponents are skewing the science to scare people. - Slate Magazine
Let's remember that Slate is recognized as a Left-leaning journal....and they published about far-Left anti-GM propaganda.
I post this particularly for one of my pals on the board who wrote, yesterday, that he was "worried about new genes being introduced into plant and animal species."
Hope this calms his fears.
1. Dont worry. Genetically modified corn isnt going to give you cancer.
2. I used to think that nothing rivaled the misinformation spewed by climate change skeptics and spinmeisters. Then I started paying attention to how anti-GMO campaigners have distorted the science on genetically modified foods. You might be surprised at how successful they've been and who has helped them pull it off.
3. Ive found that fears are stoked by prominent environmental groups, supposed food-safety watchdogs, and influential food columnists; that dodgy science is laundered by well-respected scholars and propaganda is treated credulously by legendary journalists; and that progressive media outlets, which often decry the scurrilous rhetoric that warps the climate debate, serve up a comparable agitprop when it comes to GMOs.
4. the emotionally charged, politicized discourse on GMOs is mired in the kind of fever swamps that have polluted climate science beyond recognition .A French research team purportedly found that GMO corn fed to rats caused them to develop giant tumors and die prematurely. Within 24 hours, the study's credibility was shredded by scores of scientists. The consensus judgment was swift and damning: The study was riddled with errorsserious, blatantly obvious flaws that should have been caught by peer reviewers. the study was "designed to frighten" the public.*
a. the lead author, Gilles-Eric Seralini, who, as NPR reports, "has been campaigning against GM crops since 1997," and whose research methods have been "questioned before," according to the New York Times.
5. .Seralini and his co-authors manipulated some members of the media to prevent outside scrutiny of their study. (The strategy appears to have worked like a charm in Europe.) Some reporters allowed themselves to be stenographers by signing nondisclosure agreements stipulating they not solicit independent expert opinion before the paper was released. That has riled up science journalists such as Carl Zimmer, who wrote on his Discover magazine blog: "This is a rancid, corrupt way to report about science. It speaks badly for the scientists involved, but we journalists have to grant that it speaks badly to our profession, too. ... If someone hands you confidentiality agreements to sign, so that you will have no choice but to produce a one-sided article, WALK AWAY. Otherwise, you are being played."
6. .concerns about GMOs, which are regularly echoed at other left-leaning media outlets, have little merit. As Pamela Ronald, a UC-Davis plant geneticist,pointed out last year in Scientific American: "There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops."
7. Some of these folks are worried about new genes being introduced into plant and animal species. But humans have been selectively breeding plants and animals pretty much since we moved out of caves, manipulating their genes all the while. The process was just slower before biotechnology came along .But people should know that GMOs are tightly regulated (some scientists say in an overly burdensome manner).
a. A recent 20-year study published in Nature found that GM crops helped a beneficial insect ecosystem to thrive and migrate into surrounding fields. For an overview of the benefits (and enduring concerns) of GM crops, see this recent post by Pamela Ronald. The bottom line for people worried about GMO ingredients in their food is that there is no credible scientific evidence that GMOs pose a health risk.
8. Such acceptance by lefties of what everyone else in the reality-based science community derides as patently bad science is just plain depressing, writes a medical researcher who blogs under the name Orac. He compares the misuse of science and scare tactics by GMO opponents to the behavior of the anti-vaccine movement.
9. This brand of fear-mongering is what I've come to expect from environmental groups,anti-GMO activists, and their most shamelessly exploitive soul travelers. This is what agenda-driven ideologues do .What's disconcerting is when big media outlets and influential thought leaderslegitimize pseudoscience and perpetuate some of the most outrageous tabloid myths, which have been given fresh currency by a slanted 2011 documentary that is taken at face value at places like the Huffington Post.
10. In a recent commentary for Nature, Yale University's Dan Kahan lamented the "polluted science communication environment" that has deeply polarized the climate debate. He writes: People acquire their scientific knowledge by consulting others who share their values and whom they therefore trust and understand. This means that lefties in the media and prominent scholars and food advocates who truly care about the planet are information brokers. So they have a choice to make: On the GMO issue, they can be scrupulous in their analysis of facts and risks, or they can continue to pollute the science communication environment.
Are GMO foods safe? Opponents are skewing the science to scare people. - Slate Magazine
Let's remember that Slate is recognized as a Left-leaning journal....and they published about far-Left anti-GM propaganda.
I post this particularly for one of my pals on the board who wrote, yesterday, that he was "worried about new genes being introduced into plant and animal species."
Hope this calms his fears.
