Letters to the Editor
factician
Published Letters: 36 Editor's Choice: 14
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Tone deaf
[Read the article: Transgenic public relations: Why is it so hard? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]top academic scientists enjoy a steady stream of income...
You should talk to a top academic scientist some day. None of them are enjoying a steady stream of anything. Your assertion is quite simply science fiction. The last 4 years have actually been a pretty grim period for funding for any type of science.
Academic scientists careers depend on absolute honesty. It's okay to be wrong (as long as you're not wrong often), but if you are shown to have distorted or misrepresented data - even once - your career is over. Imagine working a job where every word you write is scrutinized for error by thousands of your colleagues - and that your career depends on you being shown to be right. That's why scientists as a lot are a cautious bunch. They have to be careful. The idea that academic scientists are being convinced to distort data en masse about genetically modified food is absolutely preposterous. Accusations are one thing.
As for monetary reasons to distort data - if scientists were working to become rich - they are monumentally stupid. Scientists as a group are paid less for their efforts than any other profession. Imagine a profession where you can train for 12 -16 years after completing high school - and that your first job makes you $30-60K. If scientists motivations were economic - they wouldn't be scientists.
It's too bad that all the anti-GM crowd ever has are vague, wispy accusations of dishonesty or greed. Why don't we have some proof for once? Show an instance where an unsafe GM product found its way onto the market due to dishonesty. This should be quite easy, after all, if dishonesty and greed are the motivating forces, here. There are products that have been on the market for over a decade, and there are many more in the pipe.
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mercury militia?
[Read the article: Autism debate, Take 5,832]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No doubt I will be accused of being an arrogant scientist, but here goes... Which of the following sentences makes sense to you?
"Cosmologists have found several planets rotating around stars quite a distance from earth, but parents disagree."
"Geologists have found that plate tectonics underlies the formation of mountains and the occurrence of earthquakes, but parents disagree."
"Medical scientists have found that thimerosal and vaccines have nothing to do with autism, but parents disagree."
This was a trick question. All 3 statements are nonsensical.
*That's* why rationalists call parents who campaign to ban vaccines the "mercury militia". Right or wrong, it's out of frustration with the lunacy of it all.
(As an aside, I'm a biomedical scientist and new parent. My son has been having *all* of his vaccines on schedule.)
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I will limit my criticism
[Read the article: Stop your sobbing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I will limit my criticism of this article to one dimension (as others are more ably dealing with the other *major* problems with this article). The authors of this article are clearly in love with some post-modernist relativism. But though they've learned a few science words, they clearly haven't the foggiest idea of how science works.
Please try again.
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Discovery Channel in Canada
[Read the article: Here comes the Earth]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Discovery Channel in Canada is showing it tonight in HD (http://www.discoverychannel.ca/shows/showdetails.aspx?sid=5180). Sadly, I can find no mention anywhere of a similar showing here in the U.S.
These are fantastic photos and videos. I can't wait to watch them in HD.
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It depends on the technology
[Read the article: Give us your poor, your tired, your genetic modification experiments]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Depending on which technology you use, biotech crops are intended to be used with fewer pesticides, or more herbicides.
The two most common technologies currently in use are:
1. The BT-crops, that are resistant to all kinds of weevils and caterpillars. Pretty cool technology, kills worms, but doesn't harm people. I forget the figure, but you'd have to eat about a ton of the stuff in a single sitting for it to kill you. More likely to fall on you and crush you than poison you. And the farmers who use them tend to use less pesticide, not more (because they don't need to).
2. Roundup Ready crops (like wheat) are designed to be resistant to Roundup, a broad-spectrum herbicide. It's a neat trick, because Roundup kills almost all plants (except the Roundup Ready ones). Thus you only have to spray with Roundup, not multiple different herbicides. It's likely that farmers who use Roundup Ready wheat *do* spray with more Roundup, but if you want a benign herbicide, Roundup is it. It mineralizes (meaning it breaks down into carbon dioxide and water) in a matter of a couple of weeks, so within a few weeks of applying it, it is broken into its constituent molecules. Sounds pretty good to me.
Really, doesn't sound so bad to me. (And I assure you, rats, nor people, can taste the difference).
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It won't just be Monsanto
[Read the article: The super-bollworm cometh]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It won't just be Monsanto pressuring the government to shrink the size of refuges. Keep in mind, in the short run, these refuges will be less productive. Farmers themselves have all kinds of incentive to hope their neighbor will plant those refuges, but that they themselves get to plant the BT-plants. If it were your farm, why would you want to plant anything other than the most productive, most resistant plants? Many farmers are on the edge, gambling with their livelihood. Every. Single. Year. (Full disclosure: I'm the son of farmers, and many of my cousins still farm). If you're gambling that way, wouldn't you want to stack the deck with the most productive plants?
The government always has to take the collective's best interests to heart, rather than individuals. It's true for farming. It's true for fishing. It's too bad that more often than not the government takes the loudest voices to heart, not the collective.