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…
A recent article in Slate carried this headline: If You Don’t accept Climate Change is Real, You’re Not a Sceptic. You’re a Denier. I’ll return to its claim in a minute. The piece, by Arizona State University professor Lawrence Krauss, ruefully notes that the term “climate skeptic” is frequently used in the media as a…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…
I suppose you have heard about the recent Disneyland measles outbreak. The story is receiving wide coverage in the media, triggering a fresh wave of angst over the increasing reoccurrence of preventable diseases in the United States–and outrage over the small percentage of parents who do not vaccinate their children. Last year, per the Centers for Disease Control…Continue Reading…
Several years ago, the Boston Review published a forum called, “The Truth About GMOs.” Nine viewpoints were represented. All the authors, a number of them scientists and scholars, had different perspectives. Some were enthusiastic biotech supporters, others staunch opponents. Several had staked out a middle ground, acknowledging the technology’s benefits and risks. The truth about GMOs, it turned…Continue Reading…
In 2000, Salon asked, “Is your cell phone killing you?” Last year, editors there must have decided the verdict was in when they published this embarrassing piece entitled, “Your cellphone is killing you: What people don’t want you to know about electromagnetic fields.” Rather than waste my time explaining the egregious flaws in that article,…Continue Reading…