A liberal publication (which I like and read) has a message for vaccine-hesitant parents. Vaccinate your kids, you ignorant whack jobs http://t.co/ngmTIZWAxp pic.twitter.com/TiBXz99Vxi — Mother Jones (@MotherJones) August 6, 2014 Alas, this is an incredibly ignorant and counterproductive thing to say. Whoever is running MoJo’s social media operation needs to get familiar with the latest…Continue Reading…
This tweet from today caught my eye: One picture that will convince everyone to vaccinate their kids http://t.co/cPH5cnbd9C — ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) April 8, 2014 The smart folks at ThinkProgress seem to have missed all the media coverage of this recent study, which found that, for those already suspicious or concerned about vaccines, images of sick children…Continue Reading…
The anti-GMO troops in the United States received some unwelcome news this week from Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). At a congressional hearing on Thursday, Hamburg reiterated the FDA’s support for voluntary GMO labeling initiatives, but nothing beyond that: The way FDA has for many years interpreted the law…Continue Reading…
Not long ago my wife and I went out to dinner at a restaurant with another couple, who, like us, have two boys. The conversation inevitably turned to our kids, school, family stuff. Their older son made the transition this year to junior high school. I asked how this was going. Pretty well, the mother…Continue Reading…
Periodically, some readers accuse me of characterizing climate skepticism in an overly broad manner. There are various subspecies, they insist. So I should stop painting all climate skeptics as frothing conspiracy mongers. My rejoinder is that I base my characterization on the loudest, most relentless climate skeptics, who have made themselves the representative voices of…Continue Reading…
The politicized and polarized nature of the climate debate is well established. Those who track the testy, emotionally-charged conversation on agricultural biotechnology wonder if the GMO discourse is heading down that road. I’ve argued that the rhetorical tactics of GMO skeptics and climate skeptics are similar. Others have also come to see these commonalities (cherry-picking…Continue Reading…
A hypothetical: You are a journalist who has written a great deal about the anti-vaccine movement and you have been asked to participate in a panel on the safety of childhood vaccines. This panel was organized by professional medical and health journalists. Also on this hypothetical panel would be a prominent scientist, such as Paul…Continue Reading…
The upcoming Australian Science Communicators conference is featuring a talk by the CEO of Greenpeace Australia Pacific. Here’s the abstract (my emphasis): Greenpeace is a science-based campaigning organization whose purpose is to stand up for the environment. We detect and understand the environmental problems we face through science, and depend on science and technology to…Continue Reading…
Several weeks ago, Nathanael Johnson at Grist reflected on what he had learned after spending half a year dissecting all the major claims and counter-claims that dominated the GMO debate. It was a very thoughtful post with a jarring headline: What I learned from six months of GMO research: None of it matters Many smart people…Continue Reading…