Renewed Attacks on Science Communication
Today I posted some rather positive news. Students from my lab visited a school and taught six kindergarten classes how seeds grow, and we provided a seedling to over 150 students. Each plant was in a test tube and could be planted in the garden later. The idea is to get kids to connect to science and grow healthy food in their homes. The materials were paid for from my science outreach program. A tweet about planting seeds with grade school kids ignites a hate storm. But on the eve of the Science March, the idea of kids participating in STEM is apparently a threat to many. This, along with a comment from a Purdue faculty member about my talk yesterday ignited the hate. Undisclosed kickbacks? So I posted a link to my funding history, which includes no funding from Monsanto. Zero. Then Gary Ruskin, from the industry-sponsored front group US-Right To Know, posts a letter from Monsanto to me obtained freely from my FOIA'd emails. The company agre