Illumination 2.0

Starting a few weeks ago the European Commission began a public feedback period on the regulation of gene edited crops.  Gene editing is a relatively non-invasive, rapid way to make precise genetic alternations of crops to improve specific traits. Changes made frequently emulate natural variations.  The EU has had excessively harsh restrictions on transgenic technology, not approving any new genetically engineered crops in decades. Activists wish for the same hyper-rigorous repression of technology to be applied to new plant genetic improvement techniques.  EU farmers and scientists almost universally feel that the technology could have some benefit, and should be part of the region's technologies.  So when the European Commission opened a public comment period, it was spammed by an avalanche of identical and near-identical comments that were distributed by anti-biotech groups.  No thinking, just copying and pasting as they were told to.   The European...

 For the last 25 years I've listened to the tired argument that Monsanto controls farmer seed choice.  Over and over again. Even since the hated seed company has ceased to exist, I still hear the same boring trope.  This is the position of activist groups and their parrots, and others that never actually tried to tell a farmer what they would be allowed to grow on their space.  Farmers choose what is best for their land, their schedule, their budget, input availability, and dozens of other factors.  Cotton, corn, soybean canola and sugarbeet growers oftentimes choose genetically engineered seeds containing the traits that serve their production system and support their bottom line.  Farmers control farmer seed choice. Unless you are a corn farmer in Mexico that wishes to use traited seeds.  Anti-biotech activists feel that Mexican farmers should have the unrestricted freedom to choose any maize varieties they wish to plant -- from the list of  ac...

 The following article was printed April 7, 2015.  It was written by Iowa State student Kelsey Faivre after she attended talks by Vandana Shiva and me, Kevin Folta.   Shiva was invited to Iowa State University by a student group. Fearing the usual barrage of bad information, another group on campus invited me to provide the scientific counterpoint.  My whole presentation from 3/25/15 can be seen here.  Ms. Faivre captured the contrast between the two events well.  Reprinted here without permission from Feedstuffs where it was originally printed and no longer available. A civil conversation about the future of food By Kelsey Faivre DR. Kevin Folta, professor and chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida, recently came to lecture at Iowa State University. The subject of his lecture was transgenic crops (also known as genetically modified organisms GMOs) — what they are, what they can do and how to communicate about th...

  The European Commission is taking public feedback on gene editing.  I urge you to send your letter here: USE THIS LINK If you need an idea of some aspects to emphasize, here are my comments: Sustainable farming in the EU is critical; economic sustainability for EU farmers, and environmental sustainability for the limited agricultural land in the region. Keeping costs manageable for EU citizens and potentially bolstering agricultural exports or fostering less reliance on imports is important too. To meet these challenges, EU scientists should have full access to all technologies to produce safe and sustainable crops. As a scientist in the USA I have hosted dozens of EU scientists that are frustrated by policy that restricts their research and their ability to produce solutions for their home countries. The current restrictions are arbitrary, not science based, and reflect the whimsy of political/ideological views over a scientific consensus. My terminal degree is in mole...

  Where does bad information begin and how does it propagate?  I speak with University of Connecticut law professor Robert Bird in this week's podcast. 

While glyphosate is claimed by may to be ubiquitous in food, how much is really there and is it a legitimate risk?  I had the opportunity to ask a panel of the world's experts about a recent review they prepared that summarized the peer-reviewed literature on detection, residues, exposures and risk.  Listen here.  

 A reporter places a banana peel at the top of the staircase in a local mall. A customer walks toward the stairs only to be shoved by the reporter onto the banana peel and down the stairs. The customer dies from traumatic injuries.  The next day the reporter's headline reads, "Customer Dies on Mall Stairs." The same reporter repeats the assassination ritual a few more times and shares the story of a negligent staircase widely on social media. he also cites his own article from the previous week, giving the impression of an epidemic of dangerous stairs. From there it spreads among local mall patrons.  The next week the reporter's headline reads, "Customers Concerned about Staircase Safety at Mall." ***** A visible trend is emerging in crank journalism and slimy activism-- reporting on the significance of a problem that they themselves created. For unethical "journalists" it is a way to create "evidence" that their errant or malicious posit...

One of the saddest parts of the pandemic is the number of trained physicians that have divorced themselves from their training and exploit their credibility to motivate action on an agenda. In my study of the social dynamics of the pandemic I'm finding more and more physicians that promote politically acceptable views of their community over published science.  As I continue to gently persuade and address concerns in social media I frequently get a video or podcast thrown at me. "Well what do you say about THIS, plant scientist!" they say.  The assertion is that just because someone completed medical school (or maybe didn't lots of folks call themselves "doctor" and do not fulfill accredited training) they have some special forcefield of infallibility.  But they are fallible, and dangerous. The credibility of the title matters, and is being wielded at local events and school board meetings to influence critical public health decisions.  Indiana sort of heal...

Critics of SARS-CoV2 research decry the use of the gain-of-function experiments used to study viruses. Such experiments are designed to test how changes in DNA sequence relate to enhanced activity of a gene product on biology, or in this case, the function of a virus. Mutation of viral DNA may lead to enhanced transmissibility, infectivity, pathogenesis, or lethality, among other effects.  That is exactly why researchers perform gain-of-function experiments in the safety of a laboratory setting.  By understanding the biology in controlled circumstances scientists can better prepare to address the virus if it  naturally  becomes problematic in a population.  Yet critics of gain-of-function research say it is dangerous and unnecessary. And the same critics are also the least likely to be vaccinated.  The unvaccinated say they don’t want to be part of an experiment.  By failing to be vaccinated, they have become an experiment. This is the profound irony....

 Dr. Stephanie Seneff has polluted the scientific conversation about the health effects of the herbicide glyphosate for over a decade.  This latest volley is the waving tip of a white flag, as time is not supporting her alarmist claims.  She does not run a research program on glyphosate or its effects on humans.  What she does do is use the title of "Senior Research Scientist at MIT" as cred to be able to push underpowered hypotheses that are framed as legitimate empirical research.  The outcome is a slate of less-than-scholarly review articles, almost invariably in low-impact journals, that decry the dangers of herbicides and vaccines. They are give some credibility because of her title, and at least one journal has published a warning label that the work is suspect.  How are the papers constructed?  In short, they are sculpted narratives of cherry picked data and pushing correlations as causation.  These are crafted into what are best hypotheses...

 Today on twitter I kept seeing the same message coming up, over and over again.  What the heck is going on?  Mia's mom wants major restaurant chains to know that she's not exactly up on the science. The link goes to the Center for Food Safety, an organization that really isn't that is much more of an anti-technology club than a food safety concern.  They speak out against any application of biotechnology, such as the release of the disease-suppressing GE mosquitoes in the Florida Keys.  Somehow when CFS launches a twitter campaign they plaster the Tweet Stream with the exact same message over and over again.  My feeling is that they do this to create the impression of a mass consensus, a movement to essentially bully retailers and restaurants. In this case it is the AquaAdvantage Salmon, a fish grown in inland tanks in Indiana.  First invented in 1989, the salmon has had a rocky road to market, despite the magic of growing to market size in half the t...

 Be careful when you take action to eliminate an informed voice from a conversation. In the days of the internet such cancellation can be permanent, and if you remove someone that has a clue, it might just come back to work against your best interests later on.  Throughout the 2000's and most of all in 2015 and to this day, there have been activist groups and unhinged individuals that wanted me silent.  Whether it is weird professional jealousy, the fact that I run a highly-rated biotech podcast, or the fact that I am a trusted source of scientific information, I attract vicious critics.  But I'm consistent about two things: 1. Speaking from the evidence and the data. 2. Admitting when I'm incorrect and adjusting.   When critics use sharp and defamatory means to destroy trust and remove their target from a scientific conversation, they run the risk of removing them from all scientific conversations.  In 2015 I was targeted by USRTK, Paul Thacker, Cha...

 The discussion around Twitter bans is hot, mostly with regard to specific accounts that provide dangerous false information.  But what about accounts that appear to be legitimate users, but somehow are coordinated accounts posting false or misleading information?  One false-information source alone is not much influence, and one can be singled out, reported or appropriately banned without consequence.   But does the mass posting of a common false claim from dozens of accounts provide a false sense of consensus where none really exists?  It's right from the Goebbels playbook-- tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.  It works because repetition and the perception of broad support from a number of supposedly independent accounts provides the illusion of truth.  This barrage occurred following news that Oxitec mosquitoes were being released in the Florida Keys.  Repetition of a common message from multiple accounts that appear to be i...

 Over the last week the trolls are back, and polluting social media with more anti-Folta nonsense.  I won't even touch on it.  Nobody has looked at it, nobody really cares.  It gets few likes, retweets, etc., and those that do show some love to the filth are in the defamation network.  It's dead. But sadly I need to always play defense.  Now that these allegations are forever placed in findable space, I must reluctantly respond.  I teach students, I work with kids, I lead community initiatives, and when someone claims that I'm issuing "threats" I unfortunately have to provide my perspective. First, Carey Gillam.  She tweeted this, this week: Carey is one of very few people on my "do not Heimlich" list.  She is one person that I believe is truly evil, and takes pleasure in harming others.  When I begged her to leave my family out of some online slander, she doubled down and went after someone very close to me.  I appealed to her as a...

 In 2015 the anti-science, scientist slander machine called US-RTK provided my emails and a story to New York Times reporter Eric Lipton.  As stated by Lipton on the 9/17/2015 Kojo Nnamdi Show on NPR, (USRTK leader) "Gary Ruskin handed me a story and wanted me to publish it." The result was a gross misrepresentation of me and my motivations to teach science. To them, it was all part of a corporate cabal to misinform the public in exchange for grant money.  Time has shown that none of it was true.  Still the story lives on the internet, forever attached to me in a Google search.  And folks from USRTK keep it alive and well.  Last week Stacy Malkan, a USRTK henchtwit, continued to post links to the Lipton story, at least to the documents that supported it, plucked from their context for easy re-interpretation. Yes, that's what I do.  I talk to folks about communication, which has a significant component of psychology.  How do people process informa...