Illumination 2.0

Hearts fluttered and hearts sank.  Election returns brought some to ballrooms and others to bathrooms. Others remained too close to call. It appears that the ballot initiatives mandating labels on foods containing ingredients derived from transgenic crops did not pass. But it is no victory. Many will disagree.  Grocery manufacturers, seed companies and farmers will claim victory because voters will not mandate what seed they use, or force unneeded hassles of separating products depending on if they contain a single gene or not. However, the anti-farmer, anti-scientific voters that use a ballot box to vote on if science is true will return to the drawing board for two more years.  That's a temporary victory to those that spent (wasted) millions to push them back.  It should never have gotten that far. Once again a comma defines the sentiment.  Worse in watching the persuasive ads for YES and NO, both camps manipulated fear and emotion to influence v...

I just get sick when I hear proponents of Oregon 92 and Colorado 105 claim that they demand food labeling because they deserve a right to know . In reality, there is no need for a right to know , at least as imparted by a clunky, expensive, and scientifically invalid law or amendment.  The right to know begins with a desire to learn.  A right to know begins with a willingness to listen to, and understand science. As it stands, proponents of the ballot initiatives hope the right to know is a punitive tool.  It does not teach, it does not inform. It simply provides a means to distinguish food produced from certain farmers that chose specific seeds. It will be a way for them to conjure fear around perfectly safe foods, based on no real information. That's some powerful right to know .  What good is a right to know, if you know nothing, or worse, know false information? What good is a right to know if you use it to harm farmers, consumers and the environment, ...

One big difference between scientists and activists is that the latter have no problem using manipulating language to scare the public.  The former uses information to help the public make sound decisions. Here's a stellar example from GMO Awareness.com.  It features fossil biotechnologist Dr. Theirry Vrain, a guy that used to work on the genetics of nematodes and used some molecular biology tools in the process.  Since his retirement, he's enjoyed the stage as one of the handful of sort-of-scientist darlings of the anti-scientific, anti-GM movement. It bothers me when guys like Vrain and Huber use their former credentials to perpetuate bad science today.  Maybe I'm a little pointy because I was asked to analyze his YouTube video and it cost me an hour of my life I'll never get back. However, it did help me understand who he is and why the anti-GMs love him so. The sure love Thierry.  He tells them what they want to hear, and aside from a good 1980...

This is a video from Morning News Winnipeg, October 24, 2014. Mike Koncan was the interviewer and asked great questions with almost no prep time. That guy is a pro! Thanks Mike!

As the discussions of ballot propositions heat up, it is fun to read the comments sections of news articles. It is a way to explore the rationale for decision making and a gauge of public perception.  It is a way to learn new arguments that may be compelling for or against the initiatives.  It is interesting to see how others attempt to persuade voters to make a decision, one way or another. But are there deliberate efforts to blanket comments sections and social media with the same cut-and-paste messages?  Is there an effort to do so under different usernames to build the deceptive appearance of swelling support? A quick Google search suggests this is the case. For example the comments section of the Stateman article that deliberately deceives readers by making detection of the DNA encoding herbicide resistance to "pesticides", you'll find a comment from "Noah Dazinger" a name attached to someone that shows up frequently in comments sections arguing agai...

It was 6:30 pm in the lab and I was just thinking about the last things I'd need to get done before I could go home.  Typical night.  Usually I'm riding home about 7 pm, but an email popped up asking me if I was going to go watch the Food Babe.  A click on a link would take me to the note on a UF Dean for Students Good Food Revolution Events website.  Vani Hari would be spreading her corrupt message of bogus science and abject food terrorism here at the University of Florida. Oh joy. There's something that dies inside when you are a faculty member that works hard to teach about food, farming and science, and your own university brings in a crackpot to unravel all of the information you have brought to students. She might have started from honest roots.  Her story says she was duped by an organic yogurt stand (join the club) into buying taro toppings that were filled with artificial, non-organic colors.  She realized that she could use social m...

Here's how you know that GMO labeling laws are just wrong-- protectionist exemptions.  In short, labeling promoters will tell you it is a necessary right to know, that GMO-based ingredients are untested, unsafe, and need labels so that they can be avoided. Unless they are products they care about, or influence their state's economy.   Somehow those are perfectly fine. Vermont is a wonderful example.  The recently-passed laws require foods derived from transgenic means to bear a label indicating their presence.  Labeling proponents say that foods using recombinant DNA intermediates are dangerous, untested, and should be banned! EXCEPT... if they are used in foods Vermont makes!   Examination of the public draft reveals the hypocrisy.  It is written so that it exempts cheese from being labeled.  The enzyme chymosin, the main entity of rennet (the concoction that causes milk to curdle) is almost exclusively derived from a transgenic (GMO...