A Petty Stance Against Student Progress
Last fall a student walked into my office. She wanted to survey public opinion about genetic crop improvement. What are the triggers that excite or scare the public about how crops are changed by breeding, mutagenesis or other genetic techniques? I thought it was rather brilliant and solicited the assistance of Dr. Thomas Colquhoun, a friend that has mastered the use of Ideamap-based survey algorithms to gauge sentiment on a given topic. This is the approach used by many agencies, from food manufacturers to governments, to learn about how the public really feels about a topic. We structured the study and hired a firm to obtain survey information from over 450 random people across all demographic groups. The data are astounding. Lots of time to carry a sign, but can't muster a few minutes to help an aspiring young woman scientist. I thought we could add an interesting highly biased layer by applying the same survey instrument to traditionally "pro-GMO&qu