Wednesday, January 25, 2017

The anti-science left

Post-Truth Science
Excerpt: Attempts to discredit genetically modified crops and the herbicide glyphosate have no scientific basis. ‘Post-truth” is much in the news these days — both the word itself and the phenomenon it describes, in which (according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which chose “post-truth” as its Word of the Year) “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Consider, for example, the way emotionally charged reporting turned the scientific consensus on biotechnology — in particular, genetically modified (GM) foods and the herbicide glyphosate — into a circus of public confusion that reached even our nation’s highest office. Humans have been tinkering with plant genetics far longer than they have understood the mechanisms that allow their actions.

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