It goes like this: 1. You fear something. 2. You find a hypothesis to justify your fear. 3. You block stuff that doesn't support your case.
That's from Tim Minchin, who concisely describes the process that leads anti-GMO opponents and apparently many greens to support destruction of an agricultural experiment, that as John Timmer notes, "is actually designed to test a [wheat] strain that has the potential to reduce pesticide use." Timmer's piece is an excellent description of the research and the precautions that scientists have taken for it. For those of you just tuning it, some truly amazing crop research has been the center of a controversy the past few weeks, which is coming to a head today. In future posts, I'll be returning to a few of the major issues and themes that are now being debated as a result of this particular anti-GMO campaign. (I'm guessing Take the Flour Back didn't figure on the blowback and mobilization of scientists.) Right now, I'm going to briefly return to a question I asked in my recent Discover piece, which someone on twitter put this way:
