It eventually dawned on me … that I was actually being anti-science in the way I was talking about GMOs, and that there are many ways a stronger scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs than there is about the reality of climate change.
One of the case studies that really changed my mind about this was the saga of golden rice, which was developed to be vitamin A-enhanced, because something like a quarter million children per year die from a vitamin A deficiencies in developing countries, particularly in South Asia … Greenpeace has been waging a campaign to stop this rice from ever being developed … You can make a pretty strong case that tens of thousands of children have died because they were denied access to this purely because it's GM, and there is a ideological bias against that.
Greenpeace still has their anti golden rice page up here. But what is heartening is even if Greenpeace won't publicly change their mind, most people have. So I enjoyed seeing Lynas' name again on the byline of this announcement that the FDA has (finally!) approved golden rice. The most dramatic (and tragic) aspect of this was when anti-GMO protesters in the Philippines pretended to be farmers, and destroyed golden rice. Smiting the GMO devil Monsanto had some terrible costs. Glad the FDA has approved golden rice. Progress!
6. Stuart Ritchie new book? I'll finish with a recent exchange on twitter. First, here's J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, saying happy birthday to IQ researcher Stuart Ritchie. As one does.
I highly recommend Ritchie's short book on IQ. And following him on twitter. He knows his stuff, and can be drolly entertaining.
But I'm unsure what's going on with an IQ researching being twitter pals with Rowling. I guess Ritchie is coming out with a new book. Perhaps on IQ testing Fawkes and Buckbeak. Whatever's going on, I'll pre-order his next book.
I'm glad to hear that progress has been made on Golden Rice.