The Biggest Concerns About GMO Food Aren’t Really About GMOs

The Biggest Concerns About GMO Food Aren’t Really About GMOs.

I’ll take the science over the hype any day. Are there pro’s and con’s? Of course, as with any issue. Meanwhile, two quotes simplify the matter rather well.

“I really don’t like that these companies own so much of American agriculture. But genetically modified crops only date back to the 1990s, and we’ve had industrial agriculture long before that. Banning or embracing GMOs is just rearranging deck chairs.”

“In other words, GMOs were a red herring all along.”

Stephen Hawking: Why you should understand at least basic science

From Salon: Stephen Hawking stresses the importance of space travel and understanding science

 

Finally just pulled the Facebook plug

It took me a while and a measure of forgetfulness, but the deed is done

Since my last post on the subject of Facebook (see Goodbye, Facebook below), I’ve paid next to no attention to it at all, reminded of its existence only by the slow feed of occasional email notifications, an onslaught that slowed to a trickle once I stopped feeding the best. Once in a while I’d click a guilty click to see a picture, perhaps of a friend’s newborn. Other times I was curious to see if the powers that be at Facebook ever bothered to get back to me on my request to cancel my Ars Skeptica page.

A quick bit about that, as an aside:

Goodbye, Facebook. Supporting anti-gay marriage, anti-human rights candidate was finally too much.

After all Facebook has done, there’s only so much a person can take.

And kittehs. Can’t forget about the kittehs.

By now, anyone who has been paying attention is well aware of Facebook’s general user-unfriendly shenanigans, with the possible exception of Facebook’s support for net neutrality, to say nothing of all the minor aggravations users put up with on a daily basis…continually refreshing advertisements, live video popping up in the news feed, a news feed that doesn’t show you everything you mean to see, a newsfeed that occasionally reverts to Top Stories in spite of your every wish and command. Oh, but hey, there’s kittehs!

What kind of user-unfriendly shenanigans, one might wonder?

Is a little consistency too much to ask

Goalposts moved. GTFO, Amanda.

Amanda Marcotte had me right until the end of her article. As a writer who occasionally *ahem* goes a bit off the rails, I think I’m qualified to notice when another does the same. She had such a compelling case, then derailed it by essentially lambasting all conservatives on the anti-science front and establishing a pattern on the left predicated on two examples. That was just silly.

Even though these arguments get derailed and digressive with various people moving goal posts and refusing to stay on-topic (because they know they will lose the argument if they do), the fact of the matter is that the willingness of liberal thought leaders to stay firm about science in the face of panics that are based on deep-rooted but irrational fears about “purity” and “nature” demonstrates a real integrity that the left has that the right is simply missing.

Now, didn’t she just moments ago suggest that when someone moves the goalposts, it’s argument over, GTFO? Why, yes. Yes she did.

Anti vaxxers lose New York court battle @ IFLScience

Anti vaxxers lose New York court battle

Here’s a question for you. I get the “religious rights” argument. I get the public health argument. I get the notion that one person’s rights end where another person’s begins, e.g., generally your right to ____ ends at my property line, and vice versa.

What religious rights do (and should) children have?

By all means, take this conversation far and wide, and be sure to send us your thoughts on the matter.

Why people believe weird things and 8 ways to change their minds @ PsyBlog

Why people believe weird things and 8 ways to change their minds

Short and sweet, a useful primer on undoing the damage done by disinformation and misinformation. We could all use it, partisan interests aside. I’d do well to take a hint on brevity, but I just love the sound of my own keyboard clattering away to beat hell so very much.