Dear oh dear, What a pile of assumptions dressed up as observation. I am
assume that it appeared here so that we can enjoy picking over the entrails.
So here goes.

> And another thing.   I am utterly fed up with references to the
> 'ignorant public'.

Can someone point me to any substantial use of the term "ignorant public"?

You will rarely see the phrase used by anyone outside the deeper, more
embittered and thankfully diminishing recesses of academia, where they still
believe that they have a natural right to be funded to do what the heck they
like at the taxpayers' expense.

An observer of the "PUSET" scene for more than a decade, I can assure our
embittered friend that even from the beginning there has been the
exhortation that it is just as important for scientists to understand the
public as for the public to understand science. It was in the original
"Bodmer report" although a recent ESRC newsletter carries an article from
someone who seems to think he invented the idea.

Now, I realise that expressing the sentiment does not necessarily mean that
anyone does anything about it. But anyone who is in the least bit familiar
with the work of people like John Durant, not the author of the ESRC piece
in question although he was in the newsletter, simply would not make so
sweeping a statement.


>> The scientific community has to find ways to communicate
>> complex information in a way that gives people the opportunity to
>> understand and exercise decisions.

Absolutely correct, that is why so much research has gone into studying just
how to do this. For example, there was the "consensus conference" on the
very issue of GE food, another of Professor Durant's contributions to the
area. (I am waging a one person campaign to stamp out the term GM food, in
favour of genetically engineered, as ordinary cross breeding also
manipulates genes. ) A study that, naturally enough, gets ignored because it
did not come up with the answer that the opponents of GE food wanted.

>> At present the food industry even refuses to label food as GM!

This is simply wrong. Or rather, it is wrong to lump everyone together as
"the food industry". When Safeway launched its tomato puree a couple of
years ago, it said in quite large type "Produced from Genetically Modified
Tomatoes". (I have the label in front of me, the ingredients went into my
saucepan a while back.)

Do not confuse the arrogance and stupidity of Monsanto with that of the
whole food sector. Zeneca, creator of this "Frankentomato", pressed for
labelling from day one. Indeed, it was something of a selling point!

Monsanto has behaved in a crass and stupid manner, that's why it got fined.
It has almost single handedly wrecked the chances of getting GE foods
accepted. But what do you expect from an American company that has not had
to persuade the public at home?


> Most people do jobs that are quite destructive - jobs that are
> boring and monotonous and well below their intellectual capacity.

Apart from the unsubstantiated suggestion that most people "do jobs that are
quite destructive" --where do these daft ideas come from? -- what has this,
or any of the piffle that followed, and that I have removed to avoid
offending the sensibilities of thinking people, to do with GE food?

> Outside work,  we are fed a diet of trivia by media empires over
> which we have no control.

So blame it all on the media?

The rant continued, all piss and wind signifying nothing.

There is a serious discussion to be had here, but not the sort of schoolroom
debate that blasts everything that moves. Such a blanket diatribe is all too
easily cast aside by politicians who can spot the errors and false
assumptions as easily I can.

MK

_______________________________________________________________________
Michael Kenward           /      Phone: +44 (0)1444 400568  Fax: 401064
                         /
Science Writer & Stuff  /           Genetically modified words for sale




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