Stronger Plants, Stronger Science, and Stronger Communication
During the Changemakers contest, several parallels came up between the people who have extreme anti-genetic engineering views, and several other flavors of antiscience. Comments on PZ Myers’ blog compared the often religious-like responses of certain groups to the technology, and indeed the ludicrous reaction of GM Watch in particular, to creationist tactics against evolutionary biology….
The question of whether it is possible to create a sustainable production agriculture system has been passed around twitter (see #profood) quite a bit, which really got me thinking. Coincidentally, I also had to write a midterm essay in Foundations of Sustainable Agriculture, and one of the options for essays actually asked us to defend whether or not it was possible to have sustinability in a production system. I’ve made an effort to define both sustainability and productionism in thier strictest sense and then attempted to find one way that the ideals have been combined in the past and another way that they could be combined in the future. The writing style was a bit uncomfortable to me, I’m used to the conversational style of blog posts or the strict style required in scientific writing, but here I’m talking about philosophy, economics, and policy. I hope you’ll put up with my stilted style and let me know what you think!
Hi everyone, Frank N. Foode™ here. I have just received word that the Ashoka Changemakers GMO Risk or Rescue contest has been closed. No more votes will be collected. It has been an exciting week for all of us, our supporters, and also our competitors. During the last few days of the final voting week,…
Overnight, Biofortified gained a few more votes, strolling up to 824 votes so far. Our competitor, the Non-GMO Project has 346 votes, and has been gaining faster than we have in the last day. And I just discovered last night that a stealth competitor that no one noticed has rapidly gained votes. On Monday it…
Today, Biofortified gained another 120 votes in the Ashoka Changemakers contest, coming in at 812 at the time of this writing. It would be great if in the last day of voting, if we could top 1,000. To help to that end, I will present the fourth reason why I think we deserve a little…
Genetic engineering is just one of the many many parts of ag that are really really difficult to discuss. We all come to the table with our own biases, our own understanding of the way things “should” be, based on our experiences, education, philosophy, religion… all of the things that make us who we are….
In the last 12 hours, the Ashoka Changemakers contest has really taken a dramatic turn for the better for Biofortified. The vote tallies are constantly changing, but at the start of writing this post, we have rocketed forward to 632 votes, leaving behind our leading opponent the Non-GMO Project, at 260 votes. During the course…
When you have science backing you, you don’t have to cheat (or lie). Despite the fact that Biofortified is maintained by students and professors on a volunteer basis, and the fact that none of us are compensated by any company or organization for our blogging efforts, GM Watch has decided that we are “a blog…
The Ashoka Changemakers GMO Risk or Rescue contest is about halfway through its final voting week, a lot has happened in this time, which I will fill you in on, and today I present the second reason why I think Biofortified deserves your vote: Dialogue. One of the reasons why we started a group blog…
As of Wednesday afternoon, the entry period for the Ashoka Changemakers contest is over. Everyone has had a chance to enter the contest since the deadline was extended, so now it is down to a week’s worth of voting to decide the winner. Each day, I will post a reason why I think Biofortified deserves…