Millions know him simply as “Dr. Joe,” the McGill University chemistry professor who has spent the last 30 years popularizing science, exposing frauds, charlatans and quacks of all stripes, and defending the scientific method with passion, wit and clarity. For the last 15 years, Schwarcz has conducted a lot of his work from the McGill Office of Science and Society in campus quarters lined with several thousand science books and dozens of rubber ducky “quacks” he’s collected.
What is your take on genetically modified (GM) food?
The two most misunderstood things are the Israeli-Arab conflict and GM, a bogeyman created with no scientific validity. The activists have done this, and they are just as much into making money as Monsanto is. Monsanto is not the devil. It’s just a company that wants to make money by selling useful products. It’s [to the activists’] advantage to portray it as a villain because that’s what keeps the money coming to them. I’ve seen it over and over again with activists. They want you to clamour to do something, but they don’t want you to actually do it because that’s when they lose their weapon.
Related on the SLP
Read the full, original article: Joe Schwarcz: Making science palatable without trivializing it.
