Viewpoint: GMO debate’s name-calling, death threats and ‘anti-science’ rhetoric bad for agriculture

What has the world come to when people get death threats for expressing an opinion about agriculture?

The toxicity of the debate about farming in general and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in particular is so entrenched that Mark Lynas, a prominent British journalist and environmentalist who publicly changed his mind about genetic modification, wasn’t even surprised by the death threats. “I got very few,” he says. And the name-calling and Internet trolling were just what he expected when he put his head over the parapet to champion GMOs. Other vocal supporters of conventional agriculture told me of a litany of insults: “Nazi,” “baby killer,” “Monsanto shill” and lots of stuff that we can’t put in a family newspaper.

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[L]ately I’ve noticed a backlash (at least, I read it as a backlash) that deploys “science” as a cudgel to browbeat not just the anti-GMO name-callers but just plain people who express skepticism about conventional agriculture, or confidence in organic — organic farmers, even.

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Even so, I don’t see parity. While I find the anti-organic rhetoric unpleasant and contemptuous, I have not seen the same level of personal, threatening vitriol that emanates from the anti-GMO sector.

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[C]alling someone who disagrees with you “anti-science” is both condescending and contemptuous because everybody, since the dawn of time, has believed their positions to be consistent with the science as we know it.

Read full, original post: Want to fix agriculture? Stop with the name-calling — and death threats.