Riffing off of breaking news about General Mills announcent that it had dumped GMOs from its iconic Cheerios, Andrew Revkin emphasizes the need for journalists to explore notions of risk and emotion as a way to ground the GMO debate more firmly in science.
One can only hope that more folks follow [Keith] Kloor’s advice and try to get comfortable with the facts about their feelings on technology and food instead of just continuing to debate the science from positions shaped by their feelings.
There’s a broader point to ponder here. The interplay of [Nathanael] Johnson’s reporting and that of other writers, including Kloor, is more illuminating than any single voice.
That, to me, is evidence of the power of collective knowledge-building. I won’t use the term “collective intelligence” because intelligence is only one factor — and often not the dominant factor – shaping how we consider, embrace or reject information on sources of risk. The word knowledge feels better, to me.
This line of writing on food and genetics also reinforces the value of blogs and Twitter, which facilitate interlaced inquiry and discourse in a way that static, standalone pieces can’t.
Read full, original blog: Food, Genes and the Feeling of Risk
