Comments on: I've got your missing links right here (30 September 2012)

By: Brian Schmidt

Brian Schmidt — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 02:16:42 +0000

Usual great list, but again with the simplistic anti-GMO stuff. Sorry I have to escalate, but previous comments didn’t fix things:

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2012/09/false-balance-and-simplistic.html

“False balance and simplistic denunciation of the anti-GMO movement: Keith Kloor and Ed Yong, call your offices

Ed Yong certainly and Keith Kloor possibly understand false balance in climate reporting: the scientific mainstream and a few outliers should not get equal billing. Keith Kloor certainly and Ed Yong possibly don’t understand the false balance problem in the simplistic and blanket denunciation of opposition to GMO foods that equates the anti-GMO movement to climate denialists.*

Neither can distinguish wheat and chaff, separating a few real environmental concerns and some pretty hypothetical health concern from an admittedly-large amount of unfounded anti-GMO concerns, particularly about health. One real environmental concerns is of genetic contamination in the wild from GMO genes, both of species related to domesticated species and of plant species gone “feral”. Another is how GMOs facilitate increased herbicide use through inserting resistance genes in targeted crops. A hypothetical health concern is from transferring allergenic genes to otherwise non-allergenic foods. Another (possibly less-hypothetical) is farmworker exposure to the increased herbicide use.
…
*This is mostly about Kloor, but Yong has a blog history of simply supporting the anti-anti-GMO people, including this Kloor article.”

By: Bayesian Bouffant, FCD

Bayesian Bouffant, FCD — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 21:39:26 +0000

What kind of dinosaur is Godzilla?
.
C’mon. Everyone nkows Gojira is a mutated marine iguana.

By: Kurt Kohler

Kurt Kohler — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 21:34:52 +0000

The item on the pseudoscience of food appears to be truncated. There’s only one link for one thing.

By: David Hobby

David Hobby — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 18:33:22 +0000

“Guardian plans a new pyramid scheme training scheme for journalists, to fill the jobs that don’t exist.”

I got a 404 error for the link in this one.

By: Brett

Brett — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 17:34:44 +0000

This headline will NEVER be beaten: “Buddhist “Iron Man” Found by Nazis Is from Space”

I don’t know. I think it has a close competitor in a headline I read a while back: “Gordon Ramsey Dwarf Porn Double Eaten by Badger”.

By: Daniel J. Andrews

Daniel J. Andrews — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 16:12:56 +0000

If I may be so presumptuous to include a link I saw because you posted about it on Twitter (if I’ve stolen your thunder, apologies and delete this), Things I Learned as a Field Biologist

http://evopropinquitous.tumblr.com/

It had me laughing. I thought I had some good field bio stories, but I bow to his anecdotes. His parasites leave bot flies looking like beauty bumps. Also it reminds me why I opted to head to the Arctic rather than the tropics.

Complete O/T: Spillover arrived a few days ago. I picked it up because you made it sound so good. I’ve only just started, but you were right, it is good writing. And, yes, it does read something like you would write. So write a book already!