Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson run The Bioscience
Resource Project, a “public interest organization that has provided independent
research and analysis in the agriculture-related biosciences since 2006.” Their
website, Independent Science News, provides “news and critical comment on
topics where food, agriculture, and biotechnology impact human health and the
environment.” That sounds OK, thus far. Unfortunately, Latham and Wilson –
although both have research backgrounds – are notorious crackpots, which should
be suggested already by the “Independent” inflection in the name of their
outlet. Officially the website “links to science news on the web, from both
traditional and alternative media sources.” Guess whether they picked up on the
infamous (and shoddy) Seralini study?
And guess whether they immediately went into conspiracy theory mode? “Seralini
and colleagues are just the latest in a series of researchers whose findings
have triggered orchestrated campaigns of harassment” – yup; the fact that most
professionals in the field reject the study (and that it was eventually retracted)
is not because of the evident shoddiness of the research and subsequent
sensationalism capitalizing on widespread and unfounded fears concerning GMOs, but because there
is an organized witch hunt going on,
as shown by that eminent form of reasoning known as the “shill gambit”.
In fact, Latham and Wilson are something close to DNA
denialists – that is, they reject the idea that genes can be the common causes of illnesses and disease;
that is: genes play no role whatsoever, not only smaller role than expected. In
short, Latham and Wilson call for a paradigm shift. Their contentions have of
course been rejected by most people familiar with the topics,
but moreover, their arguments contain such cherry-picking and deliberate
distortion of the existing literature that it is hard to avoid drawing a
parallel to the Intelligent Design movement.
More here.
Diagnosis: Although they are not as obviously dishonest as
the ID people, Latham & Wilson’s anti-science work shows frightening
similarities, and deserves to be smacked down as soon and thoroughly as
possible – hence the inclusion in our Encyclopedia.
He's gone after Kevin Folta now, claiming Dr Folta failed to attended an event at Cornell. It's clear that the offer, while there, was deliberately buried to make it look like Folta had ignored it.
ReplyDeleteI emailed Kevin, out of the blue, two years ago and got a positive and very pleasant reply within days.
Makes you wonder. Or maybe it doesn't.
The event above was a "class" that he put on with a student at Cornell, off site of course. They claimed very publicly that I refused to debate him. I was never provided an invitation.
ReplyDeleteThey demanded that I was given an invitation. I asked about when and where. They referred to the comments section of an ancient blog, and they were right-- there was an invitation there! It is not really an invitation if you bury it in a place where the invitee would never see it!
This is what these folks are about. Dishonest, manipulative, disgraceful, and time has not been kind to them. One faculty member of the institution where he completed his Phd calls him their "greatest embarrassment".