Michael Specter's "Fear of Science"

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/13/specter.denying.science/

This is interesting -

His THESIS is that anti-science ideology is dangerous. His CONCLUSION is that genetically engineered foods are good. He has a point I hadn't considered - that issues of science and politics in GMOs are not synonymous. Seeds being licensed like software isn't an issue of science, but of law. The outlawing of seed saving in Iraq (the Fertile Crescent, the cradle of agriculture, the place where WHEAT was domesticated) is a matter of law, not science.
It's worth noting, but humans have a way of conflating tools and intention. Guns. Abortifacients. Evolution, DNA, Nuclear anything. Cars. In fact, Michael Specter (is that really his name?) does the same thing at the end of his talk, when he says that the science of genetically modifying food crops is good, because it can do good things for poor people.
I don't think science can really be separated from law and politics, and I think some people are afraid of some science because it ALSO has the potential to kill us.

For the record, I'm pro-vaccine in theory but not practice, anti GMOs (probably not in practice, since they're ubiquitous), pro-evolution and anti-supplements.

And when he says drought is "nearly permanent in sub-Saharan Africa," that's like saying wildfires and floods are almost permanent conditions of the entire U.S., Canada and Mexico. Dude - it's a continent, and you just exempted the driest part. And how have people survived on cassava up til now if it's such a sucky food? Did they really have to wait 8000 years for Bill Gates to pay food scientists to save them?