1. First, a post from the past: Lions, and tigers, and snow leopards! Oh, my!.
2. Weird search query of the week: “Lions, and tigers, and snow leopards! Oh, my!”.
3.Comment of the week, in response to Heritability and genes as causes:
I knew some people thought I had over-reacted to the initial item/press release. And I might have just let it die until Pollan tweeted it so far and wide. Then I knew it required larger damage control.
I’m delighted to have you human genetics folks on board now. But those of us who have been dealing with these folks on plant science issues for a long time know what they are up to. Some of them are even trying to block funding for research training in developing countries because the bill contains the word “biotech”. It doesn’t matter if you try to explain to them that scientists in Africa need training for managing seed banks, or doing MAS. They use “biotech” as a club to stop research and training. Here’s the bill’s author trying to straighten them out, to no avail: http://thehill.com/opinion/letters/95017-rep-lugar-no-mandate-for-genetic-modification
They are seriously anti-science. This was just a particularly unusual attack, and I’m glad it caught the eye of the genetics community. They are using the same strategies as anti-vaxxers and creationists. They techniques are getting more refined, I have to say. I’m calling it “crank evolution”. It’s in linkage with “crank magnetism”.
4) Do you like the holidays or hate them?
5) And finally, your weekly fluff fix:
