Mark Bittman of the New York Times has never seen a paper about a miracle vegetable he didn't coo over - as long as it's about his friends in the $29 billion organic food industry. And he has never seen a study showing no benefit to organic food where he didn't suddenly put on his skepticism monocle and find all kinds of methodological flaws.
But he hates biology in that special way only a true left-wing, anti-science crank can hate biology. So much he'd easily fit in at Grist or Mother Jones if he could afford the pay cut. If there is a logical fallacy or a set of blinders he needs to wear to appeal to his base, he will don it. He's Ann Coulter, without the intelligence, humor or nice hair.
Henry Miller at Forbes is one of the five people in science media who aren't on the progressive bandwagon, finding ways to science-y up cultural beliefs. But fully half of science media disagrees with their brethren on the left over GMOs; the remainder make uncomfortable nods about biotech - because they hate corporations, not science, they claim, eerily reminiscent of the claim that people against human embryonic stem cell research had a moral position, not an anti-science one.
But no one was buying it, just like no one not getting paid to do public relations work for the science of the left buys that 'anti-corporation' nonsense. And Miller is not buying the Bittman claim that GMOs have shown no benefit, another tired claim trotted out monthly. Despite proven benefits, both economic and agricultural, Bittman is in denial that GMOs have done anyting at all. "What more does he want – a plant that prevents cancer and creates peace in the Middle East?" Miller asks.
Well, that's just it. While Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney got a lot wrong in 2012, there is one thing he got right; 47% of people are locked into a mindset and are not moving. So Bittman does not need to accept science at all, he can be proven wrong over and over and write the same stuff and a giant chunk of New York Times readers will love it.
Article: The New York Times' Mark Bittman Offers Poisoned Food For Thought by Henry Miller, Forbes
