2.WHY WE NEED GM - SPONSORED BY THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL

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1.LM Watching...

Watching briefs - bits and snips to keep you abreast of the Furediites http://www.lobbywatch.org/lm_watching.html

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Collateral Damage of Ideas

2007 was the year in which the UK's premier social science funding body - the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) - was 'pleased to headline-sponsor the Battle of Ideas'. This is an annual weekend long series of debates organised by the Institute of Ideas.

The ESRC is not the first prestigious funding body to fall hook, line and sinker for the idea that the LMers are merely out to encourage open and lively debate. In the past the NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) sponsored Spiked to organise online debates for it on a whole series of environmental issues. The net result was that the NERC got debates deftly slanted to the LMers' anti-environmentalist agenda. Staggeringly, when challenged about this tie-up, the NERC responded, 'NERC is satisfied that there is no evidence suggesting that, on environmental matters, spiked have any particular agenda'! [see item 2 below]

The ESRC's headline-sponsorship meant the IoI was able to gain not only public monies and credibility with other potential sponsors, but could put the ESRC's logo all over its activities. What did the ESRC get in return? The war crimes apologist Thomas Deichmann - editor of LM's sister publication Novo - sitting on a panel at the ESRC- funded, highly prestigious, EGN 'Genomics and Society' conference which the IoI with Tony Gilland as the Chair was allowed to run, and invite speakers for - a mini 'battle of ideas' panel 'debate' heavily skewed in favour of its own agenda.

Dr. Alex Plows, one of the social scientists at the EGN event told us, 'This was our conference and it was colonised! A highly complex and sensitive ethical debate was framed into a polarising, 'you're either for science and progress, or you're a pro-lifer'. Another familiar LM trope reproduced yet again was that regulation is 'unethical' becuase it holds back 'science and progress'. This is simply ridiculous. Not so much a 'battle of ideas' as the 'collateral damage of ideas'!'

Dr. Plows also said, 'I am also absolutely furious that Deichmann was given a platform at the EGN conference by Gilland. The association compromises the integrity of UK social science.'

The Institute of Ideas/Battle of Ideas debate was supposed to be about striking the right balance between 'regulating new science to reassure the public it is safe, ethical and beneficial' and 'encouraging research and endeavour'. But the record of Deichmann and the LMers' in acting as apologists for the atrocities of the Serb and Hutu militias should be enough to make anyone think twice about having the IoI help shape the debate on critical ethical issues.

[For more on the LMers: http://www.lobbywatch.org/lm_watch.html ]

Paranoid politicing

To celebrate his 60th birthday, Spiked has just published an interview with Frank Furedi in which he 'discusses environmentalism, conspiracy theories and the network of McCarthyites slurring his name'. This network, according to Spiked editor Brendan O'Neill, is clustered around Guardian columnist George Monbiot and includes LobbyWatch.

The Furedi piece seems to have been triggered by an interview we published in which George Monbiot discusses the politics and tactics of the LM group. Furedi seems pretty miffed about it, comparing us not just to McCarthyites but to the Spanish Inquisition (!), not to mention anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.

Warming to this theme, Spiked's editor suggests, 'the conspiratorially-minded amongst you might well spot some similarities between Monbiot and Co's conspiracies and those of anti-Semitic websites.' The fact that Furedi has 'Jewish origins' also gets a mention.

We were intrigued by this anxiety to paint Furedi as victim. Likewise George Monbiot, who told us, 'Fascinating, isn't it, how sensitive to criticism he is, and how the man who professes to wage war on victimhood turns out to have a monumental persecution complex.'

Furedi's self-pity needs to be measured against the real vilification and persecution experienced by those who've run up against the kinds of forces Frank and his followers have been happy to encourage and excuse - from ethically challenged corporations to the Serb and Hutu militias.

Politics of Fear

Among the things Furedi seems most miffed about in his Spiked interview (see above) is our failure to pay attention to the 13 books he's so far published. Furedi attributes this failure to our 'severe intellectual limitations'.

Furedi's last book - Politics of Fear - was reviewed by John Dunn, Professor of Political Theory at King's College, Cambridge. Dunn describes the book as made up not so much of ideas as 'small clusters of verbiage' in loose association. Its arguments he found mostly fatuous or implausible. 'Read as a whole,' writes Dunn, 'it is a work of almost unrelenting vacuity.' (Reasons to be cheerful?, TLS March 3 2006)

Nick Cohen is equally blunt in his assessment of Furedi's contribution to another book - Debating Humanism: 'His essay shows in embarrassing detail the leader of the RCP isn't very bright.'

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2.WHY WE NEED GM - SPONSORED BY THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL
NGIN, 18 September 2002

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), a UK government [ie taxpayer] funded agency, is not just lending its name and credibility to a series of 'Spiked' debates on the environment, it's putting public funding into sponsoring them.

The debates - the latest is on 'The Future of GM' in the context of the farm scale trials - are taking place on the Spiked website.

This is run by the same (strategically) rightwing pro-corporate 'Living Marxism' clique that ran LM magazine until it was sued out of existence by ITN, over its attack on their journalists as part of LM's denial of Serbian war crimes. LM also ran a series of articles denying the Rwandan genocide - articles co-authored by Fiona Fox, the current director of the pro-GM Science Media Centre.

When we drew the history of this group to the NERC's attention, they responded, 'NERC is satisfied that there is no evidence suggesting that, on environmental matters, spiked have any particular agenda.'

In fact, Spiked are fanatically pro-GM and oppose environmental concerns in almost any form. Guardian columnist, George Monbiot is among several journalists who have exposed their agenda and the dubious tactics of their supporters...

You can judge the Spiked agenda by the debate initiators' presentations below. We have rearranged the order to bring the one mildly sceptical piece to the top so you don't have trouble finding it. Other pieces are authored by the likes of CS Prakash and Greg Conko, and a member of the Spiked editorial clique who argues, 'The farm-scale trials are an unnecessary obstacle to the introduction of this beneficial technology.'

When we pointed out the extreme imbalance in the views presented, Marion O'Sullivan of the NERC told us, 'We have edged towards balanced and pro-GM views to start off this debate because those views are less well aired than the anti-GM views.' When we queried this, Ms O'Sullivan failed to clarify how the NERC justified that assertion.

What is at issue is not just a biased debate. The NERC's sponsorship of these debates also helps Spiked to increase its credibility, to put forward the views of its own spokespeople and to increase the number of people coming to the Spiked site for information - information which outside of the 'debate' is all in one extreme direction.

The strategy is clear even on the main GM debate page which has a link to a pro-GM article unconnected with the debate that dismisses the concerns over the Mexican maize scandal as 'yet another round of scare stories' from 'media campaigners'.

When we pointed out the evidence for the Spiked agenda and the way in which the NERC was assisting what was in effect a rabidly pro-GM environmentalist-hate group that played fast and loose with the truth, Marion O'Sullivan of the NERC told us, 'I'm afraid that we shall have to agree to differ about their suitability as a forum for debate.'

Read and judge their suitability for yourself. If you have any concerns, you may like to contact NERC via 'Marion O'Sullivan' This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Sponsored by the Natural Environment Research Council

Why do we need the UK farm-scale trials?
http://www.spiked-online.com/sections/science/debates/GM/default.htm

Join the Spiked Online debate:
http://www.spiked-online.com/sections/science/debates/GM/default.htm

Spiked has launched a series of debates to provoke critical thinking on key scientific issues... NERC is sponsoring this series of debates on environmental issues with the aim of stimulating dialogue in the wider social and ethical context of issues in which science plays a part.

Current debate

Why do we need the UK farm-scale trials?

Why we need the farm-scale trials

Les Firbank

leader of the UK farm-scale evaluations of genetically modified crops 'The farm-scale evaluations are essential if we are to make informed decisions about growing GM crops without harming wildlife.'

Let the sowing begin

Tony Gilland

science and society director, Institute of Ideas 'The farm-scale trials are an unnecessary obstacle to the introduction of this beneficial technology.'

A political con

Robin Grove-White

professor of environment and society, Lancaster University 'The trials were born out of political necessity and should be seen for what they are: a pioneering toe-in-the-water, rather than the last word.'

GM in perspective

Gregory Conko and CS Prakash

Gregory Conko is director of food safety policy with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Dr Channapatna S Prakash is professor of plant molecular genetics at Tuskegee University 'If the field trials are allowed to progress unmolested, Britons will find that they show GM crops to have real environmental benefits