Science 2.0

Despite nearly two decades of marketing campaigns insisting bees are in decline and science is to blame, the data show otherwise. Bees are not entirely irrelevant in the food supply, and do valuable pollination work in nature, but there are 25,000 other species of bees that are important also, it is only in boutique agriculture that honeybees are meaningful to our food supply.For crops like almonds, bees are rented. They are flown on planes or shipped on trucks and do their work and then go somewhere else. California only has 1.3 million acres of almond trees, which means about 2.6 million honey bee hives are needed every year. That is why 90% of rented bee colonies are in California. It's a lucrative market and they can ship bees elsewhere as needed.

I'm a Steelers guy now but I was a late fan. Where I was young in Pennsylvania, three teams in New York and two in Pennsylvania were the same distance to drive - and we did not drive to any of them. So I remained a Cowboys fan.(1) My brother, though, was an Eagles fan of early on. And he's never wavered.Ants think that's the proper way to be. Eagle fans hold grudges and ants respect that, but there is no comparison between the level of grudge Philadelphia has against Michael Strahan or Terrell Owens or Kevin Allen or Jerome McDougle and what ants have against their enemies.If they could write, it would be the stuff of legends.

Blood samples of pregnant women have detectable levels of chemicals and that 'chemical cocktail' may pose "neurotoxic risk", according to a paper published in Science whose senior author is strangely on the board of reviewing editors at Science.This "chemical cocktail" nomenclature has been popular among activists like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other environmental lawyers for decades, because it needs no science, it instead means science 'needs more testing', and there will never be enough testing.

A recent paper claims that even at low doses pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides are changing the behavior of insects.Though they are not able to show how it is happening, the authors use 'needs more testing' rhetoric to call on governments to ban chemicals until it is certain there is no unintended long-term ecological harm. If that sounds very Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., that's because he and other anti-science progressives have been saying it for decades.

A whole lot of classic liberals have discovered how goofy their progressive cousins have been for 25 years. All it took for this sudden embrace of critical thinking was for a Republican to say 'maybe he is right on food and medicine' about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A recent epidemiology paper links common weedkillers to prostate cancer and further claims four of them cause death. Obviously they can't show that, there is no plausible biological mechanism, no increase in prostate cancers, and no evidence any of the people who got prostate cancer had contact with the pesticides at all.

GMOs had quietly been in use for decades when they became controversial - for saving a fruit in Hawaii that legacy techniques like breeding and chemicals had not.The Rainbow Papaya became a home run for genetic engineering, the first genetically rescued organism, and that made it a target for environmental groups who had ignored it when it was saving diabetics by creating insulin.Lawyers have not stopped campaigning against GMOs since, and are calling on all media allies to criticize Mexico for refusing to ban GMO corn, but while they fight the past, biotech may be winning another fight for the future; against malaria.

Once upon a time, environmentalists embraced biotechnology as key way to reduce pesticide use. Rachel Carson, author of "Silent Spring", was a fan of genetic engineering. That was before we all learned that environmental groups are only 'for' something if it means they can raise money being against something. Biotech was great - until it was real. Then they hated it. Along with hydroelectric power and natural gas, and how they will want to tear down solar energy, once it stops being a government gimmick.

In ancient civilizations, rulers and nobles exchanged gifts as acts of prestige. Only when Assyria came into existence, and it had a need for manpower and resources to feed its conquering empire, did gifts turn into taxes and government become overlord of its people, who were moved from place to place and told what to do by elites.

A recent paper claims the common weedkiller known as glyphosate gives mice Alzheimer's and therefore is a risk to humans.Arizona State University researchers created an association between glyphosate exposure in mice and symptoms of neuroinflammation, as well as "accelerated Alzheimer’s disease-like pathology", whatever that is supposed to mean, and claim that farming could mean a persistent risk to human health.

I rarely win when it comes to cultural language stuff. Before 1999, an attractive older woman, for example, was to me a "Momshell" and no woman had any objection to a portmanteau of mom and bombshell (if they heard it - but a woman should not hear it, or your charm goes way down) yet after 1999's "American Pie" film the vulgar acronym "MILF" became the default. I have maintained for decades that we are worse off for it. If a young man used it in my presence where the woman could hear, I'd correct him. Not in a mean way, just by explaining there is a term that doesn't make him seem crass.

If you're an agenda-driven, lawyer-funded epidemiologist and really want to move the needle in media on scaring people, be so bad at math - literally the only thing an epidemiologist does - that you are off by an order of magnitude.Because if 60 x 7000 equals 42,000, you're either in third grade or you are an anti-science mullah like everyone at Toxic-Free Future, who know a journal they pay to publish in isn't doing any peer review, and know that media allies like the SEO tinkerers who rewrite press releases for LA Times and Salon will be excited about the chance to pad their pageview quota.