anti-anti GMO - what stops us getting through?

What do "the public" think of engineering biology/synbio? And GMOs?

Who do we even mean by "the public" as I'm quickly learning that this amorphous group can easily be carved up into all sorts of rational and irrational sub-groups??

These things have come up recently in different things in my life - 2 main ones - a Book and a Dinner.?

The Book - "Seeds? of Science" by Mark Lynas ? If you are in biotech - particularly if you were born in the 80s and grew up in the 90s with the wonderful Daily Mail anti-gmo headlines (gmo what?? It's not like any of them knew what they were even anti about) - you may love this book as much as I did.?

It is an insight into those very early days of the anti-gmo movement - the motivations and comradery in ripping up test crops (I don't even think I realised/had forgotten that we had got as far as test crops in the UK back then) - to a total about-face of a key player in this movement to now combating the lies and misinformation spread by the likes of our wonderful(?) Greenpeace.? (I'm sure most of us grew up thinking Greenpeace was good - and perhaps some of it still is. I'm certainly no longer a fan).?

I do love the ability to change one's opinions when faced with facts.?

The history of 'the Monsanto story' where everything started to go wrong - but was it actually Monsanto that added some nails to the GMO coffin, or people who saw an opportunity to push their own agendas? Was it one commercial decision rather than another that got us where we are??

How we stupid bloody Europeans think we have the right to muck about and sabotage the rights of farmers in other countries to CHOOSE what THEY want. Based on literally nothing. Nothing legit anyway. Here I want to give a shout out for??SynBio Africa? and?Pearly Joubert?and WiSBA- hopefully you can undo some of this!?

The Book is full of examples that will really make you very cross. And make you want to chain yourself to something.?

The Dinner - I was very lucky to be invited to a gorgeous dinner last week in Cambridge by the lovely?Richard Traherne?at?Capgemini??Cambridge Consultants?and?SynBioBeta?- thank you all for the invite! Amongst the talking points, perception came up, and there seemed to be an idea that we just need people to know that with AI and data we can model things so well, people don't need to worry.?

I'm not sure this is the answer, and part of that is due to The Book!

I will admit that I tend to think of the anti-gmo lot as just bloody infuriating somethings that just listen to random shit they hear on Facebook and make no effort to actually understand, or follow the money back to who is pumping out this info.?

I do still think this. BUT..?

Mark points out something at the end of the book that I'd not considered but immediately recognised. That visceral instinctive grossed out feeling we get when something isn't right.?

An example Mark uses is projecting big corp logos on to the moon.? That does do it for me and I think a lot of us would protest quite loudly against this, because it's just "wrong".

I don't get this with GMOs. I see something pretty beautiful in using science and nature together. I don't see GMOs as unnatural or other.?

But I had recognised a while ago that I feel very and irrationally at odds with the "bring back the mammoth" work. I don't really know why. Partly I feel like we had our chance and these things are gone, probably because of us, so it's our punishment? Which makes even less sense as I'm not religious so I'm not sure what there is to want to punish us! Partly it's some strange out-of-time discontinuous thing. I don't know.?

Another one that came up at The Dinner was the "beef rice" -https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dezeen.com/2024/02/22/beef-rice-meat-alternative-yonsei-university/amp/ rice with beef cells grown inside. Someone thought this was a bit gross - and it hit me that this is exactly it! Maybe we all have our own tolerance levels. I personally love the idea of beef rice (but not as much as Mark Bunger's meaty? tomato that I cannot find a picture of) !

But maybe that is partly the feeling with GMO for some people? It's just revolting? For no real reason??

The difference is maybe that some anti-gmo/synbio feeling in some people could well be due to a lack of understanding, and can be turned by explaining what is going on and what the benefits are.

Or rather what GMO isn't (I learnt recently to try and check what someone's understanding is when I tried to take my daughter for a blood test and she wouldn't go for days - turns out she thought the needle went right up your arm inside - so me telling her it wouldn't hurt didn't help - that wasn't what was freaking her out).?

What do anti-GMO people actually think is happening??What is it that we are doing that they don't like, and taken in the context of the many years of real-world evidence that we now have?

Learning more about how things work and the benefits still has a big role. I felt less weird about the mammoth work when I read that there may be a reason to bring them back to slow down permafrost thaw. That may be a nonsense marketing thing I don't know, but it worked on me.?

However, with currently having to deal with an avid covid-conspirator, I know that there will be some sections of the public that have absolutely no interest in any form of reasoning - and these sections are very tightly knit - they are, after all, the only ones who know the truth don't you know.?

So we need to work out who to talk to, who to not bother talking to, really combat misinformation so it doesn't start people off down the rabbit hole in the first place, spread the correct info and show the benefits of these technologies.?

And that is a WE.?

Not a them. Or some other thing. We can't wait for someone else to do this because while we wait other people are at work causing trouble.?

#syntheticbiology?#biotechnology?#innovation?#founders?#postdoc?#startups?#phd?