I may not have the education that you have, Anastasia, but I do believe in the scientific method. I am questioning the impact of GMO products on the health of the world. I do question the motives of powerful companies, and I most certainly question the motives of Jeffrey Smith.

I will do my own investigation as you have suggested. It is about finding the truth using many different sources.

By the way, I am a registered nurse. I always anwered my patient’s questions as accurately as I could and if I didn’t, I would find someone who could answer the questions. As a professional and as a scientist, I am always curious and always open to learning about new things.

Regarding your scenarios about whom to trust, there is a vast difference between having an actual product to sell, and being paid when the only product is what you say.

Having an actual product means your buyers will actually directly test the thing that they have purchased (via actual use) to see if it works as advertised.

With no product other than what you say, all that’s necessary is to convince people about what you say, and move on. Those who are convinced won’t bother doing fact-checking!

So actually the scenarios you present are not fully equivalent.

With science in particular, being able to be able to glean information from scientific journal articles and to determine whether or not a given article is or is not valid takes a lot of practice. It is surely possible for someone without any formal classes in basic biology, chemistry, genetics, etc to eventually be able to read, understand, and analyze the articles – but I don’t think it’s very likely.

Now that I know this guy is *probably* just some kind of political tool cranking out an agenda, what remains is the question of what makes a "formally" educated person versus the autodidact, especially in the internet age. I have a good friend who is a walking encyclopedia of military history and is fewer than 20 credits into getting any type of degree. I can also recall, very clearly but painfully, a conversation with a registered nurse in an emergency department. I was taking nursing prereqs and had just started working as a nursing assistant, so I asked EVERYBODY questions about EVERYTHING and I read constantly. This nurse draws up Protonix in a syringe and I ask, "What’s that?"

"Oh, it’s Protonix, it’s for reflux."

"How does it work?"

"It puts like a coating in the stomach."

"If it puts a coating in the stomach, why do you give it as an injection rather than a pill or syrup?"

Now irritated : "Oh, I don’t know! It probably doesn’t do anything, I’m just giving it because the doctor told me to!"

Wow. True story. Nurses in emergency rooms not knowing what the drugs that they’re giving to sick people are (Protonix is a proton pump inhibitor, does not coat the stomach and works much better I.V. than P.O.), are walking around following orders like concentration camp guards and getting paid a very decent salary to do this. Possibly worst of all, she really was convinced that the drug that she was going to put into someone’s vein would be of no benefit to the patient.

Anyway, thanks for the great post and thank you to everyone who provided all of this telling information.

93,
–DH

I wanted to know how you know Jeffrey Smith make a lot of money from his website, books and speaking engagements.

Raj

It depends on what social commentary. For instance, it is too widely-known to dispute that “organic” farming originated with Nazi Germany. The general theme of “organic”, via the theme of ‘Blut und Boden’, was expanded to include ‘human weeds’.

That is to say, supposedly invasive, supposedly ‘un-natural’ “species”, such as Jews.

In Germany, farmers and scientists are the new ‘Jews’. Field trials and farmers’ crops are repeatedly destroyed, and the German government’s policy about killing the ‘Jew crops’ is completely paralyzed.

Germany was once the cradle of Western science and philosophy, and has once again sunk into the vicious mire of fascism.

The destroyers of German research, and of German farmers’ fields, may or may not not wear brown shirts, but they’re on the same xenophobic mission.

Andy.