Sir, – David McConnell (Opinion, December 24th) argues, convincingly, the benefits of genetically modified (GM) food. He is less convincing when he asserts that it is safe. He points to a "consensus" that Europe has got it wrong, and "more than a decade of research" that, he says, has shown GM plants to be no less risky than others. But he offers no argument, no explanation.
Prof McConnell heaps scorn on “politicians and the media, one group as ill-informed as the other”. Of course, it isn’t easy to explain specialised scientific subjects to politicians, the media, or rest of us. But it has to be done. If science educators (of all people) merely rely on authority and don’t explain, we remain uninformed.
In a commencement address at Caltech in 2008, American journalist Robert Krulwich argued powerfully for the importance of science making its case well in the public arena. Like McConnell, Krulwich cited Galileo, who got into trouble precisely because he made his case so well, not only by dropping balls from Pisa’s famous tower, but also in writing that was gorgeous, poetic, combative . . . and ultimately persuasive. – Yours, etc,
EAMONN CONLON,
Dublin Road,
Shankill, Co Dublin.