109 Nobel Laureates sign a letter slamming Greenpeace.

[NNadir]

100. I am aware of the FAO, it's potato diversity and banana diversity programs and a whole host...

...of other things concerned with the food supply.

In fact, I wrote a goofy little piece on the internet many years ago: Potatoes, Bananas and Natural Habitats. I fully applaud genetic diversity, including natural genetic diversity, and obviously, as the link shows, having been thinking about it for quite some time. I note, that while my personal professional activity is not strictly focused on agriculture, I have had occasion for professional consideration of issues in that field, and I always try to educate myself as deeply as is possible, as much as time allows, before meeting with anyone on any such subject. All of my professional activities have effects on my environmental views.

I just don't spit out popular rhetoric.

My view, irrespective of the Pop garbage one hears, is that Monsanto is actually not in the business of tying up the world's genome as part as a secret conspiracy to control the world's food supply, and I would suggest that you are attempting to link two unrelated things by linking your personal contempt for Monsanto with anything having to do with the FAO.

You are spitting the word "corporate" in a wholly extreme fashion in my opinion, and are simply announcing that no one can convince you that Monsanto is not an evil entity intent of cornering the food market.

So be it.

I happen to believe that scientists have a right to hold jobs in corporations; that they deserve to be paid; and they deserve to be rewarded for their work. I support patent rights, and I am confident, despite some failures, that these laws have generally served humanity quite well.

You seem to believe that Monsanto is an evil organization trying to take over the world seed supply, motivated entirely by evil executives with no moral standing and no ethics. This is a cartoon version of the world in my view, silly, silly, quite possibly to the extreme. I have just googled my way to the CEO of Monsanto; he does hold scientific degrees in agricultural zoology and molecular biology. I actually am fond of companies in which the executives hold some scientific training. It is unfortunate in our time that too many senior executives in companies involved in science driven technology are assholes with MBA's and some bullshit social "science" or humanities degrees. At least Monsanto does not qualify on that score.

I am not aware that anyone on this planet has starved to death because farmers have no access to seeds because of "evil corporations."

Your thinking here in my view is specious. You simply want me to take your word for it that Monsanto is evil. I am personally sick of these, again, cartoonish views of the world, since they don't do any good, and, as the Nobel Laureates have pointed out, can do great harm.

Have a nice 4th of July evening.