The Washington Post contains an article on a recent survey by Oklahoma State University where over 80 percent of Americans support “mandatory labels on foods containing DNA,”
The Oklahoma State survey result is probably an example of the intersection between scientific ignorance and political ignorance, both of which are widespread.The most obvious explanation for the data is that most of these people don’t really understand what DNA is, and don’t realize that it is contained in almost all food. When they read that a strange substance called “DNA” might be included in their food, they might suspect that this is some dangerous chemical inserted by greedy corporations for their own nefarious purposes.
The article discusses the wider issue of scientific ignorance driving policy decisions, and there is some further comment at io9. A summary of the full survey results is available (PDF).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 23 2015, @05:02PM
Mitochondria are people too!
(Score: 2, Funny) by cellocgw on Friday January 23 2015, @07:24PM
"MItochondria are people too."
Aren't they the ones invade our bodies so we can sense the Force?
I know someone who's a hypochondrian. How many Mitochondrians per hypochondrian?
(ok, ok, I'll stop now)
Physicist, cellist, former OTTer (1190) resume: https://app.box.com/witthoftresume
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 24 2015, @09:27AM
No, they invaded the "bodies" of our early single-celled ancestors so they could use oxygen to help with getting energy from food.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by cellocgw on Saturday January 24 2015, @01:38PM
Yr a buzzkill :-)
Physicist, cellist, former OTTer (1190) resume: https://app.box.com/witthoftresume
(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Sunday January 25 2015, @05:21AM
What was that PSX game that boiled down to a "mitochondria rebellion" that was making people spontaneously combust? I think it was published by Square...
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"