Abstract
Survey data are presented on opinions about agricultural biotechnology and its applications held by agricultural science faculty at highly ranked programs in the United States with and without personal involvement in biotechnology-oriented research. Respondents believed biotech holds much promise, but policy positions vary. These results underscore the relationship between opinion and stakeholder interests in this research, even among scientific experts. Media accounts are often seen as causes, rather than artifacts, of the existence of public controversy; European and now U.S. opposition to food biotechnology is often explained away in terms of such a relationship. The authors argue that where even experts are divided, public opposition cannot reasonably be attributed to poor public understanding or sensationalistic media accounts. Ethical implications for communicating science are explored.
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed (see below). The survey data in this paper represent a reanalysis of unpublished data originally compiled by Ms. Madhumita Barooah while a research affiliate of the Center for Science and Technology Policy and Ethics. Texas A&M University. Her collaborators in this effort were graduate assistant Allen Gillespie and the interim director of that Center at the time, Susanna Hornig Priest. However, only Priest and Gillespie are responsible for the analysis and interpretation presented here.
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Priest, S.H., Gillespie, A.W. Seeds of discontent: Expert opinion, mass media messages, and the public image of agricultural biotechnology. Sci Eng Ethics 6, 529–539 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-000-0012-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-000-0012-4