Thanks Alex.

Pre-Eric we were achieving the aim of having rational, sensible debate in a better way than other places on the internet, I believe. To some extent having Eric here letting off stream has allowed us to expose his opinions to the debate that never properly came when he simply held forth in the SBA's magazine, so I've seen this open and rapid challenging of his misconceptions as a positive thing. For that matter anyone challenging mine, or Jon's for example, is also doing us all a service. That protracted inbreeding thread was my fault, as I brought private correspondence here out into the open in frustration at his inability to listen to what he's being told. However, we now see that he just simply doesn't remember the outcome of these debates, and comes charging back with more confusion based on incredible conspiracy theories.

These kinds of irrational views have a real impact on communities of beekeepers and society as a whole. Some of these misconceptions run deep and are hard to shift, as I've been finding out in other ways. Deep misconceptions driven by forceful hot-heads, drawing on the receptive nature of their audience for their particular nonsense. We are now in the bizarre position of have a goodly number of MPs signing up to an Early Day Motion built on the propaganda and misinformation of a bunch of climate change deniers, fundamentalist anti-pesticide people and anti-corporate campaigners. The scientific justification for their action is weak - and if we want to see the truth of their position it needs exposure and debate.

I think that I'll start a new thread on thoughts on the development of the forum, to get the discussion away from all that BBKA and conspiracy theory nonsense.

This one is now closed as it has drifted far from the original topic.

Gavin

PS For anyone wondering whether the conspiracy theorists and their zillions of copy-cat websites actually were right, the Guardian actually spoke to an Epicyte executive at the time:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2001/sep/09/gm.food

They started by researching sexual health products which suppress viruses, especially STD viruses like the papilloma virus and herpes virus. They tried extending this to develop an anti-sperm product so that they had a combined anti-viral and anti-sperm product to be used in items bought for the purposes of contraception. The company shut down in 2004. But hey, let's not stop the conspiracy theorists and nutters continuing to propagate the myth that the US government was funding research to sterilise the Third World. Whether or not the Vatican had a hand in shutting down the company was never revealed (Joke!! Please don't start another internet myth based on that one ... ).

So this thread stops here. Sufficient people have been trying to move the debate back to reality and back to beekeeping. There are other places on the forum to go with this kind of garbage should you wish to debate it further, so please start new threads in the appropriate place if you have more to say.