64 / SEEDWORLD.COM DECEMBER 2017 solutions (ban all pesticides and GMOs) and happy to degrade the public trust in science if it helps them win a campaign. 3. Activist science As NGOs and social media groups are becoming wealthier, they are attracting scientists who have fallen through the tradi- tional occupational tracks, who may feel bitter about their lack of career opportunities and vulnerable to exploitation. I have coined the term “activist scientist” to describe an individual who has abandoned scientific endeavours to work on campaign- related research. A traditional scientist starts by gathering evidence and then draws a conclusion. An activist scientist starts with the conclu- sion and then looks for evidence. We find examples of such practices promoted by NGOs related to questionable research on neonicotinoids and pollinators, glyphosate, GMOs and endo- crine disrupting chemicals. These few activist scientists (like Portier, Séralini, Kortenkamp, Goulson …) are feted by the NGOs, become PR advocates and frequently lobby on policy issues. This creates added animosity within scientific communities with amplified online disputes that further undermine public trust in science while creating fear of a “divided” scientific community. 4. Peer review Peer review had always been a means to present a more objective evaluation of research findings, further confirmed by replication exercises. With the rise, however, of predatory, fake and “pay-to-play” journals, the peer review process has been denigrated often to merely a financial transaction with articles buried in low-impact-factor online journals. The phrase “peer review” has almost become meaningless, research quality dimin- ished with “publish or perish” professors treating the publication process as a career investment activity. Activist scientists capitalise on public ignorance of the pub- lishing process to get an article online for the mere purpose of then pushing their message through campaign networks. And if an article is retracted, as in the famous Séralini rat study, then he would simply put it up on a pay-to-play journal and his anti-GMO campaigners would continue to promote it without skipping a heartbeat. The decline in the respect for the peer review process and the rapid rise of online predatory journals have diminished the means for good scientific research journals to serve as an objective benchmark. 5. Post-Modernist denial of expertise Marcel Kunst identified how activists and NGOs demand a type of certainty that science cannot deliver. And since a scientific para- digm may shift or laws may be proven false, then nothing science says can be trusted as “truth”. Therefore, within this post-modern- ist perspective, scientific expertise is relative and diminished. Add to that the widely propagated narrative that all regulatory science has been influenced by industry and we can understand why risk assessments that approve pesticides or seeds are so easily and systematically ignored by NGOs and civil society stakeholders. The time was ripe then for a school of leftish sociologists to postulate a new, “post-normal science” driven not by the sci- ences but by societal concerns. This group, based mainly in Bergen, Norway, feel that scientific knowledge is not the most important “form of knowledge” and that pedagogic reform (retraining) of scientists is necessary. This approach to certainty management puts more requirements and handcuffs on innova- tive research, demands more involvement from “citizen scien- tists” and less trust in the scientific method. How to protect the scientific method When activist scientists produce questionable papers, the first thing the scientific community does is assess the methodology (and usually reject the conclusions). The problem here is that the scientist (and the organisation with an interest in the research) is already pushing the conclusions in the policy arena – in other words: the interest groups are declaring a scientific victory in the media while the scientists are still deciding the rules of the game. The Portier affair is the best available case study here. IARC produced a worthless hazard-based monograph on glyphosate, but the anti-GMO campaigners in the US, with law firms seeking opportunity in Monsanto cancer lawsuits and the organic lobby seeking further means to handicap conventional farmers, took this bad science and fabricated emotional campaigns, attracted potential victims and relentlessly carpet-bombed vulnerable individuals with fear and pointless uncertainty. Crying “method- ology foul” in a world where everyone feels like a potential victim is, well, practically pointless. Wakefield was excommunicated for his research malpractice. That would not happen in today’s social media tribalism. Portier has responded to the publication of his admissions by getting several anti-GMO activists in Le Monde to deflect the basic facts and question the motivation of the scientific community (and myself personally). Argumentum ad hominem. He played to his base but further ridiculed himself. There is so much that needs to be done to ensure that the sci- entific method does not get highjacked by opportunists and irra- tional idealists as we have seen with the Portier Papers. Scientific communities need to have this conversation, particularly on the following ideas: • stronger codes of ethical conduct enforced, •  better communications practices promoted (especially around the benefits from emerging technologies), • more stringency for funding transparency, •  more institutional courage and respect for decisions from scientific agencies, •  quality control on journals and clear guidelines for peer review processes, •  and, importantly, an outright rejection of the ridiculous hazard-based approach to regulations. If Wakefield’s malpractice had happened today, in a social media world, he would have divided society much like Portier’s polarisation has done. The scientific method would have been undermined as interest groups took over the political theatre. Portier’s malfeasance leaves us with a question: Can the method be saved in today’s anti-science arena, and if so, how? This is my contribution. Scientists need to openly start talking about it. SW