To the editor:

In an otherwise reasonable attack on fact denial on May 10, Leonard Pitts includes two howlers in this quote from Nathan Bomey:

“Liberals are more likely to deny the facts about genetically modified food, which is a big issue when it comes to poverty in Africa.”

1. Liberal versus conservative beliefs on GMOs have been studied several times. It turn out there is no correlation at all between political beliefs and beliefs that GMOs are unsafe.
2. Effects of GMO on poverty in Africa are highly complicated and there are no very good studies. However, both theory and empirical work by Amartya Sen and others strongly suggest that capital intensive farming such as patented GMOs will exacerbate poverty by forcing out the poorest farmers.

So please get your scientific facts straight before charging science denial.