Reflections on why Australian organic farmer’s GMO contamination court case flopped

Trent Thorne | January 13, 2015

As Schopenhauer once said, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”  What is now self-evident from the recent landmark judgment in Marsh v Baxter is that the rabid bleating of the anti-GM lobby regarding the alleged evils of genetically modified (GM) crops have been shown to be nothing more than scaremongering.

The case involved neighbouring Western Australia farmers, Steve Marsh and Michael Baxter, who have been in dispute since Baxter planted a crop of GM canola in 2010.  An oft quoted legal axiom says that if you don’t have the law, you argue the facts; if you don’t have the facts, you argue the law. But if the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.

Well pounding the table and yelling like hell has been the modus operandi of anti-GM lobby groups for years. But they were collectively unable, despite their best efforts before the trial, to manipulate the message or hide behind their junk science as Justice Kenneth James Martin carefully considered the facts as they were presented to him.  But facts are pesky things. Nor does the truth come naturally to extremist groups, given their familiarity with histrionics, spin and propaganda.

Read full, original article: GM test case backfires