Respectable magazine publishes scientific caricature about biotechnology and Australian broadsheets think it's big news.

Several Australian newspapers have big front page headlines today about a magazine (Quadrant) that has --wait for it -- published pseudo-scientific gibberish about biotechnology.

(See e.g. Keith Windschuttle caught in Quadrant hoax) in the Australian. )

The article itself, supposedly by a Sharon Gould, is a meandering, rather precious caricature of what typical left-wing sociologists think a conservative journal would lap-up. And they were right. The Quadrant editors were completely fooled by dopey meaningless twaddle that has no sense of direction, but is encapsulated in well written paragraphs built on fabrications.

No one in the press has yet twigged to the irony that left-wing editors of clever magazines, and more sadly, clever leaders of left-leaning NGOS have been completely fooled by similar anti-biotech twaddle for years.

The article is rather pompously critical of the anti-biotech crowd. If it had been from real biotechnologists it would have been seriously newsworthy. But what we've got instead is a hoax.

Update Thursday.
The Australian Jan 8th 2009

THE Quadrant hoaxer responsible for duping editor and historian Keith Windschuttle into printing scientific nonsense is Melbourne writer Katherine Wilson.
Self-described as a mother, urban farmer and PhD scholar "and between them I sometimes dabble in journalism", Wilson is a former editor of left-leaning literary magazine Overland.

Pundit's thoughts.

As expected-- a clever magazine editor. Katherine's obsessed with the idea that those who argue in favour of freedom to choose modern genetic technology for farming are all speaking out for financial gain, and has even made assertions of this sort about the Pundit. And as far as being able to detect scientific baloney, she has reviewed Jeffrey Smith's books on genetics without detecting how scientifically fraudulent they are. If she is seeking to expose Mr Windshuttle's poor reasoning and failure to be critical of shonky evidence, it would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

P.S. January 9 2009
Leslie Cannold, January 8, 2009, The Age, is awake.

"Indeed, it's hard not to feel that insofar as the cultural left evinces exuberance about Windschuttle's downfall, this flows from relief that, for once, they are not the ones being played as fools."