SIO101: Science Mom Natalie Newell

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 101, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. All right, today, I've got a fun conversation with Natalie Newell, co-hosts the Science Enthusiast podcast, and she recently made a documentary called Science Moms. We're going to talk about that, her backstory, how she got into it, but also, one thing that I in particular wanted to talk was the backlash she's getting online and her documentary is getting with accusations that she's part of some conspiracy involving Monsanto and other companies. And it's both funny and really alarming to see. So we talk a lot about that, just how advocating for GMO technology and other stuff like that just gives you this instant status as part of this dark, shadowy conspiracy for some people. It's really weird. So we are going to talk about that and more, let's get to the interview.

0:01:33 Thomas: Joining me right now is Monsanto Sh- Oh, gosh. All right. We got to rerecord. Cut that immediately. Natalie Newell, how are you doing?

0:01:42 Natalie: Are you? I, I'm great. And, uh, cut it. Yeah. But I, but it's already out there in the Twitterverse, what I am. So you, you know it, Andrew knows it. Everyone knows it, um, so we might as well just have it, have it out there. Yeah.

0:01:45 Thomas: Yeah. Restart. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Oh, man. So I'm, thank you for being here. I'm really happy to have you on the show.

0:02:00 Natalie: So Thank you for having me.

0:02:01 Thomas: And I was reminded that of the great work you're doing and the movie you made when Andrew tagged me for some reason. And I don't know why, but I guess he wanted me to join in on the fun. But he tagged me in some, some hate you were getting, and it extended to Andrew and then it like kind of extended to me for some reason. And at first I was, I was laughing about it. I wanted to get you on to talk about that. And of course, the other stuff you're doing in your movie and all that. But I wanted to talk about GMO resistance. I wanted to talk about the, the Twitter hate. But then I was also kind of saddened by it. I realized, like, man, there's a lot of these people out there. And, uh, they're shockingly, it's the whole thing is shocking, like, they're there's the things they say about you, and I, I just wanted to talk about it and get it out there, so-

0:02:51 Natalie: There." Yeah, it is. It is shocking. It is, um, it's disheartening on the base level of seeing how willing people are to just go down the conspiracy rabbit hole, um,

0:02:53 Thomas: Yeah.

0:03:05 Thomas: Or, like, invent the conspiracy rabbit hole, you know. Like, they're, it's these people seem to be creating it, you know, it's not just- Like- Yeah. It's really weird.

0:03:08 Natalie: These- Oh, Yeah. It's- This- This is a very, it's a very manufactured, odd conspiracy that they're crafting with, with really no, um, no evidence, and

0:03:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:03:24 Thomas: There's a lot of moving parts to their conspiracy, yeah.

0:03:26 Natalie: There's a lot, and, and what I'm thinking of is there's so much that, like, I would have to be one of the best keepers of secrets ever, um, to- Be part- Of- This huge- Monsanto- Conspiracy- I-

0:03:35 Thomas: Well- We- Blew- It, we- Blew in- The beginning- Of the recording, but okay, other- Than- That.

0:03:39 Natalie: Know, I- Know. So it just, it, it makes no sense. But you realize when you put out into the world something that says, I guess, the highly controversial thing of, you, vaccines are safe, GMOs are safe, find, like, you and kind- of decide that there must be something kind of some dirty dealings going on with this whole thing. And and yeah, the the Twitterverse is is an odd place, as we know, because the whole Internet is just it can devolve into a dumpster fire in like point one seconds. And so since the film My Science Mom's film has come out there, there have definitely been some some odd characters who believe that the film is essentially like a Monsanto PR stunt.

0:03:57 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:04:31 Thomas: Propaganda. Yeah, yeah. Well, with that as a teaser for that, because I want to get into some of the things they're saying later and say a few words about that. But with that is a little teaser. Why don't you take us back and talk about how you got interested in this, how you went on to, you know, essentially make your own film. And that's really cool. So take us back and tell us your story.

0:04:33 Natalie: Yeah.

0:04:52 Natalie: So I've always been kind of interested in scientific skepticism and all of that, the topics that we probably have in common, all the way back to being an undergrad in college and taking an irrational behavior class and learning about why people believe crazy shit, pretty much. Um, but then, you know, fast forward many years from then, you know, like a decade on and I'm, I'm a parent, I've, at that point I had worked in the field of education, early childhood education, for almost 10 years as a Montessori preschool teacher and then a school principal. And so I'm, I'm around children and parents pretty much all the time in my professional life at that point. And then I have two little kids of my own. And I found a lot of, oh, man, tough conversations happening either around me or to me that I – I don't know. I guess I realized that there was this whole culture of fear and misinformation surrounding parenting. And, I mean, you – so you have a kid now, right?

0:06:04 Thomas: Uh, allegedly. I have a kid I invented with the help of Monsanto to help me promote. I can make up stuff about, yeah, I know. I want to be, I want it to be a bigger part of it. I'm going to, I'm Going to get more Monsanto money than you. It's a competition now, as far as I'm concerned, it's on.

0:06:10 Natalie: Oh, okay. A little. Yeah. Yeah, you're part of this now. You're part of this. You of it. Yeah I'm Competition. Okay, it's a competition because you have the genetically modified baby at this point. So that's

0:06:25 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Well, I have baby that I can use to say, They like, look at all these safe vaccines and GMO foods I put in this baby, but it's really, it's just a doll that looks like a baby.

0:06:34 Natalie: That looks like this.

0:06:36 Thomas: So, oh, I'll shill for whoever's paying the top dollar, not even top dollar. Just like medium dollar to low dollar, just any dollar.

0:06:37 Natalie: So you're kind of like Big Pharma and Monsanto shill. I'm, I'm Whoever's going to, whoever's giving you more money. I mean, the Yeah. Yeah. I I'll take a dollar, like give, give it to me, give me a dollar. So, so really, you know, here I am working, um, in education, which obviously private school education, we know I'm not getting paid that much. So I'm like, how am I going to make more money?

Hey Monsanto, you know that that's this is how it really goes probably according to people on the internet, but really how it went is I was, I was just having, like I said, these conversations where I'm running a school, parents are coming to me saying, you know, I think you just, you should only serve organic food at the school because it's going to be healthier for the kids, or asking me personal questions of, oh, you have your own kids now, have you thought about, you know, maybe, maybe waiting on some of those vaccinations, or when one mom, and I tell this all the time because it has stuck with me, because it was one of those turning point moments of, oh my goodness, like this is what people believe and do, I had a mom, um, come up to me and ask if I consider taking my son, who was at that point maybe six months old, to a chiropractor because

0:07:06 Thomas: That's how they got you.

0:07:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:07:57 Natalie: He was, he was crying as babies do, and I'm like, yeah, he cries sometimes because he's a baby. Um,

0:08:04 Thomas: Have you tried breaking its neck to make it stop crying? Like, uh, no, I haven't tried that. Cause I want my child to survive.

0:08:06 Natalie: Yeah. Yeah. Mean, I, I'm all for, you know, living children. So, uh, yeah. So I'm At that point, the essentially the head of this little school and a parent who is my, my customer really, really, when you think about it, is asking me if I want to get my son's back cracked. And I am in just having these super awkward moments where I have to just take a breath and as politely as possible when someone suggests that, just say, uh, I'm good.

0:08:16 Thomas: Yeah, know it's Yeah, it'S something I talked about actually at that California free thought day. Um, I don't think I've mentioned on the show, but just that it's so funny how backwards it is where when someone comes to you, like, like for example, I think I had a headache or something. I don't know. I had something going on back in my old work and my boss suggested some like bullshit. She's essentially like, Hey, do you want this bullshit? And I was like, Oh God. And then the whole burden is on me now. Like societally, if I say, hold on, let me Google that. And I Google it. And when I type it in, it says, this is bullshit. Like this is nothing. Then all of a sudden I'm, I was like stressed. I was like, fuck, how am I going to tell, you know, like, what do I say?

0:09:35 Thomas: How do I politely, you know turn this person down in a way that'll you know not be like they're going to think I'm a jerk, you know, that kind of thing. And I realized like, why am I the one who is so stressed out right now? Shouldn't it just be that I say, oh, I looked that up. It's, you know, actually it doesn't do anything. And then it's like, oh thanks. You know, like why don't we just value you basic skepticism. We totally don't. And I can totally relate to what you're saying. I think I've had that very problem with chiropractic. It comes up a lot too. And you never know, not only who is going to be someone who participates in chiropractic, which by the way, if anyone out there listening doesn't know this, chirospractic is nonsense. It's all pseudoscience.

0:10:16 Natalie: Pseudoscience.

0:10:16 Thomas: There's, it can be dangerous.

0:10:17 Natalie: And it's really dangerous for children, especially

0:10:19 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:10:19 Natalie: For children.

0:10:20 Thomas: Especially for children.

0:10:20 Natalie: Like we're talking babies. Yeah. Like I'm talking like little small bodies and

0:10:23 Thomas: Yeah, oh, absolutely. Don't let your, yeah, don't let them them do that. It can be dangerous. It's not, I think that those numbers are interesting to look at. If you're just talking about, you know, you and I going and getting a thing, I don't want to over, I do want to make sure to stay consistent with the scientific data. And in terms of the accident rates, like it's not you know you're probably you're going to die driving there more likely than getting an adjustment. But still, it's a non-zero danger and there's no benefit other, other than, you know, mentally, I guess, if you think it helps you, but, but you never know. Not only, I was going to say not only who likes chiropractic, but then someone might be a chiropractor, or you have, like, oh yeah, my dad's a chiroprotor. And then all of a sudden you're insulting an entire person's, like, profession and like how they, you know, it's, it's hard. That one's like one of the hardest ones.

I always want to say, you know, whenever someone mentions it, I always wanna say, oh, yeah, I used to think that was something, but it turns out it's nonsense, sense but you can't, it's like you'll be ostracized if you say that. Yeah.

0:10:33 Natalie: Yeah, Yeah. Adjusted or whatever. Yeah.

0:10:47 Natalie: Than there.

0:11:23 Natalie: No, it's, and it's so hard. And when I was doing that job, I, you know, I had to be there as the face of this school and, you know, try to swallow a lot of what I wanted to say at times because it's about having these relationships with parents, but when they're clearly making some odd personal decisions for their children, like what, what do you do, you know? And so, especially just seeing more and more of that around me, I started feeling at times like, am I missing something? Because I'm not feeling the need to do all of my grocery shopping at Whole Foods for organic and non-GMO food.

0:12:11 Natalie: I am taking my kids to this awesome pediatrician practice where it's this group of women doctors who, when I went in the the first time, like before, before my first son was even born, just, I went in to check out the practice. They said to the group of people that were there to check the practice, we vaccinate. And if you're looking, essentially, if you're looking to, you not be down with that, we might not be the practice for you. And I, at that moment thought this is the practice for me because I, yeah, I was of the mindset that I am going to vaccinate my children.

I am going to trust medical professionals. I'm going to feed my children healthy food. Whether that is, you conventionally grown or organic or whatever, I just want to, you know, spend a reasonable amount of money at the grocery store and not go crazy. But at times, kind of felt like maybe that was a weird way to be, because when everybody else around you it seems like is kind of of a different mindset, it can, it can feel like, and it sounds so first world privilege saying, oh, it can be isolating to, you know, have that, you know, worldview. But, it's a, it's bizarre.

0:12:39 Thomas: Yeah. To.

0:13:27 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:27 Natalie: Thing, and so it's. Yeah, it was just sort of a weird culture, parenting culture, to be in when I had my two little kids. And then I, I mean, I never was super into mommy blogs or I don't know, like, searching the internet for parenting advice, because, but there was one parenting blog that I've always liked, and it is, um, Grounded Parents, which I don't know, I just don't know how active it is anymore, but I think it's part of the like skeptic network of blogs and stuff, but I used to read it. And one night, just up feeding a baby at like two in the morning, as you do. And I was scrolling on my phone at the same time, because that's also what I did. I came across this open letter written by a group of women who are scientists, science communicators, and moms.

0:13:28 Thomas: Yeah.

0:14:22 Natalie: And this was around the time when people like Gwyneth Paltrow and Sarah Michelle Gellar and other celebrities were really into that whole just label it campaign about GMOs. It was when Gwyneth Paltrow went to Washington, D.C. and somehow got to stand up in front of people in D.C. and say, you know, I'm here as a mom.

0:14:42 Thomas: She's. Where. I get. My. Science. Info. Yeah.

0:14:46 Natalie: Cool. You're there as a Mom. Um, there's probably a lot of moms who are better qualified and don't advocate shoving things in, you know, your vagina like Jade rocks, but whatever. That's her thing. But there is, you know, this group of women who decided they, as scientists and science minded people, are also parents, wanted to kind of say their own piece about these issues. And so there was this open letter with the hashtag of moms for GMOs. And I read this and thought, oh, OK, maybe I'm not on some little island of rational thought, you know.

And there are other people out there who are parents who want to, I don't know, kind of shift the narrative around things like GMOs and then by association, things like vaccines and other sort of science-minded parenting topics. So there was just something about reading this particular letter or blog post that resonated with me. And the kind of thing where that was two years ago. And kind of fast forward to now and I'm, you trying to convince people on Twitter that I'm not, you know, a shill or something. But from the moment of reading that letter, I just, I think it was a couple days later, wrote up this proposal for a short film and sent it to the group of five women who authored the letter. And

0:15:25 Thomas: Hmm. Huh.

0:16:09 Natalie: Pretty much like, hey, I'm a stranger from the internet who wants to make a movie about you.

0:16:10 Thomas: Did. Did you have a, like a, a filmmaking, you know, history or background or anything, or did you just come up with that out of nothing?

0:16:23 Natalie: Mean, the, the idea kind of came out of, you know, nothing, but I am really fortunate in that my, my kid's dad is, we were not romantically involved anymore, but we're really good friends. And he is an editor. He works for National Geographic and. He. Is the person that actually edited the film, so I was kind of the ideas person, director, producer, and he edited. So magic of editing, but also, you know, just was just my idea, and I just thought it could make a good movie. Um, and I guess, you know, since college, since college and in the post-college years, I've just had a lot of friends who are involved in things like non-fiction TV and film production. My best friend is a college film professor. Um, so it, I've just kind of been around that in more of a social way, but just got a lot of good advice along the way in.

0:16:42 Thomas: Oh, wow. Wow.

0:17:23 Natalie: Making this happen, so.

0:17:24 Thomas: Well, that's really cool. I mean, it's awesome that you were able to, you know set about to do a project and you accomplished it and congratulations on that. Super cool was

0:17:31 Natalie: Thank you, and. It's. And really it's a lot of thanks to, I mean, every person that donated to the Kickstarter campaign. I mean, it was a, a crowdfunded film, um, and then just all of the, the really awesome. People. I've met. There's. There's.

0:17:43 Thomas: There one donor m.santo that.

0:17:46 Natalie: One. Yeah.

0:17:46 Thomas: Yeah, made.

0:17:47 Natalie: Yeah, that's.

0:17:49 Thomas: It. Happen.

0:17:49 Natalie: It, but. I mean. They just, but they, they wanted to, they wanted to be a little tricky with it, so they created, I don't know, a couple hundred individual people, you know, some of them are like, oh, let's make this person donate five dollars.

0:17:49 Thomas: Oh.

0:18:01 Thomas: Yeah, for Breaking Bad fans out there, is like that kind of, but one thing that I think is interesting, I've talked about a little bit on the show, is, you know, Democrats, and I think skeptics like to talk a lot about how anti-science Republicans are, and they are. And don't get me wrong, it's another one of those, I'm not going to make it like a both sides thing. But when it comes to certain questions, Democrats are actually really anti-science as well.

And it's disappointing because I would much rather prefer, you know, I don't know your political leanings necessarily, but I consider myself firmly on the left, and I would rather be on the side of science. And one thing that's really weird about the GMO debate is that it's like, from the polls I'm seeing, really equal, like it's across the political spectrum. It is remarkable how from the numbers I'm seeing how uh like similar it is within the parties. Mean, And you're facing a lot of pushback. Do you ever, do you get a sense of where it's coming from, right or left? Or I guess it might be hard to tell with Twitter harassment.

0:19:05 Natalie: Tell with Twitter. Ads. Oh, it's hard to tells, but I think it seems like it's a little bit more left-leaning with the GMO stuff. Stuff. And, and it is, it's a, it's a bummer to me as somebody who considers myself more left of center. And it's a conversation that I've had. I have, like, I have stickers on my computer that say, like, you know, it's my friend Dan sells them, or like, you know, that vaccines are safe, or GMOs are safe and vaccines work, and all this stuff. And I had a woman come up to me one day when I was at a coffee shop, and just had a conversation with me, and she was talking about how she is, she considers herself liberal, and how upsetting it is that fellow liberals don't, guess, approve of GMOs when they can have such a positive social impact in the world, in terms.

0:20:04 Thomas: Yeah.

0:20:04 Natalie: Of hunger and all that kind of stuff. And shouldn't we, as liberal or left-leaning people, want that for the planet, you know, and how to, you know, say, or kind of demonize them. It, it, it runs contrary to kind of issues of social justice and all of that, I think. And that, that's what this woman brought up to me. And it was an interesting point, and, you know, kind of bringing to the table that there is sometimes kind of more, more left or liberal, like, resistance to the idea of GMOs.

0:20:17 Thomas: Yeah, it is interesting. I don't know where it comes from. It must be like, there's a portion of the left that, yeah, I don't know. I guess guess I would probably be generalizing, but I do know that there tends to be, from my experience anyway, anecdotally overlap between, you know, like almost a bit of a hippie mentality, you know, mother earth kind of thing. And like this idea, it's like horseshoe theory. I don't literally subscribe to horseshoe therapy, but there are times where in individual issues where there can be an odd overlap between like people on the left thinking, you knows, mother nature knows best somehow. They almost have a Gaia religion, like the planet knows best. Never mind the fact that we totally changed everything on the planet.

0:21:20 Thomas: Literally everything we eat did not exist in the Garden of Eden. Assuming that existed, by the way. We've changed everything, but never mind that. And there's an overlap between those people and then people who think literally like, yes, yes, God made strawberries the way they are. You know, it's it's kind of weird that there's such a firm overlap on that issue.

And it's and the numbers are remarkably similar, like for for each position when when they look at like, are you against GMOs or are you kind of OK with them or are you totally for them? It's like the same across both Democrat, not only Democrat and Republican, but moderates like all the numbers I'm seeing are the same. Across the board. It's really odd. And you know what? Announcement, I just finally found that poll that's the opinion difference between the public and scientists. Yeah, we both, before we started recording, both were trying to find it because we're like, oh yeah, we should reference that because we both used it at different times and neither of us could find it. But I came across it And it's the opinion difference between the public and scientists. And GM foods is 88% of scientists say it's safe, which that should really be higher, but that's okay. 88% say it's safe and 37% of non-scientists say it's safe. So there's a big, big gulf there. And

0:22:06 Natalie: Oh, yeah. Finally.

0:22:40 Natalie: It's a staggering difference right there. Yeah.

0:22:43 Thomas: And another one actually is safe to eat foods grown with pesticides. That one's, that one's lower for scientists. Is. So it's 68, but for it's even lower for, uh, non-scientists is 28%. So that's an interesting one. Is that, is that a topic you've, you've looked into?

0:22:58 Natalie: So, so pesticides, I mean, one of the only things that we kind of cover in the film about pesticides is the fact that there's, um, there's some misconceptions around differences between kind of conventional and organic farming. And And a lot of people, when asked, kind of assume that there are no pesticides used in organic farming. And that is something that some of the women brought up in the film when we were talking about food and farming and all of that, in that organic farming does use pesticides, just organic pesticides.

0:23:33 Natalie: Question, is it copper sulfate is one that I think it was Allison referenced in the...

0:23:33 Thomas: Begs the question, what's an organic pesticide? Like for some reason, it's just,

0:23:41 Natalie: Yeah. But

0:23:41 Thomas: Yeah. Like it's just pesticides that they've decided or,

0:23:42 Natalie: Yeah. Yeah. It's Because it's not synthetic, right? It's not made in So it's not, it's like glyphosate or something that

0:23:44 Thomas: Oh, why would mother nature have invented a good, like non-syntetic pesticide though? Why would it be like a natural? That doesn't make any sense.

0:23:58 Natalie: Make any sense, but you know, but, but you know, what, natural is better, organic is Better, right? That's That's the the marketing that that has been pushed and successfully and stuff too. But yeah, so pesticides, it is definitely touched on a little bit in the film. But again, in 30 minutes, there's only so much depth that we can go into for all of these things. But there's a lot of, I fear tactics around things like pesticides, too. Like there's the Environmental Working Group is an organization that puts out every year a list called the Dirty Dozen of produce items that they say you pretty much need to buy the organic version of them because pesticides.

0:24:03 Thomas: Yeah, yeah,

0:24:50 Natalie: Things like that that exist kind of in the world. And I wish I had handy kind of some of my favorite debunking articles about the EWG dirty dozen, um, because in itself it's, it's sort of an odd concept that an organization is essentially saying, um, or trying to, in a way, it seems like, scare people from buying fresh fruits and vegetables unless they are willing and able to spend more money on them. Yeah. Which is a tricky thing It's

0:25:13 Thomas: Yeah, buying organic food is certainly a privileged thing to be able to do. It's so much more expensive.

0:25:22 Natalie: It is. And as far as sort of nutritional value and all of that, it's not going to be better for you or your children to, you know, if you decide that you want to spend, you know, $2 more on that bag of apples, if you want to buy organic. So it's of, a lot of these feel like very privileged decisions that we are able to make here about food, you you know, kind of in our country over here. And issues of food and how we view it and everything here, I think kind of trickle down in sometimes an unfortunate way to other parts of the world who are kind of looking to us to see, you know, what our attitudes about things like biotechnology and organic and all that stuff are. And if we're of demonizing GMOs or or whatever here, know, places that could actually benefit from them, I feel like, you know?

0:26:11 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah I think what's. Yeah absolutely I think another thing that's interesting that I want to say is, if you don't think GMOs are safe, then you also shouldn't even believe in climate change. You like you might as well if you if you and for that matter, you start questioning evolution, because actually the numbers of scientists who think that GMOs are safe is slightly higher than the number, the percentage that think climate change is due to human activity. So you might as well like start questioning that. And I just think that's what I would tell people on the left, because the climate change thing is far more obviously a right wing thing.

0:26:15 Natalie: Yeah,

0:26:52 Thomas: But it's it's, it's still just a scientific consensus, like either. I don't get how you could pick and choose which scientific consensus is which overwhelming scientific consensus you decide to to go with. That's that seems weird. Now, if it was like a 50 50 thing, then, OK, that might be a different story. But these are overwhelming. I mean, these are 88, 89 percent. You know, that that's that's an overwhelming majority of scientists who recognize that this is safe or or climate change or whatever. And I don't know how you pick and choose between those. It seems to me that you should be consistent with that. That. Another one that might not be popular, by the way, is nuclear power plants. It's on this poll as well.

Nuclear power is one where I think that it has really gotten the short end of the stick. And there's sort of a weird... That one might be more left. More people on the left are against nuclear than on the right. I'm not sure, but that would be my intuition. But that's something where it's like the scientific consensus is only 65%, but still, I mean, that's a strong majority.

0:27:12 Natalie: Yeah. That

0:28:01 Thomas: 65% of scientists say we need more nuclear power plants and only 45 of non-scientists. And that's something where I think, you know, when our intuitions kind of stumble over one another, where it's like, we want stuff that's better for the environment, but when we don't, when we essentially restrict nuclear power, like we haven't been building power plants at all forever because because of one accident or two, and that increases reliance on fossil fuels and is just worse for the environment. And I think, you know, as much as environmentalists are the kinds of people who are against nuclear, I think they're mistaken. But anyway, sorry, you were going to butt in before I went off on a tangent.

0:28:41 Natalie: Well, no, So So I was going to say, though, like, because you're right about picking and choosing which consensus, people, you know, we're going to subscribe to and believe in. But there, there also sometimes seems to be a misconception of what consensus is. And I think Allison in my film, Allison Bernstein, she's a neuroscientist and she's one of the women that I interviewed. She describes it so well, that sometimes people think consensus is just scientists kind of raising their hands and saying, "I agree with this thing that you're saying." But consensus is the confluence of all the evidence about a particular subject. So the research and evidence about things like, you know, GMOs or vaccine safety or whatever, it's the consensus of the evidence. And so the fact that that people the work. Yeah.

0:29:16 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah, the work they're doing. Yeah.

0:29:35 Natalie: And people still somehow can say, "Oh, well, what, like big corporations paid for scientific consensus," or some or some conspiracy theory around why that's wrong. It that just baffles me.

0:29:51 Thomas: Yeah! It's one thing if you're talking, if you are just talking to an individual scientist, then okay, I mean, it's not as though you have to believe everything that person says, because yeah, the tobacco industry bribed a bunch of scientists, and you know, same thing happened with climate change, and and yeah, that that can happen. Uh, they can get scientists who, you know, pretty much immoral scientists, to testify, testify to nonsense. That's happened. Uh, but when it when you look at the overwhelming consensus, as you said, I mean, that that that's a big payroll. And not only that, it's that, what, yeah, like Allison said, it it's not as though they can just bribe them to say, uh, I, you know, like they have to, like, this work has to be, you know, peer-reviewed and make sense, and there's a huge system that they would be pretty impossible to overtake, that entire system. But with that in mind, maybe we should, uh, talk about some of the allegations against us both

0:30:04 Natalie: Yeah, a both

0:30:48 Thomas: Now Well, I think I think mainly you, but I've gotten a little bit of it.

0:30:48 Natalie: Now us I mean You're, you're just by association at this point.

0:30:53 Thomas: I'm Implicated.

0:30:54 Natalie: It's like it's trick It's tickling down from, from me to, to Andrew Torrez, to, to you. I mean, it's, you're you're part of this now, you're part of it. Yeah.

0:30:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah yeah Definitely. I'm lawyering up, But I, but I have a, fortunately, Monsanto has a great legal team, they're providing me with counsel, so

0:31:07 Natalie: So they Do. They do, they're So, yeah. Some, somehow my, my little, little film that was crowdfunded, I think about $10,000 on Kickstarter, somehow, somehow is part of Monsanto PR, um, and and I remember, uh, seeing, got, like, gosh, it was probably at least a year ago or something, when before the film had come out, whatever, um, seeing somewhere that, that yeah, that, science, there's this movie Science Moms, and it's, a it's created by a PR firm, and I'm thinking, no, it's creating a PR firm, and it was created by me, like, in a coffee shop, basically.

0:31:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah How

0:31:47 Natalie: Like on Google Docs

0:31:48 Thomas: Weird is it when people are telling you, I've had some experience with this too, where people are telling, just offhandedly, like, "Oh yeah, I know that, that's, that's like PR for Monsanto, PR or whatever," how weird does it, when it's like, no, I did this, like that, in

0:32:02 Natalie: So, it's weird, because, um, so other than doing Science Moms, I also do, um, I do a podcast, and recently we were doing, uh, we did an interview, we interviewed, um, James Ball, he's a journalist, and we talked all about fake news and post-truth and all this stuff. And as I'm preparing for that interview with him, I find out that there's like, there's like legit fake news about Science Mobs in a book. So I, I sent you a pic, I send you a picture of this. So this, this is just the one that, that just got me, like, holy shit, they're, they're talking about this somewhere. These people who are, I imagine, like, in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, there was an episode where Charlie is in the mail room, and he's like, making a conspiracy theory board with, like, lines of string and pictures, and all that stuff.

0:32:27 Thomas: A book wow yeah Yeah.

0:32:53 Thomas: Oh, yeah. You'll see that.

0:32:55 Natalie: Yeah. Like I I picture that is what's happening. About, there's a science mom's board somewhere and so there's um there's a woman named Carrie Gillam and she's associated with um I think it's like U.S. Right to Know, know, you know, U.S. Right to Know, what's in your food. Um, she wrote a book called whitewash and it has to do with things like Monsanto and glyphosate and all that. But, um, I have a friend Mary who, yeah, so, so she, you Know how, how awful all this is. I haven't

0:32:55 Thomas: Yeah. Posted that picture. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely.

0:33:14 Thomas: Right. Do you want to explain glyphosate or. Yeah

0:33:29 Natalie: Read the book, so I'll say that.

0:33:29 Thomas: It sounds sciencey. So glyphsate must be evil. Is that an evil child murder chemical.

0:33:35 Natalie: Yeah. So, um So she wrote wrote a book and my friend Mary, who I think is just kind of taking one for team science was, was reading this book. And, and so she posts a picture on Twitter, letting us know that, that science moms is mentioned in this, in this book about glyphosate and Monsanto. So I pulled it up, and I can, I can tell you what it says, so it's talking about what Monsanto can do, I guess, for PR. And it says, "Mommy bloggers, women who write about parenting or related topics, are among the social media players Monsanto and its PR teams have recruited for positive commentary on agrochemical industry interests, such as glyphosate and GMOs. Monsanto has ties to social media groups, such as Moms for GMOs and Science Moms, for instance. These groups post favorable industry information on an array of websites while appearing to be independent of industry influence." So that's me, hey, uh, thanks for mentioning me in your book without ever um checking

0:33:52 Thomas: That's so crazy. Like talking

0:34:36 Natalie: In Yeah, like I, I did not ever have any interaction with this woman, but, but, clearly she's aware that

0:34:36 Thomas: To you. Yeah yeah. Yeah. Just, well, she knows. I mean, come on. The, the writing is on the wall, Natalie.

0:34:51 Natalie: Writing's on the wall.

0:34:52 Thomas: The writings, the writings on that whiteboard with all the yarn or whatever like this that, yeah,

0:34:52 Natalie: The writing is. Because it's, yeah, there is a whiteboard, some bulletin board with yarn and strings and pictures of me and all the women in the film. But, but yeah, so, so that is essentially saying, I somehow have have ties to Monsanto PR. And there's going to be an episode of Kevin Folta's Talking Biotech podcast that's coming out, I think. I've had him on the show.

0:35:18 Thomas: I've had him on the show. Yeah. It's been a few years I think, but yeah, he's in the pocket of Monsanto. He's also in the packet of Monsanto. Yeah, oh yeah. Oh,

0:35:47 Natalie: There, there was an email at some point saying, um, something about moms or people to talk to about this, about this stuff. But somehow I think that that, I think that that is their like piece of yarn on the whiteboard connection. Like that Kevin Fulta said the word moms.

0:36:02 Thomas: So Kevin Folta said go to the, yeah, go to where the moms are. And then Monsanto did.

0:36:10 Natalie: Yeah, because somehow Kevin Folta and I have just known each other for probably a really long time. And they gave me the idea.

0:36:15 Thomas: If you get the moms, the country follows.

0:36:17 Natalie: Yeah. So, so, so that I, so I think that that's there, that that'S where, you know, some of the connection for that comes from, but also I mean, there's, there was a whole blog post on some wacky blog. I sent you the link to this.

0:36:20 Thomas: The key is the moms. Yeah.

0:36:34 Thomas: Oh, you did?

0:36:35 Natalie: I, I sent, I set you a link to one about Vance Crowe of Monsanto, who's the millennial engagement director at Monsanto. Um, another of my favorite or least favorite Twitter trolls. Um. Well, I have all these people muted now, but, um, wrote this weird blog post in the spring about, about Vance, who I'm, you know, like he's my friend, that, like that's kind of it, but just this whole post, um, saying, I guess, how he is like connected to those of us who who run science and skeptic pages and projects and all of that and calling me out for calling him my friend. Like it's, it's, it makes me laugh because it's such a weird thing. It's to so weird that do, people that these people even care that my film exists.

0:36:35 Thomas: Did I miss this?

0:36:51 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:37:23 Natalie: Yeah. And, and so it's it's that thing where it's funny to it to a degree that that this person, um, it's yeah. Well, okay. So this person who wrote the blog post about Vance made this Photoshop, um Photoshopped picture of it's like the, the TV show friends, but instead of friends, it says Monsanto and it's, and yeah.

0:37:32 Thomas: But it's so disturbing.

0:37:46 Thomas: Oh, I did see that. Okay, yeah.

0:37:49 Natalie: And so I, I have that as my Facebook, um, banner, uh, header picture because it's fucking amazing.

0:37:53 Thomas: Maybe I'll, maybe I'll borrow that for the, for this podcast uh photo and

0:37:56 Natalie: It's cause it's So, it's so funny because it's me, it's Kevin Folta, Julie Kelly, who's a journalist, um, Vance from Monsanto. Yvette, the Psy babe and Dan, yeah no

0:38:05 Thomas: This was hold on was this made seriously like this was, this was not like ironic, this was yeah

0:38:12 Natalie: That, well, this was, this was made as the, like, as a graphic to go in this person's blog post. Like, and they're like, it's funny, yeah, it's fucking funny, but like, they, they took the time to photoshop our heads on the Friends bodies. It's just, I mean, it's the kind of thing I should frame and have all of the, you know, the people in it, sign it and just have it in my house. But so it's, it goes from kind of the the funny to then the just really kind of bizarre in the past couple weeks, some of the tweets and everything and just calling it propaganda, whatever, that's fine. That's what people think. But But when it kind of starts to go into saying things like that by doing this kind of film or by speaking about these kind of issues, we're essentially advocating, you know, like we're bad moms,

0:38:25 Thomas: It's so great yeah

0:39:06 Natalie: Or advocating things that are harmful to children and all of that. There's something about that that's just gross. Well,

0:39:14 Thomas: Well it's scary, yeah, who knows if, if, you know, some unbalanced person is going to think that you're killing children or something, it's definitely scary. But it's, yeah, I, I totally know what you mean where it's like, I had the same reaction where it was like, oh, this is funny. And then it's, man, this also kind of disturbing because it's, what's frustrating about it is that it's not just disagreement. You know, it's just like, oh, uh, I disagree, let's discuss the evidence. And even if you can't convince someone, at least you're having a discussion. This is lizard people.

0:39:46 Natalie: People.

0:39:46 Thomas: Like this is if they believe everyone is lizard people behind their skin. You can't, there's nothing I could say that wouldn't be what a lizard person would say in this situation. Like there's something you can't say anything to, to get them out of that. And it's just, it's scary in a way. And, uh, on a lighter note, I want to read the, some of the tweets that I saw.

0:39:47 Natalie: Oh, it is. If No. On tweets that I saw.

0:40:08 Thomas: So it was so good. So someone, I don't know know who this is, but someone with the Twitter handle BioChicaGMO said, oh, okay.

0:40:10 Natalie: Someone, she said... Oh, that's Layla. She's in the movie, and she is such a badass on Twitter.

0:40:20 Thomas: Okay, cool. That's awesome. She said, hey, I've got a deal for you to someone apparently who was harassing her about this.

0:40:27 Natalie: Harassing you. Oh, Paul Thacker, I bet. I bet that's him.

0:40:28 Thomas: Yep. Yep, that's it. That's it, so she said, Hey, I'm got a deal for your higher forensic accountant to do my taxes this year. I'll get free tax services. You'll get to break an exclusive story if there's evidence that Monsanto is paying me.

0:40:29 Natalie: Yeah. She Is saying that.

0:40:41 Thomas: Time to put up or shut up. That's awesome. That's a, that's a great, I love that, like that's win-win, you can't, you know, how can, how could this person, you know, turn that down and What's Amazing is Oh Good

0:40:53 Natalie: So So Thomas, do You do You Think, do you think Paul Thacker has taken her up on that offer?

0:40:54 Thomas: Absolutely It's done deal.

0:40:59 Natalie: It's, it's a done deal, he's got it hired, it's In the works like Crickets Crickets from Paul Thacker Nothing Nothing Yeah No, I Mean,

0:41:02 Thomas: Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah I Didn't Even Respond It looks Like that I'm seeing I mean The Twitter embeds are a little weird now, sometimes there's like threads within threads, but I don't see anything on this, and what is weird, and this is how Andrew got pulled into it, weirdly Uh Was someone responded to that with what seems like a non-sequitur, and maybe you can explain this, saying, "Finding Mrs. Newell will be really easy." Oh, Miss Newell would be really easy, she is eating delicious dinners with Monsanto PR To Work out where to edit her film thingy, which it was already done at this point, wasn't it? So Yeah You're done Editing How Hold Hold On.

0:41:19 Natalie: Oh, God.

0:41:33 Natalie: One second To Work out Yeah Yeah, so I First Of all, I love That She Oh

0:41:42 Thomas: They go on, they go on. Don't interrupt this. You know, it's not going to make any sense if you interrupt it. How much did big six ag chem pay Monsanto's Cammy Ryan? Well, now you got big six ad ag chem paying a Monsato person to, to Kickstart this advertorial project. So answer, answer the question

0:41:42 Natalie: Sorry Sorry Cami Yeah I mean, there's a lot, there's A lot to unpack here, I mean, first Of all, is it an advertorial, is it a film thingy, like, I don't know what, I don't Know what I made at this point, um So

0:42:06 Thomas: Yeah Are You Done With it or not, like

0:42:15 Natalie: So That Lady, oh my goodness, she's on mute for me because she's the one that, that sent that, was tweeting, "Science moms are on the sauce again, irresponsible," like, I think she was Calling, yeah

0:42:15 Thomas: Yeah Oh Yeah I think I saw you Respond to That Yeah, how

0:42:28 Natalie: Yeah Yeah So There, there was like, there was that, um, at a point I was just responding to her with gifts because that's, that's all I could Do What

0:42:39 Thomas: What Else What else can you do, yeah, no I Totally Understandable

0:42:40 Natalie: Else what Else I mean, that was That was a, like a couple weeks ago at this point, and she was just getting gifts because there were a lot of us, it was funny, and she just, she was going wild, um, so I don't really know what her deal is, but clearly she's, she's looking for me and looking through all my old tweets, um, so the delicious Monsanto dinner, I will, I will tell you, I did have dinner with some friends That work at Monsanto. No.

0:42:42 Thomas: Oh No Way, well Then it's all true, it's

0:43:06 Natalie: Yeah. And so all of this is very... It's all true. It's true. So therefore, true. Therefore, paid advertorial by Monsento. Yeah, if you look through my old tweets, and who really wants to do that because I tweet a lot of bullshit on there, Paul Thacker, you know, great investigative journalist, found my tweet from whenever that was, maybe February or March. I was in St. Louis. Um, for,

0:43:08 Thomas: All True So These people just happen to work at Monsanto, or was this because you were receiving funding For

0:43:37 Natalie: I got to, I got to go and actually tour the Monsanto research facility when I was there.

0:43:37 Thomas: Yeah You Got to see where the, how the children are killed

0:43:44 Natalie: To, you know, I got to see tomatoes getting injected with all kinds of liquid and stuff. I saw it all. I, I did, I, I ate dinner in St. Louis with, among others, Cami Ryan, who was mentioned in that, in that tweet, can't Big, big mistake, having a great night with some awesome people, God, I should just take it all back now, but, um, but yeah, Cami gets brought into this because she works for Monsanto and

0:43:44 Thomas: Yeah Yeah Mistake now If she works for Monsanto, why does she need to be also paid by agro, what was it Agris big six Something, can't Monsato Just Handle that is There Some Like Evil Corporation Sharing Program, like, they, they all decided, like, okay, we're all evil corporations here, let's, uh, let's crowdfund together to Do Yeah That's Petty Cash

0:44:15 Natalie: I Don't Know, because she Yeah Because I mean, Cammie, if She Works From Monsato Is Swimming In money, yeah Crowdfund Ten Thousand dollars because Because Like Let's just, let's talk about that for a second, ten $10,000 for, no, offend me, please offend me because

0:44:38 Thomas: Sure No Offense to you, they Probably Would have found No Offense to you. They would have hired you, who's James Cameron, they were, you know, if you got evil Monsanto Corporation money, it's, that's a double bluff, you know, like super Secret, double secret probation to Yeah Like to hire you, that's an odd one, that's Odd Then

0:44:54 Natalie: Yeah, you're not finding me, no. It's an Odd one. I'm an odd choice for this whole operation because

0:45:06 Thomas: You, you know, do you ever wonder, like, what would be like to talk to these people, like, would it be horrible, or would, if you met this person on the street Would they just be a person, or would it like immediately, you said like, "Oh, hi," and they would be, like, did you know they're watching us and they're wearing a tin full of hat, or, you know, like I Don't know, yeah

0:45:12 Natalie: Yeah Yeah I Know, and that's the thing, because people have, you know, online personas or whatever, but I do wonder with these people because they, it seems like they're so far off the deep end, you know

0:45:35 Thomas: Here's one thing I have noticed about virtually everything, every, every one of these essentially trolls. I mean, I use troll loosely. I don't know how much they're like some of them are trolling, but some of them just are persistent, you know, and they just like to tweet a bunch of the same stuff. And what I've notice is that if you look at their ratio of tweets to followers, it's a war crime like it is this one in particular, Olive Farmer, who knows where you are because you work for Monsanto and you're dining with them, she has 68.9 thousand tweets.

0:45:42 Natalie: Used Yeah Followers, it's More Fun What Is This One In Particular, all Of them, yeah He Yeah, she Has Holy shit, yeah

0:46:12 Thomas: Yeah, how do you have the time to do that? And has 1,800 followers. Not a bad follower count, but 68.

0:46:20 Natalie: Yeah, she has more than me. 28.9 thousand tweets.

0:46:24 Thomas: 9,000 tweets. And you know all All of them are just like glyphosate, glyphostate, you know, just over and over. It's amazing. And all of the ones like in these threads who I've seen who are, giving you a hard time about this. They're all that way. Like it, which makes me wonder, I don't know how many people it is or if it's just a few, a few people who tweet 70,000 times at everybody about it. It's frustrating. Either way, it clouds the the atmosphere here and it's hard to it's hard to have faith in online interactions ever again.

0:46:27 Natalie: Oh, God.

0:46:58 Natalie: Interaction. It is. And, man, I mean, they are relentless sometimes, too, which is so bizarre. And just looking for for anything like that Paul Thacker guy who has been quiet now I think probably since Layla like mic dropped on him about the taxes but he everything um I think I I retweeted a tweet of Rob Fraley from Monsanto because he had tweeted one of Coven's and Apathy's articles about, I don't know, GMOs. And so this dude decides, well, it's a science mom's coincidence that Natalie retweets the Monsanto guy or the Morsanto guy tweets Coven's article. It's like, it's not that sinister.

0:47:45 Natalie: But also, I honestly, I did retweet it just because I wanted to see if he would notice and he did. Goddammit. So these people are have no have nothing better to do. But but they think that there's some sinister plot to all of this, but isn't it doesn't it just make more sense that all of us who are you interested in biotechnology and GMOs and all of that, we all kind of follow each other and each other's work and retweet each other stuff like, like, it, that's it.

0:48:15 Thomas: That's like I remember a long time ago when someone had some conspiracy theory about how all the atheist podcast patron each other on Patreon to drive up their numbers, is like, no, we we kind of just do that to be nice. And it's only a few bucks anyway. It's not like it really does anything. It's kind of like that where it's like, yeah, yeah.

0:48:31 Natalie: Yeah, it is. And it's just, we are, you know, you kind of go with your like-minded people on certain things and we collaborate with each other and we like each other. And it it's really, really simple.

0:48:39 Thomas: Yeah. Frustrating because I started caring about GMOs a while back when I saw I think it might have been a TED talk, actually, but before TED talks were so ridiculous now. But it was one where a guy talked about like, yeah, you know, people are so resistant to GMOs and, you know, we could be feeding millions of people, millions more people are currently starving, except, you know, essentially some white people in America are mad about it. So, you Know, it just it drove me nuts to know that people are going hungry, possibly because of this yuppie resistance to something that they don't know anything about. Out. And like you said, I mean, it's far more plausible that scientific consensus tells us something and ordinary citizens like you and the people in your movie care about this issue and want to get it out there. That makes more sense. Then you've been duped into saying stuff that you know is harmful and going to hurt people. How many people would do that, you know, like?

0:49:11 Natalie: To

0:49:45 Thomas: Take Payment To spread. Yeah, good, right.

0:49:45 Natalie: Like. I know. And I've said it too. Like if, so say tomorrow morning we wake up and on the front page of the newspaper overnight somehow magically the scientific consensus on GMOs, it changes, you know, or at any point it changes. I would say, okay, I'm going to change my mind with when new evidence is presented. And so, so there's that. There's also the fact that if a corporation or some big something funded my film, I would have said it a

0:50:22 Thomas: It Probably would have been a full hour too. More

0:50:24 Natalie: Yeah, I, I wouldn't be, I würde have had more time. I would've had more money. Like I, I would have said it. Not a keeper of secrets here. And that's the thing that's just bizarre to me, too, is that I would have been transparent about it because I believed in these messages. And I stand behind what is in this film unless somebody comes to me and says, you're wrong, you presents me with the evidence that shows that any of that is incorrect, you know, because I take it seriously. Like the reason that I wanted to make a film about these topics with people that know what they're talking about is because I didn't want it to be just another film like movies like What the Health or GMOOMG or whatever that just parades pseudoscience as fact.

0:50:26 Thomas: Time Or Resources Yeah, yeah.

0:51:15 Natalie: You know, I wanted it to have experts on these topics talk about them, and yeah, if anything is wrong, like, let me know, I'm like, I think skepticism is being, it is being open to changing your mind, right, with actual evidence, not with people yelling at you on Twitter that you're whatever. It, the conspiracy around all of this, is, is so crazy, and I wish That it Would die, that

0:51:41 Thomas: It Yeah It's amazing that just from kind of following a passion you had and doing a project and following through on it, which is like I said earlier, I mean, it's really amazing that you did that. Just from doing that, you, you all of a sudden are embroiled in this conspiracy theory. It's so crazy. But I think that's a good note to go out on. Make sure to tell everybody where to find you, where to found your movie, anything you want to throw out there.

0:52:06 Natalie: Okay, so you can find Science Moms on, we have a Facebook page for Science Moms. We also have another, a new website that we are starting under the name SciMoms, so S-C-I Moms. We're going to continue doing some stuff together that is outside of the movie. But if you would like to watch the film, and I hope you do, you can go to sciencemomsdoc.com and there you can get a download, so it costs a little money because Monsanto isn't paying me that well, so

0:52:41 Thomas: Yeah, too bad. If you had that funding, it would be free, but unfortunately.

0:52:41 Natalie: Yeah I Know, sorry guys, but

0:52:47 Thomas: All right. Excellent. Thanks for joining me. And that's really cool. I can't wait to check out the movie. I encourage everyone to check all that out. So Natalie, thanks so much.

0:52:57 Natalie: Thank you for having me. This was really fun.

0:53:22 Thomas: All right, that's it for the show. I just have an update on the Patreon stuff. Stuff. It does sound like they aren't, it might not be so much Patreon greed as I thought it was, because it sounds like they want to actually charge everyone's credit cards every time there's a post. So it's a really stupid idea, but it sounds like they might not necessarily be making a killing off of it. They're just going to make payment processors a killing. So, so because they need more money, apparently it's a really dumb idea. I will say one thing people are doing is is they're changing their pledge to be a whole month's worth and then setting a limit for that. So it effectively turns into a monthly thing. So if you're a one dollar patron, you change it to like nine dollars, eight or nine dollars, and then set a cap at eight or nine dollars.

0:54:13 Thomas: And then it'll just charge you once on the first post of the month, and it'll be essentially how it was, or even it might even be cheaper, I don't know. But that's, I guess, that works as a short term fix. That's up to you if you want to do that. I'm still going to try to find a way to maybe just bring it in-house so that I'm not making Patreon or a bunch of credit card companies a bunch of extra money, but we'll see if I'm able to do that. A few people asked me why not just convert to a monthly Patreon page. Seth Andrews did that, and he said he lost half of his Patreon money, and since this is my living, that's a really scary prospect. I imagine if you just found out you were going to get half your paycheck, that is too scary to mess with for me, so the short-term solution is edit the pledge to be a monthly amount, the downside is it ruins the total number, the total number is now like a mix between people who are paying that much per episode and that much for months.

0:55:12 Thomas: So it's kind of meaningless data. So I actually took that down. But thank you so much for sticking with me. I did get some cancellations of people who were mad at Patreon, and I understand your anger there, but I really appreciate everyone who has stayed on because hopefully you recognize that how scary this is for my job to be kind of in jeopardy because of the stupid decisions of a company. So, I'm still working on it, thank you for your patience, and I will see everybody on Thursday.