Better images of GM

Trust thought for today - on the power and problems of imagery.

I am recalling Tania Duarte's fantastic project Better Images of AI, working with the BBC and Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. They got together to replace the ubiquitous and pointless White Robot with useful, meaningful free to use images to help educate and inform not polarise and entrench ideologies of one form or another.

Oh boy, do genetic technologies need the same approach!

For example, this is an interesting and thoughtful article from Pat Thomas, (worth a read if you are interested in the trials and tribulations of the government's new 'Precision Breeding Bill) but it is spoiled by the image.

GM images seem to be mainly strands of DNA, people in full hazard suits in open fields or people in lab coats injecting veg with syringes! None are enlightening, or illustrative of the process or outcomes of the technology. Tho I can see that the likely reality - a person in jeans in front of a computer, or a nondescript field of crops - may not be that great either!

Having chats with a few folks about doing the same multi-stakeholder thing for Better Images of Genetic Technologies - if anyone knows places to raise cash for this let me know - just in case Pat Thomas, Michelle Patel, Julian Hitchcock, Dan Crossley, Simon Allison, Piers Millett, Natalie Kofler, PhD, Sam Weiss Evans. As discussed Joe Woof