Yes. This times a hundred. Times a million. Pseudoscience at best, dishonest at worst. I too am really glad he gives genetic engineering it's props, because anti-GMO really is the new anti-vax. Just because you can't be bothered to listen to a valid source doesn't mean that the people who know what the hell they're talking about are in some grand Monsanto/Shadow Government conspiracy to be evil. The scientific evidence is in. It's been it. The idea that they are inherently dangerous to human health is laughable (and growing even less plausible every day), they are a benefit for farmers, and they are a net positive to the environment. Deputing these facts without adequate information to go against them, which is what pretty much every anti-GMO group on the planet does, is not insightful or thought provoking, it's denialism, plain and simple. The modern controversy surrounding GMOs is is no longer a scientific debate, it's a popular one, largely with biologist, horticulturists, botanists, microbiologists, zoologists, toxicologists, geneticists, biochemists, and farmers on one hand, and people who think that an appeal to nature is a valid argument on the other, and even that doesn't make sense considering that we selectively breed crops for various mutations for thousands of years (as anyone who has even a passing understanding of corn genetics will tell you) and that the odds are pretty darn good that every plant we eat has picked viral, bacterial, and fungal DNA at some point, probably insect DNA too. Human DNA is at least 3% virus. We are, in a sense, genetically modified organisms ourselves.
Here's a good example: A few weeks ago, some anti-science arsonist assholes burned down a GMO grape test field in France. They were government developed, so the claim that they're against corporations doesn't apply. They were virus resistant, so the claim that they're against chemicals was out. They were rootstocks, and since roots don't produce flowers, their claim that they're afraid of cross pollination and wild GMOs is out. The health concerns, even if they had any merit to begin with, are also out, because again, the GMO part was only the root, not the grape. Why are they against them? Because they're GMO. They're against genetic engineering because it's genetic engineering. They've decided that genetic engineering is bad, and base everything else on that decision. They start with the conclusion, and make everything else fit that. Hundreds of studies showing they're wrong is part of the conspiracy, scientific consensus is part of the conspiracy, and every relevant expert who knows what they're talking about is in on it too, and therefore, anything that disagrees with their premise is easily dismissed, knowledge because a vice, ignorance a virtue.
This topic deserves more publicity than it gets, it really does. I think that this is a truly fascinating area (as a look at my comment history will reveal). I love plants and horticultural science, and I think it is just amazing what we can do with them now, what we might be able to do in the future. We are living in interesting and exciting times. We can increase output, decrease need for inputs, help preserve the soil and the environment. We can help the people who need it most grow more nutritious food. We can lessen or eliminate the problems caused by pests and diseases. Someday I might have a mango or cashew or cacao or coffee or lychee tree here in the northeast US. This is what people are really working on. This isn't sci-fi, it's real, and it is just a shame that we have people with all the intellectual integrity of your average homeopath attacking it and generally trying to influence the general population with cheap scare tactics. And it's almost funny, these people think they're being insightful when all they're going is displaying their own ignorance. It would be like someone claiming that the moon must be hollow to stay floating in the sky and thinking that they're brilliant for rejecting conventional thought, when in reality, all they've done is demonstrated how clueless, and I daresay arrogant and prideful, they really are. Well screw them. Anti-GMO, anti-science. Can't state it clearer than that.