Lord Taverne

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Lord Taverne - Dick Taverne QC - is a Liberal Democrat Peer in the British House of Lords. He is a prominent champion of biotechnology in parliament.

He was born in 1928, and educated at Charterhouse School, then Balliol College, Oxford. He was called to the Bar in 1954, becoming a QC in 1965. [1]

Taverne believes that opponents of GM are "eco-fundamentalists, followers of a new kind of religion, to whom evidence is irrelevant" [2]

"Lord Dick Taverne [is] a politician/barrister with no background in science but a long history of supporting GM. Taverne has claimed that the media's "sloppiness" on GM issues is "undermining the health of our democracy". As part of his "media distortion" crusade, Taverne sat on the SIRC forum that produced the media Guidelines telling journalists how to report contentious science and health issues. Also on this forum were Steve Connor, science correspondent for the Independent, and a representative of the Royal Society.

"Taverne commented on these guidelines in a debate in the House of Lords in which he said he hoped 'that the Press Complaints Commission will enforce this code toughly and come down heavily on the kind of irresponsible and reckless disregard for fact and evidence which has characterised the reporting of many scientific issues in the past' [3]

Directorships, etc

External links