Dave Goulson is an activist scientist campaigning against conventional farming and the use of products that help farmers protect their crops. An excellent communicator, he is interviewed regularly on environmentalist programmes posing as a concerned scientist fighting the lobbying machinery of big business. Presently a biologist at University of Sussex, I have just recently learnt that Goulson will be receiving research funding from an NGO campaigning to ban neonicotinoid pesticides. Perhaps this is a good time to look more closely at activist scientists, how NGOs are funding them and consider how such conflicts of interest can compromise the evidence they publish. Read more.
