This personal essay by Matthew Kessler was originally published in Tangle News, an independent, subscriber-supported media organization that covers the biggest politics stories in the U.S. by summarizing arguments from the right, left, and center (then "our take").  Matthew Kessler is the creator, host and producer of TABLE's food systems podcast, Feed, and has spent the past 15 years moving between farms, kitchens, universities, and recording studios. From 2022-2024, Matthew led a 2-year podcast project exploring four different futures for meat and livestock, adapted from Tara Garnett's Gut feelings essay. 

The Dublin Declaration is a pro-livestock statement that emerged from a Summit held in Ireland on the societal role of meat. While the Declaration has had influence in EU spaces, it has also attracted considerable criticism for its limited engagement with the climate, nature and social implications of the current livestock system, and for its authors’ apparent connections to the meat industry. Irina Herzon, who co-authored a response to the Declaration published in Nature Food in August, argues that, irrespective of those connections, the Declaration provides an example of a flawed scientific advocacy that should make us wary. Here, she sets out how selective evidence and unwarranted polarisation can compromise the integrity of academic engagement.