Skirmishes between activists, industry and scientists have flared up several times in recent weeks as Dr. Oz faced criticism about his on-air advice from doctors with ties to the GMO industry but even some of his colleagues at Columbia University. But there’s also the “Food Babe” who was attacked for her lack of scientific rigor and fracking chemicals showed up in drinking water. So when science says one thing but industry and activists say another, whom do you trust? When two different groups of scientists come up with different conclusions, what’s really going on? Author and bioethicist Alice Dreger has written about several such fights in her book Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science that examines some very specific cases when the work of scientists was either misunderstood or simply opposed by those who had a stake in the outcomes. She talks to us about those cases and what things look like for the future. (Flickr/Mars P)