Wrong rift

Anguish over losing the chief scientific adviser is largely confined to one side of the English Channel

The departure of Anne Glover as chief scientific adviser to the president of the European Commission has been widely and unsympathetically portrayed, at least in the UK media, as a symptom of anti-science sentiment on the part of the Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

Scientific leaders who worked with Glover are understandably disappointed that the role hasn’t been retained. Some say that Juncker’s team doesn’t care about research, or that it takes issue with Glover’s well-publicised views, criticised by environmentalists, on genetically modified crops.