Contemplating protests so widespread in America about genetically modified organisms (G.M.O.s), I’m struck by the facts that Americans to-day, just as peoples around the World, are taller and generally have a greater life expectancy than ever before.  (Admittedly the Dutch are taller but that’s because much of Holland is below sea level and they have to be or they wouldn’t be able to see over the walls.)

Whilst it’s true that some parents are burying their children, this is due to a diet of manufactured food heavy in refined sugar, saturated fats and, to a lesser extent, salt — more significantly to an excess of such food.  The general population, which ingests G.M.O.s not incidentally, as one might expect of animals, but as part of its diet, appears to be thriving – in America as where ever such products are available.

For a myriad of years we have as farmers been effecting genetic change in both crops and livestock.  For most of that time the process has been slow :  we could not isolate individual genes and, in any case, had no understanding of the precise mechanism that brought about the traits we sought.  What the agrochemical industry is doing is merely condensing the work of decades, even centuries, in to years.

This is not to say that genetic modification is without risk :  that exists whether scientists do it over a decade or farmers over a century ;  development, something man is able to achieve at a rate not available to other species, entails risk.  We sail the oceans and fly the skies ;  occasionally a boat sinks or an aeroplane crashes :  even the animals, having developed these skills organically over millennia, sometimes suffer such failure.  So what ?  Ought we then not to take risk ?

Safety is the management of risk and it’s because experience tells us that, left to their own devices, industrial corporations might not tell us about failures in their tests or about failures later in the field that we have the Food and Drug Administration and similar agencies in other countries to keep them, as far as they can, honest.

If we’re to feed the World’s burgeoning population — and the longer the poor are left in poverty (sc. not allowed to burn their own fuels so that they have reticulated electricity) the more rapidly it will grow — we must find ways of making the land more productive.  One way is to increase crops’ resistance to pests.  We can do this by spraying crops with almost indiscriminate pesticides, inherently risky to wildlife and the environment generally for obvious reasons, but much more efficiently by targeting particular pests with dedicated characteristics of the crops that will eliminate just those pests.

Till we become omniscient, however, we shall not be in a position to avoid risk altogether ;  what we must guard against is fear of the unknown.  We must get away from regarding science as a system of religious belief, its church the Internet, and return to science based on honest research, clear thought and scrupulous peer review — all things sorely lacking in the ‘science’ on which so much public opinion and policy are now based.

Pericles ΠΞ

Andrew Duffin
July 20, 2012 at 22:18

There is actually a pretty important difference between selective breeding
and GM.

It’s the difference between on the one hand choosing an application that
does what you want better than another that doesn’t, and on the other meddling
with the source code of a gigantic application, which code you didn’t write
and do not understand.

They are not the same thing.

Consequences of the latter will certainly be unpredictable and may severe
or even catastrophic.

This is a wind that we probably ought not be sowing. Nobody knows what the
harvest will be.

Furor Teutonicus
July 18, 2012 at 04:45

I eat pork and diced carrots. What the Hel can be dangerous with stuffing a
carrot with bits of pig, even, or should that be ESPECIALLY when, those bits
ARE so microscopic as to be beyond the comprehention of most people?

Wheat with cow and hen genes? You eat bloody pancakes don’t you? Sponge
cakes? Battered fish?

What is the difference if the genes are “mixed in your kitchen”, or “mixed”
in some laboratory?

drsolly July 18,
2012 at 14:03

God said you mustn’t eat bits of pig. Leviticus 11:7

And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he
cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.

Furor
Teutonicus July 18, 2012 at 19:05

As far as meat goes, I eat ONLY pig. Under the motto “Halal THAT you
bastards!”

Engineer
July 18, 2012 at 21:13

In the climate of the Middle East, avoiding pigmeat was probably a
sensible precaution 2000 years ago. However, in the temperate climate of
North-West Europe, the pig is a very useful animal – it is omnivorous, and
can survive the winters. In what was to become Britain, keeping and eating
pigs was something known to the people of the Bronze age, the Iron age,
the occupying Romans, all through the Dark Ages and into modern times.
Eating pork and cured pork products such as bacon is as culturally
engrained in the peoples of North-West Europe as eating rice is to the
peoples of Asia.

Michael July 18, 2012 at 00:29

I have a few qualms about GM. The “feed the world” thing doesn’t really do
it for me, given the previous outcry against “Terminator” genes (thankfully
disavowed by Monsanto) and the patenting of basic foodstuffs. In both cases, the farmer is
required to go back to the seed producer each year to buy more seed. In
business they talk about “owning the layer”. For Amazon, it’s books, ebay does
Auctions, PayPal does money, Apple has iTunes and the App Store. In this case
the layer happens to be food, which is good for nobody but the big Agro-Tech
firms.

Secondly, we’re not talking about selective breeding – that is taking the
best of the plants to breed better ones. The idea behind GM modification is to
take a genetic marker that doesn’t appear anywhere in the plant naturally, and
introduce it. The resultant creation is visibly the same, but inherently
slightly different. In a laboratory setting this might be interesting science,
but to redesign the DNA of a crop and then to release it to the wild
thereafter to cross-pollinate with all other “natural” varieties has a wide
potential impact, and denies choice to those who like their cornflakes as
nature (or God) intended. Once out of the box, this cannot be put back.
Whilst not quite the “grey goo” spoken of by Eric Drexler there could be a
similar effect.

For what it’s worth, the low tech solution is probably the better one here.
Half the world is overweight, whilst the other half is hungry. It doesn’t take
a genetic scientist to figure out that one.

Single Acts of
Tyranny July 18, 2012 at 07:26

“It doesn’t take a genetic scientist to figure out that one”

And your non-coercive solution is….

Michael July 18, 2012 at 10:07

Eat less junk food and donate to World Vision.

Ed Butt July 17,
2012 at 20:41

I’ve no qualms about eating GM crops although if we want better yields to
feed the burgeoning population pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere is a
better and cheaper way to go. What does worry me about the push for GM however
is how it would concentrate almost total control of the food supply in the
hands of a few corporations led by Monsanto which has as good a record on
environmental sensitivity as Hitler had on racial diversity.

Ian T.

Penseivat July 17, 2012 at 20:36

“If we’re to feed the world’s burgeoning (I had to look that up twice to
see how it should be spelled!) population….” We already have the ability to
feed the world’s burgeoning (didn’t need to look that up) population. It is
not only, however, a matter of transport, it is a matter of political
intransigence and financial incentives. The western world throws away twice as
much food as the third world requires to avoid starvation. Political barriers
(the EU agriculture policy to begin with) prevents the distribution of food
around the world, as does the American policies of taxes, import duties and a
preference for home grown agricyultural products, even though they cost three
times as much as imported products. However, having staved off starvation of a
third of the world’s population, it then falls to education to rebuild –
chopping down trees so you can grown animale feed is not necessarily a good
thing – and this is the real long term problem. I forget who it was who said
something like, “First, kill all the lawyers.” Perhaps he should have followed
that up with, “and then the politicians, and Jeremy Clarkson, and the
French!”.

Saul July 18, 2012 at 10:37

Yep! (can we do Jeremy Clarkson first though?)

alan July 17, 2012 at 18:47

Saturated (animal) fats are not unhealthy. The idea that saturated fats are
unhealthy is based on the “lipid hypothesis” which has been thoroughly
debunked by science. Humans evolved eating saturated fats and consequently are
well tolerated.

In the last 50 years healthy animal fat has been replaced with fats that
have never existed in human diet (refined oils, corn oil, vegetable oil,
etc).. Resulting in the large rates of cardiovascular disease we see
today.

Science has also proved that livestock feed a natural diet, grass feed beef
for example, has a very healthy nutritional profile, compared to
industrialized methods. Livestock on a natural diet have elevated levels of
omega-3. For ideal health humans need a diet rich in omega-3. Fish is the only
other major source of omega-3. Additional science has found that pasture
raised beef produces significantly less methane (which greens love to
ignore).

We live in a world were science is ignored, much like this article.

JimS July 17, 2012 at 18:19

Since when was ‘peer review’ part of science?

It isn’t, it is just a means to ensure that publishers don’t look
stupid.

If I find a colony of penguins in the arctic then that is science fact,
provided I know where the arctic is and what a penguin looks like. Peer review
says “impossible”; science says “let’s go and confirm”.

ivan July 17, 2012 at 17:35

Is it actually science that is at fault or is it the green religion on
which the blame must be placed?

At the moment it appears the green religion is leading the fight against
science and advancement in all spheres, climate change, GM crops, population
growth and so on, with their cry of ‘the earth is doomed’.

The more people that believe the doom and gloom the more self fulfilling it
will be.

There is an answer to that – better education in science and engineering
with the emphasis on teaching people to think for themselves. Unfortunately,
that precludes the current generation and maybe the next until the necessary
teachers can be produced that do not bow down to the green leftist
religion.

Engineer July 17, 2012 at 18:18

Indeed. The problem is not science, but the wilful manipulation of
scientific research reports (which are often, by their very nature,
inconclusive, hedged with uncertainties, sometimes even vague) by people
with axes to grind. So the report that states that the Earth’s climate may,
if current modelling is correct, warm by between 1 and 3 degrees over a
period of 50 to 100 years becomes “Climate will warm 3 degrees in 50 years,
say boffins”.

The GMO objections of about a decade ago arguably had one thing about
right. The results of the science were commercially exploited with ruthless
drive and merciless resort to litigation against any who stood in the way,
intentionally or not. That was a great tactical error by the corporations
concerned. Had they been a little more patient, they would have won the day,
I think – and by more honourable means.

Science and engineering are often highly complex and nuanced, and don’t
readily respond to soundbite journalism or the sort of simplistic responses
commonly found in the humanities. I agree with Ivan that better education is
the key – but better journalism must play a part, too.

Pericles
July 18, 2012 at 02:11

I’m with you, Engineer :  had the
corporations not been so heavy-handed, they would not be up against such
fierce opposition now.  ΠΞ

Single Acts of
Tyranny July 18, 2012 at 07:25

You are right, they should have just stood by to be slandered and had
their property destroyed by anti-progress zealots. I’m sure they would
have seen sense in the end.

Pericles July 18, 2012 at 02:06

I was making substantially that point, ivan : 
the ‘science’ we’re asked to follow is nothing to do with
science ;  it’s a system of beliefs.  You’re right about the
solution :  proper education.  ΠΞ