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The common cliché says one can’t put the genies of advancing science back into the bottles of undiscovery. And so it is with genetic modification. Once Francis Crick and James Watson, sitting in the Eagle Pub in Cambridge, had put together the idea that DNA was a double helix and had named its elements, the race to use the knowledge was on.
Ever since humans dabbled in agriculture we have played with genetic modification. Now we know and the technology to modify plants and species to do this or that exists and is being refined.
Nevertheless there are very many rational objections to genetic modification. One objection is that capitalist companies monopolise genetic technology, patent the high-yielding or parasite resistant seeds it produces and exploit the farmers who haplessly fall into the trap of cultivating their genetically modified (GM) crop. This is, on any reckoning, not a fault of the science but of capitalism and the rules and laws through which it is conducted. So ban bad capitalist behaviour, not GM crops which feed the starving and enrich the hitherto poor.
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I have no doubt that the debate about the genetic modification in the vegetable world will continue without firm resolution for some time to come. There are convincing arguments on both sides which, putting pseudo-religious fervour for or against aside, should be decided on purely rational and scientific grounds.
Read full, original post: Ban bad capitalist, not GM crops
