Twenty-two years after Monsanto introduced its Roundup-resistant soybeans, the debate over genetic modification is far from over …. in the U.S., where more than 90 percent of our corn and soybeans are genetically modified, polls show that between two-fifths and half of Americans think the technology is unsafe.
It’s as if the people producing new crop varieties and the people who will consume them aren’t speaking the same language ….
Sydney Scott, an assistant professor of marketing at Washington University’s Olin Business School, explores those moral dimensions in a paper she recently co-authored for the Annual Review of Nutrition, a scientific journal.
Scott, whose research is based on consumer surveys, says people seem to be grossed out by the technology. Humans operate under a “law of contagion” and become disgusted by, for instance, a single insect leg in a large kettle of soup.
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People exhibit the same instinct when they know that a corn plant contains a tiny amount of bacteria DNA. Anti-GMO folks may argue about safety, but deep down they just think it’s yucky.
Read full, original article: Deep down, opponents just think GMOs are yucky
