Scienterrific point of view
- To: m*@ucdavis.edu
- Subject: Scienterrific point of view
- From: m* l*
- Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 13:15:22 PST
At the risk of wasting both time and typing, since it would appear that the
person or persons who made the original posting on GMOs have long since made
up their collective minds on the issue, I would like to toss in my two cents
worth. I am about fifty years of age
at present. This, depending on your point of view, is either the prime of
life or older than dirt. Regardless, it is long enough that I can remember
the promise of unlimited electric power "produced too cheaply to meter" by
nuclear reactors. It did not turn out that way, in spite of science and
the best of intentions. My
point here is not to indulge in some neo-luddite harangue intended to whip
the uninformed into a hysterical frenzy, but rather to remind you that life
is a very complicated equation. We cannot always foresee every twist and
variation down a particular road and given this, a bit more humility on the
part of the proponents of GMO's would appear to be in order.
The way your posting is phrased, it
would appear I must come out in favor of more chemical use and mass
starvation in third world countries in order to argue that possibly putting
the brakes on what appears to me to be a very large experiment (scientific
or not) with an equally large portion of the world food supply might be in
order. While I cannot do this, I can recall for you that most of the
arguments you put forth in favor of GMOs can be found in the literature of
the science and sales brochures for chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and
herbicides from the nineteen forties and fifties. Again my point, and I do
have one, is that we have no reason to believe that the eventual reaction of
insect populations to something like Bt corn will be any different than that
of any population exposed to an environmental modification. Those that
survive will form an increasingly resistant population and we will have lost
another tool that, used more intelligently (i.e.sparingly), would have been
useful for a much longer time. There are approaches
to feeding the world other than those you propound. Unfortunately, I
suspect from the general tenor of your posting and your current employment
that you are unwilling or unable to look beyond your training and milieu to
consider that any of them might have equal or greater validity from both an
historical and scientific point of view.
Yours most respectfully,
Michael Larmer
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