GM Foods

No doubt the critics were not scientists but middle class neo-hippies who had not the faintest idea what they were talking about. GM food is designed to be more nutritious and more resistant to disease and therefore needs less chemical treatment. It really annoys me when the media allows this ignorant bias to be broadcast to Joe Public who isn't in the privileged position that I am in, to see it for what it is... a load of emotive bullsh*t. Then the supermarkets play on this scaremongering by advertising products as GM free which implies there is something wrong with GM food which in turn helps perpetuate the myth. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

Jude, the characteristics of GM crops are not the most important aspect of this debate. The whole "Frankenstein foods" thing is very much a side issue for me. GM crops are designed not primarily to feed the world, nor to create a more ecologically sensitive form of conventional agriculture, they are designed to generate profit and to increase the power of some of the world's largest corporations. GM crops are unnecessary and dangerous; wherever they are used they destroy the traditional independence of farmers; they do demand higher levels of inputs and they serve only the industrial-agricultural complex. Here's what we really need: a world of small farms producing local organic crops primarily for local consumption; we need to address inequality and to radically alter patterns of land ownership and we need to nurture the genetic diversity that already exists in world agriculture rather than taking a leap into an entirely inappropriate technology, unneeded and extravagant.

My sentiments exactly, Jude. And not just in terms of the bias toward GM, but also the miss use of Science in commercial broadcasting. Drives me potty!

As a supporter of free market capitalism, I believe that biotech companies are legitimatly entitled to develop GM products for their own profit. Your argument is not one against GM food per se ( and I don't think there are any serious arguments against GM foods in themselves) but against large corporations in the food industry. That is a seperate debate. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

It's interesting John, we were having the same discussion at Uni a few weeks back in a day conference about ethical issues and embryology. The fact that media 'spin' is used to set the political agenda in scientific issues is worrying. The recent debate over the human embryo bill illustrated one stark point... that public opinion is more important than scientific fact. And the media can be manipulated to sway public opinion very very quickly. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

GM is no more than a tool and could be put to good, bad, or ethically neutral uses. The prospect of things going catastrophically wrong by accidentally unleashing some disasterous crop on the eco-system or producing some harmful foodstuff is fantasy. It is essentially just better method for what selective breeding used to accomplish, something mankind has been up to for millenia.

Exactly! And when people try and use the "we shouldn't 'tamper' with nature argument" I suggest that by their own logic they should go back to being nomadic hunter gatherers jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

Exactly!

I'm not unsympathetic to all of Kropotkin's arguments about food production but I agree that they're arguments about the economic system not the science of GM crops. I agree that 'we shouldn't tamper with nature' is a ridiculous argument unless the people making it are planning to apply the same principles to the rest of their lives - refusing to live in houses made from man made building materials, refusing all non-herbal medical treatments etc. That said, none of that necessarily means that GM stuff couldn't be dangerous under some circumstances.

Historically, the most dangerous thing to the ecosystem in the modern era has been global travel. Look at the effects of introducing the grey squirrel or Japanese knotweed into these fair isles! And yet most people seem to think travel and opening intercontinental trade routes was a good idea. I'm with Dan and all reputable scientists... the idea of some terrible crop 'contaminating' the ecosystem is far into the realms of fantasy as is the possibility of creating a foodstuff harmful to people. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

One of the things worth thinking about regarding GM crops is the issue of companies holding the 'patent' for certain organisms. At present no-one owns the rights to tomatos or wheat. If someone alters the genetic code of tomatos or wheat, they become the owners of that form of tomato or wheat. As I understand it, and I'm very open to counter evidence, hybrid crops often have lower second generation yields. This means that they tend not to produce viable seed to propagate a next generation, or if they do it is at a very much lower level. What this in practice means is that farmers must continue to go back to the seller of the seeds each season to buy seed that will guarantee the yield required. This in effect turns what had been a self proegating system of plant, reap, re-sow into a system that goes buy, plant, reap, buy. It's a bit like DRM on music files. The companies would be writing in copy protection into their organisms, so that people had to keep buying them over and over rather than doing copies themselves at home. I'm not sure that this has much of an impact on European and American farming, but i imagine it would make a big difference to people in less viable environments who are just scraping by. A high maize yield is brilliant at harvest time. But not if you have to pay loads of money for the seed in the first place, where previously you set aside for the next season seed from your previous crop. Cheers, Mark

On the contrary an argument about the economic system that gives rise to GM crops is an argument against GM crops. GM crops are not an appropriate technology because they cannot be produced or grown without a vast and complex industrial infrastructure which by its very nature will disempower and impoverish millions of people. I return to my very simple point: there is no need for GM crops. The scaremongering of the opponents of GM may well be based on fantasy but so is the propaganda of the pro-GM lobby that we could not possibly feed the world of the future without GM. Jude, I don't know what this thing you call free market capitalism is; it's as much of a myth as anything you direct your ire at. It is impossible to understand global economics without a good analysis of power, political power. It is important to grasp that whatever we have right now it is not a free market; we are as far from that classical liberal ideal as we are from my anarchist world of ten million villages. Dreamer!

The low yield second generation seed point is a variation on the myth that biotech companies are seeking to develop GM crops whose seed is infertile after one or two generations, thereby requiring expensive repurchasing of seed stock. There is no evidence to support the notion that biotech companies are doing this. And there is no evidence to suggest that the seed of subsequent generations has lower yield. There are some hybrid seeds that are infertile although this is quite rare and a GM plant is not technically a hybrid anyway. The science is far more precise than hybridization. GM seed that is for example resistant to herbicides is more expensive than non GM seed. If it were true that it worked out more expensive for the farmer after a year or so because he had to restock in a 'buy, plant, reap, buy' scenario he just wouldn't buy it. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

"GM crops are not an appropriate technology because they cannot be produced or grown without a vast and complex industrial infrastructure" GM crops depend on a vast, complex industrial infrastructure as much or as little as many other technologies: anti retro viral drugs, medical scanning technology, Playstation 3 to name but a very small few. Would you think that these technologies are also inappropriate? jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

'that we could not possibly feed the world of the future without GM.' I have to say I am in agreement with you on this though. That is blatant propoganda. It is not true that GM is essential to feeding the world. It won't solve the world's hunger problems. As you say, the problems run deeper. But anything that can help in a small way to alleviate suffering even for a small number of people is a good thing IMO. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

The thing I don't get with the infertile or low yield crop things, is who in their right mind would buy it in the first place?

Because I don't trust the bio-tech industry does not mean I am opposed to medical technology. This argument comes close to setting up the favourite old straw man of primitivism. As for the Playstation, I don't care for it and I don't see it as very important to the survival of the human race, more of a hindrance perhaps. From the agricultural initiatives of, for example the British Empire in Africa through the so-called Green Revolution to the current push for GM, the interests and survival of small producers have always come a poor second to the imperatives of huge corporations and the governments which serve them. As the example of increased mechanisation and chemical use in farming have both shown, it is simply not true to suggest that farmers will not take bad decisions that will end up costing them more in the long run. Farmers often find themselves or think themselves trapped in relationships with exploitative seed and sundry suppliers, not to mention buyers and governments. The only way out of this is local, in fact farm or village self-reliance. The world is full of diversity, all we need in fact to provide for ourselves and for future generations. The bottom line is we do not need the bio-tech industry, and we do not need to take the risks inherent in both novel technologies like GM and the increasing power of corporations in the production of food worldwide. You may well dismiss the risks as scare stories, but as long as GM crops represent a threat to the certification of organic agriculture that is enough for me; it is a clear and present danger to the only truly progressive elements of modern farming. I dare say that we will never agree on this matter Jude, but you should accept that there are people outside of the bio-tech industry who do know what they are talking about, who do have valid concerns and yet who are not scaremongering. Personally I do not buy the reassurances about the release of novel species; I do not accept the case for GM in agriculture whatsoever. This does not make me a primitivist, nor does it make me irrational.

It's fairly obvious that interests of small producers are antithetical to the interests of big corporations. That doesn't necessarily mean that the interests of small producers are the same as the interests of mass populations. I'm not necessarily saying that they aren't.

Dan, what I meant, in my own cumbersome manner, was crops that did not produce seeds that could be used to plant the following year, or that produced seeds that were far lower in yield than the original seed as bought. Sort of the mutant unviable babies of the GM crops, if you will. I'd been led to understand that GM crops tended to produce mangled offspring, but I'm prepared at accept Jude's reassurances that this is not the case. Am I the only one to have (erroneously) thought this? Cheers, Mark

Well Buk, in fact I believe that there is a good argument for the proposition that the interests of small producers should coincide with those of the mass of the population. The contrary point of view would perhaps rest on the proposition that cheap bread is good for us all. I don't buy it; it's liberal bollocks. We should "pay" (of course I envisage an economic system more democratic than the market) for our food what it takes for us all to eat good food, to live in a healthy environment and to allow people a rewarding life in food production. I suggest that presently the cheap bread model (failing anyway as time passes) allows some of us enough otherwise disposable income to take two weeks in the sun; have a digi-box and wear expensive but fashionable trainers. I am not so enamoured of the baubles of capitalism to believe that they should take priority over good food on people's plates. In any event the section of the "mass population" with access to these baubles is in the minority and as for the rest I believe that there is ample evidence to suggest that they would be better off with locally produced food and access to land for cultivation rather than the kind of world envisaged by the unspeakable bastards who run and support the WTO, or propound arguments for "development" which might allow some of us to eat strawberries all year round but will inevitably lead to many of us having fuck all whatever the season.

I don't think there's any missunderstanding Mark. I just wonder why a farmer would buy a crop that "did not produce seeds that could be used to plant the following year" - presumably he is not forced to buy GM (or is he?) It's certainly an allegation I have certainly heard in the past too.

The allegation that I'd read, which I unfortunately can't place at the minute, is that the task for the seller is to break the cycle of plant reap sow. Once you're in, using a discount price or special offer, the next season the person has to come back. If this were the case, it would lock farmers into the mechanisms of generating capital, because they'd have to buy each year, which would mean that they'd have to produce to sell. It's a bit like selling printers for 20 quid and then charging thirty for the toners. Cheers, Mark

I think there have been more than one such allegation Mark. I read one recently in a leaflet produced by a Christian charity saying that GM rice produced infertile seed. I asked them for proper citation and it transpired this came from an online debate forum who in turn were unable to produce the research to substantiate the claim - and after I searched all the science databases (Medline, Pubmed, Lexis nexis etc) I concluded that they were unable to substantiate the claim because the research simply didn't exist. There is a problem with high yield hybrid maize bearing infertile seed... I think that's where your confusion arose. Hybrid maize is NOT necessarily genetically modified! In fact GM technologies are currently under trial in Mexico to overcome this problem by transfering into cereals apomictic traits, the production of exact clones of the mother plant through asexual reproduction. Scientists are seeking to use genetic modifications to transfer apomixis from a species similar to maize ( Tripsacum dactyloides ), to maize itself. This would turn currently higher yielding but infertile hybrid seeds into fertile ones, so allowing farmers to save the seed for subsequent seasons. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

Another case worth citing is the genetic modification of rice to have high levels of beta carotene which is converted to vitamin A in the body. Vitamin A deficiency is responsible for increased morbidity from childhod conditions like measles and childhood blindness. Regarding patenting, some (but not all) companies are developing new benefit-sharing mechanisms. A ground-breaking arrangement between Syngenta and the inventors of Vitamin-A rice permits farmers in developing countries to earn up to $10,000 without paying royalties. This allows the company to commercialise the rice, whilst effectively providing it free to small farmers. The idea that biotech companies are in it just for the money is a gross over simplification. When I was still 'at the bench' I was looking at developing a molluscicide that could help eliminate parasitic water snails without contaminating drinking water supplies. Of course I was thinking of the hundreds of thousands of lives this can save but after such heavy investment in my degree then specialisation in parasitology and zoology, I expected a decent salary for my work. Research has to be well funded and profits to the shareholders, well any of us with a pension scheme is a shareholder! jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

Come come Jude, if bio-tech companies are not just in it for the money then, by your own lights they are not serving either themselves or their fellow human beings. One minute you are proclaiming that you believe in free market capitalism and the next minute you're claiming that we need to have well meaning scientists who want to work to save lives. I think you'll find that the profit motive and the invisible hand of the market will sort out all of the life saving that needs doing. I think you might be resorting to "emotive bullshit" or perhaps you're just a "neo-hippie" of a different stripe. The more I read of your arguments the more convinced I am that a truly appropriate technology must be one which can be understood and managed by ordinary people, people who do not see themselves as members of a "privileged" class of cognoscenti. One of the reasons people do not trust GM is that the do not trust scientists who tell them that their work serves humanitarian ends when what it really serves is shareholders. You see, you proclaim yourself an expert but your expertise appears to be that of the technocrat. Vitamin A is part of a healthy diet made up of a diverse range of foodstuffs; people should not need to rely on their rice for vitamin A and what is more, prior to the so-called Green Revolution and the increasing pressure of the market on farmers around the world most peasant producers enjoyed just the kind of healthy balanced diets they needed thanks to traditional, sustainable forms of agriculture. Your solution, which I will not deign to call the free market, but rather global capitalism, is in fact more than half the problem. The other half, in case you're still reading, consists of complicit governments.

What I am saying is that people who work for biotech companies ( and indeed those who believe in free market capitalism) are not necessarily devoid of moral conscience. Ethics and commercialism are not mutually exclusive. Many of my academic peers have gone on to work for biotech companies ...many of whom I believe can and will make board level and they are not unscrupulous bastards. They are very good people. Lots of people in many different industries are motivated by both the desire to do good and to make profit. I would also prefer it if everyone in the world had a balanced diet. The fact that poverty prevents this is due to a number of complex reasons. We are facing the situation we are facing and I think we should react to the reality that confronts us and therefore Vit A rice. Whilst I accept the valid criticisms of the green revolution, the notion that in the golden days of old when children ran around the farms with ruddy cheeks, everyone was healthy and happy because of traditional forms of agriculture simply isn't true. History paints a bleak picture of starvation and famine because of crop failure, high infant mortality, TB endemics. The great famine of 1315 was caused by insufficient resources to feed the ever increasing population coupled with the climate conditions. I also don't believe that global capitalism is the cause of poverty. I have read some of the many varied views of economists and whilst I am no economist I find John Kay's reasoning the most coherent, that "People in rich countries are not rich because people in poor countries are poor, nor vice versa. Rich countries are rich mainly because they have benefited from two centuries of evolution of political, economic and social institutions. Poor countries are poor mainly because they have not." j

Well, now you are scientist, historian, economist and philosopher; a true renaissance man. I concede the field sir and retire to nurse my pitiful ignorance.

I am a biologist and a bioethicist in training and never claimed to be anything else. Maddan is a computer scientist, JRC is a physicist. The one thing we share is the scientist's tendency to examine facts and opinion impartially. Citing secondary sources in discussion is not the same as claiming to be an expert. Resorting to sarcasm doesn't gain you any ground in the discussion. However, with regard to your last sentence, as my mother used to say, 'many a true word said in jest'. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

Those of us who are fearful of GM food have every right to be. We as a species have evolved to tolerate the food that has evolved with us. Our digestive systems have not evolved to handle food that has been mucked around with by geneticists. I would rather consume natural produce of the soil that has 100 million years of natural selection behind it, than vile artificial concoctions hatched by some white-coated gene manipulator with satanic eyebrows. When you look at the absurd actions of George W Bush, someone who consumes vast amounts of GM foods, you have living proof of the terrifying consequences of scientists playing God with our food. Until its safety can be proven, the media have good reason to be wary of GM.

"Lots of people in many different industries are motivated by both the desire to do good and to make profit." I just wanted to pick up on this, I think it's an important point. There has been a move in (relatively) recent years to unfairly demonise anyone who wants to make money, without proper consideration given to other aspects of their character. Just as people driven overwhelmingly by a desire to help others are in the minority; so are people who seek to profit at the expense of others. Most of us are towards the middle of the scale. But that's too bland a conclusion for the super-politicised, I think? Enzo.. www.thedevilbetweenus.com

Jude, you're many things (most of them very nice, I'm sure), but the one thing you're not is impartial. As with the climate change argument, there are scientists on both sides here. Your tendency to polarise these issues, characterising those who disagree with you (many of them scientists) as woolly-minded hippies does you a disservice. You have no monopoly on rational thought. You don't and can't know that GM foods are safe. No-one knows this. Do we need to take the risk might be a better question.

"Resorting to sarcasm doesn't gain you any ground in the discussion. However, with regard to your last sentence, as my mother used to say, 'many a true word said in jest'." Gosh, well that told me didn't it Jude. Why should I care what you believe about poverty or history Jude? From the start of this debate you have caricatured your opponents and dismissed ideas contrary to your own by resort to your claims of scientific expertise. It comes as no surprise to me that you find the arguments of John Kay compelling; it is quite common for people to find compelling the ideas which suit their existing world-view. You are quite right that citing a secondary source is not the same as claiming to be an expert, but you should choose your secondary sources more carefully if you want to make a valid contribution to a debate; what you gave us was as much an unsupported opinion as suggesting that I am indeed pitifully ignorant. What would you like to do, weigh all of the books and articles about poverty and see which side of the scale is the heavier? Your advocacy for scientists is naive, as if you believe that your training gives you some Olympian perspective. It does not. You implied that I had suggested the existence of some pre-modern rural idyll; I did not. You made a very sweeping statement about history which suggested that history is some undifferentiated resource which is there to be plundered by all-comers for polemic effect. It is not. Many examples could be presented to suggest that very rarely have famines been caused by an absolute shortage of food, but rather by greed, profit and the machinations of ruling elites. "I would also prefer it if everyone in the world had a balanced diet. The fact that poverty prevents this is due to a number of complex reasons. We are facing the situation we are facing and I think we should react to the reality that confronts us and therefore Vit A rice." This more or less cuts to the heart of your argument. You would rather promote an industrial and technocratic supposed solution to malnutrition than address the underlying causes of that malnutrition. You began this debate with an assault on the poor reasoning of the straw men you set up to attack and you have adduced no reasons to support GM crops other than it might be tricky to solve the real problems. I suggest the reason it would be tricky is because political and technocratic elites would find it far too uncomfortable to witness the necessary shift in resources and power to solve these social and economic tragedies. I have attempted to move beyond your characterisation of the anti-GM lobby by arguing that just because a technology might work, may even be safe in some limited technical sense, that does not mean that it is the right solution to the problem in hand. Oh and as for commerce and ethics, well being polite at cocktail parties and contributing to Children in Need is not the same as endeavouring to create an ethical society. The cybernetician Stafford Beer wrote that the purpose of the system is what it does not what it claims to do; well I see a global system which impoverishes the majority for the benefit of the few, which sacrifices our common future for the sake of dividends and which positively drives the accelerating destruction of the natural and the human world. I give not a flying fuck if there are "good people" involved in managing this system; they are at best misled, at worst disingenuous. Plenty of work has been done on the mindset of elites; I suggest you seek out Noam Chomsky, or, if you prefer recognised liberal commentators, JK Galbraith (the Culture of Contentment) or Anthony Sampson.

Whilst there are scientists on both sides, all the ones against GM technologies are non-geneticists, one of whom has been dragged out of retirement to slate it with no real substance to their argument. The serious opponents are coming at it with economic arguments. I am quite happy to look at research that is real evidence that GM food is unsafe and then review my opinion. I have as yet been unable to find any. Whilst it seems unlikely that we'll resolve this debate, fortunately it is people like me who sit on bioethics and scientific advisory committees (as I hope to one day) and I don't think this is some conspiracy by the biotechnology industry and government as people of your political persuasion would have us believe, but rather an exercise in common sense. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

"I don't think this is some conspiracy by the biotechnology industry and government as people of your political persuasion would have us believe, but rather an exercise in common sense." I think it's slightly misleading to see the two possibilities as: GM food's really good and GM food's a conspiracy by the biotechnology industry. I'm an agnostic on the technology. Pantomime anti-GM arguments like Broosh's: "I would rather consume natural produce of the soil that has 100 million years of natural selection behind it, than vile artificial concoctions hatched by some white-coated gene manipulator with satanic eyebrows." are enough to nudge me towards sympathy for Monsanto. Broosh may be joking but there's plenty of mad hippies saying this kind of stuff with a straight face. But I don't think the serious argument is whether biotech companies are deliberately going to create mutant crops that'll screw up the world. The question for me is whether at points where the interest of corporate profits clash with the interests of most people, particularly poorer people, GM is another cannon in the arsenal of big business.

Well I can't say I wish you well in that career Jude. I hope you get to visit lots of fields that have had night-time visits from people opposed to GM crop trials. Once again you have set up a straw man. I propose no conspiracy. I merely point out the way I believe the corporate-governmental complex functions; it is not necessary to posit a conspiracy but rather to observe in whose interests the system functions. You have still not addressed my main point,which does not surprise me, that there is no good argument for GM crops because we would be better advised to seek the solutions to the underlying causes of hunger and food insecurity. Firstly address patterns of land ownership; secondly the balance between production for the market and production for self-reliance; thirdly the issue of appropriate development; fourthly the potential of sustainable agriculture; fifthly (because it must be addressed) the potential ecological risks of GM crops. After these tasks, perhaps, just perhaps, the world might be ready for an honest consideration of the need for and desirability of GM crops. If you are genuinely interested in ethics rather than in making arguments instrumental to the status quo, you must address the way in which the technology adopted by a society reflects and serves the interests of elites. In other words for ethics to be an honest discipline it must transcend the immediate socio-economic context; it must move towards a higher appreciation of human and ecological potential. If not you cease to be an ethicist and become an apologist, worse, for all your claims to the scientific high ground, you become no more than a priest in the pay of kings.

I think in many cases an agreement will be reached as in the case of Sygenta and the rice. It's the same with drugs - one of the big three pharmas has recently granted an Indian company licence to make generic Tamiflu on the proviso that it is for distribution in poorer parts of the world only. This gives poor people access to the drug whilst still permitting drug development to be commercially viable from sales in the developed world. The industry may have shifty looking eyebrows but they are not satanic! jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

"I think in many cases an agreement will be reached as in the case of Sygenta and the rice." What about you two? Any chance? Oh dear! I think I ruptured my pomposity.

"Maddan is a computer scientist" I'm an engineer, we take exception to being called scientists.

*gene manipulator with satanic eyebrows*. hahahahahahaha..... D;

Thank you jrc. Perhaps it was a little OTT but I feel very mistrustful of these people and even more so of their corporate paymasters. Buk, if it sounds like a pantomime argument, that's only because these corporations behave like pantomime villains. It's a shame you would rather empathise with an organisation whose entire agenda is driven by commercial greed rather than someone like myself whose sole concern is the well-being of the planet and the whole human race. Tom makes some extremely valid points. We'd all do well to heed them.

I think conspiracy is too strong a word, Jude, but you have to follow the money. Big business is exploitative rather than philanthropic - it's looking for markets rather places to do good works. If you own a technology you want to find somewhere to sell it, whether it's useful in the long term or necessary or not. People with a vested interest in exploiting the use of new technology are not to be trusted with its dissemination. Neither are the scientists who develop such technology. Scientists get over excited about their own disciplines and this excitement makes them foolhardy and extravagant in their claims. The list of wonder products pronounced absolutely safe by the scientists who came up with them and their peer group is a long one, thalidomide and DDT come to mind to name only two. Personally, I think you fuck with nature and the food chain at your peril. Who can tell what will happen down the line? Certainly not scientists, who predictions in the past have proved highly dubious to say the least.

"The list of wonder products pronounced absolutely safe by the scientists who came up with them and their peer group is a long one, thalidomide and DDT come to mind to name only two." Worth remembering, perhaps, that it is only because of scientists that we ever discovered DDT and Thalidomide were not so safe after all.

Tom you are right in that a project has to have commercial viability otherwise no company would take it up but that doesn't mean to say the scientists who come up with the idea, or any other part of the human machine that is necessary to get an idea from concept to final product are motivated soley by financial gain. As Enzo points out it isn't that black and white. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

Worth remembering perhaps, that it is hypocritical to denigrate all of Scientific work when you yourself live within of the fruits of much of its labor.. Having an opinion is one thing, But basing that opinion as fact, without qualitative evidence to support you're preposition... Well, I am a Scientist... 'And I don't have satanic eyebrows' D:

Actually the statement about DDT and Thalidomide annoys me rather a lot. Nobody believed they were doing harm when they released those products - they made mistakes, and in the case of thalidomide moved pretty fast to rectify it. In fact the wooly minded kneejerk reaction preventing both products further use may be doing harm now (Thalidomide may be effective against certain forms of cancer and DDT can play an important part of controlling/eradicating malaria). And if Thalidomide and DDT are the worst that 'science' has come with then it's got nothing on the sheer cruelty and horror of the natural world.

I doubt the scientists employed by the multi-nationals are motivated by financial gain at all, Jude. They are quite rightly caught up in the thrill of discovery and the possible approbation of their peers. But in the past the excitement of discovery has sometimes caused scientists to exercise bad judgement in regard to the safety and proper use of the technologies they've pioneered. What can be done and what should be done are not the same thing. Safety can only be assessed in the short term and, inevitably, this assessment takes place in the context of what is known at the time. This doesn't mean something is safe, it means it might be safe if future knowledge (Yes, Dan, provided by science) doesn't prove it otherwise. This is where the risk lies - and to take risks with the environment is to risk a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.

This debate seems quickly to be dissolving into a ridiculously polarised discussion about whether scientists are all evil geniuses or not. Pathetic. I for one did not suggest that science or scientists are inherently bad. Nevertheless professional scientists, even those who might one day advise governments on ethics - heaven help us - do not have the monopoly on either reason or the scientific method. We can all be guilty of entering arguments with no intention of either taking on board what our interlocutors are saying or engaging with the possibility that we might be changed by the debate. Jude seems to have entirely given up responding to my arguments and now the debate has come back round to satanic eyebrows. HTF does anyone know anything about Satan's eyebrows? He might pluck his eyebrows! Genetic manipulation is something which has become possible thanks to the work of scientists but it is not a technology that should be widely employed just because scientists say so. In my opinion this is actually a debate about power; about democracy; about how dangerous corporate capitalism is; about what appropriate technology is and about how we should shape our common future. It is also, whether Jude will recognise the argument or not, a debate about whether we need GM crops at all, and if we do not, in whose interests are they being rolled out in the world? As to your question Yan, I think it's highly unlikely that I could find common ground with anyone whose idea of an argument is something along the lines of "oh well, one day I'll be influential so you can fuck off!"

As I said earlier I do agree that it would be a false assertion to say it would be impossible to solve malnutrition without GM foods. As I understand things, we agree that the causes lie deeper but we disagree as to what those causes are. And whilst I believe it is ethical and appropriate to treat the 'symptoms' of those deeper problems with GM food technologies, you do not. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

One little trick GM scientists are doing is creating crops that harvest once and then switch themselves off. This means the poor farmer has to come back year after year to buy fresh seed. How evil is that?

Not only is this untrue but technically impossible. I think there is a real need for advisory groups not necessarily to be expert but at least scientifically literate enough to understand the experts and to be able to recognise a myth. And the idea that ' a truly appropriate technology must be one which can be understood and managed by ordinary people' is ridiculous. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net