When I became aware of the GMO controversy a bit over a year ago, it quickly sprung to the forefront of my skeptical priorities. With the technology having been demonstrably and profoundly beneficial in some cases (Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution), hostility to it having been needlessly harmful (Zambian government's refusal of GMO corn during famine in 2002), and much of the opposition seeming to hinge on either the "appeal to nature" fallacy or an essentially conspiratorial view of biotechnology companies, it fell within that rare intersection of empiricism and humanitarianism; an issue where lives could be saved by the mere dispelling of myths.
I don't doubt that they will be beneficial to feeding the world, but I think it's possible that the instances listed above have led me to put them on something of a pedestal; advents such as golden rice certainly have the potential to put a dent in Vitamin A deficiency, but aren't going to be a panacea for the complex issue of malnutrition in Asia. I feel revulsion when reading about Greenpeace's needless destruction of these crops in the Philippines, but it's this very emotional reaction that makes me feel as though I'm giving disproportionate attention to a single potential remedy.
Really, just writing about this is making me realize that it is an important issue, and needless deaths are still being caused by the categoric aversion to GMOs. I suppose that I've just gotten into the habit of debunking myths about Monsanto (terminator seeds, farmer suicides), which in and of themselves aren't that harmful. If GM crops end up being an ultimately insignificant component of alleviating world hunger, I might relegate the pervasive misconceptions about them to the status I have reserved for the gluten-free craze; annoying, and worthy of derision, but relatively benign.
I don't doubt that they will be beneficial to feeding the world, but I think it's possible that the instances listed above have led me to put them on something of a pedestal; advents such as golden rice certainly have the potential to put a dent in Vitamin A deficiency, but aren't going to be a panacea for the complex issue of malnutrition in Asia. I feel revulsion when reading about Greenpeace's needless destruction of these crops in the Philippines, but it's this very emotional reaction that makes me feel as though I'm giving disproportionate attention to a single potential remedy.
Really, just writing about this is making me realize that it is an important issue, and needless deaths are still being caused by the categoric aversion to GMOs. I suppose that I've just gotten into the habit of debunking myths about Monsanto (terminator seeds, farmer suicides), which in and of themselves aren't that harmful. If GM crops end up being an ultimately insignificant component of alleviating world hunger, I might relegate the pervasive misconceptions about them to the status I have reserved for the gluten-free craze; annoying, and worthy of derision, but relatively benign.
via JREF Forum http://ift.tt/1lxMbQG
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