The latest target of the politically correct viewers with alarm is the genetically altered food product. They claim, and rightly so, that we don’t know the effect of this food product on humans and other mammals 20 years down the road.
Will moving a gene from a chicken to a carrot cause us carrot consumers to want to roost on the head boards of our beds? No one can say for sure because 20 years haven’t passed since such transfers began commercially.
Those specializing in biodiversity say if eating shark fillets doesn’t cause us to chomp hapless swimmers, why would combining two commonly eaten food sources suddenly cause us to react in an erratic fashion?
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When there is a major disease outbreak or some human starts to commit inhuman acts, a popular next step is to look for someone or something to blame.
Could it be the food we ingested, digested and partially divested?
Launching into the biogenetic world is much like our move into mass agricultural production – we won’t know for a couple of generations whether we did it right.
For those who would demand a moratorium on all development in this area, we cede a place in history. They will stand with those who contended the steam engine should be outlawed because no human frame was designed to travel at the speeds contemplated.
They join those who warned against use of polyesters, of penicillin, of internal combustion engines and the invasion of space.
And it is well to have these nay-sayers around because, despite obvious gains, in each of the above cases disastrous things did happen.
Are biogenetically altered crops a good thing?
Tune in for the answer in 2010.
