Re: More UK Opinon Polls on "GM Foods"

Spudboy100@aol.com
Thu, 9 Sep 1999 01:50:13 EDT

In a message dated 09/08/1999 3:43:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time, douglas@trancend.freeserve.co.uk writes: 

> In England the uproar and outrage over GMF has been matched  by an increase

> in the positive publicity regarding organically grown food, which is
> portrayed as natural, healthy etc etc, grown by decent honest folk on small
> farms etc etc as it was in the good old days. Science is seen as the enemy
> in the form of evil Biotech Industries prepared to sacrifice public health
> in the pursuit of profit.
>
> Douglas
>
They're trounced because the Companies didn't decide to test how crops might interact sufficiently. Its a healthy reaction that people don't trust the "experts" axiomatically. The companies have done an extremely poor job of explanation, quite possibly, because they indeed have done poorly in accurate testing of whether genes might contaminate other crops.

Its like the mad rush into Nuclear Fission after WW2, to the the Hiroshima monster. Extremely attractive venture; but ill-conceived except for processes like military subs and deep space probes. Who is to claim that Boiling Water Reactors or Pressurized Water Reactors or the COČ cooled reactors are what was needed-even though they were pushed by governments? Physicist Freeman Dyson wanted engieers to take their time and tinker with reactor concepts, letting the Darwinian selection make the most fit choice. Now we have a nearly moribund nuke industry-and a whole lotta clean-up to do.

There's also a cultural factor. Britain seems to be a country enamored of its history, probably more-so than any in Europe. So new fangled concepts which are not natural, are resisted. America, the land of rednecks and relatively high religious attendence also values its technology-go figure.