In message <v0420553db39f0e583426@[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood
<dhenwood at panix.com> writes
>From: Robert Weissman <rob at essential.org>
>Fearful of a public backlash that might drive the biotech industry into
>oblivion, Monsanto is reaching out to its critics.
>
>Last week, Jeremy Rifkin, the biotech critic, flew to Monsanto's world
>headquarters in St. Louis to address something called the World Business
>Council for Sustainable Development.
I don't think that we should be surprised that Monsanto is talking to its critics. One of the major drives towards the regulation of industry is industry's own lack of nerve.
The opposition to GM foods comes principally from European farmers who want regulation to defend their own inefficient farm practices. Big companies like Shell have embraced the environmental agenda as part of their corporate strategy. Monsanto's press department already sound greener than greenpeace.
In message <B03898593BC0D011A5B50060973D0F5CFF0222 at rlm_exch1.rlmnet.com>
, Carl Remick <cremick at rlmnet.com> writes
>Funny, I heard Commoner speak at Brown University on the first Earth Day
>-- when was that, 1972? -- when he ridiculed the very idea of
>reengineering nature. I remember his vivid turn of phrase: "If I open
>the back of my watch and stick in a pencil point, there is a chance I
>will improve its operation -- but I assure you it is a very remote
>chance."
Does Commoner think that watches grow on trees?
In message <v04205507b39ff4486317@[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood
<dhenwood at panix.com> writes
>Carl Remick wrote:
>
>>I've followed Prince Charles' opposition to GM food with interest.
>
>It's weird to see people using this dim reactionary as an authority
>figure.
Indeed. And it is appropriate that he should rally to so conservative a cause as organic farming, and the maintenance of the traditional ways of the country against change.
>Barry Commoner, who made his scientific name by dethroning
>the fundamental dogma of molecular biology (that, following a model
>of the cell based on the capitalist factory, influence only went from
>gene to protein synthesis; Commoner argued instead that the process
>was very complex, with the cellular environment influencing gene
>expression - or so it was explained to me once by a Marxist
>biologist),
This goes too far. Molecular biology never had a 'fundamental dogma'. As the science developed the relation between gene to protein synthesis was understood to be richer than was at first surmised.
There is a school of cranks at the Open University here, Stephen Rose and Mae-Wan Ho, who have sought to build a mighty rejection of molecular biology out of this tiny acorn. Like many of the 'chaos' theorists they made the illegitimate leap from, 'it is difficult to understand' to 'it is impossible to understand' how genes influence the development of the organism.
I met Mae-Wan and in conversation she argued that Lysenko had a point, and that we had to understand the Tao of the cell. Her forthcoming book is on the life-force.
>Commoner
>is now turning his attention, at age 81, to genetic
>engineering. He's convinced that while you can't trust Monsanto, a
>lot of its critics don't know what they're talking about either.
I think you can trust Monsanto - to do exactly what is in there interests. That understood it is easy to factor out their particular concerns and try to understand the science. I can well understand why Commoner should interest himself in genetic engineering. It will be a tragedy if an entire generation of radicals turn their backs on this technology out of a misguided moralism. If they do so they will have no room to complain if the right monopolises the gains of GE. -- Jim heartfield