I just finished reading Chapter 6, 'Tempest in a Cereal Box-Genetically Modified Agriculture'. Dr Watson says and I quote from the First Paperback Edition, Page 156, 'Virtually no human being, save the very few remaining genuine hunter-gatherers, eats a strictly natural' diet'. This is in response to the anti-GM community's allegation that GM foods are 'not natural'. Dr Watson goes on to say, 'Biotechnology, by contrast, allows us to be much more precise in introducing new genetic material into plant species, one gene at a time'. This is said to illustrate how modern genetic engineering is better, though analogous to farming techniques used in agriculture in which Einkorn wheat is crossed with a species of goat grass to produce emmer wheat, because agricultural crosses produce 'unforeseeable effects', Page 157.
The argument Dr Watson makes is not convincing. Genetic engineering is better just because we can now manipulate 'one gene at a time'? Dr Watson has pitted his craft and trade against the evolution of agricultural practices and techniques. In this chapter and in other chapters in the book he has repeatedly given arguments favoring genetic engineering over processes occurring in nature though initiated by humans or animals.
On Page 161, Dr. Watson says, 'The opposition to GM foods is largely a sociopolitical movement whose arguments, though couched in the language of science, are typically unscientific'. He once said, 'People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great'.
Genetically Modified Girls. Not so elementary now is that, Doctor Watson? C
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