Is Genetic Engineering a Perversion of Nature?
There is a lot of legitimate scientific debate about genetically modified organisms. So far, genetically engineered food has proven safe, but on the other hand there is good reason to proceed with caution as genetic research is expanded. There is also a lot of irrational, fundamentally anti-science opposition to genetic engineering. Case in point is a web site set up by Greenpeace, FishTomato.Com.
The site highlights what Greenpeace considers “dangerous experiments.” A researcher patented a technique to genetically modify a tomato plant by inserting a gene that flounder use to survive in very low temperature water. The hope was that the result would be a tomato plant that was more resistant to freezing, which kills a significant percentage of tomato crops.
You’d think that Greenpeace would support such research. After all, farmers currently compensate for tomato crop loss from freezing through excess planting — reducing tomato plant loss would likely lead to a reduction in the area of land required for cropping the plant.
Instead Greenpeace opposes such research on the most bizarre of grounds — it’s not natural.
Referring to the creation of the tomato plant with fish genes inserted, Greenpeace writes, “Natural evolution never created a single fishtomato, but US Patent number 91-079-01 did.” On another page within the site, Greenpeace is more dramatic: “G[enetic] E[ngineering] perverts natural rules.”
One assumes that if Greenpeace called homosexuality a perversion of nature, it wouldn’t find many fans on the liberal Left, but calling genetic engineering an unnatural perversion has proven very successful in winning converts to this position.
Greenpeace is in good historical company. When anesthesia was first administered to relieve the pains associated with childbirth in the 19th century, some religious officials were aghast. This was, after all, not natural and it was a perversion of God’s will.
Much the same happened with vaccination in some quarters. In the 18th century English theologians such as the Rev. Edward Massey preached sermons with titles like “The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation” arguing that human beings had no right to stem the tide of disease and interference with God’s plan for the world. Who did human beings thing they were trying to tamper with nature?
If Greenpeace is going to be consistent with it’s claim that anything not produced by “natural evolution” is a perversion, then it is going to have to oppose pretty much every technological advance of the last 200 years. Will Greenpeace urge an end to vaccination? To the use of anaesthetics? To organ transplants?
The only thing perverted about genetic engineering is the irrational campaign being waged against it by Greenpeace and other environmental groups.
Sources:
FishTomato.Com. Greenpeace.
Genetically Engineered Food. Greenpeace, FishTomtato.Com.
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