I was expecting science, but ended up getting corporate propaganda and some "social science" thrown in, such as Watson telling us we should all agree to have our DNA stored on a police database. Things were OK until I reached chapter 5, "DNA, Dollars, and Drugs: Biotechnology", and chapter 6, "Tempest In A Cereal Box". These two chapters are about the commercialisation of genetic science i.e. finding lucrative private-sector jobs for former public workers, biotech scientists. In short, Watson wants profit-driven corporations - not the public - to decide what technologies should come out of certain scientific discoveries, and how these technologies should be applied.
Watson feels particularly aggrieved over the handling of GM food, and how environmentalists and the media have demonised this "useful" technology.
Watson writes, "A meaningful evaluation of GM food should be based on scientific considerations, not political or economic ones."
So what is Watson's scientific evaluation of so-called terminator seeds (seeds that are sterile and will not grow, forcing a farmer to go back to his supplier)? What possible advantage do they confer? Well, none! There is no scientific justification whatsoever for their existence. But, no matter. Watson justifies their existence by claiming that if the majority of farmers buy non-germinating seeds, then this will give corporations the economies of scale they need to invest in, and manufacture, useful "varieties".
In other words, Watson is saying that it is perfectly all right to genetically modify food merely to boost the bottom line of a company, and to encourage farmers and consumers to buy a useless genetic modification in the hope that companies will use this money to come up with something that is actually useful.
Why does this explanation sound suspect? Probably, because the real reason for creating terminator seeds is so that the farmer has to continually buy seed from the company. Other genetic modifications are being used to turn life forms into patented products. The seeds and plants then become the property of corporations - seeds and plants nature created!
So, terminator seeds have absolutely no scientific value. They are not good science, yet Watson tries to defend them on economic grounds, while attacking the public and environmentalists for ignoring the science.
Watson has nothing positive to say about environmentalists, even though many are scientists themselves, who do important work that benefits the public. Watson has now strayed into politics.
Watson also states that "anti-GM" activists sabotaged the prospects of the GM potato, which has built-in resistance to the potato virus. Fries, he claims, now cost more than they should. Given the obesity levels in America, and the concomitant diseases that go with carrying excess weight (heart disease, diabetes, cancer), why do we need cheaper fries? Watson is, yet again, justifying GM food on the supposed economic benefits, rather than on the scientific merits.
Watson overlooks the fact that coffee, for instance, is bought from impoverished "Third World" farmers for a ridiculously low price - sometimes below cost - then large corporations sell that coffee to Westerners at an inflated price. Watson's logic that if food is cheaper to produce, it will be cheaper to end consumers, is flawed.
Watson uses the word "variety" in a completely different sense to its normal use vis-à-vis plants. When we think of varieties of tomatoes, we imagine different shapes, sizes, flavours, and textures. But Watson is using the word to mean the exact same varieties, but with built-in pesticides, herbicide resistance, increased hardiness, sterility, etc. So when Watson talks about genetic manipulation bringing "new varieties" of food onto the market, although it sounds great, it's not what we imagine - it's not, as Watson claims, a modern version of what our ancestors did, who created genuinely new varieties, and gave them to us for free. In fact, we could end up with fewer varieties, as Watson fails to tell us whether just a subset of seeds can be, or will be, genetically modified, while the remaining varieties are eventually - for commercial reasons - discarded.
Watson compares Monsanto's former ambition to dominate the seed business - and therefore our food supply - with Microsoft's dominance of the PC desktop. Watson is wrong to claim that just because a monopoly was prevented, there is nothing to worry about. The notion of turning life itself into a patented technology that is the property of corporations has not gone away, and clearly Watson is doing his best to encourage us to open the door to it. This despite his admission that the patenting of the onco-mouse has limited the use of this important creature in cancer research due to licensing costs.
It is distasteful for Watson to invoke images of dying children to promote GM food, while ignoring the political and economic dimensions to poverty and hunger, which are often far more important.
For instance, what use is GM food to the people of Ghana, who are seeing large amounts of agricultural land being taken away from them for mining use by Western companies? This problem is political and economic, not scientific. There is often plenty of food to feed people - or the potential to produce plenty - but politics and economics gets in the way. To claim GM food will feed the world is a marketing ploy, a way to get us well-fed Westerners to feel so guilty that we fail to engage our critical faculties, and cave in to corporate demands to turn our food into patented technology - technology that cannot be distributed, copied, or otherwise transmitted without the express written permission of the manufacturer.
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