The "Natural" Does Not Exist Any Longer
Several days ago we watched a doco on genetic engineering. It was not the normal fodder of Luddite claptrap. Genetic crop and animal scientists were expressing their frustration at the irrational phobias that hamstring the development and deployment of genetically modified crops and farm animals.
At one point the interviewer asked a scientist whether they were willing to risk destroying the natural habitat (visible in the background) with the release of genetically modified crops, such as vitamin rich rice--calculated to save over two million lives a year in the developing world. The scientist pointed out that there was nothing "natural" at all about the landscape before them. It had all been genetically modified by selective breeding over centuries.
Now, gene modification technology allows for far more precise and careful and helpful modification. It allows for less risky modification. But the irrational phobic anti-science propaganda has achieved such a hold over the popular mind that modern genetic modification has been made verboten. It is just another example of how superstition has trumped science in the West.
When God created man, He made him as co-creator. The ability to create and develop the potentialities already intrinsic to the creation is part of being made in God's image. Modern genetic modification technology is a wonderful example of this glory and potential given to man. But Unbelief cannot cope with it. It is too superstitious to bear the responsibility. At this point modern secular Unbelief is akin to the superstitious fear of offending the animist spirits, thus causing bad things to happen. It is ironic that modern society is at this point devolving into a backward, regressive state of ignorance, riven by fear of the unknown and dread of imagined consequences.
The first casualty is science itself. But then again if you are stupid enough to believe that all that exists by means of a fiat "creation" of chance, then extinction--including self-extinction--is not just a remote possibility. It is highly likely and most probable. In such a world-view, the world becomes a minatory place. Dread and fear become the driving motivations of the culture.
1 comment:
One can oppose GM without being a Luddite nor deifying nature. I have my misgivings about GM outside the laboratory.*
I think the GM scientists could do with a little less hubris. Yes, the biosphere is self "genetically modified" by breeding, by taking up bits of DNA in the environment and incorporating such into its own genome. But such processes are probably directed. I think this is likely given that the genetic code was written (programmed).
So we have many extensive programs (life forms, genome) that take up parts of other programs (DNA) and this is probably directed by programs (integrating DNA code). DNA does not appear to be inserted randomly.
Scientists who have partly discovered how DNA works (eg. gene makes protein) think that randomly incorporating such DNA into an organism has no downside. A little bit more humility by the scientists about how little we still know would not go amiss.
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*I favour yeast that make insulin for example.
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