Which is pretty much equivalent to asking I wonder how many people who hate GMOs are pig-ignorant idiots [that not even beer-drinking can cure**]*? Admittedly, this question is only tangential to these allegations that – shock, surprise! – some strains of perfectly safe genetically modified wheat were likely introduced into an Oregon crop by the very junk science yahoos that think that we’re living in the middle of an Atomic Horror movie. It’s still a fun question to ask.
What’s that? Why do I think that the bio-Luddites did this, too? Well, it’s not like the darn stuff moved on its own, and… oh, let the actual scientists have their moment of scorn:
If it is impossible for GM wheat to have somehow migrated to that particular isolated farm, or to have spontaneously mutated, there could be only one logical explanation: an intentional surreptitious sowing of rogue RR wheat seeds for the purpose of promoting fear and suspicion of all gene-spliced products. This sort of agenda and tactics have won the day in Europe, which has adopted a Dark Ages approach to biotech agriculture, with activists burning GM crops like their forebears did to witches and infidels before the Age of Reason, screaming “frankenfood” as they do.
On the bright side: none of the aforementioned activists vote for Republicans. Be sure to point this out to the next progressive that wants to tell you about the Right’s War on Science. Try to point and laugh, if you can manage it.
Via Reason, via Instapundit.
Moe Lane
*No, not all of them. Some of them are self-absorbed jackasses. Some are easily-frightened scientific illiterates. And some are jackpot winners in the Great Venn Diagram of Fail. And, OK, some of them are just wrong.
[**Addition added as per one of my readers, who raised an important point of order.]
Disagree. ALL of them are idiots. Every. Single. One.
Humanity has been genetically modifying it’s food supply since the first human planted the first seed or penned up two fertile animals together to ensure they bred together. The fact that the process of “selective breeding” is slow and laborious differentiates it from “gene splicing” only in terms of speed of result, not type.
That said, I am for the preservation of the ‘original’ genetic stocks, for obvious (to me) reasons….
So, are the post’s title and first line, when taken together, meant to imply that beer-drinkers are idiots? Say it ain’t so, Moe. Say it ain’t so.
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(Yes, I know. I got it. Still, you have to admit you can see how it could be taken that way.)
No, it’s a valid point. Have added a clarification. Thanks. 🙂
Lost a friend once because his Mom was afraid my genetic disorder might be contagious. What can I say, can’t blame her, contagion is and always will be one of humanities greatest fears for good reason. More humans have died of disease than any other cause. Forgot the friends name which tells you something.
I can only add from Alexei Panshin’s Starwell (and if you have not read that, then you do not know of SF’s great lost book The Universal Pantograph):
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“Srb subscribed to a theorya of great antiquity concerning the Foudation of civilization, a theory beyond proof, but sufficiently within the bounds of possibility to merit endorsement. Civilization depend on stable living conditions for populations of some size that will allow them to build, in vent, coin , keep records, and stock supplies for making war. Civilization in this sense is not possible for migrant populations, that is, populations whose staff o life is roots, berries and wild animal carcasses, the search for which keeps them eternally on the move. Civilization is the offspring of the invention of agriculture. But why did man take up agriculture? Not to allow himself to build, invent, coin, keep records, and to stock rocks. That could not be foreseen. No, the invention of agriculture was to save men the trouble in collecting the wherewithal for making beer. And when he drank beer, which he liked to do, Srb relished the thought that he was secretly preserving civilization without its knowledge, as was his duty.”
There was a documentary about the history of beer that made this exact point. Many of the early crops were brewing crops and early writing seemed to involve a lot of info about beer sales
(SLUUURRRP!Ahhhhh) Another blow strucken for cilivizashun!! (Slurrrrrrp!) Take that, you barbarian hordes!!