The Rothamsted scientists' plea is pretty compelling. Here's the Luddites' call for destroying scientific trials.
New Zealand trials of GM radiata pine were destroyed by local Luddites last month.
GE Free NZ disclaimed responsibility for that attack, but didn't exactly go out of their way to condemn the destruction of scientific knowledge:
President of GE Free NZ, Claire Bleakley, told Radio New Zealand she had "absolutely no idea at all" who was responsible and doubted the person was connected to the organisation.Putting a human face on the destruction helps build public support for science; Scion, ran the trials in NZ, could look to Rothamsted as example.
"This is really the responsibility of a person who is obviously so disfranchised by the ERMA process and their anger at having GE trees regardless of the 95 per cent submissions against it to ERMA.
"The people already done it before and are obviously very concerned GE trees. This isn't an act of vandalism, this is an act of ridiculousness that Scion is going forward with taxpayers money."
Those who so vigorously oppose GE research serve only to demonstrate their appalling lack of knowledge about genetic science and the framework in this country in which such research is conducted. Research facilities are very tightly controlled and monitored to prevent the escape of GM crops into the wild, and the scientists conducting the research are certainly not creating the dangerous chimaera which anti-GE folk seem to claim.
ReplyDeleteI would also note that there is a significant overlap between the greenie vegetarian crowd and anti-GE lobbyists, and the irony of these folk chowing down on vast amounts of soy milk and other products seems lost on them given that the majority of the worlds soy crop is the result of genetic modification.