Miles's blog

Sometimes I am amazed that homo sapiens survived as a species seeing as how most of them are a bunch of morons.  Apparently millions of people are all upset that scientists have created plants through the use of genetic modification containing desirable traits like resistance to disease and insects.  Alarmists call this “Frankenfood” and wail to the heavens that we need protection from these "freaks."

Oh please.  I can’t see the difference between genetically modifying a plant in the lab from doing it in the soil.  Pretty much all of our food has been modified over the years.  Do these people really think native turkeys grew to 30 pound normally with huge breasts?  Are they reluctant to put American Beauty Roses in their vases and to have Pekinese dogs for pets?  Ever since humans figured out how to breed animals they have been genetically modifying what evolution created.  Native Americans grew maize, which Europeans altered into the giant stalks of corn which now feed the world.  What difference does it make whether later modifications were done by use of modern technology?  The point is modern science can do something to improve our lives, let’s embrace that.  Instead people have become suspicious of modern technology.

Thousands of children are suffering from whooping cough, a disease for which there is an effective vaccine because they fear the side effects of the vaccination might cause autism.  I wonder how they feel when their child is sick.  Vaccination has been the single greatest medical breakthrough in history.  Smallpox is eradicated from the world, polio is a dim memory, and all the stuff I got like mumps, measles, and chicken pox Meg was spared from.  But for some reasons millions of people, led by a bimbo whose only claim to fame is that her artificially enhanced breasts looked good on the pages of Playboy, choose to disregard modern medicine.  Of course, if they get some incurable form of cancer these same people will be screaming for the FDA to let them use some experimental medication.

I have always wondered why people seem so concerned about food which the FDA has approved, but then think nothing of buying marijuana on the street from some guy who they would never let in their house, and then ingesting a substance he gives them in a used plastic bag for which they have no indication of what is in there. Like I said, people are morons.

For years I have wanted to research what people’s acceptance was of things we now take for granted.  Were thousands afraid to put electric lights in their homes?  Did groups picket against penicillin?  Did wackos seek to ban airplanes?  I doubt it.  In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries I think most people embraced new technology.  People born at the dawn of the civil war when train travel was new lived to see jet airplanes and men orbit the earth.  The technology they witnessed must have made the world of their seniority seem like a dream.  Their parents were treated with leeches and they saw the benefits of micro surgery. 

Modern Americans (and apparently Europeans) fear technology.  People today see harm from nuclear energy.  They know abused technology has led to oil spills, air pollution, chemicals in the water supply, and a constant fear that someone is going to use a nuclear weapon.  So they resist genetic engineering for their food, while they simultaneously embrace genetic counseling before conception.

At any rate, I have no problem with frankenfood.  I would like to suggest, however, that as long as they are genetically engineering food can they make lima beans taste like chocolate and lettuce taste like steak?