time. We are very used to flipping a light switch and curing the dark, taking
a
pill and curing the headache and investing in a stock and seeing it gain over
night.
What we have forgotten is that many of the benefits which we receive from
science
are actually the results of the works of many persons bumping around the
research
arena like molecules in a jar, with the final result being visible only after
many years of this seemingly mindless wandering in the maze of knowledge.
It is true that the human meanderings have been on a much shorter time scale
than
Nature who has suffered many catastrophies in her path to today. In fact, it
has
been remarked that humans may be one of her chance inventions and that
intelligence is not necessarily a survival charcteristic.
The work with GMO and GE may or may not be one of these random walks to
catastrophe or even a blind alley in the larger scheme. The entire issue is
not
about the technology, but about Time. Our short term needs for visible results
and financial returns or alleviation of some pain (at any level) has
short-circuited our ability to look at these efforts on a longer time fram. We
are dictated to by external forces including investors, the electorate, or
even
the humanitarians' needs to provide solutions to pain and suffering. This
problem
does not reside only in the corporate domain with its "profit" motive, but
also
with those who sit on the other side of the fence.
Time is the issue; and the problems such as GMO's are only one way in which
this
issue becomes manifest. Human ego makes it difficult to believe that a person
may
be but one grain in an infinite game. We seek finite games; and, as
Shakespeare
has said, " Aye, there's the rub".
thoughts?
tom abeles
ps this does not imply that those who oppose GMO's hold the moral or
intellectual
high ground, particularly when they argue for longer term evaluations. Rather
it
places them at the gaming table amongst the many. And, as Michael Jackson has
said, things are neither black nor white.
tpa
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