AN AGE OF REASON OR AN AGE OF RAGE?

Proving Genetically Modified foods are safe is a bit like proving the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. It’s hard to prove something is not there when fanatics want to believe. It’s embarrassing to see environmentalists being suckered into using dubious European slogans such as the precautionary principle which the rest of the world realises is sophisticated protectionism for their privileged, subsidised farmers. Just another example of Europe losing the plot. But what once gave Europe and cultures of European extraction the edge, allowing their societies to flourish, expand, and their economies the opportunity to explode with creativity and become the dominant global force for the past few centuries? The separation of church and state, freedom of religion, and more importantly, freedom from religion. Enlightenment, liberalism aimed at liberating the individual from intellectual constraint would also freed individuals from legal, economic restraint on private initiative. The subversive egalitarian idea of social mobility through equal opportunity and merit worked.

The big idea was freedom, given freedom enlightenment was sure to follow, the philosophers argued. The influential German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, wrote that enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Have courage to use your own reason is the motto of the enlightenment. People began to refuse to outsource their conscience to clerics nor accept economic and political privilege conferred by the sovereign. So who are the modern enemies of reason, tolerance and freedom? Fundamentalist religious fanatics rage against modernity. Their most evil expression of powerlessness being terrorist attacks against civilian targets. But even in open societies intolerant forces gather, march, and holding high their Bible, claim to know a truth that everyone else must live under. These enemies of reason normally align themselves on the right of politics. There are however enemies of reason who pose as progressive and, like others, claim to be saving the world, the environment being their vehicle of power. Fundamentalists oppose stem cell research which offers the way forward to effectively treat some of the most devastating diseases and injuries man faces. Pharmaceutical research is moving out of the U.K. due to rabid activists who last year were responsible for over 300 attacks on research facilities and staff.

Recently the FBI, in a report to a U.S. Senate committee, warned that eco-militants are the great new terrorist threat. The FBI reports 1,200 crimes committed by eco-terrorists and animal welfare militants between 1990 and 2004. Fire-bombing SUV dealers as opposition to gas-guzzlers, arson of so-called insensitive housing development causing $70 million damage, razor blades in the mail, but it’s in animal rights that the most violent exchanges have taken place in many countries. An animal rights activist recently stated that they were not bound by the law, that their cause was like the anti-slavery campaign. There is no moral equivalence, that’s as bizarre as Michael Jackson claiming his court appearances were like Nelson Mandela’s and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s.

The arguments against GM foods and stem cell research are subjects where the fundamentalists and extreme environmental militants join hands against science. GM foods offer us the opportunity to feed a hungry world. The bloke who invented super wheat, super rice, and created the green revolution, thus saving millions of lives, won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Nowadays his laboratories would be attacked for interfering with nature. Production of food has trebled over the past 40 years while the world’s population has doubled, good thing I would have thought.

It’s hard to see how we will feed the world, lower the use of dangerous insecticides and fertilizers without enlisting the new forces of science.

I saw an interview where an animal rights activist stated that they were not bound by the law, that their cause was like the anti-slavery campaign. There is no moral equivalent, that’s as bizarre as Michael Jackson claiming his court appearances were like Nelson Mandela’s and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s. Of course we must be prudent, cautious, seek high standards and best practices, science can move faster than our moral, ethical or legal capacity to cope. But those who wish to burn the books, destroy science, have as their forefathers those who burnt the witches, not those heroes who freed the slaves. These small groups who manipulate and exaggerate the dangers to a gullible media represent pre-enlightenment thinking, they are the new enemies of reason, but it’s a good headline grabber and fundraiser.