Plentiful are the takeaways from Will Saletan’s expertly researched, if a bit viciously anti-activist, barn-burner of piece over at Slate on the various absurdities, lies and distortions in the war over GMOs.
I’ve long been a casual GMO skeptic, far more wary of any megacorporation trumpeting their own patents as the savior of humanity and the “only” way to feed nine billion, than of those fighting for labeling transparency and food safety.
But if Saletan is to be believed: Anti-GMO zealots almost across the board have gone off the rails. They’ve become so entrenched, so furiously convinced of their position that no amount of scientific fact can possibly penetrate, much less make them realize they have been, time and again, proven almost wholly wrong.
A flush of indignation hit me right away as Saletan challenged my long-standing – if not particularly well-formed – ideas about GMOs. I’m happy to report that, despite my reluctance, by the end I had to admit it – I’d been mostly wrong about GMOs. I needed to rethink my attitudes. I’d have to read more deeply. The discussion has been, for me anyway, quite healthily advanced.
Here’s my main takeaway from Saletan’s piece: We must not be hypocrites. The liberal ethos, after all, claims a far higher degree of intellectual flexibility and open mindedness than rigid, panicky conservatism.
Is this not the true definition of “progressive”? It’s not just a gentle unfolding of happy truths, free of snags or real challenge. True progress often requires blasts and upheavals of what you thought to be true, the shattering of the stuck thing so real flow can happen. Or at least, that’s how it should be.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Have anti-GMO activists gone off the rails?
