There is a diary on the rec list that should never have made it past the smell test of educated readers. It makes dubious claims without presenting any evidence. It is on the rec list, because it supports what people want to believe is true.
There is no difference in this mentality, and that of a Glen Beck viewer. It is the "tell me what I want to hear" culture, which has overtaken American intellectual discourse.
The target of this attack is Monsanto, and more specifically genetically engineered crops. People hear the phrase genetically engineered, and they default to tales of science fiction. Genetic engineering is older than recorded history, and is also the only reason you're alive today.
Let's start with the greatest of all genetic engineering cultures in our history. The Meso-Americans, who sustained a hundred million people on the two continents, before any European dreamed of the new world.
You may think it a mild event in history, but the cultivation and genetic selection practices of the Americas changed the course of human history. Two particular products resulting from milllenia of genetic engineering were enough to pull much of Europe out of famine. The Europeans were far from thankful.
Maize (corn) actually started out life as a tiny seed on a blade of grass. The potato was little more than a thin root. In what is now Mexico and Peru these two crops were modified over thousands of generations to represent their current form. Maize became the dietary stable of North America. Likewise the potato sustained life high in the mountains of South America.
People marvel at the spiritual wonder of Manchu Picchu, but fail to realize what they are actually seeing in the architecture. Miles and miles of stepped flats cut into the mountain with one purpose. They provide planting beds for potatoes of many varieties. The architecture and agriculture are two sides of the same coin.
How did these people create these essential crops? Well, there is some debate about that, but it is a question science is very interested in answering. What is known is that these crops didn't occur naturally.
Not that genetic engineering wasn't happening across the pond as well. Dogs have been with human beings longer than recorded history, and this was no accident. It is also no accident that there are some many varieties of the species. We did that. Man's best friend has helped us herd and hunt, since we were just tribal peoples trying to survive.
Horses and all beasts of burden share a similar story. All are species resulting from genetic selection by the human beings caring for them.
You, I and the rest of civilization owe our lives to the our ability to manipulate the world around us. Unlike other species competing with Mr. Darwin's cold harsh world, we don't always have to adapt to the world around us. Rather we've learned how to adapt it to us.
If a corporation is harming the human population, I'm the first to cry foul. But don't let agenda politics take out positive science in the process. From an ecological stand point, the best thing for humans to do is have as small of a footprint as possible. This translates to one grand concept. "Yield".
Agriculture is by and far the most lethal attack on any ecology. Even the corn and the potato took their toll on the ecologies of their time. Where I now live in the Rogue Valley of Oregon, farms are constantly being expanded. Wineries and organic produce is the goal, largely because of the profitability of the two crops. This places enormous pressure on the water coming of the mountains.
Over the mountain to the west they grow cranberries. To harvest them, they must flood huge areas to create bogs. In doing so they fundamentally alter the local ecology for generations.
Well, that is fine. This is America after all, and we can afford our indulgences. But in the long game, this type of low yield farming isn't sustainable. To create farmland, you must destroy a functional part of a regions life system.
So once again we will have to adapt the world to our needs. We must make our agriculture more productive, while using less space. We must find away to increase yield without doing more ecological damage in the process. The answer will be found where it has always been found. In the DNA of the crop we are working with.