Dick Ahlstrom: politicians are the real experts when it comes to GM crops

I have a sneaking suspicion the world is not round, it is actually flat; not completely flat, mind you, but mostly flat. I know many will object to this view, dismissing it as the thinking of a crank who ignores all the scientific evidence and insists the commonly held view of a spherical earth just isn't true. Sure don't we have satellites whizzing in orbit overhead and don't we have ships that can circumnavigate the globe without falling off, most people would argue.

Yes, you could argue that, but then what about when you stand in one spot and look about and everything really does seem flat . . . so long as you are not standing on a slope or on top of a hill or down in a valley. This is what I am saying about the earth not being completely flat but a mix of flat and lumpy bits. But wherever you are standing don’t things look relatively flat in all directions? And doesn’t this fly in the face of the claim by the majority of people, nearly everyone really, that the earth is a gigantic ball? It doesn’t look like a ball when you are standing there.

And don't things look pretty flat, too, when you are in a space station looking down? You see the flat surface below you, just like it looks when you look at flat maps of the earth. I know you are going to ask about looking towards the horizon when you are orbiting in the space station, why it looks curved like a ball. But this could just be an optical illusion caused by looking down through the earth's atmosphere, because by the time the horizon reaches you there below you will see the same flat planet. And if the earth were round wouldn't all the water in the likes of the Great Lakes of North America or the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea and the oceans spill out over their edges, just the same as if you try to make water remain on the surface of a ball? If you put water on that ball the water will just run off, but the lakes and sea water doesn't run off, the water stays put. How much evidence do you need?

Maintaining controversial views like this is a lonely job, given most people think this is wrong. I was delighted, therefore, to hear the Scottish government is planning to ban cultivation of all forms of genetically modified crops. They too have taken a stand, ignoring the majority scientific view and basing their decision on something other than science and a whole pile of "facts".

Risks

The decision is not based on any informed scientific assessment of the risks posed by

GM plants

, and the Scots are also ruling out any future scientific evidence that might arise. The decision, in fact, has nothing to do with science at all; it is about politics, the Scottish government has said. Who says the scientists know better than the politicians when it comes to genetically modified crops? So what if GM plants have been used safely for at least 20 years?

Mind, the decision has Scotland's scientific community in a tizzy. They are complaining (don't scientists always complain?) that the decision will prevent them from participating in research related to GM plants. To be fair Scotland's universities and institutes have a world-class track record in agricultural and genetic research. Sure, wasn't Dolly the cloned sheep born in Scotland at the famous Roslin Institute? All that would be out the window if a blanket ban came through on GM research activity, at least in terms of crop cultivation.

Whingeing

You know of course there will be nothing but whingeing over the fact that evidence for holding these views – about a flat earth and about GM cultivation of crops – is in short supply. Evidence is overrated any way: who needs evidence when you make a political decision of importance such as that made by the Scottish government?

That of course didn't stop the scientists from trying another tack, getting together to send a joint letter to the government's cabinet secretary for rural affairs and the environment, Richard Lochhead. They sent one only a few weeks back (August 17th), and of course Roslin Institute was a signatory along with other naysayers such as the European Academies Science Advisory Council, a collection of universities in and outside Scotland, learned societies and various research institutes.

Mr Lochhead provided the ultimate answer: “Just because GM crops can be cultivated in Scotland it doesn’t mean they should be.” So there.