SCIENCE TODAY: An American scientific collaborator visited recently. While waiting for a train in England, he had a coffee in what he described as a greasy spoon. Each table in the cafe bore a notice reassuring customers that no food on the menu was genetically modified. Mike was amused by the contrast between this punctilious attitude to what he considers a remote theoretical risk and the blasé attitude to hygiene.
Most people in the Republic are opposed to genetically modified, or GM, food, and the situation is similar throughout the EU. GM food is more acceptable in the United States, but about 50 per cent of people there also express grave misgivings. The reaction against GM food seems to be instinctive and deeply held. Why is this so?
GM food is produced from plants and animals that have had their genetic make-up changed in the laboratory, by genetic engineering, in order to boost yields, make crops or animals resistant to disease, improve shelf life and so on. Plant and animal breeders have always worked to improve their products using conventional methods, such as selectively breeding animals that display desirable traits. Although slow and uncertain, these have been used successfully for many centuries.
The traditional plant or animal breeder can cross-breed only between closely related species, and the offspring display not only the desired traits but also a range of more or less unwanted characteristics, which must be slowly bred out by further cycles of breeding. Genetic engineering allows the scientist to take precise genetic information bearing a desirable trait from one organism and introduce it to another.
The first GM food to go on sale was the Flavr Savr tomato, which was genetically modified to retard softening during ripening, thereby enhancing flavour and extending shelf life. Monsanto, the food biotechnology company that engineered it, has also genetically modified soya beans to make them resistant to Roundup, a herbicide it manufactures, and so, it claims, significantly reduce usage of herbicide.
Humans have a deep love of nature. The American sociobiologist Edward Wilson argues that it was imprinted on us by natural selection as a protective mechanism. One can imagine how respect for nature and a suspicion of artificiality served useful functions over the long haul of human evolution. It can lead to erroneous conclusions today, however.
Not everything natural - such as toxic viruses and tornadoes - is good, and some artificial things - such as vaccines and bicycles - are good. Many would argue that properly tested GM food is also good and would disagree with the traditional attitude of Prince Charles, who recently said that genetic modification should be left to God.
PSYCHOLOGISTS have identified several shorthand methods we use to assess situations. In many instances these lead to roughly accurate conclusions, and one can see how they were useful over our evolutionary history, but, again, in today's world they can sometimes mislead us.
Aversion to loss is instinctive. A loss is more worrisome than a forgone gain. When I plan to invest my savings, I am more swayed by a guarantee that my capital is secure than by large projected gains but no capital guarantee. Many people also think about GM food this way, asking whether it is possible to guarantee the safety of the technology. The probability of ill-effect is low, but there is no guarantee, and this is enough to cause most people to forgo the potential gains in food quality, quantity and resilience.
We also have an instinctive preference for the status quo, and normally place a higher value on what we have. We aren't keen on change, and GM food seems like a big change.
We have an inbuilt mechanism for quickly assessing whether something is safe. Again, it is easy to see how this was useful. One couldn't afford to take too long pondering whether to approach or avoid that rustling bush or wriggling thing on the ground. But this is a fallible guide in our technological world. It can lead us to conclude, for example, not only that there is no safe level of radiation, but also that any level, no matter how low, is very dangerous.
We also tend to think that something is more probable if it comes easily to mind. An air disaster causes a prolonged dip in numbers of airline passengers despite well-known statistics showing that the safest way to travel is by air. We can all easily visualise the disasters that ensue when we tinker with nature - Frankenstein's monster, the island of Dr Moreau and so on. It is therefore easy to see how contemplation of GM food arouses flimsily rationalised visions of horror.
Unjustified or exaggerated fears of GM food cannot be allayed without understanding the motivations behind the fears. It would indeed be dangerous to develop GM food without employing stringent precautions, but I am convinced that the benefits of cautious development greatly outweigh the risks. I would like to see the initial focus to be on developing hardy crops to feed the hungry Third World, however.
The Flavr Savr tomato and Roundup Ready Soya are easily portrayed as frivolous, or as the selfish machinations of greedy corporations. The genetic engineering of a miracle rice that can flourish in the poor soil of a famine-prone area would be another matter.
William Reville is a senior lecturer in biochemistry and director of microscopy at UCC