Whereas conservatives obsess over the purity and sanctity of sex, the left's sacred values seem fixated on the environment, leading to an almost religious fervor over the purity and sanctity of air, water and especially food. Try having a conversation with a liberal progressive about GMOs—genetically modified organisms—in which the words “Monsanto” and “profit” are not dropped like syllogistic bombs. Comedian Bill Maher, for example, on his HBO Real Time show on October 19, 2012, asked Stonyfield Farm CEO Gary Hirshberg if he would rate Monsanto as a 10 (“evil”) or an 11 (“f—ing evil”)? The fact is that we've been genetically modifying organisms for 10,000 years through breeding and selection. It's the only way to feed billions of people.Gee, I wonder if they read Borepatch over at Scientific American? Perhaps they should read more - the author is far too confident in the soundness of the climate temperature records, not to mention the
* The idea that science can inform moral decisions is as complete a failure of understanding of the Scientific Method as I can think of.
"The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it."
ReplyDelete- P.J. O'Rourke
Concur... it CANNOT inform a moral decision...
ReplyDeleteI'd say science very seldom settles a moral question, but it's not impossible as a matter of principle that it could have a big impact in some particular class of moral questions. If next year we discovered that for one lunar month after implantation an embryo's brain merely replays fixed patterns broadcast from a mysterious neutronium device embedded in the Moon, and then after that suddenly switches over to thinking its own thoughts, I think that could legitimately change the way that some people think about the ethical issues involved. And to pick a less farfetched example, if you knew absolutely nothing about how brain injuries can change people's personalities and their thinking abilities, learning about it might affect your ethical judgments in some corner cases involving actors not thinking clearly.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in a dull earnest answer to your rhetorical question, Keith Kloor has been banging this drum for some time in forums that are more likely to filter into the SciAm echo chamber than this blog. Search for "keith kloor gmo" for representative examples; one which happens to have crosstalk with CAGW is http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2013/01/17/why-gmos-are-great-and-why-they-should-be-labeled/
ReplyDeleteThe weird irony here is that Michael Schermer, who wrote the words you quote at SciAm, is perceived to the "conservative" there because he has voiced concerns about the reliability of global warming data. Yup: "and he's the skeptic."
ReplyDeleteShermer self-identifies as libertarian. That's probably because he also self-indentifies as atheist and therefore, by popular definition, can't be a conservative.
ReplyDeleteHey, I didn't invent single-bit binary logic; I just see it everywhere.
BTW, Czar: Excellent avatar. :)