Golden Rice And Beyond
Essay by 24 • November 11, 2010 • 3,589 Words (15 Pages) • 1,321 Views
Ingo Potrykus
Professor Emeritus, ETH Zurich, Switzerland; Member of Academia Europaea; and Recipient of the
International Society for Plant Molecular Biology 2000 Kumho Science International Award
EMOTIONS ARE THE PROBLEM, NOT
RATIONAL DISCOURSE
The term "golden rice" was coined by a Thai businessman
who is active in initiatives aimed at reducing
the birth rate, a major cause of the food security
problem. As it turned out, the term "golden rice" has
proven to be enormously successful in piquing the
interest of the public. (I gave up tallying its mention
in the popular media after more than 30 television
broadcasts and 300 newspaper articles, but I am still
busy with requests for interviews every week.) It is
difficult to estimate how much of its celebrity stems
from its catchy moniker and how much is from the
technological breakthrough it represents. Needless to
say, we live in a society that is strongly influenced
(not to say manipulated) by the media. As the popular
media live by selling news, "catchy" names are
especially useful in attracting the interest of media
consumers. The "story," however, must also be accompanied
by an important message, in this case,
that the purely altruistic use of genetic engineering
technology has potentially solved an urgent and previously
intractable health problem for the poor of the
developing world. And this is my first message and
my response to Chris Somerville's (2000) contribution:
I, too, believe in the power of education and
rational discourse. However, after more then 10 years
on the frontlines of the public debate concerning
genetically modified organisms (GMOs), I have
learned that even with the help of the media, rational
arguments succeed in influencing only a small minority
of the public-at-large. In short, rational arguments
are poor ammunition against the emotional
appeals of the opposition. The GMO opposition, especially
in Europe, has been extraordinarily successful
in channeling all negative emotions associated
with the supposed dangers of all new technologies as
well as economic "globalization" onto the alleged
hazards presented by the release of GMOs into the
food chain. This is one reason why the story of "golden
rice" is so important: In the short history of GMO
research, "golden rice" is unique in having been embraced
by the public-at-large. The reason for this, I
believe, lies in its emotional appeal: People are truly
concerned about the fate of blind children, and they
are willing to support a technology that offers the
children at risk the opportunity to avoid blindness.
I fully agree with the opinion of Maarten
Chrispeels (2000) that "food security" for developing
countries is one of the major challenges for mankind.
I believe that scientists, as a privileged group of
citizens, have more than an academic responsibility
to advance science: They must also accept a higher
social responsibility and, wherever possible, use science
to help solve the important problems not of
industry, but of humanity. In this respect our scientific
community is not in balance, and the public
senses this intuitively. This, in turn, has made it easy
for the GMO opposition to wage a war of propaganda
against our work with arguments to the effect
that we are only pretending to work for mankind, or
are only satisfying our own egos, or are working
merely for the profits of industry. For example, laypeople
often ask if food security for developing countries
is such a dire problem, and if scientists feel that
GMO technology should be developed to contribute
to a solution, then why are so many scientists working
on Arabidopsis and so few on those plants that
feed the poor? Of course, one can pontificate about
the importance of basic research and how all the
knowledge gained from Arabidopsis will ultimately
expedite the improvement of major crops, but one
realizes that the average citizen remains emotionally
unswayed by such arguments. The public's skepticism
is heightened by the fact that many scientists do
have
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