Darwin, Holmes, And Archer Daniels Midland

Are you in favor of GMOs or opposed to them? Straightforward enough question? Maybe. Maybe not.

They bring up the whole give-and-take about evolution, and that raises religious and scientific debates. But I have no interest in those disputations, only the question of evolution. And, from a practical standpoint, evolution itself may be over. At least as a natural phenomenon affecting (primarily) people and some plants. It continues to apply unchanged to most organisms.

For the purpose of this discussion, I accept the idea that life has been adapting over the period of its existence. And I also assume that most religions have come to terms with this idea, ascribing it to their deity as a tool used, rather than necessarily as the primary form of creation.

A museum of local archaeology was opened recently in New York and featured in it is a large oyster (one foot shell) of a variety not seen here now. Species have changed over time. This is a natural occurrence, fitting life to the conditions it faces. And I just learned that varieties of potato exist in the Netherlands that can grow utilizing salt water rather than fresh water. Much of the country is covered with water from the North Sea. Since potatoes weren't introduced to Europe from South America until the sixteenth century, and didn't become an important food until the nineteenth century, they're not native to the region. Most potatoes require fresh water because that was what they had in Peru – the source of most of what we have now, but it is assumed that millions of years ago some grew in salt water and they have retained the genes to do so again. In any event, some developed with that ability. They were adapted to salt water and were fit to grow in it. It's also worth noting that there are many sea plants that utilize salt water.

This ability – to adapt to existing conditions and take advantage of them – is believed to have governed evolution. Survival of the fittest as Herbert Spencer put it. Natural selection. Or as Nietzsche said, That which does not kill us makes us stronger. And that is just what has happened. And it's still happening. But it takes a long time – millions or billions of years. Still, we've taken advantage of that development, using the specific abilities of a particular species to our advantage. As an example, one that will not be popular with many readers, in hunting there are varieties of dogs that can locate animals by scent and others by sight. There are those that can point them out and some that can retrieve them. Some that flush out game and others that kill it. Water and land dogs are available for the different settings. We breed dogs to have the desired characteristics, much as we breed plants to meet the needs of different tastes – varieties, for example, of citrus fruits and roses. But the basic tools, the genes, were put there by nature and have been passed around by natural cross breeding, or such cross breeding and grafting by people.

Genetic material is what counts. It may be changed by natural phenomena like radiation, or by wild or domestic cross-breeding. Or it may be the result of viral transfer of genetic material from one species to another. The DNA is not created. It is simply transferred. And the result is evolution.

Not all variations are looked upon with favor. There was a period in our history when we felt we could manage evolution. That period occurred in the first half of the Twentieth Century, and the United States was not the only nation to practice eugenics, but it is the one on which I'm focusing here. Arguably, the most famous statement to come out of that period was that of Justice Holmes: Three generations of imbeciles is enough. It was part of the decision he wrote in Buck v. Bell, which authorized forced sterilization in an instance in which it was considered that a eugenic solution was in the public interest. It was a time when, having learned about evolution and heredity, people believed they could craft “better” people scientifically. (It's interesting to see how quickly views can be developed. In our many billion-year-old world, there were fewer than sixty-eight years between the publication of Darwin's book and Buck v. Bell.) The intent was to use those principles to rid the human race of “inferior” individuals. It was a kind of guided evolution – selection of the fittest and their propagation. And it was a philosophy popular in Nazi Germany as well.

Thankfully those days are over. We have rid ourselves of the belief that we are wise enough to decide who should live and who should die. But we have learned more of the science, and now we can devise genetic treatments for some of the maladies that afflict us. We can sometimes find ways to cure, or to eliminate particular diseases that are genetically based, by the use of DNA along with, or in place of, genes prejudicial to the long life of our fellows. It is evolution. But it is not evolution designed to free ourselves of the diseased. Its goal, rather, is to strengthen the victims. We have no wish to eliminate the weak – only the weakness.

And the development of genetically-modified plants is also to strengthen, only it is directed at the crops that help our species survive. Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto, and other similar organizations, are developing strains of crops that will have increased yields and, consequently, feed more people. Is their goal to make money? Of course it is, but that doesn't lessen the value of the effort to those who are starving. And stigmatizing the method by implying that it is evil and people would reject it if they knew about it is politics, not a search for knowledge.

Are the results of the science good or bad? That is certainly fodder for lots of debate, but the results are simply an example of a generally praised mechanism – evolution. They are science. They are neither good nor bad. They are the way of the world.



December 5, 2016