Anti-Science From Both Left and Right
The political left in this country likes to claim the moral high ground of being scientific, and claims that it is the Christian right that opposes science. While certainly the right can be justly criticized for opposing the teaching of evolution and certain types of stem cell research, the left has more than its fair share of Luddites: (via Overlawyered)
In
the first injunction of this kind, U.S. District Court Judge Charles
Breyer of the Northern District of California declared that no Roundup
ready alfalfa seed can be planted after March 30, 2007....Crop
safety is not the issue. The court has already accepted that Roundup
Ready alfalfa poses no harm to humans and livestock, according to
Monsanto representative Andrew Burchett. And, other regulatory agencies
around the world, including Canada and Japan, have confirmed its
environmental safety....The
suit filed last year by the Center for Food Safety, Trask Family Seeds,
and Geertson Seed Farms and others charged that USDA failed to follow
procedural requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act in
granting non-regulated status to Roundup Ready alfalfa under the Plant
Protection Act, and would have to prepare an Environmental Impact
Statement.
Every time someone on the left preaches about how important it is to overcome the Republican's barriers to stem cell research, I want to gag. Sure, I'd like to see more such research happening, but this is a field of endeavor that is very young and any potential benefits are uncertain and far in the future. GM crops could be saving lives among the poor today, but the left consistently resists their spread, doing far more damage, at least in the near term, than the right has with stem cell research bans.
