If your son asks for a genetically engineered glow-in-the dark zebra fish for his next birthday, don’t be startled. It simply means that the public has begun to accept biotechnology.
Or so suggests Freeman Dyson in a provocative lecture this week on TED.com.
According to Dyson, a proliferation of glow-in-the-dark zebra fish, fruit cocktail trees (7 species on one tree -already very popular with backyard gardeners) or even a grow your own dog kit is exactly what it will take before biotechnology becomes accepted as part of the human condition.
“We should follow the model that has been so successful with the electronic industry.” Dyson said. “What really turned computers into a great success in the world as a whole was toys. As soon as computers became toys, when the kids could come home and play with them, then the industry took off. That has to happen with biotech.”
We may believe this or even recognize that it is true, but if so, doesn’t this vision condemn us to a kind of self-centeredness? Isn’t it a kind of declaration that most human behavior is governed primarily by an emotional response to pleasure and an acknowledgement that the entertainment and consumer industries are what truly drive us to action?
I would like to believe that most wealthy world citizens have more compassion, more imagination and more humanity than that. That we will soon wake up and applaud applications of biotechnology that have reduced the amount of pesticides in the environment, aided poor farmers and have the potential to save the lives of thousands of malnourished children.
What do you think? Will such humanistic inventive applications of biotechnology ever appear as essential as a lego set that self-assembles into a live cat? Are more glofish needed to pave the way for public acceptance of biotech? Must we wait for more toys in every home before we accept biotechnological advance in agriculture and medicine?
Follow the money, Pamela. There’s more in toys than there is in ‘humanity’.
I’m sorry to sound so cynical, but we already have the capacity to defeat starvation, and we choose not to. Make affluence history, I say.
Richard,
Do you meant that we need to make affluence history so that we can all truly understand poverty and hunger?
No, although that would be an interesting side-effect.
While I see your point, Richard, it’s kind of neither here no there. I do hope that frivolous things like glofish can introduce a safe and somewhat cuddly version of biotechnology to the public, but I am not sure that it will translate to food. A green pet is one thing, a genetically engineered tomato that your kids will ingest is much another. I think it’s a step in the right direction, certainly. I am very much interested to see what the step after this one will be. How does one progress from glowing fish to GE crops?
Um, I’m not entirely sure that you do see my point… which is partly (a) there is more money in toys than in feeding the world, but mostly (b) I’m not convinced we need GE to feed the world, anyway.
I think it would be better to make effluence history
A grow-your-own-dog kit would be quite unnecessary at the Maison Des Giraffes for various fairly obvious reasons.
There – that’s that pesky gro-your-own-dog kit disposed of
Here in Finland it gets very dark in the winter and sometimes it is difficult to locate your children when they are playing outside. We could certainly use some glow in the dark children.
Or am I just ahead of my time.
No, you’re behind it. We’ve had that technology for years. You just feed the children on porridge that contains about 5% radioactive waste.
Quite, it would barely make a snack. And would ruin a candle-light supper.