Four articles this month and only two of them are the human nature stuff that I usually like to link to. One is an invention that I’d honestly wondered myself if it would work. The last one is not really a scientific article. Instead, it’s one person’s attempt to create art using technology and to illustrate a fundamental biological process at the same time. We’ll go with the human nature stuff first.
The first one comes from PsyDir and covers a question that many people are no doubt curious about: is there any link between genetics and religious fundamentalism? The paper in question took data from a national survey in the US to look for data about variations in religiosity between identical twins and non-identical twins. The paper also tried to sort out influences caused by the family environment that would be shared by siblings and the environment outside of the family.
Continue reading Recent Interesting Science Articles (Feb’ 11) →
I was amused to read Prince Charles’ rather hot-blooded diatribe against genetically modified crops earlier. Given how stupid his entire argument is, it isn’t very surprising how much criticism he has been getting over it. I don’t really feel like going into detail over it, so I’ll content myself with these two points:
- The entire history of agriculture consists of genetically modifying crops and even livestock so that they are more suited for human purposes. Wild plants needed to be domesticated so that they could become the familiar crops that we know of today. The gigantic aurochs had to be domesticated into the docile cows we now have. Farmers regularly performed cross breeding experiments in order to try to get more desirable crops. Without these developments, there would be no civilization as we know it. Of course, I realize that what Prince Charles really means is that by manipulating the genetic structures of organisms directly rather than through selective breeding and cross breeding, there may be additional, unforeseen dangers. Even so, the correct thing to do is to monitor and control for those dangers, because in principle there is no difference. Both methods end up altering the genome.
- As the article notes, this attack on GM crops comes during a global food crisis, when human populations all across the world need the higher and more reliable yields of the most advanced, genetically modified crops more than ever. Remember that the United States has been consuming these so-called GM crops for decades with no measurable ill effects, which helps to explain their lower food prices compared to Luddite Europe. So do you think poor Asians and Africans should follow the American or the European example?
Finally, I giggled at Prince Charles’ attack on intensive agriculture by large corporations. Maybe he thinks that everyone should grow their own food in their own backyard or something? It’s one thing for a rich royal to boast about his own organic farm, try selling that idea to densely populated and still relatively poor Asia.
The unexamined life is a life not worth living