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Chris Mooney gives a succinct and accurate characterization of the crowd protesting outside the BIO 2004 conference on biotechnology.

He writes:

The activists hate GM foods, which they incorrectly characterize as dangerous to human health. It’s a protest based on fiction and tinged with irresponsible Luddism.

I’ve never understood the anti-globalist activist’s response to bioengineering. Monsanto and the like have played suspiciously aloof about concerns over safety and crop contamination, but the activist attacks are often aimed at the technology rather than business practices.

Stymying he excesses of industry is often a noble cause, and it often begets all sorts of beneficial results. It is quite another thing to stand against science and the advancement of human understanding.

I thought the poll yesterday on SFGate.com was prescient with its winning, 64%, choice:

Hey, protestors, what happens when you get a disease biotech cures?

One imagined protestor response, “What happens when I get a disease biotech causes?” is answered by the poll question. When the solution is a problem, science builds a better solution. When the progess of science becomes frozen we have no solutions, only problems.

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