Skip to main content

Is That Fish in Your Tomato? - Rebecca Nesbit *****

Like almost anything that gets the attention of the green movement, the genetic modification of food is a subject on which it's very difficult to find good, balanced coverage - so Rebecca Nesbit's book is a breath of fresh air. From the title you might think it takes the 'horror stories of GM' approach, but the concept of fish DNA in tomatoes is only mentioned in passing as an example of how misleading information is used - this is a far more nuanced and well-written book.

Throughout, Nesbit gives us the science, the potential benefits and the potential threats. She describes from practical experience the protest side (she was anti-GM as a student), but also interviews plenty of scientists involved in GM foods and now has a much more balanced view. She takes us through the early days of GM foods, when it all turned nasty, what's involved in the various processes labelled as GM and much more. In crops there are whole chapters on insect resistance and herbicide tolerance, and she looks at the possibilities for using GM to increase production, modify animals, improve nutrition and use GM for non-food crops, such as biofuels. In the final chapters, she brings the pros and cons in focus and makes an argument for seeing GM as just one tool in the bigger picture of feeding humanity sustainably.

What strongly comes through here is the intransigence of environmental organisations and the organic movement, who clearly aren't interested in benefits, simply looking for ways to stop GM in a knee-jerk reaction, even when the alternatives are far worse for us and for the environment. Equally, Nesbit makes it clear that GM isn't always the right solution and points out the difficulties, particularly for traditional farmers in developing nations who aren't always given sufficient education to use GM crops effectively.

Although there's a lot of detail here, it is handled in a good humoured and engaging way, making use of examples and details of the people involved to keep it interesting. The only time I'd say the book flags a little is in the final chapters, where the content starts to feel a little repetitious because we've had so many examples of quite similar applications, and Nesbit's careful way of always making sure we're aware of the pros and cons makes it feel like she perhaps needs to come down more firmly on the areas where GM should be used and where it shouldn't.

There was also one rather strange argument in the section about using GM to improve the nutritional content of crops: '... research into biofortified crops is often a collaboration between scientists from the developed world and those from the countries set to benefit. Are scientists from richer countries providing essential skills and funding, or should such projects be led entirely by scientists from the regions which are seeking to benefit?' This just seems a strange question when scientists in all fields are always telling us how essential free international collaboration is - to apply a kind of scientific apartheid seems an odd thing to even consider. This is perhaps an example where giving a balanced view can come a little close to fence sitting.

Overall, though, this is a book that is really important in a field where science has for the last 20 years been pushed out of the way by tabloid hysteria, over-powerful pressure groups, corporate greed and regulatory incompetence. Is that Fish in Your Tomato? refreshingly cuts through to the heart of the GM debate and is recommended reading for anyone interested in the environment and food (or, for that matter, politics).

Paperback:  

Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you


Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Language of Mathematics - Raúl Rojas ***

One of the biggest developments in the history of maths was moving from describing relationships and functions with words to using symbols. This interesting little book traces the origins of a whole range of symbols from those familiar to all, to the more obscure squiggles used in logic and elsewhere. On the whole Raúl Rojas does a good job of filling in some historical detail, if in what is generally a fairly dry fashion. We get to trace what was often a bumpy path as different symbols were employed (particularly, for example, for division and multiplication, where several still remain in use), but usually, gradually, standards were adopted. This feels better as a reference, to dip into if you want to find out about a specific symbol, rather than an interesting end to end read. Rojas tells us the sections are designed to be read in any order, which means that there is some overlap of text - it feels more like a collection of short essays or blog posts that he couldn't be bothered ...

Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics - Frank Verstraete and Céline Broeckaert **

It's with a heavy heart that I have to say that I could not get on with this book. The structure is all over the place, while the content veers from childish remarks to unexplained jargon. Frank Versraete is a highly regarded physicist and knows what he’s talking about - but unfortunately, physics professors are not always the best people to explain physics to a general audience and, possibly contributed to by this being a translation, I thought this book simply doesn’t work. A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that â€˜Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging o...

Ctrl+Alt+Chaos - Joe Tidy ****

Anyone like me with a background in programming is likely to be fascinated (if horrified) by books that present stories of hacking and other destructive work mostly by young males, some of whom have remarkable abilities with code, but use it for unpleasant purposes. I remember reading Clifford Stoll's 1990 book The Cuckoo's Egg about the first ever network worm (the 1988 ARPANet worm, which accidentally did more damage than was intended) - the book is so engraved in my mind I could still remember who the author was decades later. This is very much in the same vein,  but brings the story into the true internet age. Joe Tidy gives us real insights into the often-teen hacking gangs, many with members from the US and UK, who have caused online chaos and real harm. These attacks seem to have mostly started as pranks, but have moved into financial extortion and attempts to destroy others' lives through doxing, swatting (sending false messages to the police resulting in a SWAT te...