Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Battle of the twits

It's a tough one to call when two twits go to war.

On the one hand you have slightly bonkers aristocrat Prince Charles, who thinks homoeopathy and acupuncture is a good idea, but thinks GM crops are a bad idea.

On the other, though, you have environment minister Phil Woolas, who says that GM crops must be a good idea and because nothing bad has happened yet, nothing bad ever will happen.

The truth, you suspect, is somewhere in between. It's a shame for the anti-GM argument that someone so bumblingly inept should stand up and declare themselves on their side. It's a shame for the pro-GM argument that someone so bumblingly inept should stand up and declare themselves on their side.

I'd like to hope that GM crops could be the solution to the world's problems and it would be foolish to rule them out if they have the genuine potential to change and improve lives. But there is enough food in the world, right now, to feed everyone. It just doesn't get to all the people who need it. That's the almighty market, not the lack of GM crops.

So when Woolas says:

"It's easy for those of us with plentiful food supplies to ignore the issue but we have a responsibility to use science to help the less well off where we can.

I find myself thinking: is science the *only* hope against poverty, starvation and death? Is there really, honestly, nothing that governments can do other than that? If it is, then that's depressing.

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