In The Ethics of Food, Gregory E. Pence brings together a collection of voices who share the view that the ethics of genetically modified food is among the most pressing societal questions of our time. This comprehensive collection addresses a broad range of subjects, including the meaning of food, moral analyses of vegetarianism and starvation, the safety and environmental risks of genetically modified food, issues of global food politics and the food industry, and the relationships among food, evolution, and human (...) history. (shrink)

It has been said that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. It is important, therefore, to consider the parallels between the decimation of basic and applied biology by Trofim Denisovich Lysenko in the Soviet Union earlier in this century and the battering of present-day biotechnology by the Clinton administration. In both cases, we see the sacrifice of new science to old myth; heterodox, unscientific theories steering public policy; the abject failure of that public policy, (...) with dire outcomes for research and commerce; and glib, condescending, and exclusionary attitudes toward policymaking. (shrink)