Assignment 1: Dialectic Thinking

Quiz 1: Dialectic Thinking

For Writing and Discussion on Page 39, Individual task:

Caplan, “Genetically Modified Food: Good, Bad, Ugly” on page 407 is writer A.

Mather, “The Treats from Genetically Modified Food” on page 481 is writer B.

1. What would writer A (Caplan) say to writer B (Mather)?

Caplan would say to Mather that the important thing is to promote using Genetically modified organisms (GMO) in positive ways to engineer plants to resist diseases that have a potential for destroying the “world’s top five foods” (408). He would further say to Mather that you do the consumers and especially the 1.4 billion people in developing countries a great disservice when you and others of like-mind, such as Katherine Paul spread half-truths and

He implies throughout his article that so called advocates against GMOs are at least part of the cause of GMOs getting a bad name. He gives the appalling quote from Katherine Paul about what she says happens when cattle and swine are fed GMO grains. I think he is trying to be too polite or not attack the groups that would outlaw GMOs because I think he is working at being professional and not sounding like a “nut.” Maybe he is softening it partly because he does hope or think there is a chance that the two sides can come together on some things and make food production better and save starving people. Maybe he is more farsighted than I am, but I would have liked to have seen him be harder on the other side. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to reveal that my family and all of my neighbors are row-crop farmers, and we raise both GMO corn and GMO soybeans. It is our attitude that we are stewards of the land and of our animals and we would not do anything to either one like Katherine Paul describes. So, I still agree with Caplan that we should be using GMOs to produce food such as Golden Rice that could save billions of people from going blind or