The Speculist

Well, maybe it won't be the rats that take over. It looks as though the pigs are starting to get a hoof up in the race:

AMES, Iowa - Max Rothschild has been trying to "build" a better pig for almost 30 years, since he took a job cleaning up after the hogs at his alma mater, the University of California, Davis.

The idea is to find and exploit the genetic variations of the best pigs, which Rothschild and like-minded agricultural researchers say will radically change the industry.

Of course, this kind of research takes us more in the direction of plumper hams and crispier bacon than it does an eventual porcine coup d'etat. But still. It's interesting that pigs can be improved upon, but humans must not.

One thing we don't have to worry about is super-intelligent killer corn taking over the planet. At least not if Poland has anything to say about it:

WARSAW (AFP) - Poland's parliament has passed a law which removes genetically modified seeds from a national register, effectively banning their sale.

"This should be interpreted as a ban on the sale in Poland of genetically modified seeds," Wojciech Mojzesowicz, head of parliament's agriculture commission, told AFP.

Naturally, we do need to be concerned about horrendous damage that irresponsible genetic research might eventually lead to, especially seeing as the cost of sequencing and synthesizing genes is plummeting, and we are drawing ever nearer to the age of widespread gene-hacking capability available on the desktop.

But I think we also need to be worried about the harm that the kind of superstitious dread that surrounds genetic research might cause. Genetic alteration of the food we eat and of our own bodies will take place in time. If the Western powers remain skittish about involving themselves in these developments, they merely assign the work to other hands. It won't go away.