“From Wonder Bread to GM Lettuce”
By Craig Holdrege
No food is a mere aggregation of individual, isolated elements. The living organism has a unity of its own reflected in how all its parts relate to each other. These relationships not only make the organism what it is, but they also make the organism into the food it is. So, too, in the human and social realm: it makes no sense to treat our food as a collection of isolated ingredients, ignoring the integrity of the processes by which the food is grown, transported, processed, and sold.
“Science and the Child”
By Stephen L. Talbott
The sophisticated, value-neutral, hard-headed world of science supposedly lies at the opposite extreme from the naive, value-centered, imaginative world of the child. In reality, there is only one world, and upon closer inspection it begins to look rather child-like.
Notes and Reviews
“The Trouble with Genetically Modified Crops”
By Craig Holdrege
The plight of Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian organic farmer sued by Monsanto after genetically modified Canola plants appeared on his farm, poses many issues for farmers and for the integrity of our food supply. But one county (in California) has now chosen to ban genetically modified crops.
“Genesis of the Gene”
By Stephen L. Talbott
A review of Lenny Moss’ What Genes Can’t Do. Moss, a cell biologist and philosopher, discovered that the gene is at least as much a function of its cellular context as the cell is a function of its genes.