The March Of Unreason: Science, Democracy, And The New Fundamentalism

317 Pages·2005·1.793 MB·English

by  Dick Taverne

THE MARCH OF UNREASON
 
T J
Science, Democracy, and
the New Fundamentalism
DICK TAVERNE
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford  
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         
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Contents
Prologue 1
. From Optimism to Pessimism 15
. Medicine and Magic 36
. The Myth of Organic Farming 60
. The Case for GM Crops 80
. The Case against GM Crops 107
. The Rise of Eco-fundamentalism 132
. The Perils of Precaution 168
. The Attack on Science 192
. Multinational Companies and Globalization 219
. Reason and Democracy 250
Epilogue 279
Sources 284
Index 306
Acknowledgements
As a layman writing about specialized topics, I have been hugely
dependent on advice from experts. Others have helped with more
general comments on the book or in other important ways. I can-
not thank them warmly enough for their invaluable support and
encouragement. They are not of course responsible for my errors
and misjudgements.
I cannot name them all, but they include: Wilfred Beckerman,
Tracey Brown, Nick Bunnin, Adam Burgess, Peter Campbell,
Gordon Conway, Buck Creel, Andrew Cockburn, Bill Durodié,
John Emsley, Marsha Filion, Mike Fitzpatrick, Walter Gratzer,
Abbie Headon, Stephen Hearst, David Henderson, Sally Hirst,
Roger Kalla, Chris Leaver, Bryan Magee, Mark Matfield, Latha
Menon, Bill Newton-Smith, Bridget Ogilvie, Hugh Purcell,
Michael Rodgers, Hilary Rubinstein, Neil Summerton, Ray Tallis,
Tony Trewavas, the late Bernard Williams and Lewis Wolpert.
Prologue
T book is about science and society. Since I am neither a scientist
nor a sociologist, but a former lawyer and politician with some
experience of government and industry, perhaps I should explain
why I have wandered into unfamiliar territory.
I am married to a biologist and I have long been acutely aware
how little most people know about science. What I find especially
disturbing is that some people not only do not know about science,
but do not want to know and seem proud of not knowing. Yet
science, especially the science concerned with health and the
environment, has come to play an ever greater part in our lives.
Like many others, I fell under the spell of Rachel Carson when I
read The silent spring soon after it was published in . I was
persuaded that the threat which technology posed to the environ-
ment should be taken far more seriously than it was and started to
read books by Paul Ehrlich and Barry Commoner, who were telling
us about the disasters that lay ahead. In the late s, when I was
a Treasury Minister, I took time off from contemplating the eco-
nomic problems of the UK to attend a conference at which Paul
Ehrlich was the star attraction. I was duly impressed by his elo-
quent prophesies of doom, delivered with a kind of cheerful resig-
nation (‘If you are travelling on the Titanic, you may as well travel
first-class’), but I also noted the somewhat less cataclysmic views
of another scientist, a wise man called Kenneth Mellanby, who
argued that while there were grounds for concern, it was unlikely
that we would in fact starve or be poisoned or run out of energy or
other vital resources as Ehrlich predicted. A few years later the
Club of Rome published The limits to growth, which claimed that
economic growth would have to stop as the world was running out
 
of resources. I was still sufficiently in thrall to the fashionable
doomsters to believe that, unless we radically changed our ways,
our quality of life could not survive. I joined Friends of the Earth
and Greenpeace. Indeed, I would pay tribute to the useful service
both performed in their early days in rousing public opinion from
a certain smug indifference to the dangers of environmental
degradation.
In the mid-s, to make our small contribution to cleaner air,
my wife and I decided to give up owning a car (which was easy for
us, as we live in central London) in favour of bicycles. Incidentally,
whatever its environmental merits, the decision proved extremely
convenient. A bicycle has been my main form of urban transport
for over thirty years and I have become more convinced than ever
about its virtues. It is a most enjoyable way to travel about London.
You can be sure of arriving on time; you suffer none of the frustra-
tions of being stuck in traffic jams and not finding anywhere to
park; you do not have to worry about dents or scratches on your
car; and it is much healthier than motoring. People worry about
safety, but a comparison on an actuarial basis of ‘life years’ lost
through cycle accidents with gains from improved fitness reveals
that for every life year lost through accidents, twenty are gained
from improved health.1 The bicycle is also one of the most efficient
machines ever invented for converting energy into motion: it has
been described as a ‘green’ car, which ‘runs on tap water and
toasted teacakes, and has a built-in gym’.2 But most important of
all, the quality of urban life would be greatly improved if many
more journeys were made by bicycle. There is no reason why this
aim cannot be achieved in the UK. In Denmark, for instance, as a
result of careful planning, more than  per cent of all journeys are
made by bicycle; in Britain the figure is  per cent. Yet the Danes
own more cars per head than the British.
I cite my devotion to the bicycle as evidence that when I criti-
cize the excesses of some environmentalists it is not because I do
not regard care for the environment as one of the important issues
of our time. But I am a pragmatic environmentalist. Risk must be
weighed against benefit. I want analysis of the risk of damage to
 
the environment to be based on evidence and recommendations
for remedial action to be based on science rather than emotion. I
care not only about the environment but about reason.
Human beings have developed this wonderful gift and con-
stantly ignore it. Just as we learn more about our genetic make-up
and find better ways of dealing with deadly diseases, more people
turn to homeopathy and other quack remedies. When it comes to
food and farming, the voice of reason is stilled and the public turns
to a vague yearning to go ‘back-to-nature’. Religious fundamental-
ism is rampant, not only in Islam and among Jewish settlers in
Palestine; in America we witness the spread of creationism and the
return to the beliefs that prevailed before the Enlightenment ban-
ished superstition and modern science was born. Millions of born-
again Christians believe in a primitive religion that features an
interventionist God who, it seems, periodically answers prayers to
help but is never the cause of harm. To cite one example that is not
atypical: when interviewed after the hijack of an American plane,
the pilot thanked God for answering his prayers and bringing him
safely through his ordeal. It did not occur to him that God had
also answered the prayers of the devout Muslim hijackers and
helped them to seize the plane. I reflected, somewhat irreverently,
that his God had much in common with the late Lord Mountbat-
ten, who eventually became Viceroy of India and Chief of
Defence Staff. In his earlier life he was an intrepid young naval
commander in the Second World War, of whom his naval col-
leagues said: ‘No one like Dickie Mountbatten to have with you in
a tight spot. No one like Dickie to get you into one.’ The pilot’s
gratitude for divine intervention would be a matter of private
belief and of no particular importance, were it not for the growing
influence of religious fundamentalism. Such fundamentalism is a
serious danger to peace and democracy. It spreads intolerance
wherever it is found.
Optimism about scientific progress faded some time during the
last century. Today science and reason are under siege from many
quarters. Many people have become increasingly sceptical about
the benefits of new technology and no longer trust experts. Possible