Sir, - William Reville observes (May 22nd) that scientists often find the general public frustrating. In fact, people sometimes know better than those who would seek to govern them (whether the latter wear grey suits or white coats). Public opinion may be, as he suggests, formed in part by an evolutionary caution but such an "intuitive" caution sometimes turns out to be correct. The BSE debacle is a case where the intuitive response - you shouldn't go against nature by turning herbivores into carnivorous cannibals - turned out to be spot on.
But public opinion is also affected by more "rational" factors such as a sense of history (which scientists often lack). If scientists were wrong in the past about the safety of DDT, CFCs, thalidomide, nuclear energy, asbestos, PCBs, etc., why on earth should they be believed in regard to GM food?
In a philosophical sense, Western science with its narrow specialisation and analytical mind-set tends to discourage a sense of connected or ecological thinking, as well as marginalising questions of value. This marginalisation is worsened by the economic interests that increasingly tend to drive scientific research. (One may recall the suppression for decades of negative research results regarding the effects of tobacco smoking, and the treatment of Arpad Pusztai who lost his job in 1998 over his negative research findings in regard to GM).
William Reville's remark that "the potential benefits of GMF are enormous" should remind us that scientists were saying very similar things about nuclear energy 50 years ago. Chernobyl has shown us what a bad joke that was. Will our descendants in 2050 have similar reason to regret the current scientific fad for genetic manipulation of food, the very basis of human life? - Yours, etc.,
Paul O'Brien, Christchurch, Dublin 8.