Reason Writers Around Town

At Tech Central Station, Ronald Bailey says Let the transgenic corn grow as high as an elephant's ojo.

Comments

[Tripp]

The link to this on the frontpage goes the the Burning Man Piano guy story.

[joe]

"Because the Mexican government wants to mollify local farmers who have been frightened by activists into apparently believing that evil transgenes will somehow consume their crops."

Silly little men. Good thing there are big hearted Yanquis like Bailey to protect them from their funny little superstitions.

(The about was completely gratuitious, but since accusing everyone on the other side of the issue of condescending racism is a fave of Ron Bailey's, I thought it would be fun to throw it back in his face.)

[the Anti-joe]

Your jerking knee becomes tiresome, joe.

[Skeptikos]

You know, I worked for Monsanto. Hell even the researchers I met who worked with Roundup ready stuff were not as enthusiastic as Mr. Baily, they voiced a hell of a lot more concern about it's negative effects than Mr. Baily does too. I don't know, but what I've seen documented has left me less than enthused. I do indeed wish someone would convince me that this stuff was safe. I had some very disturbing things said to me by my fellows in the franken corn R & D. And I have yet to hear them refuted in public.

And yea joe may be "left", but that article did souind incredibly condescending. And I love Mr. Bailey's stuff, even if I find him science lite.

[Maurkov]

Surprise! Genes migrate. Nobody saw that coming. Bailey's mea culpa is pretty mild considering his previous insinuations:

What's the bottom line? Chapela's "research" is probably not a case of witting fraud, just another activist "scientist" finding what he desperately wanted to find.

Now Bailey's line is no harm no foul?

From a property rights perspective, suppose I'm growing non-GM corn and expect to get a premium price because of it. My neighbor plants the other stuff. Pollen from his corn is going to reduce the value of mine because mine will no longer be GM free. Should I be entitled to damages? What kind of hoops should I have to jump through to collect?

[Dan]

From a property rights perspective, suppose I'm growing non-GM corn and expect to get a premium price because of it. My neighbor plants the other stuff. Pollen from his corn is going to reduce the value of mine because mine will no longer be GM free. Should I be entitled to damages?

If black people move into your all-white neighborhood and property values drop as a result, do the black people owe you money?

[joe]

Dan,

It's been demonstrated that black people moving into white neighborhoods do not lower property values. The only correlation between changing racial demographics and property values is the oopposite of your hypothetical. In neighborhoods in which property values are falling, poorer people move in, some of them black. So that's probably not a good example.

But as to the principle of the thing, the property-value-lowering people aren't actually doing anything to your property, while the GM corn's pollen is actually reaching out and damaging (from an economic perspective) the neighbor's property. You can argue that the change isn't really damage, but if it lowers the economic value of the crop, it is damage.

If the loudmouth neighbors are lowering your property value by doing donuts on your lawn and breaking your windows, yes, they owe you money.