THE MARCH OF UNREASON

Dick Taverne is a man of courageous principle. He abandoned a high flying political career as a Labour minister for the political wilderness with the Liberal Democrats. He is an environmentalist who cycles rather than uses a car. He is also a barrister skilled in discrediting opponents, and who relies on eloquence to win his case rather than a mastery of boring complex detail. His mixture of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde QC makes this an exasperating book, and probably undermines some of the good points he is trying to make. His argument is that science is based on critical reason, and science and democracy are closely allied. He sees both threatened by a list of fundamentalisms, Jewish, Christian, Moslem and "eco-fundamentalism". Most, including most Christians, would agree with his attack on religious fundamentalism, but it is "eco-fundamentalism" which is the issue of the book. This he sees as a rag bag of anti-scientific and anti-rational movements that whip up popular feeling or undermine sober scientific research. His list includes Post-Modernist sociology, Animal Rights Activists, the Prince of Wales, Homeopathy, and anyone opposed to GM food. He sees opposition to globalisation, and hostility to capitalism as further manifestations of unreason. He makes some good points. The anti-scientific relativism of Post Modernist sociology is puerile and self-contradictory. The green movement has successfully aroused public opinion for some dubious causes. It would have been more ecologically friendly to sink the Brent oil rig in the Atlantic rather than dismantle it on shore. If Chernobyl is put into the balance against all those killed and disabled every day through the pollution caused by fossil fuel burning power stations, then not only is nuclear power the more environmentally friendly option, it is the morally superior one too. The hysteria whipped up by the media over the body parts scandal at the Alder Hey hospital is certainly a case of mass unreason. It was a retreat to pre-mediaeval superstition to claim that neither the parents, nor the dead child can really be at rest until all the bits of its corpse are put into the same box. Unfortunately Taverne confuses science with scientism, and ironically he, himself is a scientistic fundamentalist. To him anything Richard Dawkins does not believe in is false. Therefore he dismisses homeopathy with contempt as a superstition without evidence. In the same week (ending 19/03/05) scientists reported finding no evidence for the "memory of water", yet the "New Scientist" contained a report of peer reviewed research which set out to discredit homeopathy, and ended by showing that extreme dilutions of histamine are still biologically active. The success of homeopathy remains a mystery, but also a fact. Taverne has great contempt for organic food and organic farming. He observes that farmers and foresters who are exposed to pesticides as part of their job are healthier than average. Without any medical evidence he attributes this to the beneficial effect of minute traces of pesticide in their bodies. The possibility is not mentioned that a physically active life might be healthier than one which consists of a car journey between a computer console at work and a television set at home. The target which has given this book most newspaper coverage is GM food. After attempting to give the appearance of an impartial summing up Taverne decides that there is no case against GM crops , and the whole "frankenfood" scare was public hysteria whipped up by green activists in defiance of the scientific evidence. The whole issue of the genetic modification of plants and animals needs a whole book, not just a glib survey. Taverne does not consider some of the key objections to GM crops. The insertion of strange genes into the chromosome by chemical means is totally different from the process of mutation by which normal evolution proceeds. The chances of malign side effects are considerably increased. Creating herbicide resistant GM crops simply risks breeding a new race of super weeds just as the liberal use of antibiotics has produced MRSA. Pollen from GM harvests cannot be contained, and will cross fertilise and contaminate non GM crops over a wide area. The genetic modification of animals raises even more difficult and emotional issues. Taverne steers clear of this area. On the other hand a vast range of exciting possibilities is opened up by the genetic modification of plants. GM crops are already widely planted, the EU allows them, and Britain probably will not be able to oppose them forever. Ironically the answer may be the "terminator gene", (not mentioned by Taverne ). This was developed by Monsanto. It renders the crop infertile, so that the farmers cannot save the seed from one harvest to the next, but must always go back to the supplier. This was obviously a racket, and after protests Monsanto have stopped the research. Yet the "terminator gene" may be our only answer to the dangers posed by GM crops. Cross pollinated offspring will die, and anything dangerous will disappear after one harvest. The most significant of all environmental issues is climate change and global warming. Unfortunately for Taverne's thesis this is not a case of sober scientific evidence being ignored by populist hysteria whipped up by green activists. The eco warriors are there, and so are the scientists, but they are all on the same side. To their credit the scientific consensus includes a majority of American climatologists, despite President Bush's attempts to rig the membership of government scientific agencies; despite also Exxon's expensive search to find any scientist who will play down the threat of climate change due to the greenhouse effect. Taverne condemns mistrust of official government science and the motives of the big multinational companies. In the case of climate change and the world's most powerful nation, such mistrust is sadly justified. Taverne concedes that climate change may be on its way, and that it might be necessary to build a few dykes in Bangladesh to deal with rising sea levels. In a quite probable worst case scenario rising temperatures and the increased flow of fresh water from the Siberian rivers into the Arctic could mean that the Gulf Stream could cease to flow within 30 years. In that case Britain would have the climate of Labrador. It will take more than a few dykes to cure that. Climate change raises key questions on the relation between science, and public opinion on the one hand, and political and economic power on the other. The issues are complex and frightening, and leave this book behind.