The new scientific totalitarianism: An overview on the discourse over genetically modified crops

Asterios Tsioumanis; G. Perentzis

The new scientific totalitarianism: An overview on the discourse over genetically modified crops

In: Ethics and the politics of food

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Asterios Tsioumanis

Asterios Tsioumanis School of Natural Resources and Enterprises Management, University of Ioannina, G. Seferi 2, 30100, Greece, steriost@auth.gr

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G. Perentzis

G. Perentzis School of Natural Resources and Enterprises Management, University of Ioannina, G. Seferi 2, 30100, Greece, steriost@auth.gr

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 225–229

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.3920/9789086865758_038

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Scepticism is the philosophical current which over-emphasises doubt and the relativity of human knowledge, while dogmatism underestimates the relativity of knowledge and lays claim to knowledge of absolute truths. Addressing the term dogmatism as an appeal to the authority of one interpretative scheme over the other, the popular argument that science should be the ultimate judge on the GM food debate is discussed. The pro-biotech sector underlines that the campaign against transgenic crops is not based on scientific evidence calling for an immediate halt of dogmatic opposition. Departing from analyzing problematic relations that render scientific facts open to critique, such as the continuous commercialization of science, the paper focuses on the essence of scientific knowledge in its crystal-clear form and argues that the provisional character of all scientific knowledge should not be underestimated. Proclaiming that technological advances are inevitable has been proven in the past to be both false and arrogant, while calls to the infallibility of science are typical of a scientific elitism that denies what ‘all serious studies of scientific and technological change have shown, namely, that technological changes of any significance involve intense social interaction, competition, conflict, and negotiation in which the eventual outcomes are highly contingent’. Analyzing similar cases of modern, state-of-the-art technologies provides useful insight while a philosophic glance on the immoralist character in the modus operandi of scientific knowledge adds to the argumentation. Granting scientific research and knowledge the role of the final judge to any dispute on matters of determining policies, is a kind of dogma and therefore it should be submitted to further critique. The willingness to disregard past human experience, leaving no space for doubt on the very existence of scientific infallibility, and the effort to focus solely on the validity of scientific data can be described as a kind of totalitarianism which skillfully dismisses all the questions that is unable to answer.

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Ethics and the politics of food

Preprints of the 6th Congress of the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics

E-Book ISBN:: 9789086865758

Publisher:: Wageningen Academic

Print Publication Date:: 10 Oct 2006

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- Life Sciences

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The new scientific totalitarianism: An overview on the discourse over genetically modified crops

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Ethics and the politics of food

Preprints of the 6th Congress of the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics

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