MODIFYING CREATION?
GM Crops and Foods: A Christian perspective
Ed. Donald Bruce and Don Horrocks. Evangelical Alliance Policy Commission. 182 pages. £7.99
ISBN 1 84227 100 8
The Evangelical Alliance's Policy Commission has set out to research the controversial issue of genetically-modified (GM) food and crops, develop a Christian response and suggest appropriate policy statements and affirmations. Ten chapters explore key issues systematically and in an informative way. The working party reports differences of opinion, and these are sometimes apparent in the text.
Chapter 2, dealing with the science of plant breeding and genetic modification, will help readers who are not acquainted with the technology of GM crop development. However, it gives almost no insight into scientific concerns. Two pages only are devoted to objections, and there is no attempt to be specific. The only scientist mentioned is criticised thus: 'There is no acknowledgement at all of the very well-founded paradigm that individual genes have individual biochemical functions that can be studied individually.' Of course there is no acknowledgement - this paradigm is being challenged! This issue is at the heart of the scientific debate and it really ought to be explored in some depth. There is little in this chapter that shows the scientific objections to GM technologies are taken seriously by the writers, and this does not help achieve the book's stated objective.
