Blog Post #9: Fear and GMO Cancer

Fear is the most powerful tool we have. Mob mentality can amplify this fear exponentially. This is why inciting panic in a public place (such as the popular idiom “yelling fire in a crowded movie theater”) was outlawed in 1919. I hold many of the arguments that individuals make against genetically modifying organisms in the category of inciting public panic. No, genetically altering a gene in corn will not make your tortilla chips cause mutations in the epithelial lining of your small intestine. There is no biological way for that to even work. But I have had this used against me as why individuals don’t trust GMO-containing food. I can understand if someone doesn’t believe in GMOs from a religious perspective, because maybe altering these genes in our lab somehow equates to “playing God” (even though we have been selecting for specific genetic traits in agriculture for thousands of years!), but you cannot argue to me that science says they will cause cancer because THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC BACKING FOR THIS. This works as a valid argument though because the general public does not have a degree in biology. They don’t understand how genetic mutations occur, that cancer is not contagious, and that our stomach acid does a pretty decent job of degrading things anyways. Fear works in mysterious ways, and mob mentality is fascinating. Also, humans have an innate sense that they are right and everyone else that does not specifically align with their views is stupid. Playing off of people’s fear of the unknown and their inability to admit they are wrong when in a confrontational situation is how absolutely stupid ideas can be argued as fact from multiple individuals. This is how people believe that eating GMOs will mutate their own genetic code. Stupid. But scary.