Jane Goodall is well-deserving of the many laudatory obituaries recently published. But there is one disturbing twist in the great ethologist’s late intellectual trajectory: she was fooled by “anti-GMO” conspiracy theories. See Anti-GMO writers show profound ignorance of basic biology and now Jane Goodall has joined their ranks (1) and “Altered Genes, Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public,” (2)
Not only did she support anti-scientific “authors”, but she also made the situation worse with a dedicated chapter in one of her books: see “Jane Goodall’s Troubling, Error-Filled New Book, ‘Seeds of Hope’ “(3) – Just one quote: “The most recent monstrous crime against plants – at least in my view – is the tinkering with their DNA.” See “Tales from food crisis” (4)
Her view is wrong: decades of safe consumption of transgenic crops and derivative products as foods for humans and feeds for animals, and the recent exciting advances in gene editing (CRISPR and similar processes) show that “tinkering with plants’ DNA” is no more risky than conventional breeding. Innovative plant breeding technologies have advanced sustainable agriculture (e.g. massively reducing chemical sprays and reducing crop loss).
It is called agri-food biotechnology.
Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue, Independent researcher in political science, agri-food biotech law and regulation Milan, Italy
Richard J. Roberts, 1993 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, expert in agri-food biotechnology, Ipswich, MA, USA
Pamela Ronald, Professor at UC Davis, UC Berkeley; expert in agri-food biotechnology, Davis, CA, USA
Piero Morandini, Professor at University of Milan; expert in agri-food biotechnology, Milan, Italy
(4) https://news.janegoodall.org/2016/10/31/tales-food-crisis-true-horrors-gmos/
Further reading
The Wang study : A 7 years analysis to end emotional era on GMOs ?
Preventing extinctions is too important to rule out genetic engineering