Take time out to contemplate our modern world

national | environment | opinion/analysis

Wednesday February 22, 2006 21:08

by Kathy Sinnott

My father is a calm man, a good thing in a Dad. In the very few arguments I have had with him in my life, he only got upset once. The disagreement was about health and disease. Advancing health and curing disease had been his life's work. He had gratefully watched the dminishing of the old contagious diseases and here I was telling him they were being replaced by chronic disorders and new contagious diseases. But my Dad is an honest and inquiring man and he accepted my challenge. One evening he and my mother systematically reviewed our family medical history.

They noted the health of their parents, uncles and aunts, their brothers and sisters and first cousins, then their children and nieces and nephews, the grandchildren, grand-nieces and nephews and finally the great-grand generation. My father was well placed to do this as he had been the family doctor to all over 50 years.

A gall bladder problem, bowel cancer, colour blindness and glaucoma were evident in each generation. But where did the asthma, allergies, early onset diabetes, autistic spectrum disorders and learning disabilities, the bipolar and the endemic ear and chest infections that plagued the grand and great-grand generation come from? By the end of the evening my father was convinced that something had changed. That was ten years ago. Something had changed or rather many things had changed and people were suffering. We have to ask questions. What has happened? Why has it happened? What can we do?

What has happened? We have introduced all manner of chemicals, medicines, waste, metals, ratioactive materials, microwaves, etc, into our air, water, soil, food and directly into our bodies. In addition we have introduced novel treatments and technologies - many of these give us benefits but they also can have a price. We have done this at a rate and in a density that makes it almost impossible to know what hit us. We sometimes throw away nature's rule book and make an alternative up for profit and convenience.

Why is it happening? The quick and obvious answer is profit. We add sugar to sell food. We use mercury in order to stockpile for mass consumption. We use more toxic chemicals rather than safer alternatives to save costs. We dump because it is a quick solution and time is money. The more complete answer is power. We globalise markets, energy, food production, services and defence to ensure that we stay on top.

But we must ask why it is happening at a deeper level. An American lady heard me talk about GM crops. She went to an internet cafe that evening to look up the subject. She was astounded. She had never heard of genetic modification before. But being and Evangelical Christian, she instantly knew that they couldn't be a good idea. Why? Because she belives in a God, a Creator. She believes in Intelligent Design. I also believe in a Creator. God created the beautiful, finely balanced universe around and in us. When I study something like the way a single cell generates energy, I see God's nature in its simplicity. His wisdom in its perfectly functional complexity, and His loving mercy in the fact that within each cell there is a main energy system and a back up mechanism just in case.

But what happens when we look at the cell's energy system and we see it as merely a product of chance and time? Then we replace chance with innovation and time with technology.

What can we do? It would be easy to say eat oganic goods, filter water and recycle - and of course these are good to do and helpful, but at this stage they cannot turn the tide. There is nowhere exempt from dioxins and mercury. Nature does not give us marks for effort or credit for good intentions. So we do our best not just for ourselves but for those around us locally and globally and hope it helps. We will mend our destructive relationship with the environment and when we understand how that relationship deteriorated and start making amends. Until then our results will be diappointing.

We can and we must question the supremacy of profit and power over nature. We must realise once and for all that nature has rules and that the saying 'God always forgives. Man sometimes forgives, but nature never forgives.'

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Comments (5 of 5)

Suggestion

by Seán Ryan

Thu Feb 23, 2006 08:00

A very fine article indeed. You asked at one point, what it is that we can do about all this, I know you asked it rhetorically but I want to make a suggestion nonetheless.

You are an elected representative of the people of this country and you are this before any description of your function in Europe is taken into account.

This is a global issue, it's a European issue, but most of all it's an Irish issue. Look at the ammount of dissent and protest here all of which can be reduced to exploitation by capitalism, illegal wars most certainly included.

I think we are well past the rhetorical 'what shall we do' phase in all of this, I truly believe it's time to act. The boundaries are long drawn, where you stand is very clear. Act please - for instance: Why not gather a group of similarly minded EU heads and take the battle to Dublin. Why have the fight spread out over a large area where it is easilly absorbed. Concentrate the battle, you have the power to confront every TD in the country and publicise it. Think of the results of the battle if ten EU celebs turned up at a Shell to Sea protest, or an anti-war vigil. Think of forcing the lazy press to focus on the struggle.

That's what we could do. Please don't take this as a rebuke, I appreciate your stance and action thus far. But we need to act and we need to win. Concentrate the battle, you set up a model for others to do the same. Let's not talk of confronting Capitalism, let's do it.

Sláinte,
Seán Ryan

God or Evolution

by James

Thu Feb 23, 2006 12:45

She had never heard of genetic modification before. But being and Evangelical Christian, she instantly knew that they couldn't be a good idea. Why? Because she belives in a God, a Creator. She believes in Intelligent Design. I also believe in a Creator. God created the beautiful, finely balanced universe around and in us. When I study something like the way a single cell generates energy, I see God's nature in its simplicity. His wisdom in its perfectly functional complexity, and His loving mercy in the fact that within each cell there is a main energy system and a back up mechanism just in case.

While there are dangers with regard to modifying an extremely complex system like the environment, basing the skeptical argument on the intentions of God is unnecessary because a) the dangers, if true, are there irrespective of the views of God and b) it is doubtful whether God exists.

Personally I would be worried about placing control of, say, the genetic recipe for corn, in the hands of tiny number of capitalists. Clearly caution is called for when modifying plants, but as nature is doing it all the time, and very ruthlessly, artificially changing the software in some biological organisms isn’t, in my view, only a moral choice, it’s an engineering decision with some moral consequences.

Because she belives in a God, a Creator. She believes in Intelligent Design. I also believe in a Creator.

Re: creationism.
The overwhelming scientific view is that life has evolved from simple beginnings rather being deliberately designed by a creator. That so much of life, from the cell to the trillion agglomeration of cells that is a human, works so well is a tribute to evolution. But it is a functional capacity that was earned at a price. And that price is the death of the vast majority of organisms which were unable to compete with other organisms. A brutal price. I doubt that a benevolent God would design such a ruthless system.

what happens when we look at the cell's energy system and we see it as merely a product of chance and time?

It’s not just chance and a long period of time that results in the life around us, it is also the selection of organisms* capable of living long enough to reproduce operating on the mutations and genetic variation available. Natural selection (including sexual selection) ensures that the advantageous changes produced in one generation can be carried forward to the following ones. And, brutally – particularly before the advent of modern society, natural selection culls those who can’t compete. Chance alone would never get anything complex going.

Secondly, we shouldn’t be basing our understanding of how the world works on how we would like it to work . Science is a system of knowledge, not a system of comfort. This doesn’t mean that conscious humans can’t shape our lives, particularly our moral choices, but it does mean that turning to nature for moral guidence isn’t necessarily the best method.

*more strictly of genes that influence the inclusive fitness of organisms.

Modified goats

by J

Thu Feb 23, 2006 13:35

Goats with an extra bit of dna are capable of producing a natural human protein:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4740230.stm

Health

by John - dunaree2000

Thu Feb 23, 2006 13:52

This is scaremongering of the worst kind. All the evidence is that people in Ireland, and indeed throughout the developed world, are healthier than ever. In 1946 life expectancy in Ireland was 60 years for men and 62 years for women. By 2002 (the latest year for which official CSO statistics are available) life expectancy in Ireland was 75 years for men and 80 years for women. The next official CSO figures will not be published for a couple of years and will be for 2006 (CSO life expectancy figures are only published for census years) - these will show life expectancy in Ireland increasing to about 77 years for men and over 82 years for women. Mortality rates in Ireland are now less than half the level they were in the 1950s, and this is true for every age-group. The cancer mortality rate peaked in Ireland in 1989 and has fallen by about 20 per cent since that year. Since 1989 also mortality rates for heart disease and strokes in Ireland have almost halved. Each year Eurostat carries out an EU-wide survey in which people are asked to categorise their health as excellent, good, fair, poor, bad. Since this survey began the number of people in Ireland categorising their health as excellent or good has risen sharply while the number categorising it as poor or bad has fallen sharply. Why don'y you use part of your MEP salary to do some proper health research instead of indulging in scaremongering?

Tut tut John

Sat Feb 25, 2006 07:42

It's not nice that you search for anything with 'Shell to sea' in it. Particluarly when you come along and spam an interesting story.

Firsty, mortality rates are halved because we cured most of the ailments, and started to use clean instruments and stuff, oh yeah and they started being trained as doctors too. Your statistics are meaningless as usual.

Secondly before you try to bullshit further about the above:

Kathy is talking about the instance of new ailments. One's that weren't around or weren't as prevalent as they are today. Your statistics don't even cover the topic of conversation.

You quoted life expectancy figures too. More spam. Life expectancy figures give no hint as to quality of life. And again are a reflection on the hopelessness of the situation in the past rather than the 'excellence' of the situation now.

Your cancer 'statistics.' Huh?

There are now more varieties of cancer than ever before.

If cancer mortality rates had dropped 20% every year from 1989, and you compared your staring rate with your finishing rate would have dropped by 340%. Probably not what you meant as cancer would now be seen to be good for you. But what you meant was very misleading. More the percentage of people who will get cancer increases every year. Because curable cancers are on the increase too, their cures outnumber previous cures, and artificially deflate the deathrate.

I know there aren't enough medical services to go around, but to suggest that people medically examine themselves, is only something the likes of the Poster Child for the health service would say, ie. Mary Harney.

Why do you use your obvious intelligence to appear so stupid?

Sláinte,
Seán

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Take time out to contemplate our modern world

Comments (5 of 5)