25 de Agosto 2007

Pensamientos heréticos de Freeman Dyson

Os recomiendo que leáis los pensamientos heréticos que Freeman Dyson ha transcrito para las páginas de Edge (son un extracto de su último libro). Tal vez podría haberse ahorrado el último, el tercero ... no sé qué tiene que ver con los anteriores.

Como últimamente he escrito sobre el clima voy a rescatar un párrafo que tiene poco (menos) que ver con el tema, al contrario que la mayor parte del extracto:

The sharpest conflict between naturalist and humanist ethics arises in the regulation of genetic engineering. The naturalist ethic condemns genetically modified food-crops and all other genetic engineering projects that might upset the natural ecology. The humanist ethic looks forward to a time not far distant, when genetically engineered food-crops and energy-crops will bring wealth to poor people in tropical countries, and incidentally give us tools to control the growth of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Here I must confess my own bias. Since I was born and brought up in England, I spent my formative years in a land with great beauty and a rich ecology which is almost entirely man-made. The natural ecology of England was uninterrupted and rather boring forest. Humans replaced the forest with an artificial landscape of grassland and moorland, fields and farms, with a much richer variety of plant and animal species. Quite recently, only about a thousand years ago, we introduced rabbits, a non-native species which had a profound effect on the ecology. Rabbits opened glades in the forest where flowering plants now flourish. There is no wilderness in England, and yet there is plenty of room for wild-flowers and birds and butterflies as well as a high density of humans. Perhaps that is why I am a humanist.

Por cierto que la réplica que le dá Alun Anderson también es interesante y la foto que la acompaña una maravilla digna de Friedrich.