Anne is a geneticist working within the NGO community, and has been a frequent critical voice in the scientific debate surrounding genetic modification. She is passionate about the experimental laboratory work she left behind when she became involved with various NGOs, but her disillusionment with what she perceived as the corporate domination of the research agenda, and her concern that genetic modification of food crops was being commercialised too soon and on the basis of ‘unsound science’, left her unable to continue with it.
The interview took place in a crowded London pub over lunch, with Sarah, a colleague of Anne’s.
As a geneticist she is not opposed to genetic modification as a technique, and indeed sees great potential for it, particularly in clinical applications:
And it’s a situation also where... erm, nobody will take responsibility at the end of the day. If something goes wrong, which is bound to go wrong over time, nobody will pay for it and can’t be recalled either. I mean, you couldn’t have just said “Oh we will undo it” because you can’t. So therefore if we think genetic engineering is a method, valid to produce food or to alter plants this will still be a good method in ten years time when we know more about it, so what’s the rush now? And this is why I’m putting my foot basically on the brake and saying “It’s absolutely too risky and especially if there’s no need whatsoever.” Genetic engineering for genetic diseases, that’s different. The risk is going to be taken by the individual who will have the treatment and that’s a life threatening situation of things, so if you apply gene therapy, that’s very different.
Anne uses arguments which extend beyond the technical details of genetic modification to encompass the political, commercial and social environment in which genetic modification takes place:
There’s poverty everywhere and poverty will not be solved by genetic engineering. If they could prove.... erm, that it will alter... erm, the poverty structures and everybody will be well-off, well then talk to me, then I might speak up for it [...]
While she does not reject the potential for the technology to be beneficial, she feels that the circumstances in which it is being applied make this unlikely. Throughout the interview, the importance of profit as a driving force behind genetic modification is mentioned:
[Anne is talking about a meeting between a biotech company and NGOs] [...] they would come with a scientific argument and a lot of people would say “Oh we can’t reply there”. But fortunately I am a scientist myself and can say “Well actually I can respond to that” and I have the opposite opinion and have got the facts which support the other side. So it boils down to opinion: which scientist’s view do you believe in and whose view will actually benefit the profit because this is the one which will be heard the loudest because they’ll be the ones challenged, er not challenged, channelled [...]
She blames this for the lack of long term and basic research which she believes would lead to a greater understanding of genetic modification and thus greater safety in its application. She also mourns the loss of the freedom to discuss research with fellow geneticists, who are bound by commercial secrecy and the search for patents:
[...] I decided quite long ago that I would not work for industry because friends of mine who started working for industry all of a sudden couldn’t talk about the science anymore, what they were researching into. I said “Oh come on, what is it, is it exciting, what’s happening?” And they said “Can’t say, it’s to do with.... erm...” and they would change to something very irrelevant to it, so obviously they couldn’t speak about it anymore. I said “How do you know that that is safe or not?” and they said “Well I can’t, I talk within my department”
As a participant in the debate, Anne has found it expedient to use human centred, instrumental arguments to criticise genetic modification of food. However, when questioned about whether her personal views went beyond these to more ecocentric ideas, she was quick to articulate many of the limitations of anthropocentrism, and appeared to have a strong personal ecocentrism. However, she clearly felt that there was no outlet for these ideas in the debate as she had experienced it:
Well I feel that most of the arguments needed today in order to convince as they need to talk... they need to speak to the people, that’s why we select them. Erm... I personally do not see why humans have a higher value than the whales or why they should sort of have more right to food than birds.
Anne makes an interesting contrast to John. Although their world views are similar, for John the structure of that world view is uppermost in his mind, and his actions seem to be derived very much from ‘first principles’. Anne however does not seem to link her everyday professional activities in a conscious way to her values, and the initial difficulty she has in talking about these values rather than the anthropocentric arguments she uses professionally illustrates the point. Despite this, the link clearly exists, although it is not possible to tell from the interview material whether it was this link which caused her defection to the NGO community.
The importance of this case study is that it illustrates that ecocentrism need not be confined to those individuals like John who explicitly derive their lifestyles from their values, but can exist in an equally consistent, if less developed form in other individuals.