People who know the subject rarely speak out and media rarely takes the trouble to speak to the real experts!! Often, we get to hear from only the half baked, and misinformed "so-called experts". Lets take the nuclear reactors in Japan as the first case... Apparently, they are not nuclear accidents, or radiation leaks, rather planned and scheduled standard procedures, when a nuclear reactor is shut down under emergencies!! Since there is excess heat within, caused due to the fission experiments that have suddenly been stopped, these are planned releases to cool these reactors. How many of us are aware of this fact?? Without understanding the Chemistry and Physics of it, we rush to conclusions and cause panic and fear amongst the public.
Most of us are fed with overdoses of panic and rumours of nuclear radiation and disasters with far fetched stories of radiation travelling to Phillipines and then to India!! How much more hilarious and stupid can we get? Its these same morons who want a better quality of life and conveniences and want India to become a well developed country. Conveniences mean more energy requirements, plain and simple. All of us want a good life and good comforts but little to we realise that such growth and conveniences have energy requirements. These past few days have many up in arms over India's nuclear energy plans and will no doubt stall and slow down the plans for increased nuclear capabilities.
Today, another story that caught my eye was about a NGO sending a veggies cum fruit hamper to our Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. Nothing wrong with that, except, that the reason for sending it is all wrong. Apparently, our PM mentioned how genetically modified Golden Rice can help reduce Vitamin A deficiencies, in India. Immediately, our so-called "informed experts" cry foul and a NGO thinks they are the only educated Indians who care for their fellow citizens and the environment. The Scientists who develop the technology are made out to be villains who don't care for human health, leave alone environment! Scientists, today, according to the ill-informed activists, particularly in India, are the new age Monsters and Asuras who are out to destroy nature and have "evil intentions". One expert quoted in the article today, apparently heads the Department of Biotechnology in his College and speaks against Biotechnology!! What an irony?? His students have my full sympathy. He is quoted as saying that one needs to consume 9 kg of rice per day to meet the Vitamin A requirements. What a joke!! He needs to first go and get updated on the technology before educating his students and the public. Being in this area I know he is talking about an older version but the current golden rice requires a human being to consume only 144 gms of rice to meet the daily requirements of Vitamin A, but imagine the average person on the street, is going to believe this trash.
And the media also laps it up and publishes such crap. This always has me worried and concerned. How is it that the half baked experts are louder than the fully baked? How come the activists are more articulate and get quoted in the media, than the scientists? Why are scientists not publishing articles refuting the rubbish that is dished out in popular media? These questions are very discomforting and I wonder if there is hope at all.
1 comment:
Madam,
In my opinion, certainly Scientists are new-age Asuras. (the term which you have coined is wonderful.)
All these 'so called' scientific developments are all, at their face value, developments that lead to 'so called' more civilized, cultured and comfortable life, but actually they are all the various paths leading to the destruction of, not only human life, but also all beings.
In my opinion, industrial revoltion which led to mass production put the seed to this destructive path. The concept of 'Mass Production' only contributed to the destruction of micro-level family professions, dislocation of people, concentration of people in a single place, loss of agricultural lands, conversion of fertile cultivable lands into factories which produce 'junks in real sense', loss of water resources, destruction of forests, the concept that 'man only has the right to use this earth, not any other animals', unhealthy urbanization, sources for new diseases etc. etc., though it is also possible to list the advantages, which are in real sense not.
SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENTS ARE CURSE IN DISGUISE.
This, I am categorically telling in spite of the fact that I am also a beneficiary of these so called developments, because no individual has the option to get singled out from this mass destructive developments.
M.K.Devarajan.
Post a Comment