In her opening chapter Pilcher begins with her own "genetically modified wolf", a dog called Higgs, and examines how and why early humans must have domesticated wild animals. Dogs could hunt, defend and provide food and furs to hunter-gatherer communities, likely ensuring their survival. Pilcher then develops these points looking at how our ancestors would have domesticated animals and plants, to produce the cows, chickens, horses and agricultural crops that billions of us depend upon today.
Pilcher sees a continuity between these early domestications and the ongoing changes we are making to species today, what she describes as "our complicated relationship with the natural world and our growing sense of mastery over it". She takes up some important political issues such as environmental destruction and genetically modification, in the hope that the reader will find a "source of inspiration and of hope, because they show us that, when humans take time to care about [the] natural world, great things are possible."
Pilcher embarks on a whistle-stop, and accessible, account of how species change and evolve, before delving into the complexities of genetic modification. She looks at various examples of species, from cows to fish, possums to horses. While some of the science is a little superficial (the book is aimed very much at the general public) Pilcher doesn't shy away from the complex issues these subjects provoke, and links each story to wider contexts - such as extinction, ecological changes or the need to produce more food. Some of these accounts, such as the GM goldfish and the changing nature of farmed chickens touch on more fundamental issues - such as the way that animals are transformed in the interest of profit. Unfortunately Pilcher does not fully interrogate these issues. Writing about the genetic changes that result from selective breeding in cattle aimed at making cows that produce more milk Pilcher says,
although Holstein [a breed of cattle] breeders are beginning to adopt the genetic test for Chief's [an important sire] faulty gene, they too can look past this and see the broader economic picture. Although the faulty gene cost the dairy industry millions of dollars in losses, using Chief's sperm to inseminate dairy cows has still led to US $30 billion in increased milk production over the past 35 years.
She then notes that "we are now beholden to an industry that prioritise short-term productivity over the long-term health and sustainability of its herds". Here the word productivity could be more helpfully replaced by the word profits, as that is what the GM companies and breeding industry is actually interested in. In fact, a great limitation of this book, is that it fails to adequately examine the motivation behind such scientific developments tending to celebrate the science rather than query the motives.
Pilcher celebrates scientific and technology advance in the face of wider social and ecological issues. For instance she writes:
I agree that there are problems with our food system. If these engineered animals are used to prop up an already broken system, then I question their value, but I am open-minded to the use of gene-edited farm animals in different settings. If we could somehow ensure that big companies don't have the monopoly on these animals, and tat they could be made available to smallholders, it could make a big difference to their lives... African sleeping sickness, bird flu, mad cow disease... as scientists unravel the molecular mechanisms that confer immunity, animals could be modified to resist these blights.
But this hope masks a much bigger problem. The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation has noted the close links between poverty and African Sleeping Sickness which had been seen "as a colonial disease that had been eliminated and could be relegated to history". Cuts in funding for "control units" had helped lead to a major resurgence in the disease. Repeated outbreaks of Bird Flu are closely linked to the way that industrial agriculture concentrates huge numbers of animals together in the interest of maximising profit, something the late Mike Davis wrote eloquently about. Mad Cow disease too is closely linked to the irrational way that cows were fed in the interest of fast growth and maximising profits.
There are, of course, scientific, technological and medical advances that can help prevent and treat those affected by these diseases. But at their root they are a problem caused by a food system driven by big business in the interest of profit. We can hope big business will not have a monopoly on GM animals, but the reality is that big business has a monopoly on the global food system which drives unsustainable, unhealthy practices and encourages zoonosis. Looking for purely technological solutions to these problems ignores the origin of the problems themselves.
This problem is also there in Pilcher's approach to ecological destruction, where she again looks to scientific and tech solutions. She says, "some find de-extinction unnatural. The scientists responsible have been accused of 'playing God', but don't we also play God when we destroy forests, over-hunt, pollute the planet and warm our word?"
While the science Pilcher describes is very modern, sadly her framework is dated. "As our numbers have grown, our impact on the planet has intensified. Now humans have become an evolutionary force of extraordinary influence".
But here again Pilcher ignores the nature of an economic system that drives such ecological destruction in the name of profit. "We" aren't guilty of anything. Capitalism, and the big mining, logging, agricultural and fossil fuel corporations are guilty of destruction in their own interests. Looking to corporations to develop technological solutions to biodiversity loss and extinction allows these companies to continue their unsustainable behaviour while placing a green fig-leaf over the consequences.
In the final section of the book we are introduced to some amazing work by conservationists and scientists trying to protect endangered species such as coral and the New Zealand flightless bird the Kākāpō. The people doing this work are clearly motivated by a desire to save their chosen species, and work incredibly hard to do so. Some of the science (not all of it GM) is incredible, and Pilcher's amazement at this work is infectious. She writes, "It's still evolution, but it's evolution that is guided by a well-meaning, informed human hand. This is conservation at its finest."
But again the focus on saving specific species seems a throwback to an earlier period of environmental activism. Today the struggle against biodiversity loss needs a much more systemic approach that looks at the way that ecological systems are placed at the mercy of capital. Conservation at its finest would be the integration of such science and technological insights into a wider challenge to the economic interests that are destroying the coral reefs, cutting rainforest or draining wetlands - an approach that would recognise the subordination of natural systems to the interests of profit.
Pilcher's book left me intensely frustrated. It is a book that attempts to understand how human society impacts upon the natural world, but divorces its discussion of the science of Genetic Modification and related technologies from human society itself. In particular Pilcher fails to really discuss the question of these technologies in the context of a world dominated by the pursuit of profit. She touches on some concerns about GM, but doesn't raise any real issues about accountability or democratic control of these technologies - or even the question of science under capitalism. Instead she seems spellbound by the science, isolated from social context, and that makes for a deeply unsatisfactory study of some of the most important questions of our era.
Related Reads
Davis - The Monster Enters
Wallace - Dead Epidemiologists: On the Origins of Covid-19
Wallace - Big Farms Make Big Flu
Weiner - The Beak of the Finch: Evolution in Real Time
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