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Agricultural Biotechnology and the Environment
Science, Policy, and Social Issues
Sheldon Krimsky and Roger Wrubel
University of Illinois Press, 1996
      Probing the profitable new science of creating--and altering--life forms
      "Extraordinarily well documented . . . remarkably clear. This is
        the most comprehensive coverage of these issues to date. It will be required
        reading for some time." -- Lawrence Busch, Michigan State University
      "Krimsky and Wrubel not only describe the components of agricultural
        biotechnology, they address and analyze controversies involving the risks
        and benefits of new technologies. Coverage of technical to social components
        of agricultural biotechnology is unusually complete and thorough. Their
        even-handed and comprehensive approach to these topics is rare and extremely
        valuable." -- Richard Weinzierl, University of Illinois
      Modern agriculture is being transformed by the genetic alteration of
        seeds, animals, and microorganisms, a process that has produced such products
        as flavor saver tomatoes and crops resistant to specific insects or herbicides.
      Agricultural Biotechnology and the Environment is the first comprehensive
        overview of the ongoing transformation of agriculture, exploring the impact
        of genetic engineering from scientific, social, ethical, and ecological
        perspectives.
      Sheldon Krimsky and Roger Wrubel detail the impact the new generation
        of products is expected to have on agricultural practice and the environment
        and assess the degree to which current trends in biotechnology match earlier
        expectations. They also analyze the social and political response to innovations
        resulting from genetic technology.
      Closely examined in each of three areas--transgenic plants, genetically
        engineered microorganisms, and transgenic animals--are technical and scientific
        problems, social controversies, and anticipated environmental impacts.
      An objective, detailed look at a subject of interest to a broad spectrum
        of readers, Agricultural Biotechnology and the Environment will
        be of interest to researchers in the new biotechnology fields as well
        as to educated general readers and policymakers.
      A volume in the series The Environment and the Human Condition
 
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front cover of Genetic Explanations
Genetic Explanations
Sense and Nonsense
Sheldon Krimsky
Harvard University Press, 2012

Can genes determine which fifty-year-old will succumb to Alzheimer’s, which citizen will turn out on voting day, and which child will be marked for a life of crime? Yes, according to the Internet, a few scientific studies, and some in the biotechnology industry who should know better. Sheldon Krimsky and Jeremy Gruber gather a team of genetic experts to argue that treating genes as the holy grail of our physical being is a patently unscientific endeavor. Genetic Explanations urges us to replace our faith in genetic determinism with scientific knowledge about how DNA actually contributes to human development.

The concept of the gene has been steadily revised since Watson and Crick discovered the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. No longer viewed by scientists as the cell’s fixed set of master molecules, genes and DNA are seen as a dynamic script that is ad-libbed at each stage of development. Rather than an autonomous predictor of disease, the DNA we inherit interacts continuously with the environment and functions differently as we age. What our parents hand down to us is just the beginning. Emphasizing relatively new understandings of genetic plasticity and epigenetic inheritance, the authors put into a broad developmental context the role genes are known to play in disease, behavior, evolution, and cognition.

Rather than dismissing genetic reductionism out of hand, Krimsky and Gruber ask why it persists despite opposing scientific evidence, how it influences attitudes about human behavior, and how it figures in the politics of research funding.

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