Fire and Knowledge

In another book I learn that ten percent of all the world’s species are parasitic insects. It is hard to believe. What if you were an inventor, and you made ten percent of your inventions in such a way that they could only work by harassing, disfiguring, or totally destroying the other ninety percent? These things are not well enough known.

–Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), p. 229

The egg of a parasite chalcid wasp, a common small wasp, multiplies unassisted, making ever more identical eggs. The female lays a single fertilized egg in the flaccid tissues of its live prey, and that one egg divides and divides. As many as two thousand new parasitic wasps will hatch to feed on the host’s body with identical hunger. Similarly—only more so—Edwin Way Teale reports that a lone aphid, without a partner, breeding “unmolested” for one year, would produce so many living aphids that, although they are only a tenth of an inch long, together they would extend into space twenty-five hundred light-years.

–Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), p. 167

In the top inch of forest soil, biologists found “an average of 1,35 living creatures present in each square foot, including 865 mites, 265 springtails, 22 millipedes, 19 adult beetles and various numbers of 12 other forms…. Had an estimate also been made of the microscopic population, it might have ranged up to two billion bacteria and many millions of fungi, protozoa, and algae—in a mere teaspoonful of soil.”

–Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), p. 94

Nature will try anything once. This is what the sign of the insects say. No form is too gruesome, no behavior too grotesque.

–Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), p. 65

The FDA has announced that cloned livestock are “safe to eat” and do not require special labeling. This means consumers will not know whether the meat (or dairy produce) they purchase is cloned or not. These sorts of decisions are to protect companies profits, not citizens. Many people — myself included — do not want to eat food from clones for health or religious or philosophic reasons, and we have a right to know whether the food we are buying is cloned.

FDA believes “that meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones is as safe to eat as the food we eat every day,” said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine.

That is probably true since the FDA does not require labeling for genetically altered foods, such as corn and soy — foods that exude toxins and resist poison. They also do not require labels for dairy products from cows that have been given bovine growth hormone (rBGH) and antibiotics. So cloned meat is probably just as healthy as those foods. But I don’t think those are healthy, either, even if the FDA does.

This is an important issue. Please consider telling the FDA to require special labeling for cloned animal produce and genetically-altered produce. The FDA says they will accept comments from the public for the next three months. I hope they will listen. This is what I sent the FDA:

Hello,

Consumers should be given a right to know whether the meat (or dairy produce) they purchase is cloned or not through special labeling. Many people — myself included — do not want to eat food from clones for health or religious or philosophic reasons, and we have a right to know whether the food we are purchasing is cloned. We should also know if the food has been genetically altered. You should be the organization that gives us that choice. You are supposed to protect us and let us make informed decisions. Please do so.

Sincerely,

Joshua Sowin

All the books tell you that if the grizzly [bear] comes for you, on no account should you run. This is the sort of advice you get from someone who is sitting at a keyboard when he gives it. Take it from me, if you are in an open space with no weapons and a grizzly comes for you, run. You may as well. If nothing else, it will give you something to do with the last seven seconds of your life. However, when the grizzly overtakes you, as it most assuredly will, you should fall to the ground and play dead.

–Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods (1998), p. 17

People often wonder if animals will be in heaven. But people don’t seem to wonder if animals will be in hell. Why does God send humans to hell but not animals? In the Old Testament, animals who kill humans are put to death – there is a punishment. It is sin. But why doesn’t the animal suffer forever in torment (that is, hell)? Would it not make God more glorious if sin were justly punished? Does it not offend God infinitely, because he is infinitely holy? Or do animals not need redemption because they have lesser faculties than a human? Or was the sin of all animals atoned for by Jesus, so that while there is justice on earth (the animal is put to death), the wrath of God was quenched through Jesus? Or do animals not really sin?

Maybe we’ll find out the answer someday.