The story leads with a photograph of several protesters, one of whom is carrying a sign which says "animal testing delays medical progress".
Of course, that's beyond merely untrue — it stands reality on its head. There is no good alternative to the use of animal models for most medical research. A few days ago, I reported on a breakthrough recently made on Alzheimer's Disease thanks to animal experiments. Animal experimentation is the reason we have the information we needed from that test — no rational person would agree to be injected with an experimental substance and then killed and autopsied a few days later, so we need to use animals for such tests.
Almost all of modern medicine, from vaccines to surgery, has been developed using animal models. Had we avoided all animal testing over the last several centuries, human lifespan today would be dramatically shorter.
On a similar note, I was recently reading an article in Wired about Craig Venter's project to sequence the genomes of vast numbers of previously unknown microorganisms. Venter's team is, essentially, sailing around the world, collecting a few gallons of water out of the ocean every couple hundred miles, and shotgun sequencing all the DNA in the living matter within the sample. Less than a percent of the microorganisms on the planet have ever been observed, let alone sequenced, so this is really neat work. The team is not only getting the first real glimpse at how large the population of microbial species really is, they're also getting an amazing sampling of previously unknown genes.
Unfortunately, it appears that lots of people, including the luddite ETC Group, are organizing oppose his work. They've even gotten his expedition halted in a few places where he crosses in to various territorial waters. Why? I really can't explain their rationale. I can't make out a coherent reason for opposing such research in anything they say. They make weird claims about "biopiracy" (whatever that might be) and such, but really it appears their major dislike for Venter is that they hate technology.
The article in Wired describes the bizarre events that happened when Venter arrived at Tahiti, which is ruled by the French. Remember in reading this that his activities consist of grabbing a few gallons of worthless ocean water here and there and studying the single celled microorganisms within — he isn't stealing ancient artworks or running a slave ship or any such.
Venter was immediately notified by Rockville of a fax from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs politely informing him that his application to conduct research in French Polynesia was denied. The ministry understood that the Sorcerer II's mission was to collect and study microorganisms that might prove helpful for health and industry, but France wished to protect its "patrimony" by restricting "extraction of these resources by foreign vessels." "It's French water, so I guess they're French microbes," Venter told me when he got the news.[...] [W]hen the Sorcerer II reached the French Polynesian island of Hiva Oa in the Marquesas archipelago, the port captain there informed Venter and Howard that their vessel was not allowed to leave the harbor. Impounding a private foreign vessel merely on suspicion is against international law, and Venter protested to the US State Department, which informed the ministry that it considered the act a violation of the honor of the United States. The Sorcerer II was allowed to proceed as a normal tourist vessel, but with a warning not to attempt to take any samples.
Venter later got permission to continue sampling, but with unusual restrictions considering that he was taking nothing more than a few gallons of seawater:
[...] When I wake up the next day, Venter is in the main cabin reading an email from his office; Howard leans over his shoulder. Dill is setting the table for breakfast. "So the big news this morning is [...] the French are going to send a gunboat out to escort us," he tells me.[...]"They want to make sure we sample where we said we would. We're not supposed to tell the State Department about this. It might put a chill on French-American relations. Being as how they're so cozy right now and all," Dill says. "They'd like to know if we'd like to invite an officer on board, too," Venter says. "How do you say 'fuck you' in French?"
This trend towards luddism seems to be spreading.
I wish I had the ability to explain the position of such groups coherently enough to be able to attack them point by point, but I'm afraid that my contempt is a bit too strong for me to be able to do that. I really don't believe they have a rational position so I find it difficult to try to explain their position. ETC, for example, frequently puts out bizarre press releases about scientific work that they obviously don't understand even slightly. Most of their documents are so filled with technical mistakes that it is hard to even count all of them.
However, even though they don't seem to have much of a coherent or accurate argument on their side, such groups frequently are pretty good at getting a lot of attention. I think this is because fairly few people in the news media or in politics have any real personal understanding of science and technology, so they are not able to make informed judgments about the wild claims that are made.
I have to admit that I don't understand luddites well. Human welfare has been radically improved by technology. The progress we've made towards reducing poverty and human misery has been nothing short of breathtaking. Even Marx seemed to understand this pretty well. I get the feeling that the people who used to embrace communism now have switched to technophobia.
As a postscript, let me note that even the most radical anti-technology activists out there like the Unibomber, Ted Kaczynski, seem to make use of at least some technology in their lives. I doubt Kaczynski could have survived through the winter in his cabin without steel implements and an iron stove for heat. No one would know of Kaczynski's ideas but for his willingness to use of technology to write them down (even paper and pencils require pretty significant ingenuity and effort to produce). Even written down, high technology, including computers, has been the primary means by which his ideas have been disseminated. Some such people argue that they are merely using technology temporarily to try to fight technology, or that they do not oppose "appropriate" technologies like wood stoves. (Kaczynski doesn't seem to make any such arguments, though, or at least, none that I can see.) Even so, there is tremendous irony in anti-technologists making use of even primitive technologies, and further irony in their communicating by any method other than speech. I suspect, however, that the irony is lost on them.