Tuesday, May 04, 2010

For People Too Stupid to Understand Evolution

You can thank Monsanto, creator of the herbicide RoundUp, for dispelling your doubts. The agricultural use of RoundUp has caused the evolution of super weeds resistant to the herbicide and, according to The New York Times, it's giving farmers a real headache:

"Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.

To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.


“We’re back to where we were 20 years ago,” said Mr. Anderson, who will plow about one-third of his 3,000 acres of soybean fields this spring, more than he has in years. “We’re trying to find out what works.”


Farm experts say that such efforts could lead to higher food prices,
lower crop yields, rising farm costs and more pollution of land and water."

I don't care about religious fantasies - evolution and natural selection are real and, if you open your eyes, there are plenty of examples that happen in the course of just a single lifetime.

1 comment:

Anyong said...

Yes you are correct but don't you know its called "Free Interprise"!!...What a joke that is.