Unscientific regulation of agricultural biotechnology: time to hold the policymakers accountable?

摘要

Habituation, the gradual adaptation to a specific stimulus or to the environment, is a biological phenomenon but it may also be said to apply to adaptation to political institutions such as governmental regulation. Such a phenomenon can also be observed in the unresponsive attitudes of academic and industrial researchers towards the excessive regulation of agricultural and environmental biotechnology. In such circumstances, instead of complacency, scientists need to question the paradigm underlying regulation, particularly when it appears to be determined by criteria other than scientific reasoning or consensus.