Skip navigation
Seeds of Science
A review of

Seeds of Science

Why We Got It So Wrong on GMOs


Harmful or Healthful?

by David Meyer

Environmental bestseller Mark Lynas traces his profound shift regarding genetically modified food and its consequences.

In this saga of refutation and new self-knowledge, Mark Lynas – whose Six Degrees won the Royal Society book prize and became a National Geographic documentary – tells how he had embraced a movement that believes manipulating DNA – the biochemical instructions for living things – leads to global environmental disaster and agribusiness economic dominance. But, he asks in this self-revising exploration: What if he were wrong and what if genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are more helpful than harmful?

Lynas’s articulate, unexpected journey from anti-GMO to pro-GMO raises thought-provoking moral, sociopolitical and scientific questions with surprising answers.