Modern day heretics have it easy compared to their medieval antecedents (at least in the West). Denouncing dogma that they once propagated won't get them tortured and burned at the stake. But they do stand a good chance of provoking hostile blowback, which is what Mark Lynas, the British environmental writer, has experienced this week. That's because Lynas has just repudiated, in no uncertain terms, the anti-GMO movement he helped give birth to in the 1990s. In a heartfelt and hardhitting speech, Lynas apologized "for having spent several years ripping up GM crops," and for sowing unfounded fears that have been "exported by NGOs like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to Africa, India and the rest of Asia, where GM is still banned today." Referring to the worldwide biotech restrictions, Lynas also said:
But most important of all, farmers should be free to choose what kind of technologies they want to adopt.
