If you don’t pay your respects to natural selection and the population biologists that study it, you’ll get burned:

So a scientific advisory panel urged the Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen the second line of defense against resistance, and demand large refuges on non-Bt corn. They proposed that farmers be allowed to plant Bt corn with this new gene on no more than half of their corn acres.

Monsanto argued that such a large refuge wasn’t necessary, and the EPA agreed. In 2003, the agency decided to allow farmers to plant this new product on 80 percent of their corn acres.

The scientists who called for caution now are saying “I told you so,” because there are signs that a new strain of resistant rootworms is emerging.

(via @BoraZ)