People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently announced that they are sponsoring a $1 million prize for the first individual able to produce meat in a test tube. Their reasoning, therein, is that being able to “grow” meat via in vitro methods will spare the livestock of this nation from “suffering” in “horrific ways.”

As with other environmental extremist organizations such as Greenpeace, PETA has once again proven itself to be a master of media prostitution and sensationalism at the expense of reason and sound provable science.

It would be interesting, for instance, to learn from where PETA intends to source the stem cells necessary to grow its test tube meat. Somewhere along the line, some animal, somewhere, has to be slaughtered. PETA’s logic is self-defeating – it simply moves the animal consumption further up the chain. This being the case, slaughtering the animal for a few stem cells and then throwing the carcass away is a really pathetic waste, and totally intolerable to pretty much anyone who has any experience with livestock. Not only that, but why go through extra steps and more expenses to grow bionic meats if live animals have to be slaughtered in the process?

Therein lies another facet that PETA’s logic fails to reflect. It is a common fact that the extremist environmental movement, as a whole, opposes the introduction of genetically modified organisms in American crop agriculture – for whatever reason, and on whatever unsound science this may be based – and has coined the term “frankenfood” to describe it. Is growing meats in a test tube not tantamount to “frankenmeat?” The prospect of eating something that was grown in a test tube is far more unnerving to me than eating an herbicide-resistant soybean.

Almost every philosophical view of mankind’s interaction with its surroundings endorses the idea that we, as the most advanced life form on the planet Earth, are the consumers of nature’s abundance – including the animal kingdom. In the Judeo-Christian canon we find the expectation to “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” For a more secular viewpoint, Darwin, the great champion of natural selection, states in “The Descent of Man” that, “Man in the rudest state in which he now exists is the most dominant animal that has ever appeared on this earth,” and clearly leads toward a viewpoint most unfavorable of that endorsed by animal rights extremists.

Mankind has consumed meats for the entirety of human history. The sheep, considered one of the earliest domesticated species, is thought to have first brought under human control nearly 13,000 years ago in Asia. This indicates that not only were humans consuming sheep in some form at this time, but that they had been hunting them for sometime as well – providing the impetus and incentive to domesticate them.

There is also something to be said for the credibility of PETA itself. Among the many statistics that PETA cited in its statement announcing the frankenmeat prize was what appears to be a most startling figure: “More than 40 billion chickens, fish, pigs and cows are killed every year for food in the United States.” When the USDA is consulted, however, we find that fewer than 145 million cattle and pigs went to the packer last year, and barely over 9 billion chickens. While the USDA does not track any fish production, 31 billion fish seems like a very speculative statistic.

What, then, motivates this organization to wage war on American and world agriculture?

The answer, quite possibly, lies – as it often does – with ignorance, lack of education, lack of experience and paranoia. How many among the ranks of PETA loyalists are farmers? How many are actually qualified to speak to the state and condition of America’s farms and packing plants? How are celebrity spokespeople – Bill Maher, Paul McCartney or Alicia Silverstone – qualified to speak on matters of animal husbandry? None of them hold degrees in animal science or any other of the agricultural sciences. So they have videos purporting to show “cruel” treatment of livestock – lots of people claim to have video of little green men, alien spaceships and Bigfoot. PETA’s claims are no more factual than any of those, and they have a social and ethical responsibility to stop misleading Americans.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a warm, juicy, succulent, American hamburger calling my name.

– Ryan Frederick is a senior in management from Orient.