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PETER AND THE WOLF

Continued from page 6

"Indiscriminate use of antibiotics is a good medical analogy," notes Dr. David Kennell, professor emeritus of molecular microbiology at Washington University School of Medicine. He's tired of Raven and other colleagues presenting any caution about biotech as "unscientific emotionalism." But Raven thinks people overreact -- especially when they hear that Bt crops threaten those magnificently sympathetic monarch butterflies. "If there are monarchs migrating through, and if there are milkweed plants the farmers haven't eliminated" (milkweed, the only plant on which monarchs lay their eggs, serves as food for the caterpillars) "and if they become heavily coated with pollen, the monarchs won't live," concedes Raven. "But to single that out is to forget about Silent Spring and what we are trying to do here. Pesticides cause $9 billion worth of damage a year. You have to balance a small iffy side effect against the good you are doing."

Monsanto, for example, claims that by modifying plants to produce a natural insecticide, they've "done more to reduce (conventional) insecticide use than all of Greenpeace's campaigns put together," in the words of spokesman Gary Barton.

Organic farmers and environmentalists have their own suggestions for reducing pesticides: rotate crops so you're not depleting the soil and encouraging specific pests; do companion plantings that repel pests; design habitats that welcome the pests' predators. Raven simply doesn't think any of that can be done on a scale large enough to feed a growing population. Anyway, he says, "It just seems to me that people are going to want to use the modern way."

Raven's not wild about the idea of showing a reporter around his house, but he accedes, even grudgingly introducing the two family dogs (he doesn't like dogs) and pausing at the kitchen message board. Below the pizza-delivery numbers is a note from his daughter Katie to Clara, Kate Fish's daughter: "Smoothie in fridge." "Clara was sick this morning," Raven explains, pleased to see how smoothly, indeed, his and Fish's families have merged.

He's less comfortable when grilled about their lifestyle. "We recycle up to a point," he shrugs. "It's just as hard for us as for anybody else." He makes $184,000 a year but doesn't bother screening their investments for environmental responsibility, because "any money we have is pooled in a fund somebody else directs." There are sport-utility-vehicle tread marks in his driveway. "We have three, among our children," he blurts, cheeks reddening at the contrast to his impassioned speeches about energy waste and overconsumption.

More pragmatic than purist, Raven prefers big-picture conversations, projects where the stakes are global. He wants plant science to heal the world, and he wants St. Louis to become a world center for plant-science research. Convinced that biotech poses no real risks, that governmental regulation is adequate and that corporations will do the right thing, he's weary of the naysayers. "Negativity makes Peter Raven upset," notes Jonathan Kleinbard. Fish says he's "an unbelievable optimist -- it's almost like he can only see the good side of things." And Alice Raven says the quips and sarcasm her dad uses to deflect darkness or avoid murky emotions are a family trait: "We can almost get hysterical at funerals."

Her sister Elizabeth Raven McQuinn remembers seeing their father scared only once, on Disney World's Space Mountain, when they plunged right into the darkness. "Why am I throwing my life away on this ride?" he wailed.

But the minute they emerged into sunshine, he was himself again: a can-do scientist, raising a glass half-full to the corporate ingenuity that is, in his mind, the world's last best hope.

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