Prometheus, according to Greek mythology, was a Titan, responsible for introducing fire to humans, a remarkable innovation at the time, but having benefits and risks, depending on its use. Promethean has since come to mean daringly original and creative.Science is an elegant way of getting at the truth, according to science writer Rick Weiss. It should follow then that molecular biology and other tools of modern biotechnology add elegance and precision to the pursuit of solutions to thwart poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity in too many countries around the world. In agriculture these enemies are manifest as pests, diseases, drought and other biotic and abiotic stresses that limit the productivity of plants and animals.But not all appreciate the elegance of science in the pursuit of truth. The current debate about the potential utility of modern biotechnology for food and agriculture presents a challenge for modern science to contribute to the solution of human problems. This debate is currently focused on the initial applications of modern biotechnology in industrial country agriculture and its potential risks to human health and the environment. It is also intertwined with other of-ten understated societal concerns such as food safety, animal welfare, industrialized agriculture, and the global role of large private-sector corporations.A debate based on the best available empirical evidence on the relevance of modern science for poor people in developing countries is urgently needed. Its purpose would be to identify the most appropriate ways that molecular biology-based research might contribute to the solution of poor people's problems. These problems and the socioeconomic context in which they occur are so different from the problems and context of the countries where most of the biotechnology debate currently takes place that the positions and conclusions from the current debate are largely irrelevant for poor farmers and poor consumers in developing countries. Despite this, many of the arguments in the current debate are extrapolated to conclusions about the potential utility of biotechnology for poor countries and poor people. There is an urgent need for a more focused debate on the role of modern agricultural biotechnology in developing countries, a debate that should and is being led by people from developing countries themselves (Pinstrup-Andersen and Cohen 2000).