Hi Klaus,
Wednesday, March 22, 2000, 1:45:54 AM, you wrote:
KW> hello douglas,
KW> ... to add some spice to the discussion, where (and if at all) gene
KW> technology should stop, here's another option:
KW> Christians For The Cloning Of Jesus - use DNA samples from the
KW> Shroud of Turin. ALIVE!!
Why stop with JC? A whole living wax museum could be reconstituted and
promoted as a circus - just imagine the possibilities: Freud,
Einstein, Jesus of Nazereth, Adolf Hitler, Joan of Arc, Attila the
Hun, Gengis Khan, John F Kennedy, FDR, Malcom X and more - all under
one roof. It would be a real money maker.
Unfortunately, while this suggestion is more obviously ridiculous, it
obeys the same myopic reasoning and mentality motivating current GMO
development in agriculture. The importance of historical context and
evolutionary congruence (a field not yet defined scientifically), is
blanked out of the process of GMO development. The concept is not so
much as even recognized by those involved, and this is a grave error
on their part, as well as on the part of the governmental agencies
responsible for overseeing public health and environmental concerns in
the US.
Fortunately, other participants in the scientific community do
perceive inconsistencies and potential dangers as inherent with the
recombinant approach, particularly where not needed nor appropriate
(i.e. in agriculture, rather to correct biomedical pathologies), and
the evidence that should have been accumulated *before* releasing GMOs
for public use in agriculture is now slowly but surely being compiled.
The last minute attacks on those who question the viability of the
whole proprietary GMO approach to agriculture will produce no lasting
effects other than to eventually (but convincingly) discredit those
who've sold out the public interest to the cause of private gain at
the cost of an unforeseeable (in terms of proportions - and to those
who choose not to look for it), uncontrollable and totally unnecessary
environmental damage.
This is not surprising, in view of the damage now being done under
current conventional agricultural production systems, in spite of the
plethora of better alternatives available but not receiving sufficient
promotion - a form of protecting the commercial interests of those
corporations who've invested in these proprietary but inappropriate
"solutions" to the problems they've also (and consistently, from the
same ego-centric rather than agro-centric perspective), perceived
incorrectly.
While a free market responds to hype, sustainable alternatives win out
in the end, when they survive to do so - as long as the rules of the
game (legislation and the mass media) are not excessively slanted to
their detriment. That's where forums like sanet play an important,
even indispensable role.
Douglas
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