
Don't destroy research - J3L2404
http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/rothamsted-appeal.html
======
Joakal
[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-14/20110714-greenpeace-
gm...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-14/20110714-greenpeace-gm-
protest/2794272)

Greenpeace destroyed a GM wheat crop study by CSIRO, a government research
department. It's a shame because it would have found evidence whether such GM
crops had problems.

"Greenpeace says it has taken action because of concerns over health, cross-
contamination and the secrecy surrounding the experiments." _facepalms_

~~~
fennecfoxen
"A main element in their paranoia is that they are concerned that the release
of GM material outside the containment area is going to do all sorts of awful
things to "the environment," They don't seem to realise that by breaking into
the controlled area and damaging the plants they are actually spreading the
material themselves."

~~~
EthanHeilman
It is not paranoia since there is a long history of GM/transgenic crops
escaping and cross pollinating with wild-type.

Source:
[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetically...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetically-
modified-crop)

~~~
vlasta2
So what? The current, non-genetically modified plants are not holy in any
sense. They evolved and the during the evolution, their genes were altered
countless times.

Every day, an unique, genetically modified plant is born, because a gamma ray
from the outer space hit its DNA and altered it in a non-predictable fashion.
99.99999% and maybe more of these mutants are harmless and probably simply
die.

The alteration of genes can happen on your very own garden and without any
safety measures. Some of these natural mutants may even be dangerous and
nobody cares.

Is this randomness and total lack of safety better than a scientist armed with
knowledge and a place to conduct experiments?

~~~
EthanHeilman
I agree with this and generally I am not against GM crops in theory. I think
that:

1\. Monocultures are bad. GM crops don't have to be monocultures but they
generally are for a number of business reasons that have nothing to do with
food production.

2\. GM crops cross-pollenate thereby spreading patented genes to non-GM
fields. The owners of these non-GM fields are then sued and forced to switch
to GM crops.

3\. GM crops business models are often built around vendor lock-in.
Historically vendor lock-in has been bad for software development and I think
we can extrapolate these results to farming.

4\. Cross pollination to wild-type is generally disruptive to the environment
short term (for example consider what happens when wild plants produce
pesticides from a GM gene). The effects are probably no different than
introducing an invasive species. Generally people see this as a bad thing
(snakes in Hawaii for example) and create laws to prevent it from happening.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species>

5\. There is a big difference between point mutations and transgenic plants.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgene>

I think GM crops can be developed, used in a safe manner and provide a great
benefit to humanity, but that is not the current state-of-affairs. There are
good reasons the EU regulates GM crops as much as they do.

~~~
vlasta2
Well, I agree that there may be dangers. Eco-activist groups should focus on
forcing and helping the scientists and corporations to do more thorough
testing. They should not destroy crops or attempt to stop the research.
Thinking that they can stop it is naive. If it does not happen in US or EU, it
will happen elsewhere (and possibly with less effective safety precautions).

The patent thing is a separate problem. Patent law in many areas is pretty
bad.

------
EthanHeilman
I think the response from the activists should be a top-level comment so I am
reposting it here.

<http://taketheflourback.org/open-letter-to-rothamsted/>

~~~
iskander
Thanks for posting this. The quality of the comments here is otherwise sadly
low.

------
nihilocrat
"If you destroy publicly funded research, you leave us in a situation where
only the big corporations can afford the drastic security precautions needed
to continue biotechnology research - and you therefore further promote a
situation you say you are trying to avoid."

Considering the scary amount of money and power Monsanto has, and the
terrifying things they do with their GM patents, this is probably be best
argument if you are convinced GM plants are evil.

Well, that and the fact that it's /research/ and not the industrial growing of
GM foods.

------
option_greek
The environmental protection movement is slowly acquiring a mob mentality
where new ideas that modify nature in any way are scorned upon without any
scientific evaluation. All this GM backlash while millions starve across the
world and food prices are increasing.

------
ktosiek
I hope reasoning with terrorists attacking research plants will give some
results, but I'm afraid it still wont stop them - they are the same kind of
people who blow up infidels or try to get rid of "lesser race". Still, it's a
peaceful step and may reduce the amount of such attacks.

What I think is needed here is to actually make security tighter - but it's a
dance between putting lots of money into security or losing some experiments.
Unfortunately both are what those guerrillas want.

~~~
jerf
It's not an attempt to reason with terrorists. It's way smarter than that.
It's an attempt to undercut the entire reason they are doing this. The
terrorists are looking to build public awareness, sympathy, and support for
their actions against the evil nasty scientists playing with the Things Man
Was Not Meant To Know. This is an attempt to humanize the scientists, put
their work in context, and reframe the narrative from Heroic Radicals Save
Humanity From Cackling Evil Scientists to Idiotic Bookburning Knowledge-Hating
Radicals Shoot Selves In Foot and Kill Poor People. It's attacking the
foundation of the terrorism instead of getting distracted with the building on
top.

~~~
EthanHeilman
I'm not sure you are representing the views of the "terrorists" correctly.

1\. Terrorist is not an accurate title.

2\. From what I've read the metaphysical argument that "Things Man Was Not
Meant To Know" is not the reasoning behind these actions. The argument used
tends to be the same as the anti-nuclear argument. Given the facts, the danger
is too great.

3\. Plenty of people in the scientific community have serious objections to
the way GM crops are used and promoted. It's not an anti-science movement
anymore than the anti-nuclear movement was an anti-physics movement.

4\. I agree with your assessment that this is a PR maneuver aimed at the
general public.

5\. The campaign is being managed by the PR firm 'Sense About Science' which
is funded by a number of private firms. The claim that this is purely about
public scientific research is PR.

Sense about science has done some good work in the past with regard to
fighting science libel laws.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_About_Science>

~~~
jerf
"I'm not sure you are representing the views of the "terrorists" correctly."

Since I didn't try, nor do I particularly care, probably not. I was talking
about what this document does, not endorsing it or analyzing it beyond that.
Personally I'm not a big fan of narrative-based warfare regardless of who is
doing it, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize it when I see it.

------
stdbrouw
The letter wavers between being a heart-felt plea for academic research and
verbal abuse against activists. I don't particularly mind the latter, as I
feel the actions of these activists are inexcusable, but from a PR perspective
it's usually not very smart to call people idiots if you want to win them over
to your perspective.

------
xaa
Why can't they just call the police?

------
moldbug
Why should scientists have to plead with their yahoo enemies?

This is organized political violence, and organized political violence only
exists where it's passively tolerated by the government. Suppose the NAACP
learned that a bunch of yahoo skinheads were planning an attack on the
National Museum of African Art. Do you think for a minute that the museum
curators would be writing a cringing, please-don't-attack us letter about the
important artistic contributions of African Americans? Naah - a bunch of yahoo
skinheads would be preparing for a 15-year staycation at Pelican Bay.

Treat left-wing extremists the same way you treat right-wing extremists -
problem solved. Not that the problem's going to be solved. But it's worth
thinking about why.

