“We need to stop emitting CO2 completely, as soon as we possibly can, which means that we need to stop burning fossil fuels, and end deforestation. Moreover, we need to find ways to draw down the existing anthropogenic excess of CO2 — which is already causing these dangerous changes in the Arctic and elsewhere — to preindustrial levels.”
Paraphrasing Hank… Arghhh
No, that wont work. If I was King aside from over nothing, I would model automobile industry productivity, 70 million cars a year, and build wind and solar panels at the same rate and especially yearly innovation upgrade change, exactly where there are coal mines so the guys digging up the coal have descent jobs. The CO2 would drop further if automobiles turned electric, leaving petrol for planes and Hydrogen crackers, and natural gas for power plants. The two scientists skipped the idea of total boycott of CO2 because its too impractical, because we forget that there is a huge energy infrastructure of people dependent on work with that industry. Some countries even depend on it totally, for their own life style standard would collapse instantly if we theoretically drop CO2 the day after tomorrow. Its better to ease in money making renewables, for instance poor saharan and rich saudi arabian countries would become net electricity exporters, much richer, if they had a chance to cover some of that sand with solar panels, and the bedouins could become part time panel cleaners to make a buck or two. If we keep those we forget in mind better change would come faster.
SecularAnimistsays
Wayne, I wrote “stop emitting CO2 completely, as soon as we possibly can” — not “the day after tomorrow”.
So how quickly is “as soon as we possibly can”?
I would suggest that it is a lot quicker than “easing in renewables” at a pace that the fossil fuel interests will find comfortable.
SecularAnimistsays
John West wrote: “No disinformation is required to make the argument against emission reduction strategies without China and India earnestly committing to similar actions.”
True, no disinformation is required to make that argument — just stupidity. Because that’s a stupid argument.
Ric Merrittsays
Followups to John West, #494, seemed to think the comment was advocating that the US (or OECD countries, or whatever) should wait for China and India, instead of leading.
I didn’t get that at all from John’s comment. I thought he was just trying to clarify the way some others think.
Ron R.says
Steve Fish, 25 Sep 2012 at 10:04 PM.
Hi Steve. AGW is a very important concern. As such it gets a large amount of attention from the scientific community as it should including, as you point out, this site. It is spoken about in the halls of legislatures and even by Presidents of the US and other first world countries. Papers are publish every day about it. Media stories are written every day about it.
Where is the similar officially endorsed science site dealing with population, the root cause of all of our major environmental problems? Where is the similar concern, even now at this late date? Sure you can find lots of dusty individual studies out there that have been done over the years, you can find lesser, usually activist, sites devoted to it. It does not compare. The attention given to climate science dwarfs the official attention given to all the other examples of failure I gave. Has a president ever spoken about the need to get ahold of population worldwide (including in first world countries)? Maybe, I don’t know. Doubtful though. Do legislatures daily wrestle with ways to tackle this impending disaster? For decades it was basically one man, Ehrlich, who held the banner warning of overpopulation, and it was NGOs and activists, not the scientific community as a whole (i.e. AAAS, NAS etc.), that took up that banner.
Where was science in the 50s when most of these issues really began to take off? Cheerleading on the sidelines. Look what we can do! Rah Rah.
What I am saying is science should have officially stepped back at each of those junctures and looked ahead. Looked down the road for the longterm consequences. Even Native Americans did that. Consider the impact of today’s decisions on the seventh generation.
It’s true that scientists have a bigger desire to know than most other people. But they are not gods. They are human beings, subject to the same impulses and failings as every one else. They should be respected. They should not be idolized.
wilisays
To Wayne at #503:
ARGH or not, Secularist has it right this time.
The collapse of the Arctic sea ice sheet is the sound of the front wheels of the global bus going over the edge of the cliff. At that point, a sensible driver doesn’t say to himself, “Hmm, maybe it’s time to start to reduce how quickly I am pushing the pedal to the metal. I certainly can’t do anything more drastic or it may joggle some of the passengers.”
The time for easing off the gas pedal and coming to a gentle halt was passed miles (=decades) back (and pressing the pedal to the medal=the relentless drive toward eternal global economic growth, was a mistake from the beginning).
The only two options before us now are a slamming on the brakes as firmly and quickly as possible (which still only has a slight chance of keeping the bus going over the cliff, if that), and going over the cliff.
457 SecularA said, “What you are talking about boils down to the failure of human beings to apply and use the knowledge of the phenomenal world”
Interesting. Pontious Pilot washed his hands, but one scientist who witnesses the first Bomb test wondered what they had wrought. Just because you the Smart Guy would never nuke civilians, well, tell that to Nagasakians.
Jim Larsensays
To clarify,
Scientists have two “masters”. One is to Science, the advancement of knowledge for its own sake. The second is to immediate effect. Any bit of science is likely to be picked up within a generation if lost the first time. So, the invention of the nuclear bomb in the 1940s was inevitable by the 60s, but the choice of scientists to go down that path directly resulted in the vaporization of two cities. An embargo of Japan, with humanitarian exceptions, would certainly have resulted in Japan’s surrender without risk of Allied lives. Those two cities are on scientists’ heads.
flxiblesays
Jim Larsen – your consequentialist judgment is misapplied, the outcomes of the use to which any research is put is on the heads of those that use it, otherwise you’ll be blaming these folks for the CO2 problem we’re now facing – or would it be the Persians or Chinese who found the first uses for petroleum – I pick Henry Ford myself for the mass production of the emission spewing vehicles we insist on buying in fleets.
Dan H.says
Jim
The decision to bomb Japan was more a military decision than anything else. The effects of an embargo are less certain. The German siege of Leningrad lasted over two years, and they were never able to occupy the city. I imagine an entire country could hold out much longer, perhaps, indefinitely.
Even without the bombs, the military was planning a vast invasion. By most accounts, the loss of lives would’ve been much higher (both Allied and Japanese). While you may contend that the destruction of those two cities are the result of the scientists involved, you could also say that the rest of Japan (and lives) were spared by the same scientists.
As the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention,” and war generates one of the greatest necessities. Unfortunately, warring governments will use scientific advancements to the destruction of opposing peoples.
SecularAnimistsays
Jim Larsen wrote: “Those two cities are on scientists’ heads.”
Should American scientists have hidden the discovery of nuclear fission chain reactions from the US government? In the midst of WWII at a time when they had good reason to believe that Nazi Germany was already developing nuclear weapons? Should they have absolutely refused to work on the Manhattan Project, and just said “Let the Nazis build a bomb, we won’t have anything to do with it?”
More importantly, COULD scientists have hidden the discovery of nuclear fission from the US government?
Scientists don’t create these things. They discover facts of nature. Nuclear fission is a fact of nature. Genetics is a fact of nature. Knowledge of these facts gives human beings enormous power over nature.
Your argument would seem to lead to the conclusion that since human beings individually and/or collectively — including scientists, engineers, politicians, military leaders, industrialists, etc. — may choose to use this knowledge in harmful ways, that science as a way of studying and understanding nature should be abandoned and abolished, to make sure that we know as little about it as possible, so we can do less harm. To cower in fear of knowledge.
Also, I’d point out that there are a number of posts in this thread that refer to “science” as though “science” were some kind of monolithic entity — “science” did this, “science” failed to do that, as though they were saying “the Pentagon did this” or “the Kremlin did that”. There is no monolithic entity, “science”, which “did” any of these things that everyone is railing against.
Yes, there were nuclear physicists who worked to develop nuclear weapons — and there are also nuclear physicists who have been outspoken leaders of the nuclear disarmament movement.
dhogazasays
Those two cities are on scientists’ heads.
No, they’re on Truman’s head, as he ignored requests that the bomb be demonstrated where the Japanese couldn’t miss it, but where damage would be minimalized (off Tokyo Bay, for instance). Requests from leading scientists in the Manhattan Project.
He also ignored written opinions by a couple dozen of the top US military brass, including Eisenhower, LeMay, Nimitz, Marshall, etc that Japan would fold without use of the bomb:
“During [Secretary of War Stimson’s] recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude…”
And later, in 1963, when it was considered anti-american to question the bombing of Hiroshima:
“…the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”
At the time of the Japaneses surrender, the US estimated that the USSR would have the atomic bomb by the early 1950s, so I don’t understand his claim that the bome was only inevetible by the 1960s (espionage led to them having it in 1947, with a simple hydrogen-enhanced version by the early 1950s which was not stolen from US designs).
Germany, Japan, and the USSR all had fission bomb projects during the war.
dhogazasays
Oh, quotes above were Einsenhower …
This is getting seriously off-topic …
Jim Larsensays
514 SecularA said, “Should American scientists have hidden the discovery of nuclear fission chain reactions from the US government? In the midst of WWII at a time when they had good reason to believe that Nazi Germany was already developing nuclear weapons?”
Excellent question. First and foremost, the Bomb was initiated by a letter from scientists, so it was a deliberate change in scientific direction by scientists specifically for the development of the Bomb.
Now, in 1939 the decision to build such a weapon at the dawning of a world war might have been proper, necessary, wise, or not. Two cities ended up vapor because of that decision by scientists. Worth it? perhaps.
JCHsays
Wrt to WW2 and the end of the Pacific War, more human beings were killed by conventional bombing, incendiaries, than were killed by the two atomic bombs. In the last months of the war, our Naval blockade effectively ended imports of any kind. Bad weather in Japan destroyed their crops; our Naval blockade virtually ended their access to food from the ocean. They were on the verge of starvation. Our bombing campaign was about to concentrate on destroying their food distribution system, which would have left tens of millions with no food at all.
I seriously doubt the Japanese military would have allowed humanitarian food shipments for the Japanese public.
In the 12 months after the surrender more Japanese people died from diseases caused by malnutrition than were killed by the atomic bombs. If not for the work of former President Hoover, it would have been far worse. He somehow convinced a very reluctant congress to send emergency food to Japan. On the heads of those scientists are millions of innocent civilians who did not starve to death.
Jim Larsensays
Chris D,
I’d like to actually finish our “blame” discussion. It seems your pattern is to toss blame, then I engage and ask questions, and you go silent, only to pop up tossing blame again. That’s dysfunctional. Stop it.
1. I showed that the US has refused to “brake” via increased vehicle efficiency and asked if you thought that made the US culpable. Crickets is NOT an acceptable response.
2. How does the size of the country matter? What, you split China in quarters and it suddenly becomes Saintly?
3. If you buy a 70MPG(?) microcar, you’re being a Climate Saint, but if an Indian villager buys one, he’s being Satanic. Explain the morality, the fairness, of your concept. Frankly, you sound like a greedy pig who wants to maintain his own unearned advantage. You were born with a carbon right? Naw, every time you fill that tank, it’s a brand new sin.
Ray Ladburysays
Ah, I see Jim Larsen putting his revisionist history degree to work. Do you also blame Jews for the making of the atomic bomb–after all, it was the prospect of a Nazi nuclear weapon that drove Szilard to appeal to Einstein?
Scientists do not stand apart from the world. They are part of it. They are buffeted by the same winds of history. So, Jim, I ask you first to place yourself in the shoes–and in the troubled minds–of Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein. You know that the nucleus has tremendous power when it fissions (Z>26). You know that a chain reaction is possible. This suggests–but does not prove–that it might be possible to build a nuclear weapon. You don’t know if it would be a practical weapon of war–Einstein’s original letter to Roosevelt speaks of a weapon carried aboard a battle ship into a harbor. You do know that many of the top nuclear scientists–including Heisenberg–are German, and that several are even party members of a kleptocracy masquerading as a political party that threatens western civilization in general and your people in particular.
I ask you Jim, how would you have acted?
And do you really think it brought any comfort to the people of Dresden or Tokyo to know that it was conventional weapons rather than nuclear weapons that destroyed their cities?
“War is hell. You cannot refine it.”–William Tecumseh Sherman
wilisays
SA, is there a situation where you can imagine a scientist saying, “I could make some important discoveries here, but the society I am in would use them to horrendous ends, so I will direct my interests elsewhere”?
What about if you were a nuclear scientist under the Nazis? Would you just say, “Science is science, and we should pursue truth no matter what our social context, even if we end up putting incredibly powerful weapons in the hands of madmen”?
Jim Larsensays
What a great guess. First hit on Google is a 70MPG street-legal 3-wheel microcar. (NOTE: 3 wheeled vehicles are considered motorcycles and so do not have to meet crash standards)
And only $6,999. Hard to imagine anybody who’s a reg here buying anything else….
517 wili, virus lethality enhancement research is a good example.
Jim Larsensays
521 Ray L asked, “I ask you Jim, how would you have acted?”
Only a guess, but I’m pretty sure I’d have written more than one letter.
SecularAnimistsays
I’ll repeat what I said above: there is no such thing as a monolithic “science” that can be blamed for doing this or failing to do that, as earlier comments by Chris Korda et al asserted.
And I’ll note that the discussion has since shifted to the actions and decisions of individual scientists about how to handle particular scientific discoveries, e.g. nuclear fission — and with that shift, it quickly becomes apparent that those individual decisions were neither simple, nor morally unambiguous.
But whatever one thinks about the particular decisions made by particular scientists regarding particular discoveries, to try to turn that into a sweeping indictment of “science” — as a way of knowledge, as a wide-ranging and varied human enterprise — is just silly.
And in any case, as I wrote earlier — what’s the alternative? What’s the alternative to looking at the world and trying to figure it out? Shall we choose blindness? Shall we forbid inquiry into nature, and hide in fear of knowledge?
Remember climate modeling has long been done by the petroleum companies, to know where the stuff formed before the continents drifted — so they can figure out where to look for it now.
That was not likely the kind of modeling done now — smaller computers, and a need to know all about local climate in locations, not about atmospheric transmission and global change.
Those scientists doing proprietary work for the petroleum companies could not have discovered — and told their managers about — global warming. They weren’t looking there.
It’s not a tobacco/lead/asbestos industry situation.
Compare that to the persistent organic chemicals situation.
Public health scientists determine that some chemical has definite bad effects.
Regulators push through years of work to get industry to control production and distrbution.
Industrial chemists then can “substitute a bromine for a chlorine somewhere, so it’s an entirely different molecule” (paraphrasing a scientist interviewed on NPR last week) and the regulatory process starts over from scratch — as there’s no precautionary principle in the US for the stupidly obvious behaviors. You need to show damage before throttling them.
That, as Robert Reich points out often, is the main reason why we have big government and detailed, ever-changing regulations — because they’re chasing the endless reinvention of loopholes and never catching up with them.
You don’t need to invoke Godwin’s Law in this kind of discussion. Current issues are plenty.
Jim Larsensays
523 SecularA said, ” What’s the alternative to looking at the world and trying to figure it out? Shall we choose blindness? ”
That’s the old Star Trek question. “Are we ready for whatever Knowledge?”. I didn’t make the connection to try to dissuade knowledge, but to point out that in times of crisis, a discovery which leads to a particular level of understanding 20 years sooner is potentially less important than activity which leads to a less/more destructive path now. Figuring out the ramifications of work such as viral transmission genetics or Bombs or even Geoengineering is what keeps those who engage in such work up at night – if they’re the good guys.
David B. Bensonsays
Yawn.
dhogazasays
Only a guess, but I’m pretty sure I’d have written more than one letter.
Undoubtably, because unlike Einstein your first (and following) would be ignored … :)
Ron R.says
will: SA, is there a situation where you can imagine a scientist saying, “I could make some important discoveries here, but the society I am in would use them to horrendous ends, so I will direct my interests elsewhere”?
SA: as I wrote earlier — what’s the alternative? What’s the alternative to looking at the world and trying to figure it out? Shall we choose blindness? Shall we forbid inquiry into nature, and hide in fear of knowledge?
Ok,say someone comes to you with a big grin on his face and says, I’d like to create a way to destroy all life on earth in ten seconds flat. Are you with me?” Would your answer would be “Just say know!”?
Okay, then how about just a country. Would that be okay with you? I trust you can see where this is going. There are some things better left alone.
About a ‘monolithic entity’ that speaks for science and scientists as a whole, yes it/they do exist. Think about it. That monolithic entity is using it’s influence to speak out against AGW. To peak out for evolution science. I’m saying that it should have used it’s influence and spoken out many years ago when it could see the destructive trajectory we are on. These are not stupid people. I fault them for not doing so.
Patrick 027says
Re 515 Secular Animist – “Yes, there were nuclear physicists who worked to develop nuclear weapons — and there are also nuclear physicists who have been outspoken leaders of the nuclear disarmament movement.” – and weren’t at least some/one of them the same people?
Re 527 Hank Roberts – thanks.
Re 526,528 – yes, we ate that fruit from the tree of knowledge. If you’re interested, see what Kushner had to say about that in “How Good Do We Have to Be?”
Re Chris Korda 442 and earlier – of course, creativity is important along with analytical skills, etc. Both science and art use both in different ways. Art uses science, and sometimes maybe vice versa (psychology, archeology, but also … paleoclimatology? Ecology (is this cave painting evidence that these species were around … etc.)). Although, outside of surrealism, I’ve tended to draw/paint/photograph natural scenery (or spacescapes), I have also experienced beauty in buildings and urban landscapes, and technology.
Re Ron R. (455?) – antibiotics – it made sense to use them. Then when we found out they could ‘were off’ (on an ecological/evolutionary level), we (at some point, don’t know when exactly this started) looked for new ones, and then we also figured out that doctors shouldn’t prescribe them for viruses just to appease patients, and patients need to take the full dose, etc, and also, there’s the livestock issue – which I wouldn’t blame on the discovery or original usage of penicillin. Also, GMO foods – they make me a bit uneasy – but there are people going around saying that they are risky with evidence that isn’t really good evidence for that (I read one or two entries at “Tomorrow’s Table” blog – one about a visit to Dr. Oz) – and lateral genetic transfers do occur naturally (by viruses, and ?) – I had thought not very often, relative to inheretance, but someone gave me the impression of otherwise (same blog – different or same post, not sure) – I’m not sure of the significance of that for this issue, but … anyway, this has all been covered now by others, including in various ways what I meant at 444, which I could make a bit more Shakespearean: The fault is not in our science but in ourselves (including scientists, sometimes).
Anyway, I’ve been looking into that whole Nissan Leaf issue… more later…
Radge Haverssays
Sounds like Work Avoidance Strategy #437 to me. Bottom line, nobody here can demonstrate that being logical (scientific, or whatever) turns people into unfeeling automatons or mad scientists.
The whole focus on the bygone (neo)classical/romantic thing is verging on the artistically suspect anyway, since for one thing, you could argue that you’re just talking about different phases of one essentially romantic movement.
So more recently, people get freaked out by a rapidly changing world they don’t understand, and end up resorting to unresolved 1950’s memes –that lurking somewhere in the shadows are the spawn of out-of-control scientists; giant radioactive spiders that will eat unsuspecting, feeling people who have feelings and who just mind their own business with feeling.
Easier than trying to keep up, I suppose.
Jim Larsensays
” in times of crisis, a discovery which leads to a particular level of understanding 20 years sooner is potentially less important than activity which leads to a less/more destructive path now.”
So when a scientist is choosing his work, she might want to consider public opinion far more than would be scientifically appropriate.
Ron R.says
Patrick 027 27 Sep 2012 at 8:51 PM
Resistance to antibiotics has been known at least since the 1950s. But it seems the dealing with the consequences of its use was a can kicked down the road. According to the following article antibiotic resistance wasn’t officially addressed until 1981. By then it was too late.
I think people might have foreseen what could happen. If they could not then they should have held off until they did know, or at least actively tried to address the issue much earlier. Anyway, I am not against responsible antibiotic use, I’m only making a point.
We jumped the gun with GMOs. Why were 90 day trials ever deemed acceptable? Why did the scientific community and government allow the biotech giants to police themselves? Why was it mainly activists that spoke out for more research before approval?
We now know that the genome is highly networked. Next we may find that a network also exists across genomes, perhaps even across species lines. It could be that we really are all connected. Mess with one and you mess with us all.
I hope people don’t get me wrong. I am of course not anti-science, just anti-irresponsible science. I’m just saying that scientists have made some horrible judgement calls in the past. We need to keep all this science veneration in perspective. And science as a whole needs to start speaking up and speaking out.
Dan H.says
Science is all about understanding and discovery. Every modern weapon of war is a product of that science. But so is every modern medical breakthrough, technological advancement, and industrila process. Scientists uncovered these processes, but it was others who chose to use them for destructive purposes. When Alfred Noble patented dynamite, it was not intended for warfare, but that did not stop people from useing for such. Granted, some knew that their work would be used for warfare, but others did not. Nuclear fission has resulted in significantly more productive uses than destructive ones. Tabun was originally produced has an insecticide, but look what happened when the German army got hold of it.
Scientists cannot control the use of their discoveries. The best they can probably do is to inform others as to the potential consequences of them. In the case where a scientist is working directly for a known evil empire, it would be wise to suppress such discoveries. Imagine what the world might be like if Einstein, Born, Bohr, Meitner, Frisch, Szilard and others had not emigrated.
Superman1says
[edit – OT]
Ray Ladburysays
Ron R.,
OK, now let’s change your scenario a wee bit.
Let us say you are approached by a concerned government official, who says, “We have evidence that ______ is engaged in research they claim could kill everyone on Earth in 10 seconds. Is this a credible threat? Would you be willing to carry out research to assess whether this is real?”
You know that _______ is controlled by utter whackjobs. What would you do?
Kurt Vonnegut told an interesting story. Shortly after writing “Cat’s Cradle,” he was at a party where he was telling people about the doomsday scenario in his book, where ice-9, a phase of ice stable above room temperature–freezes all the world’s water turning the planet immediately into a desert. One of the guests in the crowd was a crystallographer and so very interested in the concept. After discussing the idea for a while, Vonnegut didn’t see him for a couple of hours. Then the guy showed up with a napkin full of equations and diagrams and said to Vonnegut, “It’s impossible.”
You cannot assess threats unless you understand how they might be realized.
wilisays
Good point, Ray. I hadn’t heard that story.
Hank’s point is good, too–there are lots of scientists now engaged in helping corporations continue to produce hazardous chemicals. I don’t know if they rationalize it in some way. They are certainly getting paid. Some probably apply the “If I don’t do it, somebody else will (and get paid for it)” (im-)moral argument.
But I think most people want to believe that they are working in some way for the greater good.
If they think the society and the institutions they are working for are essentially benign or better, I would think they would work harder for it. If they view those as essentially destructive, many will at least work less enthusiastically.
It seems to me that this was the case with some of the scientists that were supposed to be working on Saddam Hussein’s weapons systems–they pretended to be working on things, but kind of dragged their feet on development.
Of course, all of this ultimately applies to all of us. At what point do we conclude that the efforts we are making to contribute to society are actually supporting a monstrous system that is in the process of destroying much of the life (and systems that support life) on earth?
Ron R.says
I’d like to add something to a post I wrote yesterday which hasn’t appeared yet.
From that last site discussing the H5N1 virus experimentation:
The most important speech delivered at the Royal Society came from Dr. Paul Berg, the 89-year-old Stanford biologist who led the first great review of biology experimental safety back in 1975. That was at the dawn of the genetic engineering era, when scientists were just beginning to manipulate life forms and use viruses to carry genetic changes into cells.
“Hubris runs high among scientists,” Berg sternly warned the London meeting via live videoconference from Palo Alto. “Scientists have an incredible ability to ignore the risks of our own work.”
Hubris also pushes scientists to believe in self-regulation, excluding outsiders and demeaning the worries of the general public and political leaders. That is dangerous, warned Berg. “Not enough has been done to keep the public informed and aware,” in the H5N1 case. “A social contract between science and the public is great. But now it is under strain.” http://www.lauriegarrett.com/index.php/en/blog/3186/#&panel1-3
Ray, certainly doing calculations to determine the feasibility of a threat is one thing. Actually constructing said threat is another altogether. You know that when they constructed the bomb they meant to hold tightly onto that technology without letting it get out. Didn’t take long though did it? Now just about every cracker jack banana republic out there either has one, is on their way to getting one or wants one. Should we be experimenting with bio-warfare? Any objections to that?
As I brought up upthread about geoengineering solutions to fight climate change, we ought not be building things with potential for vast harm if we cannot undo said thread, and in a hurry, if necessary.
IMO.
[Response:You appear not to understand the nature of the issue here. The work that the lab that your cited blog piece refers to, is designed to investigate the potential for naturally occurring genetic recombination to produce strains of the H5N1 (aka “bird flu”) with the capacity for aerosol transmission in humans (which does not currently exist and is the primary limitation to a global pandemic that would kill many millions of people), and to specifically identify what changes would be required to do so. The threat here is not human science/technology or whatever human-created bogeyman you have in mind, but rather the ability of natural evolutionary processes to produce the highly transmissable, and yet still highly virulent, form of the virus that does not currently exist. This kind of work is absolutely essential in effective vaccine development, and moreover, in even informing the likelihood that such vaccines are even likely to be needed at all. So when you say “doing calculations to determine the feasibility of a threat is one thing. Actually constructing said threat is another altogether” this is off base. In lieu of not being able to calculate the likelihood of recombination and/or mutation producing the transmissable strain, experimentation is essential, but it is very highly regulated, and the lethal H5N1 virulence genes are not included in the construct–they are replaced by non-lethal virulence genes from other viral families like H1N1, to which there is a large general immunity in the human population. Furthermore, the constructs are all tested in non-human systems, and it is not even clear that the transmissability that occurs in those organisms would in fact hold in humans. Furthermore, this type of research informs the question of just exactly how hard would it be for terrorists or whomever to create these kinds of strains in the laboratory. You can count me on the short list of those who are extremely grateful for the advanced tools and understanding that the molecular geneticists and cell biologists bring to bear on problems like this. Not to mention on cancer, AIDS and the whole rest of the suite of potential or actual killers–Jim]
Ron R.says
Dan H, you know what they say about the road to hell.
About the best laid plans.
Maybe there should be some things that are just off limits.
SecularAnimistsays
Ron R. wrote: “Why did the scientific community and government allow the biotech giants to police themselves?”
The “scientific community” is in no position to “allow” or to not “allow” giant corporations like Monsanto to do anything. Plenty of scientists have expressed concerns about GMO technology, particularly regarding the virtually unregulated release into the wild of genetically engineered crops. But there is no scientific entity that has the authority to “allow” or not “allow” that.
The government — which certainly does have that authority — is another story, and the too-cozy relationship between Monsanto and the relevant regulatory agencies is well documented.
Ron R. wrote: “And science as a whole needs to start speaking up and speaking out.”
Again, there is no such thing as “science as a whole” that can “speak out”. “Science as a whole” is just an abstraction. It is not some real entity that can be blamed for anything.
There are individual scientists, and there is a multitude of scientific organizations that focus on different fields of science, and many individual scientists and scientific organizations have in fact “spoken out” on all the matters of concern that have been mentioned here.
Sure. And the political/business PR types are _still_ maligning Rachel Carson, along with claims climate change is a conspiracy to control freedom. E.g. the nitwittery at thenewatlantis, you know how to find this stuff. But that’s not science. It’s a pretense to be scientificy-sounding, though. Familiar, eh?
For folks interested in tropical cyclones and the observational record you might be interested in visiting cyclonecenter.org where you can help crowdsource intensity estimates for all tropical cyclone activity globally since the geostationary IR record began. These results will lead to papers so (no offense to the blog proprietors) this may be more scientifically productive in the long term than opining on a blog in pushing the science forwards …!
Caveat emptor small print: I am a very junior member of the science group.
dbostromsays
Hank: …political/business PR types are _still_ maligning Rachel Carson, along with claims climate change is a conspiracy to control freedom
A conspiracy or plot or other form of collusion is the unavoidable bottom of the intellectual funnel that begins with “I doubt it but I can’t explain why.”
Short of a truly functional means to dismiss the problem of AGW, an Earthly conspiracy is relatively more plausible than invoking cloaked aliens releasing C02 into the air to warm the planet or some other even more impossible “explanation” for what’s going on. Claiming the evidence is faked is the pragmatic but infinitely distant next best thing to a competent argument against facts; a vaguely imagined plot is explanatory magic of the most parsimonious variety.
Conspiracy is the convergent minimally irrational solution to climate change for people who can’t or won’t deal with the problem.
Is it science if it’s not published in a peer reviewed journal?
I’d think not.
There are lots of industrial and nuclear chemists out there with scientific training and degrees — but the ones doing proprietary work that’s not in the journals are working as technicians.
Mal Adaptedsays
Hank:
(the NYT celebrates Talk Like a Pirate day?)
When is it Swear Like a Sailor day?
Mal Adaptedsays
Over at Sharon Astyk’s blog, a couple of DK-afflicted parties are propagating the “Rachel Carson is responsible for millions of deaths from malaria” meme. My own counter-efforts lack skill, unfortunately. More competent arguments are needed, futile though they may seem.
[Response: Deltoid had many discussions on this: here, here, here for instance. – gavin]
dbostromsays
Re Maladapted and the DDT shibboleth, that’s an exercise in futility. The argument isn’t about DDT at all, it’s about incompatibility of cherished principles of self-determination with living on a planet having a population of more than one person, fond wishes for a corporeal existence that is not shared.
Radge Haverssays
Ron R. @ 540 Re: The quotes stating that scientists are [insert bunch of stuff here].
Reminds me of those astrology thingies. You know, if you were born on such and such a date, then you are this, that, and the other; and mysteriously it always seems to apply if you think about it in a certain way. Sort of like saying, if you’re born under the sign of the Scientist then you have the characteristics of a buthead (that would be a Bunsen burner representing the constellation Poindexter presumably).
Ironically that stuff about hubris seems to apply even more exactly to certain demagogues who make a living from FUD mongering, i.e., deliberately corrupting civil discourse by stirring up and misdirecting “the worries of the general public and political leaders.”
490 Hank Roberts Thanks
ARGH!
(the NYT celebrates Talk Like a Pirate day?)
http://www.physicstoday.org/daily_edition/science_and_the_media/new_public_editor_at_em_new_york_times_em_engages_the_false_balance_conundrum
Secular:
“We need to stop emitting CO2 completely, as soon as we possibly can, which means that we need to stop burning fossil fuels, and end deforestation. Moreover, we need to find ways to draw down the existing anthropogenic excess of CO2 — which is already causing these dangerous changes in the Arctic and elsewhere — to preindustrial levels.”
Paraphrasing Hank… Arghhh
No, that wont work. If I was King aside from over nothing, I would model automobile industry productivity, 70 million cars a year, and build wind and solar panels at the same rate and especially yearly innovation upgrade change, exactly where there are coal mines so the guys digging up the coal have descent jobs. The CO2 would drop further if automobiles turned electric, leaving petrol for planes and Hydrogen crackers, and natural gas for power plants. The two scientists skipped the idea of total boycott of CO2 because its too impractical, because we forget that there is a huge energy infrastructure of people dependent on work with that industry. Some countries even depend on it totally, for their own life style standard would collapse instantly if we theoretically drop CO2 the day after tomorrow. Its better to ease in money making renewables, for instance poor saharan and rich saudi arabian countries would become net electricity exporters, much richer, if they had a chance to cover some of that sand with solar panels, and the bedouins could become part time panel cleaners to make a buck or two. If we keep those we forget in mind better change would come faster.
Wayne, I wrote “stop emitting CO2 completely, as soon as we possibly can” — not “the day after tomorrow”.
So how quickly is “as soon as we possibly can”?
I would suggest that it is a lot quicker than “easing in renewables” at a pace that the fossil fuel interests will find comfortable.
John West wrote: “No disinformation is required to make the argument against emission reduction strategies without China and India earnestly committing to similar actions.”
True, no disinformation is required to make that argument — just stupidity. Because that’s a stupid argument.
Followups to John West, #494, seemed to think the comment was advocating that the US (or OECD countries, or whatever) should wait for China and India, instead of leading.
I didn’t get that at all from John’s comment. I thought he was just trying to clarify the way some others think.
Steve Fish, 25 Sep 2012 at 10:04 PM.
Hi Steve. AGW is a very important concern. As such it gets a large amount of attention from the scientific community as it should including, as you point out, this site. It is spoken about in the halls of legislatures and even by Presidents of the US and other first world countries. Papers are publish every day about it. Media stories are written every day about it.
Where is the similar officially endorsed science site dealing with population, the root cause of all of our major environmental problems? Where is the similar concern, even now at this late date? Sure you can find lots of dusty individual studies out there that have been done over the years, you can find lesser, usually activist, sites devoted to it. It does not compare. The attention given to climate science dwarfs the official attention given to all the other examples of failure I gave. Has a president ever spoken about the need to get ahold of population worldwide (including in first world countries)? Maybe, I don’t know. Doubtful though. Do legislatures daily wrestle with ways to tackle this impending disaster? For decades it was basically one man, Ehrlich, who held the banner warning of overpopulation, and it was NGOs and activists, not the scientific community as a whole (i.e. AAAS, NAS etc.), that took up that banner.
Where was science in the 50s when most of these issues really began to take off? Cheerleading on the sidelines. Look what we can do! Rah Rah.
What I am saying is science should have officially stepped back at each of those junctures and looked ahead. Looked down the road for the longterm consequences. Even Native Americans did that. Consider the impact of today’s decisions on the seventh generation.
It’s true that scientists have a bigger desire to know than most other people. But they are not gods. They are human beings, subject to the same impulses and failings as every one else. They should be respected. They should not be idolized.
To Wayne at #503:
ARGH or not, Secularist has it right this time.
The collapse of the Arctic sea ice sheet is the sound of the front wheels of the global bus going over the edge of the cliff. At that point, a sensible driver doesn’t say to himself, “Hmm, maybe it’s time to start to reduce how quickly I am pushing the pedal to the metal. I certainly can’t do anything more drastic or it may joggle some of the passengers.”
The time for easing off the gas pedal and coming to a gentle halt was passed miles (=decades) back (and pressing the pedal to the medal=the relentless drive toward eternal global economic growth, was a mistake from the beginning).
The only two options before us now are a slamming on the brakes as firmly and quickly as possible (which still only has a slight chance of keeping the bus going over the cliff, if that), and going over the cliff.
Secular understands this.
Most, even on this site, apparently, do not…yet.
Protecting the Arctic?
An interesting bit of paleoclimatology (which raises a further interesting question).
Extreme Climate Change Linked to Early Animal Evolution
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120926161722.htm
457 SecularA said, “What you are talking about boils down to the failure of human beings to apply and use the knowledge of the phenomenal world”
Interesting. Pontious Pilot washed his hands, but one scientist who witnesses the first Bomb test wondered what they had wrought. Just because you the Smart Guy would never nuke civilians, well, tell that to Nagasakians.
To clarify,
Scientists have two “masters”. One is to Science, the advancement of knowledge for its own sake. The second is to immediate effect. Any bit of science is likely to be picked up within a generation if lost the first time. So, the invention of the nuclear bomb in the 1940s was inevitable by the 60s, but the choice of scientists to go down that path directly resulted in the vaporization of two cities. An embargo of Japan, with humanitarian exceptions, would certainly have resulted in Japan’s surrender without risk of Allied lives. Those two cities are on scientists’ heads.
Jim Larsen – your consequentialist judgment is misapplied, the outcomes of the use to which any research is put is on the heads of those that use it, otherwise you’ll be blaming these folks for the CO2 problem we’re now facing – or would it be the Persians or Chinese who found the first uses for petroleum – I pick Henry Ford myself for the mass production of the emission spewing vehicles we insist on buying in fleets.
Jim
The decision to bomb Japan was more a military decision than anything else. The effects of an embargo are less certain. The German siege of Leningrad lasted over two years, and they were never able to occupy the city. I imagine an entire country could hold out much longer, perhaps, indefinitely.
Even without the bombs, the military was planning a vast invasion. By most accounts, the loss of lives would’ve been much higher (both Allied and Japanese). While you may contend that the destruction of those two cities are the result of the scientists involved, you could also say that the rest of Japan (and lives) were spared by the same scientists.
As the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention,” and war generates one of the greatest necessities. Unfortunately, warring governments will use scientific advancements to the destruction of opposing peoples.
Jim Larsen wrote: “Those two cities are on scientists’ heads.”
Should American scientists have hidden the discovery of nuclear fission chain reactions from the US government? In the midst of WWII at a time when they had good reason to believe that Nazi Germany was already developing nuclear weapons? Should they have absolutely refused to work on the Manhattan Project, and just said “Let the Nazis build a bomb, we won’t have anything to do with it?”
More importantly, COULD scientists have hidden the discovery of nuclear fission from the US government?
Scientists don’t create these things. They discover facts of nature. Nuclear fission is a fact of nature. Genetics is a fact of nature. Knowledge of these facts gives human beings enormous power over nature.
Your argument would seem to lead to the conclusion that since human beings individually and/or collectively — including scientists, engineers, politicians, military leaders, industrialists, etc. — may choose to use this knowledge in harmful ways, that science as a way of studying and understanding nature should be abandoned and abolished, to make sure that we know as little about it as possible, so we can do less harm. To cower in fear of knowledge.
Also, I’d point out that there are a number of posts in this thread that refer to “science” as though “science” were some kind of monolithic entity — “science” did this, “science” failed to do that, as though they were saying “the Pentagon did this” or “the Kremlin did that”. There is no monolithic entity, “science”, which “did” any of these things that everyone is railing against.
Yes, there were nuclear physicists who worked to develop nuclear weapons — and there are also nuclear physicists who have been outspoken leaders of the nuclear disarmament movement.
No, they’re on Truman’s head, as he ignored requests that the bomb be demonstrated where the Japanese couldn’t miss it, but where damage would be minimalized (off Tokyo Bay, for instance). Requests from leading scientists in the Manhattan Project.
He also ignored written opinions by a couple dozen of the top US military brass, including Eisenhower, LeMay, Nimitz, Marshall, etc that Japan would fold without use of the bomb:
And later, in 1963, when it was considered anti-american to question the bombing of Hiroshima:
At the time of the Japaneses surrender, the US estimated that the USSR would have the atomic bomb by the early 1950s, so I don’t understand his claim that the bome was only inevetible by the 1960s (espionage led to them having it in 1947, with a simple hydrogen-enhanced version by the early 1950s which was not stolen from US designs).
Germany, Japan, and the USSR all had fission bomb projects during the war.
Oh, quotes above were Einsenhower …
This is getting seriously off-topic …
514 SecularA said, “Should American scientists have hidden the discovery of nuclear fission chain reactions from the US government? In the midst of WWII at a time when they had good reason to believe that Nazi Germany was already developing nuclear weapons?”
Excellent question. First and foremost, the Bomb was initiated by a letter from scientists, so it was a deliberate change in scientific direction by scientists specifically for the development of the Bomb.
http://www.dannen.com/ae-fdr.html
Now, in 1939 the decision to build such a weapon at the dawning of a world war might have been proper, necessary, wise, or not. Two cities ended up vapor because of that decision by scientists. Worth it? perhaps.
Wrt to WW2 and the end of the Pacific War, more human beings were killed by conventional bombing, incendiaries, than were killed by the two atomic bombs. In the last months of the war, our Naval blockade effectively ended imports of any kind. Bad weather in Japan destroyed their crops; our Naval blockade virtually ended their access to food from the ocean. They were on the verge of starvation. Our bombing campaign was about to concentrate on destroying their food distribution system, which would have left tens of millions with no food at all.
I seriously doubt the Japanese military would have allowed humanitarian food shipments for the Japanese public.
In the 12 months after the surrender more Japanese people died from diseases caused by malnutrition than were killed by the atomic bombs. If not for the work of former President Hoover, it would have been far worse. He somehow convinced a very reluctant congress to send emergency food to Japan. On the heads of those scientists are millions of innocent civilians who did not starve to death.
Chris D,
I’d like to actually finish our “blame” discussion. It seems your pattern is to toss blame, then I engage and ask questions, and you go silent, only to pop up tossing blame again. That’s dysfunctional. Stop it.
1. I showed that the US has refused to “brake” via increased vehicle efficiency and asked if you thought that made the US culpable. Crickets is NOT an acceptable response.
2. How does the size of the country matter? What, you split China in quarters and it suddenly becomes Saintly?
3. If you buy a 70MPG(?) microcar, you’re being a Climate Saint, but if an Indian villager buys one, he’s being Satanic. Explain the morality, the fairness, of your concept. Frankly, you sound like a greedy pig who wants to maintain his own unearned advantage. You were born with a carbon right? Naw, every time you fill that tank, it’s a brand new sin.
Ah, I see Jim Larsen putting his revisionist history degree to work. Do you also blame Jews for the making of the atomic bomb–after all, it was the prospect of a Nazi nuclear weapon that drove Szilard to appeal to Einstein?
Scientists do not stand apart from the world. They are part of it. They are buffeted by the same winds of history. So, Jim, I ask you first to place yourself in the shoes–and in the troubled minds–of Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein. You know that the nucleus has tremendous power when it fissions (Z>26). You know that a chain reaction is possible. This suggests–but does not prove–that it might be possible to build a nuclear weapon. You don’t know if it would be a practical weapon of war–Einstein’s original letter to Roosevelt speaks of a weapon carried aboard a battle ship into a harbor. You do know that many of the top nuclear scientists–including Heisenberg–are German, and that several are even party members of a kleptocracy masquerading as a political party that threatens western civilization in general and your people in particular.
I ask you Jim, how would you have acted?
And do you really think it brought any comfort to the people of Dresden or Tokyo to know that it was conventional weapons rather than nuclear weapons that destroyed their cities?
“War is hell. You cannot refine it.”–William Tecumseh Sherman
SA, is there a situation where you can imagine a scientist saying, “I could make some important discoveries here, but the society I am in would use them to horrendous ends, so I will direct my interests elsewhere”?
What about if you were a nuclear scientist under the Nazis? Would you just say, “Science is science, and we should pursue truth no matter what our social context, even if we end up putting incredibly powerful weapons in the hands of madmen”?
What a great guess. First hit on Google is a 70MPG street-legal 3-wheel microcar. (NOTE: 3 wheeled vehicles are considered motorcycles and so do not have to meet crash standards)
And only $6,999. Hard to imagine anybody who’s a reg here buying anything else….
http://www.saferwholesale.com/Brand-New-600cc-Street-Legal-3-Wheel-Car-p/syn-600cc-street3wheelcar.htm?gclid=CN6ap_2x1rICFRSSPAoddW0AMQ
517 wili, virus lethality enhancement research is a good example.
521 Ray L asked, “I ask you Jim, how would you have acted?”
Only a guess, but I’m pretty sure I’d have written more than one letter.
I’ll repeat what I said above: there is no such thing as a monolithic “science” that can be blamed for doing this or failing to do that, as earlier comments by Chris Korda et al asserted.
And I’ll note that the discussion has since shifted to the actions and decisions of individual scientists about how to handle particular scientific discoveries, e.g. nuclear fission — and with that shift, it quickly becomes apparent that those individual decisions were neither simple, nor morally unambiguous.
But whatever one thinks about the particular decisions made by particular scientists regarding particular discoveries, to try to turn that into a sweeping indictment of “science” — as a way of knowledge, as a wide-ranging and varied human enterprise — is just silly.
And in any case, as I wrote earlier — what’s the alternative? What’s the alternative to looking at the world and trying to figure it out? Shall we choose blindness? Shall we forbid inquiry into nature, and hide in fear of knowledge?
Remember climate modeling has long been done by the petroleum companies, to know where the stuff formed before the continents drifted — so they can figure out where to look for it now.
That was not likely the kind of modeling done now — smaller computers, and a need to know all about local climate in locations, not about atmospheric transmission and global change.
Those scientists doing proprietary work for the petroleum companies could not have discovered — and told their managers about — global warming. They weren’t looking there.
It’s not a tobacco/lead/asbestos industry situation.
Compare that to the persistent organic chemicals situation.
Public health scientists determine that some chemical has definite bad effects.
Regulators push through years of work to get industry to control production and distrbution.
Industrial chemists then can “substitute a bromine for a chlorine somewhere, so it’s an entirely different molecule” (paraphrasing a scientist interviewed on NPR last week) and the regulatory process starts over from scratch — as there’s no precautionary principle in the US for the stupidly obvious behaviors. You need to show damage before throttling them.
That, as Robert Reich points out often, is the main reason why we have big government and detailed, ever-changing regulations — because they’re chasing the endless reinvention of loopholes and never catching up with them.
You don’t need to invoke Godwin’s Law in this kind of discussion. Current issues are plenty.
523 SecularA said, ” What’s the alternative to looking at the world and trying to figure it out? Shall we choose blindness? ”
That’s the old Star Trek question. “Are we ready for whatever Knowledge?”. I didn’t make the connection to try to dissuade knowledge, but to point out that in times of crisis, a discovery which leads to a particular level of understanding 20 years sooner is potentially less important than activity which leads to a less/more destructive path now. Figuring out the ramifications of work such as viral transmission genetics or Bombs or even Geoengineering is what keeps those who engage in such work up at night – if they’re the good guys.
Yawn.
Undoubtably, because unlike Einstein your first (and following) would be ignored … :)
will: SA, is there a situation where you can imagine a scientist saying, “I could make some important discoveries here, but the society I am in would use them to horrendous ends, so I will direct my interests elsewhere”?
SA: as I wrote earlier — what’s the alternative? What’s the alternative to looking at the world and trying to figure it out? Shall we choose blindness? Shall we forbid inquiry into nature, and hide in fear of knowledge?
Ok,say someone comes to you with a big grin on his face and says, I’d like to create a way to destroy all life on earth in ten seconds flat. Are you with me?” Would your answer would be “Just say know!”?
Okay, then how about just a country. Would that be okay with you? I trust you can see where this is going. There are some things better left alone.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/inside-lab-scientists-created-deadly-bird-flu-virus/story?id=15371697
About a ‘monolithic entity’ that speaks for science and scientists as a whole, yes it/they do exist. Think about it. That monolithic entity is using it’s influence to speak out against AGW. To peak out for evolution science. I’m saying that it should have used it’s influence and spoken out many years ago when it could see the destructive trajectory we are on. These are not stupid people. I fault them for not doing so.
Re 515 Secular Animist – “Yes, there were nuclear physicists who worked to develop nuclear weapons — and there are also nuclear physicists who have been outspoken leaders of the nuclear disarmament movement.” – and weren’t at least some/one of them the same people?
Re 527 Hank Roberts – thanks.
Re 526,528 – yes, we ate that fruit from the tree of knowledge. If you’re interested, see what Kushner had to say about that in “How Good Do We Have to Be?”
Re Chris Korda 442 and earlier – of course, creativity is important along with analytical skills, etc. Both science and art use both in different ways. Art uses science, and sometimes maybe vice versa (psychology, archeology, but also … paleoclimatology? Ecology (is this cave painting evidence that these species were around … etc.)). Although, outside of surrealism, I’ve tended to draw/paint/photograph natural scenery (or spacescapes), I have also experienced beauty in buildings and urban landscapes, and technology.
Re Ron R. (455?) – antibiotics – it made sense to use them. Then when we found out they could ‘were off’ (on an ecological/evolutionary level), we (at some point, don’t know when exactly this started) looked for new ones, and then we also figured out that doctors shouldn’t prescribe them for viruses just to appease patients, and patients need to take the full dose, etc, and also, there’s the livestock issue – which I wouldn’t blame on the discovery or original usage of penicillin. Also, GMO foods – they make me a bit uneasy – but there are people going around saying that they are risky with evidence that isn’t really good evidence for that (I read one or two entries at “Tomorrow’s Table” blog – one about a visit to Dr. Oz) – and lateral genetic transfers do occur naturally (by viruses, and ?) – I had thought not very often, relative to inheretance, but someone gave me the impression of otherwise (same blog – different or same post, not sure) – I’m not sure of the significance of that for this issue, but … anyway, this has all been covered now by others, including in various ways what I meant at 444, which I could make a bit more Shakespearean: The fault is not in our science but in ourselves (including scientists, sometimes).
Anyway, I’ve been looking into that whole Nissan Leaf issue… more later…
Sounds like Work Avoidance Strategy #437 to me. Bottom line, nobody here can demonstrate that being logical (scientific, or whatever) turns people into unfeeling automatons or mad scientists.
The whole focus on the bygone (neo)classical/romantic thing is verging on the artistically suspect anyway, since for one thing, you could argue that you’re just talking about different phases of one essentially romantic movement.
So more recently, people get freaked out by a rapidly changing world they don’t understand, and end up resorting to unresolved 1950’s memes –that lurking somewhere in the shadows are the spawn of out-of-control scientists; giant radioactive spiders that will eat unsuspecting, feeling people who have feelings and who just mind their own business with feeling.
Easier than trying to keep up, I suppose.
” in times of crisis, a discovery which leads to a particular level of understanding 20 years sooner is potentially less important than activity which leads to a less/more destructive path now.”
So when a scientist is choosing his work, she might want to consider public opinion far more than would be scientifically appropriate.
Patrick 027 27 Sep 2012 at 8:51 PM
Resistance to antibiotics has been known at least since the 1950s. But it seems the dealing with the consequences of its use was a can kicked down the road. According to the following article antibiotic resistance wasn’t officially addressed until 1981. By then it was too late.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=antibiotics-have-been-aro
I think people might have foreseen what could happen. If they could not then they should have held off until they did know, or at least actively tried to address the issue much earlier. Anyway, I am not against responsible antibiotic use, I’m only making a point.
We jumped the gun with GMOs. Why were 90 day trials ever deemed acceptable? Why did the scientific community and government allow the biotech giants to police themselves? Why was it mainly activists that spoke out for more research before approval?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208452/Russia-suspends-import-use-American-GM-corn-study-revealed-cancer-risk.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Monsanto_and_the_Campaign_to_Undermine_Organics#GM_Crops.2C_Tested_for_Safety.3F
We now know that the genome is highly networked. Next we may find that a network also exists across genomes, perhaps even across species lines. It could be that we really are all connected. Mess with one and you mess with us all.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/09/05/encode-the-rough-guide-to-the-human-genome/
I hope people don’t get me wrong. I am of course not anti-science, just anti-irresponsible science. I’m just saying that scientists have made some horrible judgement calls in the past. We need to keep all this science veneration in perspective. And science as a whole needs to start speaking up and speaking out.
Science is all about understanding and discovery. Every modern weapon of war is a product of that science. But so is every modern medical breakthrough, technological advancement, and industrila process. Scientists uncovered these processes, but it was others who chose to use them for destructive purposes. When Alfred Noble patented dynamite, it was not intended for warfare, but that did not stop people from useing for such. Granted, some knew that their work would be used for warfare, but others did not. Nuclear fission has resulted in significantly more productive uses than destructive ones. Tabun was originally produced has an insecticide, but look what happened when the German army got hold of it.
Scientists cannot control the use of their discoveries. The best they can probably do is to inform others as to the potential consequences of them. In the case where a scientist is working directly for a known evil empire, it would be wise to suppress such discoveries. Imagine what the world might be like if Einstein, Born, Bohr, Meitner, Frisch, Szilard and others had not emigrated.
[edit – OT]
Ron R.,
OK, now let’s change your scenario a wee bit.
Let us say you are approached by a concerned government official, who says, “We have evidence that ______ is engaged in research they claim could kill everyone on Earth in 10 seconds. Is this a credible threat? Would you be willing to carry out research to assess whether this is real?”
You know that _______ is controlled by utter whackjobs. What would you do?
Kurt Vonnegut told an interesting story. Shortly after writing “Cat’s Cradle,” he was at a party where he was telling people about the doomsday scenario in his book, where ice-9, a phase of ice stable above room temperature–freezes all the world’s water turning the planet immediately into a desert. One of the guests in the crowd was a crystallographer and so very interested in the concept. After discussing the idea for a while, Vonnegut didn’t see him for a couple of hours. Then the guy showed up with a napkin full of equations and diagrams and said to Vonnegut, “It’s impossible.”
You cannot assess threats unless you understand how they might be realized.
Good point, Ray. I hadn’t heard that story.
Hank’s point is good, too–there are lots of scientists now engaged in helping corporations continue to produce hazardous chemicals. I don’t know if they rationalize it in some way. They are certainly getting paid. Some probably apply the “If I don’t do it, somebody else will (and get paid for it)” (im-)moral argument.
But I think most people want to believe that they are working in some way for the greater good.
If they think the society and the institutions they are working for are essentially benign or better, I would think they would work harder for it. If they view those as essentially destructive, many will at least work less enthusiastically.
It seems to me that this was the case with some of the scientists that were supposed to be working on Saddam Hussein’s weapons systems–they pretended to be working on things, but kind of dragged their feet on development.
Of course, all of this ultimately applies to all of us. At what point do we conclude that the efforts we are making to contribute to society are actually supporting a monstrous system that is in the process of destroying much of the life (and systems that support life) on earth?
I’d like to add something to a post I wrote yesterday which hasn’t appeared yet.
From that last site discussing the H5N1 virus experimentation:
The most important speech delivered at the Royal Society came from Dr. Paul Berg, the 89-year-old Stanford biologist who led the first great review of biology experimental safety back in 1975. That was at the dawn of the genetic engineering era, when scientists were just beginning to manipulate life forms and use viruses to carry genetic changes into cells.
“Hubris runs high among scientists,” Berg sternly warned the London meeting via live videoconference from Palo Alto. “Scientists have an incredible ability to ignore the risks of our own work.”
Hubris also pushes scientists to believe in self-regulation, excluding outsiders and demeaning the worries of the general public and political leaders. That is dangerous, warned Berg. “Not enough has been done to keep the public informed and aware,” in the H5N1 case. “A social contract between science and the public is great. But now it is under strain.”
http://www.lauriegarrett.com/index.php/en/blog/3186/#&panel1-3
Ray, certainly doing calculations to determine the feasibility of a threat is one thing. Actually constructing said threat is another altogether. You know that when they constructed the bomb they meant to hold tightly onto that technology without letting it get out. Didn’t take long though did it? Now just about every cracker jack banana republic out there either has one, is on their way to getting one or wants one. Should we be experimenting with bio-warfare? Any objections to that?
Remember Murphy’s Law.
Remember Killer Bees.
http://www.utahcountybeekeepers.org/Aricanized%20Honey%20Bees.html
As I brought up upthread about geoengineering solutions to fight climate change, we ought not be building things with potential for vast harm if we cannot undo said thread, and in a hurry, if necessary.
IMO.
[Response:You appear not to understand the nature of the issue here. The work that the lab that your cited blog piece refers to, is designed to investigate the potential for naturally occurring genetic recombination to produce strains of the H5N1 (aka “bird flu”) with the capacity for aerosol transmission in humans (which does not currently exist and is the primary limitation to a global pandemic that would kill many millions of people), and to specifically identify what changes would be required to do so. The threat here is not human science/technology or whatever human-created bogeyman you have in mind, but rather the ability of natural evolutionary processes to produce the highly transmissable, and yet still highly virulent, form of the virus that does not currently exist. This kind of work is absolutely essential in effective vaccine development, and moreover, in even informing the likelihood that such vaccines are even likely to be needed at all. So when you say “doing calculations to determine the feasibility of a threat is one thing. Actually constructing said threat is another altogether” this is off base. In lieu of not being able to calculate the likelihood of recombination and/or mutation producing the transmissable strain, experimentation is essential, but it is very highly regulated, and the lethal H5N1 virulence genes are not included in the construct–they are replaced by non-lethal virulence genes from other viral families like H1N1, to which there is a large general immunity in the human population. Furthermore, the constructs are all tested in non-human systems, and it is not even clear that the transmissability that occurs in those organisms would in fact hold in humans. Furthermore, this type of research informs the question of just exactly how hard would it be for terrorists or whomever to create these kinds of strains in the laboratory. You can count me on the short list of those who are extremely grateful for the advanced tools and understanding that the molecular geneticists and cell biologists bring to bear on problems like this. Not to mention on cancer, AIDS and the whole rest of the suite of potential or actual killers–Jim]
Dan H, you know what they say about the road to hell.
About the best laid plans.
Maybe there should be some things that are just off limits.
Ron R. wrote: “Why did the scientific community and government allow the biotech giants to police themselves?”
The “scientific community” is in no position to “allow” or to not “allow” giant corporations like Monsanto to do anything. Plenty of scientists have expressed concerns about GMO technology, particularly regarding the virtually unregulated release into the wild of genetically engineered crops. But there is no scientific entity that has the authority to “allow” or not “allow” that.
The government — which certainly does have that authority — is another story, and the too-cozy relationship between Monsanto and the relevant regulatory agencies is well documented.
Ron R. wrote: “And science as a whole needs to start speaking up and speaking out.”
Again, there is no such thing as “science as a whole” that can “speak out”. “Science as a whole” is just an abstraction. It is not some real entity that can be blamed for anything.
There are individual scientists, and there is a multitude of scientific organizations that focus on different fields of science, and many individual scientists and scientific organizations have in fact “spoken out” on all the matters of concern that have been mentioned here.
[Response:Exactly–thanks for getting it.–Jim]
Sure. And the political/business PR types are _still_ maligning Rachel Carson, along with claims climate change is a conspiracy to control freedom. E.g. the nitwittery at thenewatlantis, you know how to find this stuff. But that’s not science. It’s a pretense to be scientificy-sounding, though. Familiar, eh?
For folks interested in tropical cyclones and the observational record you might be interested in visiting cyclonecenter.org where you can help crowdsource intensity estimates for all tropical cyclone activity globally since the geostationary IR record began. These results will lead to papers so (no offense to the blog proprietors) this may be more scientifically productive in the long term than opining on a blog in pushing the science forwards …!
Caveat emptor small print: I am a very junior member of the science group.
Hank: …political/business PR types are _still_ maligning Rachel Carson, along with claims climate change is a conspiracy to control freedom
A conspiracy or plot or other form of collusion is the unavoidable bottom of the intellectual funnel that begins with “I doubt it but I can’t explain why.”
Short of a truly functional means to dismiss the problem of AGW, an Earthly conspiracy is relatively more plausible than invoking cloaked aliens releasing C02 into the air to warm the planet or some other even more impossible “explanation” for what’s going on. Claiming the evidence is faked is the pragmatic but infinitely distant next best thing to a competent argument against facts; a vaguely imagined plot is explanatory magic of the most parsimonious variety.
Conspiracy is the convergent minimally irrational solution to climate change for people who can’t or won’t deal with the problem.
> lots of scientists now engaged … corporations …
Is it science if it’s not published in a peer reviewed journal?
I’d think not.
There are lots of industrial and nuclear chemists out there with scientific training and degrees — but the ones doing proprietary work that’s not in the journals are working as technicians.
Hank:
When is it Swear Like a Sailor day?
Over at Sharon Astyk’s blog, a couple of DK-afflicted parties are propagating the “Rachel Carson is responsible for millions of deaths from malaria” meme. My own counter-efforts lack skill, unfortunately. More competent arguments are needed, futile though they may seem.
[Response: Deltoid had many discussions on this: here, here, here for instance. – gavin]
Re Maladapted and the DDT shibboleth, that’s an exercise in futility. The argument isn’t about DDT at all, it’s about incompatibility of cherished principles of self-determination with living on a planet having a population of more than one person, fond wishes for a corporeal existence that is not shared.
Ron R. @ 540 Re: The quotes stating that scientists are [insert bunch of stuff here].
Reminds me of those astrology thingies. You know, if you were born on such and such a date, then you are this, that, and the other; and mysteriously it always seems to apply if you think about it in a certain way. Sort of like saying, if you’re born under the sign of the Scientist then you have the characteristics of a buthead (that would be a Bunsen burner representing the constellation Poindexter presumably).
Ironically that stuff about hubris seems to apply even more exactly to certain demagogues who make a living from FUD mongering, i.e., deliberately corrupting civil discourse by stirring up and misdirecting “the worries of the general public and political leaders.”