From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Mon Jul 17 2000 - 00:08:56 MDT
At 02:37 PM 16/07/00 -0400, Mike Lorrey wrote:
>> > > Still doesn't address the particular (and to my mind reasonable)
>> > > trepidation about remixing genes in ways not pre-tested by
millennia of
>> > > natural (or indeed human) selection and broadcasting them
everywhere in
>> > > industrial quantities.
< Judy Garland cabaret trimmed >
>Ouch! Now my subconcious is bringing up rude and insulting associations
>with a line from an old song: "If I only had a brain..."
Having got the obligatory rueful grin out of the way, I have to ask:
Is this gibing really all that needs to be said, in reply to the concern
that remixing genes in ways not pre-tested by millennia of natural (or
indeed human) selection and broadcasting them everywhere in industrial
quantities might have horrible consequences?
Even without a brain, a scarecrow might notice some of the nasty field
effects mentioned in Greg's cautionary post about spreading anthropogenic
chemical novelties into the biosystem (hormone analogues poisoning
developmental pathways, etc etc).
Damien Broderick
[clicking his little red shoes]
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