On Fri, Sep 28, 2018 at 01:42:02PM -0400, John Clark wrote: > Russell Standish wrote: > > > >There is also the possibility of wholesale ecosystem collapse, not > just some birds. Do you know that these mosquitos _aren't_ a keystone > species? > > > I don't know anything for certain about the environment and never will but I > have a strong hunch the 40 mosquito species that carry malaria going extinct > and leaving just 3460 mosquito species around would not be the equivalent to > the Chicxulub Event that occured 66 million years ago. However I do know for > certain that for 725,000 people each and every year NOT using Gene Drive WILL > be the equivalent to the Chicxulub Event .
That's a big exaggeration. Name one species that's going extinct due to malaria, as compared to 80% extinction of life in the Chicxulub Event. > > > > I'm not saying they are, but until ecological studies are done, we don't > know. > > > Such ecological studies will never ever be done, there will always be one more > study that needs to be completed before we can make a decision. If that is the case, then there is either a problem with the decision makers (analysis paralysis) or in their terms of reference. Either problem is solvable (the first by replacing the decision makers by people who can, the second by revising the terms of reference to allow decisions to be made without incurring legal liability in the face of imperfect knowledge). > Always. > Meanwhile as we do nothing 725,000 people die each and every year. > > > > I don't think you have considered _all_ the facts > > > Well of course I haven't! In the physical world decisions are never based on > perfect information so we must use judgement. It is my judgement that 725,000 > human deaths per year is a greater evil than 40 out of 3500 mosquito species > going extinct. What is your judgement? > My judgement is that we do not currrently know the impacts of removing even one of those species, so we cannot weigh which is the better/worse outcome. Peforming foodweb analysis and modelling is probably a couple of years work, with the effect of unknown quantites constrained by ensemble modelling - much like weather forecasts. We could also run a limited field trial, again for a few years - to bring to light any "unknown unknowns". I expect that 5 years moratorium might be enough, 10 years on the outside. With the calici trial, the right things were being done, but then some idiot (probably with your mindset) decided to release the virus on the mainland anyway. Fortunately, in that case, we dodged a bullet. Not so with cane toads, or the bloody rabbits in the first place. > > > The decision properly should be taken by regulatory agencies, preferably > an > international one under (say) the auspices of the UN > > > The most important thing for an employee of one of those regulatory agencies > is > to cover your ass, and for reasons I don't understand people will blame them > for making a decision that results in one person getting sick but they will > not > blame them for killing 725,000 people a year by not acting. So if you're a > bureaucrat the wisest thing to do is ask for yet another study and do nothing. The CYA problem is fixed by having the right terms of reference. So long as the decisions are made in the light of the best scientific evidence available, is that such a problem? We can employ scientific peers to decide what is the best scientific evidence, and to identify obvious gaps in the knowledge that can be filled on a reasonable timeframe. Wouldn't you say this was better than having a total free-for-all (like you're proposing), or complete paralysis? Both of these extremes are arguably equally legally liable (action or no-action), as we're starting to see in relation to climate change litigation. > > > Actually I'm underestimating the political and bureaucratic inertia of > regulatory agencies. There is not a single well documented case of > genetically > modified food even making somebody sick much less killing then, and yet > millions, perhaps billions, of people have the superstition that id something > has been genetically modified then it must be satanic. > > Rice is the staple food for half of the human race but unfortunately it > contains no vitamin A and that deficiency causes 670,000 people to die every > year and made half a million children go blind every year. However there is a > strain of rice that does contain vitamin A called "Golden Rice" that was > developed more than a decade ago but regulatory agencies are dragging > their feet on allowing it because it was made with genetic engineering. > > Just a few months ago it was finally approved in the USA but it isn't needed > there, is still banned in the places where it's needed most, a small > experimental plot of Golden Rice in the Philippines was destroyed by > protestors > 5 years ago and Bangladesh is still thinking about it. Meanwhile 670,000 > people > die every year and made half a million children go blind. > Yes - I would agree with you on the GM food issue. Clearly, the regulatory process has to be political, and that does mean sometimes patently daft decisions get made - the ban on research on embryos in the US being an outstanding example. All we can do is agitate wherever possible towards evidence-based decision making. But without any regulatory process, we will just get repeats of the cane toad problem, or the collapse of the Grand Banks fishery, over and over again. > > > Of course there is no such thing as a zero risk decision, but all we ask > is that the decision is > taken on the best scientific knowledge, > > > For decades the best scientific knowledge has been that eating genetically > modified food is not risky but NOT eating genetically modified food is very > risky indeed. And yet we do nothing and people continue to die. And now it > looks like the same thing is going to happen with Gene Drive. > If the ecological studies were in and no major environmental issue identified (like the GM case you mention above), and we still had inaction, I would agree with you. But my reading of this case is that those studies have yet to be done. I fervently hope that these studies are being planned and funded, because the gene drive technology looks promising... -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Senior Research Fellow hpco...@hpcoders.com.au Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
