5 ms·

Don't destroy research

76 points by J3L2404 14y ago

ktosiek 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
  - Toenex 14y ago
    Very well put. It may not affect those that carry out such actions but may change the view of less radicalised individuals.
  - EthanHeilman 14y ago
    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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_About_Science
    - jerf 14y ago
      "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.
  - koeselitz 14y ago
    This is a gross distortion of the argument that Take The Flour Back is making. TTFB cites legitimate and real scientific concerns; they don't caricature scientists as evil by nature. Their claim, in fact, is that the people doing these experiments are not acting as scientists, in the sense that they are ignoring serious environmental dangers and running these tests purely for grant money. And I think that's a legitimate concern, for what it's worth. It's very hard to do legitimate science right now because of the money. We see this in medicine, and we certainly see it in agriculture. So this video might be effective if the only think you know about TTFB is that they're "environmentalists," and if you extrapolate from this that they're crazy spiritist loons who hate science and knowledge. But you would be flat wrong if you did that.
- calibraxis 14y ago
  Here is the open-letter response from these so-called "terrorists" (or might they be communists? Perhaps even secret muslim conspiracists?): (http://taketheflourback.org/open-letter-to-rothamsted/ http://taketheflourback.org/open-letter-to-rothamsted/) For terrorists who probably can't be reasoned with, they sure are fond of using footnotes.
  - loup-vaillant 14y ago
    From your link: > We are particularly concerned about ensuring the protection of what is probably the world’s oldest classical grassland experiment. We are appalled that you are jeopardizing the integrity of this scientific inheritance by planting GM wheat metres away from it. We believe your recklessness in planting GM in the adjacent field seriously undermines your institution’s scientific credibility. Ouch. I have to back up "Take the flour back" on this one. Now the Poor Bullied Scientist looks more like an Incompetent Sorcerer's Apprentice.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
Joakal 14y ago
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-14/20110714-greenpeace-gm-protest/2794272 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-14/20110714-greenpeace-gm... 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 14y ago
  "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 14y ago
    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-modified-crop http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetically...
    - vlasta2 14y ago
      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?
      - 14y ago
option_greek 14y ago
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.
stdbrouw 14y ago
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 14y ago
Why can't they just call the police?
nihilocrat 14y ago
"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.
EthanHeilman 14y ago
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/ http://taketheflourback.org/open-letter-to-rothamsted/
- iskander 14y ago
  Thanks for posting this. The quality of the comments here is otherwise sadly low.
moldbug 14y ago
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.

76 points by J3L2404 14y ago

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 14y ago
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.
- Toenex 14y ago
  Very well put. It may not affect those that carry out such actions but may change the view of less radicalised individuals.
- EthanHeilman 14y ago
  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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_About_Science
  - jerf 14y ago
    "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.
- koeselitz 14y ago
  This is a gross distortion of the argument that Take The Flour Back is making. TTFB cites legitimate and real scientific concerns; they don't caricature scientists as evil by nature. Their claim, in fact, is that the people doing these experiments are not acting as scientists, in the sense that they are ignoring serious environmental dangers and running these tests purely for grant money. And I think that's a legitimate concern, for what it's worth. It's very hard to do legitimate science right now because of the money. We see this in medicine, and we certainly see it in agriculture. So this video might be effective if the only think you know about TTFB is that they're "environmentalists," and if you extrapolate from this that they're crazy spiritist loons who hate science and knowledge. But you would be flat wrong if you did that.
calibraxis 14y ago
Here is the open-letter response from these so-called "terrorists" (or might they be communists? Perhaps even secret muslim conspiracists?): (http://taketheflourback.org/open-letter-to-rothamsted/ http://taketheflourback.org/open-letter-to-rothamsted/) For terrorists who probably can't be reasoned with, they sure are fond of using footnotes.
- loup-vaillant 14y ago
  From your link: > We are particularly concerned about ensuring the protection of what is probably the world’s oldest classical grassland experiment. We are appalled that you are jeopardizing the integrity of this scientific inheritance by planting GM wheat metres away from it. We believe your recklessness in planting GM in the adjacent field seriously undermines your institution’s scientific credibility. Ouch. I have to back up "Take the flour back" on this one. Now the Poor Bullied Scientist looks more like an Incompetent Sorcerer's Apprentice.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

Joakal 14y ago

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-14/20110714-greenpeace-gm-protest/2794272 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-14/20110714-greenpeace-gm... 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 14y ago
"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 14y ago
  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-modified-crop http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetically...
  - vlasta2 14y ago
    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?
    - 14y ago

option_greek 14y ago

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.

stdbrouw 14y ago

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 14y ago

Why can't they just call the police?

nihilocrat 14y ago

"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.

EthanHeilman 14y ago

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

iskander 14y ago
Thanks for posting this. The quality of the comments here is otherwise sadly low.

moldbug 14y ago

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.