Everything yields diminishing returns at some point, even the quest for knowledge. Drug research, for example, has become a voracious consumer of capital in key part because the biological factors being dealt with are increasingly subtle, often contributing to research findings of a persistently inconclusive nature (consider the ferocious burn rates that have characterized so much biotechnology research). In addition, drug research today is actually hampered by its past success. One factor that slows the introduction of new drugs is that it is ever more difficult to determine how a new drug will interact with the steadily increasing number of other drugs.
> > As we so often see, one generation's industrial
> >miracle is merely the next generation's high-toxicity cleanup job.
>(Again,
> >the problem with GM technology is its potential for creating an
> >uncontainable, self-replicating disaster -- beyond the scope of any such
> >remediation).
>
>
>Do we see so often? Your one example is wholly speculative. No evidence
>exists of any harm to man from genetic modification. But your dogmatic
>belief that it is an 'uncontainable, self-replicating disaster, waiting
>to happen' needs no empirical proof, because it is a subjective
>prejudice on your part, not susceptible to reasonable argument.
Nosiree. The spread of a virus or any other contagion provides all the objective proof of principle needed to bear out my concern about the inherent *potential* risk that GM technology presents.
> >The really curious thing is, even if certain scientific findings are in
>fact
> >true in an objective sense, most people have to accept that fact as a
>matter
> >of faith. For a scientist, proof of principle comes from studying two
> >microscope slides and realizing that slight variations in the shapes
>shown
> >thereon confirm a hypothesis. If shown those same slides, however, a
> >layperson will see only indistinguishable blobs; that person can believe
>in
> >the "proof" provided on faith alone.
>
>This is beneath you. All you are saying is that there is a division of
>labour in society. The warrant that the particular research laboratory
>has to expect a degree of trust from their peers is the reproducibility
>of published results
>--
>James Heartfield
The point is, as science moves on, it learns more and more about less and less; the knowledge it yields becomes inaccessible to anyone other than the few specialists who are working at the cutting edge of research. When the press intervenes and tries to explain what's going on in the lab these days, findings are usually sensationalized, resulting in little increase in public knowledge and often great gains in public anxiety. I am scarcely the first to point out that the logic of scientific advance and the psychological needs of the individual are ultimately much at odds. The citizens of a modern society do derive tremendous material benefit from scientific advance. The tradeoff is, these people don't have a clue how their world actually works; they simply accept the viability of the technologies around them as a matter of faith.
Carl
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