Genetic Variation (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, September 25, 2010, 14:43 (5152 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

If you believe that we should slow science only when humans are directly involved, you should do some more research on the tiny little bee. Our ecosystem is so finely balanced in some ways, that if we destroy just ONE thing, we run the risk of completely wiping out our species. So, for a small example, we use pesticides to get rid of insects because they destroy cash crops. However, the pesticide also covers the plants which the bees pollinate. The bees take pollen covered with the chemical back to the nest, where they make wax and honey from it. When the honey and wax are made, it emits a subtle chemical odor that drives the bees from their nest. So next year, the crops don't get pollinated.....-I explicitly stated that man should be served as an end and not as a means to an end.-I work in software QA. There's several mantras, one of which is "Exhaustive Testing is Impossible." We should do our due diligence--evaluating as we can the impacts of what we do environmentally and otherwise--but some of the things you've brought up here (as well as David) are things that weren't knowable before we broke them. I'm a big stickler for epistemology--everyone always assumes that problems such as bees or that river in Florida that feeds the everglades were things that were so obvious. But science has unique elements that prevents something like exhaustive testing. -1. It's about building models, when all is said and done. The goal is of course, a one-to-one model of nature. You can't build a perfect model. We can only build a model about those things that are easily studyable. -2. No scientific project, basic or applied--has unlimited funds. That means that only those things that can be afforded to test, will be tested--and that means that there will be a priority--the first priority being those things critical to the projects success. Unless you're willing to live in a drastically different economic system, commercial science (including pesticides) isn't going to change too much in this dept. -So we know exhaustive testing is impossible. We know that we have limited funds. The final limitation is our boundary of knowledge. If no one thinks to test for the lethality of bees or the effect of this pesticide on bees, than the idea will never be tested. This could have been something that was innocently missed by the project team, or deliberately not tested due to malfeasance (criminal), or more commonly--that the bases were already covered. -From your scenario, do they now regularly include bees in pesticide studies? I would think, yes. -I'm sorry I just hate it when people assume science is evil by nature...

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"