Business Week Online
July 5 [sic] 2004 [you saw it first here]
Taking The Fear Out Of "Genetically Modified"

INDUSTRY INSIDER
Taking The Fear Out Of "Genetically Modified"

Syngenta's Michael Pragnell thinks he can win over even hostile Europeans

http://www.businessweek.com/print/premium/content/04_27/b3890164_mz009.htm?mz

The timing could have been better. The year was 2000, and European
consumers were beset with food-safety concerns. The EU was already two
years into a moratorium on approvals of new genetically modified (GM) foods
and crops, and worries about mad cow disease were mounting. Against this
backdrop, two of Europe's mightiest pharma giants, Novartis (NVS ) and
AstraZeneca PLC (AZN ), decided in November, 2000, to merge their
agricultural biotech units. The result was Syngenta (SYG ) of Basel,
Switzerland, which in its first year posted $6.8 billion in sales of seeds
and farm chemicals, including fertilizers and pesticides.
Almost four years later, Europe remains less than friendly to GM foods.
But Syngenta Chief Executive Michael P. Pragnell has no qualms about the
company's mission or its future. The merger was "the best thing we could
have done," says the 58-year-old Oxford, England, native, who came to his
post from AstraZeneca. The move "liberated a high-growth, high-tech
operation from a much larger pharma organization." The proof is in
Syngenta's numbers: After bottoming out in 2002 at $6.2 billion, revenues
rose last year by 6.1%, to $6.6 billion. Profits hit $268 million,
following a $27 million loss in 2002. Analysts at Pictet & Cie, a Swiss
bank, predict Syngenta's revenues, fueled by sales outside of Europe, will
surge by 12.7% this year, to $7.4 billion. And profits, after acquisition
costs, will be $98 million.

Pragnell is confident that Europeans' worries will abate in time,
especially once the world starts reaping the benefits that genomics brings
to plant science. Along with new strains of GM pest-resistant corn and
cotton seed, for example, Syngenta has also spearheaded the worldwide
effort to map the rice genome and to develop so-called "Golden Rice."
Unusually rich in vitamin A, this engineered strain could help prevent some
forms of blindness and other chronic childhood maladies.
Over lunch in New York, Pragnell spoke with Industries Editor Adam Aston
about how biotechnology is changing agriculture.

Unlike most Americans, Europeans remain hostile to GM foods. How can the
industry regain its confidence?

We're at a point where the benefits will begin to become clearer.
Our Golden Rice could be the first example. We launched a product with
such obvious and tangible benefits to human health that we hope to overcome
these anxieties. There are other examples, too: We've been doing work
with (the antioxidant) lycopene in tomatoes. There's promising evidence of
a link between a diet heavy in
cooked tomatoes, which are rich in lycopene, and a reduced incidence of
prostate cancer. If these health claims could be substantiated and we were
able to launch a tomato with high lycopene levels, I don't think consumers
would hesitate to buy them at even two or three times their current prices.
The record shows that consumers are willing to spend -- and will accept new
technologies -- when it comes to personal health.

Does it follow that plants could someday be used to make drugs?

Yes. Last year we spent about $12 million on this area, and in
2004 we'll invest over $30 million. Keep in mind there is already a market
in biopharmaceutical therapeutic remedies -- in the billions of dollars now
-- but most of these products are produced by fermentation, which is an
expensive process. We're trying to use plants as the production medium to
make therapeutics to consistently predictable quality standards. This
harnesses the plant's own chemistry and the energy of sunlight to create
the agent, so it should be less costly. If it's successful, we'd like to
be in a position towards the end of the decade of licensing those ideas to
big pharma companies. Sooner than that, we might see plants used as the
production media to make enzymes (used to accelerate chemical and
biological reactions.)

This is a research area where we've invested about $50 million. So, for
example, we're launching an enzyme that can increase the efficiency of how
farm animals process feed. This improves their growth and cuts down on the
amount of waste they put out. We've had our first sales in Mexico, and
[Food & Drug Administration] approval is pending in the U.S.

Let's go back to human foods. What sorts of new plant strains are succeeding?
Our PureHeart® watermelon is a great example. It's not a GM
product by any formal definition, because GM is about taking a gene from
one species and putting it into a different species. This is about the
manipulation of genetics that exist within the watermelon plant already.
So you look in the genes for the effect you're after -- in this case, a
thin rind, no seeds, and sweeter flesh -- then you target those traits. In
the past we teased out desired features by cross-breeding. It was a very
hit-and-miss affair. Now we can do it by picking a trait and going after
the right genes directly. Think of it as precision hybridization.

Has the backlash in Europe hurt your R&D efforts there?

Absolutely. The measure of disaffection is reflected in the number
of field trials in Europe: It's down by more than 75% in the past five
years, and few trials are taking place for new GM products. Before, there
was a very active research fraternity in Europe, particularly in Germany
and Britain. We closed our largest single research laboratory in Holland.
Instead of moving all that work into our Swiss lab or British lab, we moved
most of it to this side of the Atlantic. Today more than 70% of our field
research is in the U.S. If we look at the statistics on scientists, by the
way, over 70% of European students who come to the U.S. to complete PhDs
choose not to return to Europe. That tells you a lot about consumer and
government attitudes to the funding of science and research. It's a
worrying trend because no scientist likes to work in an area that is
vilified publicly. It's very bad for Europe.

What about Asia?

China faces ever-growing food needs and is advancing rapidly
technologically. For the past 15 years or so, each successive economic
plan in China has focused on agriculture and self-sufficiency in food
production. The Chinese have acknowledged the calorie deficit they face,
which results from having 21% of the world's population but just 7% of the
world's arable land. That's one of the main reasons they were anxious to
have us invest in agrichemicals manufacturing. We invested about $100
million in a herbicide plant in Nantong in the 1990s. China was very
interested in this project, for one thing, because of the educational
programs we would bring to farmers in using this technology. Our system
enables a subsistence farmer to move from growing a single crop on one plot
of land to double cropping in the same season -- all because he no longer
has to weed by hand. For another thing, the training we provide in the
materials, the stewardship, safety precautions -- all of this in modern
farming is of enormous value.

What about genetic engineering? Is China fearful of GM foods?

No, quite the opposite. The Chinese are paddling their own canoe
in this area. They want to run their own research programs, and they're
not really working with Western companies at all. It'll be interesting to
see what they do. We do field tests there but not any basic research.
China has smart researchers in genetic engineering -- good chemists, also
-- and they have strong commercial instincts.
They're hungry for knowledge and work extremely hard.

Syngenta played a leading role in the decoding of the rice genome. How
does understanding this DNA help with other crops?

In the words of our head of research and development, until we had
the genome, "it was like doing research in the dark. Now it's like
somebody switched the lights on." The rice genome is the simplest of all
the major cereal crops, including wheat and corn. The rice genome has
helped us become more efficient in developing new products based on these
other crops -- because there's a similarity in
the genomes. Plus we've made information on the rice genome public through
universities and government research institutions around the world. The
information is there for researchers everywhere to work with, through a
public database. All we've asked, initially, is that they keep us informed
of their programs, discoveries, developments, and so on.

What comes next? Are you mapping the genes of other plants or pests?

One of the things we've also been doing is mapping the genomes of
pathogens such as molds, diseases, and pests that attack food crops. One
researcher described this as the equivalent of mapping the genome of the
cat burglar as opposed to having a map of the building he's burglarizing.
You want to know more about the thief than the place he's breaking into.

The cost of genetic technologies -- for mapping and manipulation -- is
falling rapidly. How is this changing Syngenta's R&D process?

It's not easy to isolate the effects of genetic sequencing
technology alone. I can tell you this: To get a new agricultural product
to market today -- be it a major new chemical entity, or (patents on) a
biological trait, or a new gene -- now costs close to $200 million. That's
taking into account basic research, invention, development, and regulatory
approval. This has to do with our ability to measure
things you couldn't measure 10 years ago. If you can measure things,
regulators will want to know about it. But all of that measurement
requires more money. So the costs keep going up, even as the cost of
genetic sequencing falls.

June 9, 2004

Prof. Joe Cummins

Genetically Modified Rice

There appears to be growing pressure from corporations to promote and
release genetically modified (GM) rice. According to Encarta "Rice is
the primary food for half the people in the world. In many regions it is
eaten with every meal and provides more calories than any other single
food. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization
(FAO), rice supplies an average of 889 calories per day per person in
China. In contrast, rice provides an average of only 82 calories per day
per person in the United States. Rice is a nutritious food, providing
about 90 percent of calories from carbohydrates and as much as 13
percent of calories from protein" (1). A crop of immense global
importance is a certain target for control by multinational
corporations. The following discussion will review the various genetic
manipulations that have been performed on rice, and the human and
environmental consequences associated with production of the GM rice.

Currently only one commercial GM rice is available on the market; that
rice variety is resistant to the herbicide glufosinate (2). The rice
varieties under development go beyond herbicide tolerance to include
insects, microbial pests, high salt levels, pharmaceutical products and
multiple transgenic traits are being pyramided into a single strain of
rice. It is likely that the next rice strain approved for commercial
release will contain an insect toxin gene from the bacterium, Bacillus
thuringiensis (Bt) but that will be followed by a range of modifications
including insect resistance based on lectins and protease inhibitors.
Because rice has a huge impact on the worldís food supply the safety of
GM rice varieties bears careful scrutiny.

The only current commercial variety of rice is tolerant to the herbicide
glufosinate. Two transformation events called LLRICE06 and LLRICE62 were
approved for commercial production. Two rice varieties M202 and Bengal
were transformed with a plasmid bearing genes for herbicide tolerance so
the two transformation events differ mainly in the insertion site of the
transformation. The transforming plasmid contained the CaMV 35s promoter,
the CaMV transcription terminator and the bar gene encoding the
phosphoinothricin-N-acetytransferase (PAT) enzyme, a highly altered
copy of a gene from the soil bacterium S. hygroscopicus. (Safety testing
of the bar gene and PAT enzyme was done using the bacterial gene and
protein not the synthetic gene and its product produced in the rice
crop). The United States department of Agriculture determined that the
GM rice strains were suitable for commercial release and these are
marketed by Bayer as LibertyLink® rice(2). In 2002 Aventis (later
purchased by Bayer) destroyed 5 million pounds of LibertyLink® rice
because they were concerned about the rejection by the international
market (3) but efforts continue to promote and disseminate the
transgenic crop.

Synthetic analogues of the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) Cry toxin genes
have been used extensively to construct experimental rice varieties. The
Cry toxin gene , Cry1Ab, was used to transform Indica Basmati rice. The
synthetic toxin was driven with a constitutive rice ubiquitin promoter
or a Brassica seed specific promoter; transcription termination was with
the CaMV 35s terminator or Nos terminator. Transgenic rice plants
contained up to 0.15% of their total protein as synthetic toxin, such
high levels of toxin are preferred because it discourages insect
resistance from appearing, but means synthetic toxin protein makes a
significant contribution to the diet and to the rice straw (4). Rice
lines containing Bt Cry 1Ab and a Cry1Ab/Cry1Ac fusion protein genes
were found to have no effect on the fitness of to non-target insects.
The two slightly different synthetic Cry 1Ab toxins and a Cry1Ab/Cry1Ac
fusion protein were used in the rice a strains and different
constitutive promoters, CaMV 35s, rice actin, rice ubiuqitin and a
maize pith specific promoter (specific for stem borer insects) were used
in the different strains(5). A comparison of Indica rice bearing
constitutive and pith specific promoters and the Cry1Ab toxin showed
that the pith specific promoter provided protection from the stem borer
insects while producing reduces levels of Cry toxin protein in seeds
(6). Rice with Bt Cry1Ab toxin driven by a maize ubiquitin promoter and
resistance genes for the antibiotics hygromycin and neomycin were
resistant to rice leafhopper insects (7). Elite Indica rice bearing a
synthetic Cry1Ac toxin gene driven by the constitutive ubiquitin
promoter and accompanied by a nos terminator and hygromycin antibiotic
resistance gene was found resistant to the yellow stem borer insect -
accompanied by high toxin levels in all of the plant tissues (.
European rice cultivars were transformed with synthetic Cry1Aa or
synthetic Cry1B toxin genes under a constitutive promoter ubiquitin or
synthetic Cry1B under a wound-inducible maize promoter (responding to
stresses such as insect predation). The constitutive promoter driven
toxin genes produced high level toxin levels that prevented striped stem
borer predation but left toxin in all of the rice tissues and seeds
while the wound inducible strain produced toxin mainly at the site of
insect attack (9).

Bt toxin was found to be introduced into soil by root exudates of
transgenic rice. The toxin released into the soil effected the enzymes
of soil microbes, increasing soil acid phosphatase and decreasing soil
urease (10).

The benefit of insect protection from Bt rice is offset by the high
levels of toxin protein in the rice grain. It has been found that food
irradiation improved the "quality" of GM rice modified with the Cry1Ab
toxin by selectively removing the toxin protein (11). However, study of
the radiation products and adducts created in during destruction of the
toxin is essential. Furthermore, it is clear that food irradiation may
be used to disguise GM rice .

A number of projects have studied the use of snowdrop lectin, Galanthus
nivalis agglutinin (GNA) alone or in conjunction with other genes to
control rice pests. Lectins are proteins that interact with human blood
cells (agglutinin) and also act as anti-predator chemicals in plants or
microbes. A GNA gene was driven by a phloem specific promoter
accompanied by a hyromycin antibiotic resistance gene was used to
transform japonica rice strains. The modified rice controlled sap
sucking insects that spread rice viruses (12). The downside to GNA pest
control is that the lectin is toxic when digested by mammals. Ewen and
Pusztai (13) showed that potatoes modified with GNA effected different
parts of the rat digestive system.

Rice plants containing both the GNA gene and the unlinked Bt Cry1Ac gene
were resistant to the major rice insect pests striped stem borer and
brown leaf hopper (rice with only cry1Ac resisted striped stem borer
while rice with GNA resisted brown leaf hopper) (14). Rice transformed
with a single vector containing Cry1Ab driven by maize ubiquitin
promoter, along with GNA driven by sucrose synthetase promoter and the
bar gene for herbicide tolerance driven by the CaMV promoter were
resistant to yellow stem borer and three sap sucking insects along with
the herbicide glufosinate, this huge package of genes was integtated at
a single chromosomal site (15). Care will have to taken to account for
the interaction of the various toxins in the human food supply and in
the environment. Basmati rice was co-transformed with three plasmids
carrying four genes including GNA, synthetic Cry1Ac , synthetic Cry2A
and resistance to the antibiotic hygromycin, the promoters used in these
constructions included maize ubiquitin and CaMV genes while the
transcription terminators were nos genes.(16). As in the previous
construction, care must be taken to evaluate the toxicity of the toxin
products and their interaction in the human diet and in the environment.
Elite Chinese rice cultivars were transformed with transformed with a
gene for bacterial blight and a GNA gene along with a hygromycin
antibiotic resistance gene in constructions employing promoters
including rice sucrose synthetase promoter, maize ubiquitin promoter and
the CaMV promoter, transcription was terminated using the nos gene in
every case. The transformed rice was resistant to sap sucking insects
and to bacterial blight (17). Insect and bacterial disease resistant
lines were pyramided (pyramiding is combining transgenes by genetic
crosses). A strain with a fused Bt gene cry1Ab/Cry 1Ac was combined with
a gene from a wild rice derived gene for resistance to bacterial blight
in a male sterile restorer line of rice. The pyramidal line was
resistant to bacterial blight and to stem borer insects (1. The
pyramided lines must consider and evaluate the toxicity of each
transgenic toxin and the combination of toxins brought about by crossing.

Resistance to the rice stem borer was produced using a synthetic trypsin
inhibitor that interferes with insect food digestion. The synthetic gene
was roughly based on a winged bean chymotrypsin inhibitor. The genetic
construction included the CaMV promoter was enhanced with an omega
sequence from tobacco mosaic virus and the first intron of a gene for
phaseolin (19). A synthetic copy of a gene product that interferes with
digestion surely requires extensive safety testing!

Increasing the transcription level of a rice sodium antiporter (a pump
that moves sodium ion into a vacuole) gene , called OsNHX1, improved the
salt tolerance of rice (20). Improved salt tolerance should open large
tracks of land to rice cultivation, Over expression of barley aquaporin
gene in rice led to increased carbon dioxide conductance and
assimilation (21). Such modification are potentially able to enhance bio
mass production in rice

Production of pharmaceutical proteins in rice crops poses potent threats
to the food supply. Recent efforts to test and produce rice modified to
field test and produce .human gene products lactoferrin and lysozyme
have been temporarily thwarted (22), but rice producing human growth
hormone has been developed in the face of the likelihood that the GM
rice could cause cancer in those consuming it (23). Rice is not a
suitable cross for producing pharmaceutical products because of the high
likelihood that the products will pollute the food supply.

The genetic modifications being used or promoted for pose a significant
threat to the environment if they pollute conventional rice fields or
spread transgenes to weedy relatives such as red rice. Pollen mediated
gene flow was substantial from Mediterranean GM rice bearing a gene for
herbicide tolerance to conventional rice and to the weed red rice (24).
Gene flow from herbicide tolerant to cultivated rice was also
substantial in another study of Mediterranean rice (25). Rice pollen was
spread from a test plot up top 110 meters from the boundary of the test
plot (26). It is very clear, indeed, that transgenic rice will pollute
any nearby conventional rice and there is no way around that!

GM rice may soon be allowed to be produced in a number of countries in
the near future. Safety testing of the currently described products has
not yet been published. In a sane world there is no way that GM rice can
be presumed to be substantially equivalent to conventional rice, but
that may not hamper approval in the United States of many such
constructions. The GM rice is bound to pollute conventional rice
varieties with untoward consequences. For the most part GM rice is
formed from synthetic genes that bear much fuller safety testing than
has been done in the past. In North America regulators have allowed
substitution of genes and proteins produced in bacterial surrogates for
the actual genes and proteins produced in crop plants in toxicity tests
of human and environmental safety . The use of the bacterial surrogates
is allowed to save corporations the cost of preparing genes and proteins
form the crop plants even though the genes and proteins tested differ
significantly from the genes and proteins produced in the crop plants
(27). The public should be made aware of the shady practice and insist
that the actual genes and proteins produced in the crops be tested. The
worldís leading food crop should be treated with more care than has been
used with maize, soy and canola.

References

1. Encarta Encyclopedia Article Rice 2004 9pp
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761569224/Rice.htm
2. USDA/APHIS AgEvo USA Company Petition 98-329-01p 1998 25pp
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/brs/de_reg.htm
3. Jack,A. GE Rice Update:Organic rice surges while GE rice falters
2002 5pp http://www.amberwaves.org/web_articles/gericeupdate.html
4. Husnain1,T, Asad,J, Maqbool,S, Datta,S and Riazuddin,S Variability
in expression of insecticidal Cry1Ab gene in Indica Basmati rice
2002 Euphytica 128, 121ñ8
5. Bernal,C, Aguda,R. and Cohen,M. Effect of rice lines transformed
with Bacillus thuringiensis toxin genes on the brown planthopper
and its predator Cyrtorhinus lividipennis 2002 Entomologia
Experimentalis et Applicata 102: 21ñ8
6. Datta,K,Vasquez,A, Tu,J,Torrizo,L, Alam,M,Oliva,N,
Abrigo,E,Khush,G,and Datta,S. Constitutive and tissue-specific
differential expression of the cryIA(b)gene in transgenic rice
plants conferring resistance to rice insect pest 1998 Theor Appl
Genet 97, 20-30
7. Yea,G, Yaoa,H,Shub,Q, Chengc,X,Hua,C, Xiab,Y,Gaob,M and
Altosaarc,I. High levels of stable resistance in transgenic rice
with a cry1Ab gene from Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner to rice
leaffolder, Cnaphalocrocis medinalis (Guen!ee) under field
conditions 2003 Crop Protection 22 171ñ8
8. Khanna,H.and Raina,S. Elite Indica transgenic rice plants
expressing modified Cry1Ac endotoxin of Bacillus thuringiensis
show enhanced resistance to yellow stem borer (Scirpophaga
incertulas) 2002 Transgenic Research 11: 411ñ423
9. Breitler,J , Vassal,J , del Mar Catala ,M, Meynard ,D, Marfý,V,
MelÈ ,E,Royer,M , Murillo,I , San Segundo ,B, Guiderdoni,E. and
Messeguer,J. Bt rice harbouring cry genes controlled by a
constitutive or wound-inducible promoter: protection and transgene
expression under Mediterranean field conditions 2004 Plant
Biotechnology Journal 2, in press 14pp
10. Sun C, Chen L, Wu Z, Zhang Y and Zhang L. Effect of transgenic Bt
rice planting on soil enzyme activities [Article in Chinese] 2003
Ying Yong Sheng Tai Xue Bao 14, 2261-4
11. Wu,D, Ye,Q,Wang,Z and Xia,Y. Effect of gamma irradiation on
nutritionalcomponents and Cry1Ab protein in the transgenic rice
with a synthetic cry1Ab gene from Bacillus thuringiensis 2004
Radiation Physics and Chemistry 69 , 79ñ83
12. Wu,A, Sun,X, Pang,Y.and Tang,K. Homozygous transgenic rice lines
expressing GNA with enhanced resistance to the rice sap-sucking
pest Laodelphax striatellus 2002 Plant Breeding 121, 93-5
13. Ewen,S and Pusztai,A. Effect of diets containing genetically
modified potatoes expressing Galanthus nivalis lectin on rat small
intest 1999 The Lancet 354,1353-4
14. Loc,N,Tinjuangjun,P,Gatehouse,A, Christou,P, Gatehouse,J. Linear
transgene constructs lacking vector backbone sequences generate
transgenic rice plants which accumulate higher levels of proteins
conferring insect resistance 2002 Molecular Breeding 9, 231-44
15. Ramesh,S, Nagadhara,D,Reddy,V. and Rao,K. Production of transgenic
indica rice resistant to yellow stem borer and sap-sucking
insects, using super-binary vectors of Agrobacterium tumefaciens
2004 Plant Science 166 , 1077ñ85
16. Maqbool,S, and Christou1,P Multiple traits of agronomic importance
in transgenic indica rice plants: analysis of transgene
integration patterns, expression levels and stability 1999
Molecular Breeding 5, 471ñ80
17. Tang,K,Tinjuangjun,P,Xu1,Y,Sun,X, Gatehouse,J, Ronald,P, Qi,H,
Lu,X, Christou,P. and Kohli,A. Particle-bombardment-mediated
co-transformation of elite Chinese rice cultivars with genes
conferring resistance to bacterial blight and sap-sucking insect
pests 1999 Planta 208,: 552-63
18. Jiang,G,Xu,C,Tu1,J, Li,X, He,Y and Zhang,Q. Pyramiding of insect-
and disease-resistance genes into an elite indica, cytoplasm male
sterile restorer line of rice, Minghui 63 2004 Plant Breeding 123,
112ó6
19. Mochizuki,A, Nishizawa,Y, Onodera,H, Tabei,Y, Toki,S, Habu,Y,
Ugak,M and Ohashi,Y. Transgenic rice plants expressing a trypsin
inhibitor are resistant against rice stem borers, Chilo
suppressalis 1999 Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata 93: 173ñ8
20. Fukuda1,A, Nakamur,A, Tagiri,A,Tanaka,H, Miyao,A, Hirochika,H. and
Tanaka,Y. Function, Intracellular Localization and the Importance
in Salt Tolerance of a Vacuolar Na+/H+ Antiporter from Rice 2004
Plant and Cell Physiology, 45, 146-59
21. Hanba,Y, Shibasaka ,M, Hayashi,Y, Hayakawa,T,Kasamo,K,
Terashima,I.and Katsuhara,M. Overexpression of the Barley
Aquaporin HvPIP2;1 Increases Internal CO2 Conductance and CO2
Assimilation in the Leaves of Transgenic Rice Plants 2004 Plant
Cell Physiol. 45, 521ñ9
22. Cummins,J. Pharm Crop Stalled for Now 2004 Science in Society 22 ,
28-9
23. Cummins,J. Human Proteins in GM Rice Linked to Disease Science in
Society 22,30
24. Messeguer,J, Marfý1,V,Catalý,M, Guiderdoni,E, and MelÈ,E. A field
study of pollen-mediated gene flow from Mediterranean GM rice to
conventional rice and the red rice weed 2004 Molecular Breeding
13, 103ñ12
25. Messeguer,J, Fogher,C,Guiderdoni,E,Marfý,V ,Catalý,M, Baldi,G. and
MelÈ,E. Field assessments of gene flow from transgenic to
cultivated rice ( Oryza sativa L.) using a herbicide resistance
gene as tracer marker 2001 Theor Appl Genet (2 103,1151ñ9
26. Song,Z,Lu,B. and Che,J. Pollen flow of cultivated rice measured
under experimental conditions 2004 Biodiversity and Conservation
13: 579ñ90
27. Cummins,J. Regulation by deceit 2004 Science in Society 22,31-2

Just in case anyone thought exaggerated the recent MannGram® scenario of
biodiesel emissions differing when the oil is made from GMOs, consider this
evidence:

Canadian firm delivers less polluting bio-fuel

- Canada's Iogen Corp. made its first commercial delivery of cellulose
ethanol Wednesday, moving the company a step closer to larger-scale
production of the alternative fuel, which has fewer harmful emissions than
either gasoline or conventional ethanol.

http://www.enn.com/news/2004-04-22/s_23089.asp

---

This is one example of many. In ganeral, technical-grade chemicals
contain many impurities. The trace impurities differ according to the
biological origin. The Showa Denko L-tryptophan was not merely technical
grade: it was food grade, >99% pure in all versions made 1984-89 by the
several GM-bacillus strains which had been 'engineered' for higher yield of
tryptophan. BTW no scientific account has ever been published of that
half-decade of experimentation. Showa Denko paid U$2billion to keep out of
court on a couple thousand lawsuits. Main facts, with main references, on
this are accessible at .

A particular chemical, e.g L-tryptophan or lactose, may well - as
demonstrated by the Showa Denko disaster - contain one or more harmful
impurities when purified from a GMO although that same main chemical is not
comparably harmful when purified from normally-bred organisms. Trace
impurities can kill or maim.

The same is true in spades for what were never expected to be
anything purer than mixtures e.g soy oil, lecithin, soy meal, rapeseed
oil, butter, etc etc.

The gene-racketeers will not admit that the very definitions of
food-grade, technical-grade, and other central concepts in food-standards
science would logically require fundamental review if GMOs were to be
accepted as food sources. Then, without conceding anything to science, the
gene-rortsters will quietly imply these are genuine concerns, by
manipulating govts to send these issues off to Codex or similar
transnational sandpit of 3rd-rate hacks.

Meanwhile - in the Monsanto dream which is such a nightmare to
decent people - artificial patented DNA cassettes will be deployed to
expand need for herbicides & pesticides in the ultimate monocultures. Such
GM-bastard crops will from time to time throw novel pathogens e.g plant
virus of novel range or vigour. And each GM-crop may, from the start of
the cultivation of a given GM-bastard clone, conduct deviant metabolism
leading to unforeseeable toxins, or trace components causing cancer,
malformations, mutations, or mental disorder. Many of the possible effects
will be delayed years, decades, or generations; but they are to be
expected, as vaguely warned by Lewontin.

It may be just a fluke, but it certainly is a shame that the
gene-jiggerers have scored their few commercial 'successes' mainly in
plants which were marginal for human consumption in the first place. Soya
beans are poisonous unless properly cooked, and many soy products are on
the margin of fitness for humans. Rapeseed oil was unfit for human
consumption until some Canucks bred a variety low in erucic acid; then to
spread around GM-rape can only compound uncertainty about food safety.

More than enough cocktails of harmful chemicals & radiations have
already accumulated in the biosphere since the industrial revolution. The
gene-rortsters are the most reckless gamblers in history to date, making
the nuclear faddists look honest & safe by comparison.

R

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?reportID=53009

Dr David Williams

'Crude and rude' GM condemned
NZ HERALD
23.06.2004

A New Zealand researcher working in the US abhors the 'sloppiness' of
inter-species gene transfer.
SIMON COLLINS reports.

When David Williams expresses concerns about genetic engineering, he carries
weight - because he does it himself.

Born at Kaikoura and raised on a Banks Peninsula sheepfarm where his brother
still farms, Dr Williams is an adjunct professor at the University of
California, San Diego.

He leads a team who are trying to inject a gene into the back of the eye to
restore sight to about 5000 Americans and perhaps 100 New Zealanders with a
rare genetic mutation called Usher Syndrome.

But he says his kind of "gene therapy", replacing a mutant gene with a
normal one from the same species, is quite different from inserting a gene
from a different species into a crop.

Last year, Dr Williams made a submission from San Diego against an
application by Crop & Food Research to modify onions to resist Monsanto's
Roundup weedkiller, saying the institute had failed to investigate all the
changes that its experiments would induce in onions.

"I just abhor sloppiness," he said this month at his home in the eucalyptus
forests behind San Diego, keeping an eye on his two young children playing
in the garden.

"The problem with this GE approach is not GE per se - I do this stuff
myself. It's the fact that they are going ahead with a crude-and-rude
approach and throwing these things into the food chain."

Dr Williams' perspective is interesting because even now, 14 years after a
4-year-old Ohio girl with a severe immune deficiency became the world's
first gene therapy success, there are still not many gene therapists around.

Only one gene therapy operation has been conducted on humans in New
Zealand - carried out by Auckland University's Professor Matt During on two
infants with Canavan disease, a fatal brain disorder, in 1996.

Professor During used the technique again last August to inject a gene into
a man with Parkinson's disease in New York. Some colleagues called the
experiment crazy because tests on monkeys had not yet been published, but
patient Nathan Klein says on a website 10 months later that the symptoms of
his illness have "improved 40 to 60 per cent".

In plants, genetic modification is usually done by injecting a gene into a
single cell that is then grown from a seed into a plant which carries the
new gene in all its cells.

In human beings, ethical considerations have held scientists back from such
radical experiments. Instead, gene therapists aim to inject genes into
specialised cells that carry out particular body functions.

Dr Williams and his team are targeting the photo-receptor cells at the back
of the eye that capture light and translate it into an image for the brain.

Babies with Usher Syndrome - about one in every 20,000 - are born deaf and
start going blind in their teens.

They start off learning sign language to get around their deafness, then
lose the ability to see hand-signs and have to learn a new language based on
touching different parts of the palms of their hands.

"It's very frightening for these people because they lose contact with the
deaf community," Dr Williams says.

Gloria Campbell, a practice adviser with the Royal New Zealand Foundation
for the Blind, works with about 20 Usher patients in Auckland. She says many
of her patients are "in a constant state of crisis" as their sight
deteriorates.

"To be able to stop that deterioration would be incredible," she says.

Dr Williams' team has found the faulty gene that causes the syndrome, and is
now working with mice to try to inject good versions of the gene into the
photo-receptor cells.

"The eye is a pretty good place to be progressing with gene therapy because
it's an isolated system with a lot of cases of blindness caused by the loss
of function of a single gene," he says.

"All you have to do is get the gene back in and you can replace function."

But it is not quite as easy as it sounds. After years of work, Dr Williams
has not yet managed to inject the good gene directly into photo-receptor
cells, but he has got it into another group of cells just behind the
photo-receptors called the epithelial (outer layer) cells.

The technique involves a virus - a tiny infective particle made up of a
string of genes so small that it can get into living cells.

"We put a good copy of the gene into the virus and inject it into that space
between the photo-receptors and the epithelium. Each cell that is infected
starts expressing [the new gene]," he says.

But Dr Williams has chosen a gene that is expressed only in the
photo-receptors and the epithelium. Tests show it does not affect other
surrounding brain cells.

Colleagues at Pennsylvania University, working on a different genetic
eyesight fault, have restored sight to dogs that were born near-blind.

Both they and Dr Williams want to be more sure of their ground before they
do trials in humans. What worries Dr Williams is that plant geneticists show
much less restraint.

Like medical gene therapists, GM crop scientists sometimes use sequences
from viruses to get new genes expressed in plant cells.

But unlike gene therapists, they insert genes that are typically expressed
in all parts of the plant at all times. Tests with a simple plant last year
showed that inserting one new gene affected three-quarters of all the
plant's other genes.

"You do affect other genes when you slam a transgene in, but they are not
checking on that," says Dr Williams. "They are not doing it because it costs
money."

He says it would be much safer to target particular genes. For example, Crop
& Food could use a Roundup-resistant gene that is expressed only when a
growing plant is sprayed with weedkiller, and not when it is harvested
later.

"Genes are expressed at different times of development.

"If you know what genes are turned on at particular stages of development,
you find a gene that is turned on during that window of the plant's life
when you want to spray," says Dr Williams.

"Then you don't have this foreign product - because after all, it is from a
gene of a bacterium - in the human food chain."

But Dr Tony Conner, of Crop & Food's genetic engineering team, says there is
no more reason to fear direct manipulation of plant genes by an inserted
gene than there is to fear equally dramatic changes made by conventional
breeding for thousands of years.

"Huge arrays of gene changes can be expected to occur as a result of gene
transfer via traditional plant breeding," he says.

No one checks all those changes in detail every time a plant breeder grows a
bigger carrot or a sweeter potato, so why should the genetic engineering of
plants be treated differently?

"You have to put this into the context of what we need to know, as against
what would be nice to know," Dr Conner says.

"With GM approaches, changes can be better recognised as being issues when
you know exactly what you have transferred to a plant, as opposed to regular
plant breeding."

He says GM crop scientists are working, as Dr Williams advocates, towards
targeting the genetic changes they make in plants to affect only the genes
that "turn on" at the appropriate time, such as when the plant is growing
and being sprayed rather than at the time of harvest.

But food is different from medicines, Dr Conner says, so the regulatory
standard that it should be "substantially the same" as existing foods is
sufficient.

"With drugs, you are putting a very, very high dose of a specific compound
into your body that is expected to have a specific biochemical effect.

"In those cases, you are generally trying to inhibit or strengthen some
function and you can anticipate that there will be dramatic effects," says
Dr Conner.

In contrast, most of the time we do not eat food to have any effect on our
health at all, but simply "for pleasure and to fill our stomachs".

We are, therefore, much more willing to take risks with food.

"Just go to the Wild Foods Festival on the West Coast," Dr Conner says.

"The risks [with GM], when you come down to it, are no different from
traditional plant breeding in terms of unforeseen indirect changes."

He does allow that "nutraceuticals" - foods designed specifically for health
effects - need to be more tightly regulated. But again, that applies
regardless of whether the product is "golden rice", with an extra gene that
produces more vitamin A, or a separate vitamin pill made by non-GM means.

From across the perceptual divide, Dr Williams scoffs at golden rice. The
extra vitamin A engineered into it would not be enough to cure widespread
blindness in the Third World, he says.

The world already produces plenty of food - the problem is that it is
distributed unequally.

But then from the equity point of view, he concedes, much the same could be
said of his own work.

"Spending millions of dollars to develop gene therapy for blindness when you
could save millions of lives by increasing sanitation in Third World
countries - there is a parallel there. I'm as deep in this as anyone else,"
says Dr Williams.

"But we are not touting this as the way to feed the world."

www.sciencemag.org
SCIENCE vol 304 18 JUNE 2004

BIOTECHNOLOGY
Why Are People Hostile to Biotechnologies?

Massimiano Bucchi1 and Federico Neresini2
1Dipartimento di Scienze Umane e Sociali, Università
di Trento, via Verdi 26, 38100 Trento, Italy. E-mail:
mbucchi@soc.unitn.it. 2Dipartimento di Sociologia,
Università di Padova, via San Canziano 8, 35122
Padova, Italy. E-mail: federico.neresini@unipd.it

POLICY FORUM

Public debate on biotechnologies illustrates the difficulty of combining
democratic forms with regulation of
complex technoscientific issues. The root of the problem is often
identified as a lack ofscientific literacy, mainly caused by a distorted
and alarmist representation of these issues by the mass media and
associated with prejudice against science (1).

Two years ago, we used data collected from two large surveys of Italian
public opinion to demonstrate that, although lack of information on
biotechnologies and a marked hostility against food biotechnologies
are clear, the links between media exposure, levels of awareness, and
attitudes toward biotechnologies are far from straightforward. In other
words, it is not sufficient to be more informed to be more
open to biotechnologies; indeed, the contrary is sometimes the case (2).
However, we left open the question of what - if media exposure and
awareness itself do not seem to be so relevant - could actually explain
public hostility to biotechnologies.

In 2003, another survey of Italian public opinion was carried out,
specifically aimed at analyzing this question (3). A representative sample
of 994 Italian citizens was interviewed by phone in late March
2003. A copy of the questions used in the survey and the percentage
response rates are available on the Science Web site.

We believe that the negative attitudes toward biotechnologies that we have
documented are not part of a more general public prejudice against science.
Italians distinguish among biotechnologies; 84% are favorable to continuing
research on medical biotechnologies, whereas 57.3% think that research on
food biotechnologies should be continued. This is consistent with
international surveys that indicate high levels of trust in science and its
applications (4).

That antiscience attitudes are not the key to answering our question is
also confirmed by scientists being indicated in the latest survey as the
most trustworthy source of information on biotechnologies (39%).

At the same time, however, the perceived image of scientific research among
citizens seems to have lost some of its aspect of impartiality and
disinterestedness: 69% of respondents, for instance, define science
asloaded with interests.

Science is also increasingly seen as in internal disagreement: 68.6% think
that the members of the scientific community have conflicting views on the
issue of genetically modified organisms (food and plant products) (GMOs),
and 83.3% perceive specialists in disagreement about cloning. Those who
considered the scientific community to be in conflict were also somewhat
more likely to be skeptical about biotech applications (5).

When it comes to indicating who should make decisions regarding
biotechnologies, citizens express, as in the previous survey, a strong
request for involvement and public participation: according to one
respondent out of 5, such decisions should be the responsibility of all
citizens, whereas only about 1 out of 10 assigns this responsibility to the
scientists themselves. In particular, those who emphasize the risk of
certain biotechnology applications are also in higher proportion among
those who believe that
decisions on biotechnologies should involveall citizens. Skepticism
toward traditional forms of decision-making and representation may also be
detected in the fact that the majority of respondents indicate a
transnational body (the European Union) as best placed to decide on
biotechnology issues;
those choosing the Italian government are even less numerous than those
convinced that no one is in a position to decide (see the table).
Our study suggests that what we are witnessing represents concern for the
procedures connecting scientific expertise, decision-making, and political
representation. We believe that neither the elitist approach ("leave it to
the experts") nor the utopian approach (which assumes that all citizens can
be transformed into scientific experts) is viable.

Experts are not sufficient because political actors and institutions are
considered inadequate in this area by the majority of citizens. Science,
moreover, is increasingly perceived as feeding uncertainty rather than
certainty. The objection toward (some) biotechnologies seems to derive
from the currently
perceived absence of adequate and publicly accountable procedures for the
governance of innovation.

Future studies are needed to explore how certain events and their media
coverage may have contributed to shaping this perception. Journalists
clearly have a significant responsibility in choosing the results
and spokespersons which are used to represent the scientific point of view
in the public domain; however, reducing this complex process to a simple
matter of malpractice on the part of the media seems to respond only to the
desire to find an easy scapegoat, while ignoring a dilemma which is
increasingly serious and relevant.

References and Notes
1. See, for example,U.S. Medical Association decries lies vs.
biotech, March 2003; http://lifesciencesnetwork.com/
news-detail.asp?newsID=3564.
2. M. Bucchi, F. Neresini, Nature416, 261 (2002).
3. The survey received financial support from the
Bassetti Foundation and from Observa Cultural
Association.
4. Eurobarometer 55.2, 2001; Eurobarometer 58.2,
2003.
5. Of the individuals in our survey, 34.8% thought that
modifying genes of fruit and vegetables to make
them more resistant to parasiteswas useful, as compared
with 43.8% of the group who viewed the scientific
community as basically consistent. Furthermore,
35% of those who believed scientists are in disagreement
over GMOs considered the same application
as morally acceptable, versus 44% of those who
had emphasized agreement among experts (?2= 7.45,
df = 2; P= 0.05).
Supporting Online Material
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/304/5678/1749/DC1

WHO SHOULD DECIDE WHETHER TO
CONTINUE RESEARCH ON BIOTECHNOLOGIES?
Percent*
The Italian government 9.0
The European Union 29.9
Entrepreneurs funding research 2.0
Scientists 11.9
The Catholic church 2.2
All citizens 20.9
Potential beneficiaries of applications 5.1
No one is in a position to decide 14.4
Dont know  no response 4.5
*Calculated on the basis of the 994 participants in the survey.

Exodus 23: 10

For six years you may sow your land and gather its
produce; but in the seventh year you shall let it lie fallow and leave it
alone.

[this was my simple concept; however, look what immediately follows!]

It shall provide food for the poor of your people,
and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do likewise with
your vineyard and your olive-grove.

I'd be grateful to be guided to any scholarly analysis of this full
defn; it differs greatly from the 'nothing is to be harvested in the 7th y'
image which is evidently mistaken.

-
Robt Mann
consultant ecologist
P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand
(9) 524 2949

A penpal has asked me for comment on this new article.
I'm Ccing various who may wish to augment the discussion.

>Scientific American.com
>June 21, 2004
>
>God's Number Is Up
>
>Among a heap of books claiming that science proves God's existence emerges
>one that computes a
>probability of 67 percent
>By Michael Shermer

>Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic (www.skeptic.com) and author of
>The Science of Good and Evil.

Note at the start that this man is a notoriously polemical atheist.
I would not expect reasonable or fair discussion from him.

>In his 1916 poem "A Coat," William Butler Yeats rhymed: "I made my song a
>coat/Covered with
>embroideries/Out of old mythologies/From heel to throat."
>Read "religion" for "song," and "science" for "coat," and we have a close
>approximation of the deepest flaw in the science and religion movement, as
>revealed in Yeats's denouement: "But the fools caught it,/Wore it in the
>world's eyes/As though they'd wrought it./Song, let them take it/For
>there's more enterprise/In walking naked."
>Naked faith is what religious enterprise was always about, until science
>became the preeminent system of natural verisimilitude, tempting the
>faithful to employ its wares in the practice of preternatural belief.
>Although most efforts in this genre offer little more than scientistic
>cant and religious blather, a few require a response from the magisterium
>of science, if for no other reason than to protect that of religion; if
>faith is tethered to science, what happens when the science changes?
> One of the most innovative works in this genre is The Probability of God
>(Crown Forum, 2003), by Stephen D. Unwin, a risk management consultant in
>Ohio, whose early physics work on quantum gravity showed him that the
>universe is probabilistic and whose later research in risk analysis led
>him to this ultimate computation.
>If faith is tethered to science, what happens when the science changes?

That is a good (and far from new) point. Failure, _pro tem_, to
explain this or that scientific phenomenon in terms of known scientific
laws is an inherently weak basis for theism. Such arguments of the 'God of
the gaps' type, exemplified lately by Dembski on the bacterial flagellum,
are weak if only because science may at some future time provide an
explanation not now seen.

>Unwin rejects most scientific attempts to prove the divine--such as the
>anthropic principle

I've not yet seen Unwin's bk, but if he dismisses the anthropic
principle glibly then I'd tend to dismiss him pretty quick. Barrow &
Tipler, tho' riddled with errors (not cogent to the main argument), is to
my mind overwhelmingly convincing. Those who insist, in the face of all
that evidence, that evolution (incl prebiotic) *could* all be just
coincidence are, at the very least, betting on some extremely low odds.

> and intelligent design

This is a far weaker line of reasoning, in the God-of-the-gaps
category. It is also conducted by some dishonest people who persistently
refuse to put any argument from myself on their www.iscid. They are, I
tentatively infer, funded by "creationist" fanatics. They are certainly
not interested in promoting reasonable discussion of their ideas.

> - concluding that this "is not the sort of evidence that points in either
>direction, for or against." Instead he employs Bayesian probabilities, a
>statistical method devised by 18th-century Presbyterian minister and
>mathematician Reverend Thomas Bayes.

I'm copying in a local expert on this - which I am certainly not.
With luck he will have time to comment.

> Unwin begins with a 50 percent probability that God exists (because 50-50
>represents "maximum ignorance")

One must pause here to remark that this approach, reminiscent of
Descartes, is no attempt at comprehensive reasoning but an artificial
restriction. A blank mind is not what we actually start with. But I am of
course willing to trace the ensuing reasoning in case it turns up something
of interest.

>, then applies a modified Bayesian theorem:
>The probability of God's existence after the evidence is considered is a
>function of the probability before
>times D ("Divine Indicator Scale"): 10 indicates the evidence is 10 times
>as likely to be produced if God
>exists, 2 is two times as likely if God exists, 1 is neutral, 0.5 is
>moderately more likely if God does not exist, and 0.1 is much more likely
>if God does not exist.

This 'quantitative' approach is suspect. More important are the
qualitative questions e.g why is there good - _any_ good?

> Unwin offers the following figures for six lines of evidence:
>recognition of goodness (D = 10), existence of moral evil (D = 0.5),
>existence of natural evil (D = 0.1),
>intranatural miracles (prayers) (D = 2), extranatural miracles
>(resurrection) (D = 1), and religious
>experiences (D = 2).

I can't go into each of these just now - tho' I hope others
will. But on that last: religious or spiritual experiences, essentially
personal and blithely dismissed by ultrasceptics who have not themselves
experienced any such, have been compelling in the lives of millions.

>Plugging these figures into the above formula (in sequence, where the P
>after figure for the first computation is used for the P before figure in
>the second computation, and so on for all six Ds), Unwin concludes: "The
>probability that God exists is 67%."

>Remarkably, he then confesses: "This number has a subjective element
>since it reflects my assessment of the evidence. It isn't as if we have
>calculated the value of pi for the first time."

What is remarkable about that "confession"? It is no more than a
straightforward statement of a key aspect of the whole caper. I suspect
Schermer finds it remarkable because he would himself never go out of his
way to make such an honest point.

>Indeed, based on my own theory of the evolutionary origins of morality and
>the sociocultural foundation of religious beliefs and faith, I would begin
>(as Unwin does) with a 50 percent probability of God's existence
>and plug in these figures: recognition of goodness (D = 0.5), existence of
>moral evil (D = 0.1), existence of natural evil (D = 0.1), intranatural
>miracles (D = 1), extranatural miracles (D = 0.5), and religious
>experiences (D = 0.1).
>I estimate the probability that God exists is 0.02, or 2 percent.

Coming from such a keen atheist, this is a surprisingly high number!

>Regardless, the subjective component in the formula relegates its use to
>an entertaining exercise in
>thinking--on par with mathematical puzzles--but little more.

I tend to agree.

>In my opinion, the question of God's existence is a scientifically
>insoluble one.

Now we have come to a solid point of agreement. The idea that
science can *prove* - one way or another - whether God exists is a
mistake. As an exponent of natural theology I like to point out the hints
in nature, but they are little more than that; the universe bears many
marks of design, but the qualities, or even the number, of Creator(s)
cannot be proven from science. Science does not deal in such matters.

> Thus, all such scientistic theologies

I see no reason for this coinage

> are compelling only to those who already believe. Religious faith
>depends on a host of social, psychological and emotional factors that have
>little or nothing to do with probabilities, evidence and logic.

Here again, a welcome agreement.

> This is faith's inescapable weakness. It is also, undeniably, its
>greatest power.

On the whole, I'm encouraged that Schermer has reached his main
conclusions of this piece.

R

Laws of Physics Didn't Bind Bush
http://watleyreview.com/2004/060804-1.html

Volume 2, Issue 23, June 8, 2004
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lawyers Decided Laws of Physics Didn't Bind Bush

A team of administration lawyers concluded in a March 2003 legal
memorandum that President Bush was not bound by the laws of physics because
he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed
to protect the nation's security.

"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to
manage a military campaign," the lawyers wrote in the 56-page confidential
memorandum, "such restrictions as the laws of momentum, gravity, and the
speed of light must be construed as inapplicable to actions undertaken
pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority."

According to the memo, such violations would only be defensible in cases
where the president was acting directly in the interests of national
security.

"We're not saying that he should just go flying up into the air instead of
using Air Force One for routine travel," said Harold Weiss, a White House
staff attorney. "But if Al Qaeda were to hijack some more planes, then some
judicious faster-than-light action might well be justifiable."

The memo, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also said
that any executive branch officials, including those in the military, could
be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against violating
the laws of physics for a variety of reasons.

"The U.N. Security Council has long enforced such principles as the laws
of thermodynamics," commented Rumsfeld. "Now that puts American soldiers at
risk. When you lift these artificial restrictions, you can get much better
mileage out of a Humvee, for example. In a way, you could say that the U.N.
is in favor of preserving entropy. Entropy is chaos: America stands for
order."

The scientific community reacted with expressions of outrage and disbelief.

"Billions of dollars in research and development will go down the drain if
the Bush administration proceeds along these lines," said Bruce Alberts,
president of the National Academy of Sciences. "The short-term gains would
certainly be offset by the permanent loss of America's lead in scientific
research. Once you open the door to perpetual motion machines, all bets are
off."

The March memorandum, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal
on Monday, is the latest internal legal study to be disclosed that shows
that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks the administration's lawyers were
set to work to find legal arguments to avoid restrictions imposed by
international and American law. The previously disclosed Justice
Department memorandum concluded that administration officials were
justified in asserting that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to
detainees from the Afghanistan war, and that the laws of attraction and
planetary motion were "optional."

"I don't care if we have to declare that up is down and black is white,"
said Rumsfeld. "We're going to do what it takes to keep America safe, and
make sure that we have a darn good justification for doing so - at least on
paper."

It occurs to me that these notes may be of use to some.

R


Care for Creation - How does Gene-tampering fit in ?

Robert Mann

notes for 'Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Gene Technologies'
Quaker Settlement, Wanganui Sep 30 2000

The context upon which GM bursts is summarised in a recent report
from the World Resources Institute (www.wri.org), the United Nations
Environment Programme, and other agencies. "Every measure used by
scientists to assess the health of the world's ecosystems tells us that we
are drawing on them more than ever and degrading them at an accelerating
pace," Dr Klaus Topfer, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme
said in a recent statement. Grave conclusions along these lines have been
stated for 3 decades in The Ecologist and during that period by large
groups of Nobel Prize winners etc. The Worldwatch Institute is one of the
most reliable sources for science-based interpretation, notably in their
annual 'state of the world' reports. We are living through one of the most
severe periods of extinction in the whole existence of the biosphere, and
such organisms as survive are being subjected to high loads of chemicals
and radiations causing mutations, malformations, cancer, and mental
disturbances. Care for Creation is evidently a low priority for the
overdeveloped world, and for the elites of the never-to-be-developed world.
Christianity can take little satisfaction from the state of the biosphere
in which the human has lately become so numerous and so technologically
intoxicated.

Thus, the world upon which GM bursts is already in a very bad way,
and being rapidly degraded. Ecosystems are being overtaxed and destroyed.
Species are being exterminated at a terrible rate. On top of all that, we
now release novel organisms with combinations of genes that have never
occurred and may have unforeseeable effects.

In the limited time we have to discuss ethics of GM, we must take
as read much of the science. I must leave you largely to read up on the
science and the scientific limitations of GM. The two best websites are
www.psrast.org and www.ucsusa.org.

Here we have time only to note the outlines of the technology.
Groups of genes from various organisms, often synthetic approximate copies,
are inserted by radically unnatural methods into living cells. Some of the
processes used are reminiscent of viral infections. One technology,
favoured for monocotyledons such as maize, uses the 'gene gun': the groups
of foreign DNA are coated onto heavy-metal particles much smaller than the
target cells and blasted in by a micro-shotgun. Nothing of this sort is
known in nature. Not surprisingly, most of the target cells are killed.

The surviving cells are then challenged with an antibiotic,
resistance to which is encoded by a gene which was attached to the main
transgene of the 'cassette' fired into them. Those which grow despite that
antibiotic in an artificial medium are likely to have incorporated also the
desired transgene - in most of the commercial crops so far, either
resistance to a herbicide spray or ability to produce in themselves a
modified insecticide.

These surviving cells are then grown into a whole plant. Cuttings
may then be grown from that, or from an earlier 'callus' stage.

If you think such a plant may have unexpected properties, you're
right. The assumption that it won't is junk science, an imprudent gamble.

Animal GM, using different methods, concerns some people even more
than crop GM. I know of no way to compare them with any exactitude, but
mammals share more pathogens with humans than do plants, and the issue of
cruelty arises.

By Adam Turner
The Age June 8, 2004

Security experts slammed Microsoft's decision to deny a vital security
update to computer users allegedly running pirated copies of Windows XP.

Microsoft rates the upcoming Service Pack 2 update for Windows XP as
"critical" but the software giant will ensure that it cannot be
installed on versions of XP using the 20 most common activation codes
used by pirate copies.

While conceding that the internet will be better off if more users
install the pack, Microsoft's efforts to block the update on bootleg
copies of Windows XP could leave thousands of computers open to
hijacking - posing a threat to all internet users.

The Microsoft decision will harm its licensed users, says chief
technical officer of Counterpane Internet Security, Bruce Schneier.
"This decision, more than anything else Microsoft has said or done in
the past few years, proves to me that security is not the company's
first priority," Schneier says.

Here was a chance for Microsoft to put security ahead of profits and
improve security for all its users worldwide, he says. "Microsoft claims
that improving security is the most important thing, but its actions
prove otherwise."

Service packs are regularly issued by Microsoft for products such as
Windows and Office and contain a collection of fixes in areas such as
security, application compatibility and operating system reliability.
Security is the primary focus of Windows XP Service Pack 2 but its
release has been delayed several times. It is now expected in September,
two years after the release of Service Pack 1.

Microsoft Australia was unable to get comment from its headquarters in
Redmond, Washington, but operations manager of Microsoft's Redmond
security response centre, Iain Mulholland - in Australia for the AusCERT
security conference - conceded "the more people that use Service Pack 2,
the better the health of the internet". He defended the decision to deny
the update to pirate copies of Windows XP.

The decision puts all internet users at greater risk, says AusCERT
security analyst Jamie Gillespie.

"Through the widespread piracy of the Windows operating system,
primarily in the Asian countries but also worldwide, systems that remain
unpatched from Service Pack 2 and beyond would pose a risk to the
greater internet," Gillespie says.

Russ Cooper, editor of the NTBugTraq mailing list and a senior security
specialist with TruSecure, defends Microsoft's actions. Software writers
deserve to make money from the fruits of their labour, he says, and
access to software is not an "inherent human right".

"Anybody that steals that labour, being intellectual property or
otherwise, should deserve no rights and should be expunged as much as
possible, and if one way of doing that is to deny them access to
hotfixes and service packs, then I'm all for it," he says.

This story was found at:
http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/07/1086460216671.html

>Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004
>From: "Maxim Institute"
>
>*< #1>Quiz finds literature knowledge gap
>
>
>*< #2>Next generation need discipline tools
>
>
>*< #3>Manipulating language - education gobbledygook
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>*< #4>Auckland Change Agent workshop - register now
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>
> Quiz finds literature knowledge gap
>
> A short test of secondary school pupils has revealed that few are
>knowledgeable about New Zealand literature. Creative New Zealand chairman
>Peter Biggs who conducted the quiz, was surprised at the lack of
>awareness, saying the result was "dismally illuminating". One student
>thought Anne Frank had set up a commune at Jerusalem on the Wanganui
>River, while another thought Alice Cooper had written The End of the
>Golden Weather.

[ I doubt they actually believed these fatuities - more likely
they were merely trying to be cheeky]

>An obvious question arises - do our young people suffer from a literature
>knowledge gap? They probably do and the reason is not difficult to find.
>
>In the 1970s the teaching of literature in schools became politicised.
>Books began to be studied thematically. For example, what had Dickens to
>say about the causes of poverty? Or Jane Austin about the role of women?
>The historical context and the voice of the author tended to take second
>place. Consequently, the study of literature went into decline. Now we
>are largely without a measuring rod to assess quality.
>
>Literature has largely lost its ability to connect the generations. A
>teacher or a grandparent can no longer presuppose a rich and intimate
>understanding of things like metaphor and the images of myth, fairy tales
>and other good writing. The enrichment that accompanies the mutual
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>widening gap between the generations that needs to be bridged.
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>Discuss this article in our
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> Next generation need discipline tools
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> Following the release of Maxim's Snapshot and the finding that parents
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>including smacking, rather than whether they smack or not.
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>Violence, abuse and frequent use of physical punishment are detrimental to
>children and should not be tolerated. However, there is a clear
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>describe how her eldest child "has not been smacked for two years because
>there are other punishments more appropriate."
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>We are all familiar in New Zealand with tragic cases of child abuse
>leading to death. However, these are associated with dysfunctional
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>Best Evidence Synthesis series. "Quality Teaching for Diverse Students in
>Schooling" (p. 1):
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>Quality teaching is defined as 'pedagogical practices that facilitate for
>heterogeneous groups of students their access to information, and ability
>to engage in classroom activities and tasks in ways that facilitate
>learning related to curriculum goals'. The term 'teaching' is used for
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Subject: Zionist eugenics
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=437879&sw=%20Tamara%2
0Traubmann

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last update - 02:11 11/06/2004

Do not have children if they won't be healthy!

'A shocking new study reveals how key figures in the pre-state Zionist
establishment proposed castrating the mentally ill, sterilizing the poor
and doing everything possible to ensure reproduction only among the `best
of people.'

By Tamara Traubmann


Castrating the mentally ill, encouraging reproduction among families
"numbered among the intelligentsia" and limiting the size of "families of
Eastern origin" and "preventing ... lives that are lacking in purpose" -
these proposals are not from some program of the Third Reich but rather
were brought up by key figures in the Zionist establishment of the Land of
Israel during the period of the British Mandate. It turns out there was a
great deal of enthusiasm here for the improvement of the hereditary
characteristics of a particular race (eugenics). This support, which has
been kept under wraps for many years, is revealed in a study that examines
the ideological and intellectual roots at the basis of the establishment of
the health system in Israel.

In the Yishuv (pre-state Jewish community) in the 1930s there were
"consultation stations" operating on a Viennese model of advice centers for
couples that wished to marry and become parents. In Austria, with the
Nazis' rise to power, they served for forced treatment. Here the stations
were aimed at "giving advice on matters of sex and marriage, especially in
the matter of preventing pregnancy in certain cases." They distributed
birth-control devices for free to the penniless and at reduced prices to
those of limited means. In Tel Aviv the advice stations were opened in
centers of immigrant populations: Ajami in Jaffa, the Hatikvah Quarter and
Neveh Sha'anan.

These are some of the findings of a doctoral thesis written by Sachlav
Stoler-Liss about the history of the health services in the 1950s, under
the supervision of Prof. Shifra Shvarts, head of the department of health
system management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. They were
presented at the annual conference of the Israel Anthropological
Association at Ben-Gurion College.

The father of the theory of eugenics was British scholar Francis Galton.
It was he who coined the term - which literally means "well-born" - at the
end of the 19th century. The aim of the eugenics movement was to better
the human race. Galton proposed a plan to encourage reproduction among
"the best people" in society and to prevent reproduction among "the worst
elements."

Forced sterilization

Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Galton
drew many followers and his ideas spread rapidly to other countries in
Europe (among them Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, Sweden and Belgium), to
the United States and to some countries in South America. In various
countries laws were passed that allowed for the forced sterilization of
"hereditary paupers, criminals, the feeble-minded, tuberculous, shiftless
and ne'er-do-wells." In the United States, up until 1935, about 20,000
people - "insane," "feeble-minded," immigrants, members of ethnic
minorities and people with low IQs - were forcibly sterilized, most of them
in California. The Californian law was revoked only in 1979. According to
Dr. Philip Reilly, a doctor and executive director of the Shriver Center
for Mental Retardation, in 1985 at least 19 states in the United States had
laws that allowed the sterilization of people with mental retardation,
(among them Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi, North and
South Carolina, Vermont, Utah and Montana).

"Eugenics is considered to be something that only happened in Germany,"
says Stoler-Liss. "Germany was indeed the most murderous manifestation of
eugenics, but in fact it was a movement that attracted many followers. In
every place it took on a unique, local aspect. It is interesting to note
that both in Germany and in Israel a link was made between eugenics, health
and nationalism."

Stoler-Liss first encountered the eugenics texts of doctors from the
Yishuv when looking for instruction books for parents for a research
project for her master's degree. "I presented a text at a thesis seminar
and then the instructor of the workshop said to me, `But why aren't you
saying that this is a translated text?' I replied: `No, no, the text isn't
translated.' `In Israel,' he said, `there are no such things.'"

She decided to look into whether there was only anecdotal and non-
representative evidence, doctors and public figures here and there who
supported eugenics - and she found many publications that promoted
eugenics. Supporters of the idea were key figures in the emerging medical
establishment in Palestine; the people who managed and created the Israeli
health system.

One of the most prominent eugenicists of the Mandatory period was Dr.
Joseph Meir, a well-known doctor who acquired his education in Vienna,
served for about 30 years as the head of the Kupat Holim Clalit health
maintenance organization, and after whom the Meir Hospital in Kfar Sava is
named. "From his position at the very heart of the Zionist medical
establishment in the land of Israel in the mid-1930s, he brought young
mothers the gospel of eugenics, warned them about degeneracy and
transmitted the message to them about their obligation and responsibility
for bearing only healthy children," says Stoler-Liss.

Thus, for example, in 1934 Dr. Meir published the following text on the
first page of "Mother and Child," a guide for parents that he edited for
publication by Kupat Holim: "Who is entitled to give birth to children? The
correct answer is sought by eugenics, the science of improving the race and
preserving it from degeneration. This science is still young, but its
positive results are already great and important - These cases [referring
to marriages of people with hereditary disorders - T.T.] are not at all
rare in all nations and in particular in the Hebrew nation that has lived a
life of exile for 1,800 years. And now our nation has returned to be
reborn, to a natural life in the land of the Patriarchs. Is it not our
obligation to see to it that we have whole and healthy children in body and
soul? For us, eugenics as a whole, and the prevention of the transmission
of hereditary disorders in particular, even greater value than for all
other nations! ... Doctors, people involved in sport and the national
leaders must make broad propaganda for the idea: Do not have children if
you are not certain that they will be healthy in body and soul!"

'Problematic and dangerous'

In its full version, the article, which was published in the "Health
Guard" section of the now defunct labor Zionist newspaper Davar, the doctor
proposed castrating the mentally ill. Stoler-Liss found many more examples
in the "Mother and Child" books that were published in 1934 and 1935 and in
journals like Eitanim, which was edited by Dr. Meir.

"The support of Dr. Meir and other senior people in the health system for
these ideas has been kept under wraps for many years," claims Stoler-Liss.
No one today talks about this chapter in the history of the Yishuv. In the
mid-1950s Dr. Meir's articles were collected into a book that came out in
his memory. The article mentioned above was not included in it. Stoler-Liss
found a card file with notes scribbled by the editors of the volume. They
defined the article as "problematic and dangerous." "Now, after Nazi
eugenics," wrote one of the editors, "it is dangerous to publish this
article."

During the latter part of the 1930s, adds Stoler-Liss, when word came out
about the horrors that eugenics in its extreme form is likely to cause,
they stopped using this word, which was attributed to the Nazis. Overnight
eugenics organizations and journals changed their names and tried to shake
off any signs of this theory. Dr. Meir, however, during all the years he
was active, continued to promote the ideas of eugenics. At the beginning of
the 1950s he published an article in which he harshly criticized the
reproduction prize of 100 lirot that David Ben-Gurion promised to every
mother who gave birth to 10 children. "We have no interest in the 10th
child or even in the seventh in poor families from the East ... In today's
reality we should pray frequently for a second child in a family that is a
part of the intelligentsia. The poor classes of the population must not be
instructed to have many children, but rather restricted."

"I'm not making a value judgment," says Stoler-Liss. "Zionism arose at a
certain period, in a certain ideological atmosphere - there were all kinds
of ideas in the air and there were also eugenicist Zionists. Some of the
doctors were educated in Europe, and at that time the medical schools
taught not only medicine but also the theory of eugenics."

Judaism of muscle

Dr. Meir was not the first Zionist leader who supported eugenics.
According to studies by Dr. Rapahel Falk, a geneticist and historian of
science and medicine at Hebrew University, other major Zionist thinkers -
among them Dr. Max Nordau, Theodor Herzl's colleague, a doctor and a
publicist, and Dr. Arthur Ruppin, the head of the World Zionist
Organization office in the Land of Israel - presented the ideas of eugenics
as one of the aims of the Jewish movement for national renewal and the
settlement of the land.

Prof. Meira Weiss, an anthropologist of medicine at Hebrew University,
describes in her book "The Chosen Body" how the settlement of the land and
work on the land were perceived by these Zionist thinkers as the "cure"
that would restore the health of the Jewish body that had degenerated in
the Diaspora. In Nordau's terms, a "Judaism of muscle" would replace "the
Jew of the coffee house: the pale, skinny, Diaspora Jew. "At a time when
many Europeans are calling for a policy of eugenics, the Jews have never
taken part in the `cleansing' of their race but rather allowed every child,
be it the sickest, to grow up and marry and have children like himself.
Even the mentally retarded, the blind and the deaf were allowed to marry,"
wrote Ruppin in his book "The Sociology of the Jews." "In order to preserve
the purity of our race, such Jews [with signs of degeneracy - T.T.] must
refrain from having children."

"Many people dealt with eugenics as a theoretical issue," says
Stoler-Liss. "They even set up a Nordau Club with the aim of researching
the racial aspects of the Jewish people and ways of improving it. What was
special about Dr. Meir and the group that joined him was that for them
eugenics was a very practical matter." They wanted to pursue applied
eugenics.

The main institution was the advice station. The first station was opened
in 1931 in Beit Strauss on Balfour Street in Tel Aviv. The aim was to work
in "pleasant ways," through persuasion and choice. As Stoler-Liss explains:
"Why should people work against their personal interests? It is here that
the connection to the national interest comes in. If I understand that by
having a baby I will harm the national interest, the building of the land,
the `new Jew,' I will refrain from giving birth. But just to make certain,
Meir told the doctors, in the event that a woman comes to you who is `a
risk' for giving birth to a sick baby, it is your obligation to make
certain that she has an abortion."

"Gynecologist Miriam Aharonova also wrote extensively on the subject of
eugenics," adds Stoler-Liss. "In articles for parents under headings such
as `The Hygiene of Marriage' she gives a list of eugenic instructions for
parents - from the recommended age for giving birth (between 20 and 25), to
the recommended difference in age between the father and the mother (the
reason for which is the betterment of the race) to a list of diseases that
could infect the spouse or "be transmitted through heredity to their
descendents after them." In the diseases, she mentions "syphilis,
gonorrhea, tuberculosis, alcoholism, narcotics addiction (fondness for
morphine, cocaine, etc.) and diseases of the mind and the nerves." In the
volume of "Mother and Child" published in 1935, says Stoler-Liss, the
publication and discussions by doctors who supported eugenics was greatly
expanded. Why, in fact, did they not use force? The establishment had a
great deal of power over immigrants and refugees.

"The medical establishment's power was limited at that time. This was an
establishment that developed hand in hand with the system it was supposed
to strengthen and suffered from constant shortages: a shortage of doctors,
a shortage of nurses and a shortage of equipment. It had to examine,
treat, inoculate and so on. We are talking about the period of the British
Mandate. When at long last there was a state, eugenics theory declined. My
explanation is the change of generations: that generation had come to an
end professionally, and a new generation with more national motivation came
along that was not educated at the European universities during that
period. They had already seen what the Nazis had done with it and the
ideological identification was lower. The ideas themselves seeped in but
they're not using the same rhetoric."

Have eugenics really vanished?

The eugenic chapter in the history of Western culture has been closed, but
have eugenics really disappeared?

"Eugenic thinking is alive and well today," asserts Stoler-Liss. "It is
expressed mainly in the very high rate of pre-natal tests and genetic
filtering [of genetically deviant fetuses]. Mothers are very highly
motivated to give birth only to healthy children and the attitude toward
the exceptional, the different and the handicapped in Israeli society is
problematic."

At hospitals today future parents are offered a plethora of genetic tests
that diagnose the fetus before birth. Some of them are aimed at identifying
serious disorders, like Tay-Sachs disease, a degenerative disease that
causes a painful death in infancy. Others, however, are aimed at screening
fetuses with conditions like deafness and sterility, the bearers of which
can lead full and satisfying lives.

Robert Mann and Andrew Macfarlane

NZ Envir. 68 12 - 14 (Dec 1991)
http://www.united-links.com/nz/rmam1.htm
based on a talk presented at the 'EcopoliticsV' conference, Univ. of NSW, April 1991

Introduction

What has gone wrong, that we humans can be managing ecosystems so very destructively, especially over the past two centuries (since the industrial revolution), and most horrifically in the uncontrolled technomania (best criticised by Mumford, Illich, and Goldsmith) of the past few decades? The quasi-global culture of industrial growth mania bids fair to bring about in mere decades what took the Romans centuries - decline and fall - but on a far more monstrous scale and with vastly more toxic aftermaths.

What are the influences which have led us astray into this crazy excessive industrial activity? What distractions are diverting us from the correct direction which has been pointed out by The Ecologist for two decades and is brought up to date by Ted Trainer?

At Ecopolitics IV, two years ago, it was argued that economism, with its accompanying language-sabotaging econobabble, has been one of the most harmful pseudo-solutions, popular but furphicious, which has been not merely diverting effort from genuine solutions but, worse, feeding back to exacerbate the problem. The furphies sketched in that paper were: economism, scientism, anti-science, anti-sexism, anti-racism, and Noo Eege. Here we develop that analysis, with more detail on anti-sexism. We will argue that the misrepresentation of human biology entailed in what has become mainstream feminism constitutes the most under-rated political furphy of the past two decades, and is by now a main reason why humans are managing the world so disastrously. A generation raised in denial of the main facts about menand women is unable to behave as conservationists.

In contrast with the typical one-author Ecopolitics conference paper, ourteam's perspectives include marriage, divorce, parenthood, childlessness, religion, mathematics, psychedelics, and even commerce. Our diversity is of course limited by the fact that we are veterans of tertiary study and - brace yourself - sharing the male sex with Newton and the largest minority of humans. For none of this make we apology. Our many attempts over the past decade to discuss feminism with its ideologues have been very largely evaded; the present paper, only the latest of a line of opportunities, was almost entirely avoided by feminists at Ecopolitics V.

The Value of Humour in Political Argumentation

In 'Yes, Minister' (and 'Yes, Prime Minister') Antony Jay & Jonathan Lynn have used humour to convey a highly unpalatable message -that the modern democratic nation-state is affected precious little by elected governments. The career bureaucracy machinates obscurely to expand the military-industrial complex. Elections, and politicians' utterances between them, are largely deceptive image-charades. Such a dismaying picture will tend to be strongly rejected by the human mind unless presented with humour, as brilliantly achieved by Jay & Lynn.

Similarly, we believe that examination of feminism will not occur unless discussants all maintain their sense of humour. We enlist therefore the late great Peter Sellers' technique of verbal vignettes. To illustrate the technique, here's a vignette to press home the wise saying "you can't take it with you".

It's not widely known that Charon, the ferryman on the Styx, carries out some pre-processing on each boatload of newly-arrived souls. A simple questionnaire will assist the further processing on thefar shore.

The sturdy boatman interviews briefly a nervous ex-Kiwi passenger :

Charon : Do you come from a small country where they lost control of the game 'the one that dies with the most toys wins'?

Ex-Kiwi(nervous, but resigned): Yes.

Charon: I see. And how many did you die owning?

Ex-Kiwi: Only a modest quarter-million's worth - and the cars were quite old - two old cameras - six radios -must I go on? I should add in fairness that the size of the toys mattered too . . . some of mine were quite small . . .

Charon: I see. And how many of these toys have you brought with you?

We apply this vignette technique to the recent bumper-sticker slogan "Women Can Do Anything" (and its accompanying insinuation that they should try to do everything).

Young Woman, to Recruiting Sergeant: I want to join the army - in particular,to insist on my obvious moral and legal right to become a front-line troop.

Recruiting Sergeant3: I see. You want to serve your country alongside our courageous men. Good to see women exercising their freedoms to the utmost. That's what democracy is about - defending freedom and maximising choice, especially for women, yes?

The first fact which I am duty-bound (but statutorily prohibited) to point out to you is that if you get captured you will, most likely, be persistently raped. You look an intelligent woman, sorry person, you would have thought that through. OK?

Secondly, we have to make sure you realise that, in the front line, your own men may, in certain desperate circumstances, repeatedly rape you. OK? - Sign here that you won't attempt to claim off the government if that happens.

The point of this vignette is not only to rubbish slogans of the ilk "Girls Can Do Anything", in effort to revive consideration of that crucial topic the division of labour, but also to point out that we men do have an understanding of our own capacity for evil.

Evil is of course a term which isn't much heard these days. A wide variety of utopian tendencies have discarded such concepts. Earlier, men have discussed at length their own capacity for doing people in. Gandhi, Martin Luther, St Francis of Assisi (to name but a few) dealt with it very well. The standard way of getting along with each, a striking feature of human males among all male mammals, entails stable social structures - those proved over at least a few generations. You may dislike aspects of these structures, such as hierarchy: that trigger-word is today unpopular, like the word evil. Nevertheless, it is a fact that certain aspects of social structures deter bad behaviour and often encourage exemplary behaviour. As Goldsmith argues, one might as well talk of an animal without cells, or a cell without organelles, as blather of a society free of hierarchy. The far older societies of the social insects, notably the three genders of our friend the honey-bee, are neglected inspirations for those working on gender in particular and the nature-nurture issue more generally. They achieve marvellous resonances with Nature, but only by a marvellous division of labour. The very recent notion that there should be almost no division of labour between the two genders of human is both novel, evidently implausible, and amply refuted by the empirical findings of the experiment with feminism. Less than one century has proven more than enough, if the results be honestly appraised.

Two decades ago, S Goldberg of NYU scored an early 'Guinness Book' record -the greatest total (69) of publishers to have rejected a book which did however finally get published. His scholarly survey of findings from 1400 human societies studied on his subject - Male Dominance - is subtitled in the definitive edition "The Inevitability of Patriarchy". It is routinely blacked out by feminist "scholar"s . So too, perhaps even more thoroughly, is the admittedly difficult but surely central 1982 book "Gender" by Ivan Illich. The "excuse" that those authors are men can hardly beclaimed for Goldberg's successor, Anne Moir (who holds a doctorate in genetics). Her book Brain Sex brings up to date the picture which Goldberg had so much trouble publishing in the late 1960s. This new text may score a new record - briefest timein print! By the time reviews reached us, the book could not be bought.Yet feminists continue to chant "women are powerless", when it appears that for two decades their ideology has had something approaching a stranglehold on publishing, at least of the key facts which their ideology cannot accomodate.

Nothing important has changed. The Amazons remain a forgery - but the NZ Listener, let alone Broadsheet and other magazines promoting hatred of the largest minority amongst the human species, will doubtless continue to print letters from angry young women relying on the Amazon myth as if it were factual evidence of human biological potential.

Today, especially in the overdeveloped world, social engineering of a mostradical type has already made grave inroads. Overdeveloped nations are now pretending to maintain writing-based legal systems, highly complex &dangerous chemical engineering (let alone genetic!), and degraded public education systems, all staffed increasingly by quasi-literate "professionals" whose lack of technical competence is exceeded only by their lack of grasp of human biology. These operatives, some of whom hold MBA degrees, are commonly observed to be working on the assumption that humans will soon - certainly can -create non-hierarchical schools, companies, qangos, statutory agencies, even tribes, and of course families; in all of which structures, women will do similar work to that of men. The damage to thought by such assumptions is already around us, and the monstrously destructive way of life callously, ruthlessly imposed by their proponents is, we will argue, the under-rated problem of today's world. Households in which the woman has usurped formal power produce not only confused, dangerous dogs but also oafish children who are often incapable of the education and manners neededfor any high civilisation. Feminism appears incapable of acknowledging the need for drastically cutting consumption; indeed it evidently entails further growth to provide its separate houses, cars etc.

The Sabotage of New Zealand

The past quarter-century has, for Kiwis, been mainly a period of sabotageand demolition of what we judge to have been the most decent "mixed economy" and the kindest, most secure nation that has ever existed, at least since the industrial revolution. The NZ blend of public and private enterprise had afforded, for some decades, an extremely effective (and matchlessly efficient) school system; among the safest & most efficient airlines; a safe rail system itself designing & making some outstanding locomotives; bridges etc. created, for local needs using local materials, by a competent public works department; a public hospital system of good efficiency promoting high standards; a level of serious crime below most in the overdeveloped world (e.g. an urban murder rate only a few percent of Dallas'); a minimally corrupt civil service of high competence; and good, cheap, service-oriented science of which Lord Rutherford was only the most famous son. We believe daughters also had, by any comparison as distinct from ideology-based absolute, good access to education and many professions. Finally for this brief list, the people who had colonised these islands a millennium earlier won from the British Empire the bestdeal that any aborigines on the planet proved able to get in that era of colonialism, and quickly embraced literacy & schooling, in the least damaging leap from the stone age into industrialism.

The Evoked Secondary Furphy: Wimpism

The ascendancy of feminism two decades ago has evoked from men, on a largescale at least in New Zealand, that dismal wonder of the modern world, thewimp - the man who is pretending androgyny and is committed tosuppressing his own initiatives and desires in favour of those promoted by women. According to a clinicalpsychologist, Paul Baakman of Christchurch, the majorityof Kiwi men had by the mid-1980s turned themselves into wimps whose ownopinions could not be ascertained.
The manipulative, devious paths to power which characterise those whocannot prevail in private by physical strength have by now advanced toremarkably high levels in the judicial, educational and medical systems.Competence and justice suffer greatly. In NZ today, affirmative action has, for instance, elevated to theposition of Chief Executive Officer of the nation's Ministry of Educationone Dr Maris O'Rort, who told a conference of high-school principals
" education must concentrate on the growth and development of people rather than content, subject matter or maintenancelearning of current knowledge" (our emphasis).
Education has long been distorted for social engineering, but her words,especially those which we have emphasised, spell out the most destructiveattack yet on education. In NZ today, if you want a universitylectureship and have never attempted a higher degree, that's OK - if you're a woman. (If you want a lectureshipnever having studied for even a first degree, that's OK too - if you're a Maori woman.)Is anyone examining how much of this affirmative action can be absorbedconsistent with carrying on the literate tradition going back to theancient Greeks?
One example of feminist/wimp "scholarship" is the peculiarly dishonest & furtive promotion, by fanatics bent on victimising retired Assoc. Prof. GH Green, of numbers - variously 23, 26, and 29 - suggested to be thetotal killed by Dr Green's "unfortunate experiment" at National Women's Hospital. None of these numbers has any published basis,and all were avoided by even the feminist judge Sylvia Cartwright'sconclusions from her protracted public inquiry. The special privateadviser during the Judge's investigations, Dr Charlotte Paul, declines to explain how any of the numbers was deduced.A very recent TV report, resulting from the reporter's extensive privatediscussions with Sandra Coney who has put about such numbers, now mentions36 - and still no authority let alone published method of calculation.One might expect the local experts on medical statistics to illuminate thisissue . . . instead, wimpism rules.

What To Do ?
We contend that human biology includes sexual dimorphism and division oflabour to a far larger extent than is admitted by feminism. The notionthat women can and should occupy 50% of all social positions, especiallyprofessional and political careers,is utopian in the worst sense. It has not only failed to materialise but is doomed by facts of human biology. And the efforts based on it, since theend of the 1914-18 war but especially during the two decades since the 'TheFemale Eunuch', have already done great harm.

For those who have come this far with us, some useful actions have (we hope) been implied. Limits to affirmative action need defining. Gross incompetence, let alone dishonesty, must be firmly resisted, especially in institutions which exist to safeguard and refine knowledge. Wimpish humouring of feminism should bediscouraged - or, to put it positively, we must stand up for justice.

Crucial in the recovery from our two decades of delusion will ofcourse be those women who can see further than the temptation to politicaladvancement through illegitimate feminist power-plays. Would any of themlike to take up the baton?

{ this is a convenient place to mention Christina H Sommers Who Stole Feminism ? }

Acknowledgement: Discussions with Peter Cumming and DrGrover Foley were very useful in the genesis of this article.

Endnotes
1. F E Trainer 'The Nature of a Sustainable Society' NZEnvironment 67 21-25 (1991); Abandon Affluence (London: Zed Books 1985).
2. L R B Mann 'Living as if Gaia Mattered' in K Dyer &J Young (eds) Proc. Ecopol. IV 471-477, University of Adelaide Centre forEnvironmental Studies (1990); reprinted in NZ Envir. 63 28-31(1990)
3 {in the accent of the father in Sellers' 'Common Entrants' (byMuir & Norden), on the album "Songs for Swingin' Sellers"}
4. A Moir, D Jessel Brain Sex London: Michael Joseph(1989), now available in paperback.

From: Murray

Good Evening Friends,

I was genuinely concerned with the email I received re "Allah or Jesus", so
much so I had to do some investigation before sending it on to others.

As you can see I have enclosd the original email I received plus some
correspondence I have received from the director of MARN.

Please read the whole lot so that you can draw your own conclusions.

Quite devastating really!

Original email:--

Allah or Jesus?

by Rick Mathes

Last month I attended my annual training session that's required for
maintaining my state prison security clearance. During the training
session there was a presentation by three speakers representing the Roman
Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths, who explained each of their belief
systems.

I was particularly interested in what the Islamic Imam had to say. The
Imam gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam, complete with a
video. After the presentations, time was provided for questions and
answers.

When it was my turn, I directed my question to the Imam and asked: "Please,
correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that most Imams and clerics of
Islam have declared a holy jihad [Holy war] against the infidels of the
world. And, that by killing an infidel, which is a command to all Muslims,
they are assured of a place in heaven. If that's the case, can you give me
the definition of an infidel?"

There was no disagreement with my statements and, without hesitation, he
replied, "Non-believers!"

I responded, "So, let me make sure I have this straight. All followers of
Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith so they
can go to Heaven. Is that correct?"

The expression on his face changed from one of authority and
command to that of a little boy who had just gotten caught with his hand in
the cookie jar. He sheepishly replied, "Yes."

I then stated, "Well, sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine Pope
John Paul commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith or
Dr.Stanley ordering Protestants to do the same in order to go to Heaven!"

The Imam was speechless.

I continued, "I also have problem with being your friend when you and your
brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me. Let me ask you a
question. Would you rather have your Allah who tells you to kill me in
order to go to Heaven or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am
going to Heaven and He wants you to be with me?"

You could have heard a pin drop as the Imam hung his head in shame.

Needless to say, the organizers and/or promoters of the 'Diversification'
training seminar were not happy with Rick's way of dealing with the Islamic
Imam and exposing the truth about the Muslim's beliefs.

Everyone should read this, but with the liberal justice system, liberal
media, and the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized.
Please pass this on to all your email contacts.

This is a true story and the author, Rick Mathes, is a prominent leader in
prison ministry.

Comments received from the director of MARN:--

I belong to several email Networks that link many people and ministries
together working in various parts of the world - all of whom are focused on
reaching Muslims. The article below has sparked a lot of interest and
questions were raised as to whether is was an Urban Legend or a Hoax (some
Web hoax sites have listed this article). The answer came back that this
story is genuine - it is not a hoax. I cannot give you details about this
but I trust the people who have confirmed truth of this article.

Then what about the content and the attitude and answers expressed by the
Imam. They also are genuine although it is rare for a Muslim to drop his
guard and admit the truth in this way. Here is an excerpt from our next
MARN Newzlink which is a regular email newsletter MARN sends out.

What then does the Book of the Muslims (Qur'an) teach in regard to
unbelievers: 'Fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them' (Sura 9:4).
'Fight them and God will punish them by your hands... help you to victory
over them' (Sura 9:14). 'Fight those who believe not in God... even if they
are of the People of the Book (Jews & Christians), until they pay the Jizya
(compensation, tax on non-Muslims) with willing submission and feel
themselves subdued' (Sura 9:29), "...when you meet the unbelievers (in
fight) cut off their necks..." (Sura 47:4). Yes, there are positive
verses about the People of the Book but the verses just quoted are said by
Muslim scholars to have cancelled (abrogated, superceded) no less than 124
verses which speak about being tolerant and patient.

I can explain this further if you need clarification but this is the
general teaching that is promoted in mosques and madrassa's (Islamic
schools) all over the world, on a daily basis.

You may well ask why we don't hear this line very much in public - and why
most Muslims are publicly pushing the peace and tolerance line. You have
to understand that Muslims are permitted to lie, if in so doing they
further the cause of Islam. Hence they are using the Western Media along
with seminars, public lectures and many other means to try and calm the
fears of the Western World and promote the line that Islam is
peace-loving. They are even employing Christian terminology to try and
communicate the aspects of Islam that the West will find palatable whilst
concealing the real underlying agenda. A large part of that agenda is the
Solemnization of the West - a complete takeover of Western society and
government. They are also trying to get as many reverts (we would call
them converts) to Islam as possible to build their numbers and financial
base.

Although everything I have said is true, what should our response as
Christians be? Do we respond with fear to Islam and build walls - or do we
look at Muslim people, realizing that Jesus died for them - just as He did
for us, realizing that they lost sheep who are headed for an eternity in
hell, who desperately need to know the love, mercy and forgiveness of the
risen Saviour, Jesus, and build bridges of love.

Many Muslim people are basically used as pawns to establish a beachhead of
Islam in a Western Nation (refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants etc). They
are wonderful people who need our love and understanding so that the Light
of Jesus can shine into their lives and to transform them. This is the
miracle of salvation and I have seen it happen here in NZ - and it will
continue to happen - so long as we look at people and not the religion or
the agenda of that religion.

Are we then to be blind to what is happening in society and the changes
that are being implemented. By no means. We are called to be as wise as
serpents and as innocent as doves. We must be aware of what is happening
but our fight takes place using God's weapons - not the enemies - and
prayer is imperative because we are in a spiritual battles for the souls of
Muslim men and women.

I urge you to pray for the Muslims in our nation, in our very city, that
they will come in contact with those who can share real answers to their
life's problems and who will loving lead them into the Kingdom.

Blessings

Suzanne
Director
MARN

God Bless you in your deliberations.

Murray

This story contains at least one severe _non seq_ which I've flagged.

R

====

Science in the Light of Faith
A Valuable Perspective

BreakPoint with Charles Colson

March 8, 2004

One subject I enjoy reading about is the intelligent design movement and its arguments against natural origins. And believe me, there’s a lot to read. Recent years have seen an explosion of books, articles, and websites on the subject of intelligent design. Scientists, philosophers, and theologians have all contributed valuable insights to the debate.

But I think I can safely say that, with all of this reading, I’ve never read a book by an eminent scientist and intelligent design advocate that ended with a presentation of the Gospel—never, that is, until now.

Henry F. Schaefer’s book Science and Christianity: Conflict or Coherence? does exactly that. As his book’s title indicates, Schaefer, a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize, has spent a lot of time studying and teaching about the relationship between science and faith. So his writing is clear and compelling not just on intelligent design, but also on a whole range of other issues that are of interest to both people of faith and people of science. But I think his treatment of the intelligent design issue is one of the best parts of the book, because it shows Schaefer meeting nonbelieving scientists on their own ground and using their own observations to undermine their arguments.

Schaefer quotes the brilliant scientist and agnostic Stephen Hawking, who wrote that a good theory “must accurately describe a large class of observations” and “must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.” While acknowledging the strengths of the “standard evolutionary model” in the first area, Schaefer points out that it has serious weaknesses in the second area. He writes, “Over the past 150 years evolutionary theorists have made countless predictions about fossil specimens to be observed in the future. Unfortunately for these seers, many new fossils have been discovered, but the interesting ones almost always seem to be contrary to the ‘best’ predictions.” Schaefer then contrasts the theory of evolution with other theories, such as the atomic theory and the theory of gravity, which are able to make precise predictions of future events, such as when Halley’s Comet would appear—predictions, Schaefer says, that turned out to be true in his lifetime.

So,

< < This word is not warranted. It implies Colson is about to state a deduction from what has gone before - but he is not.>>

contrary to what many believe, the theory of intelligent design isn’t just something people believe because the Bible tells them so. It’s something we believe because it makes sense and describes the real world far better than the alternative theory.

As passages like this demonstrate, Schaefer’s book is a wonderful resource for the high school or college student interested in studying science. In fact, it’s ideal for parents to go through with their high school or college-age kids. Schaefer’s own story of coming to faith in Christ, his descriptions of many other prominent scientists who are Christians, and his desire to share his faith will be an encouragement to kids who are wondering if their love of science is compatible with their commitment to God. And his exploration of issues like intelligent design will not only demonstrate to them how God has manifested Himself through nature, but also provide them with an excellent example of how their own gifts can be used for God’s glory.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For further reading and information:

Dr. Henry F. Schaefer III, Science and Christianity: Conflict or Coherence? (University of Georgia, 2003). You can order this book ($20) from BreakPoint: 1-877-3-CALLBP. Read the table of contents from the book and read comments from others .

Jonathan C. Rienstra-Kiracofe, “ God Is in the Details ,” Books & Culture, 23 February 2004 .

Read lectures by Dr. Henry Schaefer .

BreakPoint Commentary No. 040105, “ Scientists and Their Gods: The Question of Coherence .”

BreakPoint Commentary No. 040301, “ Charles Darwin Knew: Science and Freedom .”

Learn more about intelligent design at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture .

See BreakPoint’s “Worldview for Parents” pages: “ Micro- and Macroevolution: Is There a Difference? ” and “ Did Life Evolve? ”

“Dispelling the Myth of Darwinism ”—Learn more about the June 24-26 Intelligent Design Conference which the Wilberforce Forum and Community Bible Church in Highlands, North Carolina , are cohosting. (Register by April 30 to take advantage of the early bird rate.)