Thu, 03 Apr 2003

Secret, Public Experiments

Wired reports that an "agriculture researcher" wants a break. Apparently this chap, in order to protect his creations from attacks by vandals, wants to keep their location secret. Please, give me a break ...

First off, a person in a lab extracting DNA from one species and placing it into another is not an "agriculture researcher". At best he's a medical scientist, at worst, a modern day Frankenstein. But that's just me quibbling about words, and letting my bias show.

Secondly, despite my extreme distrust of and distaste for genetic modification, attacking the persons of property involved, like the loonies from some organizations are wont to do, is wrong and in fact, somewhat dangerous. Last time I checked, all 50 states had laws on the books covering vandalism. If some idiot burns down your lab, you have legal (civil and criminal) recourse against them.

But hiding the location in order to "prevent" vandalism is a logical fallacy. It might decrease the incidence of vandalism against the "research", but what about the potential vandalism (wanton or negligent destruction of property) caused by the "research".

Suppose one of these "experiments" get's loose in my pasture, 'cause my neighbor has a whole field of them and I don't tknow about it (wouldn't want his fields burned, now would he?). Let's say this mod puts a weed killer into common grasses .... my sheep eat the grass. Let's even take the best case here: they don't get sick. But when they go to slaughter, I lose my organic certification!

I would have no idea how or why, at this point. I'd probably have to drop some thousand(s) of dollars trying to find out. And for those of you who are unaware of it, an organic certification is not cheap.

Properly considered, this is "vandalism", or at the very least negligence. But how am I to recover my losses if I'm prevented legally from discovering their cause?

Secrecy in government is generally a bad idea - sometimes necessary, but always carrying a potential for abuse. Secrecy in research like this is potentially lethal, if not to my flocks or crops, at least to my livelihood.

Guard your experiments if you want to prevent attacks on them, but don't hide them in my back yard without my knowledge or consent.

/Agriculture | 0 writebacks | permanent link

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