Re- Government Agencies Kno

[Bruce Walsh]

                       Subject:                               Time:9:42 AM
  OFFICE MEMO          Re: Government Agencies Know Best      Date:9/29/97

Re some of the discussion on releases"

"Last spring, when this was last thrashed out, plenty of scientists had 
their say. You can find this stuff in Deja news if you care to look. 
Surely you don't want us to go through all of it again? 
The real problem is not that it gums up their studies. It's that it 
actually harms the butterfly populations it purports to help."

Actually, I know of no cases where this has been demonstrated, or even
reasonably suggested.  In fact, a number of population genetic arguments
(discussed on this list-server) suggest that release of genetically
non-adaptive stock will have trivial (at best) impact on local stocks.

Bruce Walsh

"amateur educator too? or are there letters after your name?"  

Since you asked,  Ph.D., Associate Professor (Department of Ecology
Evolutionary Biology, Committee on Genetics, Committee on Applied Mathematics,
University Biosafety Committee)

Perhaps this is a good time to plug our forthcoming genetics text
"Genetics and analysis of quantitative characters", 990pp,

details @
http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/zbook/book.html