Cornell Report - Industry Response

Bruce Walsh jbwalsh at U.Arizona.EDU
Tue May 25 23:20:43 EDT 1999


As a mathematical population biologists, Paul is right on the money is
asking for a description (i.e., a model) underwhich BT can have the level
of threat suggested.


Recall that conservation biology can only be consider a serious SCIENCE if
it makes predictions.  It is an easy thing (see recent postings!) to have
two experts disagree over an impact.  It is only by making a model and
inserting real numbers that we can test various assumptions.  Conservation
biology has been plauged by calls of the sky is falling without ANY
modeling to back this up.  If you can't put it into numbers, its not
science.  Alas, in its present stage much of conservation biology  falls
into this category.  

Put another way, recall that just about ANYTHING we do has some impact.
Driving out to your favorate spot to observe an endangered butterfly, you
run a (very sight) risk of killing one with your car.  Trivial, but an
impact none the less.  Other impacts may be more important.  One must
gobeyond the "best guess" of the local expert to quantify various impacts,
as the "best guess" is usually not an indpendently reproducible quantity.

Just a little food for thought.  Good luck to all in their
obsrving//collecting/gardening.

Peace

Bruce

Bruce Walsh
University of Arizona


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