Does Bt pollen spread?

[Doug Yanega]

I think things are starting to get a little too personal, and a few deep
breaths might be in order for all involved. I do, however, have one
comment:

Paul wrote:

>Maybe if I just went and got a decent government job, wrote butterfly
>books, became an environmental defense lawyer or went around begging for
>grants to make a living I would somehow be environmentally "pure" in
>everyones eyes?

Since you repeatedly harp on the "begging for grants" side of things, maybe
you would prefer the following scenario: all funding for research on the
effects of pesticides/herbicides/engineered crops is routed directly to NSF
not from taxes, but from the industries involved. Instead of privately
supporting the research, they pay that same money into a pool and
independent scientists compete for the funds. It doesn't cost them any
extra, since it simply replaces their own private expenditures, and makes
the taxpayers happier since now the same science is being done, out in the
open, while saving tax money. As it is presently, when the same experiments
are being done privately *and* publicly (and they are, are they not?), then
it's redundant effort - and one set of results is still questionable.
        I might also note that while you may have a point in claiming that
scientists are motivated to grab for research funds, their success at doing
so is NOT dependent on their results always coming up contra-industry (nor
does there seem to be a bias in contra-industry proposals being more likely
to get funded as a result), which seems to be your implication. The funding
will be there whether or not the aims or conclusions of a study conflict or
dovetail with industry's interests. If there is now a rash of proposals
being filed to study spread and effects of Bt pollen, don't you think the
ones that will get funded are simply the ones which promise to do the best
science?? There is a difference between self-promotion and the promotion of
an agenda; while most succesful scientists engage in the former (yes,
sometimes shamelessly), I think you'll have a harder time claiming the
latter. Are you as confident that there is no pressure for
industry-sponsored scientists to come up with pro-industry conclusions?

Peace,


Doug Yanega       Dept. of Entomology           Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315
                  http://www.icb.ufmg.br/~dyanega/
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82