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Unraveling the DNA Myth
Harper's Magazine ^ | February 2002 | Barry Commoner

Posted on 03/10/2002 12:38:04 PM PST by Phaedrus

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From "Prescient" Peggy Noonan's OpinionJournal.com article My Brothers and Sisters on 3/8/2002:

The friend who had e'd me followed up with news that the Chinese are creating dozens of cloned embryos in their labs. The British medical journal New Scientist has reported a Chinese team "based at Shanghai No. 2 Medical University" says it has "derived stem cells from hybrid embryos composed of human cells and rabbit eggs." The journal said scientists throughout the world fear similar research in the US and UK has been "bogged down" by "ethical concerns."

Ah, those pesky ethical concerns. They slow you up just when you could be creating in a Petri dish the recipe for Rabbit Man. And then of course you could grow him, bring him into being, for all but dunces know that what man can do he will do. And then perhaps once you've grown him you can have Rabbit Man for dinner.

Boldings are, again, mine.

1 posted on 03/10/2002 12:38:04 PM PST by Phaedrus
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To: betty boop, beckett, Stingray, Dataman, Southack, Kevin Curry, VadeRetro, jennyp, Lev, Alamo-Girl
Ping
2 posted on 03/10/2002 12:39:39 PM PST by Phaedrus
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To: Phaedrus
Even this article has that flaw in it - that life "began" on Earth.

It is clear that there has not yet been enough time for Earth to have come up with such a thing. Life and it's various processes, particularly it's various quantum computers, has clearly been around for tens if not hundreds of billions of years - maybe even through infinity!

3 posted on 03/10/2002 1:08:25 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Phaedrus
Molecular biologists are aware of these limitations. They discovered them. Scientists always simplify - especially to get govt money.
4 posted on 03/10/2002 1:16:34 PM PST by JmyBryan
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To: Phaedrus
>Barry Commoner

"Beginning with his opposition to nuclear weapons in the 1950s, Commoner has been an outspoken, sometimes radical motivator of change on such environmental issues as energy conservation, pesticide use, waste management and control of toxic chemicals. He also founded the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems (CBNS), which has disseminated information on topics ranging from dioxin to waste recycling and the economics of renewable resources."

[Scientific American bio of Commoner]

This current article describes Commoner as the "...senior scientist at the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems..." but that's the group he started himself. I can be "senior scientist" of the MarkWar Institute if I want to be...

I think that having left wing nuts like Commoner speak out against cloning and such is a way the Establishment hopes to preempt serious opposition. Nobody in their right mind would want to stand alongside these former radicals and environmentalists etc. Setting up these scum as "opponents" of cloning and genetic engineering is a good way of making sure that your only opponents will be similar losers... (Regardless of the merits of their case...)

Mark W.

5 posted on 03/10/2002 1:23:54 PM PST by MarkWar
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To: Phaedrus
too long an article to read. DNA is a great thing to understand and we are knowing more about it every day. God gave us a brain, so what's the problem with using it to discover the world around and in us? We know little of dna, but that is changing rapidly.
6 posted on 03/10/2002 1:32:35 PM PST by PatrioticAmerican
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To: MarkWar
Kindly address the facts, interpretations and/or sources cited in the article and avoid, if you will, ad hominem attack. Thank you.
7 posted on 03/10/2002 1:33:07 PM PST by Phaedrus
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To: PatrioticAmerican
Not a short read but a worthwhile one.
8 posted on 03/10/2002 1:34:22 PM PST by Phaedrus
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To: Phaedrus
>Kindly address the facts, interpretations and/or sources cited in the article and avoid, if you will, ad hominem attack. Thank you.

Relax. I won't muddy up your thread.

And there's a big difference between an ad hominem attack and pointing out a person's past.

In all the contexts this guy has been active -- nuclear weapons and the various environment issues -- activists have proven time and time again that they have no respect for facts. They have no respect for presenting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of an issue.

Why should anyone waste their time debating this or that assertion offered up as a "fact" in an article by one of these types?

The whole left wing fringe exists only by ad hominem rhetoric ("appealing to emotions: appealing to people's emotions and beliefs rather than their ability to think -- [Encarta "ad hominem"]) and not by real facts or actual reasoning.

Okay. I'll get out of your thread now. Enjoy your selves.

Mark W.

9 posted on 03/10/2002 1:41:52 PM PST by MarkWar
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To: MarkWar
The reason for references, as I'm sure you're aware, is to back up the article's content. Check them, question them, question the article but stop attacking Commoner.
10 posted on 03/10/2002 1:49:56 PM PST by Phaedrus
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To: Phaedrus
Great article!
11 posted on 03/10/2002 1:51:10 PM PST by EternalHope
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To: Phaedrus
careful observation of the hierarchy of living processes strongly suggests that it is the other way around: DNA did not create life; life created DNA.41

Which always begs the question: What created life and therefore DNA??

WhiteKnight

12 posted on 03/10/2002 2:08:12 PM PST by WhiteKnight
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To: Phaedrus
Thanks for the heads up!
13 posted on 03/10/2002 2:33:17 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Phaedrus
"Kindly address the facts, interpretations and/or sources cited in the article and avoid, if you will, ad hominem attack. Thank you."

Okay. Commoner is much more intelligent than Paul Erlich.

--Boris

14 posted on 03/10/2002 2:51:21 PM PST by boris
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To: Phaedrus
This Reaganesque version of the central dogma is the scientific foundation upon which...

A very interesting article. However, I have to take exception to the authors understanding of "Reaganesque". What he describes is most definitely not Reaganesque. It is more akin to socialist, Clintonesque, Democratic central control.

That the author could so clearly fail to understand and infact distort the meaning of Reaganesque shows that his powers of reason are far from infallible. Therefore, it calls into question the substance of the entire article. His conclusions must be critiqued at all levels before forming any opinion of their truth.

15 posted on 03/10/2002 2:55:46 PM PST by stripes1776
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To: Phaedrus
Gene count might be approaching the 70,000 mark as stated in upcoming article in Science magazine . AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE ANNUAL MEETING: Human Gene Count on the Rise Ben Shouse BOSTON--The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (publisher of Science ), held from 15 to 19 February, included symposia across the scientific disciplines. According to one presentation, the number of human genes may actually be much closer to the early prediction of 70,000 genes rather than the much smaller number predicted when the draft sequence was published last year. This story and the following one are a sampling from the early sessions; more coverage will be published next week.
16 posted on 03/10/2002 3:12:23 PM PST by Renegade
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To: MarkWar
left wing nuts like Commoner

'nuff said!

17 posted on 03/10/2002 3:19:13 PM PST by Cruising Speed
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To: Phaedrus
" In short, the most dramatic achievement to date of the $3 billion Human Genome Project is the refutation of its own scientific rationale."

Isn't it amusing how 'science' is always so unscientific.

18 posted on 03/10/2002 3:24:57 PM PST by editor-surveyor
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To: MarkWar
"I think that having left wing nuts like Commoner speak out against cloning and such is a way the Establishment hopes to preempt serious opposition."

You clearly have hit the nail on the head !!

19 posted on 03/10/2002 3:28:32 PM PST by editor-surveyor
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To: boris
"Okay. Commoner is much more intelligent than Paul Erlich."

ROTFLMAO !!

Talk about damnation through faint praise :-)

20 posted on 03/10/2002 3:33:00 PM PST by editor-surveyor
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