Correction:
Allen is correct. I apologise for my oversight. I had looked
in the Chemistry prize list, and failed to check on the different page of
Physiology & Medicine prizes, where I then found
Paul Muller (Switz.) Properties of DDT.
I'm glad to see that senior list members are so alert.
But now I have to answer Allen's tirade.
>I was therefore somewhat surprised to see Lloyd so coldly rebuked on the list
>for his presentation of simple fact, but I also found this quite illuminating
>for what it shows about the reliability of the logic of some the source.
You ain't seen any cold rebuke yet.
>If there is any doubt, those who lack a copy of Britannica, may visit
>http://www.nobel.1001designs.com/medicine.html
>We have been deluged on this list in past months
Every contributor is in the hands of the moderators - the only
system worth having for email discussion lists, I agree, and I'm grateful
as I'm sure all of us are for their work. I rely on them to curb excesses.
One can find out what's too much only by offering more till one gets to a
limit which had not been evident. The net deluge is the responsibility of
the moderators. If Allen wants them to be more restrictive, fine.
> by selected, slanted opinion
This is a serious, offensive charge. I leave it to others to judge.
>pieces on topics only loosely related to
>our mandate and we have been exhorted to take positions on topics most of us
>like to know a bit about and discuss, but usually like to trust to experts.
Has some coercion been attempted on your opinions? If you feel
some of your opinions have been challenged, perhaps they should be. Many
of mine have been not only challenged but changed, to more informed
opinions on several topics e.g. AFB, ventilation, and most importantly
varroa.
Allen also however accuses me of
> and wordy high-sounding dissertations
expressing a widespread attitude to academics. What can be done
about this?
>I wonder how often the same kind of faulty reading, misunderstanding and
>precipitous judgement that is demonstrated in the introductory quote is behind
>the politicised pieces with which we have recently been presented on matters
>ranging from antibiotic resistance to pesticides and GMOs.
This is a very old trick: find a particle of error in a person's
evidence, and on the strength of that one error suggest that the person is
generally unreliable. I had thought better of the list moderators.
If as I seem to think Allen is one of the moderators, then we have
arrived at an old question, now surfacing in the form 'who moderates the
moderator'?
>A quick search of the web using any of the engines or Webferret will show that
>pretty well all the topics on which we have we have been mercilessly
>lobbied are
>far from resolved. There is still open and free debate among people of good
>faith and intent.
Yes please.
No-one had said there's only one side to any argument.
> Not everyone involved has an axe to grind.
What is this supposed to mean? If the complaint is that I hold
opinions which Allen dislikes, but he has not been able to argue against
them, that is no reason to accuse anybody of having 'an axe to grind'.
>BEE-L is here for open-minded discussion that respects all points of view
>and I
>think that is how it should be.
Exactly. That is why I am continuing with it.
------
I feel this flareup will get resolved soonest if I add:
The American Corn Growers Assn leader Gary Goldberg has
testified in my nation's capital today before the Royal Commission on GM.
He averred that GM crops are undesirable (and are already selling less in
his country - he said, on national radio from the hearing, USA corn 33%
last year, approx 25% this year).
People who come to realise they've been duped & betrayed normally
get very angry for a while. The target for that anger may be anyone handy.
My response is: look who told you what; who failed to tell you what they
should have; and who are the independent experts in the matter. Mr
Goldberg has evidently proceeded thru those stages. I commend this to all.
I entreat you to read the statement of AN ACCOMPLISHED
GENE-JOCKEY Prof Patrick Brown of the biggest aggie campus in the USA {OK
you Wisc or Mich fellas - no fight, I could be wrong on this fact too
;-)}
http://news.gefree.org.nz/patrick-brown-jul-2000.html
I hold the opinion that GM is the most dangerous technology yet.
My academic experience happens to fit me for understanding this issue, and
I became interested in it soon after it was invented in the mid-1970s. I
have tried to point this list to the most reliable scientific pubns on it,
especially the Union of Concerned Scientists, a superb USA group. Yes, I
am the sort of person who was a friend of the founder of UCS; should I
apologise for that? Allen and everyone else will go on forming their own
opinions; I have put in their way some very worrying evidence that the USA
FDA and many other arms of govt have been duped. I can only urge people to
direct their anger where it belongs. Follow Mr Goldberg.
What alternatively may be really bothering Allen is my religious
opinions. I had wondered whether this topic was OK for this list, but some
cheeky person tossed off a rude line spelling God with a small g, and in
response some of us have tried to explain why beekeeping puts us closer to
God. Langstroth was something like a saint, as far as I can gather, and I
think his being a Christian minister was no coincidence.
If any atheist thinks he has been making a mistake and feels
dislodged toward religion, that need be no cause for discomfort. The
modern science which this list so generally respects was almost entirely
created in Christian societies, and that is anything but a coincidence.
As for length, I for one will make my religious statements, if any,
much briefer. If the moderators ban religion, I will think that very
regrettable.
So - less wordy, less religious, and I rest my case on GM (until
someone says something wrong on it, when I'll try to correct simply, and
will not suggest that he who erred must be generally unreliable).
I suppose it must be slighly unsettling as Dubbyuh at al manoeuvre.
Al Cooke reckons it was similar in a presidential election around 1876 (I
think he said).
cheers folks
R
-
Robt Mann
consultant ecologist
P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand
(9) 524 2949
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