Allergies, Linear Granuloma, and Diet

#**521** November 21st 03, 02:10 PM

In article ,
(Liz) wrote:

Yeah, chemists are not humans, they are killing machines since
everything they have done to date is ultimately bad. But it always
takes a businessman to pull the trigger! I know thatÂ´s not what you
meant, but this is what I have learned.

...is patently ridiculous. Where on earth do you get off forming an
opinion like this? Do you even know what chemistry IS? How about
physicists, are they on your **** list too? And those
mathematicians--obviously the world is going to hell in a handbasket
thanks to the crap those *******s have foisted off on the world.
-Alison in OH

Oh dear, I donÂ´t even know what to say. You took what I wrote too
literally.

"Too literally?" This is a written medium. I can only read what you
wrote. And you wrote, "chemists...are killing machines". You wrote,
"everything [chemists] have done to date is ultimately bad."
EVERYTHING!! You SAID that! Edward Morley was a chemist, that means that
the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment are ultimately bad and we
should rather be kept in ignorance about the relative nature of the
speed of light!! We should labor under the delusion that light
propagates in the ether of space! Which is really about equivalent to
saying we should likewise continue to believe that the earth is round!

I donÂ´t have a **** list of careers, I pointed out a
failure in the system.

No, you used one example and extrapolated it to the whole of academic
laboratory science! Ludicrous! I'm sure that your example of how mis-use
of DDT could have been prevented works for you, but I'm trying to point
out how it is NOT an appropriate paradigm for the world-wide quest for
knowledge.

In addition, modern government regulations here would have prevented
mis-use of DDT, I believe. Pesticides must have vast amounts of testing
now. The EPA and the FDA are generally on top of things. The scientific
community is about making discoveries and communicating them. Keeping
the information from being published because of some feared mis-use
smacks of Big Brother.

Therefore, the chemists or researchers of any other area are
not devils.

But they're "not human" either. And they are "killing machines".

Steve was joking, you know. Likewise, when I hang out with physicists we
lambast chemists and mathematicians all the time. We don't, however,
call them killing machines. That is infuriating, and nauseating, and
gross.

Today, in many
countries Brazil included, for every factory you want to build and
every product you want to produce, you need to do an environmental
impact assessment and you only go on to building the factory and
producing that product if you get a greenlight from the local
environmental agency (at least here).

Here it involves a permitting process that requires clearance from the
environmental protection agency (EPA). For example I spent a summer
meeting EPA requirements about the amount of waste that is permitted to
impact the arctic tundra around the Prudhoe Bay oil fields in Alaska.
(Ie, I picked up trash and styrofoam pellets for 12 hours a day.) That's
totally unrelated to regulating the publication of scientific results.

Also here, when you do a
research project, you also need to include the social impact of your
project (what benefit will it bring to society?). If thereÂ´s no
benefit, thereÂ´s no money to finance your project.

Fortunately there's still some pure science going on here, and of course
private foundations and the like can give their money to whomever they
please. On the other hand some of the most prolific granters of research
money are the NSF and NIH, goverment agencies that do want to see a bit
of a "bottom line" in the proposal--and as a result pure science is
suffering. But wanting to see the bottom line, to know that this silicon
compound will ultimately be tested against breast cancer or that RNA
conglomerate might be the ideal drug carrier when it's perfected,
doesn't equate with locking down all communication of the experimental
results until it's been cross-checked by someone with more global
perspective.

So, to bring this somewhat back on target, *the peer review process,
while flawed, is adequate*; *a critical eye is essential when evaluating
the relevance of published work*; and perhaps most importantly, *you do
not know as much about a field as someone who has a higher degree in
that field, be it chemistry or veterinary medicine*.

-Alison in OH

#**522** November 21st 03, 02:27 PM

In article ,
Alison Perera wrote:

Which is really about equivalent to
saying we should likewise continue to believe that the earth is round!

Amusing typo...

-A in OH

#**523** November 21st 03, 02:27 PM

In article ,
Alison Perera wrote:

Which is really about equivalent to
saying we should likewise continue to believe that the earth is round!

Amusing typo...

-A in OH

#**524** November 21st 03, 02:27 PM

In article ,
Alison Perera wrote:

Which is really about equivalent to
saying we should likewise continue to believe that the earth is round!

Amusing typo...

-A in OH