 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back for our second lecture, Nobel 21, The Impact of Science on Society. To introduce our second speaker for this afternoon, it is my great pleasure to introduce to you my colleague, Professor Rodney O. Davis, Professor of History at Gustavus at Office College. President Kendall, Symposium Participants, colleagues, students, and guests. Our first speaker this afternoon, Daniel Kevelis, is Professor of History at the California Institute of Technology. As an undergraduate, he was a physics major. But his PhD from Princeton in 1964 was in history. Why the change? I'd like to quote our speaker. I was seduced by the liberal arts requirements. And in case you didn't get that, in honor of our new curriculum here, I would like once again to quote our speaker. I was seduced by the liberal arts requirements. His doctoral dissertation on the history of American physics eventuated in the prize-winning book The Physicists in 1979. His interests were, however, by no means confined to physics. They included mathematics, chemistry, engineering, technology, psychology, biography, and women in science, as can be seen from the list of articles he has had published. A major interest has been in genetics and eugenics, the latter being the science of improving the quality of the human species. That's a quote, not his. And his interest in genetics led to his recently published book in the name of eugenics. Professor Kevelis in both of his books and in numerous articles has been particularly concerned with the moral and political issues generated by the development of modern science and with the problem in democratic societies of controlling science and technology, while ensuring to them the freedom vital to their enterprise. He insists that works on science should be readable so that we can have an informed public able to deal with the issues of public policy. He is emphatic that, quote, we can continue to be human beings in the full spiritual sense, even though we know that we are a handful of chemicals whose shape is determined by strands of DNA. Knowledge of ourselves is an exaltation of our human possibility. And I continue to quote, it's an expression of our humanity rather than a reduction of it, unquote. He attests to his own humanity by confessing an interest in cooking, eating, and drinking with good company and restoring his 1956 Jaguar XK140, at which he has been involved for now eight years. Join me in welcoming Professor Kevles, who will speak to us on genetic progress and religious authority, historical reflection. Professor Kevles. Thank you. Thank you very much for your very generous introduction. Yes, I was seduced, but like so many people who are seduced into one thing or another, I enjoyed the seduction. I wanted to call that to your attention. And I've not regretted it. I understand that my colleague Rose Smith and I are perhaps the first two historians who have ever been invited to this distinguished and wonderful conference, and I hope that we will leave you persuaded that you ought to have historians here again. I think that history is a history of science and technology and its social relations are valuable to study in and of themselves in the sense that history is intellectually absorbing. But they are valuable also, I think, because of the illumination of past experience that they can help us to bring to bear upon contemporary issues. And that is my task today. What I want to discuss with you is some contemporary issues involving genetic engineering, genetic progress, and religious authority in the United States. And you will see that I will invite you to join me in some historical explorations of this issue as well. But I will come back to the main topic I assure you, so bear with me. Also, I don't think you'll find the history too painful. Now, I myself am not an authority on God or clerics. I am a historian of science. So a word I think is in order as to why I chose to take up the subject of my lecture this afternoon. The stimulus was a resolution that 59 clerics advanced in June 1983. This resolution urged, and I quote, that efforts to engineer specific genetic traits into the germline of the human species should not be attempted. And quote, or in other words, that there should be no genetic engineering of inheritable human traits that could be passed on from one generation to the next. The resolution gained very wide attention, starting with a story on page one of The New York Times and then in Time Magazine and elsewhere. Not least because its signers were remarkably ecumenical. They included several rabbis, a number of Roman Catholic bishops, and the leaders of 11 Protestant denominations. Religiously, they ranged from fundamentalists to liberals, that is, from Jerry Falwell, the head of the moral majority, to Bishop A. James Armstrong, who was then president of the National Council of Churches. Also among them, I might add, parenthetically, was our fellow participant in this Nobel conference, J. Robert Nelson, who was then a professor of theology at Boston University. Dr. Nelson may not agree with all it is to follow here, but I am very grateful to him, and I want to say so here publicly, as I've said so privately, for providing important information to me concerning the history of the resolution. As Dr. Nelson knows, the resolution's origins and how it came to be publicized make an interesting story. But I won't go into them here, partly because of a lack of time, but more important because they are, I think, peripheral to the central point that I wish to develop. A word, then, about the publicity. At a press conference held at the Warwick Hotel in New York City on the day the resolution was released, which, by the way, was, I think, June 8, 1983. Dr. Nelson and several other clerics insisted that the document was by no means to be taken as an attack against genetic science as such. Bishop Finnis A. Crutchfield, who was the president of the Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church, also pointed out that his fellow clerics were not talking against repairing physical defects in individuals, those were his words. For example, by replacing the defective genes in bone marrow that produce sickle cell anemia, or similar recessive diseases. Excuse me. What they opposed, Bishop Crutchfield stressed, was, in his words, the creation and manufacture of new forms of life, human life. That is, to the alteration of the human species by genetic manipulation of the sperm or egg. Avery Post, president of the United Church of Christ, who was also at the press conference, explained that remaking the human germ line would be, in his words, the ultimate presumption, an act of hubris. This is a time, he added, when our ethics of responsibility require us to exercise the freedom not to use our technical powers. Now, this clerical demand for no human germ line intervention was warmly received in many quarters. Seven distinguished scientists, including two Nobel laureates, joined in support of the resolution, and Senator Mark Hatfield had it printed in the congressional record. However, Congressman Albert Gore, Jr. of Tennessee, who had conducted many hearings on genetic engineering, and is perhaps the leading authority on the subject in the Congress, called the clerical resolution a hasty judgment, while a group of scientists and theologians, too, were moved to declare it unnecessary and misleading. Indeed, among a number of scientifically knowledgeable observers, the resolution stirred a great deal of head scratching. For one thing, it was not clear why the clerical signers would object in principle to the elimination from a family's germ line of the gene, per se, Huntington's disease, so that no one in future generations would be threatened by it. For another, and far more important, the burden of the resolution addressed what amounted to a genetic fantasy. The fact of the matter is, and here is where the fantasy comes from, the fact of the matter is that no one knows now just what genes are responsible for the vast majority of human traits, particularly those that involve qualities of mind and behavior. And in addition to that, the techniques for genetically engineering the human sex cells remain totally undeveloped. Barring some miraculous and unexpected scientific advance, genetically engineering new reproducible human life forms, especially to order, thus seems, at the minimum, decades away. Some say at least a century. Professor Alexander M. Capron of the University of Southern California Law School, an authority in the field of bioethics, understandably criticized the clerical resolution as alarmist because it treated in his words as matters of immediate concern things that are not immediate. Capron added, it's like yelling fire when there is no fire. What there is is a smoldering ashtray with a fire department watching it. The resolution thus posed a puzzle. Why were these religious authorities, thoughtful as they were, from across the sectarian and theological spectrum move to raise such an alarm? That is to cry fire when no fire exists. And it's not likely to exist for a long time. I suspect that a number of them were just grossly misinformed about what might soon be technically possible in human genetics. But some, like Dr. Nelson, were not at all misinformed. On the contrary, they were very knowledgeable about the state of human and medical genetics. In their view, however, too little attention was being given to the issue of human genetic engineering, particularly amid the rapid pace of advance in the field. A presidential commission had been created in 1980 to deliberate upon such matters, but having completed its work, it had gone out of business just a few months earlier before the resolution was published. The knowledgeable clerics, like Dr. Nelson, were eager to sustain discussion of the issue and thought that the promulgation of the resolution would do that. I suspect that they were right, in a sense, but the fact remains that the resolution did not call for debate on human genetic engineering. It declared unequivocally that attempts to engineer genetic traits into the human germline should not be attempted, period. A few of the signers later told the press that they did not know whether the ban should, in fact, be permanent. Many others said that they opposed human germline engineering uncompromisingly, even to prevent the transmission of genetic disease. The issue of human germline engineering, I would like to suggest, and this is how we may understand this resolution better, struck a deep and sensitive nerve among the clerical signers. The concern of the clerics, Dr. Nelson wrote in an unpublished letter to the New York Times, which he has been good enough to provide me with, derived from, in his words, religious convictions and theological concepts about the value and inviolability of each human life as God's creation. Dr. Nelson has elsewhere observed that despite all the success of science in stealing the Promethean fire, for centuries the Christian apologist could always say to the proud scientist that only God, not the scientist, could create life or know its originating mystery. But since 1953, when the structure of DNA was published, that ultimate readout of theologians has become increasingly vulnerable. To cite the shrewd observation of a report by the National Council of Churches, and I quote here, words which were once the primary language of the church are now also the words of the current biological revolution. Life, death, creation, new life, new day, new earth are now the vocabularies of biological science, biotechnology and biobusiness. What lay behind the embryo of the clerical resolution I should like to propose was an understandable desire on the part of its clerical signers to reassert against scientific and secular challenge the dominion of God over the mystery of life and the control of its creation. It arose in short from an increasing conflict between clerical and scientific authority over the ageless questions that is, what is man and what may man become? Now for some history. May I have the lights please in the first slide. Now this conflict between religious authority and between clerical and scientific authority is of course one of longstanding. And in the modern era, it goes back to Charles Darwin. Here he is. Charles Darwin's challenge to the comfortable belief that man was a special creature of God's creation and his insistence that man was instead simply another creature of nature, a cousin of the apes, and subject to the same biological laws as his hairy relations. But while Darwin dealt heretically with a question of what is man, he did not take up the issue of what man might become. That question, which is more central to my inquiry here, was first raised in 1865 by the English scientist Francis Galton. Now see the next slide please. And here is Galton in 1864, shortly before he began to discuss this subject. Galton was a younger first cousin of Charles Darwin's and he was inspired to raise the question in part by his reading of The Origin of Species, which as you will recall, was published in 1859. It was well known that by careful selection, farmers and flower fanciers could obtain valuable breeds of plants and animals, strong in particular characters. Galton wondered, in his words, could not the race of men be similarly improved? Could not the undesirables be got rid of and the desirables multiplied? Could not man in short actually take charge of his own evolution? Galton developed his ideas for human improvement into a doctrine for which in 1883 he coined the word eugenics. Now have the next slide please. Here is Galton in his late 60s, which is in the mid-1880s when he coined this word. Galton took this word eugenics from a Greek root, meaning good in birth or noble in heredity. By eugenics, Galton intended to denote the science, this is his words, the science of improving human stock by giving the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable. Now many mid-Victorians made a religion of science and so did Francis Galton. His religious attitudes range from skepticism to hostility. For example, he once tested the efficacy of prayer by investigating whether or not groups for whom people prayed a good deal. For example, members of the royal family outlived others and he embarrassed his family by publishing the conclusion that since they did not, prayer must in fact be inefficacious. In eugenics, in the science of human improvement, Galton found a scientific substitute for church orthodoxies, a secular faith, a defensible religious obligation. In the late 19th century, Galton's eugenic ideas provoked the opposition of clerics and won few lay supporters. Part of the reason was that science did not know of a hereditary mechanism that might be manipulated to the end of human improvement. However, Galton's eugenic gospel received a considerable boost when at the turn of this century, the work of Gregor Mendel was rediscovered. One of the chief features of Mendel's laws as they were understood early in the century was that various biological characters were determined by single elements which were later identified with genes. After the turn of the century, some scientists extrapolated this model of heredity to human beings, making two important points. First, they said that not only could such physical characters as eye color or disease be explained in terms of Mendel's elements, but that so also could characteristics of mind and behavior. Sorry, I lost my place. For example, characteristics of mind and behavior, for example, mental deficiency or even tendencies to criminality. Second, they argued that man might interfere with the propagation of these elements to increase the frequency of good ones in the population and decrease the frequency of bad ones. During the three decades or so after 1900, in the United States and Britain, the secular faith of eugenics became a powerful and popular socio-scientific gospel. Let me give you some indication of its power and popularity. Year after year, numerous books and articles were published on eugenics, and many public lectures were given on the subject. Many eugenic organizations were formed, among them in 1923, the American Eugenics Society. Among the multifarious activities of the society was giving aid to help the fitter family contests which had been started in 1920 at the Kansas Free Fair. May I have the next slide, please? The contests were soon being featured together with eugenic exhibits at between seven and 10 state fairs yearly. By the end of the decade, requests for help in organizing such contests were coming to the society each year from more than 40 eager sponsors. And here, hello? Here is a slide of the eugenics building, the eugenics exhibit at the Kansas Free Fair in 1929. Notice that the audience consists, there are a lot of women in it, part of the, important part of the constituency of the eugenics movement here and in Britain, consisted of women who were naturally concerned with issues of child birth, conception, nurture, and so on. Notice also the various placards. I wanna call to your attention up there on the left, the display board of guinea pigs mounted to demonstrate the inheritance of coat color from generation to generation. This was a typical feature and I will come back to that in a moment or two. At the state fairs, the fitter family's competitions were held in what were called the human stock sections. For example, a brochure, a contest brochure for these competitions said the time has come when the science of human husbandry must be developed based on the principles now followed by scientific agriculture, if the better elements of our civilization are to dominate or even to survive. At the 1924 Kansas Free Fair, winning families in the three categories, there were three, small, average, and large, were awarded a governor's fitter family trophy, which was presented by Governor Jonathan Davis of Kansas. I have the next slide, please. I thought all of you would like to be edified by the portrait of a fitter family from the Arkansas State Fair in 1927. For those of you who can't make out the print at the bottom, these are the winners in the large family contest. And as you can, we can certainly agree that it was a large family. May I have the next slide also, please? Here is another fitter family. The print seems, oh, it's up top. Family, I can't, again, another large family class. This is a Texas State Fair in 1920. I can't make the date out 26 or seven or eight. And as you can see, they're very fit. It's not so large. And they are proud of their athletic activities. Families are not the only ones who could compete grade A individuals on a capper medal, named for United States Senator Arthur Capper. This was in Kansas. And portraying to, let me have the next slide. This is the capper medal. As you can see, it portrays two diaphanously garbed parents. Their arms outstretched toward their, presumably, eugenically meritorious infant. A fair brochure noted, this trophy and medal are worth more than livestock sweepstakes or a Kansas oil well. For health is wealth and a sound mind and a sound body is the most priceless of human possessions. You might think that this was from a Sinclair Lewis novel, but it wasn't. In both Britain and America, exhibits at fairs and expositions often included a depiction of the laws of Mendelian inheritance. Usually, as I suggested to you before in our first slide of the fairs, a collection of stuffed black and white guinea pigs arrayed on a vertical board so as to indicate the inheritance of coat color from generation to generation. May I have the next slide, please? I show you this slide because it indicates the popularity and widespread national acceptance of eugenics and also how much the guinea pigs were common in these exhibits. This is an exhibit, as you can see, I believe, of the American Eugenics Society. What might surprise you is that it was an exhibit at the Sesquicentennial Exposition of the United States in Philadelphia in 1926. Anything, obviously, that would get into a Sesquicentennial exhibition, if you think back upon the bicentennial some years ago, must have been widely accepted, certainly among middle class Americans, as well as among people in political power. So that gives you an idea of the degree of popularity and acceptance of eugenics and note also, again, the telltale board of guinea pig color coat inheritance. I will come back to some of what's written up there later on. Now, the newfound popularity of eugenics was rife with religiosity of the Sinclair Lewis variety, some of it, though not all of it, secular. In 1926, the American Eugenics Society published a pamphlet that it chose to title a eugenics catechism. In question and answer format, the catechism promised that eugenics would, I quote, you wouldn't believe that I would have written this, would increase the number of geniuses, foster more selective love making and produce more love in marriage. And the catechism continued. Question, does eugenics contradict the Bible? Answer, the Bible has much to say for eugenics. It tells us that men do not gather grapes from thorns and figs from thistles. Question, what is the most precious, what is the most precious thing in the world? Answer, the human germ plasm. Now, Francis Galton had expected eugenics to provide a secular substitute for traditional religion and in the opening decades of the 20th century, eugenics was said to have accomplished just that. One of the leading scientific popularizers of the day was Albert E. Wiggum. In a sense, he's a mirror image of Jeremy Rifkin these days. Wiggum was a journalist, a Chautauqua lecturer and author of magazine articles and widely read books, including the 1923 bestseller, which he entitled the new decologue of science. Notice the word decologue in the religious connotation. There, Wiggum intoned in this book that the instruments of divine revelation were now the instruments of science. These instruments, he said, had, and I quote him here, not only added an enormous range of new commandments and entirely new decalogue to man's moral codes, but they have supplied him with the techniques for putting the old ones into effect. According to Wiggum, salient among the new commandments was eugenics, which he summarized as, again, I quote, simply the projection of the golden rule down the stream of protoplasm. Indeed, he went on, had Jesus returned in the 1920s, he would have given the world a new commandment amounting to what Wiggum called the biological golden rule, the completed golden rule of science. This was, Wiggum declared, do unto both the born and the unborn what you would have both the born and the unborn do unto you. Particularly striking about the popularity of the eugenic faith at this time was that in contrast to Galton's day, it had the enthusiastic cooperation of many modernist clerics. In Britain, William Inge, the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, helped to carry the eugenic banner to the British public, telling an audience at the Bedford College for Women that some knowledge of eugenics would, in his words, in many cases prevent falling in love with the wrong people. In 1926, the American Eugenic Society was moved to launch a eugenic sermon contest. An estimated 300 sermons were inspired by the competition and some 60 were considered for the prizes which were of $500, $300 and $200, no small amount of money in those days. Rabbi Harry H. Meyer of Kansas City, Missouri chose a special Mother's Day service convoked by the Council of Jewish Women and the Temple Sisterhood to declare, may we do nothing to permit our blood to be adulterated by infusions of blood of inferior grade. Another entrant who is not Jewish, I think Protestant, you'll see why, held that Christ was born into a family representing, quote, a long process of religious and moral selection. The Reverend Dr. Kenneth T. MacArthur of the Federated Church in Stirling, Massachusetts sermonized upon the heritability of intelligence in his submission for the contest and speculated that moral and spiritual qualities were similarly determined, submitting in evidence the biblical words of Paul to Timothy which celebrated in his paraphrase the unfeigned faith which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice and in thee also. In short, so far as Reverend MacArthur was concerned, there was a gene for faith. The Reverend Dr. MacArthur whose sermon won the second prize in this contest later became a member of the American Eugenics Society's Massachusetts branch and informed the society's president that he had been deeply interested in eugenics for years, was concerned with problems of genetics as a breeder of purebred cattle and was the proud winner of a silver cup in the Fitter Families Contest at the Eastern States Exposition of 1924. May I have the next slide, please? And here again, so you can know MacArthur, Reverend MacArthur and his family better is a picture of him and his family in celebration of their winning the trophy, not in the large family, but in the average family contest, Fitter Family Contest at the Eastern States Exposition in the middle 1920s. Now, it's easy to mock eugenics as I suspect you will realize I have been doing. But enough of mockery for a while. Let me attempt with you to account for the immense popularity of it because it was a serious movement with some serious consequences during the first third of this century. To account for it entirely would require a good deal more time than I have this afternoon. But let me suggest a few reasons that bear upon the enthusiasm that so many clerics exhibited for eugenics. First, science as such by the 1920s certainly had come to command enormous authority. Having conferred numerous technological marvels upon the world since the late 19th century, many clerics felt compelled to align themselves with a modernist doctrine of harmonizing religion and morals with the methods of science and the known laws of nature. Second, the eugenics of the day gave little attention to what had preoccupied Francis Galton, that is to creating superior people to man's taking charge of his own evolution. A major reason for this was that geneticists at the time knew far less than the little they do today about how one might achieve such an end. No one knew what genes consisted of or how they replicated themselves, let alone how they might be deliberately modified to engineer better human beings. Thus, eugenics for the most part did not directly challenge traditional clerical authority over the nature and possibilities of man. To be sure, eugenicists did propose to interfere with human reproduction with the aim of preventing the proliferation of alleged genetic defectives. A policy that seemed to sanction because of Mendel's laws, it was argued, the breeding of such people, I'm sorry, a policy that science seemed to sanction, that is getting rid of defectives. Because of Mendel's laws, it was argued, the breeding of such people would surely cause the genetic pollution of the race. May I have the next slide, please? Now consider, for example, some of the charts displayed at the Kansas Free Fair in 1929, which purported to illustrate the laws of Mendelian inheritance in human beings. Now I call your attention to the material of top left. This explains, cross a pure with a pure parent and the children would be normal. They didn't define what pure is and they didn't define what normal is, but there it is. But you move down the placard there on the top left, it says, cross an abnormal with an abnormal and the children would be abnormal. Moving right along, cross a pure with an abnormal and the children would be normal but tainted. Some grandchildren abnormal. Cross a tainted with a tainted and of every four offspring, those of you who've taken genetics can see them in dealing in ratios here. Cross a tainted with a tainted and of every four offspring, one would be abnormal, one pure normal and two tainted. Another chart declared, over here, bottom left, human traits such as unfit human traits, such as people-mindedness, epilepsy, criminality, insanity, alcoholism, pauperism and many others, many others. Run in families and are inherited in exactly the same way as color in guinea pigs. So I close the circle you see between the guinea pig exhibit and the extrapolation to human social pathology via phony genetics. And another exhibit placard asked, as you can see top right, how long are we Americans to be so careful for the pedigree of our pigs and chickens and cattle and then leave the ancestry of our children? Notice that that's underlined. Ancestry of our children to chance or to blind sentiment. May I have the next slide, please? All these social pathologies, criminality, prostitution, et cetera, were said to be increasing at a terrible rate. And now I bring you to a closeup of the Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1926. You look at some of the, these are like the population counters of a later day. This board with flashing lights revealed in the manner of the population counters of a later day that every 15 seconds, $100 of your money went for the care of persons with bad heredity. That every 48 seconds, a mentally deficient person was born in the United States. And that only every seven and a half minutes did the United States enjoy the birth of a high grade person who will have ability to do creative work and be fit for leadership. May I have the lights now, please? In the United States, the feeble minded criminals and other such social defectors were believed to occur with disproportionately high frequency among recent immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Two major methods that American eugenicists advocated for ridding society of these sources of social pathology were immigration restriction and compulsory sterilization. Eugenicists in fact helped obtain passage of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, which sharply reduced Eastern and Southern European immigration to the United States. They also played a major role in the passage of eugenic sterilization laws in some two dozen states by the late 1920s. And they succeeded in having such legislation declared constitutional in the 1927 US Supreme Court decision of Buck v. Bell. The leading state in this dubious endeavor was my own, that is California, which as of 1933 had subjected more people to eugenic sterilization, we're in the tens of 10, couple of 10,000, then had all other states of the union combined. With regard to the position of religious leaders on these eugenic measures, some opposition to immigration restrictions seems to have come from Jewish clerics. But no religious group matched, because Jews were among those who were going to be restricted, but no religious group matched the across the board attack against eugenics that came from the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic descent rested intellectually on the church's doctrine that in the scheme of God's creation, man's bodily attributes are secondary, his spirit paramount. What to the eugenicists were biologically unfit people were to the church, the children of God, blessed with immortal souls and entitled to the respect due every human being. In 1931 Pope Pius XI in the encyclical Caste Canubi condemned eugenics and sterilization along with birth control and divorce. But the American Catholic descent from eugenics was reinforced by social reasons. The fact of the matter was that a disproportionately large number of prospective immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe were Catholics. And so was a disproportionately large number of those threatened with compulsory eugenics sterilization. Because Catholic immigrants tended to fall among lower income groups to be less educated than Native Americans, to score poorly on the type of IQ test used to classify people as feeble minded or not and to be sent to public rather than private institutions for the mentally deficient to whose inmates and whose inmates alone eugenics sterilization laws could be applied. It may be that opposition to immigration restriction or eugenics sterilization came from fundamentalist Protestants too. But there is little scholarly knowledge of that matter yet. And for those of you who are majoring in history and looking for a paper subject to write, I strongly urge you to look into this because I think there's an important and interesting paper to be written about that subject. We know that fundamentalist Protestants strongly objected to evolution and the teaching of it. And it would seem to be surprising to me if they hadn't vigorously objected to eugenics as well. It seems that no significant opposition however to eugenics came from modernist Protestant clerics at this time. Who one must say in retrospect virtually ceded their moral authority in this area to those who spoke in the name of eugenic science. For one thing, in the United States the principal supporters of eugenics in the first third of this century were middle to upper middle class white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, wasps as they are known in the historical trade. Who liked to trace their lineage back to Northern Europe and England. It should be no surprise that wasp ministers shared the views of their wasp congregants. Those views tended to include an anti-Catholicism so virulent in the 1920s as to relegate large numbers of Catholics to virtually subhuman categories. And what social prejudice created the science of genetics was claimed by some to confirm. Henry H. Goddard, a eugenicist was the psychologist who pioneered the use of IQ tests in the United States to diagnose so-called people-mindedness. In his influential books on the subjects, some of you may remember them from your psychology courses. He was the author of the famous book on the calicox as well as a book on people-mindedness as such. In his influential books on the subject Goddard speculated that people-mindedness expressed the form of reversion to a more primitive level of humanity. In his words, a vigorous animal organism of low intellect but strong physique, the wild man of today, which is how you have been classified if you did not score too well on an IQ test. Thus, modernist Protestant clerics did not fear eugenics, I suggest, as a challenge to their authority over the nature of man and his future. For the simple reason that in those days to their minds, the objects of eugenic programs, Catholic immigrants, the feeble-minded minority, other minority, racial minority groups, fell de facto outside the realms of humanity. By the mid-1930s, public opinion, come back towards our own day, public opinion both lay and clerical in Britain and the United States was turning sharply against eugenics. Revolving over the Nazi eugenic program had a good deal to do with the shift. So did developments in genetics and psychology, which demonstrated that the attribution of feeble-mindedness or social deviancy so casually and completely to genetic causes of a simple nature was for the most part wrong. And so finally did the explosive growth from the 1930s onward of knowledge of human heredity as a special branch of genetics. But that knowledge, combined with the advances of medical technology and molecular genetics, has in the last decade or so brought us to the edge of what some have called a new eugenics, to the borderlands of a brave new world of genetic and reproductive behavior, to the prospects that so bothered the 59 clerics who signed the resolution with which I began my remarks this afternoon. Clerical opinion in the three major faiths is today divided on various features of the new reproductive and genetic possibilities. Particularly those that represent sharp departures from ancient practice. To be sure, Jews and liberal Protestants approve amniocentesis and abortion to permit prospective parents to avoid the birth of children with serious diseases and disorders. But this innovation has been vigorously opposed as many of you well know by Catholics and fundamentalist Protestants. Artificial insemination by donor, surrogate motherhood and in vitro fertilization may assist otherwise in fertile couples to have children. All three techniques have earned the unmitigated censure of the Catholic Church. Against this division of opinion over these particular or specific techniques, the broad clerical consensus against attempts to genetically engineer new human beings stands out, I think, all the more sharply. The canvas of history, I think, throws the reasons for this consensus into bold relief. Unlike the old eugenics, the new variety has so far, at least for the most part, relegated no particular minority group to the level of subhumanity while keeping the majority safe. The new eugenics promises to be universal, to affect everyone, all of us. Thus clerics of all faiths and social groups are naturally concerned to prevent the cruelties and barbarities of the old eugenics from recurring. Then too, the precedent of nuclear energy strongly suggests the need to many clerics for moral voices to raise a cautionary note against any headlong exploitation of new genetic knowledge. And so also does the contemporary rapid rush to commercialize molecular biology and biotechnology. Finally, the more that genetic progress strikes at clerical authority over the nature and possibilities of man, the more do clerics have a professional self-interest in not yielding to scientists' ultimate authority over man's essence and faith. What should we think of this clerical activism, this revived religious concern with the issues of God, man, and genetics? In my opinion, we should, with some caveats, welcome it. Let us recall, and welcome it heartily, let us recall that some geneticists invoke the authority of their science to establish the eugenics of the early 20th century. Let us also note that a certain degree of hubris is in fact to be found in some of the proclamations by scientists nowadays of new genetic imperatives. We may well applaud the Catholic descent from eugenics of half a century ago, it was right on. Similarly, we might gladly welcome contemporary clerical activism. Clerical opinion of the kind I've been describing reflects deep-seated feelings that are found in most of us against tampering with the ultimate mystery of life and the inviolability of our humanity. If neither the science nor the technology currently exists to transform ourselves, that does not render our feelings about such issues any less real. However, clerical involvement in human genetics and biotechnology must, we should insist, go hand in hand with considerable technical knowledge. And I am pleased to say that, so far as I can tell, an increasing number of clerics are taking the trouble to begin to acquaint themselves and acquire this width and acquire this knowledge. Genetic progress thus is not so much undermining religious authority as demanding a modification of its basis and content. That same genetic progress is also demanding of the geneticist an unprecedented degree of moral sensitivity of the type that Professor Luria called for this morning. In all, authority over the nature of man and his possibilities now belongs neither to the scientist nor to the cleric alone. It belongs to both and it will be, and I think should be shared all the more as the rapid advance of our genetic knowledge and biotechnical capacity touch ever more deeply and concretely our sense of ourselves, what we are and what we may become. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Kevlus for your groundbreaking historical talk at the Nobel conference. Would the participants please come forward? I think we have an interesting paper to discuss here. It seems to me that a panel consisting of fellow historian an ethicist and two scientists who deal with genetics are indeed well composed to respond to the paper that we just heard. I would like to address attention first of all Dr. Nelson's way and perhaps begin by asking him if he in fact repents. Repents. Repents? This sense. You mean a defense of Dr. Kevlus or what? I think first of all we are all inspired to buy his book on eugenics it's been extremely well reviewed in the New York Times and elsewhere and I for one will certainly be reading this from my own edification. And incidentally if you want a much smaller and much cheaper treatise against eugenics you can buy a book of mine. You'll recognize it by a very pleasant green color it's called science and our troubled conscience and one of the things which troubled my conscience when I wrote it was precisely the progress and the rejuvenation of a eugenic movement in this country. Incidentally I would point out for the historians of Gustavus Adolphus that this is not the first time that the discussion of June 1983 of which I was a part has come before this audience. It was also described somewhat more briefly and with a certain sympathy by Karen Labox two years ago if I'm in that book called manipulation of life. The only thing that disappoints me I must say I'm flattered to know that a historian now has written me into history. I didn't know I'd been there until now and I'm disappointed though that I didn't have my picture up on the screen here because you in the far back there don't realize how closely I resemble Mr. Galton and still bantering a bit. I think George Wald, Nobel Prize winning scientist and another geneticist, Liebik Kavlyarian so on of Sloan Kettering are somewhat bemused at finding themselves called clerics all the time just because they signed this aforementioned statement. Now let me try to single out one thing I would like to say among the many that I've noted although in the darkness it became very, very difficult to take notes and so there were more thoughts I might have had. David Baltimore another Nobel laureate has he been here already? I'm not sure but he should be sometime. But David Baltimore colleague at MIT and a very notable person. Also criticized the statement of 1983 the one in which a number of us said we do not think that germline human gene modification should be undertaken. He said don't these religious people have any sympathy for those who are sick especially sick of genetic diseases? Don't they know about these things? The fact is as Dr. Kavly says a great many of us do know a fair amount about the horrors of certain genetic diseases especially those which are very virtually lethal in early days or early months of life or which leave lasting disabilities on human beings. Baltimore was asking why we weren't compassionate? And I think it's a very legitimate question because obviously people who lead churches and some of those mentioned are supposed to be compassionate people. The compassion is not lacking for those with genetic diseases nor is there any desire on the part of many of us to see the continuity of these diseases. But what we were concerned about then and I'm still strongly concerned although perhaps my thinking has been modified in two years but we were concerned about the inadvertent possible mutations which would be caused if the technique of germline modification could indeed be perfected because those inadvertent mutations according to the best of authorities that I can read would be irreversible, irrevocable throughout the continuing line of one's human progeny. Now that's a theoretical fantasy might be used in the word of Dr. Kevles but we wondered about being suspicious or doubtful of the outcomes of what appear to be scientific fantasies. Even the youngest of this audience I think have grown up in a time when scientific fantasies have become realities. 10, 12 years ago with possibly exception of Dr. Luria there was hardly a person in this room who would have even anticipated through fantasy or imagination what has been done in recombinant DNA and the spread of the knowledge of genetic sciences. What I'm saying is that to dismiss an apprehension as a fantasy is not altogether convincing simply because we have come to recognize the acceleration, rapidity and astonishing achievement in this area. At the present time to be sure there is much question as to whether it is feasible actually let us say by manipulating the nucleus of a human embryo after fertilization in vitro in the glass whether it is feasible so to change that nucleus as to eliminate from the growing embryo a Tay-Sachs disease or a Leshenin disease or a Kleinfelter syndrome or any of these other nearly 3,000 diseases. As Dr. Arno Maltowski of Seattle, Washington points out and I think very convincingly in the first place we can dismiss any idea of modifying diseases which are polygenetic that is are determined by not one gene but by a combination of often dozens or hundreds of genes. By the like same token he would say the fantasies if you will about modifying physical characteristics, hair color, eye color, mental capacity and so on is likewise well beyond our possibility. So our concern is with the simplest kind of effort to modify the embryo cell and in that possibility still to cause a mutation which could be irrevocably deleterious in future progeny. Finally just I could keep on talking but I do have a lecture tomorrow afternoon but recently during the past nine months I was on a commission of the Office of Technology Assessment in Washington working under the Congress and there we a group of quite responsible geneticists and other scientists worked out a long report in which the treatment of gene genetic diseases in the body that is in the somatic cells as distinct from the sex cells or germ cells but how the diseases of the body cells could receive therapeutic treatment where in that report of the Office of Technology Assessment the use of the word inadvertent appears several times the inadvertent mutation of genes which could become then passed on to the future. So what we're dealing with essentially is the constant problem which is before scientific experimentation that is the problem of risk, risk to human beings. Now that raises the whole question of whether there can be advances especially in medical science and now in genetic science without assuming risks of certain human subjects which later on might prove to have been very, very unsatisfactory. That only initiates I think the conversation which some other experts at this table could add to. Dan, do you wish to respond right away? Yes, I wish to respond very briefly by way of question which you can answer later. I'm sure it'll come up again. I have two questions. Well one question and an observation. One is that I don't understand really this the specter you raise of modifying the germ line in a way that will go on for generations because it seems to me that if you accept the premise that you can modify the germ line for a desirable change for change ensues that you can't, that you don't like then you can modify it back with technology that can do one will permit you to do the next. So that's a point I just don't understand in your position. The second is with regard to the clerical resolution an entire issue that I chose to neglect in my lecture this afternoon for reasons of time is that it seems to me by focusing on what I call and I think most people agree even yourself as a genetic fantasy that attention is diverted from the imminent genetic reality of somatic cell modification. The NIH just issued regulations last week in final form to govern what sort of procedure should be followed in somatic cell modification and it seems to me that an enormous number of ethical and moral problems as well as technical ones are going to arise with the advent of somatic cell therapy. And to talk, I was also puzzled by the fact that it seems to me that to focus on what is decades or more away and may never occur diverts attention in a way that seems to me I just don't understand from what's real and imminent and requires considerable attention from moralists, theologians, ethicists, scientists and even historians. Let me direct attention to the other members of the panel who may have comments to make at this point. Can I just say one word? Sure. For my own part at least, I have by no means refrained from advocating advances in the genetic therapy of body cells, or somatic cells. I'm very, very positive about that, so I don't want to be misunderstood in that respect, please. Winston, did you hear her comment? There's quite a bit of work going on where people are trying to and they certainly will be successful to diagnose genetic diseases at a very early stage, not just the bad genetic diseases that you've mentioned, such as various kinds of cancers for instance, where your genes may be of a certain manner that you have a greater chance of getting in that disease. Rheumatide arthritis is another potential disease and there are lots of these. So it may be possible at a very early stage to tell an individual that he has predilections to these 10 diseases and would this be equivalent to the IQ test? In other words, create problems. No, I don't think it's equivalent to the IQ test necessarily because we have some... I mean we do live as legates of history. We know how IQ tests have been used and they continue to be misused in certain quarters but there's also a great deal of eagerness and effort made not to misuse them. The advent of the kind of information that you mentioned seems to me it is something that cannot and will not be suppressed. It has, however, to be used in a way that I think primarily is entirely, I would say, I think to the benefit of the individual who may suffer from this and his or her family but especially the individual. The acquisition of new information concerning our faith, so to speak, as individuals of a biomedical and genetic nature is posing a widespread problem that goes far beyond genetics. In the biotechnological area there are problems in the prolongation of life at birth and also prolongation of life at death. What shall we do with these techniques and this information? This just seems to be a special case. I would not want to issue a blanket censure of the use of such information or of such techniques but I would say that we have to figure out ways to use them in terms that will benefit rather than injure those who suffer from these problems. And that's where I think this kind of attention ought to be directed rather than to something that may happen 50 years or more from now. Professor Lurie, would you wish to speak? It seems to me that when you are telling us this kind of controversy it simply means that there is a conflict between sets of values that are not either reconciled or reconcilable. The two sets of values, of course, are on one hand the desire to develop techniques that will satisfy the cause, even the slightest desire like that of correcting one's own heredity on the favor of one's own descendant. That's a legitimate desire. On the other hand, there is an equally legitimate desire especially in the light of what has happened in the two world wars and the dropping of atom bombs to preserve the idea of something sacred about humanity as such because without humanity, as I tried to say this morning, this world no matter how it may continue to exist it won't have any meaning. Therefore it seems to me that there is a real conflict of values in our society between different kinds of goals and desires and I think that that's what Dr. Kevles and Dr. Nelson are representing in this discussion. The importance of not letting any authority including that of the self-appointed or elected members, leaders of the church as well as those of the government dictate what shall be done or shall not be done without consultation. On the other hand, not let the experts go ahead and do whatever they want to do without knowing that that is what people want of the world in which they are living. Let me raise an issue that has come up from the floor that moves from a discussion of values to one of economics. It reads as follows, Dr. Kevles, wouldn't genetic improvements only be possible for those who could afford the process leaving the poor at a severe disadvantage? It's a question I know that's been raised about other technologies as well, including the artificial heart. This is again a special case of a more pervasive issue. I think that it would be wrong-headed to take the position that we should not have genetic progress, human genetic progress, medical genetic progress or progress in medicine or any other sort of technology because it may not be equitably distributed in the society. At the same time, care must also be taken and effort must be made to ensure that is equitably distributed in the society. That's the only answer I can give to that. I think that it might behoove us at this point to close this particular session. We have about 45 minutes or so before our next session. I just would like to make a couple of announcements. One, I realize there are a number of high school teachers in the room who would like to receive continuing education credit. At the rear of the room on the right, there's a green sign where you can pick up the requisite forms. We will have coffee on the mall for you, but I would like to thank Professor Daniel Kevles for a very interesting provocative paper. I invite you back at 3.30 to listen to Winston Grill on biotechnology and agriculture. Thank you. Welcome back from coffee. And to our third session in Nobel 21, our next speaker will be introduced by Dr. John Lamert, assistant professor of biology at Gustavus at Office College. Professor Lamert. Without microorganisms, life on earth would cease to exist. An intricate biological network connects these microscopic creatures to all living organisms including humankind. Microbes decompose dead organic matter into simpler nutrients that in turn can be used by plants. Some bacteria contribute to soil fertility by converting atmospheric nitrogen into biologically usable forms by a process called nitrogen fixation. Most organisms cannot directly make use of nitrogen in the air. More nitrogen is fixed than can be used by plants associated with these bacteria, so that soil fertility can be restored to land depleted of usable nitrogen. Dr. Winston Grill, our next speaker, is internationally recognized for his biochemical and genetic studies on nitrogen fixation. He became fascinated by this crucial microbial process shortly after he joined the Department of Bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1967. Over the next decade, Dr. Grill purified several essential enzymes that catalyzed the molecular events of nitrogen fixation and unraveled the intricate system of genes that code for these enzymes. This work led to his selection as the Eli Lilly Young Investigator in Microbiology and Immunology at the 1979 annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. That same year, he also earned the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Award for Work in Agriculture. At the beginning of this decade, Dr. Grill took his skills as biochemist, microbiologist, molecular biologist, and ecologist, and moved to the industrial world of biotechnology. He now serves as Vice President of Research in Development for Agrosetus. This company focuses on ways to use plant and animal biotechnology to improve agricultural productivity. Just this past week, Agrosetus has received approval to field test a product that is an application of bioengineering technology. Dr. Grill gives us the perspective of the bench scientist who has asked, how does it work? To the applied scientist who asks, how can we constructively use it? We are honored that Dr. Grill has accepted our invitation to join in this year's Nobel Conversations. He will speak on the impact of biotechnology and the future of agriculture. Dr. Grill. Thank you, Dr. Lamert. What I'd like to do this afternoon is show you or convince you that biotechnology is opening up some very exciting new approaches to improve agriculture. And not all I'll be talking about will be on the upside because there's a little bit of a problem that's occurring, and that is concerns about this technology. And I'll be spending quite a bit of time on that. In fact, you'll probably think I'm a little bit too defensive about things. I'll try to put these concerns into perspective. Before I go into the subject matter, I think it's important that I educate you and make you all molecular biologists. And so if you can stand around for one minute, I'll have the first slide, please. Represents the chromosome, and the chromosome contains the genetic material of all living organisms. The chromosome is made up of a chemical called DNA, and the chromosome is segmented, made up of many segments. Each segment is a gene. And in a living cell, there are thousands, not tens of thousands, of different genes. Each gene codes for a different protein. And a living cell is living, is doing its thing because of the complement of proteins that it contains. So it is the proteins that take up food into a cell, that digest the food, allow the cell to make more of itself and become larger or duplicate. A fish cell has a different complement of proteins than a human cell does, and that has a different complement of proteins and therefore a different complement of genes than, say, a tomato cell. So there are thousands, tens of thousands of different genes, each coding for different proteins. The next slide, please. What exactly is a genetic engineer? Well, genetic engineering is gene splicing. That is, you saw those little segments. It's possible to take a segment out of a gene, out of a chromosome, and in fact, it's possible to take a segment out of a chromosome from any animal, plant, or microorganism. And the exciting part of this technology is that one can take that gene out, can purify it, and can put it back into a different organism. Now it's possible to put genes into only a few different kinds of organisms, but the number of organisms that are becoming amenable to this technology is increasing. Very exciting developments from genetic engineering, a technique that's just a little over a decade old, include mostly in basic research. We're learning about evolution of organisms through understanding the genes and examining these purified genes. We're understanding the basis of development, how cells develop. We're learning a lot about diseases, how certain microorganisms cause disease. We're learning about how cancer, at least how some cancers work, and how some viruses work. So that's very, very exciting. The next slide, please. This place is all right. Two more weeks and I'll be a molecular chemist. The point I want to make with this is that this technology really isn't that sophisticated. That high schools have laboratories in which recombinant DNA, or genetic engineering, means splicing. They're all different words for the same thing. High schools are being, more and more high schools are getting involved, and there was just recently in Cold Spring Harbor, I believe, a course for high school teachers. In many developing countries, there are laboratories involved in genetic engineering. In all of our major universities, in fact throughout the world, there are dozens and dozens of laboratories involved in the technology, and certainly lots of industries are involved. There's even a home genetic engineering kit I hear that is for sale. So the genie is out of the bottle, and probably is impossible to put it back. If somebody wanted to, they could set up a genetic engineering lab without too much trouble in their basement. Next slide, please. Well, what's different from the perspective of biology, not so much for chemistry or engineering, the commercial interests in the technology as the technology is developing. And I think before I go into agriculture, I'd like to make a point of what genetic engineering can do, and I'll do it taking a healthcare example. I'll take it because it's one of the first examples, and human healthcare is really where most of genetic engineering applications have been directed. Certain diabetics need insulin, which is a hormone. Insulin is a protein, and therefore there's a gene that codes for insulin. The diabetics are given, they generally inject themselves daily, with insulin that has come from the pancreases of slaughterhouse animals, such as cattle and sheep. And in most cases, that's fine. But animal insulin is slightly different than human insulin, and there's certain diabetics who develop reactions or allergies to these animal insulins, and it would be very nice if they could treat themselves with human insulin. But there's not that big a source of human pancreases. Now, what scientists have done is to isolate the human insulin gene from human cells, put that gene into a bacterium, into a microorganism, and then grow that microorganism in a big fermentor, a fermentor such as is used in the brewing industry. You know, there's a big vat full of liquid, full of nutrients for the microorganisms, so the microorganism then grows. It now has a new gene in it, besides all of its other genes, and so the microorganism is pumping out insulin. And when the vat is all, when the cells are all grown up, then the laboratory harvests the material and purifies the protein, human insulin, and can end up with pounds of pure human insulin, human insulin that's exactly equivalent, exactly the same as the insulin that's in a normal body. And this is now being sold, it's called humulin, sold by Eli Lillian Company, and there are a number of other proteins that are being produced, but I won't discuss those. Well, most of the early applications in agriculture, which is the focus of this talk, are going to be in the animal healthcare area, just because, as I said before, almost all of the work is being done in human healthcare, and there are spin-offs that can easily be applied to animal problems. The next slide, please. And the next slide. Here are some headlines of some of the things, I've got to be sure I don't trip over anything. Okay, some of the things that are going on. Here is bovine interferon. Interferon is a protein that's made in extraordinarily small amounts in animals. In this case, the cow. And it's been impossible to purify enough to do any kind of substantial studies with it. Through genetic engineering, the bovine interferon gene has been isolated, been thrown into a microorganism, the microorganism's grown in fermenters, and pure bovine interferon is produced, and is being tested now as a possible protective agent to be used in cattle to protect them from shipping fever, a commercially important disease. Another example is vaccines. Some vaccines are being produced, and one of the first genetic engineering products sold is a vaccine against pig scours, a disease of baby pigs, made through genetic engineering. Not the pigs, the vaccine. Here's another vaccine, foot and mouth vaccine. There's a virus that is potentially a very, very bad virus for cattle, and good vaccines aren't available through genetic engineering. There are groups trying to make very effective and safe vaccines against this disease. Here's another gene, or another protein, bovine growth hormone. Again, there's a gene that makes this hormone, the hormones of protein, and the proteins are made in extremely small amounts. Now, one can make pounds of this bovine growth hormone, and in fact, this hormone has been injected into cattle in a test in a Cornell, and it turns out that cattle grow substantially faster when injected with the bovine growth hormone, and they also produce, I think it's 30 or 40% more milk than the controls. Well, all these examples, we're talking about taking a gene, putting that gene into a microorganism, and growing that microorganism in a fermenter. What about genetically engineering the animals themselves? The next slide, please. Okay, these are mice, and the smaller mice are normal mice, and the larger mice, in one case, has been genetically engineered. It hasn't been injected with a growth hormone. It's been engineered with the gene that produces growth hormone. In one case, it was genetically engineered with a human growth hormone, and in another case, with a rat growth hormone. These mice are larger than the ungenetically engineered controls. The way this is done is by injecting the foreign gene into a freshly fertilized embryo, and then putting that embryo into a female that will give birth to the genetically engineered animal. In many cases, the animal is a sterile, but in some cases now, the animals are fertile, and the progeny from these animals retain the foreign gene. This is far from an art. There are tremendous complications in all of these, so it's not a simple matter to get something like this. But obviously, there have been some successes. The United States Department of Agriculture has genetically engineered pigs and sheep with growth hormones, and there's no data yet on whether these animals are bigger, at least no data I know about yet. There are obviously some problems that people are thinking about from these types of experiments. For instance, faster growing animals require more feed, and so milk producing areas that have milk producing cattle or areas that have these animals, these cattle, if we're trying to genetically engineer cattle, that are close to the feed growing areas will have a competitive advantage over the areas where feed has to be shipped. In Australia, there's activity where they're trying to genetically engineer sheep to grow larger, and there's concern whether these sheep, now that they're larger, have a greater strain on the very fragile environment by compacting the soil more and creating potentially more erosion. These are questions that are being discussed. I want to put it a little bit perspective. Traditionally, we have been breeding and applying nutritional science to increasing the weight and increasing the rate of growth of our farm animals but the end products are really the same. There's some concern that this ought not to occur, this technology ought not to occur. It's unnatural, which it is, because a population, let's say eventually of cattle that have been genetically engineered to grow faster would not have occurred without man's intervention. But the cattle of today, in fact, all animals that we use, whether it's our pets or our farm animals, are all the products of human intervention and you wouldn't see herds of any of these animals looking anything like they are now if it weren't for man's agriculture. I'm going to slip back into a healthcare situation, but I want to make a point and I think the best way of making that point is with the next slide. What is, I mean, I'm trying to focus on the unnaturalness of this. What is natural is opposition to a certain extent to every new technology. And this is a picture, this is our satirical cartoon about 1800 and it's a cartoon of Edward Jenner in England who is injecting people with smallpox, the smallpox vaccine. And you can see that, first of all, there's a vaccine pock hot from the cow. It's labeled on this little pot here. What it is, it's pus from the cow that has cowpox. And so he's injecting this into people. At the time he was doing this, approximately 30% of English babies died from smallpox. Now nobody in the world dies from smallpox because of this vaccine. This cartoon is just an example of the problems that Edward Jenner had. He was ridiculed and he was almost thrown out of his society, physician society, medical society, because he was doing this. Because people thought it was unnatural and you can see little cows coming out of people's arms and legs. The next slide please. Well, now start talking about plants because that's the area that I'm mostly involved with. And the next slide, this is how plants are genetically engineered now. It's possible to isolate a single plant cell, let's say from a leaf, and this rod represents a chromosome. And one can add a foreign gene to a single cell and the foreign gene can be incorporated now as one gene, remembering tens of thousands of genes in this cell. And it's possible to take a cell like this, give it certain nutrients and hormones, and you can have that cell grow and eventually become a normal plant, a normal fertile plant. And seeds from this plant now will contain the foreign gene. And so the gene will be transferred from generation to generation through the seed. The kinds of genes or properties people are now trying to put into plants include genes that will make the plants more resistant to diseases. Genes that will allow the plants to require less applied fertilizer. You know a lot of the fertilizer that's added to the farms after a heavy rain ends up in our streams and rivers to pollute their major sources of water pollution. People are trying to improve the nutritional quality of crop plants, also trying to make plants more resistant to drought and a number of other properties. So we're at the very early stages of plant genetic engineering, but there's more and more activity and certainly over the next decades there will be some very exciting and applied results. The next slide please. Well, people are including my company and even before I was involved in the company. People are making discoveries in laboratories that pertain to agriculture. And it's very important and I think people who don't really think about agriculture don't realize this, but it's very important that as soon as somebody has a discovery that they feel tested as soon as possible. And the reason for that is that if you see something that looks as if it's let's say disease resistant in a laboratory or greenhouse, more often than not when it's out in the field the resistance doesn't pan out. And the reason for that is that there's no way to mimic even in the best of greenhouses or even closely approximate all the environmental activities that are going on with the plants in the outside in nature. So it's crucial that plants or microorganisms go out into the field before one wastes more money finding it up so it just works in the greenhouse and won't be used in the field. And these aren't genetically engineered plants but this is just a small plot. These are just soybean experimental plots. These are very important. And a number of laboratories and companies have been frustrated by the difficulty in trying to get experiments, get permission to put experiments out in the field. The next slide please. Well there have been some concerns about putting organisms out in the field because up to now the organisms that produce insulin these are grown in fermenters and they're contained. The organisms themselves the genes aren't put out into the field. Nobody's really concerned at least I haven't heard any concern about putting a genetically engineered cow out in the field but people are concerned about putting plants and microorganisms out in the field and in some cases there's some degree of rationality in the discussions and it's concerns in some cases there are not. The fears I think are mostly due to fear well the concerns are mostly due to fear of the unknown. The next slide please. It says if you can't read this not only am I against evolution but I'm not so sure about gravity and relativity either. I'm not really well I am making fun of politicians but I don't mean to in this manner. What's happening is that some of the more vocal concerned people have triggered politicians to be excited about this area and the politicians don't have the background and also don't seem to have the patience I'm talking in general terms to listen to all sides of the arguments in other words they're concerned potentially with this could be dangerous and that's all that they at least some of them may need to trigger holding hearings and to potentially come out with some laws and regulations that may not eventually benefit the country. So it's very important for people involved to talk to the politicians or somehow talk to the people who work with the politicians to educate them on any issue that's where they have some expertise and it's important for people involved to discuss the issues to be sure that rationality does not take the day carry the day and what I will try to do is to convince you that putting such organisms out into the environment is no concern for should be no special concern and what I'll start doing is comparing what we are what's going on now from traditional agriculture to what might occur from a plant genetic or microbial genetic engineering experiment. Next slide please. This is a normal midwestern corn boy it sure looks big up here and this is a plant called Tiosinte this is presumed by some to be the progenitor of corn these two plants would not cross naturally this is found growing wild in Central America but there are scientists around the world that are growing this plant and are trying to breed characteristics from Tiosinte into corn for instance disease resistances that this plant has that we'd like to have in our corn. Crosses between crop plants and exotic species have been going on for many many decades so people are crossing commercial tomatoes with little black berries that nobody here would ever recognize as being a tomato but it happens to be a relative of tomato to try to improve these crops. Okay the next slide please. This is what occurs in a cross and each one of these represents this represents let's say a corn this represents Tiosinte it's chromosome each segment represents a gene and remember there are tens of thousands of genes and when you cross a corn with a Tiosinte you can see that you're mixing up genes randomly one cannot predict what the progeny would look like until the experiment is done and all the progeny are different from each other now in a genetic engineering experiment one let's say we have this corn here one could take a gene and splice it in right here and of course the big difference is that gene can come from any organism whereas in a cross they have to be somewhat related but you see when you put that gene in it's very specific you can predict in fact that's the purpose of doing the experiment you can predict what the progeny would look like somebody went through all the work of isolating the gene they know where it comes from they know what it does so one could predict what the progeny would look like the progeny would all be the same and it isn't random as it is in crosses now even in the case of crosses breeders aren't concerned when they cross Tiosinte and corn the proportions are taken even though somebody can argue how do you know that if you cross Tiosinte and corn you won't come out with some very terrible weed and the reason breeders aren't concerned is because of all the decades and decades of experience with innumerable crosses done in many many countries by sophisticated, not so sophisticated people that problems have not occurred at least not serious problems in the order of something that would really frighten us that has not occurred there have been problems from breeding and there will be problems from genetic engineering and examples would include say breeding or genetically engineering an organism a plant for resistance to a disease and we may turn out later and there are examples of that that all of a sudden now it's susceptible while you are made a resistance you've made it susceptible to another disease and those kinds of problems will occur, have occurred and in fact that's the breeders profession is to look for these problems and to feel test in first small plots in a couple of locations and then larger plots in many more locations and so this field testing has to occur before any crop is acceptable and that will continue even though plants have been genetically engineered so there are no special concerns and there are also no special regulations for traditional breeding so what's the why am I so excited about all of this well I mentioned and pointed out the fact that some organisms are dangerous they cause tremendous problems and some people have said that those organisms can be considered as models from what might occur through a genetic engineering experiment for instance the Japanese beetle and here's an organism that's caused tremendous commercial problems Dutch Elm disease caused tremendous problems the hydrilla in the south that's been clogging waterways the next slide here's a hillside in Pennsylvania that's been wiped out by the gypsy moth another very serious problem the next slide please this is the kudzu vine in the south where this plant is a terrible weed and here you can see killing choking out trees so everybody knows that organisms some organisms can wreak havoc but what's the relevance of these types of organisms to what might occur from a genetic engineering from genetic engineering work well these organisms are not problem organisms because man has genetically manipulated them these are not problem organisms because they were imported from another country they came into the United States in their native country they had evolved over eons to be competitive that's why they survived but they didn't take over because there were natural limiting factors such as other plants weather pathogens and so on they became problems when they came into the United States and one or more of the natural limiting factors was missing and so in these cases they took over and have caused and continue to cause serious problems I think it's important to tell you that almost every crop we grow in the United States and almost every plant that you have that you have that you have that you have and almost every plant that you have as an ornamental plant in your house were imported from from outside of the United States so that very most plants imported have been valuable but there have been examples of serious problems now there's scientific basis to believe that by genetically engineering a corn or a wheat or a rice that one wouldn't inadvertently come up with plants that could cause as much damage as T.O.Sente in other words it's become a serious problem weed a serious problem weed isn't a serious problem weed because it contains a single gene it has to have a variety of problems and I'm being very general but it has to have problems such as for instance the seed would have to over winter or survive for a long time the seed may have to be dispersed over a long distance the plant would have to grow faster be more vigorous than other plants around it so it can take over these properties aren't due to one gene they're due to hundreds if not thousands of genes not just the presence of these genes but it's these genes interacting in a very very orderly specific fashion so how could one imagine that by taking one or several genes from any organism one could convert corn into a real problem weed like this it's my view that the chance of producing a problem weed through genetic engineering is less than the chance of producing a problem weed in a T.O.Sente corn cross that we're concerned about next slide please here's a I'm switching topics I'm talking about microorganisms this is the first page of an advertising brochure put out by the national nitro culture company in Pennsylvania and they're advertising bacteria specific for alfalfa in this case that do nice things for alfalfa in the field this claim it says the greatest discovery of the century this claim really isn't as great as it seems since this was printed in 1904 and so it's no big deal I guess to have the greatest discovery in four years it's a much bigger deal to have the greatest discovery now but I'm using this just to demonstrate that microbes have been added to our fields in the United States since the turn of the century the next slide please here's an alfalfa field treated with such a micro it's called rhizobium in this case and here's one that wasn't treated so it's apparent that some microorganisms have dramatically benefited agriculture the next slide these are canisters of inoculants microorganisms this is for soybeans in 1918 this is for clover in 1938 and here's one against for horticultural crops that was about seven years old in the United States since the turn of the century there have been hundreds of products microbial inoculants that farmers have put out in their fields and they put on the order of a billion of these microbes per acre in some cases the products are good and some not good and one can imagine for the hundreds that have been used commercially one can say that perhaps 10 times or even 100 times more have been used experimentally so that over the last 80 years just in the United States there have been thousands and thousands and thousands of microbes that have been grown up and have been applied in very large numbers to farmers fields in India the inoculant business and in Russia the inoculant business was even greater than in the United States and in many cases the microorganisms were mutated in no case that I know of is there an example where any of these organisms has caused any kind of problem this is just to tell you not to be afraid of microorganisms just because they're microorganisms the next slide here's an example of a rhizobium this is soybean this part have been inoculated with a rhizobium that has been used commercially in the Midwest for more than a decade and it's possible to isolate the organism and genetically manipulate it and make the organism do what it normally does which fixes nitrogen for the plant and here are plants that are more vigorous they fix more nitrogen and these are the organisms that are added to these plants have been genetically altered so it's possible with genetic engineering to improve useful organisms okay the next slide please this says uh oh well unfortunately there have been debates on this issue and I think the people who were concerned at least about putting plants out in the environment uh are becoming much less concerned but there's a little bit more concern about putting microorganisms genetically engineered microorganisms out into the environment because microorganisms are invisible they're known to cause terrible diseases and people who haven't had experience in microbiology uh naturally are somewhat more concerned what's the chance by genetically engineering an organism that we would consider safe or safe enough to put out in the field uh by converting that organism into a problem pathogen I think the chance is extraordinarily low again the scientific basis for this somewhat parallel to the argument I used for the weed situation a pathogen talking about microorganisms fungi and bacteria pathogens are pathogens not because they contain a single gene a pathogen give you an example is a pathogen because it may contain a gene for a toxin but that's not sufficient it may need a gene or genes so that the organism can host defense mechanisms or there may be genes so it can survive in between hosts and as we're learning more and more about microbial ecology and about the molecular basis of pathogenesis it's not a single gene it's again a complex of genes very specific genes interacting in very specific ways to make an organism into a problem pathogen in other words one that could spread and cause grief by either infecting animals, us or plants in fact one of the leading scientists at Stanford, Stan Falco who studies the molecular biology of pathogenesis says that he couldn't, even with lots of resources available, he couldn't purposely convert an organism to be considered safe into one that could be a problem pathogen so to do it accidentally by taking genes from any organism for the purpose of trying to make an organism into a agriculturally useful organism the chance for converting it into a problem pathogen is extraordinarily low it's something I wouldn't worry about there are 20 million on the average there are 20 million cells per cubic inch of soil and these cells these are microorganisms and these cells are continually dividing they're continually mutating they exchange genetic material with their cousins, with their related organisms and there's more and more evidence now that there's some exchange of material even with unrelated organisms so there's evidence that genes may be exchanged between say animal and bacteria to a plant and so on in most cases where let's say a bacterium has taken up a plant gene in most cases that plant gene won't do anything good for the organism it won't give it a selective advantage and so that organism will not predominate in some rare cases where there is a selective advantage and the organism can predominate and that's called evolution well I believe that what will happen through genetic engineering is going to be miniscule and ecologically insignificant compared to what occurs naturally or continually and randomly in nature now there have been some the press has been bad at this they say genetic it's a nice story people are concerned about genetic engineering because they don't want another Bhopal a freemile island or love canal could I have the next slide please this is just a picture of Bhopal of the union carbide plant in India in Bhopal well here am I a representative from industry telling you that my technology is safe and certainly the builders of the Bhopal plant signed off saying that the plant was safe what is the relevance of these chemical problems including a freemile island chemical problems are radioactive chemical what's the relevance of these problems to what might occur through genetic engineering well in all of these cases they're dealing with a dangerous chemical and everybody involved would agree that they're dealing with a dangerous chemical in the case of Bhopal the chemical is called methyl isocyanate and everybody knows that methyl isocyanate is dangerous so there's a real there's a potential for a problem by producing methyl isocyanate by utilizing it by storing it or by transporting it in other words if you were on a truck carrying methyl isocyanate and somebody bumped into the rear of the truck I would be very very concerned whereas there's no apparent danger that can come from a recombinant organism let's say a truck full of organisms that have come out of a fermenter I believe it's quite a different situation the next slide please well it's ironic that I think most of the activity going on in genetic engineering of with regard to agriculture is aimed to replace some of the pesticides we use or if not replace them give us the option of using smaller amounts of pesticides or using safer pesticides I just read that 20% of Illinois farmers same thing as true Minnesota 20% of Illinois farmers have gone to their physician at least once due to a pesticide related problem there are 400 species of agricultural pests that have become resistant to pesticides we're learning more and more that these pesticides get into our food in other words we eat the pesticides and there's evidence or indications that some of these pesticides may have potential to cause things like cancer well if we're worried that people are worried about putting genetically altered organisms into the environment let's compare genetic engineering what happens through genetic engineering with what happens with the use of pesticides when millions of acres are treated with insecticides and one routinely finds insecticide resistant insects millions of acres are year after year sprayed with herbicides and we always see herbicide resistant weeds also with the use of herbicides that one gets mutant microorganisms in the soil all kinds of microorganisms that are mutated so that they can degrade the pesticide the herbicide more effectively and in this way that herbicide can't be used the following year or if it is used the farmer has to use more of it so in all of these cases the organisms the insecticide resistant insects the herbicide degrading bacteria the herbicide resistant weeds they can be disseminated by their normal natural means and they can also exchange their genes with guys they normally exchange genes with so by the use of pesticides you will get uncharacterized genetic changes in problem organisms with genetic engineering you get characterized genetic changes in safe organisms again quite a difference well to summarize the safety issue I believe that the chance of producing a problem organism through recombinant DNA technology through genetic engineering is going to be less than the chance of producing problem organisms through practices that we now accept and manage regulations are evolving with how to handle putting recombinant organisms out into the field there's a tremendous amount of activity going on by the environmental protection agency the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health I'm hoping that the regulations that do evolve will take rational arguments by the scientists by public advocacy groups environmentalists etc and should not be led by the vivid imaginations that any new technology especially one that's kind of sexy like this is any new technology inspires I'd like the next slide please that's in a newspaper maybe that could be a good topic of the next Nobel conference and the next slide please and the next slide well this is a very exciting time the technology is at an early stage and we're beginning to utilize its first products I predict that our future will be considerably improved by use of this technology and as I said before it will be safer than technologies that will be displaced it's kind of back to nature thank you thank you Dr. Brill for taking us into the world of agriculture and genetic research as the lights come back up perhaps our other participants are on the front and we can begin our discussion Professor Brill's talk has taken us into the world of genetic research and agriculture following up on Professor Kevla's talk which was about genetic research in human beings and applying genetic research to the human animal I'd like to elicit comments from the panelists but I'd like to begin with a question myself if Dr. Brill will allow me I wonder Winston how you account for the persistence of the concern on the part of ecologists many of whom have considerable number of degrees in microbiology it seems to me who persist in not accepting your argument in suggesting that there are dangers here and I suspect maybe it comes down to the danger as one of my colleagues said to me what if you're wrong okay that's let me just write that down, what if you're wrong that's important I don't think it's not a matter of genetic engineer or ecologists there are few ecologists probably no more than a handful that I know of who have expressed concern I know many more than a handful who aren't concerned they're interested but they haven't they're not afraid and they I think have the same kind of sense that I have and but there are also some recombinant DNA people who have expressed concern they've been a minority so it's not ecologists versus molecular biologists at all the ecologists basically the ecologists that have expressed concern are ecologists who have been studying some of these upsetting things I mean they all have their different system but the stalling the gypsy moth and so on and they haven't considered what happens at the genetic level and so what they've been focusing on for their most of their careers have been problems that can occur from a live organism and they're very very sensitive to that and we definitely need that population that's basically it and part of it is what if I'm wrong but anybody can say that about any technology I'm quoting other people now but we inject our children with millions of doses of certain vaccines and some people have said well how do we know that with those vaccines we're not also including some virus or agent that will cause cancers perhaps even cancers don't catch 20 years from now and as we as we've had more and more experience with these we can't say well we know for absolutely surety that these vaccines are safe but based on our experience and our best estimates at the time we feel that we're safe and we're doing some very important things for people while we're pursuing that but every technology I mean the disadvantage we have in arguing the case especially with politicians is that they're sensitized to that what if you're wrong and that's all they I mean that's where it stops and they really don't have the patience to listen to the arguments you can say what if you're wrong with the Tiosinte corn cross and that's the level I think of where we are we have experience with recombinant DNA technology for a decade certainly laboratory organisms have gotten out into the environment probably millions of different kinds of laboratory organisms have from a laboratory even if you wear a lab coat you can get a little droplet containing hundreds of thousands of organisms which can get in your shoe on your hand and you go out into the environment so we do have some experience with recombinant DNA technology in all kinds of organisms and I think more importantly we have experience with the traditional practices that the recombinant DNA isn't going to be isn't going to change organisms that radically or if it does change the organism that radically it's a dead organism thank you, Professor Kevlus has a comment apropos your last point my understanding was that in the case of microorganisms of recombinant DNA at least in the beginning a strain of E. coli was used that was known not to have tremendous chance of survival outside the laboratory environment it seems to me the case with plants is different I mean you do want them to survive outside the laboratory environment for openers but secondly it would seem to me to be difficult to predict given their survivability outside the laboratory environment what impact they might have upon the overall ecological balance of the given environment I'm curious to know first of all how you actually assess that in a concrete case I don't have the slightest idea and I think maybe our audience would be interested to know that at not too technical level and secondly how do you think decisions about whether these things ought to be released into the environment plants I mean how should those decisions be made where should the nexus of power and authority and society lie should it lie with you folks entirely or us or how well how the first question is really how does one assess what the potential for problems will be with a plant that you've just genetically engineered to do presumably to do something useful it's no different from the traditional practices which is the business of the plant breeder who takes a plant and runs a small plot and compares that to to the best plant around to its controls and a plant and this continually experiments in fact sometimes take a decade because they first try their new plant whether it comes from a teosinte cross or two different varieties of corn they try it in a small plot and hopefully they see something that makes it better then they try it in a larger plot then they try it over many seasons over many environments and really that's the experience they get sometimes mistakes are made and a plant becomes a commercial plant and it turns out to be susceptible to a major disease so there was a corn blight in 1970 that caused havoc in the Midwest but that was easily overcome there was an economic problem for a year but there was nothing ecological really when you're talking about ecological every plant every crop we grow in fact just the growing of crops does something changes the types of insects that hang around these crops the kinds of microbes that hang around the crops and that's accepted and no problems have occurred from that kind of practice similarly I think because we're going to make even less of a change in the plant that the chance for anything unexpected will be much much less so the testing is a testing that agricultural communities have been involved with for many many decades and universities, all state universities have extension programs to look at some of the new varieties in farms and so that's the traditional way and perhaps the only way I think there's been some talk about let's come up with a laboratory test to see if organism X has potential for causing problems and while that would be very desirable I think we're decades and decades away from that there's a question to my mind about the economics and sociology of these new technologies and I thought it might be interesting to ask if in your view people are working in this area whether you see these new technologies as say accelerating the demise of the traditional family farm or is it going to be a sort of technology that will be equally available to everyone what sort of economic and sociological effects will this thing have I'm not an expert in this area but there's a lot of discussion going on in this area and especially with the increase with cattle with growth hormones there's predictions that in fact it will displace the small farmer and there's no question that agriculture will change will change with or without genetic engineering I think that's really all I can say I know there are people involved in looking at the impacts of this and certainly since the big companies are very involved with this they're after the money the big of the major farmers I think it will be basically directed towards the big farmer but it's you can look at it in another way and say that it may be useful for the small farmer because one problem the small farmer has is purchasing the pesticides and the chemicals that they use and hopefully the plants that will be generated and the microorganisms that will be generated will decrease the need for these materials so I think it's complex and I can't give you a proper answer let me answer Dan's second question who should make the decisions well until now first of all there are no regulations that govern industries and there are a number of industries who had the opportunity to put genetically engineered organisms out into the environment and every industry has tried to comply with the guidelines that Dan mentioned the NIH recombinant DNA guidelines that was mentioned earlier everybody's complied the decisions should be made by everybody being involved really it's the it's the economists and the regulatory agencies and the industries the scientists it should be based on knowledge not one person going off half-cocked which is my biggest concern Professor Luria I just wanted to reinforce something that Dr. Brill said which I don't think is often understood by in the public what is important in genetic engineering as applied to whether to animal husbandry or to plant breeding and so on or to protection against plant diseases that in general what one aims to do is in a sense much more selective and precise than when you do for example when you breed two varieties in order to select the more resistant to these and so on and what you can do is to bring in one gene that is the one that interests you with the minimum amount of complication of the genetic structure as a whole the less of course extraneous genetic material you bring the more sure you are that you have only affected the characteristics in general I think I would feel safer in using material which has been produced in this way than in trying for example to breed varieties of animals as has been done for hundreds and thousands of years in order to find one which is more suitable we know very well what this has happened to sheep and so on in many cases in which people have rushed to put hybrids into the field much too soon in this case I think one has at least a confidence that the minimum amount of genetic reassortment has been accomplished Dr. Nelson I think you have a comment to make Yes I want to raise a question which is also sociological also economic and political in the slide you showed headlines from newspapers I was struck by the headline that says Genentech foot and mouth vaccine could find major markets after third world trials puzzled about the third world here does that mean because that is where the foot and mouth disease is found that is outside the U.S. Congress where it's often referred to but is it only in the third world where this is a problem if so then the headline would be unexceptionable I think however I've heard it often said by various kinds of critics that companies in the United States are more likely to go to Africa to South America to Asia to try out their products whether they be pharmaceuticals or any other kind of genetically engineered product in order to see whether they work because in this country the FDA or the EPA or the other agencies won't allow them to trial here now is that a real problem in agricultural genetics I can't really speak for Genentech but first of all it is not a problem in the United States but it is a problem in many other countries in the world it's a disease that can spread readily so it's a concern of the United States and there's a special island on the east coast called Plum Island where research foot and mouth disease the only place in the country where research for foot and mouth disease can occur where they are working on the organism because they want to have a vaccine available should it go into the United States so the incentives are both within the country and outside of the country Europe I think is also very concerned about the foot and mouth disease and I think there have been some major outbreaks as a matter of testing it in third world countries I think this is a slightly different issue first of all these vaccines made through recombinant DNA are 100% I mean except for an allergic reaction potentially they either aren't going to work or if they work they should be totally safe because there's no chance of getting a disease from it as you do with vaccines that are currently used in fact that's one of the beauties of some of the vaccines that are made through recombinant DNA where all you inject into an animal or person is a single protein whereas that will replace a vaccine where what you inject is a virus that's either he killed is either killed in some manner or has been mutated so it's not very lived and there have been number of cases where these have not been perfect where people have been killed by vaccines with virus vaccines not being killed totally or not or reverting to become pathogenic the question that you raised is very important the fact is that the rules for putting materials on the market in the United States are fortunately the strictest of any countries except possibly Switzerland but it is fact that has nothing to do with genetic engineering that our large pharmaceutical companies have always tried their new drugs in countries that have more lax regulations before putting them on the market the recent scandal is only the most recent one of a long story in which companies do trials wherever they are allowed to do some of the fact that the large companies have a power that goes in a sense beyond that of the wisdom of governments and they can do this because there are other parts of the world in which governments do not protect their people as strictly as our tries to do. We have received a number of interesting questions from the audience we won't get an opportunity to answer all of them right now many of them for not only this but the other lectures that we've heard will be able to answer in the panel discussion tomorrow but Professor Brill I know has a question before him that he'd like to address so let me turn attention that way okay the question is how do you change the genetic structure of an entire tree or plant on this cell by cell basis okay well you have one cell as I said in the slide and you insert your foreign gene into the chromosome and the cell will then grow become larger and become two cells and now you've got two copies of the chromosome each with a foreign gene and then as you keep on multiplying cells a tree or a plant consists of millions and millions of cells now you have millions and millions of cells all with the foreign gene if that foreign gene is let's say to make some insecticide then the insecticide will be produced in the plant tissues and insects that chew on the plant will die hope that answers it let me just list a series of questions if you will Winston and I'll just sort of fire them out here at you questions we've received from the audience and you can perhaps give brief replies to them all right for instance do you feel that the frost resistant microbe should be field tested I believe yes I do I've heard many people discuss that microorganism and I haven't seen any basis to believe that it could create any kind of problem what are your answers to the questions raised by those opposed to field testing well they have to say why they're opposed and if they're opposed because of Bhopal then I say what I said before if they're opposed because of gypsy moth and I give them what you've heard and that's basically been it somebody who's opposed to it because it's unnatural that's their prejudice or whatever and it's very hard it's more difficult to argue okay what about anhydrous ammonia placed on fields to produce nitrogen for our crops hydrogen ammonia kills all the worms which are here to disseminate the soil and hold and renew the elements so that our soil become dead I don't think there's evidence that treating soil with anhydrous ammonia really kills the soil it certainly kills insects and microorganisms but they it doesn't kill them all in the field and they readily come back all right to what extent can a morally responsible scientist in industry refuse to carry out research he finds necessary to his ethics without getting fired if his non-science superiors consider the research financially advantageous that's a very good question I think as Dr. Luria really mentioned it's an individual morality has to should take precedence some people are stronger than others and I guess in some cases they can change the way things are going if you don't say anything you don't have much character but I'm not sure what that says okay do you see potential military abuses of recombinant DNA research say in bacteriological or chemical warfare that's there have been quite a few discussions on that in fact I went to the State Department a couple of years ago to a debate on that my belief is that if somebody wants to if one wants to get involved in germ warfare there are a whole lot of germs out there that are readily available and one doesn't have to use recombinant DNA technology for as I said in my talk that I think it's going to be extremely difficult to make an organism worse than any organism that we now have where I think the I mean there were some articles in the Wall Street Journal saying that Russia has an active germ warfare program using recombinant DNA or at least their laboratories that are into this that hasn't been substantiated and I don't predict success and from what I've heard the kinds of experiments that they're trying to pursue for instance putting a very bad toxin gene into a microorganism there are reasons to believe that if one did so that microorganism wouldn't just grow and multiply in the environment and be very prevalent what it would do is die very quickly and so if you wanted to spray the toxin and the microorganism with the toxin where there is some activity going on seems to be defensive in other words I think countries are saying what might another country do and the other thing and what they might do is not not involve the genetic engineering experiment for instance if somebody wants to spray a toxin around just throw it out in the environment this way there may be a vaccine produced here against that toxin so people are talking about that but I think I can't imagine using genetic engineering to make an organism worse than any organism I can get right now Thank you, before I turn the microphone over to Chaplain Elvie I'd like to thank Dr. Brill for stimulating talk for their cooperation there's a gallery talk tonight at 7 o'clock by Paul Grandland at the gallery at the south end of the campus Paul claims once to have been known in New York and now he's only an Oshawa township sculptor but our impression is that his reputation is international the Nobel concert at 8 o'clock 40 minutes of music, Baroque music Renaissance music, brass and organ at 9 o'clock the Nobel firing lines you may go there for whatever time you wish to discuss the ideas that have been discussed today make some comments of your own ask some questions and those places are indicated in the bulletin Thank you