What Is Wrought Through Science and Publishing?

[Annie]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101301783.html

A Flu Hope, Or Horror?

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, October 14, 2005; A19

While official Washington has been poring over Harriet Miers's long-ago doings on the Dallas City Council and parsing the byzantine comings and goings of the Patrick Fitzgerald grand jury, relatively unnoticed was perhaps the most momentous event of our lifetime -- what is left of it, as I shall explain. It was announced last week that U.S. scientists have just created a living, killing copy of the 1918 "Spanish" flu.

This is big. Very big.

First, it is a scientific achievement of staggering proportions. The Spanish flu has not been seen on this blue planet for 85 years. Its re-creation is a story of enterprise, ingenuity, serendipity, hard work and sheer brilliance. It involves finding deep in the bowels of a military hospital in Washington a couple of tissue samples from the lungs of soldiers who died in 1918 -- in an autopsy collection first ordered into existence by Abraham Lincoln -- and the disinterment of an Alaskan Eskimo who died of the flu and whose remains had been preserved by the permafrost. Then, using slicing and dicing techniques only Michael Crichton could imagine, they pulled off a microbiological Jurassic Park: the first-ever resurrection of an ancient pathogen. And not just any ancient pathogen, explained virologist Eddie Holmes, but "the agent of the most important disease pandemic in human history."

Which brings us to the second element of this story: Beyond the brilliance lies the sheer terror. We have brought back to life an agent of near-biblical destruction. It killed more people in six months than were killed in the four years of World War I. It killed more humans than any other disease of similar duration in the history of the world, says Alfred W. Crosby, who wrote a history of the 1918 pandemic. And, notes New Scientist magazine, when the re-created virus was given to mice in heavily quarantined laboratories in Atlanta, it killed the mice more quickly than any other flu virus ever tested .

Now that I have your attention, consider, with appropriate trepidation, the third element of this story: What to do with this knowledge? Not only has the virus been physically re-created, but its entire genome has also now been published for the whole world, good people and very bad, to see.

The decision to publish was a very close call, terrifyingly close.

On the one hand, we need the knowledge disseminated. We've learned from this research that the 1918 flu was bird flu, "the most bird-like of all mammalian flu viruses," says Jeffery Taubenberger, lead researcher in unraveling the genome. There is a bird flu epidemic right now in Asia that has infected 117 people and killed 60. It has already developed a few of the genomic changes that permit transmission to humans. Therefore, you want to put out the knowledge of the structure of the 1918 flu, which made the full jump from birds to humans, so that every researcher in the world can immediately start looking for ways to anticipate, monitor, prevent and counteract similar changes in today's bird flu.

We are essentially in a life-or-death race with the bird flu. Can we figure out how to preempt it before it figures out how to evolve into a transmittable form with 1918 lethality that will decimate humanity? To run that race we need the genetic sequence universally known -- not just to inform and guide but to galvanize new research.

On the other hand, resurrection of the virus and publication of its structure open the gates of hell. Anybody, bad guys included, can now create it. Biological knowledge is far easier to acquire for Osama bin Laden and friends than nuclear knowledge. And if you can't make this stuff yourself, you can simply order up DNA sequences from commercial laboratories around the world that will make it and ship it to you on demand. Taubenberger himself admits that "the technology is available."

And if the bad guys can't make the flu themselves, they could try to steal it. That's not easy. But the incentive to do so from a secure facility could not be greater. Nature, which published the full genome sequence, cites Rutgers bacteriologist Richard Ebright as warning that there is a significant risk "verging on inevitability" of accidental release into the human population or of theft by a "disgruntled, disturbed or extremist laboratory employee."

Why try to steal loose nukes in Russia? A nuke can only destroy a city. The flu virus, properly evolved, is potentially a destroyer of civilizations.

We might have just given it to our enemies.

Have a nice day.

 

[Harmageddon]

There's always two sides to a single coin, and knives cut both ways.

The resurrection of the Spanish flu virus has likely been instigated with only the best intentions of the scientists involved. They wish to understand the genome of the virus better to be able to better combat it in the future - an example of “know your enemy”.

The fact that this may have dire consequences would the knowledge fall into the wrong hands has captivated the human psyche for centuries, giving rise to horror tales such as the monster of Dr. Frankenstein. These stories inspire fear and have captivated it’s readers since the time they were created, for they are anchored to our very reality.

History is riddled with examples of this very fear. For example, after scientists had begun to understand and harness the energy that is captured in atoms, this knowledge has brought us nuclear power plants and atomic bombs. Both the creative and destructive power have seen use in humanity’s recent history.

Should man stop it's scientific progress for fear of insane individuals that may use the knowledge for their selfish goals? That seems to be the question.

Ancient man has discovered a way to harness fire, which made his survival through the ice ages a little more likely. It brought us warmth and a culinary revolution. Of course, fire has been used throughout our history to burn the houses and the families of our proclaimed enemies to ashes as well – a clear example of the coin or knife parabel.

We will have to come to grasps with the idea that we are what we are: a very curious primate with the ability - through our highly developed cognitive functions - to manipulate the environment with our discoveries. For good and for bad. That's how it has always been and how it always will be.

Our continued increase in knowledge of the world will go hand in hand with the ever increasing risks and fears of the other side. The coin nor the knife, can grow bigger on one side alone, thus the potential destructive force of the other side will grow ever greater.

Are we lost in a vicious circle that will drag us ultimately to our doom?

It seems we are quite close already, since we are now in a world where radical Islamists are pitted against the sole superpower of the western world. The potential backlash of the other side is growing by the day, and nuclear proliferation has seen a revival as of late.

But then, we’ve lived through the Cuba Crisis, where we were at the knife’s edge – a push of the button away form nuclear war between two superpowers, the USA and the USSR. However close it may have been, common sense managed to prevail that day.
And it is my believe it will in the future.

The alternative, would we to have given up on that discovery of taming the flames in our earliest days, is that we might not even have survived to exist today.

 

[dilloduck]

There's always two sides to a single coin, and knives cut both ways.

The resurrection of the Spanish flu virus has likely been instigated with only the best intentions of the scientists involved. They wish to understand the genome of the virus better to be able to better combat it in the future - an example of “know your enemy”.

The fact that this may have dire consequences would the knowledge fall into the wrong hands has captivated the human psyche for centuries, giving rise to horror tales such as the monster of Dr. Frankenstein. These stories inspire fear and have captivated it’s readers since the time they were created, for they are anchored to our very reality.

History is riddled with examples of this very fear. For example, after scientists had begun to understand and harness the energy that is captured in atoms, this knowledge has brought us nuclear power plants and atomic bombs. Both the creative and destructive power have seen use in humanity’s recent history.

Should man stop it's scientific progress for fear of insane individuals that may use the knowledge for their selfish goals? That seems to be the question.

Ancient man has discovered a way to harness fire, which made his survival through the ice ages a little more likely. It brought us warmth and a culinary revolution. Of course, fire has been used throughout our history to burn the houses and the families of our proclaimed enemies to ashes as well – a clear example of the coin or knife parabel.

We will have to come to grasps with the idea that we are what we are: a very curious primate with the ability - through our highly developed cognitive functions - to manipulate the environment with our discoveries. For good and for bad. That's how it has always been and how it always will be.

Our continued increase in knowledge of the world will go hand in hand with the ever increasing risks and fears of the other side. The coin nor the knife, can grow bigger on one side alone, thus the potential destructive force of the other side will grow ever greater.

Are we lost in a vicious circle that will drag us ultimately to our doom?

It seems we are quite close already, since we are now in a world where radical Islamists are pitted against the sole superpower of the western world. The potential backlash of the other side is growing by the day, and nuclear proliferation has seen a revival as of late.

But then, we’ve lived through the Cuba Crisis, where we were at the knife’s edge – a push of the button away form nuclear war between two superpowers, the USA and the USSR. However close it may have been, common sense managed to prevail that day.
And it is my believe it will in the future.

The alternative, would we to have given up on that discovery of taming the flames in our earliest days, is that we might not even have survived to exist today.

I guess it's safe to assume that good morals and values are the only thing saving humanity from self destruction. or maybe just old plain fear of death keeps certain folks civil.

 

[Harmageddon]

Originally posted by dilloduck:
I guess it's safe to assume that good morals and values are the only thing saving humanity from self destruction. or maybe just old plain fear of death keeps certain folks civil.

I'm curious, are there any particular folk you are referring to in both cases?
I would think we've grown beyond the Dark Ages where fear of death ruled supreme.

 

[dilloduck]

I'm curious, are there any particular folk you are referring to in both cases?
I would think we've grown beyond the Dark Ages where fear of death ruled supreme.

No--just speaking of the eternal battle of good vs evil. I don't think we have outlived that concept.

 

[Harmageddon]

Originally posted by dilloduck:
No--just speaking of the eternal battle of good vs evil. I don't think we have outlived that concept.

Agreed.
However, the simplicity of good vs. evil pitched in an epic battle for control may actually be fought between forces that are as of yet hardly recognized.

It seems to me that nowadays this battle is supposed to be fought between evil radical Islamists on the one hand and holy Americans on the other.
In this, Europe seems to take a weak stance on the subject.

You may be familiar with the phrase: divide and conquer.
It is brilliant in concept: create a division in the enemy's camp and when they have but annihilated one another, it is easy for the third party to conquer their remains.

What if you consider this idea and imagine the current growing division between radical Islam and America (or more accurately, the west, since America is considered by many the frontier of the west).

Although I'm convinced America has the upper hand in the conflict, since it is far superiour in both military and technological advancement, you should always consider the fact: who would benefit from the mutual annihilation (or mutual draining of resources) of America (or even the west) and the Middle East?

There are many candidates.
And you should never underestimate the enemy.

As a last remark: I'm not trying to scare the shit out of you, or blame whomever springs to mind. I am trying however for you to see the conflict in broader terms. These are after all global politics, and it's not a nice game.

P.S.: this discussion does not really seem to belong in this thread anymore.