Document: THO-3-330-186

World view matters: Does the practice of science kill life?

CROUCH, M.*

Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405 USA ¹

Abstract:
The so-called Terminator Technologies are methods designed by biotechnologists to create genetically engineered organisms that cannot reproduce. A stated purpose of Terminator is to protect nature from contamination by "escaped" engineered genes, since dead plants or trees without flowers don't mate and thus cannot jump the perceived boundary from agriculture to the wild via pollen or seeds. I have analyzed various Terminator plans, and have concluded that the basic research required to engineer sterility contains within its methods and rationales the very split between culture and nature that is evident in the application of the research. I thus propose that reintegrating humans and nature will require a different way of generating basic knowledge of life. In describing the case of genetically engineered trees versus wild forests, I will give examples of how whole knowledge of the forest could be created and used with a different result from current scientific investigation.

Keywords: science

This abstract is being presented at: 2:55 PM in session:
Symposium # 24: Re-thinking the "and" in Humans and Nature: Ecology at the Boundary of Human Systems.