Why Asilomar conference was a bad idea, Victor McElheny
Description:
Interviewee: Victor McElheny.
Former New York Times science journalist Victor McElheny talks about why he thought the "Moratorium Letter" was asking for trouble.
(DNAi Location: Manipulation > Revolution > Players > The controversy > Why the moratorium was a disaster)
Transcript:
Because I thought it invited thunderbolts from heaven. The world is an irrational place and I reported about science, in part I think by an idealistic devotion to science as the only rational raft that we can be on. And here we were about to dash a lot of quite realistic hopes with ill-informed political and public interference. I knew the letter would give rise to a sort of fire-storm of ill-informed brave new world stuff.
Keywords:
asilomar conference,public interference,science journalist,recombinant dna,times science,dnai,fire storm,new york times,interviewee,brave new world,moratorium,bad idea,raft,devotion,manipulation,controversy,disaster,heaven
In 1974, scientists in the field of recombinant DNA drafted a letter calling upon "scientists throughout the world" to suspend certain types of studies until hazards could be assessed. Paul Berg talks about the "Moratorium Letter."
Paul Berg talks about why experiments with recombinant DNA set off a firestorm of controversy, including a moratorium on further experimentation with rDNA.