Subject:  (Reuss) Editorial, New Scientist Control is all (fwd)
Date:     Sun, 13 Jun 1999 220324 -0500 (CDT)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To:       emfguru <rbeavers@llion.org>
--------------------------------------------------


........Our thanks to Chris Reuss for sending the following reference,
which I have decided to forward to all -- because in polite "politically
correct" language this editorial seems to say many of the things I have
been saying for some years about the "prostitution" of "science" today.
(But of course -- the writer does not use the word "prostitution."...)

The writer below sees no point in making any great distinction between
corporate funded and government funded "science."   As you know, that
has been an important 'text' in the guru's message of recent years,
also.....

The only way I see to get around that "glitch" in our present "science"
culture -- is to ensure that any funds for EMF research are totally
independent of the usual corporate/government control.......  We MUST
have an independent body of PUBLIC (qualified) persons in control!!!....

Cheerio......

Roy Beavers (EMFguru)......
rbeavers@llion.org.......
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
EMF-L web-site can be found at: 
EMF-L archives can be found at: 
..................PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFITS..................


...........DO YOU KNOW OF OTHERS WHO SHOULD BE ON THIS LIST????...........


                               NEW SCIENTIST         
                           [Archive: 5 June 1999]
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                                 EDITORIAL

                               Control is all
     Who needs crude censorship when corporate bodies call the shots in
                                 research?
                                      
   YOU ARE UNLIKELY to have come across a slim, bimonthly publication
   called Index on Censorship. But perhaps you should have. Its contents,
   dedicated to freedom of expression everywhere in the world, are often
   disturbing. There are reports of journalists being locked up, editors
   shot and reporters fleeing abroad in fear of their lives from various
   unpleasant nations around the world. And the Index reports that this
   kind of nastiness has been going on for a long time: the Roman Emperor
   Domitian was apparently so annoyed by one book that he not only had
   its author killed but also crucified the bookseller, too.
   
   Now for the first time the Index has turned its attention to
   censorship in science ([8]www.indexoncensorship.org) with some mixed
   but interesting results. Currently, not too many scientists are
   actually being locked up. Where the Index's writers seek evidence of
   outright persecution, they quickly find themselves drawn towards those
   two famous examples of Galileo and Nikolai Vavilov. One annoyed the
   Catholic Church and the other fell foul of Lysenko and the communist
   line on genetics.

   If there is censorship in science, the Index makes plain that it is a
   lot more subtle than being sent to a Soviet labour camp--not lying,
   but failing to tell the whole truth. Where censorship may now be
   powerful is in the non-publication of awkward data, or, as one Index
   author puts it, "It is the facts removed from debate that can colour
   black as white."

   We know only too well that tobacco companies hid their knowledge of
   the dangers and addictiveness of tobacco and even provided research
   funds that helped deflect researchers' interest elsewhere. More and
   more science is corporate--which includes government funded--science,
   and more science affects the food we eat and the lives we live. Does
   that mean we will never be able to know the whole picture about
   discoveries that affect us intimately, especially as more diverse
   sources of funds dry up?

   Corporate science has, of course, no choice but to serve corporate
   needs which, as another Index author points out, tends to force the
   world to fit the corporation rather than the other way around.
   Agriculture becomes monoculture, wildlife vanishes, and we eat only
   what is convenient to vast vertically-integrated producers.
   Science then comes to be seen not as Frankenstein, unleashing
   unpredictable forces, but worse, as a Strangelove bent on complete
   control. Which perhaps goes a long way to explaining why in Europe,
   where the links between big organisations and social change are always
   regarded with deep suspicion, there has been such an outcry against
   genetically modified foods. Perhaps it is not so much in the food as
   in the way it was forced onto our plates.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   
                      From New Scientist, 5 June 1999
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                                     GO

                © Copyright New Scientist, RBI Limited 1999




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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html