Word: dangering
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...advocating a morality based on evolution. I am saying how things have evolved. I am not saying how we humans morally ought to behave. I stress this, because I know I am in great danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case...Be warned that, if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from our biological nature...
...residence -rather than having to register in advance. He has asked U.S. allies to stop selling fast-breeder nuclear reactors and reprocessing equipment to nations that might use them for bombs. He has ordered a halt in domestic development of plutonium as a fuel to reduce the danger that it may be stolen by terrorists. He has abruptly ordered a halt in the construction of major water and dam projects, enraging numerous Congressmen and local politicians...
Opponents of the new research acknowledge its likely bounty, but fear that those benefits might be outweighed by unforeseeable risks. What would happen, they ask, if by accident or design, one variety of re-engineered E. coli proved dangerous? By escaping from the lab and multiplying, their scenario goes, it could find its way into human intestines and cause baffling diseases. Beyond any immediate danger, others say, there are vast unknowns and moral implications. Do not intervene in evolution, they warn in effect, because "it's not nice to fool Mother Nature." Caltech's biology chairman, Robert Sinsheimer...
After a few more genetic refinements, Curtiss had developed what seemed to be a safe research bacterium. But a major problem remained. Even dying E. coli bacteria can conjugate with healthy ones, transferring their possibly dangerous genetic material in the process. Thus an escaped and dying bug might still pose a danger. Again Curtiss worked his genetic magic, this time taking away from the microbe the ability to produce the chemical thymine, which is a component of the bug's own DNA. Without thymine supplied in the lab, the E. coli could not pass its genes on to healthy...
...billion in energy costs over 30 years. Even more curiously, in March Energy Chief James Schlesinger commissioned a panel of eleven energy and environment experts to study the breeder issue. The group's report, which endorsed further development of plutonium as a fuel source and concluded that the danger of weapons proliferation existed with all kinds of reactors-not only breeders-was released...