In order to help ensure more time for each presenter to share their proposal on the 25th, I ask that you take some time to consider the issues I raise here now : Thanks so much for the time that you have already given me. I know you are all very busy. Bill
Sue presented us/me with a beautifully wrapped Easter proposal, and there is little question that it’s a very worthy human, deeply felt issue that we at Unity cannot ignore, nor should we. But that being said, let us not be bamboozled/tricked or thrown off track by such political tactics ---not Sue’s, but the special interests!
In researching my own project proposal I have been alerted that such issues as banning gay marriages and civil unions and promoting concealed weapons legislation are largely diversionary tactics or snares set by large special interest groups to trap us into talking about and working for these hot button issues rather than keeping a steady and persistent focus on real, honest people issues such as clean water, health care, adequate and equitable school funding and campaign finance reform.
Special interests and corporations who have bought and now own our legislators totally, use such legislation as a ruse to distract and deter us from the people’s interests. I was informed that the proof in the putting is the fact these big interests deliberately bring such issues forward not at off year or local elections but at the state wide and congressional elections that are guaranteed to bring out the extreme right who will vote to keep their paid for and bought candidates in office and that will serve the exclusive interests of the special interests, including corporations. I learned that seven or eight states have already used ban gay unions and marriage bans in order to control and maintain the electoral status quo in their respective Houses, and with respect to and significant health care and environmental initiatives as well.
By maintaining such control of your legislators they can continue to pass preemptive legislation that serves their own special interests but, in fact, is best decided at the local level, i.e. no smoking, the removal of old billboard signage, land use, etc. Such big interest here in Wisconsin spent 6.5 to 1.15 million dollars or 13 times more than that spend by everyone else (that includes you and me) to prevent local decision-making. This is big interest’s means or tactics for preventing any fundamental changes from appearing on the legislative agenda.
For these reasons, then, I strongly urge the Advisory Council to assign the proposed “Fair Wisconsin” or the “Love Thy Neighbor” project to the Human Rights sub-committee, in order that more structural and substantive up-stream work can begin now.
With respect the gay union ban, whether it is obtaining petition signatures, canvassing the neighborhood or whatever, these Unity activities need not deter us, nor should they. I would like to remind the group that Dr. Lichterman has already warn us that such seductive and alluring causes will constantly be brought before us. But because our cause is so great to our children and our grand children’s freedom and democracy, let us hold fast.
I believe that here in Wisconsin we are now a critical period where the balance can be tipped either in the direction of campaign reform or continuing down the slippery slope that we are now on. If what has already happened, and is now happening, at our Capitol is not enough to rouse out of complacency, how much more alienation and loss of our freedom can we take?
If there was ever in our Nation’s history a time when we need to stand up and speak up, it is now. A recent Wisconsin poll shows that only 7% of the citizens of Wisconsin believe that their legislators represent their (the people’s) best interests. We need to regain our trust and faith in our public institutions and in our representatives. Your legislator and mine are arrogant and emotionally and economically removed from the people ---you and me. And worse, they believe that they can do no wrong and are untouchable. Let us begin!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Now is time to set up stem-cell oversight
By William R. Benedict
Wisconsin State Journal
Guest Column
October 19, 2007
This taxpayer attended the recent Madison Plan Commission’s public hearing on the proposed new Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery.
This project is scheduled to come before our City Council on November 6th. The chosen site on the southwest end of the UW campus has been described as “an unusual marriage of public and private dollars.”
The commingling of public, non-profit and proprietary interests can be rich soil for both a “nimble” and successful collaborative race for stem-based cures and for both jobs and medical therapies for all our citizens.
However without a transparent process and proper policies and safeguards in place multiple conflicts of interest could threaten both our public treasury and trust.
Wisconsin taxpayers and all who will benefit from cell-based medical therapies deserve more than good intentions regardless of how sincere and honorable they may be. Like safe and proven architecture and construction practices, safe and proven policy and intellectual property (IP) models now also exist.
These models are specifically designed to detect and prevent special interest conflicts by groups or individuals who are sworn to serve and protect the public interest. They help to ensure that taxpayers will recoup their investment either in reduced taxes or better and more affordable or accessible health care.
Rather than relying only on the assurance of a theoretical trickle down effect in new jobs, taxpayers and their government can be assured a public benefit from funding non-profit and for profit stem sell research and therapy enterprises.
Such policies also require that grantees must sell their therapies based on reasonable pricing. Taxpayers are becoming increasingly astute and now realize that giving out “free” public money, no matter how well intended, does not result in free or reasonably priced therapies.
These public interests protections ensure that those who come to the public trough or who participate in research or biotech enterprises --- medical professionals, entrepreneurs, and all other stakeholders --- must file disclosure forms with the State of Wisconsin that become a part of the public record. Only such transparency and careful tracking of the money can help all of the actors in this wonderful venture avoid the temptation to violate the public’s trust.
A year ago this writer called for a non-profit, nonpartisan and independent citizen stem cell oversight or watchdog group here in Wisconsin. To date Wisconsin citizens largely have remained silent. It’s now time for Wisconsin citizens to step up to the plate and help meet our responsibility to future generations with family members who suffer from cell-based diseases. (My blog, http://danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com/ will be up soon! Watch for it!)
I urgently call upon our state legislature to come forward now with a policy framework which fully addresses policy and IP safeguards, public benefit requirements, transparency and disclosure practices. Lets not let Wisconsin become a “Johnny come lately” on these public safeguards without which we will surely stumble.
With our governor’s clear goal of capturing one-tenth of the stem-cell market for research and medical therapies by 2015, a new research center about to rise, and heaps of community good will and support we must not miss this opportunity for all Wisconsin citizens to succeed.
Wisconsin State Journal
Guest Column
October 19, 2007
This taxpayer attended the recent Madison Plan Commission’s public hearing on the proposed new Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery.
This project is scheduled to come before our City Council on November 6th. The chosen site on the southwest end of the UW campus has been described as “an unusual marriage of public and private dollars.”
The commingling of public, non-profit and proprietary interests can be rich soil for both a “nimble” and successful collaborative race for stem-based cures and for both jobs and medical therapies for all our citizens.
However without a transparent process and proper policies and safeguards in place multiple conflicts of interest could threaten both our public treasury and trust.
Wisconsin taxpayers and all who will benefit from cell-based medical therapies deserve more than good intentions regardless of how sincere and honorable they may be. Like safe and proven architecture and construction practices, safe and proven policy and intellectual property (IP) models now also exist.
These models are specifically designed to detect and prevent special interest conflicts by groups or individuals who are sworn to serve and protect the public interest. They help to ensure that taxpayers will recoup their investment either in reduced taxes or better and more affordable or accessible health care.
Rather than relying only on the assurance of a theoretical trickle down effect in new jobs, taxpayers and their government can be assured a public benefit from funding non-profit and for profit stem sell research and therapy enterprises.
Such policies also require that grantees must sell their therapies based on reasonable pricing. Taxpayers are becoming increasingly astute and now realize that giving out “free” public money, no matter how well intended, does not result in free or reasonably priced therapies.
These public interests protections ensure that those who come to the public trough or who participate in research or biotech enterprises --- medical professionals, entrepreneurs, and all other stakeholders --- must file disclosure forms with the State of Wisconsin that become a part of the public record. Only such transparency and careful tracking of the money can help all of the actors in this wonderful venture avoid the temptation to violate the public’s trust.
A year ago this writer called for a non-profit, nonpartisan and independent citizen stem cell oversight or watchdog group here in Wisconsin. To date Wisconsin citizens largely have remained silent. It’s now time for Wisconsin citizens to step up to the plate and help meet our responsibility to future generations with family members who suffer from cell-based diseases. (My blog, http://danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com/ will be up soon! Watch for it!)
I urgently call upon our state legislature to come forward now with a policy framework which fully addresses policy and IP safeguards, public benefit requirements, transparency and disclosure practices. Lets not let Wisconsin become a “Johnny come lately” on these public safeguards without which we will surely stumble.
With our governor’s clear goal of capturing one-tenth of the stem-cell market for research and medical therapies by 2015, a new research center about to rise, and heaps of community good will and support we must not miss this opportunity for all Wisconsin citizens to succeed.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Make sure taxpayers get payback from funding stem cell research
Make sure taxpayers get payback from funding stem cell research
By William R. Benedict
The Capital Times Op-Ed
January 17, 2007
In 2006 Doyle helped authorize $50 million in state funding for the University’s planned Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. This funding by our Wisconsin taxpayers was in part to further jump-start Wisconsin’s still fledgling stem cell research and development initiative.
During this same period Doyle also funded a $5 million plan to recruit and retain stem cell companies; $3 million has gone into Dr. James Thomson’s two companies---Cellular Dynamics, Inc. and Stem Cell Products, Inc.
Steps were also taken to waive Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s (WARF) royalty fees for companies that conduct stem cell research in Wisconsin.
All of this funding, mind you, without establishing any terms whatsoever for obtaining any returns on the tax payers’ investment.
Such blatant generosity has been hailed by Jim Haney, executive director, of the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, as contributing to “a critical mass” that can only be compared to Silicon Valley.
Such hyped-up support has also caused Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, to tout Dr. James Thomson as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize.
All of this suggests to me that state funding for for-profit stem cell entities in Wisconsin will increase dramatically in the immediate years ahead.
What is most surprising and disheartening is the fact that neither our public servants nor the media have yet shown any willingness whatsoever to assure accountability to the taxpayer for such public funding.
If Wisconsin taxpayers are paying for this research they have the right to expect a reasonable share of the commercial profits and other benefits.
Present promises about the trickle down effect of such state funding is not acceptable. Wisconsin taxpayers have a right to expect both jobs and more affordable health care from their investment.
An example of such deserved fiscal accountability would be: For every publicly funded for-profit stem cell entity that reports yearly revenue of a certain sum or more, i.e. $500,000, there should also be a sum certain payback of some pre-established amount to the tax payer.
Larger and more robust for-profit stem cell entities that report yearly earnings of $500 million or more would pay back the public investor through pre-established royalties.
In addition to these financial returns, for-profit entities that receive public funding can reasonably be expected to make their stem cell therapy products available to uninsured Wisconsin residents consistent with industry standards.
They should also be expected to provide discounted prices to publicly fund health care plans, and to grant Wisconsin residents preference if their stem cell therapies are in short supply.
Wisconsin middle class taxpayers, the uninsured working poor and the sick should not continue to acquiesce and do nothing out of fear and trumped up accusations that such ethically sound taxpayer-centered accountability practices will somehow squash private competition and send our local scientist-entrepreneurs and in-state jobs packing.
Neither should we acquiesce and continue to hold false assurances that best practice standards, intellectual property rights, National Academy of Science policies and ethics, or existing drug pricing controls will somehow now protect the taxpayers’ investment in stem-cell research and the commercial products that will surely follow.
None of these above “safe-guards” have proven effective in the recent past in curbing the flagrant and arrogant abuse of the commercial profit-driven med-tech and pharmaceutical industry.
I am certain that progressive Wisconsin will step up to the plate and meet this responsibility to the taxpayers and to future generations who may have family members who are suffering from cell-based diseases and will be the beneficiary of Wisconsin’s premiere stem cell research and development program.
Now is the time to address and resolve these taxpayer inequities and assure more affordable health care to all of us.
By William R. Benedict
The Capital Times Op-Ed
January 17, 2007
In 2006 Doyle helped authorize $50 million in state funding for the University’s planned Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. This funding by our Wisconsin taxpayers was in part to further jump-start Wisconsin’s still fledgling stem cell research and development initiative.
During this same period Doyle also funded a $5 million plan to recruit and retain stem cell companies; $3 million has gone into Dr. James Thomson’s two companies---Cellular Dynamics, Inc. and Stem Cell Products, Inc.
Steps were also taken to waive Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s (WARF) royalty fees for companies that conduct stem cell research in Wisconsin.
All of this funding, mind you, without establishing any terms whatsoever for obtaining any returns on the tax payers’ investment.
Such blatant generosity has been hailed by Jim Haney, executive director, of the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, as contributing to “a critical mass” that can only be compared to Silicon Valley.
Such hyped-up support has also caused Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, to tout Dr. James Thomson as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize.
All of this suggests to me that state funding for for-profit stem cell entities in Wisconsin will increase dramatically in the immediate years ahead.
What is most surprising and disheartening is the fact that neither our public servants nor the media have yet shown any willingness whatsoever to assure accountability to the taxpayer for such public funding.
If Wisconsin taxpayers are paying for this research they have the right to expect a reasonable share of the commercial profits and other benefits.
Present promises about the trickle down effect of such state funding is not acceptable. Wisconsin taxpayers have a right to expect both jobs and more affordable health care from their investment.
An example of such deserved fiscal accountability would be: For every publicly funded for-profit stem cell entity that reports yearly revenue of a certain sum or more, i.e. $500,000, there should also be a sum certain payback of some pre-established amount to the tax payer.
Larger and more robust for-profit stem cell entities that report yearly earnings of $500 million or more would pay back the public investor through pre-established royalties.
In addition to these financial returns, for-profit entities that receive public funding can reasonably be expected to make their stem cell therapy products available to uninsured Wisconsin residents consistent with industry standards.
They should also be expected to provide discounted prices to publicly fund health care plans, and to grant Wisconsin residents preference if their stem cell therapies are in short supply.
Wisconsin middle class taxpayers, the uninsured working poor and the sick should not continue to acquiesce and do nothing out of fear and trumped up accusations that such ethically sound taxpayer-centered accountability practices will somehow squash private competition and send our local scientist-entrepreneurs and in-state jobs packing.
Neither should we acquiesce and continue to hold false assurances that best practice standards, intellectual property rights, National Academy of Science policies and ethics, or existing drug pricing controls will somehow now protect the taxpayers’ investment in stem-cell research and the commercial products that will surely follow.
None of these above “safe-guards” have proven effective in the recent past in curbing the flagrant and arrogant abuse of the commercial profit-driven med-tech and pharmaceutical industry.
I am certain that progressive Wisconsin will step up to the plate and meet this responsibility to the taxpayers and to future generations who may have family members who are suffering from cell-based diseases and will be the beneficiary of Wisconsin’s premiere stem cell research and development program.
Now is the time to address and resolve these taxpayer inequities and assure more affordable health care to all of us.
Payback for Tax Payer Funding Called For
Payback for Tax Payer Funding Called For
Letter to the Editor
On February 13th of this year Governor Doyle will send his proposed $50 billion dollar budget to the legislature. In 2006 Doyle helped authorize $50 million in state funding for the University’s planned Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. This funding by our Wisconsin taxpayers was in part to further jump-start Wisconsin’s still fledgling stem cell research and development initiative.
During this same period Doyle also funded a $5 million plan to recruit and retain stem cell companies; $3 million has gone into Dr. James Thomson’s two companies---Cellular Dynamics, Inc. and Stem Cell Products, Inc. Steps were also taken to waive Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s (WARF) royalty fees for companies that conduct stem cell research in Wisconsin. All of this funding, mind you, without establishing any terms whatsoever for obtaining any returns on the tax payers’ investment.
Such blatant generosity has been hailed by Jim Haney, executive director, of the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, as contributing to “a critical mass” that can only be compared to Silicon Valley. Such hyped-up support has also caused Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, to tout Dr. James Thomson as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize.
The print media’s unceasing editorializing about Dr. James Thomson’s “research commercialization model” along with the imperative for ever more public funds to support this model “for a more robust job creation,” all suggest that much is going to be expected from you and I, the taxpayer in the years ahead.
All of this suggests to me that state funding for for-profit stem cell entities in Wisconsin will increase dramatically in the immediate years ahead. What is most surprising and disheartening is the fact that neither our public servants nor the media have yet shown any willingness whatsoever to assure accountability to the taxpayer for such public funding. If Wisconsin taxpayers are paying for this research they have the right to expect a reasonable share of the commercial profits and other benefits.
In addition to direct financial returns or commissions, for-profit entities that receive public funding should reasonably be expected to make their stem cell therapy products available to uninsured Wisconsin residents. They should also be expected to provide discounted prices to publicly fund health care plans, and to grant Wisconsin residents preference if their stem cell therapies are in short supply.
Wisconsin middle class taxpayers, the uninsured working poor and the sick should not continue to acquiesce and do nothing out of fear and trumped up accusations that such ethically sound taxpayer-centered accountability practices will somehow squash private competition and send our local scientist-entrepreneurs and in-state jobs packing.
Wisconsin needs to step up to the plate now and meet this responsibility to the taxpayers and to future generations who suffer from cell-based diseases. Now is the time to address and resolve these taxpayer inequities and assure more affordable health care to all of us.
Respectfully submitted,
William R. Benedict
Letter to the Editor
On February 13th of this year Governor Doyle will send his proposed $50 billion dollar budget to the legislature. In 2006 Doyle helped authorize $50 million in state funding for the University’s planned Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. This funding by our Wisconsin taxpayers was in part to further jump-start Wisconsin’s still fledgling stem cell research and development initiative.
During this same period Doyle also funded a $5 million plan to recruit and retain stem cell companies; $3 million has gone into Dr. James Thomson’s two companies---Cellular Dynamics, Inc. and Stem Cell Products, Inc. Steps were also taken to waive Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s (WARF) royalty fees for companies that conduct stem cell research in Wisconsin. All of this funding, mind you, without establishing any terms whatsoever for obtaining any returns on the tax payers’ investment.
Such blatant generosity has been hailed by Jim Haney, executive director, of the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, as contributing to “a critical mass” that can only be compared to Silicon Valley. Such hyped-up support has also caused Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, to tout Dr. James Thomson as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize.
The print media’s unceasing editorializing about Dr. James Thomson’s “research commercialization model” along with the imperative for ever more public funds to support this model “for a more robust job creation,” all suggest that much is going to be expected from you and I, the taxpayer in the years ahead.
All of this suggests to me that state funding for for-profit stem cell entities in Wisconsin will increase dramatically in the immediate years ahead. What is most surprising and disheartening is the fact that neither our public servants nor the media have yet shown any willingness whatsoever to assure accountability to the taxpayer for such public funding. If Wisconsin taxpayers are paying for this research they have the right to expect a reasonable share of the commercial profits and other benefits.
In addition to direct financial returns or commissions, for-profit entities that receive public funding should reasonably be expected to make their stem cell therapy products available to uninsured Wisconsin residents. They should also be expected to provide discounted prices to publicly fund health care plans, and to grant Wisconsin residents preference if their stem cell therapies are in short supply.
Wisconsin middle class taxpayers, the uninsured working poor and the sick should not continue to acquiesce and do nothing out of fear and trumped up accusations that such ethically sound taxpayer-centered accountability practices will somehow squash private competition and send our local scientist-entrepreneurs and in-state jobs packing.
Wisconsin needs to step up to the plate now and meet this responsibility to the taxpayers and to future generations who suffer from cell-based diseases. Now is the time to address and resolve these taxpayer inequities and assure more affordable health care to all of us.
Respectfully submitted,
William R. Benedict
Friday, October 5, 2007
Convergence
A Dane County Almanac
And Other Short Stories
This little book is a revelation of the author’s most intimate feelings
and thoughts about his life on planet earth.
Convergence
August 18, 2005
In recent weeks there has appeared to me such an extreme convergence in my readings which I can only best describe as uncanny. It’s almost like somebody or some thing is taking my hand and carefully leading me along on an unknown journey. If it is not Suzanne referring me to a particular book, then it’s me suddenly discovering exactly what I need in a magazine or newspaper’s articles. It’s as if I am just stepping out into the water, and when I step out a force just in the nick of time places the next stepping stone down in front of me to take the next step. As best as I can determine at this time the most common denominator on my search has to do with life-transitions.
From reading Full Catastrophe Living, I am again introduced to Mindfulness meditation and the rhythmic transitions from breathing in (life) to breathing out (death). This leads me to Matthew Fox and Dying, Resurrection, And Reincarnation. And then, this leads me to read Paul Krafel’s Seeing Nature and I learn how the life process on earth is in a continuous re-cycling mode, as is, I also learn, is the cosmos. It too, like all living things, also undergoes this pattern of living, dying and resurrecting. I learn too that the stars, our sun, supernovas each have their lifetime and then come to an end but not before giving off their progeny. According to the big bang theory, our Solar System is born, including our Planet Earth.
In my last piece – Life on Planet Earth – I referred to Matthew Fox’s perspective of looking to God’s outward or manifest world, mainly to our own planet as one way of better experiencing God’s creation. I cited Paul Krafel’s “Seeing Nature” because in this book he puts the reader in touch, and with much vividness, with what he refers to as the spiraling life cycle of mother earth. He describes how nature maintains its vital balance through a process of constantly rebirthing herself. We talked about “Gaia Hypothesis” and how life is a self revolving and sustaining process which creates and maintains an environment favorable to life.
Today I would like to go back 4.6 billion years ago and share with you what science now knows about how our hot stony planet first generated a nascent life form. Dr. Bruce Jakosky, a geologist at the University of Colorado in Boulder estimates that it was about then that our earth cooled enough to have atmosphere, oceans, and some dry land. In his forthcoming book, “Astrobiology, Science and Society,” Jakosky notes that the rock record is still too sparse to allow us to clearly determine the processes that were associated with the origin of life.
At a recent workshop held in Yellowstone National Park for science writers, researchers described their latest thinking about the origin and development of life on earth. Most briefly, their hypothetical scenario places our earth’s beginning at about 4.6 billion years ago. By between 4.0 and 3.8 billion years ago inorganic molecules (composed of clustered atoms) grew and clotted together into “protocells,” (little bags of chemicals that took in nutrients and discharged wastes) which formed organic compounds needed for early life.
In this pre-biotic stage before living organisms appeared, volcanoes spewed lava and gases rich in hydrogen, sulfur, iron and other minerals. Chemical reactions between hot water and rocks produced more and more complex molecules. From this clumps of inorganic molecules eventually became living cells containing an early version of DNA known as RNA. (DNA contains the instructions to make proteins, the building blocks of every living thing.)
Now I want leave this brief scientific description of the geologic and chemical origin of our planet and return to Paul Krafel, and once again, pick up at the point when after the earth cools, and the oceans and atmosphere makes their appearance, we soon see that out of the algae and moss arises other small plant life. Soon shrubs and small trees appear, along with insects, flowers, toad stools and an abundance of life. From small single cell animals become more complex and advanced mammal forms and ultimately human life
evolves as well.
Life on Planet Earth
And Other Short Stories
This little book is a revelation of the author’s most intimate feelings
and thoughts about his life on planet earth.
Convergence
August 18, 2005
In recent weeks there has appeared to me such an extreme convergence in my readings which I can only best describe as uncanny. It’s almost like somebody or some thing is taking my hand and carefully leading me along on an unknown journey. If it is not Suzanne referring me to a particular book, then it’s me suddenly discovering exactly what I need in a magazine or newspaper’s articles. It’s as if I am just stepping out into the water, and when I step out a force just in the nick of time places the next stepping stone down in front of me to take the next step. As best as I can determine at this time the most common denominator on my search has to do with life-transitions.
From reading Full Catastrophe Living, I am again introduced to Mindfulness meditation and the rhythmic transitions from breathing in (life) to breathing out (death). This leads me to Matthew Fox and Dying, Resurrection, And Reincarnation. And then, this leads me to read Paul Krafel’s Seeing Nature and I learn how the life process on earth is in a continuous re-cycling mode, as is, I also learn, is the cosmos. It too, like all living things, also undergoes this pattern of living, dying and resurrecting. I learn too that the stars, our sun, supernovas each have their lifetime and then come to an end but not before giving off their progeny. According to the big bang theory, our Solar System is born, including our Planet Earth.
In my last piece – Life on Planet Earth – I referred to Matthew Fox’s perspective of looking to God’s outward or manifest world, mainly to our own planet as one way of better experiencing God’s creation. I cited Paul Krafel’s “Seeing Nature” because in this book he puts the reader in touch, and with much vividness, with what he refers to as the spiraling life cycle of mother earth. He describes how nature maintains its vital balance through a process of constantly rebirthing herself. We talked about “Gaia Hypothesis” and how life is a self revolving and sustaining process which creates and maintains an environment favorable to life.
Today I would like to go back 4.6 billion years ago and share with you what science now knows about how our hot stony planet first generated a nascent life form. Dr. Bruce Jakosky, a geologist at the University of Colorado in Boulder estimates that it was about then that our earth cooled enough to have atmosphere, oceans, and some dry land. In his forthcoming book, “Astrobiology, Science and Society,” Jakosky notes that the rock record is still too sparse to allow us to clearly determine the processes that were associated with the origin of life.
At a recent workshop held in Yellowstone National Park for science writers, researchers described their latest thinking about the origin and development of life on earth. Most briefly, their hypothetical scenario places our earth’s beginning at about 4.6 billion years ago. By between 4.0 and 3.8 billion years ago inorganic molecules (composed of clustered atoms) grew and clotted together into “protocells,” (little bags of chemicals that took in nutrients and discharged wastes) which formed organic compounds needed for early life.
In this pre-biotic stage before living organisms appeared, volcanoes spewed lava and gases rich in hydrogen, sulfur, iron and other minerals. Chemical reactions between hot water and rocks produced more and more complex molecules. From this clumps of inorganic molecules eventually became living cells containing an early version of DNA known as RNA. (DNA contains the instructions to make proteins, the building blocks of every living thing.)
Now I want leave this brief scientific description of the geologic and chemical origin of our planet and return to Paul Krafel, and once again, pick up at the point when after the earth cools, and the oceans and atmosphere makes their appearance, we soon see that out of the algae and moss arises other small plant life. Soon shrubs and small trees appear, along with insects, flowers, toad stools and an abundance of life. From small single cell animals become more complex and advanced mammal forms and ultimately human life
evolves as well.
Life on Planet Earth
Monday, October 1, 2007
“Bill's Primer on the Genome”: A book review of the “Genome”
A Dane County Almanac
And Other Short Stories
“Bill's Primer on the Genome”
A book review of the “Genome”
“The fuel on which science runs is ignorance. Science is like a hungry furnace that must be fed logs from the forests of ignorance that surrounds us. In the process, the clearing we call knowledge expands and the longer its perimeter and the more ignorance comes into view.”
Since Matt Ridley wrote the above in his book, “Genome – The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters,” scientists have devoured gigantic forests of ignorance in mapping the DNA structure of human life. The clearing that this knowledge has produced is greater than any other single scientific breakthrough in human history.
This being the case, it is not surprising that in my journey to more clearly discover my own vision, Ridley’s book is brought into my living room. I recently wrote about reading Brian Swimme’s book, “The Universe Story.” These new scientific cosmologies literally broaden my context and orientation many thousand times over. If you would have asked me just last week whether I would ever discover anything comparable I would have said certainly not. Certainly if one is talking about the macro world, perhaps this would still be my answer. Little did I know that going inward into the micro field of genetics I would find an equal if not even greater discovery?
Soon after settling into the Ridley’s Genome I hesitated. With my limited scientific background, particularly in the biological sciences, will I really be able
journey deep, deep down into the human cell. Could this science journalist write to bring this new micrometer world into my awareness? Just when I was beginning to complain to myself that the author should have included a “gene primer” at the outset, there it was. Incidentally I should note here that I learned later in this book that I may have a gene which serves to motivate me whenever I am puzzled, uncertain or confused. If this is really so, it clearly kicked in when the primer appeared.
From this brief little primer I learned that the human body contains 100 trillion cells. The size of each cell is less than a tenth of a millimeter (or a pin point) across. Inside each of our white cells is a black blob called a nucleus? Inside each nucleus are two complete sets of the human genome. Each genome set contains 30,000 to 80,000 genes on the same twenty-three chromosomes. Before the discovery of the genome we did not know there was a document at the heart of every cell three billion letters long of whose contents we knew nothing.
What came next seemed almost too good to be true. I learned that the author will use a book as a metaphor to explain all I will need to know in order to understand his entire book. Immediately I remembered some early advice that my father gave me when I was less than ten years old.
He said, “Bill. If you really want to get an education or become a scholar, all you really need to know is how to read. Once you learn to read, you will be able to learn anything there is to learn.” These words acted to motivate me to want to read everything the author had to say about the human gene.
In the author’s book metaphor there are twenty-three “chapters,” for the twenty-three human chromosomes. Each chapter contains several thousand “stories” called genes. Each story or gene is made up of “paragraphs,” called exons, which area interpreted by “advertisements” called introns. Each paragraph is made up of “words” called codons. Each word is written in “letters” called bases. The Gerome book is written with only three letter words, and using only four letters: A, C, G, T. DNA is a chemical and RNA is also a chemical. Genetics is really just this simple! Before the discovery of the genome, we did not know there was a document at the heart of every cell three billion letters long of whose contents we knew nothing.
Continuing to use the book metaphor, I learn that this “book” can photocopy (or replicate) and read itself. A single strand of DNA can copy itself. The code is written not on paper but on long chains of sugar and phosphate called DNA molecules. There are one million codons (words) in the human genome. Everything in the body is made from protein. Every protein is a gene. The body’s chemical reactions are catalyzed by proteins known as enzymes. I learned that when genes are replicated mistakes are sometimes made or a mutation occurs. There are 64 different codons or words and many of these words the same meaning.
With the genome there are 4,000 million years of earth history and five million species. One of these five million species is a conscious human being. Consider also for a moment, that among the 6 thousand million people that has been on the planet, you and I were privileged enough to be born in the country where the “word” (DNA structure) was discovered. It was during our short lifetime that the greatest, simplest, and most surprising secret in the universe was discovered. Our DNA is a recipe or instructions on how to replicate me and you. It’s a message written in a code of chemicals – one chemical for each letter. Chromosomes are large molecules designed to carry our heredity.
DNA are not merely structurally important but functionally active substances in determining the biochemical activities and specific characteristics of cells, and that by a means known as chemical substance it is possible to induce predictable and hereditary changes in cells. Life, to a rough approximation, consists of three atoms - hydrogen, carbon and oxygen. They make up 98% of all atoms in living beings.
Finally, and this will be the end my genetic understanding to date, I want to distinguish between two chemicals, protein and DNA. A protein consists of chemistry, living, breathing, metabolism and behavior. It is what biologists call the phenotype. DNA consists of information, replication breeding, and sex, and is what biologists call the genotype.
Does the existence of the Genome now mean that it will be only a few years before scientists create a genetically modified human being? After all we already have a cloned sheep. Is our genetic make-up the primary determinant of our free will as humans?
The author of Genome puts it this way. “The crude distinction between genes as implacable programmers of a Calvinists predestination and the environment as the home of liberal free will is a fallacy.” Ridley argues that if genes can affect behavior and behavior can affect genes, then the causality is clearly circular and not single-dimensional.
Paradoxically, our genes, because they are unique to each of us, are perhaps our greatest protection against the many determining threats that face us daily. These many wide and varied determinate conditions include both genetic and environmental. We have the most to fear from the latter and it is the most pervasive.
Again, Ridley says it best. “Freedom lies in expressing your own determinism, not somebody else’s. It is not the determinism that makes the difference, but the ownership. If freedom is what we prefer, then it is preferable to be determined by forces that originate in ourselves and not in others. Part of our own revulsion at cloning originates in the fear that what is uniquely ours could be shared by another. The single-minded obsession of the genes to do the determining in their own bodies is our strongest bulwark against loss of freedom to external causes.
We know that there is no single gene for free will in the genome. Rather there is something infinitely more uplifting and magnificent: a whole human nature, flexibly preordained in our chromosomes and idiosyncratic to each of us. Everybody has a unique and different nature.
And Other Short Stories
“Bill's Primer on the Genome”
A book review of the “Genome”
“The fuel on which science runs is ignorance. Science is like a hungry furnace that must be fed logs from the forests of ignorance that surrounds us. In the process, the clearing we call knowledge expands and the longer its perimeter and the more ignorance comes into view.”
Since Matt Ridley wrote the above in his book, “Genome – The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters,” scientists have devoured gigantic forests of ignorance in mapping the DNA structure of human life. The clearing that this knowledge has produced is greater than any other single scientific breakthrough in human history.
This being the case, it is not surprising that in my journey to more clearly discover my own vision, Ridley’s book is brought into my living room. I recently wrote about reading Brian Swimme’s book, “The Universe Story.” These new scientific cosmologies literally broaden my context and orientation many thousand times over. If you would have asked me just last week whether I would ever discover anything comparable I would have said certainly not. Certainly if one is talking about the macro world, perhaps this would still be my answer. Little did I know that going inward into the micro field of genetics I would find an equal if not even greater discovery?
Soon after settling into the Ridley’s Genome I hesitated. With my limited scientific background, particularly in the biological sciences, will I really be able
journey deep, deep down into the human cell. Could this science journalist write to bring this new micrometer world into my awareness? Just when I was beginning to complain to myself that the author should have included a “gene primer” at the outset, there it was. Incidentally I should note here that I learned later in this book that I may have a gene which serves to motivate me whenever I am puzzled, uncertain or confused. If this is really so, it clearly kicked in when the primer appeared.
From this brief little primer I learned that the human body contains 100 trillion cells. The size of each cell is less than a tenth of a millimeter (or a pin point) across. Inside each of our white cells is a black blob called a nucleus? Inside each nucleus are two complete sets of the human genome. Each genome set contains 30,000 to 80,000 genes on the same twenty-three chromosomes. Before the discovery of the genome we did not know there was a document at the heart of every cell three billion letters long of whose contents we knew nothing.
What came next seemed almost too good to be true. I learned that the author will use a book as a metaphor to explain all I will need to know in order to understand his entire book. Immediately I remembered some early advice that my father gave me when I was less than ten years old.
He said, “Bill. If you really want to get an education or become a scholar, all you really need to know is how to read. Once you learn to read, you will be able to learn anything there is to learn.” These words acted to motivate me to want to read everything the author had to say about the human gene.
In the author’s book metaphor there are twenty-three “chapters,” for the twenty-three human chromosomes. Each chapter contains several thousand “stories” called genes. Each story or gene is made up of “paragraphs,” called exons, which area interpreted by “advertisements” called introns. Each paragraph is made up of “words” called codons. Each word is written in “letters” called bases. The Gerome book is written with only three letter words, and using only four letters: A, C, G, T. DNA is a chemical and RNA is also a chemical. Genetics is really just this simple! Before the discovery of the genome, we did not know there was a document at the heart of every cell three billion letters long of whose contents we knew nothing.
Continuing to use the book metaphor, I learn that this “book” can photocopy (or replicate) and read itself. A single strand of DNA can copy itself. The code is written not on paper but on long chains of sugar and phosphate called DNA molecules. There are one million codons (words) in the human genome. Everything in the body is made from protein. Every protein is a gene. The body’s chemical reactions are catalyzed by proteins known as enzymes. I learned that when genes are replicated mistakes are sometimes made or a mutation occurs. There are 64 different codons or words and many of these words the same meaning.
With the genome there are 4,000 million years of earth history and five million species. One of these five million species is a conscious human being. Consider also for a moment, that among the 6 thousand million people that has been on the planet, you and I were privileged enough to be born in the country where the “word” (DNA structure) was discovered. It was during our short lifetime that the greatest, simplest, and most surprising secret in the universe was discovered. Our DNA is a recipe or instructions on how to replicate me and you. It’s a message written in a code of chemicals – one chemical for each letter. Chromosomes are large molecules designed to carry our heredity.
DNA are not merely structurally important but functionally active substances in determining the biochemical activities and specific characteristics of cells, and that by a means known as chemical substance it is possible to induce predictable and hereditary changes in cells. Life, to a rough approximation, consists of three atoms - hydrogen, carbon and oxygen. They make up 98% of all atoms in living beings.
Finally, and this will be the end my genetic understanding to date, I want to distinguish between two chemicals, protein and DNA. A protein consists of chemistry, living, breathing, metabolism and behavior. It is what biologists call the phenotype. DNA consists of information, replication breeding, and sex, and is what biologists call the genotype.
Does the existence of the Genome now mean that it will be only a few years before scientists create a genetically modified human being? After all we already have a cloned sheep. Is our genetic make-up the primary determinant of our free will as humans?
The author of Genome puts it this way. “The crude distinction between genes as implacable programmers of a Calvinists predestination and the environment as the home of liberal free will is a fallacy.” Ridley argues that if genes can affect behavior and behavior can affect genes, then the causality is clearly circular and not single-dimensional.
Paradoxically, our genes, because they are unique to each of us, are perhaps our greatest protection against the many determining threats that face us daily. These many wide and varied determinate conditions include both genetic and environmental. We have the most to fear from the latter and it is the most pervasive.
Again, Ridley says it best. “Freedom lies in expressing your own determinism, not somebody else’s. It is not the determinism that makes the difference, but the ownership. If freedom is what we prefer, then it is preferable to be determined by forces that originate in ourselves and not in others. Part of our own revulsion at cloning originates in the fear that what is uniquely ours could be shared by another. The single-minded obsession of the genes to do the determining in their own bodies is our strongest bulwark against loss of freedom to external causes.
We know that there is no single gene for free will in the genome. Rather there is something infinitely more uplifting and magnificent: a whole human nature, flexibly preordained in our chromosomes and idiosyncratic to each of us. Everybody has a unique and different nature.
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