[b112]

Yes indeed, if you work on a thing, any thing, mistakes can be made.

That does not mean you stop working towards a goal, or you drop the concept of modifying the universe around you. If that were so, we'd still be in the stone age.

Instead you observe those mistakes, consider the lesson of those mistakes, and then apply them towards further efforts. Anything else means we may as well give up all science, and cower in caves.

[ceejayoz]

One of those lessons learned is we now look askance at people who say things like:

> I absolutely think we should genetically engineer methods which result in the extinction of all blood sucking animals. Leeches, mosquitoes, all flies, bed bugs, you name it.

We know better now.

[b112]

We know better now.

If by this you mean "We should be afraid to do things, because once someone made a mistake", then I guess yes.

As per my prior comment, the sort of logic you are employing is "A bad thing happened once, so we MUST stop all efforts along this tact". Such thought processes are akin to "Let's curl up into a ball and cower". If we took this tact, literally every scientific improvement we've ever had would be out the window, because literally everything we've done has killed people.

Instead what we "know better now", is that we know that we absolutely must look at the entire food chain. We know that we must examine potential ramification with greatest care. We know "better now", to take great care, and move with great deliberation.

The answer is not to go back to the caves. Or to halt progress. The answer is to do better.

To speak to the posted wikipedia article?

In as with many things, it is incorrect.

Here is what it says:

The resulting agricultural failures, compounded by misguided policies of the Great Leap Forward, triggered a severe famine from 1958 to 1962.

Here is what the discovery article says:

The mass deaths of sparrows and nationwide loss of crops resulted in untold millions starving and 20 to 30 million people dying from 1958 to 1962. A 1984 article on the mass famine put it simply: “China suffered a demographic crisis of enormous proportions”

Here is what the paper summary says:

The largest famine in human history occurred in China in modern times and passed almost unrecognized by the outside world. Demographic evidence indicates that famine during 1958-61 caused almost 30 million premature deaths in China and reduced fertility very significantly. Data on food availability suggest that, in contrast to many other famines, a root cause of this one was a dramatic decline in grain output that continued for several years, involving in 1960-61 a drop in output of more than 25 percent. Causes of this drop are found in both natural disaster and government policy. The government's responses are reviewed and implications of this experience for Chinese and world development are considered.

Note how the Wikipedia states 20 to 30 million died directly from starvation. The discovery article states that "untold millions" died from starvation, and as well, "20 to 30 million dying", which of course can be "related". EG, mass migration, unrest, civil disobedience, and more.

Note how the paper itself says, that it was caused by "natural disaster and governmental policy", with "natural disaster" listed first.

I cannot access the paper, but I presume there was not just locust, and not just governmental policy, but a myriad of things happening at the same time, of which governmental policy was one of them. Otherwise, governmental policy would be the primary discussion, not one of the events.

In short, I dispute the numbers presented. I suspect this is a tale that has grown more and more dire, with each retell.

However! I absolutely agree that unplanned efforts, and mistakes, can indeed be disastrous. There are other examples of how dire, messing with an ecosystem can be. Yet that does not mean we stop!. If anything, we'll have to do more work in this regard, as global warming changes things faster than evolution and species migration can happen naturally.

[ceejayoz]

> As per my prior comment, the sort of logic you are employing is "A bad thing happened once, so we MUST stop all efforts along this tact". Such thought processes are akin to "Let's curl up into a ball and cower". If we took this tact, literally every scientific improvement we've ever had would be out the window, because literally everything we've done has killed people.

No; you're fighting a strawman.

Interventions of this nature must be carefully planned, tested, and understood. I support, for example, efforts to eradicate Aedes aegypti because the due dilligence has been done. We have a reasonable understanding of its position in the food chain, smaller-scale test efforts have been done in a variety of places, etc.

"We should eradicate everything that eats blood" is... not the same.

[b112]

That isn't reasonable. The goal does not invalidate the method, nor caution.

Without the goal (eg, get rid of those damned bloodsuckers), the amount of diligence required isn't going to even start.

You need a goal, and then, you need to assess.

The bloodsuckwrs must go.