174 
Now, I am taking the trouble to go into this because I think that 
it is pernicious to keep stating as a fact, as some politically advanced 
groups and certain historians of science blithely state, that it is obvious 
that there is no such thing as objectivity, because if you beat this drum 
too hard you find yourself saying if there is no such thing as objectivity, 
then let us not even try to seek whatever degree of objectivity we can 
find, but let us say that science is just an expression of each person's 
politics, and I think my politics is better than yours, and therefore I 
want science to fit my politics. A more pernicious doctrine than that, I 
think I could not find. 
Well, I think this is highly relevant to what we are dealing with 
here. I believe we have had a very interesting discussion earlier about 
the value of trying to dissect the objective, scientific aspects of the 
problem as fully as possible from the political considerations, and if 
indeed the Advisory Committees that have been concerned with deciding 
what to recommend in the way of guidelines for bioresearch, for shotgun 
research, which is fundamentally the same, for prokaryote exchanges. 
If they have indeed been trying to anticipate the policy decisions that 
ultimately Dr. Fredrickson has to come to, then perhaps the process has 
been seriously distorted, as Dr. Rosenblith pointed out, and perhaps 
one should go back to the drawing board. But in any case, I thought it 
was an extremely interesting direction, and I just wanted to point out 
my reasons for hoping that that line of thought will not be quickly 
dropped . 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Thank you, Dr. Davis. 
I will call now on Dr. Szybalski. 
DR. SZYBALSKI: I have prepared a written statement; here is your copy 
and I shall summarize it. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Have all the members received this, or is this the 
only copy? 
DR. SZYBALSKI: I shall distribute it around, and I have more copies for 
whoever wants them. 
I should have divided my presentation into several five-minute testimonies, 
as others did. 
The reason we are gathered here tonight is because in 1974 several scien- 
tists were voicing concerns about the possibility of some serious epidemic, 
and I stress epidemic, caused by EL coli K-12 carrying recombinant DNA. At 
present, that means in December of '77, there is a general realization that 
there is no practical possibility of such an epidemic. The best experts in the 
fields of epidemiology and medical bacteriology agree that EL coli K-12 cannot 
be converted into a pathogen that would cause a disease, especially of epidemic 
proportion. 
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