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is chat even if you do completely believe what Jim says in that respect, there 
is real public concern, whether justified or not. It exists. And therefore 
it is perfectly clear to me that there should be guidelines, there should be 
public discussion. I believe, just to make my position about the proposed 
revision clear, I believe that the proposed revision is by and large in the 
right direction. That is to say it recommends a relaxation and a downgrading 
of a relatively modest kind. I think this is the right direction to be 
going. 
When you look at the latest version of the EMBO guidelines — and John 
Tooze has told you about those, and you have seen it in documents — you might 
say that without getting involved in the nature of the interval and whether 
the scale is linear or not, here you are proposing one step in the direction 
of relaxation and the EMBO is proposing at least one and a half if not two 
steps. One might ask why, since the bodies who were charged with preparing 
these proposals are much the same kinds of bodies in the two cases. I do 
rather come back at this point to the kinds of considerations that you have 
just heard from Ms. King. 
You see, I think that one really must — and I think this is the point 
that has been made — one really must try and differentiate between scientific 
judgments and political judgments; and the implication has been made by some 
others that when we talk about your Committee, sir, erring on the side of 
caution, that being interpreted means that you don't dare say what you be- 
lieve, because you are worried about the political consequences. 
Now, I think in some respects that the EMBO Committee is at the same 
time better off and worse off. You see, your Committee, sir, is in a favored 
position because it is close to the seats of power. It is giving direct 
advice to you as head of an executive agency. The EMBO Committee is in a 
different position. It is purely advisory. It isn't even advising a govern- 
ment, it is advising 12 governments. Nobody need take any notice of what 
it says. Nobody even need give any reasons why they don't take any notice of 
what it says. So that is a bit frustrating. But on the other hand, I think 
it does enable the scientific judgments to be exercised perhaps in a freer 
way than in a committee which is so exposed to the glare of publicity that 
it must worry at some points how far its judgments are really those of a 
scientific committee, and how far are they of some kind of group which is a 
kind of mixture of a scientific committee and a committee responsive to 
public attitudes and various aspects of the relations between science and 
society, which actually have nothing to do with assessing the risk of a 
particular experiment. So, I mean, I think that there is a good deal perhaps 
to be said for thinking out rather carefully the role of the several commit- 
tees involved at different levels. I am not sure that everybody sits on 
every committee, that at every level you have a committee which contains 
biologists who are in recombinant DNA, non-biologists, members of the public, 
all kinds — You know, I think the considerations involved in these discus- 
sions depend on the circumstances. I think one needs a carefully articulated 
group of committees with perhaps a rather different membership at the differ- 
ent levels. I am absolutely clear that representatives of all the groups 
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