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From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,sci.bio,sci.misc
Subject: Re: pesticides
Message-ID: <11975@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Sun, 16-Aug-87 22:54:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.11975
Posted: Sun Aug 16 22:54:16 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Aug-87 04:45:18 EDT
References: <4960@ihlpa.ATT.COM> <1039@faline.bellcore.com> <8997@tekecs.TEK.COM>
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 25
Xref: mnetor misc.consumers:2501 sci.bio:586 sci.misc:445
In-reply-to: andrew@lemming.gwd.tek.com's message of 15 Aug 87 23:17:45 GMT

Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.41.4 of Mon Mar 23 1987 on bu-cs (berkeley-unix)



>An analogous situation from epidemiology suggests itself.  With regard
>to vaccinations, most of which have a small but non-zero chance of
>doing you harm, the ideal for you is for everyone else in the world
>except you to be vaccinated.

Assuming the disease is only transmitted between humans, not all are.

>Weeds come from weed seeds; insects come from other insects.  Perhaps
>this farmer's chemically soaked neighbors formed a weed-free,
>insect-free buffer around his farm which kept the invaders at bay.
>
>  -=- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew)       [UUCP]

This presumes essentially extinction of the species and such thorough
eradication that they cannot repopulate in this neighbors farm, and
what happened to whatever was already living in this neighbor's farm?
Did they just drop dead of grief for their insect-friends?  Highly
unlikely. More likely is his neighbors might have driven the entire
population of insects to this poison-free neighbor.

Or, put another way, it's astounding how easy it is to sit and make up
stupid arguments to back one's point of view.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University