Public Benefit?

Science takes a giant step backwards in serving the public benefit when Berkeley and BP can cook up a deal as soggy as this one.

"One of the first casualties of the deal is already clear--the English language. The authors of this proposal have already begun a laundering operation, even before the deal is signed. Genetically modified organisms and biotechnology are nowhere to be seen. The brief era of "biotech" is over, it seems; a new age of "synthetic biology" is dawning. Oddly, we find ourselves back in a world of electricians, chemists and masons. Instead of living GMOs we are dealing with "DNA circuits"; instead of genes we find "biobricks". Plants no longer decompose; in this brave new science they undergo "depolymerization"."

Science has no means to accomplish public literacy if the technical language gets usurped by media implication. Mainstream alteration of the term organic is conspicuous as an example - all meat, dairy and produce is organic. The biofuel bandwagon is a steamroller that squashes any other legitimate attempt at energy solutions, while grinding up a lot of precipitate and not solving the technical aspects of the non-problem. Good work, if you can keep the populace barefoot and pregnantly paused over who might be the next american idol. Disappointing in that i had some respect for Berkeley science.