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Sir — The issues underlying the symbiosisof the institutions of civil and scientificadministration are crucial for the future ofsociety, and are addressed in a masterlyreport on risk by the Royal Society1, whichhas probably been read by less than 0.1 percent of the UK population. In this ill-defined context, the new parliaments inScotland and Wales have begun a process ofdevolving science policy and itsadministration.

Nature, the Royal Society and thepressure group Save British Science (SBS)have all considered the problem2,3. What isemerging seems to be a determination toequip the new parliaments with newministers for science, new supportingbureaucracies, and what has been describedoptimistically as a “science champion”. An“extra” £300 million (US$477 million) hasbeen promised by the UK government toScottish science over three years. The SBSimplies that Wales is more conscious thanScotland of the fact that the UnitedKingdom can hardly be described as anunmanageably large base for scientificendeavour and its administration. Thisindicates the usual obeisance that politicalparties pay to pressure groups.

Nothing, however, could be moredisastrous for UK science than afragmentation of the decision-making

system. The country certainly does notneed a separate Welsh or ScottishParliamentary Office of Science andTechnology (POST). It does need to ensurethat the services of POST are made availableto both new parliaments. Any additionalfunding required should be contributed bythe new parliaments.

New arrangements will not increase theresources of the institutions determiningscience policy in the United Kingdom as awhole. The £300 million allotted toScotland will inevitably reduce the sciencebudget elsewhere in the United Kingdom,unless the overall budget is increased.

Europe already has several ‘national’POSTs, most of which were modelled onthe UK POST or the US Office ofTechnology Assessment. The EuropeanParliament has established its ownassessment mechanism (STOA). All dependon a limited range of independent scientificadvice which should not be influenced bythe nationality or location of the scientistsinvolved. If policy judgements are now todepend on scientific advice to governments,or to legislatures required to endorse theirdecisions, the only relevant criterion is theintegrity of the analyses and those whocontribute to them. There is never anabundance of independent expertise andthe more novel the subject of the enquiry,

the greater the difficulty of establishing a‘peer group’ whose partiality is not seen tobe suspect by interested parties

The controversy over geneticallymodified foods exemplifies the need forpublic confidence in scientific opinion.Disagreements should be resolved withinthe scientific community and not bepresented as Scottish, Welsh, UK or anyother ‘national’ opinion. Good scienceneeds no national or sub-national prefix.

The UK parliament, for all its faults, wasthe first legislature to establish (in 1938) aParliamentary and Scientific Committee. Itsscience and technology select committeeshave ranged over innumerable controversialissues. The political problems generated bythe exponential advance of scientificknowledge are those that transcend nationalboundaries. They will not be solved by afragmentation of the scientific adviceprovided to the community in an ill-conceived expansion designed to appeasenational egos inflamed by political ambition.The fundamental internationalism ofscience must not be damaged, within oroutside the United Kingdom. Sir Ian LloydBakers House, Priors Dean, Petersfield GU32 1BS, UK1. Risk: Analysis, Perception and Management (Royal Society,

London, 1993).

2. Nature 399, 89 (1999).

3. Masood, E. Nature 399, 97 (1999).

Devolution threat to decision-making

Farm-scale evaluation ofGM crops explained

Sir — The first genetically modified (GM)crops being proposed for commercialplanting in the United Kingdom have beenaltered to make them less sensitive tobroad-spectrum herbicides. These crops areintended to allow more efficient weedmanagement and herbicide regimes for thefarmer, reduced frequency and quantity ofherbicide applications, and increasedmarket share for the suppliers. Work hasnow begun on farm-scale studies of maizeand spring oil-seed rape, with winter oil-seed rape studies starting later this year.Many objections to GM crops have beenraised, and there is pressure on farmers notto take part in this research programme (seeNature 398, 651–656; 1999). Indeed, onefarm, near Swindon in the west of England,has recently withdrawn from the study.

Because of the widespread publicinterest in GM crops, we, as representativesof the consortium commissioned toconduct this research, think it is worthwhileto outline the background and purpose of

these farm-scale evaluations. The researchaddresses the concern that the changingmanagement of the GM herbicide-tolerant(GMHT) crops could result in reductionsof weed and invertebrate populations onwhich farmland birds and other wildlifedepend. This concern has been voiced mostcogently by the conservation groupsEnglish Nature and the Royal Society forthe Protection of Birds (RSPB).

We are aiming to test the null hypothesisthat there are no differences between thebiodiversity associated with the growing ofGMHT crops and comparable non-GMcrops at the farm scale. The study will lookfor positive and negative effects. These arelikely to be indirect, resulting from crop androtation management, rather than from adirect effect of the use of GM plant breedingtechnology. Indeed, if herbicide resistancehad been introduced by traditionalbreeding, the design of the study wouldhave been the same. Farmers will grow andmanage both GM and non-GM crops asthey would do commercially.

The only constraints are that thevarieties being compared are as similar aspossible in other characteristics, and alsothat all other agronomic practices are kept

the same, unless commercial reasons dictateotherwise. So we anticipate that theherbicide regimes will differ, but that anyinsecticide or fungicide should be appliedto both treatments on each farm on thesame day, unless there are clear agronomicreasons that may in themselves be the resultof growing the different crops. We will alsoevaluate effects on biodiversity in followingcrops. These crops will be the same, and willbe managed in the same way, followingboth GM and non-GM treatments, unlessthere are clear agronomic reasons fordifferences in rotations or management.

It is not practical to record populationresponses for all species in the arablesystem. We are using indicators ofbiodiversity that are likely to be sensitive tothe treatments, and reflect processes thatmay lead to significant ecological shifts thatcannot be detected directly given the timeand spatial scales available for the study.Effort will be concentrated on speciesgroups that do not forage over wide areas oroccupy higher trophic levels. These includevegetation in and around the crop, the fieldseed bank, earthworms, snails and slugs,ground beetles, bugs (Heteroptera), foliagearthropods and invertebrate biomass (with

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moth and sawfly larvae measuredseparately). Bees and butterflies will also beassessed. These are all being recorded usingstandard protocols that are being tested andrefined during this year.

Birds are not included in the field studybecause they range too widely to show realeffects when only single fields are beingconsidered, although data on invertebratesand plants will provide measures ofresources available to them.

Work in the first season is on a pilot scale to ensure that monitoring is matchedto the details of crop management. Therewill then be three seasons of the summercrops and at least two of the winter crop, atthe full scale of around 20 treatment pairsper crop per year. We will select from thepool of available farms using a stratifiedrandom procedure; the experimentaltreatments will be allocated at randomwithin each farm. The GM and controlcrops will be grown in a split-field or apaired-field plan; work in this first year willconfirm which is the more appropriate.There are valid arguments for and againstboth configurations. In a split field, the twohalves of the field will have had similarhistories, reducing the variation inbiodiversity indicators before treatment.The paired-field design gives less chance ofinterference between the treatments and ismore realistic in terms of the structure ofthe field boundaries. Both configurationsare included in the first-year sites.

The work is being conducted by a UKconsortium of the Institute of TerrestrialEcology, the Institute of Arable CropsResearch and the Scottish Crop ResearchInstitute. It is funded by the Department ofthe Environment, Transport and theRegions, the Ministry of Agriculture,Fisheries and Food, and the Scottish Office.

A steering committee will oversee theprogress of the work and ensure thescientific quality and integrity of results.The committee includes independentscientists, including experts from EnglishNature, RSPB and the Game ConservancyTrust. Many results will not be availableuntil the end of the project in 2002.

The role of scientists is to provide theevidence on which to base a sound riskassessment of the effects of herbicide-tolerant GM crops on biodiversity.

Our evidence will, we trust, provide animportant input into a rational debateabout the adoption of GM crops.L. G. Firbank*, A. M. Dewar†, M. O. Hill‡,M. J. May†, J. N. Perry§, P. Rothery‡,G. R. Squire¶, I. P. Woiwod§*Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Merlewood ResearchStation, Grange-over-Sands LA11 6JU, UK†Institute of Arable Crops Research, Broom’s Barn‡Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Monks Wood§Institute of Arable Crops Research, Rothamsted¶Scottish Crop Research Institute

Bioethicists must comedown to Earth

Sir — You report, without critique, theopinion of Canadian bioethicist MargaretSomerville that “science will need to waitand to help ethics to catch up” (Nature 399,12; 1999). Any regular reader of yourjournal is sure to wonder on what planetSomerville has grown up. It is certainly notone on which science or private industryexist, for if it was she would surely know thelunacy of her proposition.

We would be better served if bioethicistswere willing and able to work within therealm of the modern, market-orientedworld to come up with practical solutionsto bioethical problems.Lee M. SilverDepartment of Molecular Biology, and WoodrowWilson School of Public and International Affairs,Princeton University,Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

Barking up thewrong pole

Sir — In a review of Freeman Dyson’s book,The Sun, the Genome and the Internet, Toolsof Scientific Revolutions, the reviewer writesof “such extravagances as bringing backlumps of rock from Mars, when nature hasalready left us generous supplies of the samematerial in the form of meteorites, mostlystill reposing in the Arctic ice” (Nature 398,770; 1999). I assume he is in fact referring tothe Antarctic blue ice meteorite recoveryareas such as Lewis Cliff, Antarctica.

It could be possible to recover more than100,000 meteorites in the Antarctic over thenext couple of decades. In 1986–87, forexample, we recovered several hundredmeteorites.Austin MardonAntarctic Institute of Canada, PO Box 1223, MainPost Office, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T5J 2M4

Let’s all speak thesame language

Sir — In your article on the fifth conferenceof the African Academy of Science, AliMazrui is reported as suggesting thatAfrican science is unlikely to develop whileEnglish remains the main medium ofcommunication (Nature 399, 12; 1999). Ican understand the desire to discuss one’swork in one’s own language, but I must

question how practical it would be in acontinent such as Africa where there aremany indigenous languages.

There have been several successful pan-African conferences on natural productschemistry, a subject which I think Mazruiwould consider valuable, in view of thescope that it offers for examiningtraditional medical knowledge. I could nothelp picturing what such a conferencewould be like if conducted in Africanlanguages, with simultaneous translationinto Arabic, Amharic, Swahili, Yorubaand Zulu.

Even deciding which to accept as officialconference languages might provokeendless disagreement. Possibly, Mazrui’ssuggestion might be more appropriate inthe romantic field of the literary world,rather than in the more practical scientificone. However nice as an idea, I think thatthe suggestion has little practical relevance.D. A. H. Taylor12 Avenue Road, Scarborough YO12 5JX, UK

German researcherswon’t be put in the dock

Sir — Your article “Animal rights activiststurn the screw” stated that the DeutscheTierschutzbund [a German animal welfareorganization] would “initiate court casesand injunctions against researchers” ifanimal protection were included in theGerman constitution (Nature 396, 505;1998). Contrary to this statement, theDeutsche Tierschutzbund has no intentionof doing so.

The proposed change to theconstitution aims to reinforce a 1986amendment to the German animal welfarelaw that introduced a requirement forlicensing procedures for experiments toinclude an ethical evaluation process. Theneed for this change arose after theConstitutional Court decided in 1994 thatsuch ethical evaluation is unconstitutional,because freedom of research is embodied inthe constitution, but animal welfare is not.

No animal welfare organization hadbrought a court case against researchersbefore 1994, so why should this change ifthe requirement for ethical evaluation issimply reinforced? Animal welfareorganizations will find it hard to takescientists to court or to have licencesrevoked: the licensing procedures willremain confidential, and the decision of theauthorities will rest on criteria that are notheard at court.Wolfgang Apel(President)Deutsche Tierschutzbund,Baumschulallee 15, 53115 Bonn, Germany

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