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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast Georgian Ory

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Speaker 1: with you, Peter Ward back with us. Peter has been

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Speaker 1: very active in paleotology, biology astrobiology since his PhD in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six. He has published more than one hundred

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Speaker 1: and forty scientific papers dealing with the paleontology, zoology and

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Speaker 1: astronomical topics. He is an acknowledged world expert on mass

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Speaker 1: extinctions and the role of extraterrestrial impacts on Earth. Peter,

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Speaker 1: welcome back to the program, hrs. It's great to talk

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Speaker 1: to you again. Always a pleasure. Things just keep happening.

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Speaker 1: They don't stop in our world, do they They don't.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things that didn't stop me last

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Speaker 1: week was doing the San Diego to Comic Con, the

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Speaker 1: first one ever, and that was a zoo. It is

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Speaker 1: a great people down there, lots of spectators and I

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Speaker 1: did you have fun? Well? I did, but there were

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Speaker 1: one hundred and forty thousand paid people there. And the

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Speaker 1: trouble is there were so people trying to get into

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Speaker 1: the various venues. They started selling the right to sleep

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Speaker 1: out so you could be in the line that might

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Speaker 1: get you into the venue. The next day, I was

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Speaker 1: actually talking about super Soldiers, so I got in free

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Speaker 1: and got to go to a few of the venues.

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Speaker 1: But I've the first of all I've been to and

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Speaker 1: was the customs are amazing. I mean, people were really

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Speaker 1: having a great time. They do well. When we talk

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Speaker 1: about super Soldiers, Peter, are we talking about high sci fi? No,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about reality. And the reality is, of course,

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Speaker 1: if you can insert a gene to increase whatever soldier needs,

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Speaker 1: and soldiers need to be able to be efficient, to

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Speaker 1: kill easily, but to be strong, to exist with very

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Speaker 1: little water, to go without sleep, to do without much food,

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Speaker 1: to be smart, to be tall, to be big, each

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Speaker 1: of those things actually can be enhanced by inserting just

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Speaker 1: one gene. We know this is the case. The Chinese

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Speaker 1: inserted one gene into a couple of dogs with tiny, little,

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Speaker 1: skinny dogs, and they turned into these great, big muscular brutes.

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Speaker 1: One gene for enhanced muscles, so we know what can happen.

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Speaker 1: And the Chinese also, separately, for the very first time,

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Speaker 1: use this technique on a human embryo. They're not supposed

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Speaker 1: to the scientific world crazy, but they did it. They said, yep,

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Speaker 1: we can do this. So Georgsky really think the militaries

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Speaker 1: of the world aren't keeping tabs on this. Oh, I

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Speaker 1: think they're probably watching it, and you know what, they

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Speaker 1: probably Peter have been experimenting on it. Oh. I totally agree.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I just think this is the hend is

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Speaker 1: out of the henhouse or whatever. You're saying, that the

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Speaker 1: cats are among the dogs. It's crazy. Ever, the thing

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Speaker 1: is really going to explode, and I suspect it's already

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Speaker 1: taken place in militaries that have technical expertise in biology

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Speaker 1: around the world right now. How dangerous is genetic engineering?

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Speaker 1: We're playing around with mother Nature. There's both the good

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Speaker 1: side and the bad side. I mean, the reason that

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Speaker 1: this engineering is being touted is it can help remove

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Speaker 1: some of the most assiduous and god awful diseases, genetic

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Speaker 1: diseases that plague mankind. This could be a great boon

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Speaker 1: for good. But as in anything else, George, it's like

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Speaker 1: atomic energy. There's been so much great good coming out

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Speaker 1: of atomic energy with electricity, and yet we know atomic

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Speaker 1: bombs are quite the opposite of that. So it's like

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Speaker 1: the double edged sword and that there's so much good,

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Speaker 1: then there could be so much bad. Let's look at

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Speaker 1: those upsides and downsides with genetic engineering. What would you

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Speaker 1: think could be the downside of genetic engineering? What could

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Speaker 1: go wrong? Peter, Well, so much can go wrong. The

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Speaker 1: thing about genes is that we think that our genetic

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Speaker 1: code is something that is fixed, and that during our

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Speaker 1: lives nothing could affect those genes, No genes could be

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Speaker 1: added in normal circumstances. That's probably correct. But what we're

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Speaker 1: doing with the agricultural products George more and more is

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Speaker 1: inserting genes that can make our yield be better. So,

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Speaker 1: for instance, if you want to be able to kill

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Speaker 1: more bugs, why not insert a gene into the insects

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Speaker 1: you want to live like bees that you're not putting

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Speaker 1: into the insects you want to kill, like the roaches

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Speaker 1: and the weevils. So what you can do is put

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Speaker 1: pesticide all over the field. The bees live, all the

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Speaker 1: bad bugs die. Do the same with pesticides and herbicides,

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Speaker 1: trying to get rid of the bad weeds. But let

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Speaker 1: the corn exists. The problem is genes don't stay in

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Speaker 1: the bottle. The genie or the genes always jump out

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Speaker 1: of the bottle, and the wishes you usually get aren't

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Speaker 1: anything you really want. We have genes escaping and agricultural fields.

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Speaker 1: Now it's going to happen. It has happened, and as

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Speaker 1: we get more sophisticated in putting artificial genes into things,

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Speaker 1: the consequences can be disastrous. Well, you know that's exactly right,

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Speaker 1: because in most movies about genies popping out of the bottle,

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Speaker 1: they give an individual a wish, and they always preface

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Speaker 1: it by saying they all have consequences. So you may

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Speaker 1: want to wish for, you know, an unlimited amount of money,

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Speaker 1: but he then he turns you into a human with

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Speaker 1: no arms and legs. You know, you're the richest guy

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Speaker 1: in the world. But what can you do. It's a conundrum,

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Speaker 1: all right. I mean, science is obviously for such great

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Speaker 1: good and for so many positive aspects. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: there's always a dark side. And what we have to

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Speaker 1: do is come up with some sort of new way

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Speaker 1: of controlling this particular genie. This equivalent towards to atomic energy,

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Speaker 1: and say forty six and forty seven, where only a

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Speaker 1: very small number of humans could harness it, but more

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Speaker 1: and more wanted it, and you had more and more

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Speaker 1: bad actors who could understand I could use this for

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Speaker 1: evil as well as good. Peter didn't Albert Einstein kick

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Speaker 1: himself after he came up with his E equals MC

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Speaker 1: square formula. You know, that guy is such an interesting character.

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Speaker 1: Where I went to graduate school, George at McMaster University

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Speaker 1: right by Toronto, they had his brain after he died.

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Speaker 1: Somehow the Canadians where I was to school were able

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Speaker 1: to obtain the brain and they found it was anatomically

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Speaker 1: quite different from normal human brains. They had many more ridges.

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Speaker 1: So who knows what that guy was thinking. Well, that's

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Speaker 1: true too. Now with the genetic engineering, what are the

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Speaker 1: good things that could happen? Well, we need food. We've

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Speaker 1: got more and more people. How are we going to

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Speaker 1: feed them? So what we can do is start engineering

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Speaker 1: certain plants to have a greater yield. As there's more

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Speaker 1: and more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and things turned

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Speaker 1: into greater heat for fields, and we've seen the scorching summers. George,

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Speaker 1: did you see what's going on in Europe? Oh, it's horrible. Now, Alaska,

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Speaker 1: that's the one that struck me. I mean, I've seen

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Speaker 1: the heat waves in Europe. They're having fires like crazy

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Speaker 1: out there. Well, I mean it was in June that

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Speaker 1: Anchorage was eighty four eighty five degrees. Yeah, crazy. So

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Speaker 1: you can engineer plants and put in genes that allow

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Speaker 1: them to withstand greater heat. So those are the good things.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we really will need more food on this

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Speaker 1: planet as our population goes from his current seven delion

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Speaker 1: and change to up to ten dollion. How we get

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Speaker 1: to feed everybody? And so here's the best possibility of

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Speaker 1: moving forward is genetically engineer certain crops to have greater yield,

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Speaker 1: to have shorter times to fruition the seeds Germany better

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Speaker 1: that we get rid of passing greater extent. It's all

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Speaker 1: the stuff that can feed us, I think the greatest things.

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Speaker 1: Jean Peter, though, I gotta tell you I'm not a

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Speaker 1: GMO type guy. I mean, I'm opposed to genetically modified

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Speaker 1: foods because I think they're going to screw it up. Well,

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Speaker 1: there are going to screw it up. The genes do jump,

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Speaker 1: and Europeans are certainly pointed out this. But on the

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Speaker 1: other hand that I mean, there are legitimate reasons to

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Speaker 1: accept some of these. You could almost make the analogy

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Speaker 1: charge is you're not opposed to antibiotics, are you? I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is something new that was but they can be abused,

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Speaker 1: both used. But there's something modern society has finally accepted.

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Speaker 1: We all have to make choices. And the choices now

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Speaker 1: are we have to feed the world or the amount

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Speaker 1: of conflict just raises exponentially. So the genetic engineer is

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Speaker 1: here to stay. Nobody's going to stop it. And it

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Speaker 1: is a case of can we regulate it and can

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Speaker 1: we put in safeguards? And that's where the arguments really

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Speaker 1: need to be among most concerned people. And trust me,

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Speaker 1: we should all be concerned about this. What if the

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Speaker 1: super soldier who's been modified becomes a super monster? Well

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Speaker 1: how could it not be a monster? In away? I mean,

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Speaker 1: what do you do when you have a Frankenstein? Well

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Speaker 1: you're looking. I mean it's such a sciencefici and trope.

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Speaker 1: You know, there have been any number of I think

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Speaker 1: the brand new Fast and Furious features Indris Elba. He

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Speaker 1: is a genetically modified superhuman. It's in the theaters this week.

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Speaker 1: It's not just sort of theoretical though we haven't yet

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Speaker 1: produced super soldiers US and is will we let it

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Speaker 1: happen or will it be there be some sort of

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Speaker 1: scientific or government or how do you stop it? I mean,

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Speaker 1: who has the control of the biological labs? Not? This

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Speaker 1: is a case I've been trying to make. There has

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Speaker 1: to be control somehow. I mean, there's just too much

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Speaker 1: possibility of disaster by jenes jumping into the wrong creatures.

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Speaker 1: Is the United Nations doing anything to control this as

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Speaker 1: an organization? As a group, have you ever known them

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Speaker 1: to be effective at anything? And no, sure I have

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Speaker 1: not committees and it's just a get It's very similar

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Speaker 1: to forty six scientists. We're all ringing our hands about

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Speaker 1: atomic energy. Oh my gosh, we can't let this happen.

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Speaker 1: We're not going to let the government have it. The

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Speaker 1: scientists are noble scientists, will keep it. We'll keep it,

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Speaker 1: will make it safe. And the US government said, okay,

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Speaker 1: thank you for the bomb, and now go away and

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Speaker 1: the government will take care of it. So we're in

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Speaker 1: a place where no one has really the ability to

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Speaker 1: say don't do that. That you could tell them. Do

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Speaker 1: you think anybody in China is saying don't militarize this.

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Speaker 1: So DARPA, I know our defense forces, they are looking

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Speaker 1: at it, the Europeans are. Everybody has to. It's another

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Speaker 1: arms race. The arms now are jeans. Listen to more

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Speaker 1: Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at one am Eastern

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Speaker 1: and go to Coast to Coast am dot com for

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Speaker 1: more