> There is another side to arrogance: That of assuming that we are 
> capable of
> making a significant difference in our environment when compared to 
> the
> grand and awesome power of nature.

> I think we tend to have delusions of grandeur in some cases

in some cases, yes, but

> both with regard
> to our ability to improve the world, and also with regard to our 
> potential
> to damage it.

There is "no doubt" that it would be possible to purposefully or 
accidentally have GE destroy the overwhelming majority of human life 
on earth (my original comment specifically mentioned human life). A 
kill rate of 99% would be a doddle. That leaves about 50 million 
people. 99.9% shouldn't be too hard - 5 million left. That sounds 
'significant" to me. 99.999% - 500,000. If all the rest have something 
essentially indistinguishable from eg Ebola there's afair chance you'd 
get close to a clean sweep.

Getting the last few may be hard :-) - but quite possibly achievable. 
What you "need" is widespread dissemination (747), ease of 
dissemination, universal takeup (as infectious as the common cold), 
long totally inobvious incubation (as HIV had and has until it started 
working), and THEN a very rapid progression to end stage (possibly 
with a trigger). Something with similar characteristics at various 
stages to common cold, HIV and Ebola would be a good start. If you 
look at how New Orleans 'melted down' imagine the situation if 99.999% 
of everyone on earth contracted an Ebola like disease over a period of 
a few months.

Possible / doable? Certainly.
On purpose? Yes.
By accident? Yes.

And it would be possible, accidentally or purposefully, to make a 
product that targeted selected racial groups. (eg only 'true' Irish 
and Welshmen :-)  (Celtic genetics) ). Many other racially 
distinguishable groups would be just as doable. There would be some 
blurring at the edges in such cases but a few million either way is in 
most cases neither here nor there. (I actually thought of several 
racial groups where the prospect suddenly seems far more real due to 
past history and politics but I'll not be specific here).

"We" have already had an accidentally created mouse virus, whose 
effects were unknown until it was trialled, that met the fatality test 
BUT failed the transmissibility test. It is certain* that there are 
labs around the world working on this to "improve" it and use the 
lessons learned to make targeted products for various uses.

"We" have made Polio from base genetic stock. Many others are harder 
(eg Smallpox) but 'we are working on it'.

GE is a far greater potential threat than eg all out nuclear war.


            RM


* for almost all values of certain.



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