Alright, I'll cut you some slack then. But it was your initial "demand" that GM foods be contained for fifty years -- which you admit was hyperbole -- that triggered the neo-luddite detector. Especially since you picked a term that exceeded a human generation or two.
But exactly what risks are you concerned about? You want a moratorium on exploitation of the research done to date, but what are you afraid might be missed? Certainly, as a "computer scientist" you must be familiar with the manipulation of public opinion that comes with FUD, so I'm sure you have something concrete upon which to base your restrictions. After all, we're not talking about a wholesale replacement of all agricultural products at once here. Certainly, the existing organic industry won't be hopping on the GM bandwagon anytime soon!
Oh, I assure you that I did read your post, and if you failed to adequately address anything but a neo-luddite approach to genetic engineering, then that is hardly anyone's fault but your own.
If you want GM to "be practiced in labs for another 50 years, and the results not be let out into the wild until we know exactly what all the primary, secondary and tertiary affects[sic] are", then what exactly is your motivation other than to assure the technology is safe, and thus to prove a negative? Because I can assure you, after fifty years of study, there will be a fresh generation of neo-luddites insisting that after fifty years we still don't know how the GM will impact the wild, so we should study it another fifty years.
At no point in the past have we ever placed such a ridiculous burden upon any new technology...even the FDA doesn't mandate protocols that take more than about a decade -- and that's seen by many as egregious already. But no! You're suggesting we sit on this technology for half a century. And who pays for that research? Because no commercial interest will even glance at something with such a long-range pay-off. Right now, companies are spending millions on that research because they know they are only a few years away from realizing a huge profit. But if they are forced to sit on their results for as long as you suggest, virtually no work would be done unless it was funded by taxpayers. Great. There's another drain on my paycheck that some well-meaning, but shallow-thinker decided is best handled by the Federal government.
And one last thing: We can ALL by no means survive without modern conveniences...particularly those which I cited and you appear to reference. Take away modern transportation, and all the infrastructure that assures you that food gets to your table, that electricity lights your room, and that heat warms your house in the winter will go away. And although you might view that as a convenience, modern agriculture would collapse completely without them. So in the end you would be left starving and huddled in your cold home waiting for an unpleasant and inevitable end.
Mr. Funnypants, allow me to high-five you! Why do posters like you come out of the woodwork only when I have no moderation points with which to reward great posts?
Perhaps you'd like us to do the same thing with all technological and scientific progress. Let's see, for example, modern transportation kills thousands of people a year and many more plants and animals. And what about cellphones? Despite a complete absence of evidence of harm, there are plenty of people who claim they kill people one way or another, so maybe they should be set on a shelf and studied longer. How about the light bulb? That invention lets people stay up late so they don't get enough sleep and aren't alert enough to avoid injuring or killing with heavy machines.
The whole problem with such a precautionary principle is that it places the burden of proof on the researchers who develop new technologies to prove that something is safe...essentially proving a negative. Proving a negative is impossible. The logically correct approach is to require proof that something is unsafe before it is banned. And even then, as in the case of the automobile, perhaps it is best to be willing to accept the bad with the good.
And to this date no fish has bred with a cow. Nor have any bacteria bred with any plants. What is happening is a snippet from (using your example) a fish's genetic code is being placed into that of a cow. With the result that a single, desirable trait possessed by the fish is now expressed by the cow. This isn't cat's sleeping with dogs, people!
Try looking at it from a programming perspective -- after all, genes are basically protein programs -- if you see a function in a spreadsheet that would be useful in a 3D application, you could try coding the function on your own, or you could look at the source of the spreadsheet application (it's genetic code) and move the relevant subroutines over to the 3D application.
It makes no difference if the code that went into the cow came from another cow, or from a fish, or from a dandelion. At the level of individual genes, there is nothing unique to a species that one could use to say "This gene came from a cow and should therefore stay out of my tomato!" Just as there are no individual CPU instructions unique to a spreadsheet that should stay out of other applications.
Another point to consider is that this study looks at temperatures between 1981 and 1998, and while the trend between those years indicates an increase, it's quite possible that chosing a different start and end point (say 1979 through 2001) would indicate a different trend.
I'm also curious what researchers like Fred Singer would have to say about this. His work, a study of upper atmosphere temperatures from 1979 to the present) indicates extremely slight warming to none at all and is confirmed by data gathered by radiosonde balloons.
That balance has yet to be struck, I fear, because of the Precautionary Principle. Anyone can come up with a wild-eyed notion of how a new or existing technology could be dangerous and that person will not only find plenty of support from various hand-wringing alarmists, but legislators ready and willing to regulate things they don't understand and a media eager to scare us. Not only are we strangling technologies and industries that were once considered vital, but now it's starting to get pre-emptive as extremists try to block GMOs and nanotechnology before there's a chance for people to see any good.
The balance will come when people look at technologies and industries and weigh the risks against the benefit. Today, risks are blown out of proportion with no consideration given to benefits.
Re:Which OS has pull down screens like the Amiga?
on
Amiga Sells AmigaOS
·
· Score: 2, Informative
That's funny...I had a bunch of Amigas, none of which were ever hooked up to a TV for more than a few minutes, and yet I did that all the time. The ability to manage a collection of screens individually was a function of the graphics co-processor.
Okay. I'll accept that. Thank you for the information.
[thinks a moment]
But then what will prevent lawyers from dreaming up ways to inflate compensatory damages and get us to exactly the same place once punitive damages no longer go to the victim?
Then how does the victim of actual negligence or intent recover medical or material costs? You're right that there is a reward here for greedy behavior, but that reward (punitive damages) is intended to assist the victim through difficult consequences of the defendent's actions.
Caught you being self-contradictory too many times, didn't I? That's okay, you didn't seem too interested in holding up your end of the debate anyway. Take care -- maybe next time!
Hold on a second. In the first sentence of your last post you claim that you "can't see where in my post I said this" (claiming that food availability does not impact species size). Then in your next paragraph you go on to try to refute that very same idea by calling it homespun rhetoric. You aren't consistent from one paragraph to the next in the same post! Look, go read up on Evolution. TalkOrigins is a good place to start. Then do some research on a man named Edward Drinker Cope. My "homespun rhetoric" is an outgrowth of ideas he expressed about 130 years ago. Along the way, read some Stephen Gould and pay particular attention to the studies of marine iguana populations by Martin Wikelski. I think you'll be amused by the work of Farji-Brener, et al on the selection of ant size by food availability in terrain interstices. Finally, go take a look at the "Dwarf Mammoths" of Wrangle Island and the mechanisms proposed for their size change. When you're done, I think you'll agree that food availability has just as much an impact on species body size as it does on the size of an individual.
"Well, it could happen but there are quite a few pre-requistites. There would have to be some distinct genetic reason for the "wheelers" to wheel when the "neck breakers" flew straight on (a mutation that led to improved eyesight, say), and then there would have to be enough risk of this kind of death throughout the populations of the species affected to favour the difference."
If there isn't enough risk to favor the difference, then why is it an issue in the first place? And the simple fact that some individuals show window avoidance strategies means that there is a genetic advantage possessed by those individuals that can be passed on to surviving generations. The mechanism might not be as simple as an improved eye. It might be an avoidance of rectangular volumes. It might be sensitivity to windflow changes. Or avoidance of reflections. Or glare. Windows usually are accompanied by terrain changes below them like a garden or window boxes. Surviving birds might simply be smart enough to pick up on these cues and live to reproduce.
But after admitting above that my scenario could happen, you then contradict yourself again and stubbornly assert, "Basically, it's just not going to happen." WHY?
Let's cut to the crux of this dance. You're one of these folks who look at everything humans do as wrong, aren't you? Glass kills many birds every year, so despite the fact that bird populations overall seem to be doing just fine anyway, you'd have us do something to reduce "the environmental impact of [our behavior]" and (I'm forced to assume) stop using glass. Why stop at concern for birds? Because that's as low as you can go and still find 'em cute? How about the rodent populations that are killed by exterminators? How about that poor termite population in your house or apartment? Maybe people should stop using mouthwash because of the adverse impact it has on oral bacteria. Maybe we should stop using chlorine in water treatment facilities because of the negative effect it has on cholera populations. Really, it's tough to say what your position is on this issue, because so far you haven't displayed the courage to come right out and state it. Instead, you've been playing contrarian games with TwistedGreen and I.
Here's my position, so you aren't forced to draw your own conclusions: Every species on this planet has an impact on those that share its environment. The really successful species enjoy life at the expense of numerous others, and evolution forces all species to continuously adapt to this. Beavers, for example, cause catastrophic damage to the environments they alter. Humans are no different in this regard than any other. The one difference that we do have is a quality of mercy. We generally have sympathy for the suffering of other lifeforms and do what we can to alter it. Even hunters usually don't like to see an animal suffer (although I'm sure some do), a
Alright, then. Your first inaccuracy is in claiming that food availability does not impact the size of a species. In fact, while it is not the sole determinant of the body mass of a species, it is a significant one. Very simply put, larger animals require more food. Generally, any given species will occupy a continuum of genetically predetermined body sizes. Within this continuum, the larger individuals will require more food, and the smaller will require less. When nutritional sources are scarce, large individuals will have more difficulty meeting their nutritional needs than small ones -- thus, fewer will survive to sexual maturity to pass on their genes. Famines are thus an evolutionary pressure that prunes genes determining large body masses from the species in favor of smaller masses.
During nutritionally plentiful times, the pressure on large individuals is diminished. While there is no direct selection process related to food that favors larger individuals, there are other environmental pressures that favor large size. Large individuals fare better against the species's principle predators. Large individuals defend their territory better. Large individuals endure temporary cold better. Most importantly, large individuals are favored for reproduction. The end result of all these pressures is that genes that favor large body size in individuals are more likely to be passed on than small body sizes. Thus, indirectly, an evolutionary pressure exists that pushes species size higher during plentiful times.
When you said, "This is more true of individuals than species," you completely disregarded the role of individuals in passing on their genes and thereby influencing species genetic characteristics.
Your second inaccuracy lies in your consideration of the extinction of dodos, moas, and passenger pigeons as exempt from the evolutionary process. Evolution is not just the development of a single species, but the development of all species within a closed system. While the loss of the dodo was a horrific blow to all dodo-hood and can't really be seen as contributing to the development of that species, it did result in environmental changes that provided other species opportunities that the dodo had formerly reserved to itself. With the extinction of the dodo, any competitive forces it exerted were removed from the Mauritius Island ecology, and other animals adapted to this.
Now, it would be dishonest of me if I didn't mention that the environmental influences of the dodo were overshadowed by the deforestation and predators the Dutch sailors brought with them when they settled the island, but remember that evolution is a continuous process that involves all species, including humans. Humans evolved a brain capable of creating a technological civilization and the changes to all species as a result to that are ongoing -- just like the predatory evolution of sharp teeth. We aren't distinct from the natural world, we are a part of a natural world that now includes humanity's production of technology. To claim that human-induced deforestation or skyscrapers aren't natural is akin to claiming that a beaver's dam or a falcon's nest isn't natural.
You scoffed at the notion that birds could evolve the sense to avoid glass buildings, but I don't understand why that shouldn't be the case. Assuming that humans continue to erect tall glass or otherwise transparent structures for the next few thousand years, I'm sure there are enough visual cues present that evolution will provide birds with the instinct to avoid them. I have already seen birds wheel away from a window just before impacting it...why is it so hard to believe that these animals will survive to pass on their genes while those that unceremoniously break their beaks and necks on the surface will not?
Disregarding your post's minor inaccuracies for the moment, what is your point? That environmental pressures do not impact on the evolutionary development of species?
By your rather heavy-handed definition, the extinctions of the Dodo, the Moa and the passenger pigeon are all the result of evolution.
After all, the stupid birds should have just evolved kevlar feathers.
And he's exactly right. Evolution of species happens largely because of environmental pressures. Plenty of food? Species get bigger. Not much food? Species get smaller. Humans put enormous evolutionary pressure on many species. Those that adapt quickly do well (common pigeons). The others...
And what will hold that chicken wire in place and upright in varying weather conditions? And what will keep spiders from covering the thing in webbing and thereby further reduce turbine efficiency? And what happens when an endangered species of spider spins its web in your chicken wire?
Yeah, keep saying that until the batteries on your laser are drained and all you're left with is a useless gadget and an army of surviving, angry monkeys armed with sticks and stones waiting for a chance to retaliate.
A minor correction: According to the new show, when the Galactica was built there was one Battlestar for each colony. Galactica represented Caprica. But by the time of the show, there were many more. In one engagement, thirty Battlestars were lost, "a quarter of the fleet" according to one of the characters.
Slashdot Mirror
Alright, I'll cut you some slack then. But it was your initial "demand" that GM foods be contained for fifty years -- which you admit was hyperbole -- that triggered the neo-luddite detector. Especially since you picked a term that exceeded a human generation or two.
But exactly what risks are you concerned about? You want a moratorium on exploitation of the research done to date, but what are you afraid might be missed? Certainly, as a "computer scientist" you must be familiar with the manipulation of public opinion that comes with FUD, so I'm sure you have something concrete upon which to base your restrictions. After all, we're not talking about a wholesale replacement of all agricultural products at once here. Certainly, the existing organic industry won't be hopping on the GM bandwagon anytime soon!
Oh, I assure you that I did read your post, and if you failed to adequately address anything but a neo-luddite approach to genetic engineering, then that is hardly anyone's fault but your own.
If you want GM to "be practiced in labs for another 50 years, and the results not be let out into the wild until we know exactly what all the primary, secondary and tertiary affects[sic] are", then what exactly is your motivation other than to assure the technology is safe, and thus to prove a negative? Because I can assure you, after fifty years of study, there will be a fresh generation of neo-luddites insisting that after fifty years we still don't know how the GM will impact the wild, so we should study it another fifty years.
At no point in the past have we ever placed such a ridiculous burden upon any new technology...even the FDA doesn't mandate protocols that take more than about a decade -- and that's seen by many as egregious already. But no! You're suggesting we sit on this technology for half a century. And who pays for that research? Because no commercial interest will even glance at something with such a long-range pay-off. Right now, companies are spending millions on that research because they know they are only a few years away from realizing a huge profit. But if they are forced to sit on their results for as long as you suggest, virtually no work would be done unless it was funded by taxpayers. Great. There's another drain on my paycheck that some well-meaning, but shallow-thinker decided is best handled by the Federal government.
And one last thing: We can ALL by no means survive without modern conveniences...particularly those which I cited and you appear to reference. Take away modern transportation, and all the infrastructure that assures you that food gets to your table, that electricity lights your room, and that heat warms your house in the winter will go away. And although you might view that as a convenience, modern agriculture would collapse completely without them. So in the end you would be left starving and huddled in your cold home waiting for an unpleasant and inevitable end.
Mr. Funnypants, allow me to high-five you! Why do posters like you come out of the woodwork only when I have no moderation points with which to reward great posts?
Perhaps you'd like us to do the same thing with all technological and scientific progress. Let's see, for example, modern transportation kills thousands of people a year and many more plants and animals. And what about cellphones? Despite a complete absence of evidence of harm, there are plenty of people who claim they kill people one way or another, so maybe they should be set on a shelf and studied longer. How about the light bulb? That invention lets people stay up late so they don't get enough sleep and aren't alert enough to avoid injuring or killing with heavy machines.
The whole problem with such a precautionary principle is that it places the burden of proof on the researchers who develop new technologies to prove that something is safe...essentially proving a negative. Proving a negative is impossible. The logically correct approach is to require proof that something is unsafe before it is banned. And even then, as in the case of the automobile, perhaps it is best to be willing to accept the bad with the good.
And to this date no fish has bred with a cow. Nor have any bacteria bred with any plants. What is happening is a snippet from (using your example) a fish's genetic code is being placed into that of a cow. With the result that a single, desirable trait possessed by the fish is now expressed by the cow. This isn't cat's sleeping with dogs, people!
Try looking at it from a programming perspective -- after all, genes are basically protein programs -- if you see a function in a spreadsheet that would be useful in a 3D application, you could try coding the function on your own, or you could look at the source of the spreadsheet application (it's genetic code) and move the relevant subroutines over to the 3D application.
It makes no difference if the code that went into the cow came from another cow, or from a fish, or from a dandelion. At the level of individual genes, there is nothing unique to a species that one could use to say "This gene came from a cow and should therefore stay out of my tomato!" Just as there are no individual CPU instructions unique to a spreadsheet that should stay out of other applications.
You silly Trek-Geek! Next thing you know, you'll be telling us all about Lefler's Laws!
Oops...I mean...oh frell!
Another point to consider is that this study looks at temperatures between 1981 and 1998, and while the trend between those years indicates an increase, it's quite possible that chosing a different start and end point (say 1979 through 2001) would indicate a different trend.
I'm also curious what researchers like Fred Singer would have to say about this. His work, a study of upper atmosphere temperatures from 1979 to the present) indicates extremely slight warming to none at all and is confirmed by data gathered by radiosonde balloons.
That balance has yet to be struck, I fear, because of the Precautionary Principle. Anyone can come up with a wild-eyed notion of how a new or existing technology could be dangerous and that person will not only find plenty of support from various hand-wringing alarmists, but legislators ready and willing to regulate things they don't understand and a media eager to scare us. Not only are we strangling technologies and industries that were once considered vital, but now it's starting to get pre-emptive as extremists try to block GMOs and nanotechnology before there's a chance for people to see any good.
The balance will come when people look at technologies and industries and weigh the risks against the benefit. Today, risks are blown out of proportion with no consideration given to benefits.
Um...times sixty. [frigging "Slow Down Cowboy" messages!]
Approximately thirty-six seconds.
That's funny...I had a bunch of Amigas, none of which were ever hooked up to a TV for more than a few minutes, and yet I did that all the time. The ability to manage a collection of screens individually was a function of the graphics co-processor.
Okay. I'll accept that. Thank you for the information. [thinks a moment] But then what will prevent lawyers from dreaming up ways to inflate compensatory damages and get us to exactly the same place once punitive damages no longer go to the victim?
Then how does the victim of actual negligence or intent recover medical or material costs? You're right that there is a reward here for greedy behavior, but that reward (punitive damages) is intended to assist the victim through difficult consequences of the defendent's actions.
Caught you being self-contradictory too many times, didn't I? That's okay, you didn't seem too interested in holding up your end of the debate anyway. Take care -- maybe next time!
Hold on a second. In the first sentence of your last post you claim that you "can't see where in my post I said this" (claiming that food availability does not impact species size). Then in your next paragraph you go on to try to refute that very same idea by calling it homespun rhetoric. You aren't consistent from one paragraph to the next in the same post! Look, go read up on Evolution. TalkOrigins is a good place to start. Then do some research on a man named Edward Drinker Cope. My "homespun rhetoric" is an outgrowth of ideas he expressed about 130 years ago. Along the way, read some Stephen Gould and pay particular attention to the studies of marine iguana populations by Martin Wikelski. I think you'll be amused by the work of Farji-Brener, et al on the selection of ant size by food availability in terrain interstices. Finally, go take a look at the "Dwarf Mammoths" of Wrangle Island and the mechanisms proposed for their size change. When you're done, I think you'll agree that food availability has just as much an impact on species body size as it does on the size of an individual.
"Well, it could happen but there are quite a few pre-requistites. There would have to be some distinct genetic reason for the "wheelers" to wheel when the "neck breakers" flew straight on (a mutation that led to improved eyesight, say), and then there would have to be enough risk of this kind of death throughout the populations of the species affected to favour the difference."
If there isn't enough risk to favor the difference, then why is it an issue in the first place? And the simple fact that some individuals show window avoidance strategies means that there is a genetic advantage possessed by those individuals that can be passed on to surviving generations. The mechanism might not be as simple as an improved eye. It might be an avoidance of rectangular volumes. It might be sensitivity to windflow changes. Or avoidance of reflections. Or glare. Windows usually are accompanied by terrain changes below them like a garden or window boxes. Surviving birds might simply be smart enough to pick up on these cues and live to reproduce.
But after admitting above that my scenario could happen, you then contradict yourself again and stubbornly assert, "Basically, it's just not going to happen." WHY?
Let's cut to the crux of this dance. You're one of these folks who look at everything humans do as wrong, aren't you? Glass kills many birds every year, so despite the fact that bird populations overall seem to be doing just fine anyway, you'd have us do something to reduce "the environmental impact of [our behavior]" and (I'm forced to assume) stop using glass. Why stop at concern for birds? Because that's as low as you can go and still find 'em cute? How about the rodent populations that are killed by exterminators? How about that poor termite population in your house or apartment? Maybe people should stop using mouthwash because of the adverse impact it has on oral bacteria. Maybe we should stop using chlorine in water treatment facilities because of the negative effect it has on cholera populations. Really, it's tough to say what your position is on this issue, because so far you haven't displayed the courage to come right out and state it. Instead, you've been playing contrarian games with TwistedGreen and I.
Here's my position, so you aren't forced to draw your own conclusions: Every species on this planet has an impact on those that share its environment. The really successful species enjoy life at the expense of numerous others, and evolution forces all species to continuously adapt to this. Beavers, for example, cause catastrophic damage to the environments they alter. Humans are no different in this regard than any other. The one difference that we do have is a quality of mercy. We generally have sympathy for the suffering of other lifeforms and do what we can to alter it. Even hunters usually don't like to see an animal suffer (although I'm sure some do), a
Alright, then. Your first inaccuracy is in claiming that food availability does not impact the size of a species. In fact, while it is not the sole determinant of the body mass of a species, it is a significant one. Very simply put, larger animals require more food. Generally, any given species will occupy a continuum of genetically predetermined body sizes. Within this continuum, the larger individuals will require more food, and the smaller will require less. When nutritional sources are scarce, large individuals will have more difficulty meeting their nutritional needs than small ones -- thus, fewer will survive to sexual maturity to pass on their genes. Famines are thus an evolutionary pressure that prunes genes determining large body masses from the species in favor of smaller masses.
During nutritionally plentiful times, the pressure on large individuals is diminished. While there is no direct selection process related to food that favors larger individuals, there are other environmental pressures that favor large size. Large individuals fare better against the species's principle predators. Large individuals defend their territory better. Large individuals endure temporary cold better. Most importantly, large individuals are favored for reproduction. The end result of all these pressures is that genes that favor large body size in individuals are more likely to be passed on than small body sizes. Thus, indirectly, an evolutionary pressure exists that pushes species size higher during plentiful times.
When you said, "This is more true of individuals than species," you completely disregarded the role of individuals in passing on their genes and thereby influencing species genetic characteristics. Your second inaccuracy lies in your consideration of the extinction of dodos, moas, and passenger pigeons as exempt from the evolutionary process. Evolution is not just the development of a single species, but the development of all species within a closed system. While the loss of the dodo was a horrific blow to all dodo-hood and can't really be seen as contributing to the development of that species, it did result in environmental changes that provided other species opportunities that the dodo had formerly reserved to itself. With the extinction of the dodo, any competitive forces it exerted were removed from the Mauritius Island ecology, and other animals adapted to this.
Now, it would be dishonest of me if I didn't mention that the environmental influences of the dodo were overshadowed by the deforestation and predators the Dutch sailors brought with them when they settled the island, but remember that evolution is a continuous process that involves all species, including humans. Humans evolved a brain capable of creating a technological civilization and the changes to all species as a result to that are ongoing -- just like the predatory evolution of sharp teeth. We aren't distinct from the natural world, we are a part of a natural world that now includes humanity's production of technology. To claim that human-induced deforestation or skyscrapers aren't natural is akin to claiming that a beaver's dam or a falcon's nest isn't natural.
You scoffed at the notion that birds could evolve the sense to avoid glass buildings, but I don't understand why that shouldn't be the case. Assuming that humans continue to erect tall glass or otherwise transparent structures for the next few thousand years, I'm sure there are enough visual cues present that evolution will provide birds with the instinct to avoid them. I have already seen birds wheel away from a window just before impacting it...why is it so hard to believe that these animals will survive to pass on their genes while those that unceremoniously break their beaks and necks on the surface will not?
Disregarding your post's minor inaccuracies for the moment, what is your point? That environmental pressures do not impact on the evolutionary development of species?
At least the Borg can climb stairs...
I've heard that theory, too. But Venus has no magnetic field to speak of, either, and has a much more dense atmosphere than the Earth.
And what will hold that chicken wire in place and upright in varying weather conditions? And what will keep spiders from covering the thing in webbing and thereby further reduce turbine efficiency? And what happens when an endangered species of spider spins its web in your chicken wire?
Why ship them to Guantanamo? My dinner table will make for a fine incarceration.
Yeah, keep saying that until the batteries on your laser are drained and all you're left with is a useless gadget and an army of surviving, angry monkeys armed with sticks and stones waiting for a chance to retaliate.
If you're lucky, they'll only throw feces.
A minor correction: According to the new show, when the Galactica was built there was one Battlestar for each colony. Galactica represented Caprica. But by the time of the show, there were many more. In one engagement, thirty Battlestars were lost, "a quarter of the fleet" according to one of the characters.
And what about Radioisotope Thermal Generators?