Notes on Henry Wallace

• Does wallace count as a true biotechnologist?
  • Biotechnology first coined in 1919 by Hungarian Karoly Ereky to describe technology based on converting raw materials into a more useful product.
    • originated from zymotechnology
    • As a side note — Karoly Ereky was similarly an industrialist, but was imprisoned for life (and ultiamtely died in prison) in 1946 for his counter-revolutionary role fighting the communists in Hungary.
      • similar to henry wallace being unfashionable, he died the same year as asilomar and the founding of the recombinant DNA revolution, as an unknown in a hungarian goulag. (check that this is real)
• identifying opportunities:
  • henry wallace had the training through pioneer hi-bred & his publishing co, to understand that mexican farmers spent 50 times longer to produce a single bushel of corn than iowans planting hybrid seed.
  • at the time mexico was not food self-sufficient, unlike the USA. This was very common across the world at the time — germany similarly justified some of their WW2 conquests as being about securing more land.
    • the nazi’s were early organic crazies — “pure blood pure soil”
  • 8 years after wallace’s visit, mexico was food self-sufficient.
  • the technology of hybridizing crops spreaad throughout the world, changed the food supply, and saved billions from starvation.
    • corn, wheat, rice.
• Who gets the credit for great ideas?
  • Norman Borlaug (the manager of the project?)
    • right now most of the credit goes to norman borlaug — he won the nobel in 1970’s for heading off the widely predicted malthusian trap.
    • norman borlaug made for a great figurehead for the green revolution — the green revolution was happening during a heated anti-communist time where henry wallace was decidely out of the overton window.
    • norman borlaug initially declined to join — wanting to finish his war service at DuPont. By 1944 though, he left behind his pregnant wife & 14 month old daughter to head the program.
    • borlaug doubled the iteration cycle by defying a myth prevalent in agronomy — that you needed to rest seeds before harvesting. he also broke the common wisdom by growing seeds in multiple conditions — breeding stocks didn’t need to be localized to the local env.
  • Henry Wallace (the one who persuaded the funder?)
  • The scientists who actually did the cross breeding?
  • The Rockefeller foundation (who paid out the funds?)

Other interesting notes:

Christiaan Barnard —

• In December 1967, the first heart transplant by Christiaan Barnard reminded the public that the physical identity of a person was becoming increasingly problematic. While poetic imagination had always seen the heart at the center of the soul, now there was the prospect of individuals being defined by other people's hearts.[1]