Posted on 03/05/2006 10:14:03 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Five decades after it was revealed as a forgery, the Piltdown man still haunts paleoanthropology. Now, thanks to the disgraced stem cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang, cell biology has a high-profile scandal of its own to live down. Few recent papers in biology have soared as high in acclaim as Hwang's 2004 and 2005 announcements of cloning human embryonic stem cells -- or plummeted as fast into infamy with the discovery that they were rank fakes.
Embryonic stem cell (ESC) research is no less promising today than it was before Hwang's deceit was revealed; most investigators continue to believe that it will eventually yield revolutionary medical treatments. That no one has yet derived ESCs from cloned human embryos simply means that the science is less advanced than has been supposed over the past two years.
Still, Hwang has badly sullied the reputation of a field that already has more than its share of political and public relations problems. Some longtime opponents of ESC research will undoubtedly argue that Hwang's lies only prove that the investigators cannot be trusted to conduct their work ethically, and the public may believe them. This is one more crime against science for which Hwang should be ashamed. (A minor footnote to this affair is our removal of Hwang from the 2005 Scientific American 50 list; see the retraction on page 16.)
In recent years, fabricated data and other fakery have been uncovered in work on materials, immunology, breast cancer, brain aneurysms, the discovery of new elements and other subjects. As the volume of publication rises, fraud will probably rise with it. Because of the growing financial ties between university researchers and corporations, not to mention the jockeying for leadership among nations in high-stakes areas such as stem cells, some scientists may feel more pressure to deliver results quickly -- even if they have to make them up.
These affairs have something in common with the Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass scandals that not long ago rocked mainstream journalism: all these scams exploited the trust that editors extend to submitting authors. The editors and peer reviewers of scientific journals cannot always verify that a submitted paper's results are true and honest; rather their main job is to check whether a paper's methodology is sound, its reasoning cogent and its conclusions noteworthy. Disconfirmation can only follow publication. In that sense, the Hwang case shows how science's self-correcting mechanism is supposed to work.
Yet it is important not to brush off the Hwang case as a fluke without considering its lessons for the future. For instance, Hwang's papers had many co-authors, few of whom seem to have been party to the cover-ups. But what responsibilities should co-authors have for making sure that papers bearing their names are at the least honest?
We should also think hard about whether Hwang's deceit went undetected for months because so many scientists and science journalists wanted to believe that ESC research was progressing rapidly, because that would hasten the arrival of miraculous therapies and other biomedical wonders. Extraordinary results need to be held suspect until confirmed independently. Hwang is guilty of raising false expectations, but too many of us held the ladder for him.
I just got push polled at work.
Must not have answered the way they wanted the push to go.
The Automated system just skipped question 3 entirely.
*whine*
but roundup is so expensive...
naw'm, but Ah am yoozing uh Suth'n dial-up
*smack!smack!smack!smack!smack!*
Hmmmm. What could have caused you to remember that thread?
Well, Ichy was saying "the textbooks *are* clear about the provisional nature of phylogenies, and do *not* teach them as "definitive" . . . ANY time, by ANY textbook."
Do you agree with that.
whutsa "push poll"?
izzat laike uh "pushme-pullyou"?
BTW, How about you personally from what you seen while lurk or post on crevo threads? Can you cite lies told by creationists?
BTW, How about you personally from what you seen while lurk or post on crevo threads? Can you cite lies told by creationists?
Yep, the case of Dr. Richard Sternberg is evidence that even the evo critic part may not be necessary. He was pilloried for allowing a non-dogmatic paper to be peer-reviewed.
Anyway, here is more from that article I cited in my previous post.
Cook told the audience about a top biological journal which checks how many images submitted to it have been tampered with.
"They found that in one fourth of all the cases, images had been changed so much that they were misleading. In one percent of the cases, the images had been changed so much it changed the entire interpretation of the paper.
"In other words, the person had committed fraud. Just think how many papers there are published in biology. It gives you a sense of the true scope of this problem."
Cook said that the frequency of fraud in science may in fact be much higher, especially in biology.
Thus the donut wager.
And how is it that something looking similar to something else at an early stage of development *proves* or supports common descent? If a creature has a head and four appendages, it will look similar until it develops it's identifying characteristics but that certainly doesn't mean that it's an indication of a common ancestor as much as an indication of common shape.
if gross deliberate repeated misrepresentations of what evolution-supporting FReepers have posted on a thread qualify as creo-lies, then yes: I could provide examples.
if grotesque creo strawman renditions of the ToE -reiterated despite frequent correction- qualify as creo-lies, then sure: plenty are available.
if absurd misuse of half-baked versions of the second law of thermodynamics -also reiterated endlessly despite frequent correction- qualify as creo-lies, then absolutely: there is an abundancy of exemplars to cite.
there's only one problem: as you may be aware, the Almighty Mods have required us to abstain from too harshly nailing the creationist wing for their falsehoods.
Meeting your request would qualify as the proscribed action.
If you knew this when you asked, then you are engaged in baiting with malice aforethought.
If you were unaware of this before now, then any repetition of the request shall be malicious.
I have at times wondered if there even can be such a thing as an honest creationist. The tiny few who show some responsiveness to reality are a drop in the ocean. I will not embarass the few whom I have noted lest the rest of you kill them.
That stuff was still being taught less than 10 yrs ago? Wow.
see the in-thread discussion on this between myself and TASMANIANRED - gillslits and tail development and reabsorption in the human embryo certaily *suggests* common descent
Moderator compliant FReepspeak is not moderator compliant behavior. Calling people liars by using different terms is not *being nice* as you well know. *A rose by any other name*...
You must be growing scups and dines. Give up. They win.
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