Con Men in Lab Coats [how science corrects itself]

Scientific American ^ | March 2006 | By the editors

[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.

[gomaaa]

A lot of the evidence they cite is nit-picking ignoring the big picture. For instance, the Miller-Urey experiment is thought as definitive in the public imagination. Wells shows that the scientific consensus is that the atmosphere was not right to create amino acids as per Miller-Urey.

In fact, the TO article accuses Wells of exactly the same sin of nit-picking while ignoring the big picture. They include several references to current sources that DIRECTLY CONTRADICT Wells' assertion that the consensus of the scientifica community significantly discounts the relevance of the Miller-Urey experiment.

The whole issue with Miller-Urey is a straw man. The experiment was, as TO says, a LANDMARK experiment. The precise parameters used may not have been correct (though they were correct according to the limited information available at the time), but the strength of the experiment lies in the fact that the parameters can be varied somewhat and the amino acids are still produced. They state that there is a whole sub-field of research continuing along these same lines today: "The famous Miller-Urey experiments used a strongly reducing atmosphere to produce amino acids. It is important to realize that the original experiment is famous not so much for the exact mixture used, but for the unexpected discovery that such a simple experiment could indeed produce crucial biological compounds; this discovery instigated a huge amount of related research that continues today."

[tallhappy]

Well said, ahayes.

The "actual topic" is that you said most embryonic stem cell investigators don't think their work will eventually yield revolutionary medical treatments implying that most are charlatans and hucksters like Hwang.

Ed, this is wrong. The comment was about most researchers or scientists -- not about the specific people doing embryonic work. I'd say that yes of course most are sincere. I'm talking about objective views in the field.

Putting embryonic stem cells in adults is a mismatch and the qualities that make them of such potential -- pluripotency and proliferative abilities -- are the same that cause them to be unworkable in terms of unlimited growth and wildy varying differentiation in the recipient.

Adult stem cells are limited but are better matched in that their function in the adult is to regenrate cells, tissues or systems.

This is generally understood and the hype over embryonic is both sincere, but also in my opinion somehwat a callous manipulation of the public which leads to large funding.

I'll give you a real life example. This is to a forum series held by Cal Tech and MIT, in this case about stem cells.

[js1138]

A lot of the evidence they cite is nit-picking ignoring the big picture. For instance, the Miller-Urey experiment is thought as definitive in the public imagination. Wells shows that the scientific consensus is that the atmosphere was not right to create amino acids as per Miller-Urey.

This is of no consequence. Thermal vents can produce amino-acids. The significance of Miller is not that he solved the problem of abiogenesis, but that he demonstrated it was researchable.

The problem with ID and other criticisms of evolution is not that they are wrong, but that they are (literally) worthless. They don't lead to research.

[balrog666]

I haven't seen this kind of gang-trolling since the days of that sleazeball ALS and his disgusting troop of sycophantic toadies.

[TASMANIANRED]

Thank you.

Pacifists are parasites. There ought to be a spray to get rid of them.

[js1138]

You are equating draft dodgers and pacifists. They are not the same.

[Virginia-American]

...I'd guess that perhaps the extra long nerve could perhaps provide some *give* to it, the same way a coiled cord..

Then you'd have it like that on both sides.

And way doesn't the superior nerve need the give?

Like I said, it makes perfect sense from an evolutionary and embryological point of view, but it sure doesn't look intelligently designed to me.

, if someone goes on the assumption that everything was intelligently designed and it doesn't make sense, then there is probably some reason for it that hasn't been discovered yet.

Either that, or it's time to check your assumptions. Maybe it wasn't designed by an intelligence, maybe the designer isn't too smart, maybe the designer is constrained by the requirement that he has to fool us into seeing evo....

I believe that God did it and trust that He had a good reason for making it as it was even though it makes no sense yet.

Or He started life and let evo do its thing.

As Mark Twain said:

I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weather-clerk's factory who experiment and learn how...

[RunningWolf]

// I haven't seen this kind of gang-trolling since the days of that sleazeball ALS and his disgusting troop of sycophantic toadies

You know, I found a way to go back and those threads. Compared to what I see then/and now) much of what they said really was not that bad, especially when its put into the context of what they were responding too, as to the present situation also.

You are back there too balrog, with the same kind of one liner hit jobs like you have here. It seems that for 99% of your posts, that’s all you put out.

I guess what is confusing for many and seems to abrogate any position statements etc., is that you and your ilk are here for years with posts just like what you have there in the thousands .

When I posted to you that this was indicative of the level of hatred that exists for these people, I felt I was accurate in that assessment.

I guarantee you and you know it too, if I engage you with only 50% of what you put out I will be gone pretty quickly.

I do not mind operating in a hostile environment, but if you think you have gained any intellectual or moral victory from it well that’s flat wrong.

Like I have said many times, actually I am really not that religious. I don’t think I would like your sorts and methods if it was a forum on flyfishing.

Also like I have said many times, one of the best cases against this cult is to look at its products, ie; the personalities drawn into it.

Whether intentional or not, the forum has served a good purpose in this regard.

Wolf

[Ditto]

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 boatloads of money from government agencies and PR conscience foundations.

There. That makes a little more sense now.

[Virginia-American]

[referring to PH]

...Earlier he and some others went forward trying to support Haeckel's ideas about embryos. ..

Uh, not exactly.

Js1138 and I posted data that showed that Ernst Haeckel's theory was based on observation (virtually identical-looking vertebrate embryos, laryngeal nerve). Ichneumon posted more details about his theory and the appearance of his drawings in textbooks.

But no-one has supported his theories here; in fact, no biologist has supported them in the last 100-odd years

[js1138]

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me exactly where the inaccuracies are in the drawings. I'm not denying there are inaccuracies, just waiting for someone to point out where they are and why they are critical.

[Virginia-American]

Why would this no sense in intelligent design?

See post 339 and post 402.

[tallhappy]

But no-one has supported his theories here; in fact, no biologist has supported them in the last 100-odd years

Yes, although perhaps less than 100.

That's what I found so strange about certain people here stating and arguing/defending "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny".

[tallhappy]

I've seen those posts. They don't answer the question of why those observations make "no sense in intelligent design?"

Can you say it in one sentence?

[TASMANIANRED]

You are assuming that I am equating them.

It was a parallel remark not an additional one.

Draft dodgers are low life scum, vermin and cowards.

Pacifists pretend a moral high ground when they survive by living off the blood of others and then pretend to be better than them.

In my own particular internal logic, a pacifist is lower than a draft dodger.

[Virginia-American]

shoulda been post 467

[tallhappy]

So you are saying it makes "no sense in intelligent design" because God would have done it better?

[Virginia-American]

What's intelligent about running a 15-foot nerve when a 1-foot one would do?

Remember my analogy wiht the extension cord?

The extra length of nerve serves no known purpose, deosn't exist on the other side of the body, and can cause disease.

None of this sounds like good engineering to me.

[tallhappy]

Yes, thank you.

The key here is you are making a theological argument.

[Virginia-American]

All I said was that the design doesn't appear very logical, but that it's easily explained in evo terms.

If you assume that the designer is in fact God, then I guess you've crossed the line into theology.