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.
There is no "last" as all extent populations of organisms are constantly evolving.
That doesn't make any sense
T.O. supplies citations to actual research in their articles. We can always doublecheck their findings. I'd be hardpressed to name a creationist site that does the same.
There is no "last" as all extent populations of organisms are constantly evolving.
Into what?
Did you miss this part? So mutations caused by retroviral element occurred only in the chimp lineage. Is that so surprising?
They say there is a similar element found in other great apes. They didnt say they found the *same* element in the some other great apes, much less at the *same* position.
Do you see the difference? ERVs are very mobile pieces of DNA and can move both horizontally and vertically. The AIDS virus for example incorporates in the genomes of hematopoetic cells. I am sure there are infectious retroviruses that can enter the germ line.
Talk Origins is not a scientific site and it would be best to not get your info there.
The link I gave you before was written by a real working scientist (an immunologist - Edward Max), who thouroughly references everything he uses in the paper. Most of the data was taken from peer-reviewed publications.
It most certainly does. Populations are not static. Organisms are dying and others are being born that are slightly different than their parents (just as you are different than your parents). Hence, evolution is an ongoing process.
I'll concede you one example.
We will just have to agree to disagree.
"Evolution" simply means "change." Are you identical to your parents? Probably not, unless you are female and the result of a parthenogenic birth.
It is hard to give a short answer when the question makes no sense. Evolution is an continuous, ongoing process, and to ask "what was the most recently evolved species" is a little like asking "Where is that particular drop of water in the Mississippi River RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT?" Better to ask what general course the river and understand where the banks are than try and define every particle at every moment.
Are you identical to your parents?
But I didn't evolve from my parents I was born.
"But I didn't evolve from my parents I was born."
You didn't descend with modification from your parents? How did that happen?
It is hard to give a short answer when the question makes no sense
Why doesn't it make sense?
Something had to be the last for there to be a next.
You didn't descend with modification from your parents? How did that happen?
My daddy and my mother had sexual intercourse
and I was conceived and 9 months later I was
born. How did you get here?
You'll actually find most mature people are pacifists, but most will still do their duty. Firebrands and war lovers are typically young and/or inexperienced,
"My daddy and my mother had sexual intercourse
and I was conceived and 9 months later I was
born."
Yes, you descended with modification from your parents. You evolved from them.
How do you think evolution works? You are slightly different than your parents. Your kids (if or should you have any) will be/are slightly different than you.
OK.
Yes, you descended with modification from your parents. You evolved from them.
OK I thought evolution was a long slow porcess.
If I evolved from my parents why didn't it 9 billion
years for me to here?
Some virus is evolving right now.
What was the first thing?
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