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Con Men in Lab Coats [how science corrects itself]
Scientific American ^ | March 2006 | By the editors

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: crevolist; fraud; research; science; stemcells; woosukhwang
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To: VadeRetro

Actually an example of a comment taken 100% out of context.


601 posted on 03/06/2006 2:33:00 PM PST by tallhappy (Juntos Podemos!)
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To: WKB
// Ya'll tell me you don't know what the first "thing" was
Now you tell me the first thing was bacteria


WKB, It is even worse than that.

beyond absurdity


Wolf
602 posted on 03/06/2006 2:36:25 PM PST by RunningWolf (Vet US Army Air Cav 1975)
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To: WKB
Ya'll tell me you don't know what the first "thing" was Now you tell me the first thing was bacteria. No wonder I'm so confused.

No I didn't tell you that did I. You are the one who suggested clouds can copulate and bring forth life. I just entertained you for long enough.

603 posted on 03/06/2006 2:36:45 PM PST by bobdsmith
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To: Virginia-American
Where do they say these are in the same position on the various chromosomes?

Different organisms have different chromosomes and "ervs" are never at the same position on chromosomes.

It's OK if you want to not understand chromosomal structure or the nature of repeat elements.

Terms such as "exact same place" and the like are not accurate and are simplifications made for discussion outside technical circles.

604 posted on 03/06/2006 2:38:09 PM PST by tallhappy (Juntos Podemos!)
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To: tallhappy

So we're back to the ol' vitamin C enzyme, eh?


605 posted on 03/06/2006 2:40:13 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: bobdsmith

You are the one who suggested clouds can copulate and bring forth life.



I will have to admit I was wrong on that one.
I was thinking about the first "thing" not the first
living thing.
Actually the first living thing on "earth"
was the grass.


606 posted on 03/06/2006 2:43:26 PM PST by WKB
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To: tallhappy; Virginia-American
Different organisms have different chromosomes and "ervs" are never at the same position on chromosomes.

This comment is beyond trivial.

All of those examples (ERVs, processed pseudogenes, Vit C) are found at the same position at analogous chromosomal loci between the species.

607 posted on 03/06/2006 2:43:59 PM PST by RightWingNilla
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To: Junior
T.O. supplies citations to actual research in their articles.

So does AIG.

T.O is a propaganda site. So is AIG, for that matter, although AIG is much more honest about it.

608 posted on 03/06/2006 2:45:42 PM PST by Tribune7
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To: WKB

In response to a cheeky reporter who asked him to explain the theory for which he won the Nobel Prize, Richard Feynman said "If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize."

The basics of evolution are not exactly Quantum Electrodynamics, but the concepts are not trivial either. Go through some of PH's exhastive set of links on the subject and then come back to us. To expect us to reduce everything down to bite-sized chunks is both impossible and insulting.

You're a big boy, aren't you? Digest some of it yourself.


609 posted on 03/06/2006 2:45:44 PM PST by gomaaa
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To: WKB

I know, I was there.


610 posted on 03/06/2006 2:46:40 PM PST by bobdsmith
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To: gomaaa

Go through some of PH's exhastive set of links on the subject and then come back to us.



If you promise to read the Bible and get back to me
I will.


611 posted on 03/06/2006 2:47:20 PM PST by WKB
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To: VadeRetro

More accurately, everything is evolving right now. It's likely that some organisms we see every day are transitional forms that may some day be missing links.

Hopefully we're one of them. :-D


612 posted on 03/06/2006 2:50:06 PM PST by ahayes
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To: Virginia-American
So we're back to the ol' vitamin C enzyme, eh?

I don't know what you mean.

613 posted on 03/06/2006 2:50:23 PM PST by tallhappy (Juntos Podemos!)
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To: bobdsmith

I thought your name was Bob not Adam.
How's Eve by the way.


614 posted on 03/06/2006 2:50:23 PM PST by WKB
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To: RightWingNilla
This comment is beyond trivial.

So why did I have to point it out to people who think they are at "the exact same site".

The chimp genome and other studies show that there are elements seen in various species that don't follow the phylogentic tree, such as those reported in the original chimp genome paper.

Hand waving about exact same site or exact same or apples and oranges doesn't make it go away.

Your problem is you think it somehow disproves evolution, which it doesn't

615 posted on 03/06/2006 2:53:47 PM PST by tallhappy (Juntos Podemos!)
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To: tallhappy

[vitamin C]

All the great apes share a common frame-shift mutation (I forget whether it's an insertion or a deletion) that makes it impossilbe to synthesize ascorbic acid (vitamin C).

There's a particular enzyme, LGLO, present in all mammals (at least), its gene has been sequenced, and it just happens to be broken in the same place in the great apes (including us).

There are a couple of other mammals that need vit C, guinea pigs and fruit bats, but they have different mutations from us and each other.


616 posted on 03/06/2006 2:58:31 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: WKB
But I didn't evolve from my parents I was born.

If there is even a single mutation not inherited from your parents, you are participating in evolution. The chances are slim that you are error free.

617 posted on 03/06/2006 2:58:38 PM PST by js1138
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To: tallhappy; Virginia-American
So why did I have to point it out to people who think they are at "the exact same site".

The sites are analogous of course. This goes without saying.

Your comment is like saying the 4rd edition of a book does not contain the same text as the 3rd because chapter 2 starts on a different page. Trivial to the point of absurdity.

You realize that the chromosomal number designations are a man made artificial construct? LOL.

618 posted on 03/06/2006 3:08:22 PM PST by RightWingNilla
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To: RightWingNilla
One might ask why, if exact placement on the same chromosome is so important, genetic engineering works at all.
619 posted on 03/06/2006 3:12:16 PM PST by js1138
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To: Virginia-American

OK.


620 posted on 03/06/2006 3:35:36 PM PST by tallhappy (Juntos Podemos!)
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