Free Republic

Science has been corrupted. I hate to say it, but it’s the only conclusion I can reach after months of researching cousin marriage — a ban on which was debated in parliament last week. It’s been a period of frustration, obfuscation and institutional omerta: the antithesis of the open inquiry described so eloquently by Plato and Popper. Let me start by telling you about Dr Patrick Nash, a somewhat shy legal academic who in 2017 came across an intriguing finding. He noticed that much of the “extremism” emanating from Pakistani communities seemed to have a “clan” component. The perpetrators were...

The Supreme Court will decide whether human genes can be patented. From the Reuters story: The nation’s highest court in a brief order agreed to review a case over whether Myriad Genetics Inc may patent two genes linked to hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. In a 2-1 ruling on August 16, a panel of the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., upheld the biotechnology company’s right to patent “isolated” genes that account for most inherited forms of the two cancers. Actually, my headline, Supremes to Decide Others Can Own Your Genes, is a bit misleading. If the...