Panel To Investigate Scientist For Cloning Claims 117
collegetoad writes "A panel of scientists from the Seoul National University will investigate scientist Hwang Woo-suk on whether he committed fraud in claiming he had developed tailored embryonic stem cells. From the article: 'Hwang also said in a paper published in 2004 in the journal Nature, that he had cloned, for the first time, a human cell to provide a source of embryonic stem cells -- master cells that can provide a source of any type of tissue or cell in the body.'" We've reported on this previously.
This is not what we need now (Score:5, Insightful)
Homeopaths, naturalists, new-age healers, dowsers, reflexologists, chiropractors, feng shui "experts," et all: they use any slip of a scientist to bolster their support from those who don't know better. It saddens me, but such is the nature of the game.
Real scientists need to stand up and denounce frauds loudly and strongly whenever they appear. Too many otherwise learned men stand idly by while charlatans ply their wares to the unsuspecting.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can believe that a third-rate paper published in a third-rate journal will not get much scrutiny from other researchers. However, these guys reported major results that many other labs were trying to achieve. What were they thinking?
Re:The benefits being..? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything this guy has ever written should be trashed.
The same could be said about Dr. Josef Mengele [wikipedia.org] who commited far worse atrocities against humanity, but some of the kwoledged gain by his gruesome work is still used today in medical schools albeit as mear reference to the insides of a living being.
One can acheive those kind of things when you are doing live vivisections on human beings.
To throw away knowledge even if it was gained through horrible acts is almost as bad of a sin by trying not to better the world and correct wrongs with that knowledge. Its almost as if you declare those who were damned to this cruel fate, that their suffering and loss means nothing to the living and you are going to throw them away to the trash dump of history without trying to save another human life.
Trust but verify (Score:4, Insightful)
I can see him now..."Give me your eggs so I can scramble the data and we can all go down in disgrace."
Re:This is not what we need now (Score:4, Insightful)
First, I know my parents trusted scientists when they said carbs were good, margarine was good and butter was bad. The homeopaths were crying foul from day one, and have been decrying the previous Food Pyramid for years. Now it seems the natural foods freaks were right/
Second, I know that scientists are just humans like you and I -- their income depends on being right more than being wrong. Cooked books would seem to be the norm, especially when public money is at stake. Remember the second hand smoke lies that were found wrong by the Supreme Court but are still being used today to ban smoking in restaurants? These were honored and respected scientists funded by public dollars -- and they lied [newmediaexplorer.org].
I'm guessing you'd call for licensing for scientists -- so we end up with the same high costs and low quality service we get in any licensed industry. I'm glad we have the "whack-jobs" of alternative medicine. I may not agree with what they have to say, but I know I want to see private industry competition to what is quickly becoming a public industry: science and the politicing that comes along with public funding of it.
Re:Intellectualism fraud? (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly what we are doing now, peer review. You think he's going to get a good research job anywhere, now? It's hurt him in his wallet/pride/etc, and that is an incentive for self-interested scientists not to game the system with fraudulent results.
That, and to take everything with a grain of salt. Science news didn't used to be widely publicized until it was at least partly vetted, so people tend to have faith in widely-publicized findings. We just have to relearn healthy scepticism, and maybe do a little better vetting before publication in journals.
Besides, I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of research scientists truly do want to find the answer(s).
Re:Public vs Private Funding (Score:5, Insightful)
There can be two sides to this issue.
1. If the research is funded with government money, it can be influenced by politics.
2. If the research is funded with private money, it can be influenced by its investors.
Think of it like a global warming research sponsored by a congressman who is lobbied by an oil company vs a TCO of Windows vs Linux research sponsored by Microsoft.
Both could have potential bias and complications.
Personally, I believe both private and public research can be beneficial. Take DARPA for example. I for one believe DARPA is the shining example of public research gone right. It is backed by public money, but often uses the private sector as a major part of its research. Take the recent Grand Challenge [darpa.mil] for example.
So I think there is a place for public funding at least to get the ground work. After all, the Manhattan and Apollo Project were publicly funded.
However, if you believe government funded projects are a waste of your tax money, then you can do what I do... Donate to a private non-profit research group that is tax deductible. I realized if I donate enough money to either Wikipedia [wikimediafoundation.org] or the Singularity Institute [singularitychallenge.com] I could just write off all my taxes next year. Even though I don't get more money than I would have not donating, it means the IRS will have to give me a larger refund, hence putting my money where I want it to go and not where a congressman does.
Re:This is not what we need now (Score:2, Insightful)
In there, he lights upon Feng Shui. He admits that he doesn't know much about Feung Shui, but states that humans can perform complex tasks without knowing the underlying calculations.
For instance(and this is my own presentation of an argument originally presented by Adams), if you throw a ball at me I can whip out physics 101, perform some calculations, and in a minute, tell you where the ball is going to go. However, not needing a minute, I can judge where the ball is going to go and put my hand exactely in that spot(Ok, I can't do this, but normal people can). Feng Shui has some of these principles that humans instinctevly know how to make a good living space without complex architectural formulas.
I'm not endorsing all crack-pot solutions, nor am I even endorsing Feng Shui. Also, I cannot say that all the mehtods in a discipline are budding bits of human psyche. (For instance, I think that even if humans had a rudimentary "water sense", forked sticks would not amplify it. I think the sticks are half show, half superstition, and I don't relly believe in dowsing to begin with). Still, don't just blow off the unscientific methods, even though the scientific method is more reliable.
Re:Intellectualism fraud? (Score:2, Insightful)
Speaking as a scientist... (Score:2, Insightful)
Many people will say that this was a failure of the scientific review system, but the unfortunate truth is that peer review can do very little to defend against malicious scientific fraud. When I review a paper for a journal, I have to assume that the original data is correct and truthful. I don't have access to the author's work samples for testing, and wouldn't have the time or equipment to perform the appropriate experiments even if I did. A reviewer may question data that looks unusual (e.g. great signal-to-noise or an odd feature in a time-varying signal), but otherwise the data itself will likely go unchallenged.
A reviewer's job is largely to ensure that there is sufficient data to support the conclusions that are drawn and that the methodology used to derive the underlying data is sound. They also weed out the whackos who think they have a warp drive design or perpetual motion machine, but that's less common.
Re:Sarbanes Oxley? (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's face it, much of what individual research teams do is patented. The object of (most) research is to find something which can be patented and then sold by or licensed by the party that funds the research. Reproducing someone else's results is therefore a waste of research money. Even without the threat of patent infringement, duplicating someone else's work doesn't make money for anyone...
Please, keep in mind that I still believe in "pure" research and those who practice the same. Heck, I even appreciate anyone that works long hours and makes our world a better place. I just don't think that many labs that answer to a corporation can claim those attributes.
I don't quite agree (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a lot like high-school chemistry lab, in which (if you were decently smart), you knew what the results of the lab should be. Does that affect the way in which you write down the data? You bet. You do the experiment once, and you get a result you "know" is crazy. So you say: "That can't be right, something must have gone wrong..." and you do it again. If you get the result you expect, then you tend to just write it down uncritically.
Just expand that typical human behaviour to much more complex experiments, and you'll see what I mean. Grown-up scientists do an experiment, and they get a result that "can't be right," so they do it again until they get a result that "seems right," or they talk themselves into some kind of data analysis that "corrects" the raw data. Have a look here [caltech.edu] (warning: PDF link) for an interesting discussion of the case or Robert Millikan, who "framed a guilty man", in the phrase made immortal by the LAPD, by falsely presenting experiments that led to a correct scientific conclusion.
The long and short of it is that the question of the "honesty" of the author of a publication is very much a gray area, and anyone who seriously just assumes that all the data from an experiment have been presented, and all the data analysis has been done in completely neutral way, without any influence of preconceived notions, is a fool. You must assume that the personal predispositions of the scientist doing the work had some influence on the experimental data reported. This isn't meant to be pejorative -- I'm not saying you assume other scientists are routinely dishonest. You just assume they're human, and may have fooled themselves or have a bit of an agenda when they present their data, and you take that into account. Healthy skepticism is the order of the day. That's why we like to see even experiments that seem completely unexceptional and from scientists of unimpeachable reputations repeated several times by a broad range of other workers before we accept them.
I certainly agree deliberate fraud is way out of any "gray area" about the motivations of the scientist submitting articles for publication. (And that's why the punishment for doing so is far, far harsher than for simply making an "honest" mistake, or even a mistake into which you are led by bias or incompetence.) But there is no way one can, or should, draw a sharp line between completely unconscious error and semi-conscious half-deliberate fudge, and it would be a great error for anyone to blindly assume that the data in any scientific publication is beyond question.