:: Running from the Thought Police ::

:: Thursday, December 15, 2005 ::

One Of The Reason I Trust Science Over Anti-Evolutionists

Unlike the anti-evolution, alternative medicine, and AIDS-denial crowds, whose lies never go away, scientists who falsify their data don't get away with it for long. Either the numbers don't work, the observations are unable to be duplicated, or someone squeals.

A U.S. cloning and stem-cell expert who had lent his name and prestige to Hwang's work, Dr. Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, earlier this week alleged there may have been fabrications and asked to have his name taken off a study he co-authored with Hwang.

On Thursday, Roh Sung-il, a hospital administrator and specialist in fertility studies who worked directly with Hwang, said his colleague had admitted there were fabrications in the second study on tailor-made human stem cells.

"Professor Hwang admitted to fabrication," Roh said on South Korea's MBC television.

Roh told media nine of the 11 stem-cell lines -- batches -- that were part of the tailored stem study paper were fabricated and the authenticity of the other two was questionable.

Reports in South Korean media said some photographic images of the stem-cell lines may have been manipulated to make it appear as if there were 11 separate lines, or batches. Hwang had recently asked Science to correct some images in his study.

Science said it had heard nothing from Hwang so far.

Another television network, KBS, quoted Roh as saying: "I agreed with Hwang to ask for it (the paper) to be withdrawn."

In the disputed study, Hwang's team reported they had used a cloning method called somatic cell nuclear transfer to create lines of genetically identical stem cells from nine different patients, most with a rare neurological disease.

The study appeared to fulfil one promise of embryonic stem-cell research -- the ability to tailor medicine to individuals, and to study a patient's disease in the laboratory.

This is one of the reasons that science majors have academic honesty pounded into their heads since day one - lying when it doesn't matter leads to lying when it does, and then ones reputation and overall ability to work as a scientist goes down the crapper.

Last I checked, there were no such reprocussions in the anti-scientific communities. We know who the bad eggs are on our side, do they know theirs?

:: The Squire 11:12 PM :: email this post :: ::
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