Panel To Investigate Scientist For Cloning Claims

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.

Comments

Re:The benefits being..?

[ackthpt]

Why bother investigating? Anything this guy has ever written should be trashed.

What worries me most is anything he has said or done which casts doubt on his work or credibility will be ruthlessly employed by the opponents of Stem Cell Research, which will be of no actual good service to anymone except on a dogmatic approach.

And then they will go on to assert that their word is beyond reproach.

This is not what we need now

[Schezar]

Anti-intellectualism is seeing a renaissance, and this will only serve as "evidence" for those who decry science, deny logic, and advocate flim-flam. Despite the fact that I see this as proof that the scientific method works (they've rooted out phony research), those with other agendas will cling to it as proof that "those scientists in their ivory towers" are wrong.

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.

Re:The benefits being..?

[vertinox]

Why bother investigating?

Anything this guy has ever written should be trashed.

The same could be said about Dr. Josef Mengele 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.