UPDATE: Gypsy Scholar has a ton of commentary about the Hwang controversy. Including this:
If I let my imagination run wild, then I can imagine an outlandish scenario. Suppose that some collaborator wants more glory, unshared with Hwang. Solution? Destroy Hwang’s reputation and use Hwang’s "efficient" technique to develop patient-specific stem cells of one’s own.
Such a ‘plan’ would be crazy, certain of failure since as soon as the erstwhile collaborator developed patient-specific stem cells using a special, efficient technique, the scientific community would call for an investigation and the general Korean public would call for the collaborator’s head.
Far more likely is a scenario in which Hwang himself uses MizMedi stem cells to develop stem-cell lines and then claims to have made patient-specific stem cells.
ORIGINAL POST: You’re daily Dr. Hwang fix:
- SNU has begun its investigation of Hwang and his team. New claims by former Hwang team member Kim Su-jong of photo fudging, although he also claims to have personally seen eight stem cell lines.
- Even Cheong Wa Dae seems caught up in this mess.
- David Magnus and Arthur Kaplan offer some insightful comments about the scandal.
- SCIENCE magazine’s saga (from the NYT)
My own take on this is, well, I don’t have a take on it. I mean, there seems to be so much bullshit out there coming from so many sources that I really don’t know who or what to believe. Will be interesting to see whether Hwang can actually reproduce his results. My gut feeling is that he will, but even if he does, I don’t know whether that will be able to save his career. Of course, it’s still a little too early to tell, because nothing has been proven against him yet, but things certainly don’t look good. Anyway, we’ll find out what happened soon enough…
12 Comments
My view (which is elaborated more fully on my blog) is that Hwang has faked the data.
Too much evidence indicates fraud. Hwang’s proven lying. The faked photos from the 2005 paper. The problems with photos even from the 2004 paper. The missing six cells that supposedly died due to a fungus. The claimed patient-specific stem cells that have turned out to be MizMedi stem cells. I could go on…
I think that Hwang cheated because he wanted to be known as the first to develop an efficient stem-cell technique and believed that he was close enough that he could fake it to get first place and then quickly develop the efficient technique afterwards, and no one would be the wiser.
His accusation that someone at MizMedi switched the stem cells makes little sense. The only possible motive would be to ruin Hwang so that one could make stem cells using Hwang’s efficient technique. But that wold be such blatant fraud that the scientific community would call for an investigation and the public would call for the individual’s head.
Consequently, I say that Hwang is guilty.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Thank you, Marmot, for bring the good article by David Magnus and Arthur Kaplan. They correctly identified where the problem began, right from the Watson and Crick paper.
They stress education, but I don’t think that will do. The best thing to do is to catch crooks like Hwang and thoroughly disgrace him.
One step further, there got to be “scientific cops” who will go and check important results like Wilmut. Do you know that Wilmut did his DNA gel one year after Dolly was a big news? And, he only allowed the testing to be done by one scientist he chose. He did not have to answer to anyone else since then.
Hwang’s Snuppy as well. It is a big news but nobody, I mean nobody, has access to the dog. Therefore, no third party can do DNA gel. We just have to trust Hwang to be telling the truth.
This type of Emperor with clothes has been perpetuated in biological science too long. This Hwang thing should be a wake-up call to many who has been trained to trust other scientists.
Healthy amount of suspicion has to be taught to all scientists and general public. “Show me” or “Shut your mouth” should be the word of the day. They should not be allowed to hide behind their fame, their status or “proprietary” business arrangement.
Wilmut’s Dolly has to be re-examined. I propose to exhume Dolly and someone has to carefully examine the cell structure and DNA. Any other “nuclear transfered cloning” evidences following Wilmut, Texas A&M’cat and Jerry Yang’s cow, have to be carefully examined and the third party should run DNA gels.
Hwang’s deceit actually may help honest biologists worldwide to make living by honest means. Up to now, too many chalatans appeared in this particular field of biology.
I meant “Hwang’s deceit and eventually ruin”
There is religious aspect of this cloning science. The people who believe that this can be done are usually atheists or Buddhists, as Hwang was one.
And, they say that Christians are repeating the same mistake that they made on blood transfusion, which eventually became norm.
However, I believe this case is somewhat different. Think about the following scenarios
1)Assume that chemicals in woman’s egg is found to increase the size of a cow. It produce a bigger healthier cow. Should we allow farmers to buy human eggs for $10 from Indonesia and feed them to cows?
2) Hwang’s team was making embryos and grow them in the lab. And, then inject these to chickens and dogs. Would you allow this, if it happens to make strong chickens, dogs and cows?
(1) and (2) look to me that we are basically turning into cannibals. However, some scientists, atheists and Buddhists think that it is OK since we came from animals anyway.
What do you think?
‘my gut feeling is that he will (produce the samples).’ marmot
what do you think the chances are that he’ll commit suicide instead?
what do you think the chances are that he’ll commit suicide instead?
I hope pretty low. But given how this thing is playing out, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone connected to the mess (and not necessarily Hwang) decides to off him or herself.
what do you think the chances are that he’ll commit suicide instead?
and…
But given how this thing is playing out, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone connected to the mess (and not necessarily Hwang) decides to off him or herself.
Shit-hits-the-fan death.
(I’m making light of this only because it hasn’t happened, and I certainly hope it doesn’t!)
From Slate.com’s Explainer:
‘What Happens to Bad Scientists?
Lock the labs, sequester the notebooks.’
http://www.slate.com/id/2132541/
Saw this mentioned on another board:
95% of Koreans Have Nothing to Do With Corruption
http://times.hankooki.com/lpag.....468040.htm
Kind of sad…it sounds like the KT is trying to reassure Koreans. There’s a lot of monkey business here, but it’s no better or worse than most countries.
Only 3.2 percent said they had taken part in corrupt activities such as taking bribes, according to the survey.
I think the point of the article may be sound, but I’m a bit suspicious of the statistic. I wonder if some people are not reporting some things (e.g., bribing teachers, etc.) that they should.
The premise of the survey is a bit comical: “Have you taken part in corruption?” “Oh no, sir, heaven forbid!” From the anecdotal evidence I’ve heard/read, I’m not surprised that this place ranks with Italy in level of corruption:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781359.html
Michael, that statistics is not the
the “level of corruption”, it’s the perception of corruption. Two very different things. There’s no real way to measure real corruption.