Panel Confirms S. Korean Cloning Fraud 111
A user writes "South Korean cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk created a stir when he claimed to have successfully cloned human stem cells, claims which were almost immediately viewed with skepticism in the scientific community. Now an article on the BBC's website chronicles the doctor's final fall from grace as nine scientists empanelled at Seoul University conclude that Doctor Hwang's sensational claims were in fact an elaborate fraud (although they have also confirmed that Doctor Hwang's prior claim to have cloned a dog appears to be valid)." Confirmation of the investigation begun last week.
Defrauding for Dollars (Score:5, Interesting)
The worst bit of the fraud, as I heard on the BBC this morning, is it lead to considerable investment in Cell Research in S. Korea because Hwang was not at the periphery, but at the forefront of the field. Now S. Korea will be relegated to backwater status in the field of Stem Cell and Cloning Research (which will in all likelihood severly diminish their chances for a spot in the 2008 Olympics Tailored Stem Cell competition.)
However, Don Asmussen of San Francisco Datebook notoriety has again nailed it [sfgate.com] and skewered bystanding bigwigs in Washington DC and Hollywood on his followthrough.
But will he try out for the 2008 Olympic Political/Social Commentary squad, that's the big question
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:4, Interesting)
Non-embryonic stem-cell research is already miles ahead in providing cures [stemcellresearch.org]
Embryonic lines consistently develop mutations [washingtonpost.com] that make them unusable.
Non-embryonic lines are progressing towards embryonic flexibility [sciencedaily.com].
All of this pales, however, in view of the green [alwayson-network.com] dollar [ca.gov] signs [washingtonpost.com] that float in front of researcher's eyes. Somehow, money seems to make morally outrageous actions seem legit. I have no problem turning off the flow of cash to research that amounts to cannibalism.
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
Cannibalism? It's an embryo, it's not an independently functioning organism. Disconnect the umbilical and it dies. Take it out of its environment and it dies. So
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
"Independence" is a nonsensical test for personhood.
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
Shouldn't we also get rid of space exploration because other fields of research are producing more immediately useful advancements and don't cost as much? And if embryonic stem-cell research is cannibalism, then so are the practices of organ donation and blood transfusion.
Somehow, impassioned religious rhetoric seems to make irrational beliefs appear legitimate--until those arguments come under closer scrutiny. Money certainly has a way of distorting people's sense of morality, but such is not the case her
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
Organ donation and blood transfusion aren't cannibalism because we don't permit people to kill others in order to harvest their organs or take their blood. By contrast, embryos -- which are functioning human organisms -- are destroyed in order to "harvest" their stem cells. If researchers can find ways to get stem cells without destroying the organism, then I have no problem with the prac
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
(2) Taking emergency contraception pills isn't murder.
(3) Spontaneous abortion is not involuntary manslaughter.
(4) Your argument is based on false premises.
(5) An embryo is not a function human being no matter how many times the religious right decries abortion as murder.
It's fairly clear that the truth of (2) and (3) rests on the truth of (1). But what argument would you advance for the truth of (1)? Statement (1) is a valid argument only if there is an established, ac
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
The medical community makes the distinction between gamtes, embryos, fetuses, and infants, for a reason. The reason I bring up the religious right is because they are the main proponents of such erroneous beliefs as embryos being humans beings, and abortion being murder. These beliefs are in direct contradiction with the beliefs of the medical community, which are based on medically meaningful distinctions rather than making equivocations that evoke strong emotions in favor of a particular political agenda.
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
True, but that reason is not the desire to distinguish between person and non-person. The medical community also distinguishes between "neonate", "infant", "toddler", and "child", but for medical diagnosis reasons, not to grant one a greater status of personhood over the other.
The medical community is quite divided over the issue of when a "person" has come into being. Some see personhood as developing
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
Diploid cells in humans can be considered organism. Many types of cells in the human body can continue to grow and exhibit properties of life even when they are removed from surrounding cells. So why aren't they called human beings?
Also, it's pretty clear that there's a much greater biological difference between an embryo and a child than there is between a toddler and an infant. Once again, if embryos are human beings, why is it not a concern when almost 80% of all conceptions are spontaneously aborted? I
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
In closing, three points need making:
Diploid cells in humans can be considered organism. Many types of cells in the human body can continue to grow and exhibit properties of life even when they are removed from surrounding cells. So why aren't they called human beings?
Because those cells exhibit some rather than all of the properties of living organisms. Search Wikipedia for "life form."
Once again, if embryos are human beings, why
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
Which properties of life do the other types of cells in the human body not exhibit? A culture of almost any type of cell in the human body will continue to grow and exhibt all properties of life when placed in liquid nutrients.
You're claim that embryos are human beings is not based on philosophical arguments. They are based on arbitrary beliefs (which are most likely religiously inspired). The only thing you've supported your claim with is a dubious definition of what a human being is, paying no attention
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
Universal ("totipotent") differentiation [wikipedia.org] is a property exhibited only by the embryo and embryonic stem cells. Development as an organism that matures and reproduces is a property exhibited only by embryos.
Note carefully that a life form must exhibit these characteristics at least on
Re:Defrauding for Dollars (Score:2)
Tissue cultures grow just as other simple organisms do. They also have their own system of metabolism to convert the liquid nutrients into energy. They exhibit internal motion just as other simple cellular life forms. They reproduce through mitosis. They respond to stimuli in different ways depending on the type of tissue it is. They are composed of cells. So how does this not fit the definition of a life form. It may not be a lifeform that naturally occurs outside of the human body, but a tissue culture ex
OT: Grammar (Score:2)
What does lead (Pb) have to do with this?
It "led" to. If you lead, then someone is led. Not lead. Unless you lead them to a matter converter.
I love academia (Score:3, Funny)
Hwang Woo-suk: I committed fraud.
Panel: *deliberates* No you didn't.
Mox
Re:I love academia (Score:1)
Hwang Woo-suk: I committed fraud.
Panel: *deliberates* No you didn't.
In other news the field of biosciences is now been determined, not merely to be warped (by political influences), but bent by the Hwang scandal.
Re:I love academia (Score:3, Insightful)
The goal is to excise the fraudulent stuff, and see what, if anything, remains. In this case, the panel's result isn't "No you didn't", it is "Yes you did, right up to this point here."
It's like fixing a house
Re:I love academia (Score:2)
Re:I love academia (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I love academia (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I love academia (Score:1)
He he he... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Interesting to see how everybody (including the news media) changed the name after all the bad jokes. woo suk hwang? apparently he doesn't anymore.
Re:Him him him... (Score:1, Informative)
It's more a matter of which is the correct way to state his name. Anglicized is First, Last. In Korea (corea, chosun, etc.) it's the family name first, followed by sur-name Woo-suk Hwang is correct for his home country, but in the west he will be Hwang Woo-suk.
Re:Him him him... (Score:1)
Re:Him him him... (Score:2, Funny)
Whomever said journalists are brilliant?
Re:Him him him... (Score:1)
Re:Him him him... (Score:1)
Huh, at first I thought... (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Huh, at first I thought... (Score:2)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:1)
But it's too bad that the parent post mixes up the issue by comparing it to Iraq.
Do something useful (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Do something useful (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Do something useful (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Do something useful (Score:2)
Eventually the good Calvin got angry at the real Calvin, and disappeared in a puff of logic because a good Calvin cannot have a bad thought.
Re:Do something useful (Score:2)
Re:Do something useful (Score:2)
*smirk*
Re:Do something useful (Score:1)
He already did that. He has been vacationing for some time. This whole scandal is just a posterboy for why you shouldn't leave clones in charge of the lab. The copies are never as good as the original.
Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, clearly there could be some incentive -- the amount of money, adulation, and so forth pouring into his office after the paper was published was stratospheric. But did he (or the conspirators) actually think the fraud wouldn't be found out? Eventually they would've had to make good on their claim of indvidualized stem cell lines, and they couldn't do that. The gig would've been up in another year at most -- hardly long enough to be worthwhile.
This entire debacle has set back stem cell research -- many labs stopped or slowed down on their own research after the announcement. Some tried to replicate the bogus research, or simply found money drying up because who wants to back the 2nd place finisher? And now that it's been shown to be a fraud, how difficult will it be to get donations now?
The only explanation I can think of is a conspiracy by anti stem cell research groups, and I don't buy that. The only people who could've pulled off the fraud were top scientists in the field, who have been doing similar research for years. And now they're all disgraced along with Hwang.
It just doesn't make sense to me.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
A serious problem, even a fundamental flaw can seem to be nothing more than an annoying technical hitch -- and the pressure gets to you -- so you fake it.
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Not that I approve of faking scientific results. This has set stem cell research back in two ways. First, it'll be hard for the public and for science in general to get so excited about results seen again. Also, he did manage to clone a dog, but because of his fra
Re:Why? (Score:1)
3. Verity of the cloned dog, Snuppy
We also carried out DNA fingerprinting analyses on the cloned dog Snuppy whose generation has been published in Nature in 2005 (Lee BC, Kim MK, Jang G, Oh HJ, Yuda F, et al. 2005. Dogs cloned from adult somatic cells. Nature 436: 641). We obtained somatic tissue from the egg donor, blood samples from Snuppy, from Tie, the
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Those of you who code: haven't you ever been tempted to release an untested patch because "hey, it's just a spelling correction. What could go wrong?"
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Didn't follow fundamental principles of science (Score:1)
What the Korean people have to learn, as every culture and group interested in science has to learn, is that your failures are really successes. He should've published that his method didn't work. He should've been bold with his discovery of the limitation
Re:Why? (Score:1)
"Man Clones Dog" is not a headline (Score:1, Funny)
Re:"Man Clones Dog" is not a headline (Score:2)
Cold cloning (Score:2)
Re:Cold cloning (Score:2)
Depressing News (Score:1)
When the research claims a medical breakthrough, the backlash is even worse. The public ignores most science that doesn't impact their daily lives. Medicine is one of the few areas of science that is almost guarenteed to impact an average joe at some point, and as a result, people pay very close attention.
Human cloning and stem cell research are guar
Re:Depressing News (Score:1)
National reputation (Score:5, Insightful)
For whatever reason it seems that in some countries the level of dishonesty and corruption is higher. There might be a good reason for it such as poverty, authoritarian government, and so on. The reason I bring this is up is because as guilty as Hwang is he didn't act alone. Some of his collaborators knew about it, but in general I think the same stuff would be very likely to go on in South Korea, because of some specific socal or cultural factors. Somebody mentioned on the news how scientists in many Asian countries achieve this level of celebrity. As Americans we would not even understand this easily - young teenagers wanting to hang up posters of Bohr in their bedrooms instead of posters of Paris Hilton!? One one side this is admirable as it bring up people who want to learn for the sake of learning, on the other side it puts enourmous pressure on the scientist. It is also difficult when the goverment is very authoritarian and will provide funding but then will keep the gun to your head until you get some results. So the two forces - the temptation for fame and fortune coupled with pressure form the government that wants to show off to other countries will create this situation where individuals will cheat and fake their results.
I don't think that Hwang should not be held responsible -- I believe he will be punished severely for shaming the country -- but I think his case also says something about the whole South Korean culture. Not to be prejudicial but from now on anything that comes out of SK's academia will be taken with a "grain of salt."
High levels of courrption and dishonesty is why I came to this country from the former Soviet Union -- it was possible to live there and even to become very rich but only at the expense of lying, stealing, cheating and bribing. I could and did not want to function in such a society so I came to the U.S. As much as people complain about the government and society here, I think it is still the best one that exists as far as a collective sense of honesty and accountability goes.
Re:National reputation (Score:2)
Governments that punish failure are also in this category; a scientist who finds himself damned either way will feel the pressure to produce.
Re:National reputation (Score:2)
We might add that the scientific community as a whole has a long history of this approach. It's called "reproducibility", and standard procedure is to apply it to all results from all labs.
I'd suggest that we do such in this case, and dispense with the legal and political attacks. Either Dr Hwang's results are reproducible and thus credible, or they aren't reproducible and should be dismisse
Re:National reputation (Score:2)
No, there should not be ANY special cases like you mention. A past history of reproducibility is not a valid indicator of the reproducability of new results. You have no way of knowing if the lab made a mistake or chan
Re:National reputation (Score:2)
That's partly why we really need skeptical, mostly younger researchers
Re:National reputation (Score:2)
The thing to bear in mind here is that this point cannot be validated. You see, there is simply no way of knowing how many invalid results have never been discovered precisely BECAUSE they have never been discovered. The same is true of perfect crimes and convict
Re:National reputation (Score:2)
Actuall
Re:National reputation (Score:1)
I'm an academic myself, and the pressure to publish as prolifically as possible is enormous. If you don't produce you loose your post, simple as that. Your prof's continued tenure depends on his/her department publishing XXX papers per year and beating YYY university who produced XXX+1 last year. The university's funding and prestige depends on how many papers come out of it per year.
No one really gives a fuck these days whether the paper is
Re:National reputation (Score:2)
Speaking of profe
honesty and accountability?!? (Score:1, Troll)
Oh boy, here we go.
As much as people complain about the government and society here, I think it is still the best one that exists as far as a collective sense of honesty and accountability goes.
Oh
Re:honesty and accountability?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
How is that a logical fallacy? My conjecture was that Hwang was caught because he was at the forefront - he became the scapegoat. Then they created this "mock" board to determine if he faked the results after he _admitted_ that he faked the results. If you would have read carefully what I wrote you would have understood that I was not saying "OMG! Koreans are all bad! LOL!!!! WE RULE!!
Re:honesty and accountability?!? (Score:2)
Sure, but it seems you've extrapolated from one researcher's behaviour to an entire country. That is a useless argument.
Re:honesty and accountability?!? (Score:1)
Go look up "Hasty Induction" on Google, and you'll be able to answer that question yourself, and avoid doing it next time. Teach a man to fish...
Isn't extrapolationg behaviors what courts do all the time? If a person lies during investigation, then is it un-reasonable to believe that they have something to hide.
The problem is that you've taken this one situation of a dishonest individual and tried to draw conclusions about the culture that person is from. Logically, based solel
This fraud hurt other legit research (Score:4, Interesting)
Story is here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor
Legitimate research lab: http://www.advancedcell.com/ [advancedcell.com]
the good news is (Score:2)
He did cloned Snuppy the dog.
Before everyone rushed to condemn him (rightfully), he did advance cloning technology. Some of the techniques he pioneered, in particular in nucleus extraction, are now standard procedure.
Which is sad, because one wonders why a technically gifted person such as he would stoop so low.
Re:the good news is (Score:1)
Pressure to succeed? Yesterday The World ran a story on this. He was a national hero there, because of the S Korea's ambitions to be #1 in the biotech in the world.
Re:the good news is (Score:2)
Well that backfired, didn't it? Now I doubt he'll be able to get any respect anywhere in the world for his work, regardless of the circumstances. Is a lifetime of professional ruin worth that? Apparently it was for him.
Cloning the Dog was Important (Score:2)
Re:the good news is (Score:1)
"No" gets failing grade (Score:2)
Cloning makes Puppy grow fast! (Score:2)
"The university panel ruled that an experiment last year in which Dr Hwang's team claimed to have cloned a dog was genuine.
A three-year-old Afghan hound called Snuppy - short for Seoul National University puppy - was genetically identical to his father according to DNA tests, the panel found."
Three years aging in just one year? That's just incredible! Such a growth spurt should not have been overlooked by the panel! Did they not even think to count his teeth?
Lied huh? (Score:1)
Is it more likely he has been shut-up by someone?
Conspiracy theory or not?
Is even the fakery genuine? (Score:2)
Million Little Protein Strings topped the New York Times Best Sellers list for a significant chunk of 2005 after talk show host Oprah Winfrey selected the taudry tell-all
Triumph or tragedy for science? (Score:1)
In the article I lin
Re:I'm shocked! (Score:2)
He said "I cloned you, dog!"
And everyone just misunderstood cuz they don't have enough flava.
Re:In Reference to Cloning... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:In Reference to Cloning... (Score:1)
Do you really think all of those people would be willing to work together? I think a lot of those great leaders couldn't stand being second banana to anyone.
re: in reference to cloning... (Score:1)
ed
Re:In Reference to Cloning... (Score:1)
Re:Religion scores!! (Score:2)
Yup. Regligion itself is the biggest fraud in religion. Religion was developed by primative societies as a way of controling the citizens. Today it remains a way for societies to control ignorant citizens.
Re:Religion scores!! (Score:1)
Re:Religion scores!! (Score:2)
That is exactly the conclusion this solid line of logic leads to.
"public schools become religious institutions where students are indoctrinated for 12+ years into a certain model of seeing and thinking about the world"
Interesting observation.
I agree with you completely and have no intention of retracting my statements or qualifying them to limit scope.
There is one very important