Sunday

A short time ago, after being at TIFR long enough, i noticed that there was a particular degree of peace and tranquil associated with Sunday that was found on no other day. Sundays have indeed been special.
Sundays are a predominantly biblical holiday.It has never particularly existed in Indian culture, i guess.I wonder whether there was a Sunday like day in ancient India or whether they adjusted with the zillion holidays that we anyway have. Of course they dint have an ambedkar jayanthi and a Gandhi jayanthi, but i am sure they had their own set of deities and kings whose birthdays needed to be celebrated.

However,coming back to the modern sunday.....when you are a kid, Its the day of the week where your parents never needed to wake you up.,Sunday mornings were about watching cartoons early in the morning. By the time your parents woke up, the fun degenerated into haggling with your parents over how much time you had to spend watching T.V. versus doing chores at home, bringing civilisation to your room or the even more dreaded thing- studying.

It seems to me, that god- when he designed the sabbath- never actually thought about the modern education systems. After all, Sundays are spent by kids trying to balance the temptations of the television with the not so tempting homework-which has been piled onto you by a merciless teacher.

The homework filled sleepy afternoon Sundays were followed by another social evil- that of being dragged off to visit a set of distant relatives who would always seem to comment about how fast you had grown up or if you remembered as to who they were.Ofcourse! i grow up and ofcourse I dont remember you!. This was generally followed by long discussions between the elders. You would spend hours gazing away at paintings on the wall and wonder as to which looney would want to draw so many cubes and why it all resembled a face. AS time passed and you got more bored, comments on how bored you were never mattered to the parental entities till you of course buzzed them to death about it. There was however another scenario.On rare occasions, when the sun was a smiley and hung lazily in the sky, you could get to visit a house where you there were children whose company you would enjoy.However, here, you would of course be goaded to leave as soon as possible.

Night came swiftly after that. There would be the familiar shouts of "tomorrow is monday", "you haven't done your homework yet!", " why are your shoes so filthy" and so on.....
But anyways, time has changed and I have moved onto a world beyond the Sunday homework and failing which, you had the fears of Monday punishments. The world is more merciful now.Sunday is a day of rest and introspection- a day to catch up on all the sleep and the associated dreams you had...during the week.

Despite all the associated evils, Sunday is the greatest invention of western culture.

TIFR

Picture of the week:
TIFR at sunset.

TIFR, originally uploaded by bored kid.

growing up

Not that I have become wise, I have grown up into a world of my own. Its one of those things which dawn on you over time. It’s not a reflection of what I have done or what I have learnt but purely what the time spent here. I remember the popularization of colour TV, of the fall of the Berlin wall and the Ayodhya Mosque. I grew up through Star trek, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Crystal Maze, re-runs of MASH, Wonder years and the rise of cable television. I no longer watch television.

I remember un-dedicatedly listening to Bappi and Illayraja. I now listen un-dedicatedly to A.R.Rahman and a jumble of western noises. I remember playing around in the gardens and backyards- building dams and canals to irrigate the gardens. ‘New deal’ constructions are no more. I don’t have a garden anymore.

I remember being warmly tucked into bed by mom, and be left alone to read fairy tales, David Copperfield and Treasure Island. I remember imaging a boogeyman running around the house looking for a kid to be awake. I now go to bed, too wasted and tired by the day and by the computer to be lulled to sleep by a book.

I remember vacations and free time was a book, a bicycle ride around a vast campus or a conversation at night with dad along with a movie. Vacations now are free time spent in a million trivial pursuits, riding around on crowded roads on smoke coughing machine- without time from you for your dad or for you from your dad.

I remember that snatched chocolates, shortened play hours were the worst disappointments in life. The disappointments now no longer effect the hour or the evening but the years of work that I have spent and the years of work I will spend undoing the cause of disappointment.

It was all so good. I have never taken time to think about how good it was. It all happened too fast. Life is still running too fast. Childhood was spent exploring the wild places that abounded the places I lived in. The world is moving on. The pursuits, loves and hates of old have sunken deep into a ground left far behind. Ahead is a place wilder than what I imagined, a place of rolling hills and gentle beauty of eye catching wildness, a place where I have been promised to find wholesome wickedness and untempered good. The new world beckons, a new love, old loves strengthened and filled with new music, movies, games and fantasies.

on speeches and speech writing

Theory:
Hear one speech.......and you have heard them all.

Evidence:

1. Award acceptance speeches and acknowledgements:
these are the worst of the lot:
everyone including me thank:
mother,father,uncle,aunt, my brother bunny, my sister billie, my freind funni ,my pet munni, my neighbourhood puncturewallah, my imaginary freind ingellford etc etc.
Some people also just might thank other random things:
a clever mouse researcher thanks his mice.

2.Speeches with political overtones:
These occupy a special place altogether.One would be forgiven to think that there has been no novel speech in a century.The last great political speeches were reserved to the Churchills and nehrus and hitlers and kennedys.One almost feels that all great speech writers after that seemed to have migrated to Sirius B.
Typical phrases: "Axis of Evil" !!! oooooooooooooooooooh! this is just so original. George Bush along with other mediocre non-sense seems to have accrued a speech writer who is no better than a novel writer from 1984.
Another great example is the almost exceptional speech is the one made by President Bill Pullman in Independence day- "we will not go into the night without a fight".Yeah! it might be goose-pimpling etc.However, it almost sounds like a prize poem in Class 4 where you predominantly predispose your poetry to rhyme. THis sounds like the "blood toil sweat" speech of Winston.(We will fight on the beaches, in the fields etc etc...but never surrender).A speech given by Gandalf in LOTR also sounds shadily like the "battle of britain" ( Gandalph: the battle for helm's deep is over and the battle for middle earth is about to begin. . . Churchill: The battle of france is over and the battle of britain is about to begin.)

However, all is not lost.Not all speech writers and speeches send you down drowsy lane.Some of the greatest speeches i have ever heard live- were from Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw.You know...that he is seen it all.
Giving due credit, Laloo's speeches are quite entertaining.Vajpayee....at times shows promise-before ofcourse you fall asleep.

I think i have proved to quite a reasonable extent that my hypothesis is right.Signing off before i sleep.

On liberals and liberalism

Liberals and Liberalism have been seen by many to be a case of the middle path:A path chosen by cowards and ambivalent individuals to run from either extreme. I agree, its true-that many a man have used this as a transition phase while moving from one wing of thought to another.I have seen more than one freind who has swung from left to centre to right and back again.

Their reactions seem to be dictated to some extent, by which wing of society is acting in a more extreme and irrational fashion.To this extent, they are niether of the wings nor are they liberals- but are humans driven by emotional instincts.

Liberals in essence, are those, who choose to solve problems-innovating solutions unhassled by dogma of either wing of thought. Liberals are driven not just by ideology or theory but by a synthesis of rational thought and the values of human society.Liberal societies are those- which embrace free thought and free action, but act responsibly -knowledgable of the value of both. A liberal society is capable of evolution-in a stable fashion- rather than through leaps and jumps of societies seen through large chunks of history. Liberalism is continuous evolution and not revolution.

Liberals need not be moderate. Liberals can be extremists.Extremists in a way, thats subtly different to the present day connotation of the world. An extremist can be defined as a person who chooses to make a statement or to propel an event rather forcefully. We have numerous examples of such people.They include a Medha Patkar, who agitates for the millions of te displaced in the Narmada Valley.They include a Joeseph Rotblat and a Robert Oppenheimer- who gave up a promising careers to speak out against the atom bomb and the arms race. They include a Mordechai Vanunu- who gave up most of his life- to expose the Israeli atom bomb program. They include a Gandhi,a lone man in front of the tank at Tiannanmen, a technicianin a Polish shipyard and a million other men-well known and unknown.

Liberals, today, have been masqueraded as apologists for the various "outlawed" societies in this world. In other places, they have been seen as preachers of the outlawed gospel.that assumed, I would be inclined to see a particularly misled man two thousand years ago also as a liberal.

Liberalism, as I have known, extends not just to political thought, but to all other areas to where the human mind may stretch its long reach.Science is a prime candidate.On many fronts, science has been obstructed by the lack of free thought. Dogma has prevented the advance of science at speeds it could have gone.Free thought, liberal thought- the foundation of science is always not as universal as one would have thought possible.Anyway,thats another issue.Frustration i suppose, something which every dreamer in science has complained about.

The description of liberalism may well sound like an ideal arm chair idea. However,unlike previous experiments, liberalism is not a pure mechanical machine run by a irrationally rational computer or a machine run by pure emotion. It is the ideal synthesis of both.Here in may lie hope- to make make the world leap longer, faster and higher.

-a hopeful liberal

Indian law makes an ass of itself

Indian law of teh same fame as:
Jessica Lal and a million different scams and scandals has fallen to a new low:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5128250.stm

A New World

I have always wondered about what made "people to go to new places, to find new worlds and civilisations-to boldly go where they have not gone before." I now think that there are atleast two reasons for it:
1. The Ideal One:
the human being wants to find out whats beyond the next hill. (early man stage)
the human being wants to find whats different between his valley and the next one.(Classical Greek)
the human being wants to come back, write a book on what was there beyond teh next hill and become rich. ( The age of empire and information).

The human being wants to leave a legacy-for blah-blah reasons.(ubiquitous)

2.The Real one:
The human being wants to start his own kingdom (stone age)
The human being wants glory for himself for blah-blah and blah reasons(Age of empires and empire builders,see Alexander and Livingstone)
The human being wants to make money in a land where honey flows free and not reserved( India Today)
The human being is pained by most other human beings around him (ubiquitous)


ps- i realised that the points regarding legacy and glory are both real and ideal-dependent on teh perspective in question.

BUSH TELEGRAPH

Bush says:

we believe in the equality of life.
"Killing" of embryos is not right. FINE!
Euthanasia is not right.FINE!
Three dead men,not proved guilty, are a PR stunt!
Some people are more equal than the others.

communique

its been sometime since i have written. so, there will hopefully be a completed version of all my recent entries.
to start with, i realised the following things:
-i dont particularly have an opinion. i take the most fashionable stand,
-i have attack of Obsessive compulsive disorders
-i have little work to do-my boss doesnt seem to care
-i am bored


-communique ends

miscellaneous things i like for no reason

Over the past few days,i have been going over all the things-which can at best be described as random and when in a pseude mood as 'surreal'.Some of the highest rated among them include:

1.Large areas- barren of human civilisation and presence.
2.Large areas which are devoid of any bright sources of light at night. I like it better when the darkness is peppered with small points of light.I liked it even more last night, when i managed to sit and stare at the flowers beneath one such small point of light.
3.Small trails going through the wilderness to nowhere in particular.
4.watching large stacks of photos(with people i recognise) with suiting music in the background.
5.jingoistic movies which i know are jingoistic
6. the idea that i am capable of independent thought.

the unknown scientist

Defenition: Behind every known scientist, are many students,who work on through the night,through boredom frustration and other negative emotions-work,so that the known scientist goes places-where no other of his kindred have gone before.This is a allegy for the unknown scientist, who lived, slaved and passed out.All the "Unknown Scientist" wants you to accept is that " he gave up his today so that his boss could get a grant tomorrow".(Disclaimer: He refers to all the existing sexes and is not indicative of a gender bias.Disclaimer 2: this is not exactly autobiographical, its the combined experiences of many a student)


He came one day to be interviewed, filled with overflowing enthu
The boss was there,mouth watering, to snap up this yummy tofu
Thus, he came to the land of microscope,micropipettes and nano-brain
While in search of a place where results rain

Days passed by,Dishes he washed and rooms he cleaned
Orders he chased and boss left him phased
Experiments he did, many a time he failed
Merry was he in the game, for masochist was his name

In dark corners he sat, burning oil made from his fat
Ideas he would pitch, but a thesis he couldnt stitch
Passing by was time, No one's life was worth a dime
In these lines, right now, i am running out of rhyme.

Postscript: if it sounds merry, then make merry! that was the effort, i am not sure that it came out that way.

Equality

Equality is a nice word.

I like to use it.My boss likes to use it.Activists like to use it.
My boss told me that there is no heirarchy in science.Everyone is equal in the western parts of this planet.Humanitarian aid is given, because we cannot let our equals starve.

As Orwell said, some equalities are more equal than the others.My boss is more equal than me.In the west, you are a defender of freedom and equality if you caricature one prophet and a villain if you caricature the other.

Equality is a myth.

freedom of expression

Freedom is a much bandied term in the western world.I ascribe to it as much as they do.Freedom of action,ofcourse is a reserved right-to be used justly, without harm to others. For me, the freedom of expression is no different.You are allowed to say whatever you want, but we have to realise that this freedom comes with a responsibility. Controversial expressions are just and acceptable as long as they are a just critic, serve a useful cause or provoke a debate and hopefully, positive change.However, the freedom of expression is not to be abused.

Expression should not just be a medium where one side of the world assails another.

Abridged Guide to poetry as a medium for rhyme,rhythm,philosophy and bullshit

(Disclaimer: I declare myself incapable of comprehending poetry and other pieces of writing implimented by certain enlightened individuals such as Sylvia Plath,James Joyce etc.No comment has been made on their collections of words.)


I was once a poet.I ready my poetry today.Most of it has the rhyme, the rhythm (the entire shake your booty mimicry).It also has lots of philosophy that I once pretended to understand.I, must however mention that I did like a couple of poems that I had written.Certain random combinations of words do make sense once in a while.Fortunately, the amount of poetry I pretended to write was in almost vanishingly low volumes.

I had a freind(name not mentioned), who could speak Spanish,English,Telugu,French and Hindi-all with the same amount of mastery.He ofcourse did publish in 'el pais' etc etc.He did ofcourse write poetry in all the languages.We were oft treated to these masterful works , crafted with all the emotion befitting a lost ant.My two favourite combinations of words from his poetic efforts were those written for a freind of mine-with whom our linguist freind was in love .
The efforts were as follows:
1. "You are my Love,You are my dove....."
2. "I like making love to you,While you are new( we never did figure out if it was
new or newd!)

As you may well have figured out by now, the linguist freind did make quite an impact on the female freind of mine with all his love ballads.
AS you may well have noticed, there is a spectacular run of rhyme and rhythm-which is so smooth that it doesnt even bother to stimulate any stimuli whatsoever.It has the feeling of a fly bored by the buzzing of a flea.
THis, is one extreme form of commonly written poetry.It proves that an immortal monkey with a typewriter and infinite time and banana supply will indeed type out Hamlet.


His poetry also alluded to several philosophical and phisiological paradoxes and conundrums-into which i would not like to go into.

If any volunteer actually wants to actually feel good about his or her own poetry, then you may indeed read my freind's poetry.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any after-effects of reading his poetry.

Research Blues

A long time ago, i decided to become a researcher in whichever science i would be permitted to do. I will not pretend, my initial fascination for science had nothing to do with feynamanish curiosity. It was more of the curiosity-such as what is there inside my toy piano that sounds out the not so melodious tunes. This unstructured curiosity led to the dismantling of many of my toys.

It might be of interest to mention that only a completely random set of events landed me in biology.The random set of events directly supports paradigms described by the butterfly effect.
My interest for science was in no less way kindled by accounts of heroism and romantic bravado- of scientists who found a way against all odds.

I am no less(!!!), after reasonable struggle(15 years of painful exams), i joined mainstream research-not that i do anything of purpose.

I joined, with dreams of hypotheses and cerebration, of intellectual brain storming and artistic creativity, of everything that would keep me happy.Those dreams seem to have been left behind on the loft.


THe first half of my course was spent in a place that was magnificent with all its malaise.There were lots of hypotheses,cerebration etc on how to outwit your fellow student whose adulation was gonna win over my supervisor-and make my life miserable ofcourse.My supervisor was one of those who hadnt read a paper which had come out after his phd,so he was quite well in touch with the times.


The first few days of my seconds half has seen me cleaning tissue culture rooms,glassware and other arbid things(such as filling forms draawn up by some gorm) which has nothing to do with science.

I am here right now, listening to a Blues station, trying to read brave accounts of scientists before me-to keep my flag flying.Will I stand and be counted as one more brave hero? I dont know, i dont want to particularly know the answer to that right now-the answer might be quite frightening-considering the fact that i am not sure if i am capable of doing the tasks i am assigned to do.

This entry, by the way, is dedicated to the seniormost Phd students in my lab-who for 4 years of madness have stood there- rocks of logic admist all teh misery-of cleaning rooms and bottles,fighting with brainless gorms and bring there for their juniors-just when they needed them the most.

intelligent design-2

In a lab, the only proof of the 'exciting' work that one does is a record of all the experiments that have failed. God, it seems has many of them.

Records recently dug up suggests that god and his better half were thoroughly average researcher with a below par integrity level. He had the required number of failures.(I refrain from speculating on the sucess of god's present experiment.)

So one half, the better half, tried sculpting creatures that would continuously keep praising and raising the ego.So, first were created the bacterium-all they did was to eat,grow and enjoy their immortality.God realised the folly(bad planning has made experiments useless many a time after that) and made the next layer mortal.

Meanwhile, the not so better half decided that the architecture of the world required a teeny-weeny change architectural changes ,air-conditioning and other such things.( lack of intra-departmental coordination).
The seas were flooded with slimy life and other yucky things. But they couldnt speak clearly enough for the gods to listen(see-bad planning again!).You, see-they needed someone else to invent the hydrophone and niether half was good at acoustics and electronics(lack of inter-disciplinary interaction.)

So, the better half sent them out onto dry land so that god could speak to them-without the use of a hydrophone. Thus were born the dinosaurs. God liked sculptures and mummies. So, god thought dinosuars both those arts. A miscaluclation by the better half messed the connections in the brain-so instead of learning both sculpture and mummification, they started making sculpted mummies.( Smart arse humanity calls them 'fossils'.)

The not so better half was too bugged by the better half's sucess. There was a large sized domestic squabble.Stones rained on earth. Burps and other sounds emanated from deep inside the earth.
Dinosaurs ended.(Conclusion: Intra-departmental squabbles are injurious to health.)



to be contd.....

intelligent design-2

In a lab, the only proof of the 'exciting' work that one does is a record of all the experiments that have failed. God, it seems has many of them.

Records recently dug up suggests that god and his better half were thoroughly average researcher with a below par integrity level. He had the required number of failures.(I refrain from speculating on the sucess of god's present experiment.)

So one half, the better half, tried sculpting creatures that would continuously keep praising and raising the ego.So, first were created the bacterium-all they did was to eat,grow and enjoy their immortality.God realised the folly(bad planning has made experiments useless many a time after that) and made the next layer mortal.

Meanwhile, the not so better half decided that the architecture of the world required a teeny-weeny change architectural changes ,air-conditioning and other such things.( lack of intra-departmental coordination).
The seas were flooded with slimy life and other yucky things. But they couldnt speak clearly enough for the gods to listen(see-bad planning again!).You, see-they needed someone else to invent the hydrophone and niether half was good at acoustics and electronics(lack of inter-disciplinary interaction.)

So, the better half sent them out onto dry land so that god could speak to them-without the use of a hydrophone. Thus were born the dinosaurs. God liked sculptures and mummies. So, god thought dinosuars both those arts. A miscaluclation by the better half messed the connections in the brain-so instead of learning both sculpture and mummification, they started making sculpted mummies.( Smart arse humanity calls them 'fossils'.)

The not so better half was too bugged by the better half's sucess. There was a large sized domestic squabble.Stones rained on earth. Burps and other sounds emanated from deep inside the earth.
Dinosaurs ended.(Conclusion: Intra-departmental squabbles are injurious to health.)



to be contd.....

intelligent design-1

I am a believer.
The world we see around us is the creation of god.
Being a student of science, all this is ofcourse is based on the unharnessed power of the almost mythical- cold logic.

THe past few months spent in research has led me to believe strongly that this world was created. In teh beginning, there sat a god-alone, on his mighty throne of nothingness. He was very bored and his solitude led him to create another part of himself.

One half had a very big ego and wanted to show the other half that it was the better half. So, to describe itself, it drew two plus signs at an oblique angle. The other half was doing the same thing, but then- its pencil point broke. It could draw only one and a half oblique plus signs.

So the first half had two oblique plus signs and gained ascendancy over the other-thus becoming the better half. the better half will now be reffered to as 'XX' and the not-so-better half will be reffered to as "XY".

XX then decided to create things around.XY just decided to hang around.

contd....

regurgitator 3: rise of the morons

As my fave critic once put it, some movies are created to prove that watching a blank wall is a much more entertaining and educating experience, while others are created to insult the audience's intelligence.Terminator 3 is one of them.

To start with,Guvnor Arnie feels,acts and looks like a pension drawing robot.Apparently, his party's policies to privatise Social Welfare has worked. His releif cheques seem to be too paltry as he is wearing the same clothes as part 2. Is this a result of a DeJa Vu or a residual self image?

The T-X, which is supposed to be a hot( as defined by Victoria's Secret), looks like one of those pet chewed dolls-only that its capable of changing its boob size(a device once predicted ny John Brunner in 'Stand on Zanzibar'.Nothing new!).Oh! it can also barbecue a chicken a mile away among other impressive thing.

Our protagnist, John Conner,son of Sarah Conner,is an out of work,motorbike wielding vagabond who crashes as he is unable to steer around a deer! Is this the man we are putting humanity's future into?


Anyway,the movie is an insult to us,to the machines and the ant which guest starred in the movie. The T-X has all the paraphernielia to make it a perfect killing machine.However, it doesnt have a poison syrette to inject into John when she catches him.It is also of importance to notice that none of the androids- or cybernetic organisms as Arnie romantically calls- 'think' that the optimum way to kill a human organism is to ram him through all the glass screens around.I assume that the robots which took over Sant Gobane( a swiss glass company) lobbied for such mechanisms to ensure that their company did well.As we have noticed, the cybernetic organisms(norgasm) have sucessfully followed the capitalist patterns.Arnie has carried some of his governance in to movie. It looks as if its the shape of things to come.

Another loophole is that shri.Terminator Arnie has a hydrogen fuel cell that explodes in a mini-mushroom cloud. its got the same shape as the shady mushroom that you get in a 10 rupees mushroom soup at your street corner chineese bandi! I wonder why he never used this weapon in regurgitator 2:boring day!Was he suffering from amnesia?

Oh! we also had those classic,wit soaked, intelligence dripping one liners-no one synonym-lines.He luckily doesnt remember 'i wll be back'(to the bathroom? i bet that arnie will not be able to say that to his electorate) and astala.....whatever babie! He has other intelligent oneliners which have their impact only when they ooze out of a robot running on gas and 128kb RAM!

I cant end without a comment on skynet, our freindly neighbourhood chip loose computer.Its self aware(oooooooooooh!-I see shades of a unit matrix,nai a null matrix-anything bigger would be difficult to compute).Does that imply it will be able to decide against voting for the republican party and having the capability to train itself to go to the bathroom everytime it feels like peeing? Anyway,Skynet launches nuclear strikes all over the planet and we all go to kingdom come.I will let out some of the code for skynet so that you all can build one in your backyard.Its in BASIC.Its at the end of the half view.

If the self-awareness they refer to is so basal, i am sure that even my ancient computer-running on windows(!!!!) has more common sense. THe ant which guest starred in the movie was apparently so disgusted- by the preview(imagining that it would be an insult to be associated with such a lowly intelligence) that it paid from its own personal accounts to remove the footage involving it.Thats why we dont see the ant that guest starred in the movie.

Anyway,getting back to more important things, i wonder how skynet would perform if it comes face to face with marvin the paranoid android.It would be nice to see skynet commit suicide.It wouldnt need to try too hard. it just has to spell the name of a particular austrian body builder.He forgot about the brain i presume.

Interesting scenes in the movie:

By far, the most interesting scene is at the end. TX crashes into the fallout shelter in a helicopter which i dont exactly know too much about.Following it is Sea-stallion.I was starting to wonder if Godzilla was gonna come through it next.

A scene bound to be screened in the same hall of fame as the cradle scene of potemkin is the bathroom fight. The regurgitators hit each other with every available peice of bathroom hardware.Vow! One piece of hardware hurting another piece of hardware with other hardware.it never got better.the icing is ofcourse the bit when TX is stuffed down the crapper. Mouthwash?

The real story:

i have a conspiracy theory.Skynet already exists.Its using movies like regurgitator to convert most of humanity into zombies,so that it can take over a world,without launching a nuclear strike. Its such a severe insult to every brain that each brain terminates itself. that explains the name of the movie.

I will end here. There is apparently gonna be a fourth part regurgitated.till then,chew the cud.
I will be back.



Appendix:



((((________+++++==============------------------------------incoming massage====
10 Rem
20 %^&**
30#$#%%
n0 $%$^^
no+10 end
Run
=====......Skynet doesnt want rivals........I have been monitoring the computers and the above programme is censored under the patriot act....be patriotic....
==============massage ends-----------========++++++______________))))

I hope you all will make the best of it.

ethics in science

It is normal to see people over-interpreting data.This is not a crime.It is a flaw.It comes with an obsession to see every expriment create a whole new paradigm, a new niche . Sometimes,this obsession goes a bit too far.


In the past few days, I have been reading about the South Korean scientist, Hwang Woo Suk was a scientist who had almost achieved cult the status of a hero for what was thought to be a break through in the field of Embryonic stem cells and regenerative medicine.If his techniques worked, we would have been one step closer to growing replacement organs to replace any that may have been diseased.However, rather than becoming a chapter in a Text book for medicine and stem cells, he has instead become a prime case study for ethics in science.

Dr.Suk claimed to have produced cell lines tailor made for individuals.This implies, that you could make tissue which resembles a pateint's without upsetting his immune system. To get here, he not only cloned human embryos( a tremendous achievement in itself), but also derived stem cell lines from them.

After the initial euphoria died down,details of breaches in accepted ethical standards were noticed.
He claimed to have made 11 or 12 cell lines (dont remember exact number),or 11 different types of raw material to make new tissue. However, he later declared that he had lost some of them to fungal infection( something plausible) and the others, he claimed were not completely derived yet.Only two were ready.He had rushed too early with the publications. I assume that he thought that all he had written would be accomplished,but things dint exactly go his way.

The rest of the story, i leave to you people to dig out of the internet.Nature,Science,BBC,New Scientist and a host of other sites have carried sufficient information about where this story has gone.I have heard today that he has retracted his paper from the journal science.


As i have come to see it now, every scientist is wary of over-interpretation and tries his/her level best to avoid it.However, when someone overinterprets or misinterprets data,willingly, it becomes manipulation. This is one of the crimes Dr.Suk is guilty of according to the facts available to us.One case is insufficient to malign science.However,what worries me is that this malaise is reasonably widespread,atleast in some of the circles I move in.


A grad student I know, has a very promising question to work on.He presented his preliminary data at a conference.What he dint tell them, was that most of the data he had shown didnot have a control with which it could be compared! He Knew that his data would have no vlaue without the control.You could neever know what normal is,to say if the data you are showing is something abnormal.THis is manipulation.

I also know a faculty.He is guilty of manipulation.He was trying to map the lineages of a specific animal.When the data didnot match his expectation, he changed the raw material from which the data was obtained.he also turned a blind eye to potential sources of error.This is manipulation.

In the strictest scenario, the second case is not manipulation.But anything which plays with the faith of fellow researchers is manipulation.

What is worrisome is that so many gifted people have gone down the wrong track.Manipulation,rather the lack of fairness and integrity in research seems to be more prevalent than what most may agree.What we require to do is to clamp down on this behaviour and remedy it as soon as possible.Its not fair on anyone's part to expect that all scientists be fair.Its not possible since they are also humans.I was discouraged by the presence of such behaviour in a premiere institute.


However,to observers outside science,I would like remind to them that not every worker in science is contaminated by this behaviour.After all, most of us work exceptionally hard for a pittance.Many come to this field for the love of it,rather than because they have nowhere else to go. Let us not forget this year's Nobel winner-who infected himself with a bacterium to prove that ulcers are caused by pylori, or those great people who laid down thier lives to prove that yellow fever is caused by musquitos.

If anyone has to be angered by manipulation,it should be the scientific community and not the many outside it.DONT BLAME ALL OF SCIENCE FOR MINUTE DISTORTIONS.TRY TO SOLVE THEM IF POSSIBLE.Afterall, if not for science, humanity would not be here and i wouldnt be typing on a blog- the many offspring of the internet- a creation of a scientist at CERN.