Shame on Andrew Pollack, who is usually one of The New York Times' best biotech reporters, for pandering to readers'...
Shame on Andrew Pollack, who is usually one of The New York Times' best biotech reporters, for pandering to readers' fears with this gawdawful headline and deceptive lead. He makes a private symposium on science fiction genetic engineering of human tissues sound like something sinister and secretive.
George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and one of the organizers of the proposed project, said the characterization was a misunderstanding, and that in reality the project was aimed more generally at improving the ability to synthesize long strands of DNA, which could be applied to various types of animals, plants and microbes.
“They’re painting a picture which I don’t think represents the project,” Dr. Church said in an interview. “If that were the project, I’d be running away from it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/science/synthetic-human-genome.html
George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and one of the organizers of the proposed project, said the characterization was a misunderstanding, and that in reality the project was aimed more generally at improving the ability to synthesize long strands of DNA, which could be applied to various types of animals, plants and microbes.
“They’re painting a picture which I don’t think represents the project,” Dr. Church said in an interview. “If that were the project, I’d be running away from it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/science/synthetic-human-genome.html
To his defense, journalists are rarely allowed to set their own headlines these days.
ReplyDeletePer Siden I know Andrew and have followed his work for some years. He is sufficiently senior to write his own copy (though maybe not his own headlines). This is very much his piece, not the editors'.
ReplyDeleteSend Mulder and Scully.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a new brand of scifi, distributed as reporting and likely enabled by Trump's media presence. Journalists have been listening long enough to start getting the knack of real-time bullshitting à la Trump, while transposing this Trump-derived aptitude to trumpless contexts.
ReplyDeleteBoris Borcic Actually, this is a fairly typical George Church stunt--- discuss some kind of ridiculous hypothetical feat like cloning a mammoth or diagnosing any disease with a pinprick as if the technology to do so alredy exists, then back away from the inevitable pop press sensationalism. In this case, Andrew Pollack is doing master showman Church a favor by accelerating the hype cycle straight to the maximum.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they think of themselves as dramaturgists scripting a path to technology by propagating false news of its accomplishment.
ReplyDelete