K.E., I for one see no reason to doubt your veracity...

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ The Rat Snake Forum ]

Posted by Gerry Binczik on September 19, 2002 at 12:46:56:

In Reply to: All these KENTUCKY COWSUCKERS posted by K.E. on September 19, 2002 at 07:35:24:

... concerning your rat snakes. If you say you found them in such-and-such a place, that's certainly good enough for me. Of course, that doesn't mean that someone else couldn't have first released them (or their ancestors) in the area where you found them, which I think is some folks' point. Regardless, I'm just happy to sit on the sidelines and watch the debate. But...

> ... I also have seen data manipulated by those who test DNA. Often I have seen people who are trying to define a new subspecies approach those doing the testing. The tester will often find that the results are not congruent with what the researcher wants. They will ask if the populations are threatened and smudge the findings from there. I have seen this more than once...

... this I WILL take issue with. I know that you have cause to have become defensive in response to what some here have said, and people understandably don't always remain reasonable when they're defensive, but I don't see how anything that has been said here can possibly justify you casting baseless aspersions on others who aren't privy to or even really relevant to the discussion. If your statements above are NOT baseless, please present sufficient detail and evidence (no need to name names, though, excepting your own) to back up your quite serious accusation of widespread scientific misconduct.

Some scientists are better or worse at their jobs than others, to be sure, just as with people in any other profession. But in my experience such blatantly unethical behavior as you describe is fortunately rare in ANY profession, certainly including the sciences. For you to suggest otherwise does no one any good, but makes YOU especially look bad. (At least, that's what it did for me as an interested bystander to the discussion.) The scientific profession has few enough rewards and gets enough undeserved bad press that it certainly doesn't need you mongering still more malicious rumors about it.

Gerry
gbin@zoo.ufl.edu

Follow Ups:

Re: K.E., I for one see no reason to doubt your veracity... K.E. 09/19/02 (11)
- Well,... Gerry Binczik 09/19/02 (10)
  - Re: Well,... K.E. 09/19/02 (9)
    - Just for clarification... Gerry Binczik 09/19/02 (8)
      - Re: What about the genetic aspects? K.E. 09/20/02 (7)
        
        You've got me all wrong, K.E... Gerry Binczik 09/20/02 (6)
        
        Re: You've got me all wrong, K.E... Kingmilk 09/20/02 (5)
        
        Ok, let's go ahead and make this a topic of discussion... Gerry Binczik 09/20/02 (4)
        
        Re: Ok, let's go ahead and make this a topic of discussion... K.E. 09/21/02 (1)
        
        If you really want to stop discussing your misbehavior... Gerry Binczik 09/21/02 (0)
        
        Humorous account of corporate misconduct Aaron 09/20/02 (1)
        
        Re: Humorous account of corporate misconduct Kingmilk 09/21/02 (0)