Talk:Ian Wilmut/Archive 1

NPOV editing

I have tried to make this article in line with Wikipedia policy, but it seems that one editor in particular (209.77.137.57) is dedicated to have her way. I think the controversy paragraph is (at best) to long and not very neutral. But I'm not entering an 'edit war', and the invitations to discuss the subject on the talk pages has not been fruitful so far. Any second opinions about this?

ToK

Somebody really hates this guy. It hardly does any justice to someone on the web looking to learn about Ian Wilmut, the details of his experiment, early life, work, inspirations, academic credentials. God. Looks like a pro-Life Stem Cell person wrote this. --பராசக்தி 05:49, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Why does the science have to be related to geo-politics?

One of the main sources for the information is the The Center for Genetics and Society. "A nonprofit information and public affairs organization working to encourage responsible uses and effective societal governance of the new human genetic and reproductive technologies". It is aligned with liberal/left of the U.S. Democratic party, hardly a pro-Life group.

http://www.genetics-and-society.org/

BBC profile

Editors can take information from this BBC article. Ekantik ^talk 22:45, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

George Orwell's 1984 was written from his experience working at the BBC.

The BBC article lacks any references at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.96.84.2 (talk) 13:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

A Question of Scientific Ethics: the rules that are already in place, as well as more recent proposals

==The idea that made cloning possible==

"The idea of freezing cells for use in cloning had been devised by Dr Campbell and the vital experiments had been carried out by a fellow scientist, Bill Ritchie."

"Some scientists, who spoke to the Guardian under condition of anonymity, believe the group would still be trying to clone an animal were it not for Prof Campbell, who worked out that each egg and cell used in a cloning attempt had to be carefully coordinated for the embryo to have any chance of surviving."

"Idea of freezing" (i.e. freezing in the cycle, not freezing cold as you might think, and "each egg and cell used in a cloning attempt had to be carefully coordinated for the embryo to have any chance of surviving" are referring to the same thing.

The disturbing thing is that most people are continuing to act as if nothing happened, oblivious to the uniform requirements for authorship submitted to biomedical journals:

http://www.icmje.org/

Please see: section II Authorship and Contributorship A.1. Byline authors.

"Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship."

A supervisory role does NOT merit authorship.

Most scientists would say that the work consists of having a testable hypothesis and then testing it. Wilmut, it seems, did not contribute to either part.

The question is: what is Wilmut's scientific contribution?

Ekantik ^talk 23:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Wilmut's admission that he only played a supervisory, and not a scientific role, would also contravene the rules for scientific ethics proposed by Sir David King the U.K. government's ertswhile chief scientific advisor.

In particular see rules 2 and 3 proposed by Sir David King:

2. Take steps to prevent corrupt practices and professional misconduct. Declare conflicts of interest. 3. Be alert to the ways in which research derives from and affects the work of other people, and respect the rights and reputations of others —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.183.131.170 (talk) 12:24, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2007/09/hippocratic_oath_for_scientist.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.183.131.170 (talk) 12:20, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_oath_for_scientists

Father's blindness

I see that a citation has been requested in repect of Leonard Wilmut's diabetes and blindness. I don't see how this can be provided from any published or online source since it's very unlikely it has ever been mentioned there. If it's any good, I can personally vouch for the accuracy of this - Leonard Wilmut was my uncle, I knew him personally and indeed he contracted diabetes in the 1930s and went blind around the 1960s as a direct result. He had been a Maths teacher and after going blind became a computer programmer (in the days when that meant punched cards). I haven't amended the article: I leave that to others to decide whether this is sufficient authority. RFWilmut (talk) 12:00, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Biography section

This section is not balanced and would benefit from a complete re-write. There is little information about Wilmut's life and a lot about other pioneering work in his fields of research. The latter should not be in this section. --TraceyR (talk) 09:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

The point is that he did less of the pioneering work than the public had been led to believe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.96.84.2 (talk) 05:43, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Then say so, in the appropriate section. Since Wikipedia aspires to be an authoritative encyclopaedia, statements should formulated objectively and sources referenced. "Neutral Point of View" is one of the central pillars of this edifice. --TraceyR (talk) 07:25, 28 June 2008 (UTC)