Perhaps some compassion is due Professor Hwang Woo-suk, the South Korean stem-cell researcher. The press is as quick to damn as it was to laud him, and then moves on. We might remind ourselves that the two papers in question in one of the world's leading scientific journals, had multiple authors (25 in one case, 15 in the other), and were peer-reviewed. Science is always self-correcting, not always so rapidly and destructively, and a more sober analysis will emerge: hopefully something will be salvaged, not least for the people involved. High-profile science, where publication priority and "impact factor" translate directly to funding, is fiercely competitive. Nobody, least of all politicians, wants to hear about the luck and hard-work that is research. Science doesn't win votes. This is the world we have made.
"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."
Ecclesiastes 9:11
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