Arabidopsis Abuse and Cruelty to Carrots

Posted on April 23, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Luckily for my sanity, this week’s email alerts from Nature News are much more interesting than the ones I’ve been getting from Google. Today’s offering concerns new guidelines from the Swiss government’s ethics committee. All relevant grant applications must now contain a statement about the project’s impact on the dignity of the research subjects.
Those of us who work on grant applications that involve human or other animal subjects are used to this kind of thing. But our plant biotechnologist colleagues? Not so much.
Yep, as if submitting grants wasn’t stressful enough already, Swiss biotechnologists now need to consider Plant Dignity in their applications.
Maybe they could start by defining it.
I wonder if the comments on this article will get as crazy as these ones on a Nature News article about induced pluripotent stem cells. Thanks to Kyrsten Jensen for sending me the link to this very entertaining exchange, which degenerated into name calling, extensive comment moderation, and a stern reprimand from Nature staff.

About Cath@VWXYNot?

"one of the sillier science bloggers [...] I thought I should give a warning to the more staid members of the community." - Bob O'Hara, December 2010
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17 Responses to Arabidopsis Abuse and Cruelty to Carrots

  1. Richard P. Grant says:
    April 24, 2008 at 2:28 am

    Lettuce have feelings too!
    Ooh, I get to be the first to say it:
    “Political correctness gone mad”.
    There.
    So what implications does this have for, say, mowing the lawn? Consider the lilies of the field said Jesus, in a different context – do we now have to consider the grass before we commit genocide on it?
    (And I’d like to say something about the crazy commenters in that thread: I’ve seen one of those people in other places and … my respect for the dignity of cabbages restrains me).

  2. Martin Fenner says:
    April 24, 2008 at 4:59 am

    Reading just the beginning of the discussion of the Nature News article reminds me how good we have it here at Nature Network. We are a bunch of well-behaved folks and the fact that we can’t write anonymously certainly helps. And haven’t even started the topic of comment spam…

  3. Bob O'Hara says:
    April 24, 2008 at 5:26 am

    Wow. That stem cell discussion is a classic. Did anyone check the IP addresses?

  4. Henry Gee says:
    April 24, 2008 at 6:17 am

    do we now have to consider the grass before we commit genocide on it?
    Probably.

  5. Bob O'Hara says:
    April 24, 2008 at 6:17 am

    Hang on, what will this do for Swiss plant pathology? As a callow student, I used to have mildew dripping off my barley. That was hardly dignified.
    A campaign of parody is in order.

  6. Henry Gee says:
    April 24, 2008 at 6:46 am

    I just read that stem-cell thread dangling from the Nature story. What we have here is a clear case of an author who’s irked by a rejection. Now, whereas authors whose papers have been rejected might feel irked, with justification, some authors take things too far, and a few – mercifully a very few – become extremely aggressive and personal towards us editors. We get threatened with lawsuit, we are accused of bias (even racism) and death threats are not unknown, I believe. I had a particularly nasty case of this about a year ago that made me contemplate suicide, frankly. Scientists out there may not feel terribly sympathetic about this, of course. Frankly, I’m amazed that the Nature moderator let the discussion continue as long as it did.

  7. Richard P. Grant says:
    April 24, 2008 at 6:50 am

    Shit, Henry: that’s terrible. That someone could drive you that far?
    Seriously. hugs. (big, gruff, manly hugs, obviously).
    Now, about my manuscript…

  8. Maxine Clarke says:
    April 24, 2008 at 8:10 am

    Sorry, Henry — I emailed you this earlier this morning as a possible story, before logging on to N Network, not thinking for a mninute that of course people in other time zones would already have spotted it! Well done, Cath, what a story!

  9. Henry Gee says:
    April 24, 2008 at 8:15 am

    @Maxine – thanks for the tip! Although I was up well before Dawn (dang that girl, she always sleeps late) it was to entertain the dog (honestly! it’s like having a toddler again) so I haven’t had much of a chance to scan my inbox. Glad Cath caught it, though.
    @Richard – manly hugs appreciated. I don’t want to make a big thing about it (apart from a possible century-scoring blog post, obviosuly). More of an occupational hazard. But it was truly horrible at the time.

  10. Maxine Clarke says:
    April 24, 2008 at 8:19 am

    Please note, incidentally, that the author “irked by rejection” is not complaining about his research being rejected, but about journal rejections of his accusations that other people’s published research is erroneous, which is a different kettle of fish.

  11. Henry Gee says:
    April 24, 2008 at 9:17 am

    @Maxine – take care not to mention ‘kettles’ and ‘fish’ in the same sentence. Fish have feelings too, you know. Not to mention dignity. [Note to self: try not to mention my tapes of kittens being impaled on red-hot skewers].

  12. Bob O'Hara says:
    April 24, 2008 at 1:30 pm

    It’s OK Henry. Skuas have no sense of dignity.

  13. Cath Ennis says:
    April 24, 2008 at 2:31 pm

    The flip side of the time zone thing is that all the lovely juicy comments come while you’re sleeping.
    Tim Cahill) (the writer, not the footballer) defines Rascular Density as the number of bona fide sonsabitches per head of population (paraphrased, but close). Science generally has a pretty low RD, but it’s definitely not zero.
    Of course, if barley bashing and the like become crimes, the RD will trend towards 100%.
    I loved how the rascal on that stem cell thread started to criticise things like the scale of the stem cell shown in the cartoon! If his criticisms of the papers in question were as insightful, I’m frankly AMAZED they didn’t get published.
    Henry, would you like a girly hug too?

  14. Cath Ennis says:
    April 24, 2008 at 2:32 pm

    For those who don’t want to waste their time digging through the comments, here’s what I’m talking about:
    “I enjoy the irony of this cartoon. However, the cartoon is scientifically very inaccurate and even misleading. How could one (iPS) cell pull a big bandwagon occupied by so many people forward? Unless this (iPS) cell really has a magic force, then the cartoon implies a total impossibility of …—- Scientific truth should be debated with facts and reasoning. Thus, I feel it is inappropriate to use untruthful artistic means to ridicule still “valid” discovery. For this reason, I demand a deletion of this very offensive cartoon and an offering of deep apology to the (iPS) cell researchers seating on the bandwagon.”

  15. Henry Gee says:
    April 24, 2008 at 2:52 pm

    @Cath. I’m always game for a girly hug. But really, I’m a tough old bastard. I can handle it.

  16. Maxine Clarke says:
    April 24, 2008 at 6:29 pm

    Hmm. Not only does a journal receive attacks on the scientific accuracy of its peer-reviewed papers, but also of its cartoons – quoi?
    Sorry Henry, and I can’t even substitute “that’s another bag of peanuts” without offending someone or something. I guess I’ll just go and lie on a bed of nails, if that isn’t going to upset them.
    Bob– we don’t need the IP address, the person concerned puts his website addresses and links to his articles there on his (many) comments (on a range of articles).

  17. Cath Ennis says:
    April 24, 2008 at 7:21 pm

    And people thought that Danish guy’s cartoons were offensive! Apparently, publishing depictions of horse-sized stem cells is just beyond the pale. Expect rioters at Nature’s office.
    Maxine, were you able to confirm that the later posts appearing to agree with the original commenter were all from the same person?

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