Re: CNN article on radical mutation/doomsday genes

[TomHopp@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/30/98 3:27:32 PM, John V Jackson wrote:

<<another example of the press making copy out of a

confused story, and I'm sorry to say, somewhat misleading the public, when

they could have printed . . .  but that's another story.>>

Well said. You know, I spent twenty years in the Biotech Industry, and
lectured on my discoveries at international meetings in Cambridge England,
Sienna, Budapest, and Jerusalem, among others, and the NEWS MEDIA never saw
fit to take up my stories (potential new cancer, arthritis, and vaccine
technologies) but now that I have begun to get involved in DINO-WORLD, it
amazes me -- my first scientific presentation in this field was written up in
scientific magazines and made a buzz on the web. But . . . . curing cancer is
more important, isn't it?
    Well, I choose to look at it this way. Just as we smugly look back at
medieval legends of dragons and griffons, knowing that the poor benighted
fools were obsessed with the magically-changeable, mystical, religious
connotations of dino lives, so too will we be looked upon as endlessly mulling
the changeability and metaphysical meanings of DNA and dinosaurs. That is, our
evolving and always half-formed understanding of the world and its history,
colored by religion-like desire to have everything explained, cause us to set
great store in dinos and their meanings, while realities like cancer and its
need for a cure get ignored.
   No criticism intended here. Just a personal note and another mystery to be
pondered. Oh and lest I forget what originally moved me to respond, I would
like to underscore every word of your comment, above. Perhaps if I had garbled
my cancer and arthritis messages, then put them forward not as small steps in
the flow of scientific knowledge, but rather the BIG ANSWER, then maybe I
would have had my fifteen minutes of fame, as well.
    Do I think that scientists callously manipulate the news media? No, not
all of us, at least. Some just stumble into it and revel in the limelight for
a while.
    Tom Hopp