Editorial

Compared to many branches of science, Biology is making up for the past lag, It is going forward by leaps and bounds in recent years. The achievement of AIIMS in using a single cornea for three persons successfully, is something one should be proud of. Prediction of characteristics by DNA and alterations in gene in order to make violently oriented persons milder is on the border line. With regimented thinking in society and autocratic regimes, the border line between proper use of these techniques and misuse is very thin.                                      

The latest news about successes in stem-cell research that for generating human embryos one can use bone marrow perhaps strikes at the very root of the concept of family and human society. Cloning and creation of crossbreed animals are sufficiently bad. Cloning humans or making humans in laboratories will have to be condemned in no uncertain terms.

When one has so many areas of research badly needing attention, such as cancer, HIV, tuberculosis. Alzheimer's disease, tension and stress, one has to stop funds and brains for research just for scientific curiosity or sense of power, particularly when the final outcome could bring disaster to society.

Barely half a century is over since one saw the misuse of science on human beings. Human society is not yet civilized enough to handle dangerous weapons or dangerous research.

Medical science has barely scratched the surface of gold mines. Natural products are being used by a great percentage of educated people. Homeopathy is still popular among the masses in spite of rising prices of medicines in Delhi. The much maligned Yoga has been proved to be good for many of the stress induced diseases.

What is needed in research is a scientific bent of mind. Drawing conclusions purely based on research and experimentation if we are not to lose many patents because we had a bias for a particular orientation.

To claim results without experimentation is a superstition. To condemn the medicines without experimentation is an equally bad superstition. Science has to be objective. Positive research in Biomedicine is what is needed. Clones can wait.