By Nicola Braun
Science Reporter
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS - Many of yesterday's headlines read like singles ads and were just as misleading.
Today, a Harvard University professor denied that he seeks a woman to give birth to a clone of a neanderthal caveman. Professor George M. Church may look like Ron Pearlman in Quest for Fire, but he is a world renown geneticist. He helped launch the human genome project that deciphered human DNA. So, when Church talks, people listen.
Unfortunately, Church said his interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel was badly mistranslated. By the time his words had been converted to German and then back to English, his meaning had mutated faster than a monster from a B-rate science fiction movie. Then, the reports of his mad scientist scheme spread around the world media faster than a virus from a doomsday film.
In fact, Church had only said that cloning a neanderthal from fossils would soon be possible. He said finding a woman willing to carry and deliver the baby would be harder than solving the technical problems. The prospect of resurrecting extinct cavemen raised so many social and ethical questions that Church warned the public to start debating the issues now.
Naturally, it took a Massachusetts newspaper to set the world media straight. Church said a follow-up interview with the Boston Herald got all the facts right. Ironically, the Herald is just a tabloid. The Boston Globe is actually that city's world class newspaper. It's a sad day indeed when the Boston Herald has to be the voice of reason.
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