Wounded King

I have met a few people recently who seem to be under the impression that the Raelian cloning is a done and dusted affair and humans have been cloned. The only things I can ascribe this to are either a ludicrously uncritical acceptance of tabloid journalist headlines, and a subsequent failure to read the story, or a general lack of follow up in any, non science based, media to cover the ongoing lack of evidence.

I can understand that "Still no evidence of cloned babies" is a pretty dull headline, but doesnt the media have some obligation to set the record straight after their huge coverage of the initial claims?

Has anyone else come across this sort of attitude?

The Dark Lord

Do you really believe that the media would do such a thing? Ruin the sensation that they started?

Because I don't.

But on the topic of cloning, almost everyone I know doesn't believe the Raelians. As with most other things, I will retain my scepticism until credible proof, not just an allegation by a "non-profit organisation" which I find more unconvincing than X-ianity, can be supplied.

pz

No, quite the opposite. The fact that they've backed off on any testing to confirm their claims pretty much confirms that they are a gang of looney-tunes fabulists, at least in the crowd I run with...you know, rational people.

Godot

IT'S ALL TRUE DAMMIT!!

But seriously,
with regard to the media, there's the old axiom of "if it bleeds. it leads." The moral vacuum of media precludes the likelihood that any further news on the subject will be published unless the refutation of the Raelian claims can be classified as sensationalistic.
It's a common enough attitude (extensively prevalent!), but ultimately the onus rests on us as individuals to bypass the media circus bias to get the facts behind the real story (and this includes the follow-up too).

Wounded King

All news is a case of caveat lectorin your opinion? Sounds reasonable to me. Some of the propaganda we get in the news today certainly reinforces that impression.

Godot

caveat lector is a nice touch. But given the vast amounts of shit we need to sift through just to get a weather report these days, why should we complacently be spoon fed information we are told we need to receive?
I watch the news or read a paper/magazine to listen to opinion. If I want facts I go to the relevant journals, or textbooks, or to respected colleagues. Not that the latter is unbiased, but that is a type of bias I can account for; with mainstream media, you have no idea what agenda is being foisted upon you.

trillian

5 babies and no proof?... even when it would be fairly easy to do without "revealing" identities. The media were highly irresponsible for overreporting it in the first place and I think unless there is hoax-busting info that comes out, they are right to remain quiet on the whole. All the ink they give to them is more money in their shit-spewing pockets.
I wish I could delete them somehow from my brain...they don't deserve any space there.

They should give them less attention than stories about Bigfoot.

Unbeliever

I quite agree, trillian. The only reason this was done by the Raelians was to garner publicity, in the hope of making money and/or converts. And somebody should be punished for it. It would be nice to be able to find out just how successful they have been in this regard. It,s like a bed song that gets stuck in your head that you can't get rid of! :banghead: