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I thought that's what people wanted? Everyone said that the scientist who cloned a baby should be punished.

• whatshisface 8y ago
  The government handing out the punishments is itself untrustworthy, which is why every additional power they give themselves is a step in the wrong direction. >dozens of government agencies will have the power to hand out penalties to those caught committing major scientific misconduct The key insight here is that you are not being punished as a result of a long, careful process administered by judges and a jury of your peers (which has some problems but at least is designed to be careful and not political), but instead will be at the mercy of a few government agencies which must by their very construction be political. In the US, there is a similar problem in a much smaller dose, where the government is likewise attempting to assign itself more power without introducing controls to let the citizens be the ones who ultimately decide what happens. One example would be the "secret courts" in the NSA problem. Although the US government is presently much nicer to its citizens than the Chinese government, the only reason this is true is because US citizens have more leverage on the US government than Chinese citizens do on theirs. This can change, and unsurprisingly the officials are trying to gain more authority.
• PavlovsCat 8y ago
  It's not what anyone who wants that scientist to be punished automatically wants, no more than someone who wants a glass of water wants a tsunami. Besides, the Chinese authorities already said what he did violates Chinese law, so what would introducing new laws achieve here, unless they're applied retroactively? The last thing I heard was that he went missing, any updates on that?