Since some people are still wondering about my latest April Fools parody article, I thought I should be very clear that it's a farce. However, most of the backstory is true, including…
- 40 of 43 Presidents really have been taller than the person they beat, and height really is the primary factor in US elections (I didn't check other countries but I assume it's the same).
- Rael is real, the story about him is real, and the cult/group is real.
- Clonoid is real, it is owned by the Raelians, and they have produced clones, they claim. They have refused any independed scientific testing and most people have denounced them as a fraud of some sort.
- The procedures on newts were real as described, and the Nobel Prize really was given for this.
- The procedures on humans as described would work and are real, and, at least the less monstrous ones, are things that we should expect to see in our lifetimes I think.
- Dr. Josef Mengele really did do bizarre experiments with twins, although not in vitro as far as I know. He did move to Argentina and Brazil after the war, and the American government did use his research and that of other concentration camp doctors to further their own nationalistic drives.
That's about where the truth ends. Mengele of course did not work with Rael, and kept an incredibly low profile because he was a war criminal on the run. Rael and Clonaid have no interest that I know of in producing “modified” or otherwise improved humans. In fact, one of their goals as stated on their website is to create perfect humans and avoid these defects. Cyclopidia and the other defects mentioned are all real and could be controlled, but are usually far less positive than as I've described.
Anyway, I hope people enjoyed it and it gave people something to think about. It gave me an excuse to basically write some bad sci-fi, which was a lot of fun for me…
