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Kary Mullis
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Kary_Mullis.jpg/165px-Kary_Mullis.jpg)
The woo is out there UFOlogy |
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Aliens did it... |
...and ran away |
Not just a river in Egypt Denialism |
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Alternative facts |
♫ We're not listening ♫ |
“”Once he turned on the lights and left sacks of groceries on the floor, he lighted his path to the outhouse with a flashlight. On the way, he saw something glowing under a fir tree. Shining the flashlight on this glow, it seemed to be a raccoon with little black eyes. The raccoon spoke, saying, ‘Good evening, doctor,’ and he replied with a hello.
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—You read that correctly. We are not kidding.[1] |
Kary Mullis (1944–2019)[2] was a Nobel prize-winning biochemist, best known for developing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), unquestionably one of the most important tools in molecular biology.
Unfortunately, he had a number of less-founded views that he publicly expounded upon.
Where's the beef?
Given that he claimed that his LSD use had a major role in his work on PCR (James Watson, one of the discoverers of DNA, notably made similar claims with respect to his development of DNA as a concept prior to empirically confirming it),[3] it is perhaps unsurprising that he holds a number of bizarre views on subjects outside his specialty, and was noted for endorsing various and sundry conspiracy theories and pseudosciences.
Crank views
To name a few:
- AIDS Denialism: Mullis hung around with noted AIDS denialist Peter Duesberg and believed AIDS is a conspiracy involving the government, scientists, and environmentalists.[4]
- Alien abduction: Mullis claimed he had had an encounter with an extraterrestrial being, in which he denied the involvement of LSD. More specifically — he reported having close contact with a glowing green raccoon at his cabin in the woods of northern California around midnight one night in 1985. No, really.[1]
- Aliensdidit: Mullis saw evidence of Urantia Book scientific foreknowledge, writing "Several scientific developments, unexpected in 1955, reported in 2005 in Science and Nature […] were somehow described rather precisely already in the Urantia Book."[5]
- Astrology[6]
- Climate change denialism[6]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Bullard, Thomas, "The Myth and Mystery of UFOs", LRB (Review) (UK) 33 (22)
- ↑ Kary Mullis, eccentric Berkley-educated chemistry Nobelist, dies by Peter Fimrite (Aug. 10, 2019 Updated: Aug. 10, 2019 11:02 p.m.) San Francisco Chronicle.
- ↑ Mullis on LSD
- ↑ If you want to know what the environmentalists have to do with it, you'll have to read his book, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field.
- ↑ Seriously.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 NYT: Bright Scientists, Dim Notions