BBC "Bad Science" Team and the Earthquake Pig

The BBC reports on the pig that survived an earthquake.

Now in the interests of some kind of charity I'm going to assume that this reporter is either a China affairs expert or the one they send to cover human affairs - sorry, porcine affairs stories. I'm going to assume they're an Arts graduate in short.

It's the little things that do it for me - the remark that the cloning was a success even though the pig was 5 years old and castrated.

Well, yes. This reporter either doesn't understand the concepts of cloning, or possibly those of castration. I think the point is that the cloning took place because of, rather than despite, the castration.

The reporter then goes on to tell us that the piglets bear a "striiking resemblance" to their dad. Yes. Striking, eh? Surely the only "striking" resemblance between two genetically identical organisms is a very poor resemblance.

Believe me, it's not that I'm being unkind. It's just that next week the same reporter could be trying to explain issues in human reproductive ethics to us. And that really scares me.