When opening the International Convention on Bio-Technology in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said: "It seems that we can now produce any number of Einsteins and also numerous Hitlers."

Being able to do just one out of the two is not bad at all, especially since the Malaysian government under Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has managed to do it without any help from genetic engineering.

What about the rest of the fanciful "monsters" and "creatures which may destroy us in the end" rhetoric that Mahathir used to pepper his opening address at the biotechnology conference?

I guarantee that any scientist there would have been scratching their heads inwardly, going "What the...?!"

Perhaps Mahathir thought he was attending a science fiction convention, or a meeting of the Mary Shelley Fan Club.

My belated advice to Mahathir is that if he does not have the time to prepare proper notes for the conference, perhaps he should have let someone else open it.