Stem Cell Research Moves Forward In The US

maniacdavid writes "President George Bush has finally made a clear and final decision on stem cell research. He will allow the existing 60 cell lines to continue their development in the hopes of curing a disease. He said the choice was difficult because of his stand on against stem cell funding during his campaign. But he allowed the 60 to continue because the choice between life and death was already made. This is good for both sides and many people are pleased. " Granted, there's the issue of these 60 lines viability, but at least it's not a total federal funding ban, as was widely expected. As well, there's increased funding on stem cells obtained from adults, umbilical cords, placentas and animals - 250$US million this year, which is still a pittance when you consider the potentials of stem cells.

Comments

Where in the Constitution ...

[Deideldorfer]

I am having trouble finding where in the Constitution or Bill of Rights the government is givin the task of dolling out tax dollars to fund any medical research. Could someone point me in the right direction?

Research should be privately funded. If you don't like the kind of research a company is doing, boycott that company's products. When the government gets involved, things get a lot more complicated. How will you boycott the government?

Re:And what happens when there is a cure?

[Moonshadow]

A species doesn't just change. Its traits slowly change, and in the absense of interbreeding between certain groups, branches. A bonobo doesn't just suddenly lose all its hair and start making swords (though, to be fair to them, they do make flint knives on occasion). Over the course of several hundred thousand to several million years, their traits change slightly. For example, donkeys are about 1-2 million years apart from horses and zebras. It took 2 million years to have such little changes as coat color and some facial features. Smaller species evolve more rapidly - fruit flies being one of the most common breeding species for such studies, are an easy example. In our lives, we've seen even smaller species, such as bacteria, change almost beyond recognition.

On the contrary, you appear to not entirely understand evolution.

Your claim essentially states that all life on the planet is all the same species with radically different traits. I'd be hard-pressed to say I'm the same species as a humming bird, or a tiger.

Yes, features change. Intra-species evolution. Species do not. I have brown hair, my mom has blond. Different genes. Hardly evolution. Under evolution, yes, those genes would have to become a part of our DNA, but they aren't evolution! Different features != evolution!

Evolving a facial feature is quite different from say, evolving legs instead of fins.

Mutations are very rarely beneficial to adding new alleles to the gene pool. As such, you're gonna have to go through a veritable mountain of mutations before you get even one that advances the species. Mathematically, you would have encountered mutations that would have contributed to the elimination of the species long before you reached that beneficial one.

From your Talk Origins site:

It is estimated that the smallest possible self replicating species would contain 124 separate protein chains. With each made of 400 aa-molecules.

-Probability of forming one protein chain of 400 links (all L-type) from a mixture of 50/50 D- and L-forms is 1 in 10^114.

- Probability for 124 seperate chains being created out of chance, each containing 400 links of L-type molecules from a mixture of D- and L- forms is 1 in 10^14,136.

- Probability for 124 properly sequenced protein chains being formed by chance alone is 1 in 10^64,480.

- Probability for 124 protein chains to have been formed from L-type molecules alone from a 50/50 mixture of D and L types 1 in 10^78,616. To produce these 124-x400 L type chains would require DNA with 148,800 nucleotides. This doesent even reflect the 124 x 6 codons for go/stop punctuation.

- Probability of forming one DNA strand of 148,800 nucleotides is 1 in 10^89,280.

Now....the probability for this one example of DNA amd 124 chains to have formed by chance alone simultaneously is 1 in 10^167,896.

WE HAVE NOT EVEN GOTTON TO A COMPLETE PROBABILITY FOR A WHOLE CELL YET. AND WE HAVENT EVEN TOUCHED UPON THE PROGRAMING FOR DNA TO CARRY ALL THIS OUT.

Even at the high end of 8 billion years, you don't have anywhere near enough time.

By contrast, in 8 billion years, there have been 4.7*10^17 seconds. And that's at 366 days a year.

That means you'd have to try approximately 40,000 combonations every second to achieve one example of those 124 chains by today. And look where life is.

Mathematical impossibility is defined as an event requiring more time to occur than there has been time for it to occur. By such definition, the formation of a cell from a primordial soup of material is mathematically impossible. That's one cell. Repeat that process an innumerable number of times till you get an organism that can survive and reproduce. Throw in a few trillion more years to eventually evolve to man.

If evolution was occuring so quickly, I would be a radically different organism from my parents, and I would look absolutely nothing like my grandparents.

Uncomfortable yet?

Math is one of the few things we know to be absolute. And the odds don't lie.

Perhaps you "get lucky", hit that wild chance, and get an organism to come together. Boom, it's killed by solar radiation.

Game over. Do not pass go, do not collect your parent's alleles. Back to square one.

Now, if you want to recalculate the age of the universe to several quadrillion years, I'll be willing to rethink it. But then you have to back up your claim for the age.

Re:And what happens when there is a cure?

[Moonshadow]

Standard disclaimer: Yeah, this is fundie crap. Go ahead and mod me down. But read it first.

"Violating entropy" is an old saw shot down by physicists time and again. "Overall entropy" says nothing about local entropy. To see another violation of entropy in exactly the same manner as life, take a look at your air conditioner. And no, that an AC unit is "intelligently designed" doesn't make the principal invalid.

Can you point me to anything validating that? And why does intelligent design not invalidate the AC argument?

Thank goodness! Moreover, if God were creating the universe, why make a male and a female? Why not an androgynous, peaceful, asexual society where men won't rage around fighting natural temptation to be the alpha male, leaving trails of orphans everywhere. Good one, God.

Genesis 2:7 ...the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Genesis 2:18-23
The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adamno suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called `woman,' for she was taken out of man."

We get the "alpha male run around, screw and fight" from original sin. We were made perfect, and given free will, with which we promptly screwed up.

Evolution is so powerful that if God were to create the universe as-is, we know enough that evolution would commence immediately on the then-existing species. God would have to take an active role in stopping evolution (which would then be detectable by science, BTW.)

Really? Then why have we never witnessed inter-species evolution? Intra-species, yes, but there has -never- been an example of one species becoming another.

Ironically, the quote at the bottom of the page today reads "You cannot have a science without measurement." --R. W. Hamming

We have never "measured" evolution. We hypothesize about it. It's as much a religion as Christianity.

Re:Political powers in non political situations.

[lcypher]

I bet money before the announcement that Dubya would try to have it both ways. Which is exactly what he is trying to do. If you are going to permit the research, why tie the researchers hands with this silly, arbitrary 60 cell line limit? It's rediculous. Especially considering a conservative estimate is over 100 cell lines existing already. Where the hell did he get this 60 number from?

Also, who gives a shit if the pope wants to cry crocodile tears over a handful of cells? The catholic church had no problem with abortion when Aquinas decided that ensoulment happened at 40 days for boy children and 80 days for girls. Abortion was just fine up until 'quickening' which is around 4-5 months. Anti-choice is a new concept, just like having 'In Gh0d we Trust' on our money.

This just proves that Dubya is a full blown hypocrite, like most anti-choicers. If they truly believed they were killing 'human beings', then there would be no justification whatsoever for stem cell research, or abortion for the mother's health, rape, or incest. If they do support that, then they are supporting the wanton slaughter of millions of PEOPLE$#@!

Let's forget also about the hundreds of thousands of embryos that are discarded because of fertility treatments. Think of all the narcissistic anti-choicers that have 20 embryos created to implant 5 that only 1 makes it to full term. That's 19 people killed for the benefit of one. Republicans and anti-choicers need to keep their hypocritical mouths shut and go petition to have mentally retarted people put to death, like in the great state of Texas.

It still boggles my mind that we elected(or the supreme court selected) a president whose only accomplishment was having a daddy that was president. Dubya will be a one termer like his daddy, which provides me with some solace.

Re:Political powers in non political situations.

[Mr.Phil]

My extended family has been in that situation. I do not believe it is moral to distroy any number of lives (possible or otherwise, depending on how you look at it) to save my child. Any other way, yes.. I'll pay any amount of money to save my child, but distroying life to save life is something I'm morally against. I don't think man should even have the option to create and distroy life, that's something that is God's alone.

Anyway, it's just conjecture at this point. I'd much rather see research into synthetic cells and organs that could function without fear of failure or infection.