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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.
Thank you for completely not reading the post.
You did a most definitely excelent job of dodging the issue.
Now, I repose it.
We don't care if human cells or even globs of human cells die. We don't care if unique organisms/dna combinations die. Why do you suddenly combine them together to equal "I care enough to force my beliefs on others?"
And, once again, I'll state, the thing that makes killing a human a tragedy is the destruction of a complex, unique consciousness. Of which there is none in an early fetus, unless you believe the "soul" is the source of consciousness - but then, that would be forcing religion on others.
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
And don't say that it can't happen, because if you can remember that far back, Ross Perot won 19% of the popular vote in 1992.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
I invoke Godwin's Law.
His point was valid and on topic, and did not in any way compare anyone to the nazies. Perhaps you should actually READ and UNDERSTAND godwin's law before you start invoking incorrectly.
Finkployd
"I'm just a boy who can't say no," said George W. Bush as he announced his decision to allow public funding of stem cell research. The President then burst into a medley of other songs from Oklahoma before someone reminded him that he had a speech to finish.
Some worry that in their push to get the funding approved, biologists have over-promised the potential of stem cells. Several scientists who testified on the issue have had to issue clarifications in recent days. For example, stem cell research will not one day lead to free trips to Disney World. And the field of study will likely never lead to the long-awaited vaccine for Cooties.
Time will tell.
Click here for the full story.
Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are not based on texts written and maintained over thousands of years, with more existing manuscripts than the Iliad.
But there is the same amount of evidence for them as there is for your 'god'. Just because lots of people believe something, does not make it true. You might want to check out The Logic FAQ.
Evil Overlord X
Coming to a third world country near you
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
That would be bad, because then you'd have *gasp* a democracy!
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Or was that false?
Free Mac Mini
At least, that's what some of the media says. I, however, take a slightly more grounded view.
Personally, I support this decision strongly - regardless of my personal views on the subject (of which I'm sure you're just dying to hear, right? Hello?)
It's in the President's best interest to appeal to as many groups as possible... after all, he does want to get re-elected (we assume).
I think this decision appeals to the largest possible group of Americans... including those who don't necessarily support it. The absolute conservatives will (and have) denounce this as a moral travesty, while the pro-research groups will lament the limited viability of the exisiting stem cell lines (claimed to be anywhere from 10 to 80, depending on who you ask).
What some people are forgetting is that no laws have been passed restricting the research - all that has been done is that FEDERAL funds have been restricted to a subset of the research. Private organizations are welcome to fund any type of research they want.
The pro-research groups need to realize that they're getting funding for a controversial line of research, and are welcome to do whatever research they'd like with private funds.
The pro-life groups need to realize that regardless of their feelings on the method of obtaining the existing stem cell lines, they *do* exist - abandoning them will not repair the moral injustice they feel has been done. The new guidlines on federal funding acts to represent their views by not supporting the destruction of human embryos (or "pre-embryos").
Frankly, I think Mr. Bush has dodged a major bullet here. Important research will continue with the federal government's assistance, and major moral questions will remain at least partially unchallenged.
-- "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"
Kind of odd that there's such a brouhaha about this, given that most of the real progress wth stem cells has not featured fetal tissue in any form. But the placenta/umbilical cord issue does seem to have been addressed by this, which is nice. I like the idea of that former waste product being put to something useful.
Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
My question is, why do the non supporters feel this is a win? The government didn't stop these companies from getting NEW STEM CELLS, they just stopped the funding on that spcific process.
The researchj WILL go on and i'm happy to say i support it 100%. With 2 grandparents that have alzheimers (and died..) and my wifes father dying a horribly painfull death from cancer i can only have praise for such research.
And lastly, my beliefs is that 4-5 cells do not constitue life, if that is the beginnings of life then sue me for masturbating away billions of cells that would HAVE or COULD have brought "life".
And for the religious right wingers who's life is in gods hands, i hope you don't ruin it for people who believe in god but believe in humans and science as well.
I want my replacement body parts, and I want them at reasonable prices.
If on the other hand, you believe they aren't life, then not experimenting on the other surplus embryos that will be discarded anyway is a poor decision because it holds back the progress of science in curing some terrible diseases and afflictions.
It appears Bush avoided an ideological decision and opted for the political decision that made everyone a bit happy with some reservations. This should have been an all or nothing decision.
A coworker pointed out that if there shouldn't be a moral objection to using discarded fetuses. The moral objection, if one exists, must be with the people who allowed the fetuses to be created in the first place. Once that step is taken, then using the discarded fetuses for research is at least more noble than flushing them down the toilet.
but I think he made the best political decision! This should appease some of the moderates that would have totally abandoned him if he had banned the research completely. The dems would have only been happy if he had given the bank away for the funding. If he had done that though, he would have lost the people on the far right, and probably much of the red map. Now nobody is too pissed off at him.
The only thing that troubles me is that he is trying to play this off as if it wasn't a political decision, but a personal one. He heard moving stories from both sides, but when it came down to it he went with the best political position he could take. If he had gone with his gut he would have kept his campaign promise!
You missed the point of my last post.
;) It has nothing to do with faith.
As we determined that abortion comes down to religion, one group should not have the right to force their views on it apon others.
-= rei =-
P.S. Merriam-Webster defines atheism as a disbelief in the existence of deity, and religion as the service and worship of God or the supernatural.
P.P.S. - if you want to get into a debate on the necessity (or, actually, lack of necessity) of faith in atheism, I'll be glad to oblige
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
One very interesting result of Bush's announcement is that we are beginning to see the same change in him as a President that we have seen in our last two (Clinton and the other Bush). GWB came into office on a very conservative platform and immediately began implementing conservative policies and reversing many Clinton policies. Public reaction to these actions was mixed, but I think generally unfavorable. GWB's foreign policy has received a huge amount of criticism both at home and abroad. But now we are seeing Bush being forced to shift more to the center. He won't ban federal funding for stem cell research outright. He won't unilaterally proceed on a lot of the foreign policy or military intiatives that he has lately been pursuing. I think as his administration moves forward, we are going to see more movement to the center. I believe that no president can expect to be successful in today's political climate without becoming a conciliator of vastly different viewpoints. The notion that either conservatives or liberals run this country at any one time lives on only as a fiction convenient for reelection and media purposes.
RE: ad hominem
You miss the point of the crux of ad hominem. This is a fallacy because the truth of an assertion doesn't depend on the virtues of the person asserting it. You said "when a materialist makes [this claim]..." you refer to a person's quality affecting the assertion.
RE: What I'm saying it I'm saying is that pure science - absent the influence of morality - leads to disastrous consequences. Science is not able to determine right from wrong.
Pure science is exactly that. Neither right nor wrong. So how does a theologian get to ascribe morality to knowledge? Or you, for that matter? Pure science in and of itself isn't evil - but theologians and others have said so, because they believe it to threaten their world-view. The world not being flat, therefore the Bible is wrong, that kind of worry.
RE: Because according to the laws of science, we are not able to produce matter from non-matter.
E=mc squared. We can create energy from matter - it should be a matter of time before we do the reverse. Again, you're ducking the question. Whether Charlton Heston bathed in light suddenly caused everything to appear, or it just came into being, it had to come into being, from nothing.
RE: God is non-material, and is not subject to the laws of science.
You assume God exists.
RE: Based on our experience, it does not make sense to assert that the universe came from nothing.
Just because we didn't experience it doesn't mean That is not naturally possible.
RE: Therefore, we need to look to supernatural causes.
Well, you go off and pray for enlightenment, and leave research to the rational people.
RE: Ethics and morality typically have a theological basis.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. OK, we'll leave the discrepancies between ethics and religion out of it, OK?
RE: Not only that, but GWB lives in a political world where the majority of his constituency believes in God.
That's arguing to the masses, another fallacy. Just because a bunch of Texans and Arknasawsians (sp?) think that a guy in a bathrobe wove a wand and made everything doesn't mean it should be the basis for research.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
"Splitting the baby" indeed. It was an excellent call in many regards and, but for his campaign promises, may well be taken as presidential.
But one is left to wonder how, exactly, can one "compromise" on these questions? If the fertilized egg is not a living human being, then the question is a no-brainer: of course, you harvest the tissues for life-saving research. If the fertilized egg is a living human being, then the question is likewise a no-brainer: of course, you may not harvest the tissues, even if it has potential to save a life.
If you recognize a third possibility, that the fertilized egg is merely a potential life, then we have much deeper --and intellectually far more interesting-- questions. When does a potential life require protection from harm?
Of course, these questions defy authoritative answer -- and yet a binary policy decision must be made (for even the failure to make a decision effectively serves as a decision). The President was therefore faced with a Hobson's choice.
To that end, this left-of-Che-liberal salutes the man (or his advisors). It would be a great cop-out to simply announce a result, or worse, to announce a result and give a half-of-the-case justification, or worse yet, to do all of that and undertake to marginalize other reasonable arguments.
He actually gave a fair summary of some of the difficult issues and announced his policy without pretending that a fundamental principal that required the result. This enures much to his credit. (Alas, his spinmeisters continue to try to pretend this is consistent with those campaign promises and pose him as the ultimate pro-life candidate, but what can you do?)
Bush solved the political quandry by reducing the problem of sponsoring fertilized-egg-killing to one of "what do you do with the socially positive profits of an act, if the act is arguably immoral?" Credit where credit is due -- this is a stroke of genius. One needs to violate Godwin's law to point out the ultimate difficulties of the ethical position (something along the lines of whether it would be morally right to use Mengele's research if it yielded a cure for Cancer) taken, and in the end, the secret heart of most Americans wants the potential cure more than they understand the enormity of harvesting a non-implanted fertilized egg.
Amusingly, few people seem to have identified the actual ethical issue-shift that the policy accomplished. Amazingly, Hughes actually side-stepped a question about Catholic dissent by pointing out that a Pope had blessed the use of medicines resulting from research that included acts previously deemed immoral. However many debating points she thinks that may have won on intellectual grounds, suggesting a Pope's absence of infallibility suddenly unfinesses all of Bush's successes for the day.
Time will tell if there will be a price to be paid on this one. Bush turned a Hobson's choice into a chance for success and sound policy -- sound indicia of leadership.
Whether or not it succeeds, this left-liberal salutes a brilliant piece of political strategy.
I'm just gonna reply to the script part, since the office is closing down, and it's time to go home :)
.5% beneficial, the population's going to be killed off by the harmful mutations before it evolves the beneficial ones that would change it into a different species.
Basically, that given a certain population, if each "round" (loop) of mutation is 99.5% harmful and
Or did I completely miss what you were trying to say?
Basically, that line that confused you was my "reproduction" simulation - the survivors have offspring - in this case, 50 offspring per survivor, making the total population 50 times as large. The process is then repeated.
(Not addressed at you -- I'm just taking this line because it's the core assertion of those who oppose such research, and you phrased it perfectly.)
So I'll take it at face value. I'll make an argument based on the assumption (IMHO erroneous) that a single fertilized cell constitutes life.
Why must embryonic stem cell research destroy life?
They're stem cells. Undifferentiated. If you wanted to "clone" one, you'd do it the same way you made an identical twin -- wait for it to divide, and separate the two cells.
If one stem cell is a human life, why not let it divide, grab one for research, and stick the other - identical cell - back into the freezer where you got it.
(And when some fundie says "You still destroyed one life, and suspended another", ask the fundie who created the second life. Without the lab researcher separating the two cells, there would be only one embryo. Will the fundie accept that a mere lab technician can create a new life two? Or will he acknowledge that the remaining cell we put back in the freezer is every bit the "person" it was before it divided.)
What a self-serving, arbitrary, ethically vacuous definition that is. Run away, Dr. Mengele. We know what you thought about your research, and we aren't interested.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
By not voting for the political party in power at the next election! DUH!
Fundamental research will not be funded by private companies! So what you want is no university. This is completely idiotic. When companies are doing research, it's almost entirely based on what was done before at universities.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Remember, many Christians had zero problem with slavery cause it was in the Bible. Wasn't right. But then again, neither is massacring people and raping their children. Which according to the OT is just fine and dandy because God delivers these people into your hands. Ethics, sure I can buy that. Making sure that religious issues are covered, ennnnhhhhhh, no.
I spent an hour today writing up an essay on the true lack of difference between ethics and morality to attempt to convince you that theologians are just as important, but then the futility of it struck me when I reread the above quoted paragraph. You wouldn't care no matter what I said, so why bother?
I've been through this way too many times. I get tired of dealing with bigots who attempt to paint the philosophy of my family and friends as one of hatred, murder, and everything else that it in truth stands against. It's a waste of energy. Religion is evil in your eyes, and nothing I say can change that. All I am left with is this request:
Quit trolling. You're adding nothing productive to this discussion or any other with this blatant bigotry.
If you actually understood religions and thought hard about human nature, you might actually see the seperation between the philosophy and the deeds to people professing to be its practitioners. The actions you describe are functionally no different from how modern politicians do harmful things to a cause while claiming to act in its name, such as GWB on the environment.
That is all I have to say. You may now have the last word if it makes you feel better.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I wonder how many others in the lifer contingent are similarly only pro-life because it's either convienent or because they have a selfish cause of their own to be pro-life. How many of them, faced with a decision like "back stem cell research or spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair," would say "YEAH BABY! LINE THOSE FETUSSES UP!" Perhaps it's just that while they feel fetusses are human life, all human life is not created equal. Seems to me that if your politicis are pro-life, any choice other than rejecting all stem cell research (And anything that comes from that research) out of hand is complete hypocracy. I wonder just how many hypocrites the future will show the lifer demographic to have...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Thanks for the link! I've not seen this before. It's going to make for some interesting reading!
/. posts, but I've managed to get completely offtopic in the process ^_^
Yes, I read your post on the thermodynamics. I'll have to do a little research into it before I can properly reply to it.
THIS is what I've hoped to accomplish by this - get some information I've not yet heard and learn about it. I readily admit that I've been taught a 1-sided view, which I do believe is very valid, and I'll do my best to defend. But I'm perfectly open to learning and thinking on the subject. Possibly the worst thing one can do is refuse to learn.
Best regards to you, Rei, eviloverlordx, and Bobo. It's quite pleasant, albeit different, to debate with people who can not only give logical answers, but back them up.
I'm going to do some reading on speciation and crossbreeding, and see what I come up with.
I do believe I've not only spent the entire day replying to
I have a question:
Why is it The religious extreme and The scientific community?
I could just as easily say the supporters of life and the killers of babies -- but you'd probably call that hate speech.
Those opposed to human embryo stem cell research are not neccessarily extreme, or even religious. And those scientists who will pursue the research are not neccessarily pure, or even scientific. They could be complete charlatans, only wanting the funding because they're greedy. Hell, what if one of the scientists create a cure for alzheimers from this research and manages to patent it? What will you say then?
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Its harder than that. In Florida about five years back, a family had a child with a mortal birth defect, no cerebellum. The anencephallic child would "live" in the womb, grow organs, and live via involuntary breathing without assistance for a few hours only.
The parents were given the opportunity to abort, but opted to bring the child to term, so that the organs could be harvested and some good could come from their tragedy. Religious groups sued to enjoin the harvest, and the matter went straight to the Florida Supreme Court, which held under the brain death statute that a single pulse to or from a brain stem is sufficient to preclude considering the child dead.
As it turned out, for the infant, the organs were worthless unless they could be harvested before the child aesphixiated naturally. The victorious plaintiffs held a garish, insensitive rally, waving the injunction papers as proof of the preempinent importance of "life."
At the hospital, however, the parents could only watch helplessly as their child was brought to term, born "alive," and ultimately suffocated to death, destroying all the organs to no end at all. Their child never felt, never thought, never sensed an external stimulus and never manifest any of the sensibilities we associate with life.
Not that this case didn't represent difficult and deep questions, and I doubt the Supreme Court's question (construction of the brain death statute) readily allowed any other result, but the overarching tragedy of the matter was remarkable.
You're not completely missing the point. Here are a few things you are missing that might help you understand the issue:
Even the staunch opponents of embryonic stem cell research would agree that your life is just as valid as any other -- even that cluster of cells they believe is human.
The difference in the cases you cite is that you are already dead before we do research with your corpse. The child is already dead before we do research with its corpse. We have to kill the embryo before we can do research on its corpse.
You noted that the embryo will be flushed anyway; killed in any case. That's another point the opponents dislike. They believe that flushing the embryo is a problem, too.
The US government itself just said that it won't spend people's money on research that involves killing an embryo. It also said that it would continue to fund research where the embryo is already dead, and it would increase research funding for stem cells obtained from sources where human life isn't an issue.
Note that the US government didn't say that it doesn't want research to happen. The House of Representatives may say such a thing later this month, but I'll hold comment on that until it happens.
Judebert
"We're out of explosives. What we need is a plan!"
For geek dads: Contraction Timer
This was the first question I asked at the end of the address. I havn't heard any discussion concerning ownership, but I do wonder how many lines are in private (vs. public university) hands.
Ideology breeds Hypocrisy. Just how much is up to you.
That's the amusing thing about a democracy; instead of one sick, insane monster of a dictator doing evil things, you can have an entire populace doing evil things. I'll point out that originally, only white male land owners (possibly of a strict age range; can't remember) were supposed to be able to vote in the states.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
RE: A religeous man can still be a scientist quite easily really. It depends on HIS views...which may or may not be the same as the higher ups of the faith he practices
Re-read it AGAIN. I said a C-L-E-R-I-C. A cleric is not just a "religious man", he is someone in the employ of a religious organisation to ensure that the belief system of that particular system are put forth. Kinda contradicts the whole "do science with an impartial mind" thing. I don't see "make sure that it doesn't contradict Thessalonians 1:24 or Derek 9:16 or Surah 42:11" in the Scientific Method, anywhere.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Bullshit. I worked as a security guard at Ciba-Geigy(sp?) when I was in school. They had been doing research on pre-emergent insecticide/herbicides for years(>20), because of the promise that it would use a fraction of the chemicals and be more potent. Obviously not immediately promising, and yet the company persist. I hear this argument on /. constantly. Companies only work on stuff that will show on next quarters stock report.
I'll turn it around at you and say that most academics spend time chasing rainbows that have no application (obvious or otherwise), and that only occasionally does someone develope something that is useful. (Yes, this statement is also full of shit, but no more so than yours.)
All I said (essentially) is that a company has an obligation to its stockholders, and that obligation is to give them a return on their investment. Government is (supposed to be) a non-profit institution.
I'm a big supporter of government funded research because it has more leeway to take greater risks. I worked as a government researcher for 9 years. One of the products I worked on had potential for an actual product in maybe 20 years, and at the end of those 20 years, it still may not be a very commerically viable product, but still very useful from a humanitarian standpoint. We wanted to get support from companies, but they wouldn't touch it unless they could see a profit in 5 years. And those companies that did join us were constantly threatening to bail at every setback.
A few big companies can support large scale, long term research, but today's market doesn't encourage that- investors are pulling their money out of those types of companies (seen how good Lucent stock has done lately?) and putting them into companies with the potential of large short term growth.
Is Bush's "We will have a committee to oversee this, made up of doctors, scientists, bio-ethicists, and THEOLOGIANS" (I'm paraphrasing, emphasis mine - he DID say the word theologians EXPLICITLY)
Sorry, but clerics have NO place in science. Just as scientists have no place dictating religion.
I find it funny that he talks of "th' sanctutty uh hyumin life" - but executes the mentally retarded HAHAHAHAHAHA what a hypocrite.
No, you can't study the heavens! The Bible already tells us the world is flat! No! You can't dissect people to find out what their organ systems do - that's against the dignity of human life, excuse me... yes, that heretic... draw him and quarter him, flay the other one alive...
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
> "You Nazis have committed unspeakable acts of utter barbarity against the Jews! By the way, can we see your research files?"
If you can find an original Pernkopf Anatomy Atlas and compare it with versions currently in print, you'll see that this is exactly what happened.
Here's a more detailed article on the issue. It's a bioethicist's nightmare.
You overlook the fact that there is no essential moral distinction that can be made between this research and the research conducted by the Nazis on the Jews. It is an utter defeat for Bush to say, "Well, those babies are dead anyway." It is not fundamentally different from saying this to Mengele:
"You Nazis have committed unspeakable acts of utter barbarity against the Jews! By the way, can we see your research files?"
Bush revealed himself as a political opportunist with respect to this issue. This was not a decision made on the basis of any firm moral principles he allegedly holds. If he's pro-life, he sold the store; if he's not, then why any restrictions at all?
Ahh, but you can. You have pigeonholed everything into a neat little extremist view. There are different views on morality. I personally believe that a being is alive (and to some degree sentient, despite the idiocy of certain animals and humans that I have observed) if it has a functioning central nervous system (and no, you wakko's, broccoli does not count). There are many who define 'alive' with an even more extreme definition. And looser. And just different.
To state that all people have the same moral code, and that all pro-lifer's have the same moral code, and are pro-life for the same reasons is beyond unreasonable, it is insane. Try not to apply your personal beliefs to entire movements.
-CrackElf
Oh, yes, if you care about life so much, try paying attention to the abandoned and starving children that are out here now, with plenty pain and suffering instead of worrying about those that are not even born yet. How many have you taken in? Put your passion where it belongs. Help the children. Worry about the embryos once all of the ones that have already popped out are taken care of.
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
I find it hilarious that you took, from TalkOrigins, a user-posted calculation that they debunked, and not the debunking, which is here:
;)
;)
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob.html
That's roughly the equivalent of looking at an argument on why Phrenology is pseudoscience, and using the claims of phreneology as fact
"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."
Species is a word, silly. I'm not claiming we're all the same species. Once we become different enough, we're a different genus. One we're different enough from that, we're a different family. Then an order. Then a class. Then a phylum. Then a kingdom. They're arbitrary lines set by humans. Quit being silly
"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!"
LAF!!!!!!!!!! That's hilarious. You're referring to picking from existing genes. That has nothing to do with this argument. What you need to be disproving if you want to have any weight at all is *mutation*.
"Evolving a facial feature is quite different from say, evolving legs instead of fins. "
The mudpuppy is a fish without lungs that goes on the land, and the ceoclanth (sp) has almost legs with no lungs. And then there is the African Lungfish, the floridian walking catfish,...
Simple legs used in many of these animals are little more than fins. There is a steady progression of more complicated fin-legs, up to normal legs, *still in existance* in the world (rememebr, a trait only dissapears if there's a disadvantage to having it any more - a fully developed leg is only important if you plan to spent a significant amount of time on land - many semi-legged fish use their legs to walk across dry land to get to new ponds).
Mutations are very rarely beneficial to adding new alleles to the gene pool.
Quite true. In fact, a little over 99% of mutations are harmful. Now, pull up your favorite programming language, create an array of numbers, and have it go, for 100,000 rounds, changing the number lower 99.5% of the time, and higher 0.5% of the time. Then, have the highest numbered ones copy themselves over and replace the lowest numbered ones. You'll be (un)pleasantly surprised.
I was also pleasantly surprised to notice that you didn't even cover the fact that many species have become incapable of breeding with certain groups, in laboratory condictions, simply by being separated from each other (naturally, they can still breed with the group they were separated into). Its a perfectly repeatable experiement, every single time.
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
Stem cell research does not use any tissue from human fetuses.
This is not true. Some stem cell research does not use any tissue from human fetuses. There is stem cell research that uses stem cells from blastocysts, there is some that uses stem cells from embryos, there is some research that uses cells from fetuses, and still some that uses placental stem cells.
Bush's decision is in no way acceptable
I agree, but for different reasons. Federal funds should NOT be used for any of this research.
The president wants to please the public, but deep down he knows what's good for the country as a whole, and handicapping American scientists relative to the rest of the world is not it.
You mean, unlike the way that German scientists were not handicapped 60 years ago? I say this to illustrate a point. Many people see this type of research as orwellian, to control the cells of an individual in order to limit his/her position in life. To limit the scope of one individual to that of a test subject who will never have a choice as to whether or not to take part.
As far as "creating life", we are a long way off from that. We won't be able to create life until we can build DNA, RNA, and/or amino acid chains from carbon and water with no help from any natural process.
-You can cry, but you'll still die. There'll be no tears in the end.
Now this is really pathetic. Five posts into the discussion (browsing at +1) and you had to sink to level of making cheap shots at someone's religious convictions. Is that the extent of your intelect? If so, you're pathetic.
The argument around stem cell research is fundamentally based on the question of when life begins. To illustrate, consider this: If there were a type of cell only found in 8 year olds, that held amazing promise is curing terrible diseases, but extracting them killed the child, would we extract them? Clearly not because the price of the cure is too high because 8 year olds are considered human by everybody.
However, not everybody agrees on the question of whether or not fetuses are human. Now, they either are, or they are not. Regardless of what you or I think, one position is correct and the other false.
There is no easy resolution on the horizon, so what do we do? We try to come up with a solution that a large majority can agree on. The President's decision is a good one because it allows stem cell research to some degree, but it can be accepted by pro-lifers, because it does not encourage abortion.
People need to give up the idea that you can get everything you want on a polarized subject.
Now for an offtopic discussion around abortion...
The question of when something becomes human is essentially the same as the fallacy of the beard. For those of you who don't know, the fallacy of the beard is like this. One whisker is not a beard, neither is two. So how may whiskers are needed? 10,000? What about 9,995?
To carry this over to abortion: Conception seems counter-intuitive for the beginning of human life, but birth is equally so. (I mean, what changed between 5 seconds after my birth and 5 seconds before).
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
"A tumor is "living human tissue" yet we have no trouble killing those cells.
This is not even relevant to the discussion."
Actually, it is.
They're human cells. If what you object to is killing human cells, then you should object to killing a tumor. If what you object to is destrying a unique combination of DNA, then you shuold object to yourself existing, as you're doing that simply by breathing, let alone eating animals and plants.
If you don't object to either of those situations individually, then why do you combine them both and then suddenly object to them, strong enough to force your decisions on others?
In reality, the tragedy in killing a human is destroying a complex consciousness.
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
> For example, note that the Universe exhibits
> intelligent design. Explain how you can get
> complex life and thought from time + chance. The
> law of entropy states otherwise
"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.
> Why do we have [sexual reproduction] then? Just for pr0n?
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.
(Would Trout pr0n consist of masturbating to pictures of laid eggs? Discuss.)
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.)
Anyway, evolution is not at odds with religion except in the more fundamental sects (including TV preachers.) The older religions simply throw up their hands and say evolution is how God guided development. No more house-arrests for Galileo for them. If the Bible contradicts science, all the worse for the Bibie. (If you want to continue to believe in it, you must ascribe ever-larger portions to being allegory rather than actual description.)
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Many leading stem cell researchers in the US have only heard of a dozen or so cell lines. Here's an article. The only person in it who accepted the 60 figure is a "senior Bush administration official" who wasn't willing to give their name.
Not a theory, just an expression. I believe in a soul. Upon conception, the soul comes alive. Whether the body is all there or not, the soul exists. Call it mysticism, or call the soul a natural occurance from the combining of an egg and sperm -- regardless, the life begins there.
"Wasting" eggs and sperms isn't a problem. Why not? They aren't human life. I suppose you could call them "potential life", but only in the same sense that eggs, milk, and cheese are "potential omlette". However, once you put all those ingredients in a pan, you have an omlette.
(Please don't insult my intelligence or call yours into question by claiming that the cooking process makes the omlette complete, and thus a human isn't human until it's "cooked" in the womb. If you're a native English speaker of reasonable intelligence, you can follow my (admittedly) limited analogy.)
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Bush's "reasoning"
Life is sacred
Life begins at conception
Destroying a life to save lives is wrong
Embryonic Stem Cell research is promising
Embryonic Stem cell harvesting destroys life
Some lives have been destroyed already
Destroying those lives was wrong
Stem Cell Lines were derived from those lives
We can't bring back those lives
So it's ok to use those stem cell lines
If you are against destroying embryos, you should be against using these stem cells. If you support this research, you should support developing new stem cell lines.
I think this will be a successful political move on Bush's part, but it demonstrates that he is just as political as Clinton was(something Bush criticized).
For the record, I support stem cell research, using stem cells from embryos that are a by-product of fertility therapies. I think it is abhorrent to create embryos solely for stem cell research.
My other sig is extremely clever...
While there are hypocrites in every endeavor, I'd like to point out that _if_ life begins that conception, then it is non-negotiable whether it is acceptable to experiment on fetuses.
The main problem with this viewpoint is that animals are life as well, yet even most pro-lifers don't have a problem with us experimenting on animals.
Of course you may say, "but it is _human_ life," but this is also questionable. Does a human need a heartbeat? Does a human life need a brain?
The embryos involved in this research are, for all practical purposes, brain dead. They are vegetables. They have no heartbeat, no heart, and no internal organs whatsoever.
A fetus with a heartbeat and brain is quite another matter. Moreover, a fetus that can survive outside the womb, even with advanced technology, is also a very different matter.
But an embryo will not turn into a person without implantion into a womb. It is a potential life only if you take great effort. You can't just walk down the street implanting embryos into women.
On the other hand, abortion is a change in the current situation. A pregnant woman left alone will bring a human life into the world. An early embryo left alone will not.
Whose lord? Yours? Not mine. Sorry.
Oh, in case you haven't heard, there's a living deity that goes by the name of the Dalai Lama. He used to live in Tibet before it got conquered by the Chinese. His opinion on the subject of abortion is that it should be considered. It is not, by itself, bad. Sounds to me like this particular "LORD" (sorry for shouting, everyone).
Perhaps you're confusing vegans with vegetarians. Many, if not most, vegetarians in the US do it for health reasons. Due to the reverence of cows in Hinduism, many Hindus do not eat meat. Also, many Buddhists don't believe in taking the life of any animal. So, vegetarianism does, indeed, please many peoples' lord.
Look, don't judge me based upon your preconceived notions. Your lord is not the only lord for which people have belief.
--Be human.
I just found an article on CNN that almost touched on the point. It seems there is a National Registry of Stem Cell Lines being proposed. However, it seems it will be nothing but a registry -- a way for people wanting to do research to find cells they can use and still use federal funds. It seems the ownership is still in the hands of those who did the work to get the cells. While licensing was not mentioned, I'm guesisng my original fears are still justified.
"The debunking makes some rather amazing claims in and of itself, and as such, can hardly be billed as debunking. It argues that the first living things are much, much simpler than modern day simple organisms. While I see the logic in this hypothesis, the hole in it lies in that were such the case, these organisms should still be around today, and in great abundance as they would not only have to have the ability to replicate quickly in order to survive, but in time, they would have evolved even faster methods of replication. An argument saying that such organisms will have long dies out is in and of itself just plain silly. If they could spontaneously generate once (Or however many times it took), they could do it again."
;) 73% of north american large mammals died when "natives" moved in, 85% of australian, 100% of madagascar's...
;) If a species can get into an unoccupied niche or a niche it can take over, that's a plus for it - it'll survive there, even if something overtakes its old niche. Its invalid logic that you used.
:)
;)
Simple organisms don't survive for the same reasons that they don't in AE simulations (which we use to model bacterial and viral populations, btw, with astoundingly similar results). A simple organism cannot gather energy nearly as efficient. It cannot break down near as many compounds. It can't reproduce as efficiently. It can't adapt very quickly. It would be at the bottom of the "ability to compete" spectrum. The exact same thing happens in AE runs.
"To my knowledge (And please let me know if there are counterexamples), there are no self-replicating, living molecules or strands of RNA. If they could survive to evolve, they should still be around."
The whole point in evolution is that they're *not* still around. The whole population either changes or diverges - stagnation is a killer, because as soon as something finds a good way to kill you, your entire species gets wiped out. The shorter the generation time, the more swift the changes are. Bacterial and viral changes are incredibly rapid. Larger organisms, like people, have slow enough adaptation speeds that they have to have an adaptable immune system to pose a chance.
And, yes, there are replicating, individual molecules. They're called prions; a good example is Mad Cow disease. They come into existance every so often, but don't usually last for too long (a few hundred years at best) before they're adapted against, since they can't handle change, being as simple as they are.
". Does this mean that older organisms have disappeared? If this is so, why is it that there are organisms that are evolutionally inferior to other organisms?"
Give an example. What you may consider "evolutionarily inferior" may have quite a niche. For example, lemmings get killed by the thousands in their stampedes - however, its the smarter and stronger lemmings who survive the stampedes. They have no problem getting food and breeding in their current environment, and stampedes are a good way to get rid of those consuming food that are worse on the gene pool. If predation ever became more strict, they'd either, over the course of a few hundred to a few thousand years, weed out the behaviors that led to stampedes, or die off like the majority of species in history have.
There are species that are "evolutionarily inferior" in their particular environment. They're known as extinctions. Many things are evolutionarily inferior to us
"If a fish could survive in the ocean, there's no reason why it would need to leave the ocean, and therefore, no need to develop such traits."
By that logic, humans would only exist in one small location instead of inventing clothing, water containers, and whatever else is needed to go into different environments
"If a host body of water were to dry up, the fish would die, lacking the capability to move to another pond because before such circumstances,
there was no reason for the mutation - it would have caused drag in the water and been unnecessary - and when the need develops, they don't have the capability to survive it. They die. This mutation relies on the fact that their genes knew that 300 generations down the road their ancestors would have to walk to another pond, even though original didn't need and would never need the legs to survive. I'm not sure that even the foremost evolutionists could argue that successfully."
You are correct in understanding that there needs to be a linear adaptation path (for example, computer simulations have shown that there is a linear adaptation path from having an eyespot to having a eye with a lens, cornea, etc... but there is no path to having two lenses, to allow you to zoom in (that's why no animals have such a feature)). What your mistake in this situation is a failure to see the path
The earliest species to live on land were not legged animals, but lunged animals. In many parts of the world, rivers and streams dry up regularly. Often, its for a short while. Sometimes, its for a long time. The ability to live without water for longer and longer periods of time allows such an animal to survive in more and more seasonal niches (being the only such animal to survive there, as was mentioned before, they'd have no competition). Most such areas don't go from "wet" to "dry" instantly - the river gets muddier and muddier, eventually drying up. Naturally, the ability to move on mud when it gets dry is a huge advantage in those niches; flopping fins will get you a little bit of movement. The more solid the bony parts in the fins and the more muscle attached to themn, the better you can move. Eventually, this allows an animal to move into lakes that were completely inland. By this time, the animal is more amphibian-like than fish-like. (if you'll remember, amphibians start out as small, very fishlike organisms, which, once they reach a certain point, have undeveloped fin/legs start developing into legs, and their undeveloped lungs start to develop, while their gills atrophy).
I'm having trouble understanding what you're saying with your script, your wording is very unclear. "multiply the remaining elements by the number of offspring they have". What??
Yes, my example was a simplified situation, but it was a Proof Of Concept situation, not a general evolution system. You stated that most mutations are harmful. I agreed, wholeheartedly. I then showed that, however, if the few that do better are the ones that survive and end up replacing, in the niche, the poorest surviving elements, the overall species still gets better, thus refuting the validity of a claim that most mutations being bad means the species dies out.
Please provide a clearer explanation of your script and what you were trying to show with it
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
> "...it seems utterly selfish and inhumane given the number of children
> waiting for adoption. It's the hight of narcissism on the part of these parents."
Even if you were right about the number of children available for adoption (see the other reply by AC), by this line of reasoning, anyone having a child by biological means is a narcissist.
Mostly, I find that the people most opposed to cloning as a method of having children are people who have no difficulties procreating normally, and I find that telling. When you can tell me the difference between wanting to make a child by cloning and wanting to make a child by traditional sex, I'll consider your argument more seriously. Until then, I can only consider it biased based on biological functionality.
Virg
(ignore, oh ye who have been scrolling through posts, since I've stated this on other threads as well).
Let me ask you.
1. Do you find killing human cells, or groups of human cells atrocious?
Of course not! Your cells are dying all the time. People don't have a second thought about getting them removed in surgery. Etc.
2. Do you find killing a unique combination of DNA, or a unique organism, atrocious?
Of course not! You do this just by walking, just by breathing. Every time you eat, you're causing the destruction of unique organisms - if you're not a vegetarian, including animals.
So, why would you take these two "I don't cares", and combine them into "I care enough to force my opinions on others!"?
In reality, what makes killing a human a tragedy is destroying a complex, unique consciousness.
A few-week old embryo has *no* consciousness. They don't even have neurons, let alone synapses, let alone complex synapses, let alone human-level synaptic complexity.
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
I was listening to NPR in the car about 1/2 hour ago. The scientist being interviewed said this winds up being a ban on future research. This is because many of the 60 lines are in Europe. He said we should not expect to get access to them. Of the 5 to 10 lines that are available here he said that Mr. Bush got it wrong when he said that these lines could be extended on and on. He said that after a finite number of extensions, they are worthless. Lastly, he said that data gathered on stem-cells from one ethnic group may have limited applicability to other ethnic groups. He said that after 9 months or so, our research will pretty much be shut down. Personally, I can not see how Bush, an anti-choicer, can be in favor this since he believes that life begins at conception. But then there's not much loot to be made by allowing women access to safe abortions. But there's tons of potential booty here. And I've never known a Republican to let their "ethics" get in the way of that.
I want to be alone with the sandwich
Mmmmmmm, beeeeer.....
I can't see how supporting research on already-obtained cells differs in practice from funding resarch for stem cell farming. If there is more money available for a given stage in a process, wouldn't some of the money that would be originally employed in that stage be diverted to research in other stages now much more in need?
Am I missing something fundamental or is this really just GWB hedging against criticism?
The e. coli is hitting the fan, and he just ducked. The man wants to be re-elected, so he needs to keep his political white robes clean.
So, in that context, it's the best decision he could have made, evading as much of the ethical issues as possible.
I can see the fnords!
I have to second that! That is the most beautiful argument I've heard in favor of allowing this type of research. Something that everyone really needs to be aware of when they try to argue that you are a human being from the moment of conception.
A good question for those who believe in such things (I don't), is when is 'soul' imbued into the embryo? It obviously can't be there at any time when the cells can split apart into multiple viable embryos. The next stage the cells reach is where they begin to differentiate between fetal and placental tissue. So maybe then? I believe is possible to split into twins after the embryo goes down that road.
There are a couple of alternatives though. Maybe there is a soul from conception but then when the cell(s) split off on their own, a new soul is immediately created. Or.. every cell has its own little soul and the work collectively to become the big human soul. Yeah, that's the ticket - micro-souls that join together to become a macro-soul. Yeah! That's the ticket! Now I just have form a religion based around that theory and I'll have followers as far as the eye can see! Moohahahah!
if this is truely your beliefe I don't see why stem cell research is the issue.
why don't you spend your time and energy on stoping the fertility clinics creating this surpluss of (proto)human tissue.
I am not calling for violence but when was the last time you heard of some cracked out religious zelot bombing a fertility clinic. if you beleave that allowing these fetusis to die is so wrong why aren't you busy making a bigger stink about there petri dish creation that will statisticly end in death.
don't spend your time trying to stop people from using byproducts of a (for the most part) politicly and socialy accepted practice. spend the time on the cause, not the symptom.
I want to make it clear though that I am against Bush's plan. I don't think 60 is diversification enough and I beleave that this is amoral NOT to conduct such research.
Mike Rupert
I won't. You'll have to explain your "radio theory of the soul" a little better. Not that I totally disagree with your conclusion, but your premise makes me uncomfortable- making rules on the basis of "these cells together tune in to the radio of the soul" begs at least this question: why is it that the reception ain't so great for the first few years? Furthermore, think of all the "tuning in to the soul network" we could be doing if we didn't waste all those eggs and sperm cells- isn't that wrong in your worldview? If not, why?
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Perhaps all those claiming that the Bible states that abortion is murder, should sit down and read it sometime.
...
Maybe you should read it. That quote looks like it is talking about the child and the mother not just the mother. Why else would it mention the woman was pregnant?
But if there is serious injury,
This probably represents the child as well as the mother.
No...
/. article) about getting eggs to split sans sperm - and how that whole possibility opens up another can'o'worms, simply because most of society wants to think there is something "magical" about life. While I will admit we don't know it all, none of it is magic...
I was simply trying to point out that the egg, sans sperm - is alive and a lifeform - it is a single (albeit very large) cell.
A fertilized egg is alive (and a lifeform) as well. I am merely trying to point out that while it may be a lifeform, and alive - it isn't necessarily a human - it only has the _potential_ to be such.
And no, I am not trying to say the research is about eggs sans sperm - I was merely trying to point out about research mentioned (heck, I think in a past
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I don't agree with the idea that "religious freedom" is obtainable or even necessary in the modern society. Almost everywhere in the world people already can gather in someone's home and practice any kind of religious ritual that doesn't include commiting some crime, or even behave in their private life according to the teaching of some religion -- again, within the boundaries that are allowed by the laws. Last time I have checked, most of popular religions, (at least in their most popular interpretations) do not openly advocate murder, theft, rape, fraud, etc. -- even islam and mormons -- so religious people that practice religion privately don't need any "protection" of their right to believe in their religions.
But "religious freedom" is not about rights, it's about a completely different thing -- power. Religions have a goal not only to guide some number of supporters, they have a goal of being spread, having new supporters indoctrinated, and to control the society. So with the exception of the case of parent, home-schooling his child based on the teaching of some religion, it's a matter of power, and in any society, even a very liberal one, power is not guaranteed to be given just because someone wants it -- power is not a right, and at best it's obtained because someone else exercises rights (to vote) but usually because someone else delegates that power. Governments don't have "right to have power", they are power and are at least supposed to exist for the purpose of using that power in the interests of the people that governments are supposed to be servants of. This means that governments by their purpose have a lot of power but no rights at all.
Now look at the organizations that are not government. Some can influence the government, and except for bribery and other unethical practices, their influence is based on them representing someone's interests, but it's in the end government's decision, to whom to listen, and government is supposed to make decisions for the good of the society (it usually doesn't but since I am explaining my point about oppression of religion being good I am talking about what government is supposed to do, not how it fails to do that). I, and other educated people, know that religions are, basically, a bunch of lies, and spreading religions in the society makes people dumber by creating salad in their heads, causes hypocrisy and unethical behaviour by creating artificial ethical contradictions that are nothing but contradictions of modern philosophy with old, flawed fictional texts. Religious people, of course, disagree, and will claim that my, or even majority of educated people's opinion is not any more justified than their claims, however disagreement never stopped society from restricting power, freedom or even rights of mentally ill people -- no one postpones placing someone into a mental clinic, or taking away their right to enter into some contracts until a person agrees that it will be for his own good -- most of people merely agree with the arguments of doctors that certain categories of people should not be allowed to place themselves and others in danger, and society's goal toward those people is not to care about their "freedom" to endanger themselves and others but to cure their diseases if possible, and if not, at least reduce the amount of their suffering. Mentally ill people may strongly disagree with that and demand a proof that they are sick and not everyone else, however unless discussions about that have therapeutic effect on their diseases, no one seems to be eager to discuss this topic with them.
With religions I am not against reducing rights of religious people -- despite some pretty "crazy" behavior, religious people don't do much harm while practicing their religions among themselves. But I am against giving those people power to control the society, government, education and science -- believing in something fictional being real is not a qualification for any kind of power, and at least scientific community (with the exception of seriously confused people heavily indoctrinated with religion in their childhood) has way, way more than necessary reasons to consider all religions to be based on false theories.
This is my explanation, why I consider oppression of religions' aspirations to power to be necessary, and not in any way contradicting to the idea of human rights. I understand that the government of this country does not accept this point of view, however this is not because of some kind of "freedom" and "democracy" practiced by it but because it is controlled by Christian fundamentalists. Christians can't declare official theocracy, so they do the second best thing and practice "freedom" that leaves them with the access to power due to their numbers, propaganda and poor education level of the large part of the population.
Now "pro-religious-freedom" folks are welcome to present their ravings. Yawn.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Hell, what if one of the scientists create a cure for alzheimers from this research and manages to patent it? What will you say then?
I'd say "Congratulations!". You know, cures just don't leap out of a university lab and into the pharmacy. They require millions of dollars of development and testing. While it might be nice if the public sector could be funded to that level, in reality only the money of private investors is enough. And they won't invest unless there is proprietory, patented technology. That's just the way it is. The pharmacy industry gets a bad rep for making lots of money, but really, if they didn't do that, the investors wouldn't be interested and no new drugs could be brought to market.
The difference is that the courts considered that small cluster of cells to be as valid a form of 'human life' as you, the parents would be going to jail for premeditated murder. The issue for the opponents of embryonic stem cell research (not all stem cell research), is that a living embryo is being killed. They consider that embryo to be a living human being, and the act of killing it to be murder. The issue of using the dead embryo's cells for research is actually a side issue. They don't want to create a demand for murdered humans.
and will they be making a profit from taxpayer dollars licensing them to the research institutions that will use federal funds to work on them now?
do any drug companies own the blastocyst lines? did any companies who developed the lines give any money to bush?
remember these are all PRIVATELY held and funded blastocyst lines that Bush has just let get funded.
He DID create an industry and he DID restrict the source for that industry. Sneaky, huh?
Goat sex free since 2001
Here's a page on eyes.
h tm l
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/eagle/VisionA.
You see, we too can bend our lenses. It doesn't allow zooming, it allows focusing. Eagles, too, can bend their lenses, but also can bend their corneas, allowing for even more precise focusing. Finally, eagles also have two foveas (regions of densely packed rods and cones) in each eye, allowing for multiple focuses at the same time. But, they still can't zoom. They just have two regions that are always high-res and sharp, unlike our one, moderately-sharp region.
A fresnel lens, again, would only handle the focus. To zoom, you need two layered lenses if you want to keep focus.
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
There is NO fundamental difference between killing babies for research and making use of Nazi medical research performed on the Jews. If you accept the one, you have no moral reason to despise the other.
People who oppose the slaughter of unborn babies for the sake of extending the lives of others ask this question: Should we do evil that good may come?
No.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
The problem is two fold with this reasoning.
1. There is a lack of consent on the part of the fetus. This will never be possible to get.
2. The fetus was actively destroy by the scientist in his noble goal of ending disease. This reminds me of the Nazi scientist who experimented on people who "were going to die anyways" or "were already killed". We rightfully rejected their science and we should reject the science of any researcher who uses cells from an actively destroyed fetus.
"My view of religious extremism is merely rabid evangelism and unwillingness to even consider another point of view because it goes against religion."
This is such a narrow scope and view of religion. Many who refer to religious extremist use the same exact style of reasoning and have the same pigheadedness when it comes to their own beleifs. This is the nature of ethics and not a feature soley concern with religion. If you ever been to college in the early to mid 90's you may have heard of a man called "Brother Jed" who went around to various campuses and "preached". He is the classic fundamentalist christian. Unbending in his devotion to his beliefs, both in blindness to "the word" and in blindness to the limitations of his mental abilities to reason through an arguement. If I learned anything about watching people "argue" with him it's that the nature of that extremism is not a feature of religion, in and of itself, but a feature of humans and their devotion to show everyone else how stupid they are not to see the light.
The difference between having morals and being an extremeist is not one of point of view. An extremist would never believe you no matter how rational your arguement. Unfortunatly for those of us who look up to the likes of Gustavo Gutierrez, Dorathy Day and are well versed in our Wellhausen and Noth while maintaining a belief that all life is sacred (no matter how insignificant it looks), we are lumped into the same catergory as those yearn for the days of women getting illegal abortions and dieing. (I, unlike other Pro-Lifers, know for a fact that there need to be changes in society before abortion can be outlawed...including but not limited to child care access, an increase in the education of the poor, easier access to adoption to those who can take care of the unwanted, increases access to heath services)
Burn Hollywood Burn
That was Bush's choice. Stem cell research will be done. The question is where will it be done. Outlaw it here? Comapnies will have foreign research labs do it.
The same the thing can be said for clones and other frankenstein technologies. We best make whatever discoveries can be made here. Let some of that franken-stuff be done in zambia on a shoestring budget and they are liable to open pandora's box and turn loose whatever they find.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
I listened to the speech, and I thought he made a very wise, reasoned decision. Unfortunately, what I heard on talk radio was that he 'waffled'. 'He didn't make a decision at all,' the commentator spouted.
The sad thing about politics is that sometimes exactly half of the people are for one side and exactly half are for the other. There is no way to please both sides completely. I thought this decision did the job of giving both sides what they claimed they wanted (research on the one side vs. not killing babies on the other).
You can say he waffled. You can say he is an idiot. You can say whatever you want, but in the end I'm proud to call this man President. He to the time to carefully consider the argument from both sides are reached a decision that should make everyone happy.
Of course, this is the real world, and for a lot of people (especially the blowhards who dominate the media) it's not about getting what they claim they want. It's about being in control. The previously mentioned commentator would only be happy if Bush had denied all funding for research, and would then claim Bush was a weeny if the President didn't send his own personal bodygaurds out to hunt down rogue scientist who would dare try to cure Parkinson's disease (which my father has, and I dread). A lot of the 'scientist' (ie, liberal blowhards) would only be happy if Bush came out and said that he is putting up a billion federal dollars to start cell farms, then would get upset if he balked over spending more money to harvest near-term babies from underprivileged women for body parts. You won't hear either of these parties expressing thankfullness that everyone got what they needed, even if they didn't get what they wanted.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Stem cells are cells which can divide in the laboratory and which have the ability to develop into certain kinds of specialized tissues. There is several types of stem cells, all of which are not used for research. The stem cells being used for research are called human pluripotent stem cells. These cells can develop into most of the organs and tissues of the human body, but they cannot develop into a human life without the help of other types of cells. (National Institutes of Health)
These stem cells can be derived from fertilized eggs at a certain point during the development of the embryo. More information about this process is available in the NIH's publication, "Stem Cells: A Primer,".
some religous orginizations are NOT against it.
if the reader of this post is interested in finding some information explaining stem cells so the can make an informed decsision go here
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The person I was replying to was an atheist; thus, (s)he does not believe in the concept of a soul. If you want to declare a "soul" as consciousness, that's a religious issue, and you have no right to force that on others. An athiest, for example, sees consciousness as an illusion of the pattern of synapses.
The level of consciousness of even a child with downs syndrome is many times higher than that of even a rabbit, if you're looking at complexity of synaptic activity and learning ability like an atheist would. Again, if you're looking at consciousness as coming from a "soul", thats a religious stance.
Now, when we're talking about chimpanzees , I believe their rights are *underrepresented*, for just this reason, not that some humans' rights are overrepresented. I know some humans who, if placed in a room where their only food was in a box with a sturdy rope around it, and there were just a bunch of rocks on the ground, would figure out that they could make a flint dagger and use that to cut the rope, like a bonobo has been observed to do - or, when given a cell phone, figure out how to use the address book to call people (like a common chimpanzee who stole a phone from its zookeepers did). Or, when raised in an environment where it was not taught about modern human society, and introduced to the concept of currency, would invent prostitution (etc).
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
X Files episode. In real life, most of what we know about the limitations of human endurance have are from Nazi doctors' notes. How long it takes to drown, how much blood you can lose, ability to recover from concussions, all of this is stuff the Nazis tested under laboratory conditions. Obviously, we would never replicate these experiments, so as grim as it is, it's useful data that is otherwise totally unobtainable.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I thought this decision was very surprising, I expected an all out ban. I thought he was taking his time because he wanted to present the appearance of actually considering it, but he actually did.
I realize many people will still be pissed with this decision and spew a ton of vitriol towards Mr. Bush, but you have to recognize that this was a huge comprimise on his part.
After Bush spoke with the pope(who Bush recognizes as actually meaning something... I sure don't) and the pope told him not to allow any funding for stem-cell research I thought that was going to be final.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Ah, you did kinda missed the point ;) My example was working on single-celled organisms to make the example simpler. When it comes to pairs of organisms, you really have 3 possible cases:
:)
:)
1. Better mates with better
2. Worse mates with better
3. Worse mates with worse
The population of most species in an unchanging environment tends to hold roughly steady when there are no changing external factors - lets say 50% death rate and 2 births per pair. The death rate is from the worst adapted ones (remember, just because most mutations are harmful, doesn't mean they're fatal - very few are. It just means it won't stand up to competition as well). The birth rate comes from whichever ones are left, randomly intermixed (like the 3 categories).
An asexual species was much simpler for proof of concept like I was doing. There are many AE simulations that do run on sexual species, though
BTW, mating also occurs in some single celled organisms, and doesn't occur in some multicellular organisms (a kinda neat example is a species of parthogenic lizard of which all are female. They can reproduce by themselves. Like many animals (cats, kowalas, etc), the species they developed from (a sexual species) doesn't ovulate until stimulated. So, the females "mate" with each other, and that makes them produce an egg (which develops on its own))
Good night!
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
I'm not going to argue whether Bush's decision was right or wrong, but what struck me as unusual during the speech was his decision to let the research continue on stem cells whose embryos were already dead. This smacks of "washing his hands" of the one aspect he thinks is wrong- the destruction of embryos (aka potential human life).
Again, I'm not judging the right or left wings here, but his justification could be a bad precedent. During WWII, German and Japanese "doctors" were known to have performed horrible experiments on Jews and POWs (and others). Maybe I'm confusing this with an X-files episode, but wasn't it decided not to use the results of any those experiments, no matter how beneficial, since the experiments themselves were totally unjustifiable?
If Bush is against abortion, embryo destructions, etc. isn't his decision to use these stem cell lines hypocritical? Fruit from a poison tree (or however that saying goes)?
-tim
1) Is killing human cells a horrible thing?
Of course not! We do this all the time, it happens on its own every second. We don't even think twice about removing organs if they're harming our health. So, (1) is obviously false.
2) Is killing a complete life a horrible thing?
Of course not! We kill complete lives all the time! Just walking, breathing, existing stomps out thousands of lives per second. We kill plants like its nothing, animals even, sometimes even mammals. If you're not a vegetarian, think of all the chickens/fish/cows/pigs you've caused the deaths of.
But... since 1 and 2 aren't individually bad at all... why do you suddenly combine them together to equal something that's so horrendous that you most force your views on others?
The reality is, there is no magical thing that makes it suddenly a sin - that's just an arbitrary definition designed to defend your current views. In reality, the thing that makes killing a human tragic is destroying a complex human consciousness. A 2-week-old embryo doesn't even have neurons, let alone synapses, let alone complex synapses, let alone human complexity synapses, let alone unique human complexity synapses.
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
Yeah, and if I really wanted to, I could extend that line of reasoning into: contraception being bad, masturbation being bad, and menstruation being bad (each egg is a potential life! You are, in effect, MURDERING that life if you don't inseminate it!) In other words, who cares?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Yeah, but if you noticed, "early embryos" don't just spontaneously spring into existance. Eggs and sperm do. (Or, at least, without our control and intervention.)
The only real difference between the two situations is the location of the embryo. In my opinion, an object in a different position is still the same object. Therefore, if you believe that life begins at conception, then "rolling your own" is just as unethical.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
This (or possibly having several extra limbs grafted on so I've got more to spare) looks like the most promising research to facilitate this defence mechanism. Hooray for George W!
Good.
An animal's life doesn't have the importance as a human's life.
I'm not trolling or asking for flames, but it's true.
A cow or bunny doesn't have the same level of intelligence or in the case of cows, even sentience. Cats, dogs, cows, chickens, bunnies, mice, rabbits...have a place in the whole cycle of life and it's not up with the humans. It's bad that we test on animals in labs, but in my opinion, it's important to make sure that things are safe.
On topic...I think the President did a good job threading a middle line between the Catholics and hardcore anti-abortionists and the far left that would like to use any tissue from any aborted feteus for testing. $250 million dollars isn't a tiny sum of money...I'd be happier with Federal Tax Credits for research then cash...but it's a start.
I thought people were fed up with all the politics going on- and it sure seems like more of the same- refusal to take a real stand, because, horrors of horrors, he may lose some of his constintuency.
/. constantly. Companies only work on stuff that will show on next quarters stock report.
You've got serious people with serious concerns on both sides of an issue. The whole point of politics and the government is to facilitate the process of us all living together. Would you rather have fighting in the streets to resolve the issue?
Besides, he did say 'no'. He said, "No new harvesting." He also said a firm yes. He said, "Yes, use what you have."
It doesn't look like this decision will make embryonic stem cell research any easier- now they will need documentation on the particular line of the cell and so forth.
Say you run a Journal. Would any research that did not have this documentation be worth the time of other researchers to read? Wouldn't anything you do without this documentation be totally worthless?
-"Hey, Bubba. We got these here cells thingies to develope into a living, growing, jumping frog."
-"Wow, that's cool Jethro. Where'd the cells come from."
-"I dunno."
Commercial work in this area is great- but companies need to push for profits and drop research in areas that are not immediately promising.
Bullshit. I worked as a security guard at Ciba-Geigy(sp?) when I was in school. They had been doing research on pre-emergent insecticide/herbicides for years(>20), because of the promise that it would use a fraction of the chemicals and be more potent. Obviously not immediately promising, and yet the company persist. I hear this argument on
I'll turn it around at you and say that most academics spend time chasing rainbows that have no application (obvious or otherwise), and that only occasionally does someone develope something that is useful. (Yes, this statement is also full of shit, but no more so than yours.)
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Naturally, we can't measure evolution.
We can't measure mutation rates. We can't measure rates of changes over fossils over time. We can't measure rates of change of individual body parts over time. We can't use these to build detailed tree structures.
Yeah, nice try. Next!
BTW, the Air Conditioner argument is about entropy. You obviously didn't see the point. An air conditioner is a device which runs counter to entropy! How on earth does it do this??? Well, simple, it has power. The power is being shipped from a power plant, where there a *lot* of energy being released. The air conditioner, if it were the only thing in the universe (well, it and air), would violate the laws of entropy. However, it doesn't, since it is not a closed system - it takes in power.
Likewise, Earth is anything but a closed system. Picture taking a plant, and shoving it in a dark closet, and not touching it. What would happen? It would shrivel up and die. It was moved to something that was, effectively to it, a closed system. Entropy was the only option. However, in the sun, it grows and flourishes. If you were to put the earth in a dark "closet", it would "quickly" die, as entropy started to take its course. The sun makes the earth not a closed system.
Energy can move around between different parts of a system. The overall energy in the system cannot increase. That is why that is such an annoyingly silly argument to people who know anything about thermodynamics.
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
The difference in the cases you cite is that you are already dead before we do research with your corpse. The child is already dead before we do research with its corpse. We have to kill the embryo before we can do research on its corpse.
Many stem cell lines come from the extra embryos created during fertility treatments. Those embryos probably would have been killed anyway.
Here's another alternative: let an embryonic cell divide once, and then separate the two cells from each other. Take one of the cells for stem cell research, and then do whatever you were originally planning to do with the other one (implant it in the woman, etc). Would that be considered ok, or would it be considered cloning followed by murder?
The shareholder is always right.
Stem cell research finds a cure for 20 different disease/afflictions.
Now what happens if it is the case that only embryonic(sp) stem cells can be used for these cures? Do we start paying women to make embryos to use as cures? Do we start requiring or at least expecting women to do this when possible?
And would there be money to find an easier cure if there are these available sources?
Does anybody have a problem using the pre-born to extend the lives of the elderly?
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
It sure seems to me that GWB didn't really make a decision- what people wanted was a definitive yes or no, but he ends up giving a "you can't blame me," try to please the most people, answer. I don't see it as a decision, it is more of a postponement of the answer, and a deferral to his new "council" on the matter.
I thought people were fed up with all the politics going on- and it sure seems like more of the same- refusal to take a real stand, because, horrors of horrors, he may lose some of his constintuency.
It doesn't look like this decision will make embryonic stem cell research any easier- now they will need documentation on the particular line of the cell and so forth. Embryonic stem cell research has been really hard already for any entity that is not privately funded- the government has required an extreme amount of separation in the facilities of Universities doing this sort of research (to the point of demanding completely separate, off-campus facilities, with absolutely no sharing of equipment/staff/support, and so on... there was a NPR report on this a few weeks back).
I don't think that this decision will really advance the cause of stem cell research, more just push it further into the arms of commerical entities. Commercial work in this area is great- but companies need to push for profits and drop research in areas that are not immediately promising. The value of government investment is that it enables researchers to work on deeper, long term projects that may not have an obvious path to profit. Research does not always mean success.
Heh ... I did word that rather poorly.
I meant alive in that killing it would be morally reprehensible. Rather than the literal meaning of alive.
-CrackElf
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
It's not that this line or that is allowed. It's that as a scientific process the WH is determining the processes along which future investigation, unrelated or not, proceeds. So if we collect and use cells using process "A" and we know that process "A-prime" is not allowed then we will never be allowed to use process "A-prime". Consider that cells are used in different ways along the process and it is possible that some point we may be called to do this or that to cells or perform some process to them - but now we can't?!?!
Oh please. Don't lie to us, and don't lie to yourself.
Is it good or evil for me to pour boiling water on your head?
Were the Nazis good or evil?
The rest of your post isn't worth the time of day when you can't even be honest enough to admit that like everyone else you too have ethical categories.
Come back when you're willing to deal with the issue honestly.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Well then, I believe it is ok to kill adults. Please do not stop me because you don't agree.
At some point we all impose our beliefs on someone. Thats what government is, a collection of ideals and beliefs from a collective group. That group may be large (democracy) or small (aristorcracy, communism, etc..).
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
When a fully-grown human dies, they have the legal right to allow for their body to be used for medical research/treatment. When a child dies, the parents have the legal right to allow the child's body to be used for medical research/treatment.
If we have a microscopically small cluster of cells, not being used for anything, which is going to be literally flushed, but just so happens to be an embryo, the US government does not want research done on it. Sorry if I seem a bit shady on the details, CNN's recap at 2 am last night never really explained whether this is more of a funding issue or a legal one.
Am I completely missing the point here? Or is my life not considered as valid a form of 'human life' as a 5-day old embryo?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
There ARE more than two parties, you know...
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Where does life begin ?
Unfortunately, this is the wrong question. Life doesn't "begin" - hasn't for a long time - in fact, I am not absolutely certain if we know when life began. We "know" in a way how amino acids are created (I think that is right - biology is not my strong suit - I am talking about the whole "simulate" conditions of early earth/primordial "soup"), but when, and how they went from that to DNA/RNA (?) to actual cells (bacteria), on up - well, that is still a question, I believe.
Today, on Earth (and possible elsewhere), life just "is" - it is everywhere. Cells don't just spontaneously "generate" - but split to form more - that is the basis of life. However, each and every one of those cells are alive.
No - that isn't the right question. The right question is hard to formulate. It actually is a series of questions:
Can cells feel?
Does a group of cells feel "more"?
What is "feeling"?
How many cells does it take for conciousness to arise?
There are undoubtedly more. I would say cells and cell groups can feel, and move away from "danger" - but I tend to doubt this is done in a "reasoning" fashion (and this word isn't good either - a newborn infant will move away from danger, most of the time - but it is unlikely to be "reasoning" in the common sense of the word). Maybe we don't have words or such to describe it (or maybe _I_ don't)...
Technically, a human "egg" cell is a potential human life, same as a sperm cell - and both cells are alive - each is an individual lifeform. Some would argue that masturbation is akin to abortion (and who knows what they think of menstration). Things are getting murkier with the experiments being undertaken with causing cell fission of an egg and development of an embryo (actually, not an embryo - I think it went to 8 divisions or something) without using a sperm...
I think the most unfortunate thing about all of this is that it seems the general population is against discussing this rationally, and honestly, to the point of really defining things. I think it has something to do with us as a species wanting to think we are special or something - and not just another animal.
Arrogant, to say the least...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
You, sir, are a moron. Typical American laziness. You don't know what a candidate stands for, and you can't be bothered from your precious AOL and WWF wrestling to find out.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Why doesn't the national RTL organization launch a campaign against this? Maybe they have but it just doesn't get media play?
Actually, pro-life forces are often very quiet about where their views lead, since then they'd have to deal with some unpleasant issues.
For example, how about a gang-raped 13-year-old? Too bad kid: you have to carry the baby to term. Morning after pills are out: the egg is often fertilized by this point. Ditto with incest, or medical complications that don't lead directly to death of the mother. Just because the start of the pregnancy is unpleasant doesn't mean that the life created is any less human.
Next, we have to ban many forms of birth control- most all of them save barrier methods. The IUD certainly has to go. Birth control pills should as well: they don't always stop fertilization, and instead cause chemical abortions.
And, of course as you pointed out, fertility clinics have to be shut down.
The serious pro-life forces voice these views, but very quietly. I at least respect them for the courage of their convictions. The mainstream forces hide behind a wall of hypocrisy, claiming they'll allow abortions in cases of rape and incest and not mentioning birth control. Come on folks: act the way you claim to believe.
Eric
(As a side note, I'm speaking as a person who just adopted a beautiful (if cranky) baby boy. It took a long time (~3 years) simply because abortion is legal. I know lots of other people who would still love to adopt, but can't because the kids[1] just aren't there. I know personally one of the sad side effects of legal abortion, but I'm still willing to say I'm pro-choice.)
[1] Actually, there are. Too bad most people aren't willing to adopt them because they're too old and/or too black. The only reason we have Adam is that we were one of the few couples willing to take a biracial child.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
A tumor is "living human tissue" yet we have no trouble killing those cells.
You are "living human tissue". Would you have a problem if we killed you?
Tumors don't exactly become other people.
The rest of yor ideas are similarly fucked. Please effect reapir before rejoining society.
The rest of your reasoning has holes large enough to drive a truck through. Please repair your logic (Not to mention spelling ability!) before rejoining society.
What will it take to make a private company part with some of their material for govt. funded research? Will they even do it, or will they charge millions to get a sample? Forcing them to release cells for research smacks of government intervention. It will be interesting to see in the coming weeks and months what it takes to make them release the cells for research.
As a side-note, politically, this is a brilliant move for Dubya.. Scientists get what they want, in a limited aspect, and religionists get what they want, again in a limited aspect. Some people will call it wussing out. I call it compromise, which is exactly what it is.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Where does life begin ?
Unfortunately, the answer isn't so easy. Some would argue that it's an inviable tissue mass that was going to be thrown away anyway. The other side contents that it is life, and therefore entitled to all rights, protections and privledges.
And just as if this issue wasn't divisive enough, add to this the assertion that use of such cells/lives helps save others who are fully developed cells/lives.
Unfortunately, this is not an issue that's going to be resolved either here in /. or in the press. Moreover, while I understand there is an urgency to save those who are fully developed lives/cells ... I think we need a bit more time to apply the hard answers the simple question before we move on, as the ramifications go far past medical solutions as they trancend deep into the very core of our culture and our values.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
99%. Humans are 99% genetically compatible with chimpanzees. If I was a chimp, I'd be insulted. As a human being, I could sympathize.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
The most hateful? No, simply the most able.
Out of the literally billions of species on this planet, only one consistently tortures its own kind (let alone entities of other species.) While it can be said humans have ability, one must question the ultimate value that "ability" has when it's used as it so often is--that is, to destroy. There are far more Pinochets and Khans in our history than Michaelangelos and Beethovens.
Do you think that, given our brainpower, any other species on the planet would be nicer than we have been?
Another self-serving notion. Who is to say that humans HAVE the level of brainpower that separates them from "the Beasts of the Earth"? Oh, I get it, a Man would, even though dolphins have social structures every bit as complex as we do, and gorillas can learn our language forms--while we can't understand theirs.
What's so wonderful about being a human being--the fact that you are one?
Really, I started this as a wry commentary on the dubious ethical standards of a conflicted, immature species attempting godhood, but I want to know, particularly from those whose religion is Science (with evolution being one of the sacraments), why is that Man is so wonderful? How can you in good conscience--not to mention logical consistency--defend a species as vile and base as this one so patently is knowing full well that the fossil record indicates this form is ultimately destined for the Smithsonian of tomorrow? Are you, perhaps, suggesting that this species is the last, and it should take no precautions with the future?
It seems the religion of Science has its Apocrypha, as well.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
The only problem I see with that stance is how to escape the conclusion that some humans have more rights than others, due to their consciousness being "superior".
Any thoughts?
Although this is sort of moot for me as I do believe in the concept of the soul, and that human beings are non-deterministic creatures.
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
You bring up some good points, but I think market forces exert more influence on quality control than the FDA. I think the original poster is right about how public funding messes things up. If people can't organize themselves for "needed research" then apparently it isn't really needed. Sad, but true. The market place is the best priority filter we have. We may not like that most people prefer to save a buck or two and ignore the plight of humankind, but that is the general trend. The alternative of government forcefully making the populace pay for unpopular things (by this I mean things they don't go out of their way to pay for voluntarily). Not a good alternative in my opinion.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
While there are hypocrites in every endeavor, I'd like to point out that _if_ life begins that conception, then it is non-negotiable whether it is acceptable to experiment on fetuses. If the fetus represents human life then it is just as horrific to experiment on them (or their body parts) as it was for the Germans during WWII to experiment on their captives.
WRT the idea of "back stem cell research or spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair" - There's no assurance that fetal stem cell research will provide ANY results that will help wheelchair-bound people. This is a red herring.
There are other types of stem cells that show great promise as well as fetal stem-cells. We should experiment there - umbilical cells, adult cells, and others.
I am an avid pro-lifer, and I believe that fetal stem-cell research is not ethical. Other stem-cell research makes a lot of sense and we should pursue it.
The issue of the extant stem lines is a difficult one. That does put us on a slippery slope. After all, if it's ok to use tissue from deceased fetuses, then what about harvesting the product of abortions for the purposes of research. It's not far from there to creation of fetuses for abortions and research. It's true that the fetuses in question are already dead, but the basis of the rejection of prior German research after WWII was that gaining benefit from unethical research was unacceptable.
I don't like the existing fetal stem-cell research part of it, but overall I'm pleased with the president's decision.
Regards,
Anomaly
PS - God loves you and longs for relationship with you. If you would like to know more about this, please contact me at tom_cooper at bigfoot dot com.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
"You Nazis have committed unspeakable acts of utter barbarity against the Jews! By the way, can we see your research files?"
Bush revealed himself as a political opportunist with respect to this issue. This was not a decision made on the basis of any firm moral principles he allegedly holds. If he's pro-life, he sold the store; if he's not, then why any restrictions at all?
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Ah, but don't you see?
That's a *religious* view.
And we all know about forcing your religion on others....
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
The level of difference between complexity of human minds would be so infintessimal as to make this, really, a moot point. The amount of complexity it takes just to be able to interpret spoken language is staggering. The ability to see 15 moves ahead on a chess board or memorize pi to 10,000 digits doesn't even approach what it takes to simply learn what we call "common sense".
;)
Of course, to go beyond that, in this discussion, we'd have to get into the concepts of existentialism
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
The fact is that the only belief system that doesn't depend on faith is agnosticism. Atheism is a religious conviction.
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
Anyone so self-deceived as this is not worth your time. You'd be better off arguing with a rock: the rock won't change its mind either, but it won't lie to you about what it claims to believe.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
The Senate, in particular Sen. Daschle and the other Democrats, has already made it clear this morning that they will attempt to overturn what is from their point of view a ban. This article in the Washington Post is a fairly liberal take on the decision, and includes some comments by Daschle.
On the other hand, outright permission from the President would have resulted in an equally vicious attack from the Republican-led House of Representatives and conservatives. This article in the Washington Times is a good example of the typical mix of conservative responses.
At least the limited approach the President chose has a chance of standing up against the legislature. Regardless of your personal feelings about the politics or morality of the situation, I believe the President's decision was a fairly balanced approach to an extremely difficult issue.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
> If you believe women should have the right to choose abortion,
> you are pro-abortion -- every bit as much as I am pro-Linux because
> I believe everyone should have the right to choose Linux.
You've got a really bad logic flaw going on here, extending acceptance to encouragement. Your analogy breaks down in that you are pro-Linux because you think everyone should be running Linux, not just because it's available as a choice (if you think of Windows users as lesser users because of their choice of OS, you understand the difference). You're pro-abortion when you have or encourage an abortion, not just because you don't force people not to do it. I am pro-choice, but the last time I was in a position to encourage or discourage an abortion, I talked the mother out of it, because that situation warranted it. I still maintain, however, that it was (and should be) her choice in the end.
Virg
Without wanting to offend the PETA people, the thing that they are concerned about is that they are human embryos, and this is an extension of the whole abortion issue of "is it really a human life before it is born?" or not. There's really no debate about animal use other than the cruelty issue, which I don't think this covers.
It is my understanding that when drug research is partially federally funded, the drug companies doing the research still get patents on their creations. Thus, they can enter a new drug into the market without any short term hope of competition and make tons of mony off of tax payers -- the same tax payers that footed part of the bill for the research! (Again, this is what I've read elsewhere, but may be wrong.)
So, who owns those stem cells? I think its great that there are 60 stem cell ines available, but how available are they? Will you have to buy a license to use some? And after you buy that license, will you be prevented from culturing them yourself to create your own supply or be forced to license more? Will the owners of these lines take a cutt of whatever you find with them?
I think Dubya looked awfully concerned about the whole thing. I just wonder what changes his mind. And while the whole things seems to be a happy medium, what are the missing details?