Clark Withholds $60 Million Pledge to Stanford

vocaljess writes: "In an op-ed piece in Friday's New York Times (which you have to register to read, blah blah blah), Netscape creator Jim Clark has announced that he will withhold $60 million he had pledged to donate to Stanford University to build a center for biomedical engineering and science. He states "I believe our country risks being thrown into a dark age of medical research. Biologists are at the threshold of the most important set of discoveries in history, and rather than teach and lead, our politicians react and follow a conservative few. This legislative action will cause the United States to miss a revolution in biology.""

Comments

Applause...

[kypper]

Biologists are at the threshold of the most important set of discoveries in history, and rather than teach and lead, our politicians react and follow a conservative few.

Jesus, he's one of us.
Finally, someone who stands up for science instead of politics.
Course, one has to consider he's MAKING politics by doing this. ^_~

Re:what sort of response will this generate . . .

[Znork]

Well, the donors could always donate their money to some university in a country where the politicians havent been taking their classes on how to run a country in Iran.

Re:Stem Cells don't come from Fetuses (Feti?)

[GreyPoopon]

The problem with some conservatism is ignorance....I spent a lot of time researching this when my wife and I pursued Invitro Fertilization. Fetuses don't come along until I bleieve 4th or 5th month...

Congratulations. In one sentence, you've just managed to alienate a significant chunk of the population, many of whom I'm sure are more intelligent and more informed than you. And it is obvious that perhaps you didn't spend as much time researching as you would like us to think. Either that, or your doctor was an idiot. Here are some things that you should probably know.

• Many religions that are against stem cell research consider even a freshly fertilized egg to be life, and that taking this life is murder. This is why many people have a moral question when they consider in-vitro fertilization. The procedure used for in-vitro usually generates more than one embryo -- only one of which is implanted. The moral question for them is "what happens to the others?" You can try to abstract the whole concept all you want by using terms like Zygote, Embryo and Blasti, but for some people all of these fall into one category: A human life.
• Depending on who you talk to, a developing child is considered an embryo for only a short time. An embryo becomes a fetus during the *second* month. Even those that disagree with this generally agree that an embryo has become a fetus by the end of the first trimester (the 3rd month). The embryo actually develops a heart-beat during the first month, and the fetus forms part of the brain, arms, legs, major organs and facial features during the second month. A baby born prematurely during the sixth month can survive with intensive care, and there have been situations where a child born during the fifth month has survived.
• Stem cells can come from embryos, aborted fetuses, and even blood and tissue extracted from the umbilical cord and placenta right at birth. No fertilized egg is fake and each could develop into a human if given the proper environment in which to grow. I don't know if you are just totally ignorant of this issue or if you're trying to spread wrong information to support your viewpoint.
• The single biggest problem with all of this is that people can never be sure where the stem cells are coming from. Therefore, restrictions have to be made.

You need to try and understand that if *your* tax dollars are being used for something that you disagree with, then you have a voice. Certainly if the group agreeing with you is large enough, restrictions will be made into law. The people who disagree with stem cell research do so because they believe that human lives are being taken to support the research. To them, this overrides any of the possible benefits. A life for a life is not acceptable to them.

I'm not telling you that you should agree with them. But before you make a general statement indicating that many conservative people are ignorant, you had better take the time to understand both the facts and the emotions. In fact, if you understand their viewpoint thoroughly, it might make you a better and more informed critic of it.