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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.""
So he's pissed at Bush for his descision (or indescision, if you take it that way) on stem cell research and how he see's conservatism effecting biological advances, so he doesn't give money to a college to biolgy research in protets? This doesn't make sense. Maybe if he gave his money to a college in Britain that has much more liberal stances on, well, everything. That might start to get the attention of people and make a statement. But this just seems stupid.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Driven by ignorance, conservative thinking and fear of the unknown, our political leaders have undertaken to make laws that suppress this type of research.
Ok, so if you are liberal, your thoughts are OK because you are OPEN. But if you are conservative, you're thinking is CLOSED? If you're open to diversity of opinion, then you must accept ALL types of thinking! Bush (not my favorite president to say the least) was struggling with some legitimate moral issues regarding stem cells from aborted fetus. Honestly, I'm sick of people doing things "in the name of science" and calling all moral discussions "ignorant". I don't stand on either side of the stem cell issue, as I have yet to fully understand the moral implications (if any). However, I would say that it's ignorant to scoff those who are attempting to excercise discernment.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
What really chaps my hide about this whole debate is that both sides seem to be deliberately ignoring the the fact that human embryos are not the only source of human stem cells. Proponents of stem cell research instist that only embryonic stem cells will do, and don't want to be bothered with researching the viability of stems cells taken from adults or the placenta and/or umbilical cord of new-born babies. Those who oppose the use of embyonic stem cells often blindly lump the other sources of stem cells right in with them.
In the end, we end up with perfectly legitimate means of aquiring stem cells being ignored, because both sides have gotten on their high horses and, instead of working with researchers and ethicists to find a way to achive the goals without destroying/killing embryos*.
This is what happens when a scientific and/or ethical issue (there doesn't seem to be too many scientific issues that aren't also wrapped up in ethical issues) enter the real of politics. All reasonableness and willingness to act for both the physical and ethical/moral well-being of others goes out the window. It becomes and issue of power and who will dominate who.
* And I don't buy the, "well, they were going to be gotten rid of anyway" argument. Just because someone else was going to kill your neighbor down the street if you didn't doesn't mean it's ok for you to go ahead and do it.
While you may feel one way or the other on the issue, calling the roughly 45-55% of the people in the USA known as conservatives in this country "a few" is a lie. (Big suprise, though)
I guess those "a few" get around..
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Having taught electrical engineering at Stanford and benefited there from federal research funds, I can say that with no prospect of federal support, significant scientific inquiry in a field like stem cell research will stop. No research leader can forgo federal money.
Oh puhleez. There have been virtually NO federal funds spent on embryonic SCR, and that doesn't seem to have much hindered researchers so far. The TRUTH here is that these researchers saw easy, string-free government money, and now they're just pissed because it's been limited on them. Let's make the situation clear: scientists who DO NOT have the funds to continue their research have been given open funding by the government to work with the sixty specified lines as they see fit. Scientists who DO have funds can work on any cell lines they want, and do virtually anything with them. These people were thumbing it, we've offered them a free Cadillac, and now they're complaining that it's not a Mercedes...sheesh!
Could funds-free researchers do more with unlimited lines and no control? Sure they could, but when you're on the equivalent of scientific welfare you should be happy to get what you get. It is NOT the duty of the taxpayer to provide unregulated or unlimited funds to every scientist who think he can save the world...if only we'd give him a little money. Those sixty lines are as viable as any other embryonic lines currently available, and should provide a solid foundation for whatever projects those researchers may be pursuing.
Personally, I wish that Bush had added one more restriction to the pile. People like Clark are complaining because his visions of getting even wealthier were set back a bit by GW's decision. Clark, like many financial backers of SCR, were hoping to parlay early investments and later government money into huge financial gains for whatever breakthroughs they attained. MANY people in the field want to use government money to make a big breakthrough, so that they can then patent, control, and royalty-fee it to death. They want to use YOUR money to make THEM rich. Screw that. IMO, any government funding should come with the stipulation that discoveries MUST be passed into the public domain and remain royalty and patent-free. I have no interest in having MY tax dollars spent on projects designed to make people like Jim Clark richer.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
The US government didn't ban stem cell research, all Bush did was prevent the government from directly funding research on new cells. Private industry and nonprofit groups can still do whatever they want with the existing or new cells, so long as they use their own funds.
That said, Clark could distribute some of his billions to those groups to make up for money the government won't be giving them. But instead he's going to have a hissy fit and withhold that cash just to draw attention to himself (if he had given, we wouldn't have seen the story here). He's cutting off his nose to spite his face; shooting himself in the left foot because he's mad someone shot him in the right. It's totally counterproductive for him to do this.
And it could be worse for him - imagine a scenario where Jim Clark was taxed at 90% and had no free money of his own, and then the government decided who and what got the money taken from him. Jim Clark should thank God and George W. Bush (I'm not putting them on the same level) that he lives in a nation where he can choose who and what gets his money instead of having it chosen for him. Jim can send his Bush tax refund check and a whole lot more over to BioWhoever and let them use it for cell research instead of just bitching about Bush not sending the money straight to them. Bottom line: Jim, put your money where your mouth is or stop whining.
== Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign ====
Yeah, well, that's sure of hell true when the private donors desert researchers in their very hour of need, breaking promises in the process. It seems likely to me that this has less to do with principle than with Mr. Clark feeling a little less rich than he used to.
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Seriously, though, this piece seems absurd to me. Whatever your views about stem cell research (personally, I think Bush came up with a fair compromise, and I'm no fan of Bush), clearly the ethical implications of biological research are crucial and are going to become even more so. Does Clark really think that _not_ having guidelines is the way to a bright future?
By the way I agree that characterizing the voters who don't think precisely as Clark does as "a conservative few" is a contemptible bit of class bias. Those people may not rub elbows with Clark, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
This is something I've been starting to get concerned about. I'm seeing a pattern here. We have the DMCA squelching legitimate research in cryptographic areas. Russia has even gone so far as to put out a travel advisory for its programmers who are considering a visit to the US. Some academic conferences are also talking about meeting somewhere OTHER than the United States in the future. To avoid DMCA complications -- such as having conference speakers arrested.
Now we are also having restrictions on research on stem cells and nonreproductive cloning. As is well known, there has already been one prominent scientist in this field who has left the U.S. to do his research in England, where the government isn't nearly so hostile towards this kind of research. If I remember correctly, his work was ENTIRELY privately funded. But then it turned out that in one of the buildings he did some work in, the lighting was paid for -- at least in part -- by federal funds. And so because of that, his entire laboratory counted as government-funded, making is research illegal. The only option would have been to build an entirely new building, using nothing but private funds, to do the research in.
Unfortunately, compared to government funding, Jim Clarks $150 million would only be a drop in the bucket. Scientific research often depends on government support as its lifeblood. Especially expensive research.
The United States has for so long been a great example to the rest of the world of how much progress can thrive in a friendly environment with government support and academic freedom. (And, incidentally, freedom of speech.) But now it seems that we are determined to relinquish our crown as the world's leader in new advances in science and technology.
Someday -- far too soon, I fear -- the brain-drain will no longer be from other countries losing their best and brightest to the United States, but rather the other way around.