Slashdot Mirror
Stem Cell Bill Passes in Australia
nickd writes "Having recently being passed in the Senate by only 2 votes, an Australian bill to overturn the ban on 'theraputic cloning' has now been passed in the House of Representatives by 82-62. The amendment that was seeking to prevent stem cells being extracted from the eggs of aborted late term female fetuses has also been voted down. The changes will allow scientists to create and use embryos up to 14 days old for research."
Everyone knows that 6,000 years ago Australia was created by God as a place where the Hebrews could send "uncooperative" members of the tribe. The fact that this stratergy wasn't follow through with until much later (by a different tribe) doesn't make it any less true. ;-)
"The changes will allow scientists to create and use embryos up to 14 days old for research."
The article failed to mention that after 14 days they will be used to create a Shaky's Pizza for each scientist!
"I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability."-Oscar Wilde
Glad some country isn't taking Christian fundamentalist BS.
The Limbo of Children is *not* prepared to accomodate so many -8.5 month old babies.
I dont believe creating a market for human embryos is a good idea, which is why Bush was/is so against it.
But hey, Bush was responsible for hurricane Katrina too.....
I figured they just sorta split into two teams with rival pieces of legislation on opposite goal posts and played some sort of mad max rugby with no pads to determine what passes.
---------
No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
believe it or not, some people find *not* doing this more unethical/immoral than doing this.
This can take something that is rather upleasant in the first place, that would not be avoided, and turn it into something that can save millions of lives.
That being said, I hope the bill has a rider in it that says a person cannot recieve compensation for donating the genetic material.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
Using the term embryo conveys a level of development not present at up to 14 days of development. At 14 days, we're talking about a blastocyst. Technically, it needs to be 3 weeks old before it can be considered an embryo.
If we begin seeing stem cell harvesting/research being allowed in other industrial countries, what are the repurcussions for the U.S.? I don't think we can hold out forever, at some point I'd expect some researches to start moving to more hospitable countries, and pharmaceutical companies in those countries (such as Australia) taking a definitive lead in stem cell therapy and research. As a nation, can we afford to just let the world pass us, even if there are "moral" concerns regarding the technology by our government?
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
We need stem cell lines from the Northern Hemisphere. Everything is different down there. They're having summer down there while we have winter, and the toilets flush in the opposite manner. The Australian stem cell lines come from adults and they keep getting younger. Up here in the Northern Hemisphere the embryonic cell lines grow up to become adult lines, but in Australia, they take stem cells from adults that grow back into embryonic lines.
I used to be one of those hard core christian types until my mother got multiple myeloma cancer. Fortunate for her they were able do a self stem cell transplant by harvesting them from her bone marrow. This stuff WILL SAVES LIVES and when it their mom people will start to understand.
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
My friend went to visit Australia, but he got into a big hassle with Customs. When he arrived the asked him if he had a criminal record. He said " I didn't realize it was still required"
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
I doubt its bias, the term is used simply to convey the message to general public. For your average person that reads the article, they may not know what a blastocyst is, and so the author decided to use embryo.
(Although there may be different reprecussions from using embryo since some critics may take it to mean 3 weeks rather than 14 days.)
There is always a frontier where there is an open and willing mind
believe it or not, some people find *not* doing this more unethical/immoral than doing this.
And some people believe that *not* killing infidels is more unethical/immoral than letting them live. Does that make them right?
That being said, I hope the bill has a rider in it that says a person cannot recieve compensation for donating the genetic material.
Excellent point. Granted, these are aborted babies that will be tossed anyway, but I'd hate to see a market for this "material" spring up.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I think the problem most Christians have with stem cells is not using them, but where they came from. So using stem cells from someone's bone marrow is okay, but using them from an aborted child is not. The big problem is the same that people have with organ donation. Not that what can be done with them is bad, but people become afraid that if someone's life is on the line, a doctor may not be as inclined to save them if their organs can be harvested. It's similar with stem cells, why not just encourage abortion and harvest the cells? It can be a little to close to Soylent Green for most people's taste.
Thank God we are spending so much on *adult" stem cell research. Without it, there is a very high possibility that the same treatment from embryonic stem cells would have given her cancer (irony not meant to be humorous).
I'm glad things worked out for your family.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
All this stuff about Stem Cell Research, Abortion... Is really about one thing really which no one want to define.
Where is the line between Ethical Science and Unethical Science. This is the issue which needs to be debated not every single thing that falls in the gray area.
We know there are some things that are defenatly beyond the range of ethical science. Like Killing healthy and productive people to examin how a perfectly working body and mind works, or taking identical twins away from their parents at birth and giving one a loving family and putting an other one in a box with no human interaction to see where the limit of Nature vs. Nuture lays. Even though these things if widly experemented could help out greater humanity but it beyond the range of Ethical Science, and should be avoided.
Now things like Stem Cell resheach is falling in a Gray areas. Where people feel both ways about it. For Sciencetist there is no real line for this gray area so it is up to them to realize how far to go. This could be good or bad. But that is where the problem lays.
For those people who are against this type of science, it is not because they are religios extreamest or sciencetificly enept. It is just that when they look into the gray area it seems to dark for them to say yes this is right. As well the people who are for it are not always Unreligious, imoral, who only listen to science as the only source of wisdom. They look at the spot in the gray area and they see it is more light then dark.
We can't allow Scienctist to do whatever they want just because they want to see the results, just as much we can't prevent sciencetist from learning more just because interpration of books written over a thousand years ago say it is not right.
So Stem Cell research is actually a very difficult topic and not something that is compleatly sensible at all. It is a difficult decision.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I know embryonic stem cells are a good source for research. However, I have heard that adult stem cells (somatic stem cell) are also becoming easier to harvest. Is there any difference in these types of cells?
Isn't somatic stem cell research ok in the U.S.?
Reason #32767 not to use VB6: Integers are 2 bytes... Think about it!
I think there is nothing wrong with stem cells being harvested/used instead of decaying in the ground.
I believe that there is nothing wrong with a fetus being developed used, in a lab (not in a woman) and terminated before there is a chance for any neural tissue (and hence brain activity) to form. No one is being hurt by this, the life that was created wouldn't have been created anyway, and it has less ability to feel pain than the average lab animal used for various experiments.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
Before you get all high and mighty on us, and people actually listen to what you're saying, perhaps you should make sure you mean TOTIpotent, not "totempotent," whatever that means. Stem cells that create totem poles, perhaps?
It's poetry with a beat behind it! And guns! They're like beatniks with automatic weapons.
Since you can't join every religion (many of them won't allow it), and since you cannot know for a certainty in advance which of them is right (out of several thousand), plus you cannot rule out the possibility that the "one true faith" died out thousands of years ago (have you ensured you can get into Valhalla?)... basically you're screwed no matter what you do. The odds are against Christians as much as they are against everyone else.
Pascal's wager is bunk, and always has been.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Totipotent stem cells can differentiate into any other cell type. Polypotent (I guess you refer to pluripotent) are a later type of cells. The point is, totipotent stem cells are as good (or better) than pluripotent cells. But I agree, that it should never be an excuse for abortion. There should be no benefit (be it monetary or whatever) for donating stem cells.
The standard response to your assertion is that embryos are genetically unique, and that's when they become people, endowed with immortal souls and whatnot.
So, are identical twins one person? Which one gets the soul? Does it alternate? Do they each get half a soul? What about chimeras--do they have two souls? Do they get to vote twice?
Now, you might be thinking, that's ridiculous! But if you're going to start accepting criteria like sapience or a fully-formed nervous system, then you're back onto the slippery materialist slope and you'll be sucking down delicious baby smoothies within the week. None of that! Like begins at conception, twins share a soul and chimeras have two. If you disagree, you eat babies.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
And what if it turns out the Almighty is, in fact, a giant chicken? We're all screwed then.
Cept for some of those extreme vegans that won't even eat eggs. They might luck out.
Just because they may end up being 'wrong' doesn't mean they don't have a worse fate coming to them. You may call my argument absurd, but on what grounds? Your belief that I'm wrong? I don't mind you having your own system of belief, but I'll be damned if you attempt to squelch my recent conversion to Chickenanity.
totempotent and polypotent?
.. these all follow suit.
Surely totipotent and pluripotent. totipotent stem cells are the least differentiated, and so yield the most potential, it is just that we do not know fully how to harness it - since pluripotent stem cells are further down the developmental line to totipotent, then we can use the new legislation to legally derive pluripotent cells, which admittedly are of better use at this moment in time, though resarch needs to be done with totipotenc cells more. And as for multipotent, oligopotent and unipotent HES lines
True. Throughout the 30's, european scientists often had moral issues with the medical research they were performing, but their work expanded the field of medicine greatly. True, many complained that the test subjects were not being given a choice, or that the experiments were a bit cruel and often resulted in maiming or killing the patient. However, science won out over ethics at that time, and it was science and the extent of human knowledge that benefited. Of course, it also left psychological scars on the world that won't go away for a very long time.
I do not have a significant qualm regarding stem cell research. I have limited issues with cloning ONLY for the purpose of producing more research material. I also do not consider an embryo to be on the same moral level as a fetus, or a fetus to be the same thing as a viable baby. But I do think every major advance in science presents us with a new slippery slope, and that concepts of morality change drastically over time, based primarily on the decisions made by previous generations.
You can rest assured that whatever you consider slightly dubious but warranted or necessary today with either be absolutely shunned by your children's children, or embraced in ways that would horrify you.
Without a clear line being drawn, I guarantee you that some parts of the world will do whatever is possible. Once you loosen the boundries in one area (creating biologically human lives, even if of highly dubious status), the rest can quickly fall like dominoes. Then you end up with debate over how far a test subject should be allowed to gestate before it's consumed, or debate over the legal status of a human created by humans specifically for study. Genetic manipulation only makes the lines blur further.
Progress is the core of modern society. But err on the side of caution, because the last century has shown what happens when you let morality take a back seat to that progress.
Do not confuse "Freedom of Choice" with "Free Will".
Having recently being passed in the Senate by only 2 votes
You think they had a fever of 30c?
/me cries. Why could not noone speech English no more?
Have you read my journal today?
No, Muslims and Christians are both right. Muslims go to Christian Hell, and Christians go to Islamic hell. :-)
>potential cure for a disease like Parkinson's
Look, I'm as pro-stem cell research as you can be. I think it's great, and I think someone is going to do it no matter what so we might as be the ones who do it.
But I'm tired of the arguement that says, "We must do X, because it could possibly do Y".
It might NOT do Y, also. We do scientific research to gain knowlege. Sometimes there's even a goal in mind behind the search for that knowlege. But this constant shrieking that "We must do stem cell research because it could cure disease (fill in the blank) smacks to much of the the old saw "We must do it FOR THE CHILLLLLLDREEEENNNNN!".
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
It's incredible how countries around the world are prepared to take bold steps to further science, while we are still mired in our ridiculous issues. (I'm sorry, but squashing a potential cure for a disease like Parkinson's, to protect an embryo that was going to be destroyed anyway, does not fall under my definition of "ethics") Leave it to the fundamentalists, and our country is going "down under"
You, who speaks so highly of ethics, have just told a boldfaced lie. You know as well as I do that the US government is funding embryonic stem cell research by an executive order by George W. Bush. This is the first funding of such research in US history. The US government is also funding "adult" stem cell research, which strangely enough has shown much more promise than embryonic stem cell research. What the executive order forbids is the harvesting and destruction of human embryos to create new and unnecessary stem cell lines. This is done to prevent a market for human embryos and cloning.
Please, stop lying and tell the truth. (If you didn't know this, please accept my apologies for calling you a liar. Please replace all reference to liar with ingoramous. You should really do some genuine research before posting or even forming an opinion based on sound bites and bumper stickers)
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Why whould it be unethical to experiment on an unconsious lump of cells?
FRA: STFU GTFO
I do love it when people compare taking an embryo to killing a baby. Like saying its the same as putting a bullet to little baby Annie's head. Or something straight out of the bible, egypt first borns etc. Something like that.
I, for one, do see a slight difference between a cell and a full life-size baby, though. And if that makes me a "terrorist, who disregards human life", so be it. I just see it as a baby-could-be, if anything other than a cell. But hey.. I women "kill" a "baby" about once a month too, by failing to get pregnant! They should all fry! That'll teach 'em. But thats no suitable solution, either. And men.. Don't even get me started on how many potential babies we men kill each time we jerk off. Hell, i just done went and convinced my self. We should all die. Eventually.
Anyways, back to killing ba... Jerking off.
And no, I haven't read the article. And I'm no expert on the subject either. He who is may throw the first stone.
AI: When 'Lawyer == Lier' returns true.
The Mormons are the ones that are correct. Anybody who watches South Park knows that.
christians are not against stem cell research. the media just makes it seem that way because whenever they are talking about embryonic stem cell research, they leave off the embryonic part. Christians for the most part are all for research into the many other types of stem cells that don't involve ending a human life to study.
It passed 82 to 62, by 2 votes ... which begs the question, will they be able to replicate braincells with this technology?
the *whoosh* sound was not the toilet.. :)
FRA: STFU GTFO
> Why not pay little Betty $100 to get an abortion instead of the $1000 it would cost to get the "material" from a reputable source.
Err... because that would be illegal, just like any unregulated trafficing in illegal tissue. Same reason Betty won't sell you her kidney.
There's already laws to protect 'little Betty' from unethical harvesting, the only thing the ban is about is whether it's ethical at any level to use discarded blastocytes or embroyos (sp?), so fundamentally it's an issue of whether you consider the embroyo sentient. Trying to make it a free market issue is just silly and distracting (probably the latter is why you wrote what you did.)
Good point. However, saying that this will not create a market for aborted children (yes, I called them children), is equally silly. Maybe Betty won't see the benefits, but the clinics, the scientist, or whoever does the collection/harvesting will.
You are correct that this is an abortion issue. I consider a growing baby (call it whatever you want) an honest to goodness human being. Having a two month old at home changes your perspective. I have no reason to love my daughter. Honestly, all she does it eat, shit cry, and not occasionally enough, sleep. She can do little more than she could as a "blastocyst" (as I've heard it called). She barely discovered her hands, I'd hardly call her sentient. I love her because of the person she will become. I love her because of her potential.
I see this stem cell debate being pushed by those "pro-choice" people who are looking for benefits to abortion. It serves their agenda to have unborn children made into something other than humans. They call them "blastocysts, fetuses, genetic material, but never unborn children. All that aside, when it comes to stem cells, they have yet to give me an decent, honest answer to these questions:
What's wrong with the stem cell lines we already have?
Why the push to create endless stem cell lines when a stem cell will reproduce to more and more stem cells forever?
Why are we wasting money, time and energy creating more stem cell lines when those resources could be spent on the actual research?
What's wrong with adult stem cell research?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
/moveToAustralia New Zealand is that far away maybe I catch a Hobbit and clone him.
" I think that freedom is Americas biggest export. Atleast untill China can stamp it out for 20 cents a unit."
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
George, they let you use the internets now?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
"Isn't somatic stem cell research ok in the U.S.?"
Yes. Somatic (adult) stem cell research is even endorsed by many religious groups (e.g. mainstream protestant and Catholicsm both support adult stem cell research). The main conflict is over the use of embryonic stem cells due to unresolved conflict about when human life begins.
However, the mainstream media distorts the issue and tries to make the conflict appear to be either for or against stem cell research in general. It almost always reports on how some people believe embryonic stem cell research is not funded by the government. Often within a single article, a reporter touts the potential benefits of "embryonic stem cells" and mentioning that "stem cell research" is not being funded by the government. Some attribute this to an apparent desire by the media to report on health issues in a manner that is favorable, or at least not harmful, to views on abortion.
The truth is that most cases of successful stem cell therapies that have been developed use adult stem cells (embryonic stem cells tend to cause tumors) and that adult stem cell research IS funded by the government.
science is a religion
This may stray off topic a bit, but aren't the existing restrictions against federally fundedstem cell research in the US? Under current policy I don't believe private corporations are under any restrictions except those against cloning. One may disagree with the official government policy, but is any privately funded stem cell research going on in the US, and if so is it legal?
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Don't ban cloning, but don't pay for it with my taxes.
Everyone wins. The fundamentalists don't have to finance something they don't agree with, yet modern science is allowed to continue promising research.
Truckin like the Doo-Dah man...
Even if Christians are correct, I find their deity morally reprehensible-- while their God may have the power to absolve sins, it would be immoral for me to accept such absolution. Might makes right is not a valid basis for morality-- even a Christian God must be subject to universal moral principles, else the basis of morality is whimsical. Consequently, God-- xtian or otherwise, can have no moral authority to absolve, as the concept itself is anti-moral.
So to answer your question, Yes, if the Christians are right, I will march off to Hell proudly. However, I expect that it is you who, allowed to enter the Christian Heaven, but without many of your loved ones who didn't believe, who will have found the true hell.
I might add that stem cell research might just very well allow me to hear again in my left ear, in which I'm deaf. But I don't want to force you to pay for fixing my deafness, and I expect the same from you.
Truckin like the Doo-Dah man...
May the Maths Be with you!
It's a funding ban, as you suspect; however, its effects are so wide-ranging as to be effectively a ban on it in practice. So much scientific research in the U.S. is funded (one way or the other) by the Federal government, or by organizations that receive some level of Federal grants or funding, that nobody is willing to do pure research if it knocks them out of the running for Federal money. Plus, if you did somehow get the money and do stem-cell research, it wouldn't be duplicable by anyone seeking government funding, which makes it much harder to review. Everything in science in the United States is about getting grant money -- if you aren't doing research that's going to bring in grants, it's tough to get a position or funding in many places. Everything is biased against research that the Federal government doesn't like.
There are a few places out there, either privately funded or State (U.S. State, that is) funded, doing some research that's prohibited by GWB's E.O., but not many.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Don't forget this is the same God who damned mankind for eating an apple and proceeded to destroy practically every living thing on a whim. THAT'S LOVE, BABY! I find it amusing that people still buy into this stuff, if you want to believe in God, that's great, but you could at least make up one that makes sense.
I, for one, welcome our new Embryonic Masters.
Everything else is not fine; nobody is going to spend that much money producing new cell lines, if most scientists and research institutes in the U.S. won't be able to use them for risk of losing their Federal funding. Nobody is going to hire you, if your research is ineligible for Federal money. And nobody is going to look hard at your research in terms of publication, if it can't be duplicated by anyone who gets Federal money. The research science world in the U.S. orbits around the Federal government. Basically the only exceptions are pharma companies looking doing short-horizon studies and finding new drugs; but pharmas really aren't all that interested in pure research, or in producing knowledge that's not marketable or patentable.
We can go back and forth on whether it's a good thing that so much science in the U.S. is dependent on Federal grant money -- I think it's pretty clear that it's not good, but to each his own -- but the Executive Order was effectively a ban. The people doing it knew that it would stop all research in that direction, and that's why they did it. The intent was to stop research in that area, and that's what happened.
It's just that with the way that science is done in this country, they didn't have to go through Congress in order to stop stem cell research.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
And that's a problem with faith in that there is no empirical evidence. Faith requires belief in something you cannot see. Unfortunately, this will never satisfy the self-centered, the science-minded, and the empirical-minded.
In other words once your crude attempt at logic fails you need to resort to veiled insults? Now that's some good old Christian love, eh?
Also, it's amusing that someone who claim "I'm right because I say so, do what I say" to society calls other people self-centered.
All I can say is that as a Christian, I have experienced the joy and peace of my faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. And it is not a self-centered, carnal joy--it is the joy of knowing that by placing my faith in God, by accepting that Jesus Christ died for my sins and upon my belief, I will have an eternal life with God. That's my belief.
Your point? I find it hilarious how religious folk can never understand how the rest of us could possibly be happy, it really is as if you were drug addicts or something. Also, most people (religious or not) consider the greatest joy in their lives to be their children not God or some such.
And with that belief comes an amazing eternal perspective, a high value for life, and a strong belief that morality is handed down by God such that society needs to conform itself to that morality, not morality to society.
And which Christian morality is that? The Baptist one? The Roman Catholic one? The Mormon one? They all say different things on various issues so which is the true moral view handed down by god? Is it the one you believe simply because you believe it, and you say we're self-centered.
Is it possible that it is all some psychologically oriented event? Is it possible that when I die, I'll simply rot? Yes, absolutely! But I have a hope and a faith in something that, if it is true, will provide an eternal joy and peace. And if it is not true, then what have I really lost?
That's your thing, just leave the rest of society alone. Notice the difference? I don't care what sort of delusions you use to achieve happiness but if you try to impose them on the rest of us then you're depriving us of our own happiness.
Just as with any branch of science, discard the religions that are riddled with inconsistancies. This will remove a large number of religions, as long as the searcher is willing to dig deep.
I'm Catholic for two reasons: 1), I was brought up Catholic and 2), I didn't find any apparent inconsistancies that could be resolved through effort on my part (e.g. bible study, church history, etc.).
One can argue that this still leaves a number of equally valid religions. That is where personal experience steps in, as I have family members with experiences that are pretty difficult to explain using just science.That being said, I believe God is not limited in what he can do and that He may choose to bring others into heaven with Him who are not Catholic.
"Pascal's wager is bunk, and always has been."
This doesn't mean you throw out all scientific theories just because they can't all be true! After all, whether you follow Einstein, Newton, Heim, or someone else, the results can still be close enough for the application at hand.
science is a religion
This will surely anger God. I fully expect it to begin raining frogs very soon. Well, im off to build an ark....word to yo momma
and I'm here today to speak about .. oh, excuse me.
And you are absolutely correct in that many forms of Christianity have certainly corrupted what Christianity really is. Adding to and taking away from God's word obviously distorts everything. So why not take this from an empiracle view and go back to the beginning of Christianity, and try to understand the history of it. And yes, you will find that corruption abounds, but underlying it all are Christians who adhere to original, Christian doctrine.
You see, Christianity's basic doctrine is so simple. It is not complex. So many people try to make it complicated, when it is so simple:
Christianity is simply the belief that God created everything and created man with free will. After warning us not to commit a specific sin, man chose to sin with that free will, and with that sin came consequense: death. Across history, man has tried to appease God with sacrifices, but man was never able to gain God's grace because left to his own devices, man continues to sin. (And yes, believe it or not, even born-again Christians sin.) So God came to Earth in the form of a man as Jesus, and died a final sacrificial death to provide a way for man atone for his sins. Jesus taught that simple a belief and acceptance that Jesus died as final sacrifice to atone for your sins, your sins are forgiven, and you will enjoy eternity with God. Reject it, and you are rejecting God's offer to salvation, so you will spend an eternity apart from God. Simple as that.
Everything that has come since that original doctrine (Catholicism, many Protestand denominations, Mormons, Jahova's Witness, Islam, etc.) is doing nothing more than adding to, taking away from, or corrupting the original doctrine of Christianity.
I always find this attitude entertaining. if the christians are right and you do go to hell you will be busy writhing around in agony to proudly do anything. and those who make it to heaven will be to busy basking in the glory of God to notice that their family didn't make it. Remember if the christians are right then you have to use their idea of heaven and hell not yours. Also it doesn't matter if you find the christian god morally reprehensible or not. if he exists and has that power then he exists and has that power. you not agreeing with it doesn't make it untrue.
Thank god, I'm glad some people are starting to see that science won't start advancing until people throw away and reinvent their beliefs.
It really worries me to see the US banning everything to do on the subject of stem cells while other countries are doing just the opposite!
Looks like America is going to be loosing a ton of scientists now that countries like australia are taking charge. Looks like I'll be moving there too if things don't shape up around here.
On the contrary, I think the arguments against stem cell research are mostly being pushed by pro-life people, in order to be consistent with their stated basis, where any fertilized ovum is the moral equivalent of a 'human life.' I think the argument is pretty clear; if you accept that a blastocyst is alive and equivalent to a sentient being, then you must oppose stem cell research. If you're convinced enough of that that so you're willing to limit others' personal choices (as in banning or limiting abortion), then it's not hard to see going from there to being in favor of a ban on research. It's pretty much QED: if you're really pro-life on a religious/moral basis, which the overwhelming number of pro-life people I've met are, then you almost have to take issue with embryonic stem cell research; there's no necessity in the pro-choice position, because it's not driven by any single fundamental theological or moral argument (I know people who are pro-choice for a huge variety of different reasons).
In terms of your specific questions, I think all of them have been answered elsewhere, but I will attempt to respond to them and give references where I can.
A number of things. First of all, many of them are contaminated. Some sources seem to claim that it's mouse cells that have gotten into the lines, others just describe it as "non human." (cite, cite) All or at least many of the approved lines in the U.S. are contaminated.
Cells in lines mutate with increased generations. It's not exactly like duplicating a digital file; it's a little more 'analog' than that. This is pretty basic biology; as you keep replicating an organism over and over, minor (random, environmentally-induced, etc.) variations are going to happen, and build up over time. In order to maintain high quality, new lines need to be periodically introduced. Anything that begins with a hard limit on the number of lines that can be used is inherently flawed -- what if there are problems in those lines? You're possibly compromising research by forcing scientists to use cell specimens that may not be optimal. That's like saying that scientists can only use one species of mouse or rat as specimens for research, even though it's known that some are better for some types of research than others.
Because it's not a waste? Because more cell lines are needed for research. Scientists aren't just coming up with new cell lines for fun, or because they get a huge rush out of destroying blastocysts. Plus, the knowledge gained during the development of the cell lines can be put directly towards other goals. It's not an either/or tradeoff. In order to do the research, a steady supply and wide variety of stem cells are needed; the research can't be done well otherwise. Since the research is in its early stages, a lot of the focus now is on producing a variety of lines that can be worked with. I think this answers your next question as well. It's not as if money for 'research' is being diverted so that evil scientists in their underground la
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
the only reason dumbya...oooops i meant dubya singed that was because the lines already existed and he hasnt perfected his wayback machine yet so he could go back and save all the clumps of cells. This would in his mind make both sides happy and maybe raise his approval rating out of the gutter. yes this was the first such funding in history....mostly because of the time when he was president. There may have been some dabbeling in this area back in clintons day but clinton was "busy" (damn he's badass!) Audi5000
well since you will most likely die of old age by the time they get a cure for your hearing from embryonic stem cells, maybe you should be in favor of that money going to adult stem cell research, which no one is against. Especially since that may actually have a chance to cure your hearing loss before you die.
Does that mean they don't get to use the benefits that come from it also?
My favorite line people say is, "God should decide if life begins/ends." and then turn around to use vaccines, drugs, surgery, etc. I figure if there is a god and they do want to decide, then let's not interfere. Plus then having 5 kids makes sense for those people since a good number of them will end up dying without some sort of medical intervention . . . At least let's be consistant.
There's only a few common themes here. If you take the most recent arguments, you get a trend that the real argument is "Women -- or people in general -- shouldn't be allowed to enjoy sex". If you take the arguments a bit further, you get a trend that says "Women do not have the right to make their own decisions" -- be it reproductive decisions, legal decisions, what have you.
I think the common theme all drives back to the ridiculous assertion that one should intentionally pass over opportunities for happiness in this life in return for the promise of something better after you're dead.
Personally, I've just decided to ignore anything that springs from that premise. It just strikes me as unhealthy.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It sounds like you only have a partial understanding (along with many other people here) of the concept of the Christian God. A Christian would say that God "is" morality. "Sin" is not evil in its own right. "Evil" is not evil in its own right, it's just something outside of the "moral" (which is God). The fact that it is possible to do something outside of the moral is attributed to free-will. If God "is" morality, and you do an action contrary to that, some justice needs to be served on behalf of the wronged party(God) (otherwise there would be an injustice). All Christianity says is God performed that judgment on Jesus Christ, instead of you. That is what "absolution of sins" means. Justice was done, morality was upheld, but you didn't have to pay for it. All being a "Christian" means is that you accept that, and the ramifications of its reality.
What you have basically stated is: "I don't believe in the Christian God." The particular reason in this case is that you have your own God that you think is better, some "universal" moral principles. The question is what are they, and where did they come from?
Posting as AC sorry, I never post on Slashdot, and don't have an account... But I felt like typing up something this once.
Christianity is simply the belief that God created everything and created man with free will. After warning us not to commit a specific sin, man chose to sin with that free will, and with that sin came consequense: death. Across history, man has tried to appease God with sacrifices, but man was never able to gain God's grace because left to his own devices, man continues to sin. (And yes, believe it or not, even born-again Christians sin.) So God came to Earth in the form of a man as Jesus, and died a final sacrificial death to provide a way for man atone for his sins. Jesus taught that simple a belief and acceptance that Jesus died as final sacrifice to atone for your sins, your sins are forgiven, and you will enjoy eternity with God. Reject it, and you are rejecting God's offer to salvation, so you will spend an eternity apart from God. Simple as that.
Ah, but that has no morality built in now does it? Nothing there says society needs to abide by some set of morals nor does it even say what is moral for a Christian to do. Hell, some interpret it to mean that a Christian can do anything he/she wants (ie: never help his fellow man if not explicitly sin) as long as they believe in God (and yes I've heard this from people first hand). As I said, if you want to believe in God or Jesus or a Giant spaghetti monster, go right ahead on your own. Since you apparently are given eternal salvation, it shouldn't matter what the rest of us do with our time on Earth.
See, the one mistake of the religious is to assume that morality and empathy can only come from religion, and not that religion comes from a genetically inherent set of morals and empathy. A Christian may be nice because they fear eternal damnation or gain eternal salvation which is rather selfish. I on the other hand will be nice because I sympathize with my fellow man and wish to help them live a better life. Why? Because I'm born and raised that way, it's inherent in my nature. Heck, I've logically deduced that I should be a Nihilist and it has done rather little for how I act (other than make certain philosophical debates more annoying).
If you need to fear of God to act with some medium of morality and niceness than that scared me more than anything.
Seems unethical not to use the cells for a good purpose that will someday save lives. It seems like a waste not to.
This is not a Christians against, rational people for type argument.
This is 99% of the people don't understand the argument.
Embryonic stem cell treatment needs to be genotype specific. This means that your DNA has to be used to create some stem cells so they can be used to treat you. This implies there is a way to take your DNA and make a new human even if you never let it develop.
Therefore, the foundation of this is human cloning on a fairly reliable scale. Not one or two "experiemnts" a year but every day, all over the world. How long do you think it will be before someone lets one of these develop?
How much would Bill Gates pay for a copy? Do you think everyone on the entire planet will turn that kind of money down? What would Saddam Hussein have paid, when he could? We are talking about creating human cloning for treatment purposes with the potential for the "wink, wink, nod, nod, OF COURSE we would never let one develop..."
I think that God's real test is whether you are able to hold absolute beliefs with zero positive evidence and mountains of negative evidence. If you can, then you are labelled a dangerously gullible fool and sent to Hell.
Amen to that. Let the fundamentalists pay for their wars in the Middle East. The rest of us will fund medical research. It'd be amusing to see how long they keep "supporting the troops" when it's coming out of their own pockets.
It is interesting that your faith is not absolute, that you accept the possibility that there is no God. I would argue that this makes you a Theistic Agnostic rather than a Christian. Personally, I am an Atheistic Agnostic. I am guided by rationality. I believe that if there is a God, and he is rational, he will no option but to understand and accept my position, so what have I really lost? (Not that I have any choice in the matter, since I have no capacity to force myself to truly believe any particular thing.) OTOH, if there is a God and he is not rational, then we are both fucked! (Why would an irrational God keep his supposed promises to you?)
I agree, but without the "without a clear line being drawn" tacked in front. Look at history; as soon as we have the knowledge of how to do something, someone, somewhere does it. The best our morals can do is delay a technology's introduction somewhat. We have to come to terms with what science allows happening somewhere. There's no stopping the rising tide of scientific progress, and to think that making something taboo will stop it from happening is folly.
Since they've adopted the Nazi ethic of unwilling human vivisection?
Will Australia apologize to Dr. Mengele?
(no cure has -ever- been found from embryonic stem cells, over 75 have been found from autosomal stem cells (your own fat cells, with no risk of rejection)
so morality is handed down by God, is it?
would that be the same God that commanded Ezekiel (Ezek. 9) to go into Jerusalem and mark some people so that his men could slaughter everyone else - "Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women"
the same god that sent 2 bears to rip 42 youths (male children?) to shreds for the crime of mocking (calling him "baldhead") one of his prophets? [2 Kings 2:23]
Embryonic stem cell research is but chaff in the wind that is the decoding and interpretation of the human genome.
This is understandable since not all scientists have enough brains to conduct research of that caliber (or did we all evolve with equal intelligence?).
Good luck with your short term and probably relatively fruitless careers.
God as moral automaton.
If "God" is "morality" then either he's essentially a machine and theoretically unnecessary (morality being completely logical and potentially derivable without God), or he has free will and therefore morality is whimsical. Good is good because God says it is, or Good is good because there is a logical basis behind it. I suppose you'll try to argue that "God" is logic as well, but the same argument applies, he's either equivalent to a mechanism or logic is whimsy. Apologetic attempts to merge logic, morality and God into one entity only undermine the characteristics of one or more of those-- logic is mechanical, morality is logical, God is moralty, thus God is automaton.
WRT universal moral principles, what are they?-- something that must be rationally discovered, like the principles of mathematics or the elements of the atom. Not an easy task, but that is what they are. Where do they come from? From logic and rationality, i.e., thought. While a "supreme" being, if one exists, might be able to utilize its powers to shortcut the path to finding them, it can only be the vehicle, not the source.
I always find this attitude entertaining. if the christians are right and you do go to hell you will be busy writhing around in agony to proudly do anything. and those who make it to heaven will be to busy basking in the glory of God to notice that their family didn't make it. Remember if the christians are right then you have to use their idea of heaven and hell not yours. Also it doesn't matter if you find the christian god morally reprehensible or not. if he exists and has that power then he exists and has that power. you not agreeing with it doesn't make it untrue.
At least I will keep my self respect. Fear of punishment or hope for reward is not reason enough to accept your silly superstitions.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
Oh sure. I'm not saying it's rational. Just that I've actually heard people make this argument. I know people that refuse to be organ donors based on this paranoia alone.
I think you missed the sarcasm. I was taking a commonly-held belief here in the States ("life begins at conception, because that's when you first have a genetically unique organism") and taking it to its hilarious logical conclusion. The idea is that if you truly believe that--and the "emergency-contraception is murder!" folks do--you also believe some pretty wacky things.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
extreme vegans that won't even eat eggs
i dont think any vegan eats eggs
My purpose in writing was not necessarily to debate God, but to try to clear up some misconceptions or misunderstandings about the beliefs of Christians about their God. First, the assumption of the Christian is that God "is". This means that nothing exists apart from him or that has not come about without his action. He always "was", he "is", and he "is to come" (he is eternal). The Christian God is not like us, in our sense of "a being", whether super powerful or not, since he is bound by nothing. (This is where some people get hung up. Christians believe that God has a 'character', which is a simple way to put a label on the complex idea of "what He is". God will not do anything out of His 'character'. Some would then say that He is bound by His character. That would mean there is something greater than God (His 'character'). However, since the definition of His 'character' is 'what He is', or 'Himself' it's hard to go anywhere with that.
It's the same as saying, "God won't be what He isn't". More on apparent paradoxes later.) Another important item is that the Christian believes that God exists outside of this universe, and our total understanding. The Christian believes that God created the universe, including physics, space, time, etc. A poor description is that he is "infinite" (it's poor because it doesn't really mean much in a simple statement like that, and it is still wrapped up in our understanding of infinity).
O.k., getting to the point. You assume (from what I can infer) that there is nothing greater than logic, and all things can be discovered or understood via logic, given enough time (including logic itself?). That could be the case inside our universe. However, the Christian assumes that God created the universe, and exists outside of it, (but is manifested in and works in it). By holding the Christian assumption (God is greater than us, our universe and our possible understanding), it is impossible to apply our reason and logic fully to God. I.e. you can't make logical statements about God and expect them to be totally consistent, since God is outside the logical system. You would say this makes logic whimsical, but only because of your definition of whimsical, and the assumption that for logic to reveal truth it must be consistent, deterministic, mechanical, and that there is nothing higher than, or that can escape logic. I say, that your assumption may hold for things inside our universe/existence/possible understanding, but can't be applied to something outside of that (again, which Christians assume God is). All you can do in the case of the Christian God is make logical statements that approach the "truth" from different angles, but when taken as a whole present paradoxes because of the nature of the "truth" trying to be understood (God).
So all of this brings us to the fact that Christians/Non-Christians (for lack of better categories) have different assumptions. It's hard to move from the Non-Christian assumptions to the Christian assumptions on logic alone, but it has been a catalyst. Conversely, people have moved from the Christian assumptions to Non-Christian assumptions as well. How we move back and forth, does not change what is actually true though. What is at the core is the existential component. The Christian believes in a certain type of God (somewhat explained above), and all things based upon that. The Non-Christian believes in their assumptions, and all things based upon those. However, traditionally many Non-Christians will assert that their assumptions are true by default, and are not beliefs or assumptions at all (many Christians assert this as well for their position).
Finally, it seems crazy to me that Non-Christians make-fun-of/argue/debate items of Christianity that are on such a surface level. Of course they will seem illogical, crazy, etc, because there are fundamental differences of assumptions. Why not start at the fundamentals, or simply acknowledge that the fundamentals are where the disagreement is. Saying anythi
Yes, that derives from two of the central concepts of Calvinism, which has influenced many U.S. Christians. Unbounded egomania tends to associate closely with unconditional election. It's quite spooky, but not at all limited to Christianity.
Which exactly illustrates my point. There are many who claim to be Christian who are simply not following the Word of God. People, by nature, will do anything they can to try to buck the system, to try to find any loophole, to find any way to get around the rules. Unfortunately, so many Man-created rules and laws have completely clouded the simple message of Christianity that God so clearly states: We sin, and the result is death. And God has given us a very simple solution to that problem: Accept Jesus Christ as Lord and savior through his atoning bloodshed on the cross, and believe that Christ's sacrifice cleanses away your sins. It's that simple. Beyond that, it is all of our self-centeredness that gets in the way.