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"Miraculous" Stem Cell Progress Reported In China
destinyland writes "In China's Guangdong Province there's been 'almost miraculous' progress in actually using stem cells to treat diseases such as brain injury, cerebral palsy, ataxia and other optic nerve damage, lower limb ischemia, autism, spinal muscular atrophy, and multiple sclerosis. One Chinese biotech company, Beike, is now building a 21,500 square foot stem cell storage facility and hiring professors from American universities such as Stanford. Two California families even flew their children to China for a cerebral palsy treatment that isn't available in the US. The founder of Beike is so enthusiastic, he says his company is exploring the concept of using stem cells to extend longevity beyond 120 years."
They have lead in them...
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
I can't think of another country that would have a higher supply of fetuses.
...lead! Plumbum. Pb!!! Bang! drum roll!!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I'll believe it when I see it replicated.
China just beat us there. Regardless of your personal morals, you can't deny that we jumped on the brake, China didn't, and now we're sending them our professors.
You just got troll'd!
Lead based chemicals are used in the process
> Republican conservatives move to block stem cell research
It's embryonic stem cell research that conservatives don't like. Adult stem cell research is fine.
The Army reading list
The article isn't very specific but seems to indicate that these advancements have been made using adult stem cells, or cord blood, not embryonic cells that are controversial in the US.
If true, this might, trigger a reaction in USA, like the launch of Sputnik by USSR did back in 1957. Suddenly science will be "in" again and it will shake America from its lethargy, self absorption and provide some kind of common unifying goals.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
...What stem cells do? Replicate.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"Playing god" is vague & ill-defined. Talking about it that way abstracts the issue away from the actual concern of those who oppose destruction of embryos. Why not be specific?
Namely: It's about legalized organlegging. As treatments emerge, we'll find out whether they're willing to sacrifice other human beings for their own health & longevity.
Or, we'll find out whether or not they really believe embryos are human beings.
Unless I misread the article. It seems they found a way to make Adult Stem Cells behave like embryonic stem cells.
The moral issue of Stem Cells isn't the Stem Cells but the fact that if you needed Embryonic Stem Cells you needed to Abort/Terminate/Kill/(whatever verb you think best describes the process) the fetus.
As the anti-abortion groups see abortions as killing a human life, it makes it a situation where you kill one human life to save an other or many, which is a huge ethical dilemma.
Now if you can make adult Stem Cells work like Embryonic then the issue to the ethics is reduced, taking most major religions out of the fight. Only leaving a few Right Wing Crazies who will not even try to understand the difference.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
queue up rantings by environmentalists who will tell us we have no business living past 120 in 5, 4, 3, 2, ...
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
The article is not clear as to if this is using adult stem cells or embryonic stem cells.
Remember that the use of embryonic stem cells are what was restricted by the US Government. If this is an advancement using adult stem cells, then this could be used as proof that the embryonic stem cell restrictions were of no impact to this advance.
Any links to the actual research or data?
By definition, conservatives are always looking to the past for future solutions. While I'm sure the Republican party has a number of hypocrites, a significant portion believe the lives of the unborn are as important as the lives of the elderly. To them it is no different than killing one person to save another. The question that needs to be answered is when does human life begin? Another interesting point from this subject is China's draconian reproductive laws. One child per couple, especially in a country that is 60-70% rural, likely produces a huge number of stem cells. Would you rather the 75+ year old politicians pass laws like that to add another 20 years to life span? Are you that greedy to live longer that the government starts harvesting unused eggs and sperm to create stem cells? Can we as a nation handle people in the work force for another 20 years? What about cost of treatment? Will life extension be covered by universal health care?
The article is propaganda. It starts by saying that the U.S. lost ground by Bush limiting embryonic stem cell research and then gives as an example a breakthrough in Japan using adult stem cells. If that is an example of the critical thinking applied by the author to the claims, I tend to believe that this whole operation is a scam.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Props to the submitter.
By the way, if this is even one-tenth as good as it looks in the article, it'll be awesome. For example, from the article:
One example is the recovery of a nearly blind sixteen-year-old girl, Macie Morse, who recently got her learnerâ(TM)s permit and started driving.
She came to one of our hospitals for treatment in July 2006, with 20/4,000 vision in one eye and only light perception in the other due to optic nerve hypoplasia.
After treatment, Macie now has 20/80 vision in one eye and 20/400-plus in the other!
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I guess it's going to be a true test of ideals as Republican conservatives move to block stem cell research ... as they approach age 75.
With this development in China, suddenly playing god might not sound so bad.
From TFA:
As of February 2009, Beike has treated over 5,087 patients with cord blood stem cell injections for diseases like ataxia, autism, ALS, brain trauma, cerebral infarction, cerebral hemorrhage, cerebral palsy, diabetics, Guillain-Barre, encephalatropy, and spinal cord injury â" many of these are considered incurable diseases.
Cord blood stem cells was NOT under any restrictions from the previous administration. For that matter, the Bush administration was the first US administration to fund this type of stem cell research.
I understand your desire to blame everything on Republicans, but you should really try to give credit where credit is due and stop making stuff up to make them look bad.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I guess it's going to be a true test of ideals as Republican conservatives move to block stem cell research ... as they approach age 75.
This is why there will probably be genuine life extension, because the elderly and soon-to-be elderly in our society control so many resources.
Once there is an upsurge in life extension, this should be followed by an upsurge in curing cancer. Why? Because if you extend the lifespan of a mammal long enough, it's going to die of cancer.
http://www.sens.org/
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html
It's not even embryonic stem cell research. It's destruction of embryos. Meaning:
1.) Bush's policy was to fund ESCR from already-existing lines.
2.) There are various attempts to derive ESC lines that don't require destruction of embryos.
Social Security is officially screwed now...
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
And the article seems to indicate that the treatment was done with adult stem cells.
Dr. Hu - "In 2004, after three years of clinical studies observing more than 100 cases, I decided to build a company to supply and work on safe adult stem cells."
Dr. Hu - "As of February 2009, Beike has treated over 5,087 patients with cord blood stem cell injections"
Dr. Hu - "After all these years of observation and practice, I consider adult stem cell-based therapy to be safe."
Dr. Hu - "We will set the standard and criteria for R&D in developing adult stem cells and iPS."
Dr. Hu - "The adult stem cells we use are safe."
Dr. Hu's only mention of embryonic stem cells is the following....
Dr. Hu - "I think Geron's FDA clearance to begin the world's first human clinical trial of embryonic stem cell-based therapy is great news for the entire stem cell industry. More competition is inevitable."
The significance here is that China doesn't have the same restrictions regarding human testing that the US does. They've jumped into it faster, and Dr. Hu has been using adult stem cells rather than embryonic. According to this article, the only negative side effect to having an embryonic stem cell ban is that it reduces competition.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
I know very little of medicine and biology but how do stem cells treatments work? I imagine stem cells being used to treat patients don't come from the patients themselves right? If so, wouldn't the body reject it? And what stops stem cells from becoming tumors? From TFA, "An article in last week's PLoS Medicine describes a teenage boy's brain tumor after receiving a fetal stem cell treatment in Russia." Basically, in theory and in simple terms, how are stem cell treatments suppose to work?
EvilCON - Made Famous by
This is likely quite a load of bullshit.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=73
That being said, we are still behind much of Asia and the EU in this area because of the restrictions for the past 8 years.
he says his company is exploring the concept of using stem cells to extend longevity beyond 120 years.
Maybe it's just me, but I believe that longer average lifespans are not a good idea at all.
It's just more mouths to feed, more people farting, shitting, throwing out trash... If we're planning on extending lifespans, we should at least implement better family planning across the globe, otherwise, we'd just be starving hell of a lot more people in the long run.
I work with therapy for autistic children (ABA/VB), and I've seen for myself how much desperate parents are willing to pay for "miraculous" treatments that promise the world, but that unfortunately aren't avaiable in western societies (we do after all have laws against quackery).
Wait until the peer-reviewed studies.
But then what would they have to froth at the mouth at? I mean, without the frothing-mouthed lunatic fringe out there, someone might actually pay attention to the destructive current Jimmy Carter 2.0 administration's constant mistakes...
Miraculous and China in the same sentence. Until their results are duplicated I would regard this announcement with great skepticism.
Now if only we could prevent access to those people, the problem would work itself out in a few decades!
You know, the same way we should prevent Creationists from getting flu shots.
Methuselah lived 900 years.
Methuselah lived 900 years.
But who calls that livin' when no gal will give in
to no man who's 900 years?
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
With this development in China, suddenly playing god might not sound so bad.
Actually, immortality has always been a big deal in Chinese mythology and history. Many real life Chinese Emperors tried everything from drinking mercury to sending out massive expeditions searching for mythical islands or legendary items in hopes to live forever.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It always is, any time you hear about Stem Cells cured x, y, z. It was adult SC.
The fist treatment that actually uses embryonic SC is scheduled later this year.
I really wish people would stop acting like we are so far behind because of Bush he only stopped research on embryonic not adult.
damn looks like communism , china style is beginning to look like the way, no debt , the world owes you all kinds a cash, you have all the manufacturing and now oh wild new medical abilities the so called capitalists can't get out of the wood work due to religious nuts on the right in America.
Same ones that brought you Iraq 1 , iraq2 and Afghanistan returns and Afghanistan forever.
There was common ground to fund massive scale adult stem cell research, but Democrats blocked it.
It was an article of faith that new embryonic stem cell lines were superior to pluripotent adult stem cells -- largely because it fit with their pro-abortion stance and narrative that Bush was "anti science".
China put money where the science was. The Democrats wouldn't permit that here. And still won't.
And it's not even destruction of embryos that was prevented. It's federal funding of same. This has to be one of the least understood and most poorly reported issues of the entire Bush administration.
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
We're talking about a crowd who've virtually wiped out all the tigers in their country because they believe their bones can cure all the mentioned illnesses. So any news of a 'miracle' cure coming out of China seems a tad on the dubious side to me.
And that was the last Terry Fox run I ever participated in.
I will wait to see the results of the studies before I start investing in their shares.
Cool. Would you kindly let me know when they start producing plasmids?
Hu said all that?
How are we going to pay for an increasingly older population? Will they be older and healthy and still working, or older, on expensive medications, and requiring expensive procedures to keep them living?
Of course the first /. commenter comes in ranting about conservatives who have blocked embryonic stem cell research. For years, though, many of those conservatives have also been attempting to point out the untapped benefits of noncontroversial adult stem cells.
In TFA you'll find Dr. Hu noting that "after three years of clinical studies observing more than 100 cases, I decided to build a company to supply and work on safe adult stem cells." It also mentions that "Japan's Dr. Shinya Yamanaka demonstrated the ability to reprogram adult cells to behave as embryonic stem cells as early as 2007."
If the US indeed missed the boat, it's because some were blindly driven to free themselves from what they saw as outdated moralism while ignoring the broad possibilities of adult stem cell research.
Actually he didn't even do that (stopped research), he only stopped *federal funding* on new lines of ESC.
Oh yeah that's right my bad
Show me..... I have seen nothing showing positive results, just hopes, dreams, and fiction. I have yet to see even successful results with lab animals, so.... Just show me....
(intellectual weakness: shouting "but the USA is worse" every time someone mentions any negative trait of any entity anywhere)
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Wait until someone actually gets cured. This needs to show more than a placebo effect, and proof of cure from someone outside of the actors. The people who they claim to have cured may not have had anything wrong with them in the first place.
This sounds a lot like other snake-oil salesmen in the medical business. A lot of initial hype, and when results fail to appear they just quietly disappear again, taking their money with them. They do make a LOT of money on such scams, which is why they are so popular. $15,000USD per treatment would bring in a lot of money from desperate people.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
... to ADULT Stem Cell Research (ASCR?) so all these collective panties won't get bunched up every time a new research report or story comes out? That'd be nice. Thanks.
~AA
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do.
Only raising little babies to disect them was restricted under the Bush administration, contra the troll who posted the article.
So, are these autosomal stem cell cures (never restricted) or dead baby 'cures' where the patients get hair and baby parts growing inside them and then die a horrible death?
drinking mercury
what a great Chinese contemporary life extension treatment
Lying commie bastards!
Everything they say, write, claim, etc.
They are a brutal, repressive, authoritarian, Stalinesque regime and nothing that comes out of their state sponsored PR/spin machine is anything more than propaganda.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
True, but let's not conflate "what conservatives don't like" with "what was prevented." Conservatives don't like the destruction of embryos, period.
The federally funded variety was just the one type that the Bush administration had the political will to stop.
On top of that, conservatives tend to be wary of other acts that don't involve the destruction of an embryo, but are conceptually close. For example, conservatives often oppose emergency contraception, some even regular contraception. I would not be surprised if many conservatives were opposed to research on existing embryonic stem cell lines.
As I remember it, he didn't even stop federal funding on new lines of ESC per se. There was no funding to begin with, and they OK-ed funding stem cell research, with the caveat that you couldn't use embryos developed from new lines. That restriction put several real limits on the research, but at the same time its not even close to a ban. Private and state level funding were two perfectly viable options if you simply needed to create new lines.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've not liked much Obama has done so far, with the exception of him turning over the Bush ban on federal $$'s going to stem cell research that uses cells from enbryos that were gonna be destroyed anyway.
I'm fiscally conservative, but, I think that pretty much any avenue for research in science is fair and open game.
I guess I don't fit into any real party around tho.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This has to be one of the least understood and most poorly reported issues of the entire Bush administration.
I think the fact that GWB is of above average intelligence is the most poorly reported aspect of the entire Bush administration.
I for one am willing to do what it takes to live as long as possible.
However, in the case of stem cells, or even human cloning to some degree....you'd not be going out and killing 'natural' people for their organs, but, merely growing more copies of your own organs for use later. I could deal with that.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Namely: It's about legalized organlegging [wikipedia.org]. As treatments emerge, we'll find out whether they're willing to sacrifice other human beings for their own health & longevity.
Let's be clear on three things:
1. You get ESC from 5 day old blastocysts. Not embryos from pregnant women. These embryos have to come from in vitro fertilization, by the time you can tell you're pregnant, even with a blood test, you can't extract ESC from that embryo: they've already turned used up their ESC. This will not lead to abortions, because if you know you have an embryo, it's useless as far as ESC goes.
2. ESC lines have been established. You won't need to destroy an embryo each time you need ESC, just use from the existing lines.
3. Induced pluripotent stem cells and adult stem cells will probably make the debate over ESC much ado about nothing as far as treatments go, but ESC have been invaluable to research already.
So... no, fortunately I think we will be able to leave this annoying debate unresolved.
George W Bush for making America the backwater of this area of research.
Here's to the future!
The question is, are the treatments requiring genotype specific stem cells?
If so, where exactly do you get them? Stored cord blood is one source. Another is a (very) close relative. But there is another very exciting source - a clone of the person. You don't actually have to let the clone develop very far to get stem cells, but what you do need is a real, developing clone.
The only problem is, in order to exploit this type of treatment, you need to have to be able to make a clone. How much do you think people will pay for real human cloning? Think there might just be enough money in it to make it a reality?
Coupled with the mystique of "stem cell treatement" for all sorts of conditions, you better believe full on human cloning will be around before you know it.
It was fun to watch this little game of telephone unfold:
eldavojohn: "Republican conservatives"
tcopeland: "conservatives" (dropped the 'Republican' part)
JeanPaulBob: "Bush" (converted 'conservatives' to 'Bush'. To be fair, Bush probably qualifies as a genuine conservative on this topic).
Gospodin: "prevented" (stuck with 'Bush', but changed gears from stuff that wasn't liked to stuff that was prevented).
Communication can be tricky sometimes.
But if I understand what you guys are saying, it was US policy for an army of bush elephants to trample anyone who spoke any 2 of the words "embryonic stem cell research" within five minutes of each other.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Yep, every time. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/19/1228235&from=rss
You're right. China has very different standard in testing on humans. They also have a very different view of the value of life. Look back through their history and see how they respond to disaster or even war. They consider their billion countrymen to be dispensible at times. America views the value of most lives as far more.
You've missed the most important fact. America NEVER banned the testing, development or research of stem cells of any time. They only stopped the government from using tax dollars from all Americans to support a part of research that is objectionable in it source to some Americans. This is a fair and balanced approach as opposed to forcing tax dollar (from all Americans) be used for research from an aborted fetus. Private research never stopped.
It will facilitate the storage of human umbilical cord blood stem cells, placenta stem cells, amniotic membrane stem cells, bone marrow stem cells,
I'm pretty sure adults don't usually have umbilical cords and placentas. I don't think its as simple as embryonic or adult.
Isn't federal funding the lifeblood of a lot of research projects? Things like NIH grants, etc.? You talk as if "federal funding" is just one small source among lots of others. It is only one source among others, but it's not small.
You also mention that research was not banned but confined to existing lines. IIRC there were only about forty lines or so, many of which were not suitable for research, and accessing these for research was quite difficult.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
>In other words, in 20 years' time the world is going to be full of 80-year-old people
>with firm skin, perky tits, big throbbing erections, and absolutely no fucking memory of what to do with them.
A world full of fit virgins!
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
It's not exactly true that Republican conservatives are REALLY against stem cell research.
From that perspective, their platforms are profitable:
IF you:
1) position your hedge investments in China and Korea
2) politicize science, and push domestic policies which are hostile to science.
3) PROFIT! Your investments stand a good chance at riding a tidal wave (out)...
It's not just with science either.
A lot of conservatives recognize the investment value of countries which DO "socialized medicine" or "universal education through college". They'll invest in such countries, but they don't want the same thing for America. The sad part is a lot of their base really DOES believe this stuff is "country first".
That's not a matter of being "conceptually close" to destruction of embryos. One of the mechanisms of emergency contraception (and the Pill) is destruction of embryos--preventing implantation.
I bet you didn't realize that "destroying an embryo" isn't necessarily the same as "abortion", did you? By the technical medical definition, "abortion" is ending a pregnancy, and we mark the beginning of pregnancy at the moment of implantation. (And there are sensible medical reasons for these divisions--but those distinctions are only relevant in some contexts.) So if you prevent implantation, they call it "contraception", not abortion--even though the fertilized blastocyst is being killed.
(Note: By some definitions, "embryo" only applies after implantation. But by that definition, the debate isn't about "embryonic" stem cell research--it would be about "blastocystic" or "zygotic" stem cell research.)
In other words, this website is bordering on misinformation. Technically correct misinformation, but misleading information.
To my knowledge, that typically comes from a theological disapproval of birth control, unrelated to destruction of embryos. Most often from Catholics. It's about the question, "Should we be taking control of getting pregnant out of God's hands?" It's not about a "every sperm is sacred" idea.
It may be for some... Hmm, actually, I have no idea what the breakdown is.
Of course. It's the same question as, "Should we use the results of Nazi medical research?" It's a difficult ethical question. Once the harm has been done, can we use the "tainted fruits"?
>The truth is, Bush didn't ban stem cell research. Bush didn't even ban embryonic stem cell research.
>He only banned federal level funding for it. The States and the private sector were free to do as they pleased.
I'm so tired of this Bush apologizing.
The translation is, "He was a backward fuckwad pandering to religious nuts, but hey, at least his reach exceeded his grasp!"
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
"The fist treatment that actually uses embryonic SC is scheduled later this year."
And looks like its within 2 years
And it's not even destruction of embryos that was prevented. It's federal funding of same.
This is an oft-used, idiotic talking point.
The insinuation is, that if some lab is doing stem cell research, the feds won't pay for the stem cell experiments. Yes, that is true.
They also won't pay for anything else that lab does. The lab will no longer get a federal grant for anything.
If there are any research institutions affiliated with the lab, the pox infects them too. If anyone in a laboratory affiliated with a teaching hospital or a major university -or any other research institution even partially dependent on federal grant money- goes near an embryonic stem cell, or even writes a paper detailing a meta-analysis of embryonic stem cell experiments done in other countries, the entire institution will have to shut down.
Anyway, so that's all over. In the meantime, we've been far surpassed on this front by countries with no government restrictions, and say, hundreds of millions of couples constantly conceiving their second, forbidden children.
Basically the "federal funding" thing was just an essentially meaningless qualifier to make it more lawfully palatable in order to aid it through the legislature. Think "medical" in "medical marijuana". :)
It's not exactly true that Republican conservatives are REALLY against stem cell research.
From that perspective, their platforms are profitable:
IF you: 1) position your hedge investments in China and Korea 2) politicize science, and push domestic policies which are hostile to science. 3) PROFIT! Your investments stand a good chance at riding a tidal wave (out)...
It's not just with science either.
A lot of conservatives recognize the investment value of countries which DO "socialized medicine" or "universal education through college". They'll invest in such countries, but they don't want the same thing for America. The sad part is a lot of their base really DOES believe this stuff is "country first".
Of course, if you actually look at the people with hedge fund accounts, it turns out that most of them are Democrats.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
If we can learn to grow specifically an organ, then you're right.
But growing a clone of you in order to destroy it for parts? They've made movies about that. Do you really define "natural people" in a way excludes clones from being people?
The only way your comment makes sense is with the assumption that a human at the "embryo" stage isn't yet a "person". And if you want to say that, you need to make it explicit--don't take it for granted. And you'd better have a pretty clear understanding of why. The human race has a poor history of deciding who of us are "people".
Interesting post. I'd mod it up if I had mod points[and weren't posting AC]
>The truth is, Bush didn't ban stem cell research. Bush didn't even ban embryonic stem cell research.
>He only banned federal level funding for it. The States and the private sector were free to do as they pleased.
I'm so tired of this Bush apologizing.
The translation is, "He was a backward fuckwad pandering to religious nuts, but hey, at least his reach exceeded his grasp!"
That's the spirit. Ignore the facts and hurl insults.
The translation is: "You are hateful bigot who can't accept the idea that some people have opinions that are different than your own. You make yourself hate them rather than even consider that maybe, just maybe, their ideas have merit. You are unable to promote your own ideas with any intelligence, so you rely on belittling those who differ from you in a lame attempt to promote yourself."
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDFJOzu9SyM
Except there's no proof the treatment actually works, and some of the figures involved have also made wild, unprovable claims in the past...
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
I think the fact that GWB is of above average intelligence is the most poorly reported aspect of the entire Bush administration.
The typical YouTube commenter has an above average intelligence. The typical 4chan poster has an above average intelligence. Nearly everyone on Slashdot is in the highest quartile. Carter, Clinton, and Obama are as much smarter than Bush as Bush is smarter than the people who don't get the jokes in Idiocracy.
merely growing more copies of your own organs for use later. I could deal with that.
I'm glad to hear you say that, because in fact you are one of my clone army and I've just found out that one of my kidneys is on the fritz. I will be round to harvest your organs tomorrow ;)
which is totally what she said
>> As treatments emerge, we'll find out whether they're willing to sacrifice other human beings for their own health & longevity.
Of course we're willing to sacrifice other human beings for our own health and longevity and just plain comfort. We do it all the time.
If you don't think so, ask yourself how you can have excess food, clothing, housing, stuff while 3,000 children starve to death today outside your immediate vicinity on this planet earth.
America views the value of most American lives as far more.
Fixed that for you
Yes, that's accurate. And implantation certainly a medically significant event. But it's a distinction without an ethical difference--unless you think that implantation is a threshold that affects the ethics of the situation.
Yes, and that raises a real ethical quandary, even if we assume destroying an embryo is homicide. What do you do with "tainted fruits"? What do we do with medical treatments that are based on past unethical acts?
If someone killed you in order to make your organs available for transplant, what should society do with those organs? Should we use them, or not? Let them go to waste? Encourage copycats?
There are lots of details to work out. Not easy.
That's what I'm hoping.
How long does it take to raise the eggs and sperm? How much does it cost to educate them? How much professional experience do they have?
So yes, from the societal cost point of view, it makes perfect sense to extend the life of adults to help them be useful and productive longer. The big investment is already done, now it's payoff time.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
That's a straw man argument. You can look back on any one country's history and see how they considered life expendable. And America views the value? I don't think anyone needs to remind you how we view dead iraqis.
You're right. China has very different standard in testing on humans. They also have a very different view of the value of life. Look back through their history and see how they respond to disaster or even war. They consider their billion countrymen to be dispensible at times.
Yeah, guess we've never seen a lack of caring about human life in the United States before. Guess we value people if their skin isn't too dark and they're not too different ...
Because of what you said, and how you articulated with such skill, I now think so highly of you. I think you must be so much more intelligent than the stupid general public who don't know anything, and you must really have an inside track on information and politics that is usually kept from the rest of us.
Not.
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
Of course, if you actually look at the people with hedge fund accounts, it turns out that most of them are Democrats.
At least you didn't respond to a crackpot theory with a wild, unprovable accusation. Wait ...
Hu said all that?
Who said all what?
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
Of course. It's the same question as, "Should we use the results of Nazi medical research?" It's a difficult ethical question. Once the harm has been done, can we use the "tainted fruits"?
I would say yeah because either people died just because nazi are evil, or because nazi's are evil and providing the world with information that could save others.
The translation of the parent is, "I'm just going to call Bush names because the facts don't support my bigotry."
When the day comes that we can freeze a person, store them, and defrost them later to their original condition, I will start to call embryos people. Until then they are not and I will not. Destruction of an embryo != destruction of a person. I post AC because some fundie jesus freak is gonna mod me to hell.....
Ironically enough you are the exact type of narrow-minded individual referred to by the parent!
An inventor is a man who asks 'Why?' of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and his mind.
Well you must like him better than Clinton who refused to approve federal funding for cord and adult stem cell research AT ALL.
The human race has a poor history of deciding who of us are "people".
Well said. By the way, my cat is now a person - she has been denied personhood for too long now!
The truth is, she wants to marry her same-sex life partner, an unemplanted embryo named Zoe. They make a lovely couple. When Zoe grows up, she wants to eat solid foods and have brain activity (and extremities!). She's quite precocious, we're all so proud.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
But it's a distinction without an ethical difference--unless you think that implantation is a threshold that affects the ethics of the situation.
Except that many people object to ESC because they think it will lead to more abortions. It won't. And many people argue along the lines of "potential life." This is dubious reasoning when talking about leftover embryos from IVF: 99.9999% of the leftovers will never be carried to term.
What do we do with medical treatments that are based on past unethical acts?...There are lots of details to work out. Not easy.
They're not unethical just because they follow a different set of ethics. If you disagree with what's being done, don't accept the treatment. If you do, there is nothing unethical about it.
And details to work out, that's fine, except on this and pretty much every other controversial moral question I can think of, there's no "working it out." The controversey is not leading anwhere. It never does, people scream till they're blue in the face at each other, but it's just noise, neither side is being convinced by the other.
There are a lot of details to decide for yourself, that much can be said, but we're never going to reach consensus as to whether ESC are ethical or not.
So here's what's going to happen: if we come up with treatments based off of ESC, those people who have no objection to the ethics and who need the treatment are going to take it. Those who disagree with the ethics, some are going to take it anyway and are going to rationalize their hypocrisy. Some are going to stay true and not take the treatment. The debate will rage on, since there can be no resolution through dialogue. Eventually the debate will cease if and when ESC becomes obsolete.
Not the best outcome for anyone, but it's what's going to happen since people are talking about deeply held beliefs, not things they're willing to challenge or be convinced of an opposing viewpoint.
I will go out on a limb and say that this story sounds to me like complete bullshit.
First tipoff: TFA doesn't list any citations to peer-reviewed articles. (I couldn't find any on PubMed.)
Second tipoff: Hu claims to have treated >5,087 patients for ataxia, autism, ALS, brain trauma, cerebral infarction, cerebral hemorrhage, cerebral palsy, diabetics, Guillain-Barre, encephalatropy, and spinal cord injury.
If he could have treated any one of those diseases successfully, any major medical journal would have been happy to publish his report, doctors from all over the world would be flying over to learn his techniques, and pharmaceutical companies would be offering him wheelbarrows full of money for the rights to use his techniques. And it would have been on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
Third tipoff: The reporter who wrote this sounds like she doesn't understand the story at all. She doesn't ask one substantive question (like, "what peer reviewed journals have you published your work in?"). She sounds like she's asking generic questions from a list of standard interview questions her business editor gave her.
Fourth tipoff: The word "miraculous."
I'm not taking it seriously enough to look up the citations, but Science magazine had an article a while back investigating a Chinese doctor who claimed to be treating spinal cord injured patients, and it turned out that his patients weren't getting better and he hadn't published anything significant.
The WSJ had an article about a Chinese brain surgeon who was cutting a part of the brain to supposedly cure schizophrenia, depression, and a whole list of unrelated conditions, but he wasn't curing them, a lot of his patients were left with severe brain damage, families were paying him their life savings, he was making a fortune, American brain surgeons were shocked at his irresponsibility, and he performed several times more of these procedures than the rest of the world combined.
A friend of mine taught a course in science journalism in China a while back, and he was appalled to find out that Chinese journalists would just make stories up. They didn't understand the difference between telling a good story and telling the truth.
This is from the country whose pharmaceutical industry brought us contaminated heparin, contaminated milk, cough syrup that killed babies, and pet food that killed dogs.
To quote Thomas Paine, which is more likely: that a miracle could happen or that a man could lie?
It's not anti-Chinese to say this. In the U.S., the Chinese are some of the best scientists and science journalists.
China, for all its many virtues and accomplishments, is suffering from the results of Communism, the Great Cultural Revolution, and now unregulated free-market capitalism.
China is the same zoo of quack doctors and drug companies that the U.S. was in the days of Upton Sinclair, which led to the FDA. And we still have quacks here.
While you are correct it had the net effect of stopping or slowing down ALL stem cell in the USA for 6 years putting USA researchers ahalf a decade behind China and Korea in practical uses for Stem cells. It did have a second side effect of forcing USA researchers to look for alternate stem cell sources.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
who instantly thinks 'cancer' when reading a story about stem cell treatments? Not an expert, but it doesn't seem too farfetched for cells that can be miraculously turned into a specific cell type could instead turn into deadly, unstoppable proliferation.
emergency contraceptives don't work if the egg is already released. They are designed to prevent the egg from being released. There is no embryo destruction to speak of.
My bullshit detector is blaring. I will be quite surprised if any of this turns out to live up to the hype.
Unless the mother is an unbalanced person seeking fame and fortune through the spectacle of reality television.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
No, it was any federal funding of any institution that was doing it.
Meaning private funds used to do the research at an organization taking ANY public funds would cause the loss of the public funds.
I'm sure you've got political reasons for misstating it in your post, but if you're going to wave the conservative flag, don't act high and mighty about it.
frothing-mouthed lunatic fringe
destructive current Jimmy Carter 2.0 administration
Do you read what you write, or would the shock of the cognitive consonance be too much to bear?
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
Europeans did it too. Isaac Newton being one of the more prominent.
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
Assuming it's true, this could actually be really good for the US and world economies. The U.S.'s biggest export is knowledge and information. We produce software, entertainment, pharmaceutical research, etc. There's a big demand for it overseas. But China, India, and the like don't enforce copyrights and patents because they have no incentive to do so. So we produce it for everyone and pay for it for everyone too.
Now that China has some intellectual property of it's own they have incentive. We'll enforce their patents if they enforce ours. This could mean that the economy can fairly price this stuff on world market instead of just in the U.S. and Europe. Imagine if cutting edge research occurred world-wide and the cost was spread over 6 Billion people instead of just the few billion (or less) in the U.S. and Europe. We'll start to see economies of a whole new scale. And this is good for everyone.
Yeah, neo-cons always did a good job of BSing. Keep in mind that waterboarding is not torture and War is Peace. Also, lower taxes lead to balanced budgets. So much double talk.
There was common ground to fund massive scale adult stem cell research, but Democrats blocked it.
It was an article of faith that new embryonic stem cell lines were superior to pluripotent adult stem cells -- largely because it fit with their pro-abortion stance and narrative that Bush was "anti science".
China put money where the science was. The Democrats wouldn't permit that here. And still won't.
Troll though you are, I feel the need to point out that you make claims with zero supporting evidence. Since you posted as an AC, I would guess you are unable to cite specific instances of Dems blocking funding of "massive scale adult stem cell research". I'm not familiar with any, not that I'm an expert.
Also, your use of the phrase "pro-abortion" paints you as a religious extremist. You might consider using different language in the future, since extremists are the cause of so much conflict in the country and the world.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
bigot.
There multiple mechanisms emergency contraceptives/the Pill. (The two are the same drug.)
1.) Prevent the release of the egg.
2.) Make it more difficult for sperm to reach the egg.
3.) Affect the endometrial wall, making it more difficult for the blastocyst to implant.
The third one can only happen if the first two fail, so it's not the primary mechanism, but that's where the concern is with emergency contraceptives. (Note: There's also some controversy over the significance of the third mechanism.)
Whoops. Typo. Should start, "There are multiple mechanisms in emergency contraceptives/the Pill."
Cute, but mostly irrelevant to what I actually said: That every time we've tried to say "those humans aren't people", we've realized our mistake.
>It's embryonic stem cell research that conservatives don't like. Adult stem cell research is fine.
Perhaps the conservative elite feel this way, but since they campaigned on one-liners like "stem cell research is HUMAN CLONING" and "playing GOD"... I don't see how the base elements of the GOP would ever accept any stem cell research. It's still voodoo.
And the embryos are still destroyed (or frozen in perpetuity) as medical waste.
Using a medically-precise definition of abortion as "ending a pregnancy", no. Using the definition most of those people are probably thinking of? Killing a human at the embryonic stage of development, whether implanted or not? Yes, it will.
If you want to correct people's terminology, please do so. If you want to argue that killing an embryo is not ethically significant, then do so. But don't use terminology to obscure the substance.
I agree that "potential life" is dubious reasoning.
If homeless people were being abducted and harvested for organs, you wouldn't just say "don't accept the treatment". (I hope.)
If embryos are morally & ethically equivalent to humans at more advanced stages of development--which is the premise of most opposition to ESCR--then your comments make no sense. Anyone who accepts that premise will (or should) treat the ESC issue the same way as harvesting homeless peole for organs.
Fist treatment? That sounds painful.
fuck embryos... i hate people... we dont need anymore...
That sounds wilfully flamebaity, but there's some truth in it. If it were not for this idiotic "go forth and multiply" principle, humanity would be much better off.
>The translation is: "You are hateful bigot who can't accept the idea that some people have opinions
> that are different than your own. You make yourself hate them rather than even consider that maybe,
> just maybe, their ideas have merit. You are unable to promote your own ideas with any intelligence,
> so you rely on belittling those who differ from you in a lame attempt to promote yourself."
I have no problem with people who have opinions that are different than my own.
As long as they aren't based in mysticism and superstition. Those opinions deserve nothing but scorn and laughter.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I'll bet the American pharm companies are pissed.
Bush and the Republican congress also held the specter of an outright ban over the entire industry. No one knew when or if conservatives would lose power, or if they would keep getting more conservative as time went on. How does a private start up attract investors when your product, with all its expensive R&D, could be banned or restricted out of existence at any moment?
The only reason all research wasn't outright banned was because it didn't have to be. The market was simple to manipulate to the same end; why risk more political backlash than you have to on an issue supported by a majority of Americans? The Republicans lacked a lot of things, but cunning wasn't one of them. (Notice I didn't say intelligence.)
I think the fact that GWB is of above average intelligence is the most poorly reported aspect of the entire Bush administration.
If the average intelligence quotient of the typical American is about 12, that's not saying much.
It's destruction of embryos.
While technically true, the term "embryo" can be misleading: it could lead some to think that the thing being destroyed is something close to a fetus---i.e., something with a central nervous system and a beating heart. But typically, "Embryonic stem cell research" only involves the destruction of a blastocyst. We're talking about a tiny cluster of cells that has *no neurons*. (If left to grow into a late-stage embryo then some of the cells in a blastocyst will have been the *distant ancestors* of the first neurons.)
And the anti-ESCR crowd objects to said destruction because...well it's not clear. I gather that some of them think a "soul" is injected into a zygote at the moment of its formation. (Of course, the meaning of that sentence hinges on what you think a "soul" is, and I rarely get a satisfactory definition out of religious types.)
But if there is such a thing as a human soul---loosely defined here as the mind of a person---then findings in neuroscience seem to suggest that a human soul is something generated by a human brain. In that case a common housefly would have greater capacity to bear a soul than a blastocyst, because at least a housefly has a brain!
So while I recognize that the anti-ESCR crowd has some deep emotional feelings about this, I also feel that the respect paid to them by policy-makers was not earned legitimately. How could it have been? The foundation of their argument is superstition.
Under the Bush administration U.S. trained the scientists but restricted the availability of stem cell lines.
The Chinese then walked in and stole the talent.
This has scam written all over it, but don't try searching for that on the Goog. These people get something stuffed in their bodies, fly home, & voila, 20/400 vision instead of 20/4000 vision & no side effects. Can anyone even measure 20/4000 vision? Does anyone even know if it's the fact that they're stem cells or if it was the extra volume of whatever they're stuffing?
The controversy comes when dealing with frozen embryos, which are capable of being thawed and implanted into a surrogate mother, or into a woman who "adopts" the embryos, resulting in a full-term pregnancy.
When George W. Bush issued an executive order to lift the federal ban on funding embryonic stem cell research, he did so only for the existing lines of embryonic stem cells, because he didn't want additional frozen embryos destroyed in order to harvest cells. At the time, media pundits praised this decision as a wise compromise between the two extreme positions (zero funding, or a free-for-all). In the years since, however, the narrative has been grossly oversimplified into "Bush banned stem cell research." President Obama has eliminated the nuanced compromise and placed us in the free-for-all situation.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
then you automatically lose the argument.
Unmutual people are always wrong.
The opening says something about embryonic stem cell research. Then the article mentions that there's a chinese guy that "made adult stem cells behave like embryonic stem cells" (i.e. reversed them to totipotent, or made them provide the treatments that we fantasize embryonic stem cells will provide?). Then it talks about treatments, and "safe adult stem cells." It doesn't explain the thing about regressing adult stem cells to embryonic (i.e. if they're regressed at all, or if this is just political wording meaning they supply treatments we'd associate with embryonic stem cells in our political environment); it doesn't explain if "safe adult stem cells" are used for treatment or if some sort of embryonic (or regressed adult to embryonic) stem cells are used; it doesn't really say what's actually going on. It's very vague.
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Check out that microscope in the picture. It looks like it has rust all over it. I've got a 1968 427 big block that looks cleaner than that.
Even the assertion that Bush limited embryonic stem cell research is false. In the latter years of the Clinton administration there was a total ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Bush issued an executive order to liberalize the policy by lifing the ban for the existing lines of embryonic stem cells. So the most accurate way to describe it is that Bush removed some of the limits on embryonic stem cell research. (Clinton could have done this, but chose not to, or more likely, didn't get around to because he was busy with an intern.) Bush didn't remove all of the limits because he didn't want to see viable frozen embryos destroyed in order to harvest additional cells. Of course, removing "some" of the limits is not good enough for the absolutists; hence, in the years since, there's been a campaign to grossly oversimplify the narrative and say that "Bush banned stem cell research."
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
...I would have taken better care of my body.
Namely: It's about legalized organlegging [wikipedia.org]. As treatments emerge, we'll find out whether they're willing to sacrifice other human beings for their own health & longevity.
That's a no-brainer. The answer is "Yes, They are willing to sacrifice other human beings for their own health & longevity", for every country that ever started a war. <cynic mode> Us, them, we're all the same. </cynic mode>
If a natural embryo splits in the womb, it becomes identical twins. If a researcher takes a embryo, splits off several ESCs, then implants that embryo so that it can go to full term producing a living, breathing human being, does that fix the ethical argument?
You could take a natural embryo, remove a few ESCs and save them. Then after the person is born and dies, you use a saved ESC to produce another person, is that ok? If the original person that was produced by the embryo gets cancer, can you use their ESCs to fix the cancer and keep them alive?
(All this is science fiction today, but will be available 15 minutes into the future...)
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
If we figure out a way to split you into multiple individuals, does that mean you weren't really human?
Any institution with any part in embryonic stem cell research on new lines lost ALL its Federal funding.
And since this came about due to the rantings of an (at the time) ascendant fundamentalism, which was howling for more restrictions, I submit that this had a chilling effect on anything the 'we report, you decide' media could construe as 'stem-cell-ish'.
No worries, as long as Faux News kept communicating the scientific details accurately, and helping viewers with the nuances involved. Good thing they aren't backward fuckwads pandering to religious nuts.
Opinions that completely ignore scientific fact and follows religious dogma do not have merit! He IS using his intelligence by belittling them!
Well of course they do. They've got all those stem cells to grow em!
Actually he didn't even do that (stopped research), he only stopped *federal funding* on new lines of ESC.
He didn't stop "federal funding", because there was no federal funding to begin with. He created the funding of a limited nature, and chose to start with research that didn't require killing babies.
He didn't even ban reasearch on embryonic stem cells, he just stated that the government wouldn't fund it beyond already existing cell lines. You could do all the research you wanted to on it, but the federal government wouldn't pay for it.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I really wish people would stop acting like we are so far behind because of Bush he only stopped research on embryonic not adult.
I am not sure about that. Remember SPUTNIK scared the s*** out of the American public and made us think that we had a serious missile gap with USSR. The truth is of course far different. As a result, we had a generation of citizens and politicians (under pressure from constituents?) devoted to scientific/technological advances that eventually lead us to the moon. A few more break-through coming from the communist-in-name-only China might be a good thing to sway public opinion.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
Ahhh China, leader in forced abortions and stem cell warehouses. Coincidence?
Will code a sig generator for food
I'm curious about this--do you have references I can look into?
Go back and read speeches from Bush he always mentioned embryonic stem cells, go to the groups morally opposed to the killing of human for this purpose and they mention embryonic.
The people who DON'T mention are the media, people who are wanted federal funding for their groups and the uninformed. They are the people who do not mention embryonic and combine it all into stem cells.
Not that I disagree with calling an embryo human, or a person, but it's anything but clear what the actual line is. We can say that an embryo is human since given the right conditions and time, you'll end up with a mature human. But we can say the same thing for an unfertilized egg and some sperm cells. Or for that matter, two teenagers of the opposite sex.
The embryo stage is convenient in that it gives a clear deliniation between not-human and human. Things get harder when you start trying to draw the line at a certain number of weeks in gestation (especially since the point of conception is often quite vague). The only other clear line of deliniation is birth.
You do realize that the ESC used in stem cell research were already going to be destroyed, right? ESC has uses other than stem cell research and those other uses get first pick, the ESC used for stem cell research are scheduled to be destroyed shortly thereafter because they would otherwise begin to breakdown.
Not to mention that there is no ethical problem with using ESC; unless you have an ethical problem with killing bacteria using anti-bacterial soap or cleaners. ESC are just a collection of cells; hardly any closer to being a human being than the bacteria on your kitchen counter. The fact of the matter is that most opponents to ESC use are either ill-informed or serving a political agenda that wishes to oppose anything close to abortion because it might weaken their anti-abortion stance.
I personally enjoy throwing objects at the homless, and would never accept their dirty, filthy organs. Now if you offered me organs coming from the working poor, I would take up your offer in an instant!
If only someone told that to your parents (your age + 1) years ago.
If embryos are morally & ethically equivalent to humans at more advanced stages of development--which is the premise of most opposition to ESCR--then your comments make no sense. Anyone who accepts that premise will (or should) treat the ESC issue the same way as harvesting homeless peole for organs.
The key difference is that there is a general consensus that harvesting the organs of the homeless is evil. That's not true for ESC, and it never will be for reasons we discussed previously.
There are some religions out there that have beliefs about society that most people in the west do not share. Some believe that women should be covered from head to toe. The fact that they believe this, when the rest of us don't is pretty weak justification for putting a law like that into effect. They're free to work towards that, but it's not good justification.
Much the same, you believe it's murder, fine, you -can- try to outlaw it, but that's no type of justification since we don't feel the same way. Laws ideally should be reflections of values held by all of society, not a minority imposing their values. Naturally, that's not what always happens, and sometimes that has been good, civil rights comes to mind. But in this case, the fact that you feel that way doesn't make me any more sympathetic to the laws that you're trying to pass.
I don't think that's a valid comparison.
"X is an organism. Given food & a friendly environment, it will 'mature' into an adult human being."
That applies to: Teenagers, toddlers, infants, late-term fetuses, mid-term fetuses, early-term fetuses, embryos, blastocysts, and zygotes.
It doesn't apply to an unfertilized egg with some sperm cells, or two teenagers of the opposite sex.
Look at intact dilation and extraction. Birth isn't such a clear line, to many people. (At what point during the birth? At what point during a C-section?)
I will wear the distinction proudly.
Religion = hocus pocus sham.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Let's take stock and see:
Carter - hated nuclear energy, irrationally enough to block the US from responsibly recycling fuel.
Obama - continues and expands Carter's policies, ironically enough causing us to generate FAR more nuclear waste than we need to.
Carter - Believed that forcing the price of energy up was "good" for the environment.
Obama - "Under my energy plan, prices will necessarily skyrocket."
Carter - campaigned primarily on nebulous "change" than concrete policy. Deliberately obfuscated policy whenever possible.
Obama - campaigned on nebulous "change", avoided making concrete statements whenever possible.
Carter - believed that "talking to everyone" was good. Ignored the danger of legitimizing the illegitimate or insane.
Obama - Believes in direct, non-preconditioned talks with Iran, Hamas, etc... is willing to legitimize anyone, no matter how illegitimate or insane.
Carter - had barely served a term in his state legislature before becoming a one-term governor.
Obama - barely served (was absent more often than there) in state legislature before becoming a half-absentee, non-full-term Senator.
Carter - put Franklin Raines in as "assistant director of the White House Office of Domestic Policy."
Obama - defended Franklin Raines and was one of the black Senators who stonewalled the investigation into Raines' cooking the books of Fannie Mae.
Carter - was a media darling and ran a cult of personality prior to his election.
Obama - was a media darling and rana cult of personality prior to his election.
Carter - had ZERO foreign policy expertise.
Obama - has ZERO foreign policy expertise.
Carter - believe that the US "leading by example" would stop others from doing things like making nuclear weapons.
Obama - believes the same.
Reality - How's that working out with India? Pakistan? Iran? North Korea? Red China?
Carter - is a raving anti-semite, as shown in his "books" of the past decade.
Obama - Handed his first interview to an Arab news network which broadcasts video of horrific war crimes and rabid anti-semitic rantings, such as calling Jews and Christians "pigs and monkeys." Met in his first week with members of a Hamas front group. Supports legitimizing regimes which make statements like "Israel shall be wiped from the map." And let's not forget the racist church he not only joined, but raised his daughters in.
Carter - never would have been elected had the Republicans run a sane candidate against him.
Obama - got to run against John McCain.
Carter - couldn't get his speeches straight even with his notes in front of him.
Obama - hems, haws, um, er, eh, evades, and blows it when there's not a pre-scripted question and teleprompter to help him out.
I could go on, but you get the picture. Obama is Jimmy Carter 2.0, and just as dangerous for the same reasons.
Really?
If there's anything medical technology can do with an infant that we couldn't do with adults, will you stop calling infants "people"?
What on earth?
How did Bush "equating all kinds of stem cell research with embryonic stem cell research"?
Do you have any idea what you're talking about?
One Chinese biotech company, Beike, is now building a 21,500 square foot stem cell storage facility
coding is life
When I see the word "miraculous" used to describe any kind of progress in an experimental science, I get suspicious.
Experimental data has been fudged before. That was in South Korea, not China, but the point stands: If the results are too good to be true, they probably are.
Perhaps it's based on the idea that all human beings should be protected the same way, regardless of size or level of development?
Why is "possessing neurons" the criterion? The capacity to feel pain? (So if we kill someone after applying anaesthesia or while they're asleep, is that OK?) You think that while we're still developing the capacity to think, our rights are still "developing"?
You want to classify human beings into "human beings that are persons" and "human beings that aren't". You want to say, "Unless you've finished developing this or that function in your body, you're not a human person yet."
I don't see why disagreement is "superstition".
Thus, killing a woman under 55 would be committing 263532 murders ?
Killing a man under 70-90 would be committing millions of murders ?
There has to be a point before which it's not a person yet. Personally, I put that point relatively far in the development of the baby, and it will be hard to decide where it should be.
Of course, the best source of blastocysts is leftovers from in-vitro fertilization. Since nobody (well, practically nobody) wants dozens of kids, the current options are incinerate them, keep them frozen forever, or use them in research.
Blastocysts are formed and fail to implant all the time, it's just that nobody notices.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, on consensus. If it's just, "I don't think you'll be able to build enough support to get your laws passed", then OK. I hope you're wrong, but you may well be right.
In other words:
I agree that laws should come about democratically. I want to see social change happen in this area; I want to see a neglected class be treated justly. I hope I'll live to see our society realize what's happening, and do something about it.
If you lived in a country or a time where it seemed hopeless, to right a pervasive injustice... Well, I hope you would still act. Maybe you would fail, but the possibility of achieving justice is worth the effort. (If you lived in a Muslim state of the oppressive variety, wouldn't you work to bring change? To change the consensus?)
That's the heart of liberalism, in the classic sense of the word.
I hope that if I had lived at a time where legal slavery were common, I would have both the clarity, the courage, and the success of someone like William Wilberforce.
You're assuming that an egg or sperm is "a human being".
I'm assuming there's no difference between "human being" and "human organism". And an egg or sperm is not a distinct organism. They are parts of an organism. When they combine, they form a new organism--and that organism only requires nourishment and a friendly environment, in order to develop into an adult.
See my earlier comment.
There has to be a point where we come into existence, yes. And we know that point, as I said above. You-the-human-organism came into existence at fertilization.
You want to add on a criterion for personhood, more than just being a human being. A level of development that qualifies human beings for this notion of "personhood". You think that you were once a human organism that wasn't a human person yet.
In that light, I think it's weird that pro-lifers are called "superstitious".
'go forth and multiply' is simply religious speak for 'propagate the species' and 'survival', both of which are fairly standard concept in population biology. I agree with the GP that there is an overpopulation problem as it is; but be careful about conflating it with religious speak. The bible simply expresses in words the biological drive that humans experience every day. Religious wack-jobs aren't responsible for overpopulation because they follow 'go forth and multiply', nor is the religion itself. Overpopulation is just overpopulation. No need to blame the religions for it, or the people following said religions.
Randomly select any person in the population. The chance that this person is above average intelligence is exactly 50%
Perhaps it's based on the idea that all human beings should be protected the same way, regardless of size or level of development?
If you want the definition of the term "human being" to include blastocysts, would you also want gametes included?
If not: why not? Is it merely that each sperm and each egg only has half the genetic material of the organism that produced it? But in that case why didn't you take the position that a human being should be protected even if it only has half the genes of more "developed" human beings? [Note, I normally do not regard sperm or egg cells as human beings.]
If so: how about the cells that produced the gametes? How about skin cells? If someone gives you a paper cut, have they committed genocide?
Why is "possessing neurons" the criterion?
Because without neurons, there's none of the kind of information processing that makes a person: no concepts, no dreams, no emotion, no "instinct", no impulses, no more capacity for suffering---or for anything else---than a colony of bacteria, no perception of any kind---nothing.
(At this point some people like to say that there is *potential* for the blastocyst to grow into something else that has the biological machinery for those things. And while that is true it is somehow not compelling. Does each *potential* life have an *inalienable right* to be made *actual*? I don't know of any reasonable way to answer "yes" to that question.)
For the purpose of deciding whether a given entity has some inalienable universal right, we have to draw the line somewhere. Maybe someday we *will* recognize each bacterium as deserving said rights, and presumably around that time it would be consistent to do the same with each cell in a blastocyst. Until then, I think it's ok to say that "someone" isn't human if "they" don't have at least one iota of the hardware that makes it possible for the rest of us to exhibit the things that make us human.
The capacity to feel pain? (So if we kill someone after applying anaesthesia or while they're asleep, is that OK?)
No, it's not ok. The difference is that there's an *actual* person there (and not just a *potential* person). Not only does that entity have the *capacity* for all those wonderful mental activities, *it's actually doing many of them every minute of every day*, even while sleeping. (Though we tend not to notice the latter as much. But talk to your local neuroscientist who specializes in sleep studdies; it's fascinating stuff.) Besides: your hypothetical someone also probably wanted to go on living. That's another thing that sets him/her apart from the blastocyst out of which that person grew.
You think that while we're still developing the capacity to think, our rights are still "developing"?
I don't know. There may be a time (say, when we really understand the nature of consciousness) when our understanding permits us to apply more fine-grained rules. For now, for practical purposes, all of us demand *some* kind of boundary (whether stark or gradual, early or late) between "deserving rights" and "not deserving rights". So for now I could be content to say an embryo "deserves full rights" as soon as it has a brain (even though a housefly might have a larger and more complex brain). I'm totally open to reevaluating that stance however.
You want to classify human beings into "human beings that are persons" and "human beings that aren't".
I suppose that depends on what you think "human be
I wonder if you don't mind answering me this, what, other than nourishment, oxygen, and protection (albeit in relatively unorthodox ways), does a living (as in respiring) blastocyst or embryo or fetus need from anything?
In answer to your further questions in other posts about gametes, no human beings have 1/2 genetic code of any other human beings. However, AFAIK the zygote that became "NeutralStone" had the exact same DNA that you do now.
What differentiates Humans from other great Apes? Our DNA. When does that happen? At fertilization.
Conservatives don't like the destruction of embryos, period.
But they don't mind destroying 100's of thousands of foreign nationals at all!
As regards soul, the greco-roman ideal was that there was an ethereal substance, soul. I don't know when they thought it arrived at the body. Hebrew (language of OT) word for soul literally meant 'that which breathes' Also, blood is equated with soul in OT.
I was not aware of the supposed equivalence to blood. :-)
I wonder if you don't mind answering me this, what, other than nourishment, oxygen, and protection (albeit in relatively unorthodox ways), does a living (as in respiring) blastocyst or embryo or fetus need from anything?
I don't know the answer; sorry. I Am Not A Developmental Biologist.
In answer to your further questions in other posts about gametes, no human beings have 1/2 genetic code of any other human beings. However, AFAIK the zygote that became "NeutralStone" had the exact same DNA that you do now.
What differentiates Humans from other great Apes? Our DNA. When does that happen? At fertilization.
Sorry; did you mean to ask, "When does *DNA* happen?" If so then I don't understand your question. I do recognize fertilization as the point where my present-day genotype was established, and since I have no twin, I understand that my genotype is unique. I also understand that my genotype resulted from a kind of fusion of chromosomes from my parents' gametes.
Were you just checking to make sure of all that? :-) Was there some point you wanted to make?
There was already a report saying this is more like "gambling" from the an important government site back in Sept 2007:
http://scitech.people.com.cn/GB/6290699.html
(You may want to use google translate to read: http://translate.google.com/translate_t?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en#)
The key points in this report are:
1. It's not yet proven
2. It's in a "gray area", new regulations are/were on the way to make sure only proven therapies can be used on human
Not sure what's going on later.
twitter.com/xuyihua
Not it is not, it is founded in the Christian political agenda to ensure the Christians and their offspring (who will undoubtedly also be Christian) outnumber non-christians. It doesn't mean that non-Christians have similar lines of thought though.
--and that organism only requires nourishment and a friendly environment, in order to develop into an adult.
Actually it is estimated that over 50% of pregnancies are terminated *naturally* usually so early that the woman never realized that she was pregnant. I realize that in your eyes there is probably a big difference in natural termination and willfully doing so, but if every fertilized egg is a human being, nature seems to be awfully sloppy with lives, and for sure not every fertilized eggs just needs a friendly environment and nourishment... Posting AC because of moderation
That was one of Dr. McCoy's objections to being transported on Trek TOS.
Pierre Boulle (sp?) wrote a story about a transporter system that destroyed the original person, saying them to tape. Then the tape was electronically transmitted to the moon, where the person was reassembled. If that person had an accident, they would just rerun the tape, and poof!, reincarnation. (minus intervening memories of course)
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
as for the Blood soul thing, Genesis 9:4. The word translated life there is nephesh, the word for soul. Gesenius's Lexicon has some interesting points. Here
Please qualify that as "religious conservatives." Plenty of libertarian conservatives are all for embryonic stem cell research.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
There was an episode of the Outer Limits, too.
Right--in your eyes too, I wager. That is, you see a big difference in a human life naturally ending, and being willfully ended. (The difference would be the definition of "human life".)
Yeah, infant mortality rate used to be pretty high, too.
It's a point to raise if we're talking about the general Problem of Evil/Suffering as an objection to theism, but it doesn't help decide this question.
Are you referring to complications in fetal development, and congenital disorders?
I didn't think to mention that kind of thing. Some require more than nourishment & friendly environment--some require more medical care. (And some might not be treatable with our technology.) But you could say the same thing about infants, toddlers, & teenagers.
By Godwin's Law, you lose the argument.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>To ridicule those that value religion, you are rejecting that which
>preventss them from forcing you into their "hocus pocus sham".
Crock. Of. Shit. Freedom OF religion also means freedom FROM religion. The Bill of Rights does not enshrine religion, it neuters it, and rightfully so.
Yes, you have the right to worship whatever you like. Of course I also have the right to point out it's all fairy tales and magic worship.
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Ok; if one is into mythology I guess that's interesting, but I don't see how it's relevant to the topic being discussed.
Or perhaps that was kind of your point? I.e. that the original idea of 'soul' grew out of a culture that knew practically nothing about biology, so we should expect the 'soul injection' argument to make little sense. It would be like trying to graft ancient peoples' beliefs involving the Greek god Helios onto what astrophysicists are now able to tell us about the solar system.
>First, you are confused. Yes, there is a freedom FROM a GOVERNMENT religion which is where
>the BoR states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", but
>'m free to practice whatever religion I wish because it says next, "or prohibiting the free
> exercise thereof".
Yes, but the most important part here is that the government can't force a religion on the people. As a caveat, sure, people are allowed to believe in magic if they like, but it has no impact on government and vice versa.
>So, yes, the founders of the Bill of Rights thought religion was so important,
>they mentioned it first. I'd call that enshrining.
No, they thought that GETTING A RELIGION CRAMMED DOWN YOUR THROAT WAS SO ABHORRENT that they made sure the law of the land prevented it. I'd call that neutering.
>However, the freedom of speech also covers you to look ignorant. When you call religion
>"fairy tales and magic worship", it proves that you have very little clue as to what
>religion entails. Most of religion are rules to live by. It sets a standard on how to live.
>It teaches not to steal, murder, lie, cheat on your spouse or several other things that
>cause problems between people. It also teaches to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive
>those that have done you wrong, and other things that make us better people and improve
>society as a whole.
One small problem with this. You can, and people do, teach all of this WITHOUT INVOKING MAGIC.
I have a very large clue as to what religion entails, and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM INVOLVE MAGIC.
I don't have a problem with moral codes to live by. Only ones based on magic or other illogical basis.
>Evidently, you don't understand any of that, which makes you ignorant. Maybe you just think
>that kind acts like feeding the hungry is all fairy tales, which would just make you an asshole.
Acts of kindness like feeding the hungry is great. It's the belief in magic that is all fairy tales.
You don't have to believe in magic to feed the hungry.
>I'll be kind and assume that it's just ignorance on your part. Tomorrow is Sunday.
>Please wake up early enough to attend a church and talk with the people there before
>you embarrass yourself further.
I've been to many a church service and I no longer feel it necessary to waste my precious time on nonsense like talking to an invisible man in the sky with magic powers.
The only people who need to be embarrassed are the people talking to invisible men with magic powers.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>Well that's your problem. You refuse to believe in what you do no understand.
This is untrue. There are many things in life that I did not at one time understand, but through scientific study, I came to understand. I will believe in anything that can be scientifically explained. I will not accept, however, anything as fact simply because someone said an invisible man told them so.
>Many things that was considered magic in the past have since been explained by science.
>The idea that the Israelites were provided manna in the desert was considered "magic"
>by many and therefor impossible. Yet studies have shown that the sap from the tamarisk
>tree easily fits the description of manna and provides a likely explanation. Many of the
>plagues of Egypt can be explained by natural occurrences. Even the parting of the Red Sea
>can be explained by a tsunami. That tsunami could have been caused by an volcano that
>erupting nearby, at the same time and could have caused many of the plagues.
>These are scientific explanations for what many have perceived as miracles, or
>"magic" as you put it. Was it a volcano and tsunami? I can't tell you. But I can
>guarantee that there is science behind what you call "magic".
If it is your claim that these events, if they actually occurred, were the result of natural phenomenon, then I have no disagreement with you. I disagree with those who say that these events, if they actually occurred, were the result of magic.
>Well known scientists like Einstein once claimed that the universe was static and could not
>have had a beginning. In the name of religion, a priest by the name of Georges Lemaitre
>worked with recent scientific discoveries to prove that the universe did indeed have a creation. Was the Big Bang "magic"? Two hundred years ago, some would have said the exact same thing you did.
>The one thing that Georges Lemaitre realized is that God works within the laws of the
>universe that He created. These universal constants are narrow enough that even the
>slightest variation of any of them would cause the universe not to exist at all. Is it magic?
>Read this page and others like for examples of how respected scientists and mathematicians are
>looking for rational explanations to what you might consider "magic". You don't have to believe
>it, but you should approach it with an open mind and admit that there is some science behind be belief.
Just because a naturally occurring phenomenon is not well understood does not mean it is magic or supernatural, nor does it imply that "god did it". It simply means that our understanding of the science behind the phenomenon is insufficient to explain it at this time.
>Just because you don't understand something, doesn't mean that it's "magic" and can not exist.
I agree entirely. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean that it's magic or supernatural. It simply means you lack the science to describe it at this time.
>On the flip-side, "God did it" is not a valid explanation for things I don't understand.
Glad we agree.
>Galileo said it best:
>"the laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics". --Galileo
>God works within His own laws.
The laws could also exist without a god.
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