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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."
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.
My work here is dung.
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
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
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???
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.
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
...stem cells would kill you!
Like KGB!!
(insert braying Yakov laugh here)
America! What a country!
Thank you, I'll be in Branson forever!
I'm not cool enough to have a
Social Security is officially screwed now...
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
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.
Miraculous and China in the same sentence. Until their results are duplicated I would regard this announcement with great skepticism.
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.
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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.
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?
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.
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?
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
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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.
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.
>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 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
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
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."
The translation of the parent is, "I'm just going to call Bush names because the facts don't support my bigotry."
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
bigot.
>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.
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.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
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.
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!
Ahhh China, leader in forced abortions and stem cell warehouses. Coincidence?
Will code a sig generator for food
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.
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.
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
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.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>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.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.