Wow, closest to a Godwin's Law response I've had on the sift... not that your example was inappropriate.

I tried in vain to avoid this response from you by noting that there are "usual methods employed to protect populations or otherwise limit research", and that making the proclamation from on-high that scientists can not produce new cell lines completely ignores the tradition of having groups of researchers, historians, lawmakers, etc. come together to determine where the lines should be drawn. If you're early in your research career I'm sure you had to sit through an ethics course (or at least some seminars) that described in detail who protected populations are, why they are protected and when and how these laws were adopted. The stem cell laws are the equivalent of suddenly declaring giving the middle finger to someone a misdemeanor... an effort to legislate morality independent of human impact.

Creating human life in order to destroy it? What are you even talking about? Because I'm talking about adding chemicals to a dish of donated cells that would otherwise be literally incinerated.

In reply to this comment by Doc_M:
I don't really understand the belief that science should have no constrictions. If it should not, then the research done on the Jews in WWII would be acceptable which of course it is not. This is of course an extreme example, but symbolically applicable to our discussion nonetheless. There is a line to be drawn, I just draw it shorter than many scientists. Tools available to humanity are not always right to use. I don't like the idea of creating human life in order to destroy it. That disturbs me and I can't see the worth when we are inches from reversing the epigenetic changes that occur when cells differentiate. Just as high gas prices drive a demand for alternate energy sources, saying no to ESCs can drive the research of adult derived stem cell technology.

In reply to this comment by bamdrew:
MY understanding is that two things ruffle feathers:

1)no cell lines derived from extra sperm-plus-egg after in vitro fertilization ("no you may not use this for experiments, its precious... now off to the incinerator with it"),

and

2)arbitrary limits on what scientists can do based on a moral feeling, determined independent of the usual methods employed to protect populations or otherwise limit research, and which lead to a somewhat illogical end; telling scientists its not moral to add chemicals to human stem cells moments after they've added them to a dish of any other animal's stem cells can seem odd... they're both a couple of dishes with cells in them... neither is going to ever bark or say hi.

And slippery-sloping it, as some do, to saying things like "if we let them do this they'll have cyborgs modeled with Arnold's stem cells" is bogus, precisely because according to them scientists can do the same thing by reversing adult cells into pluripotency. Anyhow, placing restrictions on a tool like the use of a human cell line for moral reasons is strange to me,... and I'm more curious how far the pendulum will swing when it swings back the other direction.



In reply to this comment by Doc_M:
You can probably guess by now that I am not an abortions supporter for most reasons, so naturally, I don't support production of new embryonic stem cell lines by that method. I think that the advances of adult-derived stem cells are FAR more valuable than any other research of its type. I have friends who study embryonic lines and those who study adult derived lines. I have to confess that that the adult derived lines seem to produce more results and more promising futures than the embryonic lines ironically.

I support a ban on embryonic stem cell line generation simply because there is a significant chance that it is wrong. We don't need them. We have shown that we don't need them. Let's work on something we know to be worth what is spent. I feel similarly about animals; use them only when absolutely needed, and though that is often, use them minimally.
And BTW, Net, 3.2 million is nothing. Talk to me in billions. My lab alone (of thousands) is budgeted a million a year, though lately we haven't been spending that much.

I don't really understand the belief that science should have no constrictions. If it should not, then the research done on the Jews in WWII would be acceptable which of course it is not. This is of course an extreme example, but symbolically applicable to our discussion nonetheless. There is a line to be drawn, I just draw it shorter than many scientists. Tools available to humanity are not always right to use. I don't like the idea of creating human life in order to destroy it. That disturbs me and I can't see the worth when we are inches from reversing the epigenetic changes that occur when cells differentiate. Just as high gas prices drive a demand for alternate energy sources, saying no to ESCs can drive the research of adult derived stem cell technology.

In reply to this comment by bamdrew:
MY understanding is that two things ruffle feathers:

1)no cell lines derived from extra sperm-plus-egg after in vitro fertilization ("no you may not use this for experiments, its precious... now off to the incinerator with it"),

and

2)arbitrary limits on what scientists can do based on a moral feeling, determined independent of the usual methods employed to protect populations or otherwise limit research, and which lead to a somewhat illogical end; telling scientists its not moral to add chemicals to human stem cells moments after they've added them to a dish of any other animal's stem cells can seem odd... they're both a couple of dishes with cells in them... neither is going to ever bark or say hi.

And slippery-sloping it, as some do, to saying things like "if we let them do this they'll have cyborgs modeled with Arnold's stem cells" is bogus, precisely because according to them scientists can do the same thing by reversing adult cells into pluripotency. Anyhow, placing restrictions on a tool like the use of a human cell line for moral reasons is strange to me,... and I'm more curious how far the pendulum will swing when it swings back the other direction.



In reply to this comment by Doc_M:
You can probably guess by now that I am not an abortions supporter for most reasons, so naturally, I don't support production of new embryonic stem cell lines by that method. I think that the advances of adult-derived stem cells are FAR more valuable than any other research of its type. I have friends who study embryonic lines and those who study adult derived lines. I have to confess that that the adult derived lines seem to produce more results and more promising futures than the embryonic lines ironically.

I support a ban on embryonic stem cell line generation simply because there is a significant chance that it is wrong. We don't need them. We have shown that we don't need them. Let's work on something we know to be worth what is spent. I feel similarly about animals; use them only when absolutely needed, and though that is often, use them minimally.
And BTW, Net, 3.2 million is nothing. Talk to me in billions. My lab alone (of thousands) is budgeted a million a year, though lately we haven't been spending that much.

MY understanding is that two things ruffle feathers:

1)no cell lines derived from extra sperm-plus-egg after in vitro fertilization ("no you may not use this for experiments, its precious... now off to the incinerator with it"),

and

2)arbitrary limits on what scientists can do based on a moral feeling, determined independent of the usual methods employed to protect populations or otherwise limit research, and which lead to a somewhat illogical end; telling scientists its not moral to add chemicals to human stem cells moments after they've added them to a dish of any other animal's stem cells can seem odd... they're both a couple of dishes with cells in them... neither is going to ever bark or say hi.

And slippery-sloping it, as some do, to saying things like "if we let them do this they'll have cyborgs modeled with Arnold's stem cells" is bogus, precisely because according to them scientists can do the same thing by reversing adult cells into pluripotency. Anyhow, placing restrictions on a tool like the use of a human cell line for moral reasons is strange to me,... and I'm more curious how far the pendulum will swing when it swings back the other direction.



In reply to this comment by Doc_M:
You can probably guess by now that I am not an abortions supporter for most reasons, so naturally, I don't support production of new embryonic stem cell lines by that method. I think that the advances of adult-derived stem cells are FAR more valuable than any other research of its type. I have friends who study embryonic lines and those who study adult derived lines. I have to confess that that the adult derived lines seem to produce more results and more promising futures than the embryonic lines ironically.

I support a ban on embryonic stem cell line generation simply because there is a significant chance that it is wrong. We don't need them. We have shown that we don't need them. Let's work on something we know to be worth what is spent. I feel similarly about animals; use them only when absolutely needed, and though that is often, use them minimally.
And BTW, Net, 3.2 million is nothing. Talk to me in billions. My lab alone (of thousands) is budgeted a million a year, though lately we haven't been spending that much.

MY understanding is that two things ruffle feathers:

1)no cell lines derived from extra sperm-plus-egg after in vitro fertilization ("no you may not use this for experiments, its precious... now off to the incinerator with it"),

and

2)arbitrary limits on what scientists can do based on a moral feeling, determined independent of the usual methods employed to protect populations or otherwise limit research, and which lead to a somewhat illogical end; telling scientists its not moral to add chemicals to human stem cells moments after they've added them to a dish of any other animal's stem cells can seem odd... they're both a couple of dishes with cells in them... neither is going to ever bark or say hi.

And slippery-sloping it, as some do, to saying things like "if we let them do this they'll have cyborgs modeled with Arnold's stem cells" is bogus, precisely because according to them scientists can do the same thing by reversing adult cells into pluripotency. Anyhow, placing restrictions on a tool like the use of a human cell line for moral reasons is strange to me,... and I'm more curious how far the pendulum will swing when it swings back the other direction.



In reply to this comment by Doc_M:
You can probably guess by now that I am not an abortions supporter for most reasons, so naturally, I don't support production of new embryonic stem cell lines by that method. I think that the advances of adult-derived stem cells are FAR more valuable than any other research of its type. I have friends who study embryonic lines and those who study adult derived lines. I have to confess that that the adult derived lines seem to produce more results and more promising futures than the embryonic lines ironically.

I support a ban on embryonic stem cell line generation simply because there is a significant chance that it is wrong. We don't need them. We have shown that we don't need them. Let's work on something we know to be worth what is spent. I feel similarly about animals; use them only when absolutely needed, and though that is often, use them minimally.
And BTW, Net, 3.2 million is nothing. Talk to me in billions. My lab alone (of thousands) is budgeted a million a year, though lately we haven't been spending that much.

You can probably guess by now that I am not an abortions supporter for most reasons, so naturally, I don't support production of new embryonic stem cell lines by that method. I think that the advances of adult-derived stem cells are FAR more valuable than any other research of its type. I have friends who study embryonic lines and those who study adult derived lines. I have to confess that that the adult derived lines seem to produce more results and more promising futures than the embryonic lines ironically.

I support a ban on embryonic stem cell line generation simply because there is a significant chance that it is wrong. We don't need them. We have shown that we don't need them. Let's work on something we know to be worth what is spent. I feel similarly about animals; use them only when absolutely needed, and though that is often, use them minimally.
And BTW, Net, 3.2 million is nothing. Talk to me in billions. My lab alone (of thousands) is budgeted a million a year, though lately we haven't been spending that much.

Am curious what you think about research limitations imposed in the fields of stem cell research Doc_M?

Generally speaking, the President doesn't have any control over earmarks. He can veto bills that contain them, but otherwise it's purely a Congressional thing.

Earmarks allow members of Congress to direct money to projects (usually to one in the state/district they represent), without going through the full appropriations process.

I was mostly thinking about the 2nd most mentioned earmark John McCain lists as pork: a study of the DNA of bears (with a joke about not being sure if it's a criminal or paternal issue).

There's a similar earmark Palin requested for her state: $3.2 million for a study of seal genetics.

In reading the full discussion, a lot of people were saying there isn't any reason to believe there's something wrong with either study (except McCain's grandstanding about it). But then some people claiming to be research scientists said using earmarks for studies is a bad way to get funding for research, since it bypasses the normal peer review process.

Just curious if you'd had experience with seeing something like that bypass the peer review.

Probably those particular ones wouldn't have gone through the DoD at all, though.

With stem cells, I'd be willing to bet the politicians have at least watched a Nova special on them, so they're not totally ignorant. Most of the conversation centers around the ban on creating new stem cell lines, and moral vs. practical considerations of lifting or retaining the ban (a conversation that very much echoes the abortion debate).

Is there something about stem cells that they should know that would change the nature of the debate? (e.g., we don't really need more lines, there's no ethical problem with getting more lines, they're not important to current research, etc.)

Earmarks vary so much is it not fair to say they fund this or that. EVERY administration has them and they fund every administration differentlly. I immagine that GWB had plenty of earmarks in defense and I imagine that those will continue with either candidate. The bad news is that that will mean more war, the good news is that that might mean a shorter war and that that might mean some substantial technological advances for us and the world as it has been in the past. In other words, every time NASA has had a deadline, it has produced technologies that we use in our houses (globaly) every freaking day.

If we never funded defense funding, we'd still be using swords. We are using more and more specific weapons. There may be a day when we can appoint a weapon to a specific person
and say "go" and it will. THAT is what we want.

As for biomedical earmarks, they are purely political. If a candidate pushes stem cells, in any form, know that he is following his advisers and their peers. None of the candidates understand what stem cells are or what they mean. Likewise goes for viral vectors for medicines.

I'm a "small-l" libertarian, and I'm voting Obama. McCain couldn't be more anti-libertarian. He disagrees with libertarians on . . .

gun control
abortion
stem cell research
foreign interventionalism
drug control
education
gay rights
intelligent design

. . . and there's probably a lot more that I missed.

Uhh, I blazed through the thread to make my off-the-cuff remark, that I missed this:

>> ^LittleRed:
>> ^BillOreilly:
If it was such a "tough" decision to have an abortion, the woman wouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place to force her to make said decision. It seems that keeping their pants on is the real decision women have to make, eh?

Yes and no. Of course girls have to be responsible for their actions, just like the rest of us, and not see abortion as a trivial matter. You should not, however, punish those, who might actually want and/or need an abortion. If there are changes in personal life, a spousal death or whatever, then, within a reasonable limit, people should be able to abort their pregnancy. Guys do have a role to play too, however little..

The crux of the debate comes in littlered's response below:

I agree. I am not speaking for anyone but myself when I say I am pro-life. I believe life starts at conception. Once the cells start dividing, life is being formed. I have a friend who got pregnant while using the NuvaRing and condoms. There is no guarantee that birth control will work.

"Life begins at conception". I think this is wrong and it is what plagues the abortion issue. Sam Harris sums it up better than I can here.

As for women that don't get abortions casually, I have another friend who was 19, no longer in school, and therefore unable to be covered by her mother's insurance. She was all out of b/c pills and refused to use condoms. She lived with her boyfriend and was a self-proclaimed sex addict. She made it clear to everyone that she was not doing anything to prevent a pregnancy, but that she would most certainly terminate it if she were to get pregnant. So to all of you who disagree with Bill O, it's definitely not as uncommon as you'd like to think.

Uhm, don't hate me for being blunt (and a dick, and all), but she's a whore... She is being willfully irresponsible, which is A Bad Thing (tm). This is not what pro-choice is about. People like her are destroying it for the rest of us, by playing into the hands of the anti-choice/pro-life bunch.


I do find it interesting that someone that professes to be a high-esteemed and very involved member of a Christian church is pro-choice in situations other than rape or health issues.

This is a tough spot to go to, because if you actually have to FOLLOW the bible, just because you are a "very involved member of a Christian church" there are many, many other bad things you have to agree with, such as slavery, stoning and rape. I wonder why esteemed members of the church don't go so much for that these days either.

I can also guarantee you that no one I know would go to a pastor for counseling before an abortion. How exactly would that go? "Hi Pastor. So I've been thinking about getting an abortion. What do you think?"

Heh, this would be an interesting counseling session. I'm not sure your guarantee holds up to reality, though, because if you are very religious a pastor is indeed someone to go for guidence, like a third parent, and young people do fuck up, even if they are religious. On this last issue, I only have observational data though*, in that no one near me has ever been in the situation or looked up to a pastor in any way.

*(fancy way of saying that I'm talking out of my ass )

I find it funny, I used to want more space funding, and I still do, I just have a severe distaste for this new Republican fascination with it.

I admit, I've got a liberal lens over my view, but when Republicans like Bush and McCain talk about wanting men on Mars, it sounds like self aggrandizement, but when Kennedy talked about it, it sounded like an inspirational effort for our future.

Might be the banning of stem cell research, despise for public education, denial of the need to reduce carbon emissions, and support for creationism in schools that has me doubting their dedication to scientific exploration. Or maybe I'm just biased against "small government conservatives" who want to embark on hundred billion-dollar investments over decades that will largely go to defense contractors.

The tough thing is that concept of god directly defies definition (religious people might say "transcends", but that's just an empty buzz-word). If I make a definition of god, then other people say that "that's not my god".

Always get your opponent to define what is meant by god first, before you prove why he is wrong.

@choggie:
You're right and I'm wrong. We don't need to shed religion to survive, that was a poor choice of words, but we need to shed it to evolve, philosophically and technologically. Already now we are being hampered technologically by religion for no good reason (see stem-cell research).

>> ^dead_tofu:
why do these poor souls care who other grown ups have sex with as long as its not children or animals? ........oh, right, it fuck ups the economy!


Just to set the record straight, California and Massachusetts are making a lot of money off the squimishness of the rest of the country by hosting weddings of couples from other states.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/02/business/fi-wedding2
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/07/15/state_sees_economics_of_gay_marriage/

Same thing happened with stem cells. The federal government demurred, so California stepped up and brain-drained the rest of the country, drawing even more high-tech businesses to its economy.

A certain amount of libertarianism is good for the economy.

Doc_M: I don't know anybody who wishes their parents used a condom, either. Early abortion is morally indistinguishable from contraception. Damaging the embryo so that it would be born without arms would be very bad, but there's nothing wrong with destroying an embryo. Its rights are moot until it develops into a sentient being. The brain of a flea has 200,000 cells, while the embryos involved in stem cell research have less than 200 cells.

Every time you swat a fly, that is worse than taking the morning-after "abortion pill".

And Swampgirl, Your posts are always thoughtful and contributing, but I want to answer this one part:

So much seeking of validation..needing it.... is NOT believing in anything enough?

Thats exactly right, atheism is NON-belief.

But it is, the way most atheist sees it, a result of critical and skeptical views on ANY claims, not just that of the religious. If you are an "atheist", it is likely that you have taken a look at the claims of the Chrsitians and the claims of the muslims, and/or any belief and said to yourself: "sorry, the evidence is just not good enough"

Anyway, they point that some of us wants to make, is that religious views should have no special free passes, no gaps, no privileged place in our discourse, simply because they are religious claims They should rather be subject to the same kind of criticism that a politician that seeks to lower the taxes, or an engineer that seek building permission, or a scientist that seeks stem cell research funds will meet. We see no reason why people who simply declare their beliefs as "faith" should get special treatment, in fact they should be held accountable, like any view that has impact on the way we live our lives. And since no one else seems to take that view, the people who run "The Atheist Experience", and others try to fill that gap,is way overdue.