Blarg the Destroyer on April 2, 2008 at 7:08 PM
Zorro on April 2, 2008 at 7:40 PM
ErikTheRed on April 2, 2008 at 8:31 PM
studentpat on April 2, 2008 at 8:54 PM
spmat on April 2, 2008 at 8:58 PM

well said.

non-embryonic stem cell research is okay by me.
if it’s not going to be a distinct human at some point in its development cycle, then there’s no problem.

blink on April 2, 2008 at 7:54 PM

I definitely need to read more on this issue.

Is government funding necessary?

There are times, like wartime, when technology is advanced by government.

For most cases, I’m inclined to believe that government’s role is to get out of the way and encourage investment.

p.s. one of these days I’ll have to figure out how to insert a linefeed into this comment form. This crap is hard to read (hopefully that’s just the preview).

Lots of thin-skinned types in here.

Slublog on April 2, 2008 at 6:58 PM

Paper-thin! Like this one:

When you try to reconcile actual science and reality with a fictional book written by a tribe of primitive sheepherders 2 millenium before electricity was discovered, you are bound to find a few conflicts. God got Pi wrong, too. :(

JayHaw Phrenzie on April 2, 2008 at 7:06 PM

By the way JayHaw, the Quran was written much later, and by camel-jockies.

An innocent man wrongly convicted deserves all the pain he can get?

Allahpundit on April 2, 2008 at 7:45 PM

I’d say no, but at least that person was given a chance in court, likely more than one chance since we’re talking about the death penalty.

I’m not saying I feel alright about it, but I feel better about that person’s pain than I do a baby’s pain. And as you already noted, at least in this area of science we have the option of using something that has no moral issues attached.

When you try to reconcile actual science and reality with a fictional book written by a tribe of primitive sheepherders 2 millenium before electricity was discovered, you are bound to find a few conflicts. God got Pi wrong, too. :(

JayHaw Phrenzie on April 2, 2008 at 7:06 PM

First, let’s assume that’s exactly what we’re doing. That religious people base their lives on complete fiction.

So what. How does that change anything. You’re incapable of convincing us otherwise, so this inflammatory rhetoric serves no purpose other than showing the rest of us who the trolls in this group are.

And even if we’re all insane (the vast majority of the population), you still have to live in a world where we exist and have the right to vote. You can either get over it or not, but you only have control over yourself. So you can either continue being a jackass and get no respect from people you otherwise agree with on most issues, or you can continue in this vein bothering only yourself with your worthless observations on how you believe the world functions.

That is where we are at present and I’m OK with that. If private investors want to pursue a research project that is long on promises but pathetically low on results, I say fine, waste your money. One man’s loss is another man’s gain. But don’t waste tax dollars on a program that raises serious ethical concerns AND holds little hope for an eventual benefit (over adult stem cell research).

If embryonic stem cell reseaech holds great promise as advocates claim, where are all the greedy capitalists eager to make fortunes on this new technology? Perhaps they know something the advocates aren’t telling us.

Close to his MOOOOTHER

Udder distruction

Why is this necessary

Because they have bills to pay.

others are the obvious, life at conception..

other types of stem cell, fine, go ahead.. study any part of the body you want if it doesn’t kill someone..

Chaos theory dictates that some of these have already escaped and reproduced.

/Goldblum

Thou shall not play God?

Looks like Doctor Moreaus Island got moved to the
mainland!haha

did God or the scientist decide which cells would end up with a “soul?”

Big S on April 2, 2008 at 7:16 PM

When doing a double-slit experiment with photons, does God or man decide whether those photons behave as particles or as waves?

However, none of that really answers the questions about why anything works and how differentiation and/or embryonic development actually happens. For that purpose, you still have to study the actual embryonic cells, in addition to all of the various other cell lines that you can make. This hybrid work is about gaining knowledge to direct future studies, not all for short-term gain.

Big S on April 2, 2008 at 6:50 PM

The reason that stem cells from your own skin cells are better than embryonic stem cells are many. Here are two:
1) you don’t have to destroy a human embryo
2) your own skin cells, turned into some other cell type (heart, brain, whatever) will be much less likely to be rejected by your body as foreign (graft vs. host)

Stem cell research (the kind not involving destroyed embryos), however, I am perfectly okay with and encourage.

The huge government grants are needed, essentially, to jump-start it.

Allahpundit on April 2, 2008 at 7:00 PM

This is crap. There is plenty of non-government funded stem cell research going on. Much of the commercial research that I see is non-embryonic. But face the facts, there is plenty of non-government sources for grant research.

blink on April 2, 2008 at 7:54 PM

This is because actual progress is being made on cures with non-embryonic stem cells. The embryonic stuff is more about forcing the abortion debate than it is about science.

I have a bone to pick with your argument if I may. You said:

There’s no way to be sure, of course, but then there’s rarely any absolute way to be sure that an executed felon was guilty of the murder with which he was charged and yet most conservatives are okay with killing him.

I take issue with that statement because I don’t feel that it is a fair comparison. In your argument you equate a complete innocent with someone on death row that in almost every circumstance has been a burden to society prior to being sentenced to death.

In the addition, the frequency with which those “innocents” are killed in embryo as compared to the possibility of executing someone who may be innocent is simply not a reasonable analysis.

I hope this is taken in the spirit of debate with which it is offered.

We don’t even kill convicted murderers for at least 20-25 years after a series of appeals. They are few and far between.
But for the unborn we massacre by the millions.

maynila on April 2, 2008 at 8:15 PM

Yeah, but the vast majority of those would grow up to be liberals. That why the left needs open borders so badly – with abortion they’re killing off their replacements in the next generation and they need to replenish their base some how.

Personally, I’m with P.J. O’Rourke – I’ll support abortion, as long as we can make it retroactive.

The issue turns, more or less, on whether you believe in ensoulment

If I believe in ensoulment, then do I have to vote for James Brown?

An innocent man wrongly convicted deserves all the pain he can get?
YES.

Slublog on April 2, 2008 at 7:49 PM

:-)

An innocent man wrongly convicted deserves all the pain he can get?

Allahpundit on April 2, 2008 at 7:45 PM

I’m just saying …. there is a vast difference between the liberal argument and the conservative point of view.

We don’t even kill convicted murderers for at least 20-25 years after a series of appeals. They are few and far between.
But for the unborn we massacre by the millions.

Mooooo!