Bush Pwnt?Follow

Except that they're not using it to "prevent funding". They're using it to block a change to law that would fund an ethically questionable proceedure related to the research. See how "not increasing funding into a new area" is not the same as "removing funding on existing research"?

Bush's veto does not reduce funding to ESC. It prevents that funding from flowing into areas that were not previously funded.

When you can quote the scientist in question saying that his research means that we should expand funding for ESC into funding the harvesting of human embryos *then* you might have a point.




A) No one said that "embryonic research" was unecessary. Only that lifting the ban on federal funding of new embryos was. Bush's veto only does the latter, so how about you limit your condemnation of it to that one funding issue?

B) As I've pointed out time and again. You'll have almost no success *ever* finding a scientific consensus that state that *any* form of research is unecessary.

C) The data from the research itself states that amniotic stem cells are pluripotent. It's the pluripotent aspect of ESC that was the *only* reason anyone could even begin to justify harvesting human embryos for that line of research. Thus, Bush's veto has "more solid scientific backing" with this new research then it did before. I'm not sure how you can even debate this issue. Last veto, there was nothing more then some promising research that there might be a discovery of methods to obtain pluripotent stem cells without having to destroy embryos to get them. Now we have direct research providing a method of doing this. How is does that not provide more scientific backing for the veto?


Scientists don't generally say "There's no need to fund research for this". They just don't. It's up to exactly those politicians and their advisors to decide what gets funded and how much. We don't elect the scientists. We elect the people who fund them in this case. They get to make that decision. Yeah. I know. Silly of them to use ethics when making that decision.

At the risk of invoking Godwin's, I'm going to make a comparison to **** style human experiementation and how they led to discoveries about the human body that are still used by medical professionals today. We could argue that they were "necessary". They certainly advanced our knowledge of the human body significantly. But I doubt strongly that you'd argue they were ethical, or that their necessity outweighed the ethical problems. The mere fact that research bears fruit is not the *only* consideration used here. I'm not trying to imply that those arguing for this funding are ***** or anything, but merely pointing out that it's not a bad thing to balance the usefulness of an area of research with the ethics of the research. And to be honest, I'd rather we have leaders who are "ethically cautious" then the other way around...

He does not say that we should expand federal funding into the harvesting of more embryos for research. Thus, you cannot interpret his statement to have that meaning. You can only say that he's stating that his research should not be used as an excuse to "stop or reduce" funding (the "substitute" word is key here, since in terms of funding it means replacing funds for ESC with funds for AFS).

Reading more into it then that is you putting your own opinion into the issue. He did not say that Congress should lift the ban, nor did he comment on Bush's veto of the attempt to do so. You are *guessing* that he meant that, but you have to add significantly to his statement to arrive at that conclusion.



It's not a refutation of the veto of the law either. He simply does not state a position on it one way or the other. You're trying really hard to twist his words to make it seem like he is though.




Um. Joph? Re-read that quote. You're reading it wrong.

It says "... compared with other types of pluripotent stem cells--save embryonic stem cells--AFS cells are "truly pluripotent""

He's saying that compared to all cells other then embryonic cells, AFS cells are "truely pluripotent". In otherwords, other stem cells are not pluripotent (or "truely pluripotent" as he calls it), ESC *and* AFS cells *are* truely pluripotent.

The problem is one of semantics. He used the incorrect word. He should have said "contrasted", rather then "compared". A common mistake in the English language. He is "contrasting" the properties of AFS cells and all other stem cells *except* embryonic cells. AFS cells differ from those other types in that they are truely pluripotent. Embryonic cells *also* differ from those other types in that they are truely pluripotent. Thus, both AFS and ESC are similarly unique in that they are both truely pluripotent, while all other stem cells are not.

I'm serious Joph. This isn't a "I'm arguing for the sake of arguing" here. I really think you misread that statement. It's saying the exact opposite of what you think it says, which may explain quite a bit of your argument.

It's confusing because he's essentially using a double negative form in his sentence. He's showing the differences between AFS and other stem cells *except* ESC. Thus, he's actually saying that AFS and ESC share that difference. ESC is the "exception" in that it also is truely pluripotent. Your interpretion of the statement makes no sense if you stop and think about it, because you'd be saying that all other pluripotent cells are "truely pluripotent" (like AFS cells), but somehow ESC are different in that they are *not* truely pluripotent". That makes zero sense. He's saying that only AFS and ESC are truely pluripotent, while all other cells are not. Read it again slowly and carefully. It does not say what you think it does.

Note to Nobby - Please edit post title to "Gbaji pwnt"

ps - rate up Iophiel!

Rate ups for Yossarian instead!

Gbaji double pwnt!

Did I mention that Gbaji's entire understanding of this came from reading some conservative web news article? No doubt Dr. Atala just screwed up the semantics when he wrote his study and he obviously really meant to say "they're pluripotent". Because Gbaji would know better.



Edited, Jan 18th 2007 8:49pm by Jophiel

Look, I'm not going to keep arguing this with you when you're so obviously uneducated about it beyond some news articles and your own steadfast conviction that you know better about it than Dr. Atala.

Suffice to say, you're wrong. Go do some research on it, go read his interviews and the articles that go deeper than CNS and see how he defines the spectrum of cells and where amniotic ones lie and why he would use the terms he uses rather than trying to lecture us all on semantics. Because you're the only one who doesn't get it.

Sure. I don't "get" it. What exactly do I not get?

I "get" that amniotic stem cells show the exact same features that make embryonic stem cells important.

I "get" that amniotic stem cells are cheaper to harvest, more abundant, and do not require an ethically questionable harvesting process to obtain.

I "get" that embryonic stem cells are more expensive to harvest, less abundant, and *do* have significant ethical baggage regarding the harvesting process.

Is there really a need to "get" more then that? Those facts are sufficient IMO to oppose federal funding for the harvesting of additional lines of embryonic stem cells. Until it can be shown that only be opening up additional lines of ESC can we obtain needed treatments that no other form of stem cell can give us, I'm not going to change my position on this.

So far, nothing anyone has said, written, or researched has meet that criteria. I really don't even understand why this is such a huge debate. It should be *obvious* to everyone that it makes more sense to avoid the ethically challenged methods of science if there are "better" ways of doing the same thing.


Silly me. I think that pursuing science in an ethical manner is pretty darn important. We should be willing to pay more and take more time to do things in a more ethical manner. It frankly suprises me that so many people seem unable to grasp this in this particular case (and seemingly *only* in this case). As I've pointed out before, if this were any other scientific field and there were two paths to pursue, most of you would insist we follow the ethically cleaner one no matter what the relative cost.

Apparently though, Liberals only hold those high values when it's politically convenient for them to do so. At least that's the only reason I can think of why there's so much debate over this.

Exactly.

Dude, that was just semantics!

Of course it's about "ethics". The funny thing about his ham-handed attempt to take some moral high ground is that it still hasn't been explained why research on a voluntarily donated "excess" embryo which might potentially save lives upon lives is less "ethical" than tossing that embryo into the flames. Or keeping it on ice until its no longer viable and has to be destroyed. Or until the parents can no longer afford to keep the child frozen and it has to be destroyed. Out of all those options, voluntary research seems, to me, to be the most ethical.

I'm not the first one to have this revelation, but I honestly believe that this isn't about embryonic research. It's about abortion. Some people on the Right are so terrified to give any ground and weaked their anti-abortion stance that they'd rather have embryoes meaninglessly incinerated than admit that there's nothing less ethical about that embryo being used to save lives.

So they'd rather trumpet a program that "saves" less than 0.005% of the stored embryos while thousands of embryos are meaninglessly destroyed instead of advancing cures and therapies.

Gee, I feel so unethical.