Adult Stem Cells vs Embryonic Stem Cells.

[KitemanSA]

Which just goes to show that one man's religion is another man's folly and the government should be involved with funding NEITHER of them.

One way for the government to eliminate steam cars is not to "ban" them but to subsidize its competitors until they cannot compete. And telling a company that makes many types that they will loose all funding for ALL their car lines if they continue to work on steam cars is certain to speed the prgress to the disappearance of the steam car. "Banned"? No, not technically, but...

[TDPerk]

It is amazing how people find ways to rationalize their irrational dislike for a certain line of ressearch.
That is all I can say.
Bushs decision to ban government funding for embryonal stem cell research is one of the reasons why I think that religion should not have a place in government.

It's perfectly rational, and the rationale of it has been outlined more than once here. You, per Adam of the Mythbusters, are rejecting reality and substituting your own.

The statement of rejecting reality is all you can say, and I expect you to keep on saying it. It is hard to accept a sunk cost will have a lesser return than one not taken, but whether by foresight or happenstance, in subsidizing stem-like-cells derived from adults and not embryonic stem cells, the US has taken fundamentally more productive course.

It is possible the issues of immune system interference/rejection and of teratomas--which plague embyonic stem cell therapies to degree unique to them and not adult stem cells--can be overcome with a far greater effort then can produce the same therapies from adult derived cells. Try to make the case the effort should be undertaken. Go'head.

There was nothing of any particular religion in the decision to ban embryonic stem cell funding; so your foolish blanket statement is exactly tantamount to claiming the human conscience has no place in politics.

I could certainly agree the last 70 years or so of your nation's politics show evidence of having been ruled by that notion to an almost unique degree. That would be an over-generalization.

But not nearly enough of one to require any excuse or apology when contrasted to either your claim that persons with religiously inspired feelings on a political question should have no franchise, or to the corollary which you are necessarily implying to be true--that atheism is the epitome of rational thought, and that such rational thought is all that can appropriately rule political questions.

[Skipjack]

Never mind...

[Diogenes]

It is amazing how people find ways to rationalize their irrational dislike for a certain line of ressearch.
That is all I can say.
Bushs decision to ban government funding for embryonal stem cell research is one of the reasons why I think that religion should not have a place in government.

You can call it religion, though this is inaccurate. It is about ethics and morality. Some argue (atheists) that these two things are independent of religion. This is irrelevant to the point.

Many people feel that it is wrong to use the tissue of a murdered child.

Many people feel that Slavery is wrong.

Many people feel that torture is wrong.


Some people do not. They see advantages in doing such things.

Yes, there are advantages to doing such things. Some people believe the price we pay for these advantages is not worth the loss of our humanity.

[CaptainBeowulf]

I agree that abortion/embryonic stem cell research is not necessarily tied to religion.

Most anti-abortionists are religious, usually Christian, but there are people who simply believe that embryos are unborn children and it is therefore wrong to "murder" them. That is not tied to religion.

Whether or not abortion is wrong, fact is that by the late 90s a number of embryonic stem cell lines for research existed, so I'm fine with the research in and of itself.

However, I think that evidence and practicality suggests that adult stem cell research will be more productive. I would like to see further work on "rejuvenation" of adult cells (ie. telomere replacement).

If I needed stem cell therapy to replace defective tissue, I would rather have my own stem-cell derived tissue than foreign material. Why pick a poison? If either type of stem cell tissue can lead to cancer, I'd rather not also deal with immunosuppresants.

[Skipjack]

Stem cell research is still young. IMHO we should persue both lines of research and see what we can learn. Either issues could probably be overcome comes time. If you just simply discard one line of research, you might miss out on something important.

Many people feel that it is wrong to use the tissue of a murdered child.

Uhm murdered child? Murdered child? Dude, do your research!
Only religious people do actually believe nonsense like that!

[happyjack27]

Which just goes to show that one man's religion is another man's folly and...

i would go much further with that statement, (ultimately leading to many simplifications)...

and i could back it up with evidence...

but then again, religion is based on not having evidence, so i suppose from that perspective actually having evidence would put me at a disadvantage ...

if you stand folly on its head, is it still folly?

[happyjack27]

Stem cell research is still young. IMHO we should persue both lines of research and see what we can learn. Either issues could probably be overcome comes time. If you just simply discard one line of research, you might miss out on something important.

Many people feel that it is wrong to use the tissue of a murdered child.

Uhm murdered child? Murdered child? Dude, do your research!
Only religious people do actually believe nonsense like that!

i know, right?

by his definition getting a haircut is murdering babies.

[TDPerk]

by his definition getting a haircut is murdering babies.

Can you explicate?

[KitemanSA]

Many people feel that it is wrong to use the tissue of a murdered child.

This is new. Since when did we start talking about using the tissue of a murdered child?
The discussion has been "embryonic" vs "adult"; not "child" or even "adolescent".

[KitemanSA]

by his definition getting a haircut is murdering babies.

Can you explicate?

Or even just explain?

[happyjack27]

by his definition getting a haircut is murdering babies.

Can you explicate?

Or even just explain?

the cells in a strand of hair are as specialized and differentiated as embryonic stem cells. in fact, more so. so that would make getting a hair cut more like murdering babies than using embryonic stem cells is. besides the fact that w/embryonic stem cells you'd be murdering _dead_ babies*, which is kind of a paradox...

*embyros that would not have matured and differentiated. in fact, by that logic there are more dead babies in my [censored] right now that are in many senses (including, but not limited to, the ones you no doubt have in mind) more alive than said stem cells. and i plan to murder them all, bwahaha!

[happyjack27]

It is amazing how people find ways to rationalize their irrational dislike for a certain line of ressearch.
That is all I can say.
Bushs decision to ban government funding for embryonal stem cell research is one of the reasons why I think that religion should not have a place in government.

It's perfectly rational, and the rationale of it has been outlined more than once here. You, per Adam of the Mythbusters, are rejecting reality and substituting your own.

The statement of rejecting reality is all you can say, and I expect you to keep on saying it. It is hard to accept a sunk cost will have a lesser return than one not taken, but whether by foresight or happenstance, in subsidizing stem-like-cells derived from adults and not embryonic stem cells, the US has taken fundamentally more productive course.

It is possible the issues of immune system interference/rejection and of teratomas--which plague embyonic stem cell therapies to degree unique to them and not adult stem cells--can be overcome with a far greater effort then can produce the same therapies from adult derived cells. Try to make the case the effort should be undertaken. Go'head.

There was nothing of any particular religion in the decision to ban embryonic stem cell funding; so your foolish blanket statement is exactly tantamount to claiming the human conscience has no place in politics.

I could certainly agree the last 70 years or so of your nation's politics show evidence of having been ruled by that notion to an almost unique degree. That would be an over-generalization.

But not nearly enough of one to require any excuse or apology when contrasted to either your claim that persons with religiously inspired feelings on a political question should have no franchise, or to the corollary which you are necessarily implying to be true--that atheism is the epitome of rational thought, and that such rational thought is all that can appropriately rule political questions.

on the matter of antidisestablishmentarism, the purpose and role of a government is wholly secular. there is not and never will be any practical utility for it to excercise any role or make any decisions whatsoever concerning religion or the beliefs or ideas thereof. all of its considerations, all of its roles, all of its functions, are wholly practical.

the moment its decisions, actions, or what have you become religious in any way, it becomes an accretion of social power directed by a minority with the purpose of exercising authority arbitrarily over a people without their consent or regard for it. in a word, it becomes tyrannical. one of the primary purposes of a government by the people is to protect against _precisely_ this. and for very, VERY good reasons, which should be obvious. if the reasons are not obvious to anyone, well they need only take a candid look at history. history leaves no doubt on this matter.

so to say it plays no role in government decisions is a monumental understandment. it is imperative to the security and well being of the populace that it never does.

[TDPerk]

the cells in a strand of hair are as specialized and differentiated as embryonic stem cells

There are no cells in a hair strand. They are made up of protein laid down by the cells in a follicle. If you pull a hair, you are generally removing/killing some cells, but they are not I think stem cells with the ability to differentiate and proliferate into a pregnancy.

In short, in every way possible for your quip, you've made a FAIL.

[happyjack27]

the cells in a strand of hair are as specialized and differentiated as embryonic stem cells

There are no cells in a hair strand. They are made up of protein laid down by the cells in a follicle. If you pull a hair, you are generally removing/killing some cells, but they are not I think stem cells with the ability to differentiate and proliferate into a pregnancy.

In short, in every way possible for your quip, you've made a FAIL.

actually i knew that from the get-go. i just wanted to see what your reasoning skills were like. worse than i thought, it seems. that last line you wrote there is an epic disappointment. look over every point i made and show me why it fails. because on a few small points compared it with a cell with a protein? really? that logically justifies hand-waving everything? wow. that is an epic logical failure. try skin cells. muscle cells bone marrow. i intentionally picked pretty much the one part of the body in which a few small parts of that analogy don't work (best i could do). and you have an infinitely larger set and you could choose just about anything to repair those few arguments (of the many i made) where the analogy didn't work, but instead you simply concluded that even the arguments i made in which that's completely irrelevant (most of them!) failed.

that's pretty bad. not much i can do for you there. you're on your own. good luck.