Adult Stem Cells vs Embryonic Stem Cells.

[TDPerk]

"that last line you wrote there is an epic disappointment. look over every point i made and show me why it fails"

I don't see that you've made a point yet. The cutting of hair simply has nothing to do with anything about the issue.

[happyjack27]

"that last line you wrote there is an epic disappointment. look over every point i made and show me why it fails"

I don't see that you've made a point yet. The cutting of hair simply has nothing to do with anything about the issue.

and after i explain the total logical failure in utter repetitive detail, he makes the same exact error only seconds later! and just as overtly too!

[mdeminico]

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.

Yeah because heaven forbid in this country we have a respect for another ****ing human being.

How about we take you, your spouse, your mother/father, and your kids, chop them all up against their will, and do medical research with them, just because someone somewhere claims something good will benefit from it. Only just like the other liberal experiments, nothing of value comes from it, ever. ***hat

[mdeminico]

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.

No, a haircut (or better described, cutting out an organ) is human life, the specialized cells for human life. An unborn baby is a HUMAN BEING.

People like you used to say "Geez, next thing you know they'll say beating my black slave is abusing another human being".

[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.
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.

No, a haircut (or better described, cutting out an organ) is human life, the specialized cells for human life. An unborn baby is a HUMAN BEING.

you obviously don't understand what you're talking about. an embryo at the stage of development in question is about as much a human being and as much an unborn baby as a bunch of skin cells. (and under the circumstances has about as much chance of becoming a human life as a skin cell.) which was exactly my point. ironic that it is precisely what you still don't understand.

People like you used to say "Geez, next thing you know they'll say beating my black slave is abusing another human being".

and i suppose this egregious and highly inappropriate insult of me that came way out of left field is your special way of showing "respect for [your fellow human being]. "?

[Diogenes]

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!

Sometimes I think i'm too subtle.

In Politics, Perception IS reality.

[Diogenes]

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?

You have created a straw man regarding religion.

Religion is the sum total of past knowledge about human behavior simplified into a mythology.

I try to explain this to people all the time. It's a lot easier to tell people not to do something because "God said so." than it is to explain why drinking blood and eating pork is dangerous because of the high propensity of pathogens involved. (Especially when no body knew what a pathogen was.)

It's likewise a lot easier to tell people not to commit adultery because "God Said so." than to explain that you may start a blood feud between families which might result in a great deal of blood letting among otherwise friends and allies.


Religion is a brilliantly conceived tool for getting people to behave in such a way as to benefit the survival chances of a community without going through the unfeasible task of explaining to each and every one of them why they should behave counter to their whims and instincts.

[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?

You have created a straw man regarding religion.

Religion is the sum total of past knowledge about human behavior simplified into a mythology.

I try to explain this to people all the time. It's a lot easier to tell people not to do something because "God said so." than it is to explain why drinking blood and eating pork is dangerous because of the high propensity of pathogens involved. (Especially when no body knew what a pathogen was.)

It's likewise a lot easier to tell people not to commit adultery because "God Said so." than to explain that you may start a blood feud between families which might result in a great deal of blood letting among otherwise friends and allies.


Religion is a brilliantly conceived tool for getting people to behave in such a way as to benefit the survival chances of a community without going through the unfeasible task of explaining to each and every one of them why they should behave counter to their whims and instincts.

i agree with you, save a few minor unimportant subtleties. (e.g. certainly not a "sum total" in that it is far from comprehensive, esp. compared to the academics fields.) we are talking about two different aspects and in so doing we do not contradict each other.

you are saying their behavior is directed towards constructive ends by irrational and unempirical means (such as mythos), even if/when there is rational and empirical justification, because it is easier to teach some people/for some people to learn. e.g. because some people's minds are more given to fancy than reason. i am implying that it sometimes seems quite pointless to reason with such people. and them having been taught by way of fancy rather than reason or in any case prefering those methods - giving them the more weight - certainly doesn't help things. it can be detrimental to their critical reasoning / formal operational skills. to the point of making them actively act against it by way of their reliance on irrational mechanisms (many of them instinctual) that, while preserving a positive self-image and a set of behaviors that in most everyday situations provide a decent fit to their circumstances - are naturally opposed to critical reasoning and formal operational thinking. skills that are _essential_ for dealing with complex ideas. so like i said we are talking about two different aspects of the same thing.

[Diogenes]

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".

Semantics.

An embryo is a newly created distinct human life. Some people like to use the dehumanizing term "Fetus" or "Tissue" or "Clump of cells", because no body wants to be officially associated with "child murder."


I have pointed out to people before, that when life evolved, reproduction was by division. Eventually species differentiated into sexes and started laying eggs. For a billion years, egg laying was the manner in which ALL higher organisms reproduced.


At this point in time, it was undeniable that an egg would contain a distinct and separate living creature of the species from whence it came.

As evolution continued, some creatures stopped laying eggs and carried them around inside their bodies. This was the mammalian evolutionary change.

Nowadays, humans pretend that because they now carry inside them what was once a separate life, they have the right to kill it.

When all higher creatures started out as eggs, it was no more reasonable for one person to destroy one than it was for another. All were equally physically separate from it. We have now rationalized ourselves to the the point where some of us cannot comprehend this philosophical concept.

[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.

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.

Never mind. I take it back.

[Diogenes]

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.

Oh, I get it. He's an argument critic. Nice to see we're making sure all the trivial details get covered before we actually address something like the Principle involved.

edit: Smiley face added.

[Skipjack]

Religion is the sum total of past knowledge about human behavior simplified into a mythology.

Not true for every religion. The same can be said about any ideology.
Also, the emphasis is on "past knowledge".
Much of it has long been discovered to be wrong, idealistic and not really dealing with human nature as it actually exists. This is the same reason why Marx and Engels are wrong also and why Hitler was wrong too.
They are all based on past knowledge that usually has long been disproven, or has long been shown to not work with actual human behaviour by modern science.
The difference between science and religion is that science is willing to change and revert its stance on a subject if proven wrong. Religion and ideologies are based on so called "eternal truths" that can not be changed.

On the embroyo being a human being thing:
It is not a human being. It is a bunch of cells that could make a human being. Your definition of human being is very difficult to justify, especially given modern technology and knowledge.
Do you call a just fertilized egg a human being. What about an unfertilized egg?
Most women have misscarriages at least once in their lives without even knowing it. In Austria it is common to do an abortion on the remains of the fetus/placenta etc in that case. So would you call that murder?

[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.

Yeah because heaven forbid in this country we have a respect for another ****ing human being.

How about we take you, your spouse, your mother/father, and your kids, chop them all up against their will, and do medical research with them, just because someone somewhere claims something good will benefit from it. Only just like the other liberal experiments, nothing of value comes from it, ever. ***hat

I wonder why they didn't do all of these experiments on animal embryos stem cell lines that they are demanding we finance on human embryo research?

Surely if this research was so important we could have used animal studies to pioneer the way? Why MUST it be human till at least the point some beneficial thing had been discovered on animals?

[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.

Yeah because heaven forbid in this country we have a respect for another ****ing human being.

How about we take you, your spouse, your mother/father, and your kids, chop them all up against their will, and do medical research with them, just because someone somewhere claims something good will benefit from it. Only just like the other liberal experiments, nothing of value comes from it, ever. ***hat

I wonder why they didn't do all of these experiments on animal embryos stem cell lines that they are demanding we finance on human embryo research?

Surely if this research was so important we could have used animal studies to pioneer the way? Why MUST it be human till at least the point some beneficial thing had been discovered on animals?

good question. my guess is the answer is quite simple: we don't provide the kind of medical care for animals that we do for humans. so for instance when an animal has a miscarriage or something, well... we don't exactly collect a sample. and i don't think impregnating animals just to.... well i don't think that would be considered all that humane.

[happyjack27]

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.

Oh, I get it. He's an argument critic. Nice to see we're making sure all the trivial details get covered before we actually address something like the Principle involved.

okay, well as long as we don't care about the arguments being made, i think it's dumb because socks are green. oh, and your mom. and don't pester me with "trivial details" like "that doesn't even make any sense." it's the principle that counts.