A swift kick in the junk to Bush and his supporters who were claiming vindication for their knuckle-dragging opposition to stem-cell research:
Far from vindicating the current U.S. policy of withholding federal funds from many of those working to develop potentially lifesaving embryonic stem cells, recent papers in the journals Science and Cell described a breakthrough achieved despite political restrictions. In fact, work by both the U.S. and Japanese teams that reprogrammed skin cells depended entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research.
At a time when nearly 60 percent of Americans support human embryonic stem cell research, U.S. stem cell policy runs counter to both scientific and public opinion. President Bush’s repeated veto of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, which has twice passed the House and Senate with votes from Republicans and Democrats alike, further ignores the will of the American people.
***It remains to be seen whether reprogrammed skin cells will differ in significant ways from embryonic stem cells. We remain hopeful, but it’s too early to say we’re certain.
We hope Congress will override the president’s veto of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. Further delays in pursuing the clearly viable option of embryonic stem cells will result in an irretrievable loss of time, especially if the new approach fails to prove itself.
My favorite spin at the time was at Red State, where they credited Bush with this breakthrough because if he hadn’t restricted other funding, this never would have happened. Just the perfect balance of Bush worship, disdain for the scientists, and delusion.
over_educated
In other crazy-right-wing science news: Texas superintendent fired for writing an e-mail in support of a seminar criticizing intelligent design.
Principled conservatives cease use of modern antibiotics, cancer therapies, and other scientific advances predicated on the false science of “evolution.”
Zifnab
Yeah, but seriously, who reads that? I get all my science news from the NYPost.
Notorious P.A.T.
I’ve never understood why it’s wrong to use stem cells that are about to be tossed in the trash to try and save people’s lives. That’s one thing I just can’t wrap my mind around.
Bob In Pacifica
Perhaps if we go with “the earth is flat” thing we’ll improve public transit.
laneman
I thanks you John for reading the drivel at RS, once I hit the bit about breaking the computer, my brain ‘sploded.
Peter Johnson
On the other hand, without these restrictions, the new technique might not have been developed at all. What if this technique turns out to work better than using the cells harvested from embryos? And even if we drop our restrictions on these kinds of cells, there’s plenty of countries that won’t — Muslim countries, for example.
It’s the same old story: liberals can’t admit when a Bush policy has clearly worked.
RSA
There’s always great celebration among my colleagues when the National Science Foundation decides to shift funding away from their areas: they have the opportunity to work that much harder. I imagine it’s the same way in the biological sciences.
over_educated
Imagine how much better science we would have if we forced scientists to work with one hand!!! Oh the ingenuity that would flow!
4tehlulz
I don’t think that’s ingenuity that’s flowing…..
Elvis Elvisberg
Peter Johnson, I’m going to come by your house and gouge out your eyeballs.
When you become a concert pianist by relying on your ears, don’t forget to thank me!
KCinDC
This could endanger Bush’s Nobel Prize for Medicine! Fortunately he’ll still have the Peace Prize to fall back on (hey, if Kissinger could get one…).
chopper
i love how vociferous defenders of this administration will claim victory even in spite of their own policies.
4tehlulz
The best part was the scary Muslims. You don’t want the Muslims to make medical advances, do you?
KCinDC
Peter, once again you go just a little too far for a believable spoof. The reference to Muslim countries was a nice idea, but it just doesn’t work. You can keep practicing, but at some point you’re going to have to start over with a new name and try not to blow it again.
jrg
Worked to do what? His policy did not help or cure anyone, all it did was delay research for political purposes.
Bushās idiotic policy did not even save embryos ā they are still dying in fertility clinics as we discuss this.
The breakthrough was in Japan, BTW. Did you even read the article John linked?
Incertus (Brian)
It’s as though RedStaters think that scientists only explore one option at a time, and don’t do research in multiple directions. Oh wait–that would explain a lot.
Cindrella Ferret
Indeed. And the The Flintstones is a documentary.
RobR
As long as we’re blue skying shit with no scientific evidence that sounds good within the terms of a particular policy: what if ass sex between men leads to increased testosterone and better reaction time? Would you then mandate sodomy in military ranks?
Or what if abortion cures lung cancer?
How about if electronic eavesdropping causes pinkeye and tertiary syphillis with pus discharge?
Trevor B
Can’t find the link for it, but the american working on this project, is quoted as saying that the bush policy only hindered his work.
Zifnab
Well, that’s the whole story, isn’t it? We’ve got people who couldn’t pass 9th grade Physical Science trying to lay down the ethical and technical guidelines for cutting edge post-doc work.
From the people who brought you “Government as envisioned by Tax Hating Anarchists”, we present “Science as dictated by Pseudo-science Creationists.”
RSA
Or reduces crime rates, fifteen to twenty years later. . .
laneman
Uhm, no duh.
Contrary to the folx that are BS’ing that shrub’s policy doesn’t make it ‘illegal’ to do research on embryonic stem cells, the reality is that all science research in the US has some federal funding. Even the major pharmaceutical companies.
The folx working outside of that funding stream, no matter how indirect, is a drop in the bucket.
Jen
This is what the article says:
Alan I. Leshner is chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and executive publisher of the journal Science. James A. Thomson is a professor of anatomy at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He was the first scientist to create human embryonic stem cells and is the senior author on the recent Science paper describing a method for reprogramming skin cells.
But you know, Krauthammer and Red State really know a lot more about science.
Idiots.
crayz
100% of Embryonic Americans oppose stem cell research
grumpy realist
The US is just shooting itself in the balls by its pandering to the anti-intellectuals in our midst. We’ve already been eating our seed corn in science and technology–China and the EU are quite likely to soon surpass us. With knock-on effects on development of future technology and who has control of it. I guess praying is supposed to counter all this.
Or are the “Earth is 6000 years old” idiots stupid enough to believe that faith-based anything is a way to keep a high-tech economy humming? The only level of an economy that Bible Fundamentalism is consistent with is subsistence farming.
Which is why I firmly believe that after the oil runs out, Saudi Arabia will collapse back to being a nation of date gatherers and camel herders–other than the oil, they have nothing. No intellectual capital constructed, no ability to go higher up the “value-added” chain in production (which is what Japan did), plus they immediately throw away 50% of their potential brainpower because it is female and value it as worthless. A hell of a way to run a railroad.
Punchy
Aren’t stem cells what plants use to grow larger? Why are conservatives so upset if we 86 a few ferns and liverworts?
wasabi gasp
Poor skinflake babies get no love.
Dreggas
Please don’t breed….ever.
Jen
There is a whole train of thought on this that is essentially that oil makes it easier to be lazy and backwards. When you basically have money growing on trees, you don’t do very much to develop a skilled workforce, a diverse economy, you suppress ingenuity and science (well, we’re not the only ones doing it), etc. And if you look at places like Nigeria, Russia, most of the middle East, etc., you can kind of see that played out. They are often more depressing places to live than countries that don’t have nearly so many natural resources, just one of those ironies of the world.
Dreggas
I honestly am beginning to believe that the reason why so many religious whacko’s and republicans are afraid of stem cell research and are afraid of evolution being accepted is that they would have to face the cold hard reality that they have no evolved.
Dreggas
With the exception, I believe, of Bahrain (or one of the emirates). They’re the ones building odd shaped islands and turning the country into a tourist resort. They know the oil won’t last forever (funny they are doing this now…must be they know they’re running out fast) so they are trying to turn the country into a tourist based economy. They’re one of the safer and more tolerant emirates so it may just work for them. They already have the “Palm tree” peninsula and are working on “Islands” that are in the shapes of the world map, dolphins and other stuff. Of course it remains to be seen whether the islands withstand the ravages of time.
Jen
That sounds creative, as long as you can a) get a drink, and b) not have to wear a tent on the beach.
I tried to find something about it in Wiki, it sounds like Bahrain is the right place. There could be a real hiccup, though, couldn’t there, if most of their tourism is regional, from rich Arabs, and their oil money dries up?
Fe E
I’d have to concur; I started thinking along these lines when I lived in Louisiana and worked offshore. Granted, the US Gulf Coast isn’t nearly the one-trick pony that the Saudis are, East Texas, Louisiana and Mississppi still live and die by the price of a barrel of crude. And (at least during the 90s) Louisiana’s attempt to lure businesse with very low corporate taxes just gave the oilfield service companies (who’d be there anyway) a free ride and cratered Louisiana’s state budget and shifted taxes to individual citizens. I don’t miss living there at all.
grumpy realist
Jen, I think The Economist came out with a report several years ago showing that comparatively, having a whole of bunch of raw materials to sell actually ended up as a drag on a country’s economic development, for the exact reasons you mention.
And even if we were willing to go the “duh, we don’t need any stinkin’ intellectual capital” route, we don’t have anything to ship abroad as a raw material. (Maybe wheat and soybeans, but even that is an agricultural product, ever harder to produce because of water needs). Coal? We’re going to need it for our own energy needs. About the only thing else we have is dirt.
This is why I think the US is going to split up at some point in the future. We have too high a percentage of the population that is suspicious of “book know-how”, “them damn intellectuals”, and anti-evolution. Considering the increasing percentage of future technology that is going to probably lie in the bio-engineering/bio-tech area, the strains between what people are going to need to learn in order to keep our technology base growing and what the local school boards are willing to teach will grow dramatically. And there are far too many “populist” politicians such as Huckabee who are perfectly willing to raise the anti-intellectual banner, rather than tell the fundies to shut their bloody gobs, start dealing with reality rather than fairy tales, and stop acting like parasites on an economy they certainly don’t do anything to deserve.
Grand Moff Texan
One thing’s for certain: abortion could have cured Peter Johnson.
.
jrg
This is why Iāve had 30% of my retirement investments overseas since 2003. There are a sizable portion of conservative nitwits in this country who will continue to hinder scientific advancement just so that they can feel āimportantā.
These conservatives need to feel like they add some value, even if they have to damage the U.S. in doing so.
Gorging at the blue-state financed tax-dollar trough does not do much for these conservativeās self-worth. They make up for it by bloviating about morals they fail to exemplify and science they fail to understand.
Dreggas
I know, I am a murderer I use dandruff shampoo…
Jen
I don’t know, I guess we might split at some point, but I don’t think it will be too soon. I live in that part of the country that is suspicious of book know-how, a.k.a. the South, born & raised, I love it here. That said, if we ever tried to secede again because Hillary won or something, I would jump ship. And I *hate* the cold.
Anyway, I like to think there is sort of a tendency towards natural corrections in America, even if it is too slow and too subtle for my taste. I think the fundies have overplayed their hand — stem cells, brain dead women in Florida, the whole defense of marriage thing — I mean, they’re just non-starters for most of us, even in the South, and the worse Iraq and the economy and debt and health care get, the more they non-start.
I’m not saying my state is going blue, because it isn’t, but the state and local politics have definitely trended blue lately, and I think overall the country will as well. And if the Democrats overplay their hand, it will correct back the other way, eventually, and if they don’t, Krugman will be the great prophet for the ages and the R’s will become an increasingly irrelevant vestige of a less enlightened age.
Jamey
Suck it, Krauthammer. The WaPo OpEd by Leshner and Thompson reminds me of the Marshal McLuhan moment from “Annie Hall.”
grumpy realist
Well, it would be nice if enough parents realize that letting the local school boards pander to the ID idiots will result in their kids having a much harder row to hoe when getting into college or finding a job, but I’m not optimistic about it. We’ll probably just have the fundies screaming that their little darlings are being “discriminated” against and it’s their god-given right to believe whatever they want.
The only thing that can get rid of this idiocy is if the fundies are forced to live precisely as according to their beliefs: you don’t believe in the scientific method? Then don’t use anything developed by such. Exit most of technology, immunizations, modern medicine, light bulbs, the infrastructure, etc. Let’s see how long they last….
Zifnab
Hardly. It’s facing the fact that they have evolved. Like waking up one morning and discovering you’re not an 8-year-old anymore, but a fully grown adult still living in your mom’s basement, chomping on cheetos.
Copernicus and Galileo were persecuted by the Catholic Church because they dared to imply the Earth was not the center of the universe. This is really all a matter of ego for the religious community. Giving people the power to manipulate the basic building blocks of life make scientists “gods”, which is unacceptable to a community that claims dominion over who does and does not get to be deified. You can’t hedge it off forever – skin stem cells or some other work around will hurdle some ethical concerns – but you can control what is “allowed” purely on your own fanciful doctrine. The conservative zealots need to assuage their egos by being in control.
Sojourner
Anybody remember the lawsuit that involved a home schooled kid who was not admitted to one of the California colleges because the college did not recognize his religion-based curriculum?
I never did hear how that case turned out.
Incertus (Brian)
A nice example from history is Spain at its height, when it was bringing in tons of gold from its possessions in South and Central America. Local industry floundered, because there was no reason to push technological development outside of very limited areas. Kevin Phillips talked about t in American Theocracy.
grumpy realist
Oh, actually Spain ended up even worse, economically, after all its New World explorations than before. Mainly because the hidalgo class couldn’t BEAR to get their hands dirty with actual manufacturing, so what happened was that Spain would sell its raw material (sheep wool) to the manufacturing areas in the north to be produced into cloth….which was then sold back to Spain and paid for by Spain using the gold out of South America. After 200 years of this, coupled with a few gratuitious wars that sucked even more money out of the country, Spain was dead broke.
jcricket
I think this is exactly right. Despite all our over-involved navel-gazing, the average American has woke up and has started voting down the Republican craziness. In Dover they tossed out the creationist/ID school board, in Kansas 8 Republicans switched parties and ran as Democrats, Democrats took control of the House and Senate in 2006, etc.
Republicans do fine as long as they get to spout tough or moral sounding platitudes. But when they get control, people realize they’ve let a bunch of angry, drunken end-times zealots take the wheel, so they wrest back control.
I’ve often thought the biggest problems Democrats have in maintaining control is not selling themselves positively enough. Here’s why:
1) Republicans fuck shit up
2) Democrats get voted into office and clean up shit
3) America feels pretty good – go economy!
4) Republicans sell people on the “free lunch” bandwagon
5) People say, “Sure, free sounds good” and elect Republicans
6) Republicans fuck shit up (rinse, repeat)
If Democrats, somewhere during #2 and #3 could do better at claiming credit they might stop #4. You can’t stop some people from believing everything should be free, but if you could get people to believe “Vote Democrat if you want the good times to continue”, it would be a good thing.
Remember, Republicans claim credit for things that didn’t even happen (like revenue not actually going up when tax cuts occur), or for ludicrous events (like severely-limiting ESC research causing advances in stem-cell research; turning Iraq into a cauldron causing Iran to give up their nuclear program).
Surely Democrats, who actually can point to the direct and indirect success of what they legislate, could have an even easier time of claiming credit, no?
grumpy realist
Oh, and Sojourner–as far as I remember, the law-suit got clobbered. The judge came down firmly on the side of the CA universities to decide what they wanted as admission requirements.
Zifnab
This does beg the question: Why would Republicans WANT a permanent majority? It’s like sitting around the house while the maid is in when you could be swinging by the Minnesota airport bathroom for a Capella rehearsal and toe tapping goodness.
jcricket
I think it’s a “be careful what you wish for” kind of thing, coupled with 30 years of working at the glue factory.
Brachiator
As late as August 10, 2006, the NY Times was reporting that the lawsuit involving Calvary Chapel Christian School and the University of California was allowed to proceed by a judge reviewing the case, because “the plaintiffs showed enough evidence to support their accusations.”
The university claimed that in many cases the course curriculum of the school was not “consistent with the empirical historical knowledge generally accepted in the collegiate community” or was excessively narrow. For example, a course on American govermment noted that “the forces of decay are ever-present in government because of man’s sinfulness.” A course on American literature focused on giving preachers, hymn writers and Bible “scholars” their rightful place.
Who needs that Mark Twain or Hemingway crap? As Dubya might say, edjumication is just too darned hard.
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The Other Andrew
I think that the crazy is wider than it is deep–a tiny minority of self-described Christians believe in Biblical literalism, for instance. I think it’s more of a cultural inertia thing. The “moderate crazies” have grown up hearing these ideas, and they’ve never thought all that much about them, but they instinctively assume they’re true. The problem is that Rove and his ilk know how to draw in these moderates when it’s crunch time. They can only fool some of them for all four years, but they can fool most of them for a few months right before an election.
The religious right (the followers, not the power-brokers) is the victim of a con, right now. “If you keep giving us political power, we’ll make the culture more to your liking!” Well, no, they really can’t do that (and they most likely don’t intend to, anyway). Culture defines government, not vice-versa. Until enough of them wake up, we’ll continue having this problem.
Sojourner
Good to hear. Thanks!
OriGuy
Here’s the UC Berkeley page on the lawsuit, with lots of links:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acsi-stearns/
Status
Expert discovery was concluded in June 2007, and the trial is scheduled to begin in late November 2007.
A hearing on UCās motion for partial summary judgment originally scheduled for Sep. 24, 2007, in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California will be rescheduled.
Tax Analyst
Boy, you’re on a roll now, PJ…Iraq was a success because it scared Iran out of trying to create nuke weapons…restricting Stem Cell research was a success because it forced researchers into another alley…Hey, you know what? Hey, Forced Sterilization probably prevented some bad people from being born, and I’ll bet Nazism would have been a success in your book (no, I’m not calling YOU a Nazi, by the way – just delving into your odd sense of logic) in some bizarre way – if it somehow could have been used to vindicate someone or some pet theory of how things work in PJ Land …I won’t even venture to guess what that might be.
Tell me, do you wake up in the morning and think, “How can I be a bigger imbecile today than I was yesterday?”, because that’s the only way you could be coming up with these tortured rationalizations.
jcricket
Shorter Tax Analyst making fun of BJ: “Up is down. Black is White. War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength. Freedom is Slavery”
Can we actually have a serious post about how the right resembles, nearly 100%, the totalitarian regime portrayed in 1984? They try to redefine terms every day (started back with things like the “clear skies act”), call their opponents traitors, whip their supporters into a frenzy with tales that the “enemy” is going to steal their Bibles, disown anyone who deviates from the party line, re-write history (see this Iran thing), disdain science, etc.
Is there anything the government in 1984 did that our government isn’t doing – up to and including re-education and torture?
laneman
Uhmmmm, no.