Stem cell vote set for Congress this week
April 8, 2007
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Stem cells will be at the top of the agenda for the U.S. Senate when it returns on Tuesday with supporters of the research hoping they can change the president’s mind on the issue and opponents hoping to have a say about their stand.
The Senate will consider two bills, one virtually identical to a bill vetoed by President George W. Bush last year that would have expanded and encouraged federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.
The other is a compromise measure worked out by Republicans Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Norm Coleman of Minnesota. It would encourage stem cell research on embryos that have naturally lost the ability to develop into fetuses, such as those that have died “naturally” during fertility treatments.
The compromise bill also would support the creation of a bank of stem cells taken from amniotic fluid and placentas — two recently discovered potential sources.
This bill replaces last year’s alternative sponsored by Kansas Republican Sam Brownback, which would ban human embryonic stem cell research and encourage research using other types of stem cells.
The House of Representatives passed a bill in January that would expand federal funding of stem cell research, which is now restricted by Bush to batches available as of August 2001. But the bill does not have enough supporters to override a second presidential veto.
Even when the Democrates are in power and some of this stuff has a chance to pass we still are doomed to fail thanks to Bush having the power to veto congress. I never liked that factor of our government, why one man should have the power to overrule the decision of a hundred.
But with every step we get closer, and maybe someday soon we will be able to research and get the full benefit from the use of Stem Cells. Until then… we just have to hope that the next president will have a basic understanding of science that doesn’t come from the bible.
Source: Reuters
A former White House official accused of improperly editing reports on global warming defended his editorial changes Monday as reflecting views expressed in a 2001 report by the National Academy of Sciences.House Democrats said the 181 changes made in three climate reports reflected a consistent attempt to emphasize uncertainties surrounding the science of climate change and undercut the broad conclusions that manmade emissions are warming the earth.Philip Cooney, former chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, acknowledged at a House hearing that some of the changes he made were “to align these communications with the administration’s stated policy” on climate change.
The extent of Cooney’s editing of government climate reports first surfaced in 2005. Shortly thereafter, Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist, left the White House to work at Exxon Mobil Corp.
So the government is so deeply into the pockets of big business that they will go to any length to silence scientists trying to warn us about Global Warming.
Doesn’t surprise me one bit.
Waxman’s committee also heard from James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the country’s leading climate scientists, who said the White House repeatedly tried to control what government scientists say to the public and media about climate change.
“Interference with communications of science to the public has been greater during the current administration than at any time in my career,” said Hansen, who was one of the first to raise the problem of climate change in the 1980s.
Hansen’s battles with NASA and White House public affairs officials are not new and resulted in an easing of NASA’s policies toward scientists talking to the media about their work.
But that was not always the case.
Hansen said that in 2005 he was told by a 24-year-old NASA public affairs official he could take no part in an interview with National Public Radio on orders from senior NASA public affairs officials. Instead, three other NASA officials were offered for the interview.
The young press officer, George Deutsch, now 26, sat next to Hansen at the witness table Monday and told the committee he had simply been “relaying” the views of higher-ups at NASA that Hansen was not to participate in the interview.
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa suggested that Hansen was not being muzzled at all, and there is nothing wrong with government scientists being subject to some limits in what they say.
A Republican Representative says that censoring scientists is ok because they work for the government? How do you put limits on a person who’s job is to uncover facts?
Source: Huffington Post
The entire idea of government controlled research has seen much better days, this event will hopefully be a huge step toward taking the scientists away from the government.
DINOSAURS. They may not exist, but they’re just launched their own online encyclopaedia. Conservapedia claims to be ‘a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American.’ Rather than having anything as mundane as posting rules, Conservapedia has Commandments. The first Commandment is ‘ Everything you post must be true and verifiable.’ Strange that, I always thought it was ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ But Conservapedia is ‘the encyclopedia you can trust’ – apart from knowing how to spell ‘encyclopaedia’, obviously – so I must be mistaken. Oooh, hang on, Commandment Five says that American spelling of words must be used. And as everyone knows, both Jesus and his dad were born in the USA.
Coming back to Conservapedia’s First Commandment, it will be interesting to see exactly how any reference to the Bible will be verified as fact. Obviously, as a new site, many subjects have yet to appear, or are in need of expansion. This is the full article on Iraq, for example:
A Middle-Eastern country, currently occupied by U.S. Troops.
We feel sure that all God-fearing INQUIRER readers will step up to the plate and fill in a few of these gaps for them. If you don’t, the turrists will have won.
Somehow, “we all expected it” just doesn’t make this sit well in my mind. The Conservatives have declared that, if they find it offensive they will counter it with something that their children can look at and gather unbiased, truth.
Let’s take a look at some of Conservapedia’s unbiased and honest encyclopedia , as we compare it to Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia on abortion, we’ll review the first paragraph of each article:
“An abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death. This can occur spontaneously as a miscarriage, or be artificially induced by chemical, surgical or other means. Commonly, “abortion” refers to an induced procedure at any point during pregnancy; medically, it is defined as miscarriage or induced termination before twenty weeks’ gestation, which is considered nonviable.”
And from Conservapedia:
“Abortion is the induced termination of a pregnancy. The father of medicine, Hippocrates, expressly prohibited abortion in his ethical Oath long before Christianity. Today abortion is a billion-dollar industry in the United States and Western Europe except for Ireland, Malta, Poland and Portugal, where it is generally illegal.”
As you can see, Conservapedia offers a much “safer” view on conservative principals. You notice, right away, that the first thing that Conservapedia does is go head right to Opinion, not facts.
Hippocrates says! Conservapedia points out, where the Wikipedia article states complete truth as to what Abortion is.
We have entered a brand new era! Wikiignorence!
Source: The inquirer
Pope speaks out against designer babies
February 24, 2007
ROME (Reuters) – Pope Benedict on Saturday condemned genetic engineering and other scientific practices that allow people to select so-called “designer babies” by screening them for defects.
In a speech to the Pontifical Academy for Life, a Church body of experts, the Pope also attacked artificial insemination and the widespread use of medical tests that can detect diseases and inherited disorders in embryos.
“In developed countries, there is a growing interest for the most sophisticated biotechnological research to introduce subtle and extensive eugenics methods in the obsessive search for the ‘perfect child’,” the Pope said.
He said the right to life was increasingly under attack in the world, citing pressures to legalize abortion in Latin America, and euthanasia in the richest countries.
He also spoke out against civil unions as an alternative to marriage, his latest criticism of a bill approved this month by the Italian government granting rights to unwed and gay couples.
Turning that bill into law now appears a more remote possibility, as it was dropped from a government program submitted by Romano Prodi to his allies to allow him to stay on as prime minister and end the latest political crisis.
This kind of garbage is what stands in the way of human progress. It halted our progress during the middle ages (poor Galileo) and they are attempting to do the same in modern times.
Hopefully the ignorant masses won’t fall for it this time, but I have very little hope in humanity.
Source: Reuters
Ancient boy’s skeleton sparks evolution debate …
February 9, 2007
Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of Kenya’s national museum, locked away in a plain-looking cabinet, is one of mankind’s oldest relics: Turkana Boy, as he is known, the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found.
But his first public display later this year is at the heart of a growing storm — one pitting scientists against Kenya’s powerful and popular evangelical Christian movement. The debate over evolution vs. creationism — once largely confined to the United States — has arrived in a country known as the cradle of mankind.
Already this article comes off insulting because it implies that the United State’s second major export, after war, is ignorance. Although I can see that is some what grounded in fact, there are plenty of creationists who don’t live in the United States. But the next part is the best;
“I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it,” says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of Kenya’s 35 evangelical denominations, which he claims have 10 million followers. “These sorts of silly views are killing our faith.”
He’s calling on his flock to boycott the exhibition and has demanded the museum relegate the fossil collection to a back room — along with some kind of notice saying evolution is not a fact but merely one of a number of theories.
At least we now know that this kind of attack on science isn’t only limited to the US. But they are not frightened from any threats.
The museum, which attracts around 100,000 visitors a year, is taking no chances.
Turkana Boy will be displayed in a private room, with limited access and behind a glass screen with 24-hour closed-circuit TV. Security guards will be at the entrance.
“There are issues about the security,” said Dr. Emma Mbua, the head of paleontology at the museum. “These fossils are irreplaceable and we wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.”
Insurance coverage could run into millions of dollars, she added.
Mbua, a Protestant, is a little taken aback at the controversy but has no problems reconciling her own faith to the scientific evidence.
“Evolution is a fact,” adds Mbua, who has run the department for the last five years.
They aren’t going to back down to please any group, they aren’t going to pull any punches. These are scientists standing up for science. It’s what we need more in the United States, if we had a larger group of such men maybe we wouldn’t be falling behind in technology.
Source: CNN
300 million year old rock
January 1, 2007
The summer before my senior year of college I worked as a park ranger guiding hikes in one of the most beautiful state parks in the country. Its central feature was a 256-foot waterfall that plunged down through a gorgeous natural amphitheater, cutting through bands of limestone and sandstone and collecting in a deep pool, the perfect hangout for summer swimming. My favorite program was the hike to the base of the falls. Layers of rock are like chapters in a history book and this canyon, carved so deeply, told an ancient story. Standing at the bottom, calling out over the roar of the falls, I got to teach the exciting conclusion, “The layers of slate and shale beneath our feet tell us that 300 million years ago, this deciduous forest was a tropical jungle.”
“What book d’ya get that out of?” came the reply one day. And thus it began, for this waterfall was not only located in ancient rock, it was also in the heart of the Bible-belt. I had heard there were people who believed the Earth was only 6,000 years old, but I never thought I would actually meet any. That summer, and every other summer I worked teaching science to the public, I met a lot of them. Though most objectors would just walk away from the program, some mothers would cover their children’s ears to protect them from the “blasphemous park ranger.” One man, after I patiently explained how we know the age of rocks, finally just threw up his hands, exclaimed, “The Devil made that rock look that old to turn you away from God,” and led his family back up the trail.
An article that is both funny and sad…. a very good read and a good analysis of what could happen if Intelligent Design becomes more widely accepted, and we being to embrace religion in our everyday American lifestyle.
Religion is destructive, harmful, and counter-productive. That message needs to reach a wider audience… or our world may become the bleak future described above.
Source: CSICOP
