Thursday, November 16, 2006

My Challenge to Embryo Hating Lefties

My last post “Stem Cells and Ion Drives” has been up over 2 weeks now and the best opposing argument I’ve received is the following(anonymously from my comment section) :
"And like the forever promising ion drive, embryonic stem cells have offered us nothing to date but false hopes and empty dreams...all funded by the American tax payers."

embryonic stem cells have offered us nothing to date - untrue

false hopes - unproven

empty dreams - not an argument

all funded by the American tax payers - absolute lie

C’mon Lefties you can do better than that. How are you going to convince the American people that Communism is a good thing if you can’t even muster a decent argument promoting your pet pork project, embryonic stem cells?
Ah, but let us not live in the past. In the words of the great modern philosopher Mike Ditka, “Those who live in the past are cowards and fools.”
So moving forward, what great life enhancing developments have occurred in the field of embryonic stem cell research since my last post? Uh...none.
But don’t look so dour, there is some good news. In adult stem cell research, of course.
From Yahoo News:
In promising new research, stem cells worked remarkably well at easing symptoms of muscular dystrophy in dogs, an experiment that experts call a significant step toward treating people.
"It's a great breakthrough for all of us working on stem cells for muscular dystrophy," said researcher Johnny Huard of the University of Pittsburgh, who wasn't involved in the work...
...The study was published online Wednesday by the journal Nature. It used stem cells taken from the affected dogs or other dogs, rather than from embryos. For human use, the idea of using such "adult" stem cells from humans would avoid the controversial method of destroying human embryos to obtain stem cells.


And from Medical News Today:
Johns Hopkins scientists have successfully grown large numbers of stem cells taken from adult pigs' healthy heart tissue and used the cells to repair some of the tissue damage done to those organs by lab-induced heart attacks. Pigs' hearts closely resemble those in humans, making them a useful model in such research.


And from NZZ Online:
Scientists at Zurich University have for the first time grown human heart valves using stem cells from the amniotic fluid that cushions babies in the womb.
This revolutionary approach could be used to repair defective hearts and could overcome the ethical dilemmas connected to stem cell use.


So I am literally begging you...no, I am challenging you Lefties, bring it on. Let’s hear an argument for embryonic stem cells. Educate me. Edify me. Show me the error of my ways.
Let me end here with this one little thought experiment.
Let’s say you have $10,000 to invest(I know that is a stretch, as, if you had that kind of cash you wouldn’t be living in your mother’s basement, but) and you have a choice of 2 stocks to choose from. One stock has never made a cent, yet many experts feel that sometime in the distant future it may earn 50% per year. The other has averaged 10% a year for the past 5 years and shows no sign of slowing down. Where do you invest? C’mon, even you anti-capitalists know the answer to this one.