More Bush vs. Science

[JesFine]

Bush Ejects Two From Bioethics Council (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13606-2004Feb27.html)
President Bush yesterday dismissed two members of his handpicked Council on Bioethics -- a scientist and a moral philosopher who had been among the more outspoken advocates for research on human embryo cells.

In their places he appointed three new members, including a doctor who has called for more religion in public life, a political scientist who has spoken out precisely against the research that the dismissed members supported, and another who has written about the immorality of abortion and the "threats of biotechnology."Hmmm... if you look closely, you can almost see a pattern start to emerge.

[hammegk]

Yeah, pols pander to their base as elections loom.

What do you think; here we have an embryo made the old-fashioned way and in-place, and we carefully snip one cell early in the process (maybe after one division would be best). Can we use the clone we grow outside the body for research, or if we allowed it to mature, spare parts?

Damned if I have any idea; do you?

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by JesFine
Bush Ejects Two From Bioethics Council (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13606-2004Feb27.html) Why bother having a council on bioethics, if you already know what you want those bioethics to be?

(A: to legitimize those decisions that you have already made. At least Bush's approach to ethics is consistant with his approach to science, backward though it may be.)

[shanek]

The next time any of you wonder why I think the government shouldn't be funding science research and should leave it to the free market (cutting sufficient taxes so that the money will be there, natch), just refer back to this thread.