DarkSyde is on the stem cell story, and he uses Neurotopia’s summary of the biology.
I just don’t understand the other side’s argument. Adult stem cells are not a substitute for embryonic stem cells, at least not yet. The anti-stem cell research crowd wants to claim that we don’t need ES cells, that AS cells will do everything we need, but they don’t think it through. If we want to make AS cells that are functionally equivalent to ES cells, we need to understand ES cells—but they want to deny us the ability to look at ES cells. Furthermore, if we could convert an AS cell line to totipotency what we’d have is…millions of cells we could replicate in the lab, each of which has the potential to become a human being. We’d go from a few “snowflakes” to a blizzard. Then what?
Of course you can’t understand their argument; it’s because you live in a different universe.
See, most people on the other side of this one simply don’t believe humans come from cells; they believe they come from parents, but conception is somehow a mystical event that embues humanity upon the offspring.
“Belief” may be a strong word here.. it’s more likely just an unsettling feeling.
The problem is.. if humans really are just a bunch of genes wrapped up in a yummy stem cell package, why does god talk to them.
—Nathaniel
(Answer: because they haven’t taken their meds.)
This, from an AP article on the issue yesterday:
“The simple answer is [Bush] thinks murder’s wrong,” said White House spokesman Tony Snow. “The president is not going to get on the slippery slope of taking something living and making it dead for the purposes of scientific research.”
I’m not real well-versed in the details of this technology (“Everything I Know About Stem Cell Research I Learned On Pharyngula,” now in paperback). But still, there are a couple of things that should be obvious: The point of stem cells is not to make something dead, but to create a LINE. That’s far from dead–it’s like frigging immortality. Or at least as close to it as we humans can come. Also, if that’s really the president’s position, should labs that do experiments on animals be worried? Because the way what Snow said is worded, I can’t see how those LD50 experiments for toxicity could continue. Has the FDA been told yet that this is its new position?
Of all the ignorant and imperious things this pathetic president has done, having his first (and who knows–perhaps only) veto be of something that has wide democratic and scientific on the basis of a narrow and dubious ideology is the worst. Six years, and the man has done one thing I approve of–created the nature preserve area northwest of Hawaii. And ten to one he finds a way to F that up, too.
Your argument, dear Dr Myers, isn’t entirely logical. Yes, AS-to-ES cell converts could potentially become human beings but only after having their nuclei transfered (nt) into an enucleated oocyte – the ES cell by itself does not have that capacity. By your reasoning one would have to outlaw all work on tissue culture because nuclei from most cell types can probably (and many have) be used for nt – albeit apparently with different degrees of efficiency. The issue, is that making ES cells requires destruction of a blastocyst, which apparently many people find objectionable. The use of AS-to-ES converts does not. Whether AS cells actually need to be converted to ES cells or whether they have an innate pluripotency resembling that of ES cells will have to be demonstrated. My suspicion is that the ability to differentiate into different differentiated cell types will vary among AS cell types.
Eeeeevery embryonicstemcell is saaaaacred
Eeeevery embryonicstemcell is graaaaaaced
Whenever an embryonicstemcell is waaaaaasted
God gets quite iraaaaate…
C’mon, boys and girls, SING!
I wonder if the other side’s argument stems from an inability (or an unwillingness) to acknowldge shades of gray. Think about their arguments: a living thing is either a full-fledged human being or it isn’t; you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists; the Bible is either the inerrant word of God, or it’s completely false; you are either one of the Saved or you are hellbound.
It’s a very seductive way of looking at the world. It clearly divides people into us (good) and them (bad). So long as you’re one of the “us,” things will work out in the end.
“We’d go from a few “snowflakes” to a blizzard. Then what?”
Since those would be from adult stem cells, they’d all be clones, so they wouldn’t have a soul, and therefore wouldn’t be worth worrying about. Duh.
My suspicion is that the ability to differentiate into different differentiated cell types will vary among AS cell types.
So far, from everything I have so far heard, seen or read on the subject, the amount of differentiation in “all” AS cells so far has been close to 0. Seems that close proximity to other cells may prime them to become those cells, even when they have not “become” one yet, or something. See, its the “or something” that is the problem. We simply don’t know. If we can’t determine “exactly” what genes are active and inactive and why in an ES, that isn’t in an AS, and what causes the transition into AS, or other cells, that question won’t be answerable. We will be stuck in the insane stupidity of dark ages medicine or alchemy, trying to stick AS into various places in someone’s body and hoping it will produce nerves, instead of bones, for example. Without that answer of “why” they differ, we can’t even start the complicated process of figuring out “if” AS cells can be used, how to make them behave if we can, or what causes them to not work in specific cases.
Its like the various projects to recreate the Windows API for Linux. Not one of which is 100% right, half of which require you transplant “working” copies from a real installation to work correctly, etc. Because the ES, in this case the API, is closed and illegal to take appart, your forced to look at the AS (software behaviour), and **guess** what it is actually doing. Its certainly not impossible, but its buggy, complicated, confusing and tends to fail 90% of the time. Nor is it always clear why it works the 10% of the time it does. If we want a cure for some stuff in our life times, we need ES, but if we are willing to wait 100 years….
So, does the soul come from the oocyte, or from the nucleus? And if the former, what happens if a soul happens to come into possession of the wrong genetic material? And what happens to identical twins; does the soul happen to undergo binary fission at the same time as the division of the embryo? Or does God have to provide an emergency soul?
And consider the following fiendish experiment; you take the divided oocyte at the two-cell stage, when each cell is pluripotent, and separate the two cells. You use one for research, and implant the other. Have you destroyed a human life?
Just a point of clarification:
“If we want to make AS cells that are functionally equivalent to ES cells, we need to understand ES cells–but they want to deny us the ability to look at ES cells.”
By opposing the stem cell funding bill they are *not* denying anyone the ability to look at ES cells, they are denying the government the ability to use everyone’s tax dollars for that purpose.
What bothers me about Bush’s veto is not that it is cutting government funding for scientific research–that’s a libertarian principle that I’m for. No, what bothers me is that he’s differentiating funding levels based on religious principles. As a libertarian, the fact that he’s vetoing the bill *should* be a net positive for me because it gets the government out of at least one small area of science. But because the principle underlying the veto is so screwed up, those principles in the end are going to make things worse off for people of my political leanings.
An interesting market-based look at stem cell research, as well as the increase in private donations int he wake of the government’s ban on funding embryonic stem cell research here:
http://www.tothepeople.com/2006/07/overdosed-on-stem-cells-yet_19.html
Hmmm, I may have overstated my point a little. I believe there are those social conservatives who would criminalize embryonic stem cell research, but that is a different debate than whether the federal government should fund embryonic stem cell research.
Most like it is opposed by people who do not understand what embryonic stem cell research actually consists of but do have a vague grasp of a few key words.
blastocyst = embryo = fetus = baby
Oh my god they are killing babies! They are probably sucking their innards out with a big scary needle then throwing away the husks!
Most likely they also do not understand where the blastocysts come from nor that they are slated to be destroyed anyway. In all likelihood they don’t really care. If they did they would be swarming fertility clinics to adopt the blastocysts slated for destruction.
Everyone has to remember that this is not a debate between two groups of rational people with coequal points of view. The opponents of embryonic stem cell research made up their minds the instant they read or heard the words embryonic and research. No amount of logic, facts, benefits, or rational discussion will ever convince them that embryonic stem cell research is a good idea. They have adopted their point of view on this matter as a part of tribal identity. I believe in X, I consider myself a good person, good people believe X, if you disagree you are evil.
The only option that I can see is to keep the debate public. Show the other side to be the ignorant hypocrites that they are so that those who have not made up their minds can have all the facts and come to their conclusions honestly.
So far, from everything I have so far heard, seen or read on the subject, the amount of differentiation in “all” AS cells so far has been close to 0
I assume that what you are referring to is differentiation of adult stem cells derived from one tissue (e.g. neuronal stem cells) into a differentiated cell of another. That adult stem cells, such as neuronal stem cells can differentiate into neurons has been well documented. By contrast, the question of whether a neuronal stem cell can differentiate into an insulin producing b-cell, for example, you are right, the evidence for that is flimsy. So the use of adult stem cells might have significant limitations.
I assume that within a few years we will know how an oocyte manages to reprogram a differentiated nucleus into one with pluripotency. Then we might be able to turn any body cell back into an ES-like cell and the whole discussion of whether an embryo is equivalent to a person will become moot. In the meantime we should focus research on both types of cells, ES and AS cells.
And consider the following fiendish experiment; you take the divided oocyte at the two-cell stage, when each cell is pluripotent, and separate the two cells. You use one for research, and implant the other. Have you destroyed a human life?
This has, indeed, been accomplished by removal of embryonic cells from an eight-cell embryo. Any selfrespecting every-embryo-is-sacred nut would argue that if you split an embryo and both halves turn into blastocysts you have in fact generated two “human persons” and killing the second one would just be as wrong as knocking off the first one.
Narc, someone summed this up (I can’t remember where I read it but I think it was a 20th-century French thinker):
Rightists tend to see society as more or less a uniform whole. In their view, the majority of people in a society agree on what is “right” and “wrong”. If they don’t, they either enemies as noted below, or have been misled.
Everyone else is an enemy of the society, whether they are internal or external. This is why righties use simplistic labels like “communist” and “terrorist” and “rogue state” to refer to external enemies. Internal enemies are labelled in such a way as to exclude them from “proper” society–to make it clear they don’t belong, hence terms like “un-American”, “godless”, “elitist”, etc.
What I find most ironic about Bush’s pose with the “snowflakes” is the fact that embryo implantation is not a foolproof procedure. It can be argued that any couple who chooses to “adopt” embryos and has failed implantation(s) is guilty of murder(s). After all, if the little darlings had remained frozen, they would be “not dead”, wouldn’t they?
One consolation is that there are other sources of funding for stem cell research, Dubya will go down in history as the stupidest President we’ve ever had, and “George” will become the slang term for “willfully moronic”. [With apologies to those of you innocently named George by parents who had no idea…]
To see the politics of the stem cell debate explained with visuals and how the Bush argument is ultimately an absurd manipulation of the facts…link here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
Well, that’s the problem with the whole binary life/nolife thang. It doesn’t survive even minimal philosophical inquiry.
This is not an issue of need. The adult stem cell argument discussion is aimed only at appeasing the uninformed folk in the middle ground. The idea is those people that do not support the ban on embryonic stem cells, might go along with / tolerate the ban if they feel that ESC’s are not critical to medical success.
The ban is purely a religious ban from those that believe an embryo is a human life with the rights and protections of any post birth human (sans convicted felons on death row who are obviously no longer humans in these religious views somehow – sans Catholics who I respect, yet disagree, due to their consistency in opposition to the death penalty).
Bush is hypocrite. He supports state sponsored murder and torture of human life yet vetoes this bill the relies on the use of embryos that are far from developed into a human. This is the most muddled, confused and inane view possible … but it is a Bush-league view.
Somewhat off-topic, but what the hell… I’m curious as to who you think would do science in the absence of government funding. The amound of science funded by private philanthropists and public corporations is miniscule compared to government funding. And it’s not (just) because corporations are too short-sighted, it’s due to the nature of science.
One of the key elements of strong science programs is openness. You write your paper using what you learned from someone else’s work, and someone yet else goes on to build on yours. The net benefit is to the general population, not to the specific researcher. Corporations have a responsibility to maximize their profit, which makes large-scale sponsoring of science difficult to impossible.
Personally, I suspect many corporations would serve their long-term interests better by maintaining a stronger research program, but let’s face it, who’s going to drop 10 billion dollars on science when the benefit accrues almost equally to you and your competitors?
Think about the corporation that historically had the most vigorous program in basic research: Bell Labs. Oh, how about that, funded by their government-sanctioned monopolistic pricing structure. What happened to Bell Labs when they no longer had that income? Shrinkage.
Science is inherently a type of commons; the cost is borne by the researcher, while the benefit accrues to all. If you can think of a workable way to internalize those externalities, great! Until then, the government is going to be the primary funding source for basic science.
If, as research suggests, over fifty per cent of concepta end in spontaneous abortion, is it beyond the wit of man to recover embryonic stem cells from this source?
In libertarian universe, all commons should be eliminated. If science is a common, well, then just get rid of this Evil Socialist Theft. ( I ‘ve seen one who seriously proposed that the atmosphere should be made unbreathable so we would have to buy air in bottles )
Question: can anyone here point to where embryonic stem cells are beating out adult stem cells when it comes to actual treatments and cures? Anyone? Beuller? Beuller? Beuller? Frye? Frye?
Research is all well and good, folks, but at what point do you decide that the research isn’t going anywhere and never will? At what point do you decide to start putting time, effort and money towards helping people instead of feeding them vast – but empty – promises?
Ian: I’m not expert, but cells from aborted concepta might be flawed material — there could be a reason they aborted, e.g. bad chromosomes.
Jason:
Numbers (of the non-David-Prentice variety) on investments in AS vs. ES research and documentation of “actual treatments and cures” from each?
So, does the soul come from the oocyte, or from the nucleus…
This calls for an experiment. Easily enough done: which is the better dancer?
Personally, I think I’m going to argue that the soul travels in the mitochondria, just for the hell of it. We can get the fundies on board by pointing out that that mitochondrial reproduction is essentially asexual; I’m sure they’d love that. Ramifications are:
1. You don’t get your soul from your daddy.
2. Every time a man ejaculates, countless souls die. Even the soul of the lucky spermatazoan that makes it to the egg is still dooooomed.
(Yes, this is the correct spelling of ‘dooooomed’. Sound it out.)
3. We can add a new colloquial term for menses. Now, in addition to saying ‘Aunt Flo is paying me a visit’, you can instead say ‘Hi honey. Just so you know, I’m shedding souls.’
4. Mitochondrial Eve is also now known as ‘Da Godmother of Soul’
Well, I’m off to write my paper.
Research is all well and good, folks, but at what point do you decide that the research isn’t going anywhere and never will? At what point do you decide to start putting time, effort and money towards helping people instead of feeding them vast – but empty – promises?
How about after giving it a good try? You know that it’s not just a binary thing: either have no good research results, or have completion of all research. It’s like cancer research — we’re doing better; we’re not finished. It’s been decades and we’re not finished with cancer — so should we stop doing any research on it? At what point do we give up on cancer research because we can’t cure all forms of cancer at all times? Or do we keep going, getting slowly more knowlegdeable and having more results, just like every other form of research?
In other words, why should we treat stem cell research — its funding and “when we give up on it” — unlike any other form of research?
Jason:
You might begin to suspect that research won’t pan out once you’ve explored every reasonable avenue several times and failed. Even that won’t rule out a later breakthrough, but it might argue for putting a particular project on the backburner and working on something that seems more likely to bear fruit.
You definitely don’t make such a decision when basic research into a field is in its infancy. It will be amazing if stem cells do not have significant therapeutic value. That doesn’t mean the research will pay off soon. E.g., it took several decades for microprocessors to pay off in measurable productivity. Lots of people thought that having many inexpensive computers around would be useful, but the value proposition was fairly specialized until maybe the mid-1980s when everyone suddenly saw the use of spreadsheets and word processors. It also took decades for automobiles to be obviously preferable to horse-drawn vehicles; for that matter, it took decades to turn the basic idea of an internal combustion engine into a functioning automobile.
That’s how research works. The idea of just calling it quits because there is no shortcut for dummies is about the most moronic thing I’ve seen on this entire thread.
AS: several dozen
ES: none
I provided a list in the comments of an earlier entry, but of course the well-referenced list was rejected pretty much sight unseen because of the [alleged] bias of the source.
I guess this is what you get when you don’t RTFA. Now, it’s true, the article ultimately linked combines state and private monies (federalism and libertarianism), but there were several examples you could have chosen from without having me cite them here–Geron, The Starr Foundation, Weill Cornell Medical College (from a private $15 million grant), an anonymous donor gave Johns Hopkins University a $58.5 million gift to launch an Institute for Cell Engineering, a grateful patient pledged $25 million over the next 10 years to finance stem-cell research at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.
The truth is that government funding of research is so ingrained that it is seemingly hard for anyone within the system to even try envision how things would work any other way, ironically atypical for scientists IMO. Charitable foundations funded by private donations could place restrictions on their funding such as requiring results to be openly available. It’s not all about corporations, much as those who love strawmen like to position libertarians solely as corporate lackeys.
And I’m not here to say “This is how it would work”, because that is specifically both exactly the point and exactly not the point–in other words, I don’t know what kind of a structure the market would end up adopting, but government systems are about people claiming to have the answers about how things should work rather than allowing them to work in their natural way.
Libertarians are about the progression of economics into optimal organization by its environment (the market,or market forces), which one might think would be naturally appealing to someone predisposed to evolution. Maybe not, but I don’t know why.
Except there’s no valid alternative to cancer research that has many proven treatments and cures, so your analogy doesn’t fit.
But let’s use your analogy and modify it to fit the situation: let’s say that there are two lines of cancer research going on. One line is long on promises, but very, very short on results – there have been no results, in fact. Defenders of this line go on at length about how the critics of this research are “anti-science Christian fundies,” but they never, ever address the problems with the research and the lack of results.
The other line of research has actually provided results: dozens and dozens of treatments and cures for many types of cancer. Critics of this line claim it’s not as good as the other line and are ignorant or willfully blind to the treatments and cures produced by the other line of research.
So, who do you listen to? Which line of research do you put your support behind – the one with no treatments or cures or the one that has produced and continues to produce treatments and cures?
And many libertatarians don’t understand externalities. Can you point me to a competent economist who thinks the market would support enough basic research that doesn’t have short-term applications?
Jim: one point that I heard someone make recently on NPR is that most labs mix government and private funding. This makes it difficult for them to do embryonic stem cell research because they need to guarantee that government funds are not used for that part of their research. I don’t know the exact requirements, but, for instance the person interviewed claimed that a pipet purchased with federal government money could not be shared between unapproved embryonic stem cell research and other kinds of research.
I agree that you can envision doing research while restricting your funding sources, but labs are usually trying to get more funding, not less. They’re also competing with other labs for the earliest breakthroughs. So the actual result of restricting government funding is not to cause labs to eschew such funding but to work on non-restricted research to keep their funding sources as healthy as possible.
Yes, the “anti-stem cell research crowd” that supports adult stem cell research. Oooooo-kay. Way to be hilariously contradictory, PZ. I still find it amazing that you managed to get a PhD.
Jason:
If something has “many proven treatments and cures” that does not make it an alternative to something else unless it completely replaces it. Aspirin has surprisingly many proven uses, but it’s not an alternative to some other treatment, provided that other treatment does even one thing that aspirin does not do.
If it were possible to take an adult stem cell and somehow convert it into the equivalent of an embryonic cell, then you would have a point. That technology does not currently exist. I don’t think anyone here is suggesting that anyone stop researching the potential of adult stem cells. The point is not to limit the research to adult stem cells, since embryonic cells have properties that the adult cells lack.
Jason, don’t treat me like an idiot, and don’t play the fool yourself, ‘kay? You completely ignored the most important half of my question: What are the numbers for funding? How that relates to the existence of genuine (and I’m happy to recognize that you disagree on the definition of “genuine”) treatments and cures is what I want to know. THAT’S where you could start to convince me.
But even so, by making this argument your bias is showing: If adult cell research was clearly going to be the most productive field, why would we ignore embryonic research? This situation would not make embryonic research worthless. Nor do I concede our Dear Leader’s opinion that embryonic stem cells are human beings. This central point is frequently underplayed or ignored when this subject is discussed and debated in public, with a heavy emphasis on the potential for treatments and cures.
You ask: “At what point do you decide that the research isn’t going anywhere and never will?” For me, the answer is most emphatically not “at the point I became a Christian.”
Wow…what a zinger Jason. You nailed PZ but good man. Totally beat him down and crushed him. And way to go questioning his ability to get a PhD. Everyone here totally trusts your authority. I bet he bought his PhD from some outfit on the web for $129.00 (frame mounting extra).
“I bet he bought his PhD from some outfit on the web for $129.00 (frame mounting extra).”
Taking a leaf out of “Dr.” Hovind’s book, no doubt.
Jason – are you really this dense, or are you just trying to bait people? Lines of research, are, of course, not an all-or-nothing, either-or proposition. The number of advances that come out of one line of research (say, adult stem cells) has no bearing on the potential of another line of research (i.e. ES cells). It is possible, even probable, that both approaches will bear results and treatments, and it is certain that knowledge gained in one area informs and improves the other.
Your “logic” here is akin to the ID movement: you start with a premise (ES is bad because my god/church/pastor told me so) which you won’t admit to, and then try to to use an (illogical) line of argument to prove a different point (i.e. ES is worthless because it hasn’t solved the world’s problems yet), which, it just so happens, is consistent with your original premise.
Because he did not include “embryonic” in anti-stem cell research crown, you’re calling him out on that? Because you couldn’t figure that out?
It says a whole lot more about you than it does about PZ. It’s a blog, not a research paper. Get a grip.
Jason, quit being such a dick. There’s not a reason in the world NOT to do ES research, and if scientists think there is a reason to continue research, then guess what? I’m going to pay attention to them rather than you. I find it more than a little hard to believe that researchers are clamoring for funding for a program without any promise, don’t you? Or is this really Ann Coulter writing in, and you think scientists are part of that evil left that just wants to kill babies as a sort of sacrament? Grow up.
And just how vigorously, Jason, are you promoting barrier methods of contraception such as condoms? Have you convinced the Catholic Church and fundamentalist Christians to join you in this crusade? Because “natural family planning” results in nonviable fertilized eggs at a significantly higher rate than condom use does.
Well, if the AS-only crowd is against any and all research with ES for what’s little more than a vaugely icky feeling, tinged with with religious misdirections and what can only be hopeless ignorance on the actual facts of stem cell research, I’d say, yes, the AS-only crowd is “anti-stem cell research”. It’s like the anti-choice crowd really being just against choice and not for the actual well-being of actual living humans. They lie and misdirect and try to cast the entire argument as a moral one, where the only morals that actually count are fundamentalist religious ones. Or the anti-gay marriage crowd. I really don’t see the difference in any of the three.
Lies, misdirections and religious queasiness.
Who gets to decided when that time has come? People who blindly support ESCR (e.g. people here) or people who are well-informed about both sides?
So I guess we should restart the research into turning lead into gold. Who knows? There might be a breakthrough in some imaginary, distant future.
How about working on something that already HAS born bushels of fruit?
ESCR is NOT in it’s infancy. At the very least, it’s middle-aged.
[ridiculous and pointless false analogy to microprocessors ignored]
No shortcut for dummies or anyone else is needed. Just proven treatments and cures. Adult stem cells have them. Embryonic stem cells don’t.
Incidentally, the most moronic thing I’ve seen on this thread and, in fact, the entire blog is the ignorance and just plain pig-headed rejection of proven adult stem cell treatments and cures. The second most moronic thing is the attack on people who support ASCR as “anti-stem cell research.” The third most moronic thing is the half-baked, false analogies.
Nobody here is against adult stem cell research. What we don’t understand is why anybody is against embryonic stem cell research.
If stem cells derrived from an adult are truly stem cells and could form any and all cell types, they, could form a human. Thus, under the proper circustance (albiet perhaps beyond our technology today) all adequate stem cells are potential humans. Yet, this is the objection Bush puts forth for banning use of ES cells. So AS cels are no substitute, on the religious basis.
Taking a bit of a leap, perhaps with advanced enough technology most any cell could be co-opted to form an embryo – so all cells have the potential…
No more biopsies for medical tests folks, those cells could be humans (blood tests may be okay if you take only red cells) …. no wait that would be a clone we can’t have that… good grief no more medical practice allowed…
Really, this how silly the Bush position is.
My second objection to Bush’s view, is that this is the imposition of the state establishing a religion. There is no scientific basis that establishes an embryo as a human. This is purely a theistic view.
Jason:
No, because we have a theoretical understanding of why it cannot be done chemically. We also know that it can in principle be done by other means, although the energy cost would be prohibitive and certainly not economical compared to other sources of gold. This is a moronic analogy (your specialty it seems), because we understand the issue in great depth and can come to very rigorous conclusions about what possibilities are feasible. Embryonic stem cell research is very new, despite your strenuous and uninformed protests to the contrary. Every day brings new insights into what could be possible.
So I guess the short answer to my initial question is that no one can produce any evidence of embryonic stem cells beating out adult stem cells when it comes to actual (or even promised) treatments and cures. That’s the same answer it always has been and always will be. No one has an answer, so you just vomit up all these red herrings and other logical fallacies to distract from it. Typical.
Well, be sure to let me know when embryonic stem cells start producing anything other than cancerous cells and other failures, m’kay? Also let me know when you succeed in turning lead into gold.
What’s moronic is not researching ESCs because claims are made that it murdering a baby. Completely irrational and illogical. That argument currently is only made by authority. I have found no way to reason that it is murder. Period.
Jason:
Well they produced you, or was that covered under “failures.”
Uh, I don’t see any of the organizations you mentioned in either DarkSyde’s article or the Neurotopia article. Excuse me for not following every link on the web.
Uh huh. That’s 1/10,000 of the NIH budget over the same time period, assuming NIH funding is flat. Notice all the numbers you mentioned start with an “m”. I don’t care how many millions you’re talking about, it’s a pittance compared to government spending.
If you think medical research should be reduced, go ahead and argue that, but if you think the private sector is going to come up with anything close to the current funding level for science, I want some of what you’re smoking.
Come back when you’re ready to explain how to internalize the inherent externality of scientific benefits, without turning all scientific results into trade secrets.
Thanx.
Hey, Jason, if you keep being this adorable, maybe the president will come up behind you and give your neck a little massage. That what you’re after, Jas?
Turning lead into gold is technically possible. Can you tell us how? Read Pauls post. What red herrings and logical fallacies? How do you know that No treatments will be found? You sure like to beat your chest alot, but your positions are mostly made of straw.
So, again, Jason claims adult cell research has left embryonic cell research in the dust without addressing the disparity between the investment in both.
That’s not an invalid question, right? Does anyone here know of any reason to expect embryonic research to produce results much slower than adult, given equivalent funding? It doesn’t address the other point Jason’s ignoring, that there’s no reason to ignore embryonic research even if it does turn out to be a relatively barren field, but it’s relevant to his claim that we should be seeing lots of embryonic-based results by now…no?
Milton Freidman.
Also, try something like this:
http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-jt040997.html
It’s easy to be dismissive when you entitle yourself to make sweeping generalizations such as “many libertarians don’t understand externalities”. Unfortunately that also makes you misinformed.
Sez Jason:
Well, be sure to let me know when embryonic stem cells start producing anything other than cancerous cells and other failures, m’kay? Also let me know when you succeed in turning lead into gold.
I’d call that statement asinine, but that’s self evident.
What you fail to have grasped that everyone here has been saying is that you do not get to claim that a line of research is “invalid” because it doesn’t turn up the results YOU think it should.
Among other things, finding stems cells that have become cancerous is actually an important discovery – merely one that leads in new directions for cancer research.
Research often turns up results that weren’t expected, that doesn’t invalidate the research.
The very efforts to turn “lead into gold” (better known as Alchemy), ultimately resulted in the work of Boyle that served as the basis for modern chemistry. Can you claim that Alchemy was invalid research? No – it just didn’t turn up the results that were anticipated.
Milton Friedman. D’oh.
Jason, can you come up with a reason to pass a law that bans embryonic stem cell research?
To Jason,
Oops.
“Transmutation of lead into gold isn’t just theoretically possible – it has been achieved! There are reports that Glenn Seaborg, 1951 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, succeeded in transmuting a minute quantity of lead (possibly en route from bismuth, in 1980) into gold.
There is an earlier report (1972) in which Soviet physicists at a nuclear research facility near Lake Baikal in Siberia accidentally discovered a reaction for turning lead into gold when they found the lead shielding of an experimental reactor had changed to gold.
Today particle accelerators routinely transmute elements.”
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/generalchemistry/a/aa050601a.htm
I don’t know, maybe they’re making this all up as a conspiracy so we all can gang up on Jason about ESC research.
As someone in a position to care about efficiency:
If the new model is more efficient, current funding levels may not be necessary.
Seriously, on a broader scale, how can anyone who buys so wholeheartedly into evolution (which I do, in case you were wondering) simultaneously argue against capitalisma and market forces? Economics and evolution are full of parallels. Arguing against market forces is like arguing for Intelligent Design.
Two things:
My Ph.D. didn’t cost any money at all: in fact, I was paid to receive it. I worked for 5 years as a TA and on a genetics training grant, which covered all of my expenses and let me live on the princely sum of something less than $10K/year.
The question of the value of embryonic stem cells is settled. Catherine Verfaillie, a Very Big Name in adult stem cell research, insists that both ES and AS cell research should be funded. She’s been saying this for years.
Thanks, half-pint, you just saved me a lot of investigative work.
Note the “m” at the start of that number.
And let’s see, how many scientific papers did they publish on that project while they were working on it? I’m starting to think you have a problem distinguishing basic research from directed product development.
And no, that paper from the Cato Institute convinces me not at all. It appears (yes, I only skimmed it) to be entirely of the form of the bullet list you quoted: a series of loosely connected facts and statistics, without anything to compare it to. Sure, some corporate science has been done (far more in the past than now), but until you can show me that private sector funding (or “results”, if you can define that) is comparable to government spending, you’re just fact-mining.
Yippee! It’s the false dichotomy! I’m not 100% in favor of absolutely unfettered free markets, so clearly I must be one of them commies that doesn’t believe in market forces.
I would have thought my use of the word “externality” would be a clue.
(shrug)
Not to slide into this particular tarbaby argument, but evolutionary theory implies that change and development occur without any sort of outside interferance. I admit to not being schooled enough to say the same thing about pure economic theory, but I do know enough to say it’s pretty silly to think any such purity exists in the real world. Just about any popular economic theory – be it capitalism or communism – is marked with a human flaw. That is, people cheat the system, and the easier it is for them to cheat the system, history tells us the more they’ll do it. I’m not trying to make that as a ringing endorsement of government funding – personally, i’m down with a mix of government and private funding – but it’s silly to compare “anti-market forces arguments” with ID, except that both require some unseen hand making decisions that doesn’t exist in the real world.
Also, I’ve never seen any evidence that a purely private source of funding – defining that to mean absolutely no public funding – would be free of the same ideological and anti-science bias that plagues government funding today. Remember, someone’s funding all these Christian Rights groups.
Jason,
Are the dozens and dozens of therapies you mention have come out of AS research the same as the ones mentioned here?
You’re doing exactly what Jason is doing, in case that isn’t ridiculously self-evident. Go back and take a look.
Your rather derisive (and again misinformed, a pattern perhaps?) half-pint comment only demonstrates that you have run out of intellectual ammunition.
btw don’t forget to factor inflation into the 1986/1987 numbers. I know that would be self-evident to someone who, you know, understands economics so I wanted to make sure I held your hand through it.
The fact that human flaw exists within economics does in no way invalidate economic models that, “Johnny”‘s protestations aside, doesn’t invalidate the comparison (much less make it silly). I just think it’s hard for someone who is predisposed to believe that government involvement is a good thing to see the rather obvious comparison.
Jim,
Simple. Government involvement, for all its faults and strenghths, is a human endevor. ID requires something above humanity, indeed above nature. Therefor, the comparison is silly.
And for what it’s worth, I for one don’t think human flaws invalidate economic models, but those same economic models aren’t iron-clad rules. If you ignore those human flaws in putting those models into practice and insist that it’s how it’ll work out, you’re wasting your time and mine.
I also don’t think government involvement is a all-or-nothing “good thing”. I do, however, think acountability is. Our model of government has, in theory, acountability built in. The fact that most Americans ignore that wonderful little bit of knowledge in know way renders government invalid.
When it gets down to the real nitty gritty, this is more or less a gut thing. Personally, I don’t trust government to do what’s right without someone keeping an eye on it. An unfettered businessman, and I may just be cynical, is just as untrustworthy, if not more.
Please excuse my cut and paste…
Posted on Tue, Jul. 18, 2006
Hey, Jason’s “PZ Myers Exposed” blog has a new entry about this post. He says, “Does anyone need any more proof that PZ’s head is firmly planted up his big, fat obnoxious behind?” Hehe. I suppose that could be construed as a compliment.
j,
That’s kinda creepy, actually. Of all the things in the world on which one can focus one’s energy and attention, this guy thinks a Minnesota college professor is worth of “exposing”. Man, I hope he never hears about someone who teaches something like geology or cosmology. Blow his mind.
I had no idea our little Jason was so pathetic that he’d stalk PZ with a revisionist history blog, where on every subject in which he got his ass handed to him here, over there he gets to run a victory lap.
Check it out! http://pzmyersexposed.blogspot.com/
No comments, natch.
Why did he name it PZ Myer sex posed?
MattT:
I guess here is where I am coming from, perhaps this will make more sense.
Both an economic market and a natural environment/ecosystem produce forces that shape actors and weed out those not fit to survive in that “space”, so to speak.
In both instances, the market and environment, things are not perfect. Let’s see . . . take, for example, when an ID person says that we are so complex we must be designed and someone like PZ points out that if we were actually designed, it’s actually kind of a poor deisgn. Our “design” has plenty of pitfalls if you’re approaching it from the standpoint of someone who can start from scratch and fashion any being with our level of intelligence. A natural environment has living things that are adapted to or are adapting to its conditions, and the result isn’t always pretty, but it is in some way efficient.
A market is similar. The structures created by economics within a market aren’t “perfect” per se, but they are generally efficient.
With regard to a natural environment, an ID person would sy look at how complex it is, it must have been designed. With regard to a market, someone (usually a well-meaning legislator of some kind) says . . . if I could just tinker with the market, I could make it better! In other words, if they were allowed to help “design” what the market looked like, it would have a certain effect. Just like with evolution we say there is no specific, directed “goal”, the same is true with a market . . . the forces in a market are always competing, fighting to satisfy suppliers and consumers, but there is no specific “goal” of a market. Yet when government becomes involved, much like when an intelligent designed becomes involved, the concept of a “goal” is incorporated, i.e. man was God’s “plan”.
The comparison isn’t really perfect because whereas we can test and see the effects of legislation on a market, we have really no such measurement or test for “God involvement” and its purported effects (much as ID would like for such a verifiable test to exist, provided it produced the results they wanted it to). But much like a biologist like PZ might say it is silly to think that God designs living beings (or created them from scratch), an economist like Milton Friendman might say it is silly to think that government involvement in a market produces more efficiency rather than less.
There are other flaws in the comparison–I’m not claiming a perfect comparison, only one that I think hits true in certain places . . . even a libertarian or economist like Milton Friedman begrudgingly acknowledges there are some legitimate functions of government (although we would both argue that they do not produce efficiencies, only that they are necessities). Does scientific research fall into that category? Someone like Milton, and for example economists at Cato, would argue definitely not. But rough around the edges as it is, I still find it hard to believe that someone cut from the intellectual cloth of evolution would fight so hard against the idea of market efficiencies.
Hope that clarified my intent some, I still don’t believe I was being “silly”, although I was being a bit simplistic.
Jim,
I understood what you were trying to imply, but even given your explination, I still say it’s a silly comparison and it’s even sillier to assume that just because one subscribes to the theory of evolution will automatically subscribe to vaugely Miltonesque view of the free markets. It’s like saying someone who digs evolution must, simply must get all gooey over the mention of social evolution or eugenics (a rather common tactic, anyway). This isn’t like cable, you know, beliefs and ideas don’t come in package deals. I understand the point you’re trying to make with the analogy, but I still think it’s as silly as saying “Well, if you believe in evolution, how can you not be a fan of the Atlanta Braves?”
As for the rest, it’s way, way, way off-topic, so I’ll be very brief. There is, to my knowledge, no evidence that a “free market” system is better than the current model. It could, however, be possible, but that would frankly require a whole lot more honesty and integrity from the powers that be than we have now. I’d be almost willing to say that most of the problems our country faces today – all the way from science funding to defense to economic issues to more than a few cultural boogermen – are the direct result of government giving in too much to business interests.
But, as it’s way off the topic, I’m willing to call it a “agree to disagree” there and move along, because I doubt we’ll convince each other.
Did anyone happen to catch congresscritter Melissa Hart’s comments about this? She stood up, made one of those pained constipated faces and then started rambling about evil Hollywood and liberals being defeated! Between her and Rick Santorum, what’s wrong with Pennsylvania?!?!? Besides, blaming Hollywood and liberals for everything is *so* 2004!
I often wonder what has happened to Pennsylvania. When I lived there it wasn’t exactly a liberal bastion, but it seemed like a pragmatic state that favored moderates when it did elect Republicans (e.g. the late Senator John Heinz). According to an old joke, it’s Philadelphia east, Pittsburgh west, and Alabama in between. There’s some truth to that; even the accents are kind of incomprehensible in central PA and I’m from the Philadelphia area. But I have no idea how Pennsylvania got stuck with a clown like Santorum.
Fair enough. Thanks for engaging on the topic.
OMG… When I first saw your comment, I assumed you meant “nobody has left any comments”. I didn’t expect it to mean that “comments are disabled” and the posts themselves frequently include edited excerpts from comment threads Jason was involved in here.
Jason, sorry mate, but that really is pathetic.
Damnit. And here I thought Jason might have turned over a new leaf… If it wasn’t a matter of principle I’d retract my defense of his post in the Hovind thread.
-Keith Wolter
I vote “yes.”
-Jason
We can already do that in an atom smasher (or some other machine that might get lumped under that name), as I understand it. It just isn’t cost effective.
-Jason
My impression was that we’d been doing this research for less than a decade. That’s infancy for something like this.
Well they produced you, or was that covered under “failures.” -PaulC
Cheap shot, but…LOL.
Jim: One of many objections I have to liberarianism is that in many ways we had a major experiment in largely unregulated business and corporations in the latter half of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, and the conditions it produced became the impetus for the current legal interference because it produced monstrous suffering and inefficiency (monopolies inherently tend towards inefficiency, since they have little competitive pressure). Why do the “free market” extremist types seem to habitually and summarily disregard the effects of largely pre-regulation industry and laissez-faire politics on society in the Gilded Age?
This sort of attitude makes me think of someone who’s convinced that football is best played with no referees at all, and that the coaches and players will work out the rules and their application in the best way.
Well this can be summed up in two words: POLITICAL GAMESMANSHIP.
Rove is simply making a calculated move. He knows most “Republicans” would never vote for a Democrat.. BUT they may stay home! And many of them are disgusted enough with Bush to do just that passive-aggressive act. Bad bad for Repubs.
So enter the relative small minority that believe this god-shit and will work like the slaves they are to defeat the godless Dems. Rove knows that with the right justification they will rally the iffy voters (disgusted Repubs who otherwise would sit home). But even these nuts need to be rallied!
So gay-marriage and ESC issues rally the nuts, and the nuts (masters of guilt-trips and fear-mongering) will get the “I really hate them all – R’s and D’s” Repubs out to vote.
Dems have no such nuts in the wings that are as well organized and effective. Nor do the Dems have a rallying cause (the war you say? — don’t believe it — Rove can manipulate that issue — watch around the elections).
Face it, CHURCHES are Republican, and the they have ruled the middle and south of the USA for a long time. They are established and organized already. They just need the right “justification” to be slaves for the Repubs.
And Rove has their sorry asses pegged!!! Too bad this gamesmanship – however cleaver – messes us over. To Rove and the Repubs — it is about maintaining power. They will slowly erode progressive agendas, then finally owning enough apparatus and without a cumbersome Bill of Rights, they will change our Nation into the semi-facist, elitist, self-serving state they wet-dream about.
As previously stated. Someone here referred to a site that has A.S. “CURES” for many diseases. I mentioned before that my nephew has Crohns disease. He is unaware of any research providing any therapy as are his doctors. What kind of mental illness is it that allows someone to pretend that these cures exist when they in fact do not.
This stem cell issue is best left to scientists and their review boards. Science is not a democracy nor is research. I could just imagine… Dr what do you see? Welllll I ahh don’t know what do you see?? Well I ahhh don’t ahh. Maybe we could vote on it.
I live in California and in 2004 we voted in favor of stem cell research funding via public bond issue. $3 billion to start. More here.
http://www.curesforcalifornia.com/
I agree that it is better if free enterprise leads the way in this. If there is one thing the gov’t is good for it IS putting up enough money to make a difference. Too bad politics and federal monies have corupted so much of our society that we have become suspisious of even the most beneficial of all research. This research will be invaluable in the near future. To stop it is the same as sentencing the people who are suffering from disease to a life of pain and misery. I guess for the man who sentenced more people to death than any other it is OK.
Bush is temporary. The research is taking place today and will continue to proceed. With or without common support. Wait till there is a cure for parkinsons and the people who will benefit will be lining up at their Doctors. Even if they oppose embryonic stem cell research.
Well, here’s an idea… these people have all been for legislation requiring doctors to “inform” women about the consequences to the fetus if they get an abortion… so how about some legislation that requires doctors to inform patients before a procedure that it was developed as a result of embryonic stem cell research.
Those folks oughta support such legislation, right? That way, people who get the treatment know where the credit lies, and the fundies will of course opt to stay ill!
Won’t they?
craig, it’s like the proposal that creationists shouldn’t get antibiotics that are effective against resistant bacteria. Sounds like a good idea to me.
Jason:
Well, be sure to let me know when embryonic stem cells start producing anything other than cancerous cells and other failures, m’kay?
PaulC:
Well they produced you, or was that covered under “failures.”
Oh, SNAP!
Jason, anyone who would do this is not right in the head:
http://shockandblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/happy-birthday-president-bush.html
But rough around the edges as it is, I still find it hard to believe that someone cut from the intellectual cloth of evolution would fight so hard against the idea of market efficiencies.
I guess you haven’t been reading this blog very long, Jim. If you had you’d know that typically evolution doesn’t generate efficiency. Evolution doesn’t optimise. I don’t have to evolve to be faster than the bear, I just have to be faster than you.
It’s actually their familiarity with biology, and with the inefficiency of distributed “evolutionary” systems, that leads a lot of biologists, in my experience, out of the woods of libertarianism and free marketism. And I suspect its typically ignorance of biological reality and evolutionary fact that lends so many free marketeers to attempt to cloak their arguments in faulty evolutionary language.
At any rate, it seems a little ridiculous to argue that free markets are somehow better than government regulation when every civilization has moved from an unrestricted, unregulated free market to the establishment of government, taxation, and regulation. If free markets are so great why are they so quickly abandoned?
Because the Gilded Age doesn’t count, I guess… ;/
Because mankind’s arrogance can never be underestimated. Because the lower class, which comprises the larges voting block, will always vote for wealth redistribution. Because those that seek power are never satisfied with what they have. Because legislators, administrators, Presidents, dictators all think they are way smarter than they actually are. Have you never studied the psychology of power?
I’m starting to think that one of the reasons there is such a gap between science and laypeople lies not just in the fact that laypeople aren’t trained in science, but that scientists aren’t getting enough education in English to effectively read, understand and communicate.
Let’s say the bear represents profitability. If the bear catches you in the market, it’s because youy business model wasn’t efficient enough to survive compared to the competition–your business ceases to exist. But a company doesn’t have to be the most profitable (as long as it has reached some threshhold of return that allows it to stay in business), it only has to be efficient enough to satisfy the investors and/or owners.
Of course evolution produces efficiency, within the parameters of (a) the genetic materials you have to start with and (b) the pressures of the environment. If evolution produces an animal more capable of surviving in its changing environment, how is that not efficiency within the environment? I may have overstated myself when I used the term optimal above, I should have said something like competitively efficient.
And if there is no good comparison between economics, free markets and evolution, then why in the world would familiarity with evolutionary systems lead biologists away from libertarianism and free markets? Either there are parellels/contrasts or there aren’t. Maybe you should get with Matt T and consider how evolution is like the Atlanta Braves . . .
By and large it is government interference that produces monopolies, not markets. Beyond that, the period of extreme economic growth during the period you reference did cause some growing pains that could be addressed through anti-trust laws (minimal intrusion) rather than excessive and burdensome regulation. We have the ability, if we so choose, to focus on corporate and large business malfeasasnce (I would do away with corporations as legal entities entirely, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic). Again, that was a weakness of the Gilded Age that doesn’t represent a fatal flaw in free markets or libertarianism, but an opportunity to demonstrate why it is so important to be vigilant about personal responsibility and criminal conduct.
You tend to focus solely on negative social consequences without acknowledging the benefits of that tremendous economic expansion.
I’m starting to think that one of the reasons there is such a gap between science and laypeople lies not just in the fact that laypeople aren’t trained in science, but that scientists aren’t getting enough education in English to effectively read, understand and communicate.
Oh, sure. That makes perfect sense. Scientists are making discoveries, reporting results, developing techniques and technologies, all without basic fluency and literacy in their own language.
Because the lower class, which comprises the larges voting block, will always vote for wealth redistribution.
But why do they get to vote in the first place? You haven’t answered my question. Unregulated free markets preceed even voting in every civilization. Why are democracies, or governments of any kind for that matter, allowed to form, promoted and hungered for, if unregulated free markets are so great? Clearly if the majority of a civilization is turning its back on your unregulated free markets, they can’t be that great except for a select few. Is that really the purpose of an economy? To provide for the few at the cost of the many?
And your explanation seems to largely undercut your premise. Unregulated free markets don’t eliminate or subdue the human arrogance and lust for power; in fact, they offer it unbridled opportunity. So it would seem that an unregulated free market offers no protection against its own destruction. As Larry Niven once said “anarachy is the least stable form of government; it falls apart at a touch.” Almost instantaneously in such a market, a powerful figure rises, or is elected, to take control of the market.
Of course evolution produces efficiency, within the parameters of (a) the genetic materials you have to start with and (b) the pressures of the environment.
Again, no, it doesn’t. Evolution produces solutions that are locally optimal to solve the problem of reproduction. It doesn’t produce efficiency; it produces robustness and redundancy. That’s why your cells maintain two metabolisms, for instance; both the aerobic metabolism they developed to take advantage of oxygen, and the all-but-useless anaerobic metabolism they inherited from the early days of life. Just a few days ago PZ had a great post on the inefficiencies in the developmental genetics of fruit flies.
And if there is no good comparison between economics, free markets and evolution, then why in the world would familiarity with evolutionary systems lead biologists away from libertarianism and free markets?
Who said there were no good comparisons? Certainly not me. Remind me again who’s having problems reading and writing basic English?
Obviously there are comparisons; the comparisons are what inform evolutionarily-minded biologists and others that unregulated free market capitalism doesn’t produce efficiency. Your comparisons were faulty not because all comparisons between markets and biology are faulty, but because you drew from faulty ideas about evolution.
Gosh. Thank you so much for that helpful, intelligent, rational, reasoned comment!
Jason:
It’s good to see that you can occasionally acknowledge and accept constructive criticism. Maybe you could be persuaded to seek professional help in curing your inexplicable sycophancy towards George W. Bush.
You’re welcome.
Well, I came back to see if anyone had anything of substance to offer. The above comment I responded to is pretty typical of what I found. Just the usual slurs and insults.
But just to share some thoughts:
Do you all consider the people who oppose medical testing on animals to be against all medical testing? By your logic (or lack thereof), you must. If not, you’re hypocrites.
Do you, like me, consider the Nazis’ experiments on Jews to be wrong? According to the Nazis, the Jews weren’t human – they were animals. Who’s going to step up and claim that the Nazis were wrong – that it was a black and white issue (since you’re so fond of inventing “grey areas”)? And if you oppose these tests on the Jews, wouldn’t that make you – by your own [il]logic – against any and all medical tests?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13935219/
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/7/19/9257/41450
http://www.olduvaigeorge.com/ds/250px-Blastocyst.jpg
Jason. A bastocyst is not a person.
Let’s see. The Nazis claimed that Poland was part of the Third Reich when they invaded. Who’s going to step up and claim that the Nazis were wrong? If you oppose the annexation of Poland by the Nazis then you should give equal weight to my claim that California is not part of the US.
In other words, the fact that the Nazis believed something that was obviously wrong, unethical, and cruel does not imply that some other unrelated thing is also wrong. The idea that human embryos have the same legal and moral status as you and I is a claim that is contradicted by theoretical and pragmatic arguments (theory: what about all the spontaneously aborted embryos; practice: why do so many evangelical Christians have little qualms about fertility clinics and who in their right mind would save a freezer full of 1000 embryos if they had a choice between saving that and a living, breathing child?)
BTW, my point about embryonic stem cells producing Jason was not purely a slur. It also illustrates that these are among the most remarkable cell lines known to science. It is outrageous that we should decide to pander to a minority of Americans by denying funding to this research.
Jason. Are you opposed to Invitro Fertilization?
Because robustness and redundancy for certain operations are not long-term efficient mechanisms?
There is, apparently, a substantial difference between techincal writing for others of similar education and experience, and actual effective communication with those outside of the field. So when someone like “Johnny” doesn’t understand basic literary devices such as similies or metaphores, instead in engineering-like fashion essentially demanding that any such comparison be perfect or completely flawed like some binary equation, well, I’m not saying that scientists lack basic literacy (which of course isn’t what I said) but clearly there is some disconnect in communication that it would be disingenuous to lay entirely at the feet of everyone else.
Because even all but the most Randian libertarians would acknowledge the necessity of certain functions of government–national defense, as an example. As I’ve said before, that doesn’t make the government efficient at such tasks (a cost-efficient Department of Defense program? HAHAHAHA!), just necessary.
It is the nature of aging government to bring more and mroe power under its wing. Perhaps that is a failing of humanity, it certainly has been the downfall of more than one country.
Matt T said that comparing evolution to economics is essentially as arbitrary as saying if you believe in evolution you must be a fan of the Atlanta Braves. Are you even reading the thread? Who is having problems reading basic English? If you want to ignore every single part of this comments section except only and exactly those comments you’ve directed at me, then fine, just let me know so I can scale down the scope from everything that was said before.
I realize implantation technology is not perfect, but I’m not familiar with the success rate. Does anyone here have a way of estimating of how many blastocysts had to have died to create Bush’s room full o’ bird-flipping snowflake kiddies? And, why aren’t we all sad for them?
All the blastocyte not used in IVF are discarded. They could be used for research
but discarding is apparently less offensive than research.
ESCR samples come directly from IVF. Whatever blastocyte are not used in IVF are thrown away.
The ratio of actual eggs implanted to discarded are fail to go to term would be a nice number to have.
Snowflake givin the prez the bird.
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/TCR-Stemcell-Bab.mov
heh, I like one of the quotes from this article:
As for the economy/evolution thing… even if the comparison is valid, why would we want to emulate evolution? This might just be my crazy techno-engineering bias, but it’s always seemed like one of the main purposes of human society is to avoid the negative aspects of evolution. Hell, I’ve been blind as a bat since I was 8; I’m only alive because society protected me from the negative consequences of that problem.
Now, specific things:
Oh yes, because the lower class in modern-day America sure voted for socialist income redistribution. Oh wait, didn’t that tax cut favour the rich to an obscene degree?
And I agree, those that seek power are never satisfied. What confuses me is that you believe this tendency will be checked by an unregulated free market, when you so plainly do not believe that it will not be affected by the theoretical checks and balances of democratic government.
This is probably because unregulated business produces so many negative social consequences. I’m a big fan of the technological benefits of the Industrial Revolution, but it would have been an awful time to be alive if you weren’t rich.
How is reduncancy efficient? It may be necessary for certain things, but it’s certainly not efficient.
Finally, please explain to me the mechanism by which an unregulated free market would stop companies from dumping waste and over-exploiting resources. Would you trust companies to sacrifice economic growth in favour of long-term environmental viability? If so, why, when all evidence suggests that companies will exercise no such restraint, and in fact will actively oppose any attempts to force them to do so?
Mechanophile:
I don’t want to get into the larger debate here, but it’s not hard to think of a scenario in which redundancy can increase efficiency. Efficiency is usually measured as a ratio of output to input. If you know that some resource can potentially fail, then it might be more efficient, though not strictly necessary, to have excess resource capacity. This would occur if the cost of making due without the equipment exceeds the expected cost of maintaining the redundant equipment.
For instance, it’s considered good practice to make frequent backup copies of work done on a computer. Most of these are never used, and the incur some measurable cost. If one loses work due to a failure, the backup is not “necessary.” You can just redo the work. However, the cost of redoing that work is likely to exceed the miniscule cost of making frequent backups. Thus, the backups increase your efficiency.
If you’re willing to take economic costs into account, there are some cases in which redundancy greatly increases the efficiency of critical systems. If I have some system (computer, ice cream freezer, movie projector or whatever) that could be down for an hour at a time, it might not be necessary to have any redundant system, but the lack of one at the wrong time could cost potential revenue that might not be available at later times. In that case, a cost/benefit analysis would probably show that the redundant system was preferable.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/07/souls_on_ice.html?welcome=true
In 2002, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology–the research arm for U.S. fertility doctors–decided to find out how many unused embryos had accumulated in the nation’s 430 fertility clinics. The rand consulting group, hired to do a head count, concluded that 400,000 frozen embryos existed–a staggering number, twice as large as previous estimates. Given that hundreds of thousands of ivf treatment rounds have since been performed, it seems fair to estimate that by now the number of embryos in limbo in the United States alone is closer to half a million.
This embryo glut is forcing many people to reconsider whatever they thought they thought about issues such as life and death and choice and reproductive freedom. It’s a dilemma that has been quietly building: The first American ivf baby was born in 1981, less than a decade after Roe v. Wade was decided. Thanks in part to Roe, fertility medicine in this country developed in an atmosphere of considerable reproductive freedom (read: very little government oversight), meaning, among other things, that responsibility for embryo disposition rests squarely with patients.
The number of ivf rounds, or “cycles,” has grown to the point that in 2003 about 123,000 cycles were performed, to help some of the estimated 1 in 7 American couples who have difficulty conceiving naturally. Early on, it proved relatively easy to freeze a lab-created human embryo–which unlike, say, hamburger meat, can be frozen, and thawed, and refrozen, and thawed, and then used.
(To be precise, the technical term is “pre-embryo,” or “conceptus”; a fertilized egg is not considered an embryo until about two weeks of development, and ivf embryos are frozen well before this point.)
Over time–as fertility drugs have gotten more powerful and lab procedures more efficient–it has become possible to coax more and more embryos into being during the average cycle. Moreover, as doctors transfer fewer embryos back into patients, in an effort to reduce multiple births, more of the embryos made are subsequently frozen.
PaulC:
I think we’re operating on different conceptions of efficiency. To me, the most efficient design is the one that provides the most output for the least input, in an ideal situation. The most efficient design, though, is not always the most preferable, since reality is not an ideal situation. The amount of redundancy (and hence sacrificed efficiency compared to the ideal case) you include in your design will depend on how far from the ideal case you think your situation is.
“Does anyone here have a way of estimating of how many blastocysts had to have died to create Bush’s room full o’ bird-flipping snowflake kiddies?”
My personal anecdotal evidence is that I know a couple who are trying to get pregnant with snowflake embryos, and last I heard were going for their 5th try (all unsuccessful). So, that’s five blastocyst deaths for 0 live births there.
Mechanophile: OK. I see your point given your assumptions. I tend to think of efficiency in a more global sense. I.e., you can imagine doing something very efficiently under ideal conditions, but the cost of getting close to ideal conditions is probably higher than building fault tolerance into your design. I spend a lot of time thinking about this because I’ve watched people (myself included) wasting a lot of effort pandering to their own perfectionist tendencies. A lot of what I do consists of trying to decide what is the right amount of effort or expense to put into a particular plan. I think of this in terms of efficiency, and the question of what might be most efficient under ideal circumstances rarely concerns me because circumstances rarely even approach the ideal.
They’ll have implanted at least two blastocysts per attempt, and as many as 5 would no be unlikely. So that’s at least 10 deaths, and possibly 25 or more.
Here is the framework for one such example:
http://commonsblog.org/about_freemkt.php
One common theme among such market solutions is the need for a more robust property protection court system. That, much like FME, is unlikely to happen for a variety of political reasons, not the least of which being the vast amount of waste in the judicial system’s pursuit of victory in the War on Drugs (just one example).
These are just a couple of an almost limitless number of examples–redundancy can be very efficient when the economic consequence of downtime due to technical failure provides sufficient incentive for a redundant system. Redundancy in data storage is efficient because the consequences of a single incident of significant data loss is so significant that there is a strong incentive for redundancy even where the risk of such an individual incident is small.
See, this is what I’m talking about. A variety of the points I’m raising here are being dismissed, completely waive-of-the-hand dismissed, when I know, for a fact, that you people are capable of thinking this through for yourselves. It simply cannot be that you are so completely removed from the world of business and economics that these examples are going to strike you as something you never would have thought of but for just a couple minutes of thought.
So, yes, I completely stick by the parallel I drew–both evolution and economics realize redundancy as a mechanism of efficiency.
The demographics of the current political climate are such that Democrats represent a proportionately greater number of the lower class than Republicans. It would not be inaccurate to say that Democrats are more in favor of socialist wealth redistribution, which includes among other things Universal Health Care and welfare.
But even Republicans are not immune. It’s true that taxes were lowered in the short term under a democratically-elected republican President and under fully Republican Congress. But it is also true that under the same Administration a massive prescription drug care plan was passed that *will*, in the long term, require an increase in the tax rate (or the closure of various loopholes and exemptions). This is also wealth redistribution, it is just that the impact on the tax side is delayed.
My understanding is that there is still considerable debate on this topic, as there were few alternatives for many who ended up in even the deplorable conditions of factory jobs, and during that same period your chances of surviving past the age of 5 roughly doubled. The average lower-class adult existence might not have been much to write home about, but it was existence as opposed to the alternative.
PaulC:
Sorry to seemingly have usurped your examples, I have actually been writing my post off and on since before you posted your examples and didn’t see your until after I posted mine.
Because robustness and redundancy for certain operations are not long-term efficient mechanisms?
No, they’re not. Just ask any mechanical engineer. Typically redundancy means twice as many parts to break, twice as many to maintain, twice as many to replace over the same operational period.
Distributed systems sacrifice efficiency for a decreased chance of critical, lethal failures. Now, there’s an argument upthread that decreasing the number of critical failures increases efficiency, but what we often see in evolution is a change towards redundancy as fault tolerance, and then a subsequent change that reduces the individual failure rate of components – without reducing the now-unneccesary redunancy in exchange.
Evolution doesn’t optimize. It makes local changes that solve local problems, but it can’t supply the long-term forsightedness required to really solve certain problems.
but clearly there is some disconnect in communication that it would be disingenuous to lay entirely at the feet of everyone else.
Oh, no. Don’t get me wrong. There’s certainly one participant in this discussion who seems to be having trouble communicating.
It is the nature of aging government to bring more and mroe power under its wing. Perhaps that is a failing of humanity, it certainly has been the downfall of more than one country.
If humanity is too inferior to maintain a free market economy, who, exactly, do you anticipate these economies being implemented by?
Which is exactly what I’ve been asking in the first place. Since you’ve come around to my position – that an unregulated free market is neither possible nor desireable as a human economy – from what basis to you continue to support it? From what basis can you advocate an economic structure you know can never work?
Since we’re humans, isn’t it best to try to figure out what economy is going to be best for humans?
Chet made my point about efficiency much better than I did.
Jim, concerning your link:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re saying that the solution to environmental problems is to make it so everything is private property? How would that even work, even with the most robust property protection system in the world?
For example, would I have to buy canisters of oxygen, or would I be allowed to breathe the air around me? If the air isn’t owned, then who will take polluters to court for screwing it up? If, on the other hand, you’re saying that air should be bought and sold, then I think we’ve moved beyond rational argument.
Re: efficiency.
Read this post, about Drosophila development. It certainly displays redundancy, but I would love for you to explain to me how it is efficient.
And:
There were few alternatives precisely because the unregulated free market did not provide them.
Thanks for supporting my point.
And which system, pray tell, has been perfect and everlasting for humans? Oh Wise Purveyor of Wisdom, since it is the nature of government to accumulate power, does that mean there is no purpose whatsoever in educating and fighting for civil liberties? For economic freedoms? I guess not, we should all just bow down to those wiser than we are and accept fate.
btw nice try to say that I said free markets are not desireable. It just shows the thinness of your position that you have to make things up.
The answer is that I don’t know every detail. Again, how many of you fail to see that your arguments mirror ID argument is beyond me. Just because I don’t have an answer to every individual free market question is not an invalidation of free markets. Sound familiar? It should.
And which system, pray tell, has been perfect and everlasting for humans?
None, of course. But stop walloping that strawman for a second and think about it. I don’t have to know what the best system is to know that unregulated free market capitalism is not it. Much as I don’t have to have the design for the perfect air conditioner to know that lighting myself on fire isn’t going to help me beat this fuckin’ Missouri heat wave.
Everyone who supports ESCR is so gungho on the “potential” treatments and cures it supposedly will produce. Fine, let’s talk about potential. Embryos – by your standards (such as they are) – are potential human beings. If ESCR should continue because of “potential,” shouldn’t embryos be given the chance to continue to live for the same reason?
Jim:
It’s not that you don’t ‘have an answer to every individual free market question’, it’s that there’s a glaring hole in your argument.
You say: “Government regulation is evil!”
I say: “Well, no it’s not. What about environmental regulations? Companies have already shown that they won’t regulate themselves.”
You say: “We don’t need government regulation! Check out this link for a free market solution to that problem.”
I say: “… But that solution would never work.”
You say: “I don’t have to know every detail! You’re just like the Discovery Institute!”
You still haven’t dealt with the issue of environmental regulations in any meaningful way. I suppose that my question is this: do you believe in the ‘free market environmentalism’ outlined in that article?
If so, then my objections to it still stand: regardless of its other deficiencies, it doesn’t even address atmospheric pollution.
If, on the other hand, you don’t believe in it, why even mention it?
By that logic, embryos are also potential miscarriages. Shouldn’t we abort them all, then, to let them fulfill that potential?
Embryos – by your standards (such as they are) – are potential human beings.
But these embryos are most definately not potential human beings. They’ll never be implanted in a uterus, they’ll never gestate, they’ll never be born. Not ever. They have but one destiny and that’s the incinerator.
Jason:
Err, no. For instance, I think the immediate clinical applications of embryonic stem cells are overhyped, but the area should not be deprived of government funding relative to other research areas just because some people have decided for religious reasons that it’s immoral. It’s obviously an important area to study because it will tell us a great deal about development in the human species. It’s not “human experimentation” (as much as you’d like to conjure up phantoms of Mengele) because these aren’t humans; they’re just cell lines with especially interesting properties.
BTW, if we didn’t already have a glut of them as a by-product of IVF treatments, I could begin to understand an argument against creating more. But given that IVF somehow got established without all the controversy, it seems immoral to me to destroy embryos that could benefit our understanding of science and probably lead to at least some therapeutic treatments as well.
What a spurious argument. I guess by this theory, all papers ought to be accepted into a conference. All job applicants ought to be given a chance to work. When I eat a tomato, I ought to grow a few hundred tomato plants to use up the seeds.
Clearly, nobody even for religious reasons believe that we are under any obligation to realize all potential events. People who want to extend legal protection to embryos aren’t protecting “potential” life but what they see as actual human life. In practice, the majority of people in this country do not see it this way. I am against allowing government funding policy to be hijacked to support religious dogma. That is the long and short of why I oppose Bush’s arbitrary and ignorant policy towards the funding of embryonic stem cell research.
BTW, I realize I also slipped into making an argue about “potential.” The embryos in the freezers are not a potential but an actual subject of scientific interest. That is why I oppose destroying them; they have more present, real value in the lab than in the incinerator.
I just want to restate this succinctly.
Jason seems to think the pro-ESCR argument is that we will justify doing something wrong because the benefits are so great.
This is nonsense. Many if not most embryonic stem cell research supporters do not believe there is anything wrong with culturing these particular cell lines and studying them. From a scientific standpoint, these cell lines are as interesting as many other things funded by the NIH–actually more interesting. There is no Faustian bargain; it’s obvious that we should be researching the cells that differentiate into all the parts of the human body.
Bush’s 2001 executive order was religiously motivated interference with government science policy. Of course, scientists can react by studying other species’ embryos, adult stem cell lines, or anything else they have the skills to understand. No doubt, many have done so. But this action was an unprecedented affront to science. Government funding can have an enormous effect on scientific progress both for good and ill and ought to be allocated rationally, not based on a political calculation or by pandering to special religious interests.
To this I would only say that I am proposing something different from the status quo and it is obviously easier to pick apart someone else’s proposal than put forth your own–not that you are under any obligation to put forth your own since I put mine forth unsolicited, but perhaps in the interest of fairness you could comment on whether you think the status quo of what I would consider to be consistently poor environmental mangement by the government. If you would rather see a different system in place of the status quo, what would it be?
Figures–easier to take pot shots than put your own proposals up for similar treatment.