Bush administration bioscience policies criticized
from the presidential-punditry dept.
United Press International has recently run a number of interesting — and largely critical — commentaries on President Bushís policy decisions regarding embryonic stem cell research and human cloning with terms that range from "unworkable" to "embarrassingly stupid."
Read more for a sampling. Some recent items from UPI:
- An analysis by Martin Sieff, UPI Senior News Analyst ("Bush stem cell policy in ruins", 29 August 2001) starts off "Less than three weeks after his pronouncement, President George W. Bush's decision to authorize federally funded stem cell research on a limited number of stem cell lines already appears to be not only dismal science but also utterly unworkable. Possibly no public action since the passing of the 20th Amendment and the Volstead Act banning the legal sale of alcohol in the United States has been revealed to be so unworkable, — and even embarrassingly stupid — so fast." Sieff argues that Bush is in danger of sending the "message will be that he is an anti-scientific illiterate, or even buffoon, who does not care about the suffering of many millions of people and their families from a host of degenerative diseases, when the best prospect for alleviating that suffering and even eliminating it is in the very research he is retarding." Sieff concludes, "It is always a risky business for human moralists to try and impose their own theological reasoning and personal moral concerns on the way nature has chosen to function."
- Bushís choice of Leon Kass to head a new presidential bioethics advisory commission is harshly criticized in a commentary by Michael Lind ("Who is Leon Kass?", 22 August 2001), who says, " Kass's published work reveals him as an individual with extreme views that place him far from the mainstream of both American medicine and American public opinion. As a recent editorial in USA Today pointed out, Kass has produced 'a body of writings that place him on the fringe of medical consensus and raise doubts about his ability to lead the 'president's council' toward common ground.' " Lind concludes "The logic found in Kass's published denunciations of many ordinary medical goals shared by doctors and patients alike leads to a position like that of Christian Science, which opposes modern medicine as inherently immoral." Kass published an impassioned anti-cloning essay in the May 2001 issue of the New Republic.
- An interesting take on the political and religious philosophies muddling? enhancing? the scientific debate going on in the U.S. capital is presented by James C. Bennett ("The Anglosphere: Cloning and the New Jacobins", 18 August 2001).
August 31st, 2001 at 4:16 PM
Is this a surprise?
Anyone with half a brain cell knows that President Bush is an idiot with very little marbles; not only that, he's a religious freak who also wishes to keep mankind in the dark ages (most likely since he has a midievil mentality and would function better in such an environment)
The sad thing is, these 'scientists' who critisize the moron are no better than he is; they are absolute fools to rely on the government and politics to fund and govern their research. Cloning, Stem Cell Research, Nanotechnology and other breakthrough technologies need to funded by anonymous sources and controlled by neutral parties, instead of by biased, shortsided idiots.
If these scientists were smart, they would pack their bags and head to Sri Lanka and do their research there – Sri Lanka has no agreements with the U.S., and therefore, the scientists could perform whatever they so desire WITHOUT permission from society. Currently, that is where many scientists are located – and it wouldn't surprise me if true Nanotech is born there first.
People need to realize that even the most cruelest research can have the greatest of benefits on mankind. Morality and Fear have enslaved mankind into thinking that they are the center of the universe and that human life, (even the unborn), should be protected at all costs; but at the same time, they disregard every other form of life on the planet. Little do they realize that in order to understand the universe, you must first take it apart, understand how the pieces work, and then try and put it back together again. Most people are not willing to do this, however; instead, they would rather continue the cycle of being born, growing up, getting married, having chldren, growing old and then dying. This is how most people's current mindsets are; little do they realize that if they do not choose to evolve beyond this, they will destroy themselves.
Rules were made to be broken; if you're a scientist and follow the 'rules' made by someone else who doesn't even have a clue, then you have no right to call yourself a scientist. Pure and simple.
September 3rd, 2001 at 9:19 AM
Why does the US have to be first?
Would it be so bad if the some other democratic country takes the lead in biotech (and perhaps the lead in AI or nano.)?
Sure, this other country's cultural values wouldn't be our cultural values but who can really claim that the United States' values are the best? Sure it would hurt us economically but would it be so bad in the long run for the planet and species as a whole?
As long as these technologies are researched in the open in a democratic and economically stable country, I think we're pretty safe as a species. If our leaders suffer from lack of vision, so what?
September 8th, 2001 at 8:16 PM
who is Right, who is extreme?
I don't know enough about Leon Kass to be able to dispute Michael Lind's assertion that the man is a right-winger whose "published work reveals him as an individual with extreme views…" However, Lind manages to locate exactly one sentence from Kass' "published work", and it is fairly ambiguous:
"Even the perfectly voluntary use of powers to prolong life, to initiate it in the laboratory, or to make it more colorful and less troublesome through chemistry carries dangers of degradation, depersonalization, and general enfeeblement of soul," Kass writes.
Since I don't know exactly what Kass means by "enfeeblement of soul," it's hard for me to agree or disagree his assertion that such a danger exists, much less to label it as an example of "extreme views that place him far from the mainstream of both American medicine and American public opinion."
In any case, it doesn't seem so extreme to me to suggest that such technologies carry moral risks, possibly tending toward dehumanization, and that these issues should be considered in deciding what to do and not to do. Merely to suggest that such a danger exists does not seem at all extreme to me; rather, the extreme vigor of Lind's denunciations, based on what seems a single very mild suggestion, makes me suspect that it may not be Leon Kass who is harboring an extremist agenda.