A few things here; (caveat; I haven't followed the recent research as closely as I'd like, so my knowledge is about 6-8 years old)

1. Pure research is not the same as applied research, so research that companies will fund is not exactly identical to research that is useful to do. Various governments (particularly the American and Japanese govts) funded research into computers long before industries picked up on the topic. The US was working with satelites long before private industry was. The same is true with a lot of technology. Industry tends to be competitive and corporate research in most companies has to yeild short term results. Unless you have a huge wad of cash from being a monopoly (Bell Labs, anyone?), it's rare for a company to be able to invest in the basic research that leads to entirely new industries and long term benefits. It's easier for industry to make incremental improvements once the field has been established.

2. Once cells differentiate they lose immortality. Embryonic stem cells are (theoretically) immortal. Adult stem cells are not (though possibly research will find or has found a way to make some so). When doing research, having a cell line is a good thing because it provides standardization. Saying "adult stem cells are better than embryonic stem cells" is roughly like saying that my heirloom tomatoes are better than your storebought ones. This may be true, but the storebought tomatoes ripen simultaneously and are amenable to mass harvesting. Never underestimate the benefits of standardization and mass production. Similarly, embryonic stem cells can replicate indefinitely (theoretically. Practically there are some limits) I'm not sure whether adult stem cells can be merged with cancer cells to create similar immortal cell lines or not, but having immortal cell lines is a useful thing which should not be discounted too quickly.

long before industries

Should be "long before industries not supported by the government."

I probably should have just left my comment to the American government. The Japanese government has it's hands in so many major Japanese industries, and Japan's anticompetitive actions against Cray and entry into the market may have been after computers started being supported by the mainstream.

P.S. I should mention that making adult stem cells immortal will probably make them more or less equivalet to embryonic stem cells. This may have happened with sheep in the creation of 'dolly' since otherwise production of an adult (even an unhealthy adult) from an adult stem cell should have been near impossible (due to Hayflick's limit). Bush seems to think that stem cell lines are okay, but using embryos is not. I'm not sure if that's the universal view. Personally, I see no real difference between the two.

Those who cannot agree that forcing people to pay for something that is morally reprehensible to them is evil are themselves evil and hypocritical.

Do you really believe in that standard?
What if someone disagress with a millitary action?
I know a few who resent their money being used in Iraq because they feel that it's going towards the murder of innocents.
I'd honestly (no sarcasm here) be interested in seeing a society built upon this model. You have to pay a certain amount of taxes,lets say income taxes, but you can control what specific areas the money does or does not go towards rather than congress. If you prefer, you can let the appropriations committe decide for you. Maybe it'd help reduce corruption and streamline reform efforts.

I wonder if people would be more likely to pay if they felt they had a say in what their money was spent on, and a tangible reminder that it was going to somthing presumably productive. The details are a little blurry, but it's an interesting thought.

essentially creating and then destroying embryoes for the purposes of medical research.

Of course, this already happens without the research part in fertility clinics. Stem cell research could be done without increasing the number of embryos destroyed, if it's the destruction itself that bothers you. Or an embryo could be split, with one implanted and the cells from the other used. Or is a split embryo supposed to be two different people?

The military is a mandatory part of any government...

Defense is mandatory. Not all military actions involve defense of the citizenry. Speaking for myself now, "School of the Americas" activities are a little harder to justify as 'defense.' Advocating torture and arrest of a perosn's family members overseas is hard to justify as defense. Especially when the given nation never attacked us.

Now, if you disagree with what is done with that money, fine, its within your rights as a citizen, but the way you go about changing that is through the natural electoral and political proccess. Government subsidies to support morally and scientificly questionable medical science is just in an altogether different area morally and logically.

You would change subsidies through the electoral process, same as anything else. There's nothing in the constitution that says that the outrage of an individual gets special consideration. Maybe it'd be a matter of politeness, that people who didn't agree with your views should respect them? But are you saying you would vote against any non-mandatory gov't funding if a minority found it reprehensible, even if you personally were fine with the practice and benefitted from it? I'm trying to figure out what moral standard makes this funding "hypocritical" as opposed to a violation of your moral principles.

People are asked all the time to pay for government services that they may not agree with, morally. There are some people who feel that animal testing is wrong. Should we change the FDA for them?

Finally, you seem to be under the impression that I'm against this research because I equate embryoes with fully developed human beings, which I don't.

My mistake then. I've talked to a few other people who seemed to see cells as people and destruction of them as outright murder.

would you argue that identical twins are NOT two individual people?

Oh of course Identical twins are two different people. But I believe they're different people for reasons that don't really apply to stem cells.

Personally, I think that stem cells pretty safely aren't individuals at all specifically because they're not a set number of persons. But that's just me. I realize most of Modern Conservative American Christendom disagrees with me here. And what's voted on will become law.

er, defence rather. not 'defense'

... it's rare for a company to be able to invest in the basic research that leads to entirely new industries and long term benefits...

It's the other way around: most new innovations do not come from governments, only in a few rare cases are goverment sponsors crucial.

The telephone was not invented by the government. Nor was the phonograph. Nor the automobile. Nor was the computer. Nor was AM radio. Nor FM radio. Nor television. Nor rubber, nor plastics. Not the printing press. Nor the word processor, nor light bulb, nor antibiotics.

The only examples I can think of where the government contributed were space travel, radar, the transistor, and the Internet.

And three of those undermine your example: Radar was just an improvement on existing technology. The transistor was discovered by a private company (AT&T) -- albeit one who had been granted a government monopoly on telephone service. Who knows: the telephone industry might have been further ahead had it not been forcibly monpolized.

Though I generally agree with his stance more, I also agree Troy sounds a bit like he backed himself into a corner by placing so much emphasis on spending money on something someone finds objectionable.

On the other hand, though I can't speak for him, he could simply be trying to say why stem cell research is shouldn't be funded -- in an argument to his peers -- not trying to say there's a specific Constitutional principle saying we should never fund anything if someone objects.

For example, I could say it's immoral to burn thousand dollar bills to warm the Department of Energy Offices (would that be cheaper? hmmm), but that doesn't mean I'm saying the idea is prohibited by the Constitution.

On the other hand...

Saying "adult stem cells are better than embryonic stem cells" is roughly like saying that my heirloom tomatoes are better than your storebought ones...

Except that in your analogy, your "store" doesn't actually carry any tomatoes. And, in point of fact, unlike actual mass-produced tomatoes, private enterprise doesn't want to fund it for a reason. That should be telling you something.

Once cells differentiate they lose immortality... Never underestimate the benefits of standardization and mass production.

Instead, we should always overestimate it, including to the point of error, as you do here. We'll just mass produce neurons, livers, Isles of Langerhans, retinas, gray matter, bone marrow, lungs, and skin grafts -- never mind worries about DNA compatibility, rejection and little trivial bits like that.

One can claim anything works better if one simply ignores the points where it actually doesn't.

Personally, I see no real difference between the two.

That's because you simply ignore the major relevant differences which I've already pointed out: Adult stem cells currently "work", embryonic stem cells don't. Tissue grown from your adult stem cells will be DNA-compatible; embryonic stem cells are not expected to be (anytime soon).

Personally, I think that stem cells pretty safely aren't individuals at all specifically because they're not a set number of persons.

Sigh. More gross ignorance here, Ryan. Nobody is saying "stem cells are individual people."

Stem cells -- embryonic stem cells, to include the omitted word -- are derived from embryos. The first embryonic cells are NOT stem cells -- stem cells don't occur until quite a bit down the line -- a week to twenty days or more, the point at which differentiation starts. When the cells are retrieved, the embryo is destroyed.

You seem to write here as though you thought stem cells developed into people. Not unless cloning is involved. But then you're back to creating an embryo.

The ethical problem doesn't involve the stem cell lines per se. The ethical problem comes into question when you are harvesting embryos -- at various stages of development -- and cloning new ones.

Essentially, you want to create something which grows into a liver without growing the rest of the human. (Or hey, maybe it will -- there's no legal prohibitions.) That's why it's call "theraputic cloning", Ryan -- because the clone is destroyed at a certain point in development and now allowed to come to term. That's what the nice-sounding qualifier "theraputic" means: that you're potentially growing something that could go beyond "embryo" but is ultimately aborted.

That scenario, and its potential ramifications, should give any ethical human being pause.

I realize most of Modern Conservative American Christendom disagrees with me here.

In my case, it's because I see you as being mistaken about the science in question, mistaken about the source of most innovation, mistaken about the nature and utility of government, and also mistaken about the specifics of your opponents' objections.

Oh, sorry, it was all about religion. Scratch all that. If it's about religion, then we don't have to think all these hard thoughts. Atheists smart; Christians dumb.

Always good to have a simplifying narrative handy, isn't it?

Tim-

most new innovations do not come from governments, only in a few rare cases are goverment sponsors crucial.

First, you're totally ignoring the distinction between pure and applied research. You seem to be setting up a model where the only type of research that exists is applied research (applied research = research to create a product) and claiming that such research does not in any way benefit from government backed pure research (pure research = research done for the sake of knowledge, not immediate commercial application.)

I'm refering here specifically (as I noted) to new fields of innovation which require pure research, R&D etc. before applied research can begin. If you can take prevailing knowledge (often derived from government backed work) and do applied research designed to produce a product for the commercial market then private industry does just fine. I agree.

Regarding those technologies which require massive exenditures to kickstart the industry;

Early computers were used largely in universities and by governements and that market was crucial. Government can give many types of support, but this support is sometimes crucial to start certain industries. Though some inventions were supplied by private industry, whether the government deliberately creates a monopoly for the company or if government funding takes the form of purchasing new technologies or of funding pure research which leads to the creation of the new technologies doesn't matter much to me.

Salk worked all his life at government funded educational institutions, did considerable work on vaccines as commissioned by the millitary, etc.

The World Wide Web was initiated as a CERN project called ENQUIRE.

Capacitators are built using an understanding of quantum mechanics. Which was elucidated by which corporation?

Where are the privately owned particle accelerators, operating free of any government involvement whatsoever?

The power, phone and fiber optic networks all relied on gov't help in creating the infrastructure.

Fission and fusion too.

Lasers developed for the defense department are used in electronics.

Of course, I'm giving you mostly applied topics since that seems to be what you're interested in. But at least consider that things like discovering that DNA has a double helical structure might not be totally irrelevant to the history of science? The discovery of the ozone hole was done by government researchers and I have no good reason to believe that private industry had an incentive to even look for this kind of problem. Do you think they did?

And three of those undermine your example

I specifically describe how government granted monopolies can engage in "pure" research that only leads to innovations after some time because they are exempt enough from daily competition which requires immediate ROI. So an example that fits my model exactly as described is hardly a disproof. My example is concrete. Your counter is purely speculative.

Radar was just an improvement on existing technology.
And I pretty clearly stated that private industry was capable of doing incremental improvements on existing technology through applied research. So again, this fits the model I described.

On the other hand, though I can't speak for him, he could simply be trying to say why stem cell research is shouldn't be funded -- in an argument to his peers -- not trying to say there's a specific Constitutional principle saying we should never fund anything if someone objects.

I could understand if he said that people who disagreed with him were immoral, if he believed that.

However he said that people who opposed gov't funding for embryonic stem cell research were hypocrites. That's an assertion, unless I misread him, that they've violated some specific standard that they've expressed, whether constitutional or moral. I wanted to know what that standard was.

Except that in your analogy, your "store" doesn't actually carry any tomatoes. And, in point of fact, unlike actual mass-produced tomatoes, private enterprise doesn't want to fund it for a reason. That should be telling you something.

Because of course a government funded researcher would never be interested in silly things like trying to understand embryonic development. I mean, you can't put a price tag on that information, so it couldn't possibly be of any use to have a cell line for studying it, right?

Essentially, you want to create something which grows into a liver without growing the rest of the human.

Or you want to do research on an immortal line of standardized cells. Not all research is applied. Not all research is about developing organs. (Incidentally, they've apparently found a way to switch on the telomerase gene in adult stem cells now without combining them with cancer cells apparently, so they'd be useful for some but not all (later but not earlier) developmental research purposes.) Of course, once you do this to adult stem cells you're one step closer to having actual cancer cells (turning on telomerase permantly is one step in the process of carcinogenesis), so you'd likely have most of the same problems with telomerase expressing adult stem cells that you would with embryonic lines.

Stem cells -- embryonic stem cells, to include the omitted word

The statement was not incorrect. It applies to all stem cells.

Sigh. More gross ignorance here, Ryan. Nobody is saying "stem cells are individual people."

I've had a few long involved arguments with people who believed they were. Next time I encounter one I'll direct them to your website and you can deal with their gross ignorance instead of me.

And yes, I know what theraputic cloning is. Incidentally, not all adult stem cell research is even about growing and implanting organs. You may not want to 'grow a new organ' as much as enhance the organ's capacity to regenerate itself by refreshing its stem cell reserve, which the body uses to repair itself. Possibly after modifying the cell.

Atheists smart; Christians dumb.
I never said anything of the sort. All the ad homenims in this thread are yours. If you don't like that kind of argument, don't make them. The issue was how funding was changed, i.e. through the electoral process by majority vote.

I will admit I'm ignorant on one specific point; the degree to which cord blood stem cells can replace embryonic stem cells in pure research (such as for understanding fetal development, testing on specific cell lines, etc.) Yes, I know they can be used to make organs and that's promising. But that's not what I'm looking for.

All the ad homenims in this thread are yours.
...Or attempted ad hominems anyways. I'm not an atheist.

... or whatever type of fallacy that would be considered. Straw man, I suppose, since it totally misconstrues the argument I made.

Tim: Essentially, you want to create something which grows into a liver without growing the rest of the human.

(You're ignoring my point, as usual, which was about the nature of the ethical debate...)

Ryan: Or you want to do research on an immortal line of standardized cells. Not all research is applied.

Agreed: not all research is applied. And yes, I can agree there would be some value in doing research on a standardized line of cells.

But:

(1) There are already a number of standardized lines of stem cells. You don't need massive government funding to create that situation.

(2) That's not what is being sold to the public. The reason people are funding their representatives is to support (they believe) therapic cures, not pure research. If the only benefit you can name is pure research, then you're essentially admitting a bait and switch.

I'm not "totally ignoring the distinction between pure and applied research." I'm simply responding to the debate on it's own terms.

At the DNC, we didn't hear Ron Reagan tell us that if embryonic stem cell research were government-funded, Christopher Reeve could then read a really neat article about some pure research with no currently-known application. Instead, people got excited about the idea Christopher Reeve might walk.

By attempting to shift the terms of the debate to pure research, you're conceding my point: embryonic stem cells have no known short-term functional applications. Sometimes pure research is just fine, except (a) when there are ethical problems, and/or (b) when that shift happens at the expense of an emphasis on technologies which will actually save lives and heal.

Do you understand my point here? I'm not here to have a lovely debate with you about whether pure research might be interesting, or maybe possibly someday prove useful. That's not what the stem cell debate is currently about. Your feelings on that point are very nice, but it's not what the voters are up about, and it's not what the scientists and their lobbyists are promising.

Regarding your second attempt to make the government appear to have been vitally necessary for certain technologies:

Early computers were used largely in universities and by governements and that market was crucial...

What do you mean by "early"? IBM was making massive data-processing tabulation machines in the 1920s and before -- largely for commerical customers, not the government. In fact, this era is the origin of the card format which dominated early computing.

Yes, of course, during WWII and afterwards, government and universities did buy and do research into computing.

But this isn't your point, Ryan. You're trying to claim the computer industry as one which needed "massive [government] exenditures to kickstart." But that's not the picture you're painting here.

Salk worked all his life at government funded educational institutions, did considerable work on vaccines as commissioned by the millitary, etc.

Fair example. Finally.

The World Wide Web was initiated as a CERN project called ENQUIRE.

The key technology was hypertext, which had already been developed in the private sector by Apple. And again, you produce an example which actually undermines your point.

Tim Berners-Lee was actually supposed to be working on high-energy particle physics, not developing the world-wide web. So HTML and HTTP were pretty much developed by one guy, doing something the government, technically speaking, hadn't asked him to do.

Why you think this story is an example of needing a technology "which require[d] massive exenditures to kickstart the industry" is beyond me.

Capacitators are built using an understanding of quantum mechanics. Which was elucidated by which corporation?

You and I live in different worlds, factually, Ryan. First, you don't need even the slightest understading of quantum mechanics to "build" a capacitor. The first capacitor was the Leyden jar, from the 1700s. The basic unit of capacitance is the farad, named for Michael Faraday who DIED in 1867.

Nice try, Ryan, but you're not even in the same century. If you'd known more about electronics, or just bothered to do the research, you might have pointed out that Faraday was basicly employed by the Queen -- and you would have made a valid point.

Instead it appears you tried to use clever phrasing to fudge, implying that since people currently understand this phenomenon using quatum mechanics, why, certainly we'd have no capacitors otherwise. As if we could argue that one needed to understand the breaking of electron orbital bonds in order to derive benefits from fire.

Doesn't it bother you to pull stuff like that?

The power, phone and fiber optic networks all relied on gov't help in creating the infrastructure.

How, using eminent domain? By being another consumer? Do I need to remind you again of the case you claim to be making? Cases that "require massive [government] exenditures to kickstart the industry"? Where are the crucial massive expenditures here?

The government created a telephone monopoly -- not the telephone. As far as I can see, the evidence suggests we would have been further ahead without this particular intervention. I mean, good heavens, for decades people weren't even being allowed to hook up answering machines for heavens' sakes.

Lasers developed for the defense department are used in electronics.

Correct.

Tim: Radar was just an improvement on existing technology.

Ryan: And I pretty clearly stated that private industry was capable of doing incremental improvements on existing technology through applied research. So again, this fits the model I described.

Not. Paying. Attention.

Ryan, radar was a major innovation produced by government not private industry. I just stated that plainly.

It does not at all fit the model of "industry ... doing incremental improvements on existing technology" becaues the original technology was provided by industry, and the incremental improvements were provided by government.

And later: There was research into genetics for a LONG time before most of the research could find a practical application.

Good point. That would be another case where practical results were first invested in by governments.

Of course, I'm giving you mostly applied topics since that seems to be what you're interested in.

Me? I'm interested in the *applications* of stem cells? Really, it's just me? Did you not even notice this massive debate swirling about you concering the "applied" benefits of stem cell technology?

No, I guess it was something I just fixated on, for no apparent reason at all. It's not like the article written above gave any hints I was focused on the terms of the political debate.

But at least consider that things like discovering that DNA has a double helical structure might not be totally irrelevant to the history of science?

Ryan, you're deeply lost in a straw man argument here. My point is not that there is no value to pure research, or that the government should never fund basic research. I've never said anything of the sort, so it's odd to see you arguing as though I had.

I agree entirely with funding many kinds of basic research -- especially in the service of defense, which the Constitution clearly outlines as one of the governments' basic responsibilities.

Do I need to remind you of your own statement?

Apparently.

Ryan said:

"... it's rare for a company to be able to invest in the basic research that leads to entirely new industries and long term benefits..."

Ryan, it was YOU, not I who induced this focus about "new industries" (which indicidentally, don't thrive on "pure research"). Why was I listing industries, based on practical inventions? How odd I was -- for doing that in order to answer your assertion above.

So I'm not making any of the straw man arguments you're imputing to me: I'm not saying NO innovations have ever come from the government, and I'm not saying pure research has no value. These appear to be fantastic positions you have concoted for me to hold, rather than simply admit your statement was in error.

It is not rare at all for the basic technologies which form new industries to come from something other than the government.

Ryan, though I often think I like the person behind your words, having a debate with you is rather frustrating at times. At each point, you seem determined to answer statements not being made, and pretend we're having a debate about a different topic than the one at hand.

You'll say X doesn't happen. I'll give examples of X. You'll ask why I'm so fixated on X, and point out Y is very useful sometimes, and why don't I like Y. Grrrr. I've never said I don't like Y. I'm just pointing out your first statement is false.

Here's another classic example:

Ryan: Saying "adult stem cells are better than embryonic stem cells" is roughly like saying that my heirloom tomatoes are better than your storebought ones.

Tim: Except that in your analogy, your "store" doesn't actually carry any tomatoes.

Ryan: Because of course a government funded researcher would never be interested in silly things like trying to understand embryonic development. I mean, you can't put a price tag on that information, so it couldn't possibly be of any use to have a cell line for studying it, right?

The thread of discussion begins with me saying that adult stem cells have significant advantages over embryonic stem cells. I then point out they're being used to actually heal people, etc.

Then you start talking about tomatoes. Meaning what? What does the tomato supposedly represent here? A cure? The reader can only guess. Are you talking about "pure" research in this paragraph? It doesn't sound like it from the context, sinc (a) that's what the first paragraph was about, (b) you state the benefits involve "mass harvesting" and "mass production" -- terms that bring to mind Ford's Model T more than a wide variety of unique experiments, and (c) you're also talking about things consumers purchase in a "store".

So I guess that you're talking about mass-producing things for practical purposes, not pure research. If I got the guess wrong, then forgive me, but it's certainly not because your analogy was immediately obvious.

And thus I point out there ARE no practical applications yet, and there IS no mass production, and the "stores" (i.e. industries which are likely to turn out therapies people need) are in fact closer to stocking the kind of tomato you just deprecated.

So then your retort is set of straw-man arguments: I am opposed to stem cell lines. (Even though I just explained I wasn't.) I don't understand some scientists are interested in doing pure research. (Yet that's my entire argument: These people want us to fund something which has no known short-term practical value.)

If your entire point is that pure research sometimes can be valuable, then saying that (as you did) was enough -- we don't need to drag the tomatoes into this.

My answer would simply be that, right, or not, that's not how proponents are framing their desire for funding.

And if your point was that stem cell lines are valuable for research, then great, again. Again, simply say that without resorting to "stores" and "mass production."

Any my answer would have been: Well, lovely, but we already have stem cell lines. It's not the stem cell lines per se which are controversial, it's the embryos.

Tim: Sigh. More gross ignorance here, Ryan. Nobody is saying "stem cells are individual people."

Ryan: I've had a few long involved arguments with people who believed they were. Next time I encounter one I'll direct them to your website and you can deal with their gross ignorance instead of me.

Well, we could probably both do more arguing with someone actually in the room.

Ryan: Personally, I think that stem cells pretty safely aren't individuals at all specifically because they're not a set number of persons. But that's just me. I realize most of Modern Conservative American Christendom disagrees with me here. And what's voted on will become law.

Tim: Oh, sorry, it was all about religion. Scratch all that. If it's about religion, then we don't have to think all these hard thoughts. "Atheists smart; Christians dumb." Always good to have a simplifying narrative handy, isn't it?

Ryan: I never said anything of the sort. All the ad homenims in this thread are yours. If you don't like that kind of argument, don't make them.

You never said anything of the sort? Don't be coy, you certainly implied as much.

We're having a discussion about various points -- all basicly secular -- and suddenly you imply your opponents object to doing research on "stem cells" (which they don't, and have said nothing of the sort), think cells are people (another imputed false position) and then imply the reason they hold these obviously-stupid positions (which they don't even hold) and disagree with you has to do with their participation in "American Christendom" -- not the reasons just given.

And your argument is contradictory: It's supposedly "ad homenim" [sic] to point out religious differences AFTER you already raised them? But it WASN'T an ad homen for you to make the same implication -- apropros of nothing -- in the first place???

Ryan: Christians believe obviously-wrong things -> NOT an ad homen attack?

Tim: Atheists think Christians are dumb -> DEFINITE ad homen attack?

No, sorry, I don't buy it.

To recap, I understand you as saying you think pure research can have value. Good enough; sometimes that's indeed true. But it's not as valuable as research which is on the cusp of actually delivering huge and important benefits. As I said in the article above, why hope for pie in the sky at the price of slowing the delivery of the pie actually sitting in the kitchen?

One last...

Ryan: All the ad homenims in this thread are yours. ... Or attempted ad hominems anyways. I'm not an atheist.

Tim: Essentially, you want to create something which grows into a liver without growing the rest of the human.

(You're ignoring my point, as usual, which was about the nature of the ethical debate...)

You're responding to your own posting here.

You don't need massive government funding to create that situation.

You need govenrment funding to support pure research because private industry will give little funding to
projects that don't yeild saleable products. I was refering in my post to both the importance of government funding of pure research in general and also to
this particular case.

There are already a number of standardized lines of stem cells.

Reprsenting all possible developmental diseases?

(2) That's not what is being sold to the public. The reason people are funding their representatives is to support (they believe) therapic cures, not pure research. If the only benefit you can name is pure research, then you're essentially admitting a bait and switch.

My point is that pure research, supported by the government, is important for private industry to effectively and efficiently conduct applied research.

So the quid pro quo is honest. The pure research does strive to bring about the benefits it offers through promotion of the commerical sector.

Sometimes pure research is just fine, except ... when that shift happens at the expense of an emphasis on technologies which will actually save lives and heal.

You've said yourself that private industry is capable of taking care of the applied side of things. They can probably do this better than the government can, right? What private industry is less good at is pure research.

Doesn't it bother you to pull stuff like that?

I apologize, I shouldn't have used an exaple I wasn't totally familiar with. If you'd like to address fission or fusion, I think I'm on pretty solid ground there.

The power, phone and fiber optic networks all relied on gov't help in creating the infrastructure.

How, using eminent domain? By being another consumer? Do I need to remind you again of the case you claim to be making? Cases that "require massive [government] exenditures to kickstart the industry"? Where are the crucial massive expenditures here?

We're already in agreement that AT&T was a government granted monopoly.

I'll repost my original post since you don't seem to have read it.
Unless you have a huge wad of cash from being a monopoly (Bell Labs, anyone?), it's rare for a company to be able to invest in the basic research that leads to entirely new industries and long term benefits. It's easier for industry to make incremental improvements once the field has been established.

The government created a telephone monopoly -- not the telephone.

I was refering to the research done at Bell Labs, and giving it as an exaple as a type of corporation which was free to do and also dissememinate the results of its pure research because of its unique circumstances.

My argument, distilled, is this;

1. Pure research is helpful in doing applied research.
2. Private industry in a competitve free market is not a good source of pure research.

Me? I'm interested in the *applications* of stem cells? Really, it's just me? Did you not even notice this massive debate swirling about you concering the "applied" benefits of stem cell technology?

I'm giving you topics where government research led directly and conclusively to applied research. I maintain that pure research is important for
applied research, but I don't think you would be that convinced by important discoveries in theoretical research that led to innovations decades later.

My point is not that there is no value to pure research, or that the government should never fund basic research. I've never said anything of the sort, so it's odd to see you arguing as though I had.

Your implied point was that if stem cells are not useful for applied research then they're useless.

Naturally, private funding tends to support therapies that actually work -- meaning, of course, adult, not embryonic stem cells. Of course, if your idea sucks, and nobody in the private world will fund it, how do you get funds?

If you said; 'embryonic stem cell research could yeild important information about the human developmental process but seems less likely to yeild therapies in the short term that have been promised, at least compared to adult stem cell research. And also I feel it's immoral and shouldn't be done." then I could see your point. However it sounds like you're saying "if corporations aren't interested in doing embryonic stem cell research then that's a pretty clear clue that doing ESC research is entirely worthless/sucks."

Then you start talking about tomatoes. Meaning what? What does the tomato supposedly represent here? A cure?

Probably I should have used a metaphore other than a store and physical products. That was confusing and I apologize. I was trying to use an example I was familiar with (i.e. heirloom vs. harveted foods), but it was unclear.

The point I was trying to make was that standardized cell lines are important for doing research. It's good to have a bunch of identical, standardized cells to work with.
Granted, I do think that such cell lines might one day yeild commercial products as well, though that might be doable with adult stem cells as you argued originally (though once you turn on telomerase i'm guessing there will be problems similar to those of ESC.) Some products need to be generic and pre-prepared. i.e. a bag of CMV negative blood for babies who are bleeding to death. And in the long run, those will be better off mass produced.

The stuff I'd read 6 years back or so seemed to be indicating that there was some other barrier besides just the reintroduction of telomerase for overcoming Hayflick's limit. If my breif skimming of the topic is an indication, permanently switching on telomerase may be enough, in which case most of this mass production may actually be workable using adult stem cells.

And thus I point out there ARE no practical applications yet, and there IS no mass production, and the "stores" (i.e. industries which are likely to turn out therapies people need) are in fact closer to stocking the kind of tomato you just deprecated.

I think this will change eventually, at least with some therapies, given enough research.

Any my answer would have been: Well, lovely, but we already have stem cell lines. It's not the stem cell lines per se which are controversial, it's the embryos.

Frequently in studying some ailment scientists will use an animal specifically bred to develop that ailment, an animal model. If the ethics of ESC research was not an issue I think it would be pretty unanimous that having stem cell lines representing certain ailments could be useful.

Well, we could probably both do more arguing with someone actually in the room.

Lol. I doubt it. I'm about tapped out for a day or two.

Tim: Oh, sorry, it was all about religion. Scratch all that. If it's about religion, then we don't have to think all these hard thoughts. "Atheists smart; Christians dumb." Always good to have a simplifying narrative handy, isn't it?

Ryan: I never said anything of the sort. All the ad homenims in this thread are yours. If you don't like that kind of argument, don't make them.

You never said anything of the sort? Don't be coy, you certainly implied as much.

I'm being entirely straightforward. Conservative Christians are a powerful, well organized voting bloc that have shown they're willing to vote based on this issue.
That gives them leverage in the democratic process. The question between Troy and myself was how this issue would be resolved. My argument was it would be resolved through the voting process exactly as other issues are, and seems to be resolved in favor of Troy's beliefs. How is that apropos of nothing?

I said I didn't agree with a certain view and gave reasons. C'mon Tim. You do that yourself.

To recap, I understand you as saying you think pure research can have value. Good enough; sometimes that's indeed true. But it's not as valuable as research which is on the cusp of actually delivering huge and important benefits. As I said in the article above, why hope for pie in the sky at the price of slowing the delivery of the pie actually sitting in the kitchen?

Because private industry is doing a fine job with the applied end of things without any help from the government. I'm hoping that publicly funded research will pick up the slack precisely where pure research leaves off.

You're not? Forgive me then, since I got that impression from your statement here:

The notion that there's a god that can do whatever it likes is illogical.

What you give is a quote from earlier in the page. It's not my comment. It's somthing I was responding to.

Though generally speaking I don't believe the laws of physics are rolled back in this world. I view most miraculous accounts as either metaphores or outright fabrications. I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong, given firsthand evidence.

I believe that God works through people and it's through Him and through laws in accordance with God that people can acheive a pattern of organization other than the brutal power hierarchies that seem to be default for the human condition. I don't claim to have a clear view of how we should separate good from bad, except that history seems to offer up some illustrative examples and hopefully God/The Holy Spirit/Ruach Hakodesh works through people.

If that clarifies anything.

Tim: Essentially, you want to create something which grows into a liver without growing the rest of the human.

(You're ignoring my point, as usual, which was about the nature of the ethical debate...)

The above should have all been in italics, as it's all quoted

I'm hoping that publicly funded research will pick up the slack precisely where pure research leaves off.

grr... this should have read "where applied/private research leaves off."

My argument, distilled, is this;

1. Pure research is helpful in doing applied research.
2. Private industry in a competitve free market is not a good source of pure research.

I should clarify again. I was also making another argument regarding the importance of the government in promoting certain types of research projects. But it was a bit more tangental so I dropped it for the sake of simplicity.

3. That publicly funded research often does not efficiently compete with private research when it comes to the applied sciences, or areas where private industry is incented to perform well.

4. Therefore what private industry does or not pursue is not a good indicator of what publicly funded research should or should not pursue.

5. While universities can recoup research costs by creating and licensing new technologies, public funding can improve efficiency by promoting general knowledge of a topic which everyone has free access to rather than specific products.

One correction I need to make to what I've written. It seems adult stem cells are easier to tell apart from cancer cells than embryonic stem cells are.

Okay, I'm starting to see what's going on here. It was tough to find information on stem cells for developmental research for all the talk about therapy. Apparently it'd be easier to purify adult stem cell lines, removing cancer cells, than it would be to purify embryonic stem cell lines. Contamination has been a major problem since any cell line (adult or embryonic) will tend to carcinogenesis and there's no good way to purify ESC yet.

But it's not just enough for them to get funding: they have to make sure the nothing shows they were wrong by competing with them.

Given that stem cell research is also funded by the private sector, how are they supposed to believe this is even feasible? And yes, there are a few millions of dollars being invested by private companies for embryonic stem cell research. It gets less funding, and all for attempts at short term results, but a few millions is more than nothing.

Troy-

I've heard of the "pay as you go" tax system or whatever you choose to call it. Its a silly idea for the most part. There are just certain things that a government cannot allow you to get out of.

Just to clarify, I agree with you that 'pay as you go' tax systems are bogus. I was thinking more along the lines of having society wide funding of certain services, but using some kind of line-item ballot initiative rather than relying on an appropriations committe for controversial issues. Perhaps it'd be a disaster. Perhaps people aren't politically informed enough. I'd be interested (read curious) to see a model that worked. They seem to have somthing close out here in AZ with ballot initiatives. At worst, it doesn't seem to have done any harm.

From the begining this story has been about, and orchestrated by, those who would make money from embryonic stem cell research. Though their research has been legal, it has been unproductive.

But it hasn't been unproductive. One example;

Neurons grown from embryonic stem cells restore function in paralyzed rats
http://biosingularity.wordpress.com/2006/06/20/neurons-grown-from-embryonic-stem-cells-restore-function-in-paralyzed-rats/

Granted, those are rat ESCs, not humans, but the proof of concept is there. Of course, there are no human trials with ESCs at the NIH because the government has essentially prevented it. Maybe adult stem cells can fill this role. I don't know yet.

As for researchers (I assume you mean researcher?) being "motivated by money", why it would be so difficult for these scientists to just switch over to another very closely related type of research (adult stem cells) that is being more heavily funded, if money is a big motivator. I'm assuming that working with ESC and ASC can't be that different. Maybe I'm wrong?

BTW, most of the current 'government sanctioned' embryonic stem cell lines have been found to be contaminated, one way or another. Many were contaminated by the animal cells which they are frequently cultured with. Limiting human embryonic stem cell research to the lines existing in 2001 is almost the same as banning such research from being done by the government.

It's possible to get embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics, without increasing the number of embryos destroyed. That seems to be along the same lines as Bush's approved stem cell lines; namely that there's nothing inherantly wrong with stem cell research. But government funding shouldn't lead to additional destruction of embryos.

It's possible that advances with ASC will make use of ESC irrelevant very soon. Or maybe not. I don't think we know yet.

Human embryonic stem cells display a unique pattern of chemical modification to DNA
http://biosingularity.wordpress.com/2006/08/05/human-embryonic-stem-cells-display-a-unique-pattern-of-chemical-modification-to-dna/#more-261

Scientists have grown a complete human prostate from embryonic stem cells

“We need to study healthy prostate tissue from 15-25 year old men to track this process. Understandably, there is a lack of access to samples from men in this age group, so to have found a way we can have an ongoing supply of prostate tissue is a significant milestone,” said Dr Taylor.

http://biosingularity.wordpress.com/2006/02/27/scientists-have-grown-a-complete-human-prostate-from-embryonic-stem-cells/
http://nurture.nature.com/aggademia/item/2006-02-27-scientists_have_grown_a_complete_human_prostate_from_embryonic_stem_cells

Human Embryonic Stem Cell Line Produced Without Use Of Animal Products

January 23, 2006

(the first of its kind)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060123164248.htm

Bolstering the state's efforts, UC San Francisco received $16 million this week from billionaire Ray Dolby for its Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a new research center that will feature embryonic stem cell research currently unfundable by federal sources.
http://nurture.nature.com/aggademia/posts/stem_cells

As for researchers (I assume you mean researcher?)

This is minor but, this should mean "I assume you mean researchers" not 'researcher.' Meaning I assume that the 'people who would make money from this' is a reference to the folks doing the research since private industry isn't going to make money unless there's a product to sell.