Bush proves he's not the brightest -- again.

[AggieDave 6]

Some people don't believe the same way about abortion that you do Quade. And my beliefs aren't that of an uber-Christian trying to Bible beat you. If you're really interested, PM or e-mail me and I'll tell you why, but I have deep personal reasons.
"Are they short-shorts?" T.B.

[ramon 0]

Haha
Neil Bush never served any jail time for his part in the S&L bail out we are paying for with taxes either.
Neil Bush is best known for his business failures -- particularly the collapse of Colorado's Silverado Savings and Loan, of which he was a director. The bank failed in 1988, costing the federal government $1 billion and becoming a much-publicized part of the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s.

[ramon 0]

I don't think I could abort my child unless the mother might die if we didn't.
but...
I still hate Bush
and Gore and Clinton too
I'd like to see Gore, Dubya and dan Quayle play a 3 way 'Chess' death match and have the winner figure out why we need Chlorine in Sewage plants
"My fellow astronauts....."
Vice President Dan Quayle, beginning a speech at an Apollo 11 anniversary celebration.

[christopherm 0]

I think that.... well if only.... when you.... stem cells only... they... clone... fuck, i forgot what I was talking about. Oh well, I just got done playing with some Boobies and I also think that cloning is wrong, i'm not educated enough about stem cells to give a give an opinion, I don't like admitting it but I see so many problems with the Bush administration, we wouldn't have to worry about oil if we ran on the hundreds of miles/gallon engines that MIT can create, Rocky and Bulwinkle should run the country, and I just got done playing with boobies.
-So, how hard is the ground?!

[ramon 0]

I like that already

[SpeedRacer 1]

Hey Lindsey: I brought up the very same issue in my post above yours...What would these laws say about NON-EMBRYONIC stem cells?
You're right about the public though. Most people wouldn't know a stem cell from a starfish. As time goes on & technology progresses, the voters will be called upon more & more to make decisions about the use of science & technology, and most of the public is not intellectually equipped to make informed decisions about this, due to the generally crappy state of our education system in science.
I read an article in Nature once (more like an editorial actually) where it was pointed out that there is a growing gap in scientific understanding between scientists (who are right at the cutting edge of scientific knowledge in their respective fields) and the general public (many of whom actually have less scientific knowledge than an educated person of the middle ages).
Kinda getting off the topic here, though. sorry.
Speed Racer
"Fill your hand, you son-of-a-bitch!"

[skyhawk 2]

slightly off topic but id pick clinton over bush any day hmmm a guy who is getting it on with ladies in his office (though deserved the impeachment thing purly cause of how ugly they where)
or a guy who almost kills himself with a bloody pretzel delcares 3/4 the world pose a threat to the US and then wonders why the get pissed.
Opinions are like a-holes everyone has one, the only one that does you any good is yours and all that comes out is shit

[Lindsey 0]

But then think about this.....it won't be long before we can just MAKE the durn stem cells....
Using embryonic stem cells to grow human tissue is not going to be a long-lived prospect either way you look at it. I think our technology will take us beyond that in the fairly near future. DNA is just amino acids, sugars and phosphate, all of which are in plentiful supply. Now, when we're able to make stem cells from scratch, we won't have the need for cells of embryonic origin any more. Now THAT will be cloning....when we map a person's DNA and replicate it from hon-human resources.....from stuff that grows in the earth....and grow human tissue from that rather than from stem cells of embryonic origin. The ability to clone human tissue is not something that will come about as a result of using stem cells, and stem cell research does nothing to move technology any closer to being able to create DNA....but growing tissue from cloned cells will be useful for the same purposes as growing it from cells of embryonic origin. For the love of debate, I have to ask which you think is more ethical....(1) using embryonic cells for tissue replication or (2) manufacturing the DNA and creating stem cells. Both will be used for the same purposes.....
Eve was framed!
http://home.earthlink.net/~linzwalley

[SpeedRacer 1]

Well, hell, I've replicated DNA without cells...It's called PCR: Polymerase Chain Reaction. You can take a very small amount of DNA and replicate it billions of times by just adding nucleotides & heat-resistant DNA polymerase.
The process was invented by Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize for it. The technology made billions of dollars & was a major revolutionary step in biotechnological techniques, but all he got for it from Perkin Elmer (the biotech/pharmaceutical company he worked for) was a lousy $10,000 bonus.
Typical.
Speed Racer
"Fill your hand, you son-of-a-bitch!"

[FallingMarc 0]

Ok, last post for the night before I have to be productive. Synthesizing stem cells is one thing. Taking stem cells from adults is fine. But destroying an entire human life, even an embryonic one, just for its tissue is something entirely different.
I see nothing ethically wrong with using stem cells to help people. I only have a problem with the destruction of life.
A cloned life may have my exact DNA, it may have taken its material directly from me; it is still a life, however. I cannot condone killing it for any reason.
Blue skies,
Marc

[Lindsey 0]

Yeah.....I know about PCR....but what I'm asking is this: once we can replicate an organism's DNA, the next step, it seems to me, would be to work towards being able to creat the stem cells....What do you think? This hasn't been accomplished, surely....
Eve was framed!
http://home.earthlink.net/~linzwalley

[SpeedRacer 1]

Or you couldfigureout a way to transform an adult stem cell into an embryonic state.
Speed Racer
"Fill your hand, you son-of-a-bitch!"

[Lindsey 0]

No doubt.....I think we're in a very critical period in our history right now, with these kind of decisions to make....our future is going to dramatically depend on decisions we make right now, as a society, many members of which have no idea what's at stake..... Reminds me (now this is REALLY off topic....) How about the Ralph Bashki flick "Wizards." I really like the movie, but it does take on a new twist these days....foresight on his part....
Anyway.....I meant to go to bed 2 hours ago.....guess I got sidetracked....
Eve was framed!
http://home.earthlink.net/~linzwalley

[quade 4]

Quote

First Descartes proves he exists (cogito ergo sum), then he goes from there and proves the existence of God based on the principle that an effect cannot be more perfect than a cause and since we have the idea of God, only God can be the cause. (SUPER simplified btw obviously and Descartes provides other proofs as well)

My goodness. I hope that's the over simplified version because I do have a huge problem with the first statement .
If Descartes proves he exists and after a long tortured argument then decides that because Descartes exists then God exists -- what happens after Descartes ceases to exist?
That "proof" proves nothing and again you're back to the very coin flip argument you previously gave me.
There simply is no "proof" of God, nor does religion require one.
If you want a "proof" of the way the universe works, please, you can certainly do better than dragging out a 17th century French philosophers who's convictions are so great that, "upon hearing of Galileo's condemnation by the Inquisition in 1633 for defending the Copernican system, Descartes suppressed publication of his own work The World, in which he had taken the same position. (1)
Further, since Descartes clearly saw the mind and body as two separate entities I'm not really sure he'd be your best bet in the cloning debate either!
After all, parts is parts and certainly not a person until it thinks and therefore it is.
quade
http://futurecam.com

[quade 4]

Quote

I have given reasons for my belief but I have yet to hear a compelling one from the other camp.

Ever see the movie "The Point"? In it, there is a character called "The Rock Man."
You definately have had the opportunity to see "compelling" reasons, but it's like The Rock Man says, "You hear what you want to hear and you see what you want to see."
By the way, that doesn't make your point of view invalid. quade
http://futurecam.com

[AggieDave 6]

At this point, I'm fairly offended by this thread. I along with others on these forums have personal beliefs that do not conform with the more liberal views of the more outspoken people in this thread and when we express those, we have been condemned for having a lack of scientific knowledge. Have you considered that we believe in science, we believe in our religous beliefs and also believe that there is ground somewhere in between that we just haven' reached yet, but it still isn't cause to throw either out.
A healthy discussion is one thing, but when I feel like people are basically calling those who believe similarly to what I believe idiots and when a "trusted" individual in a some what position of "authority" on the site does the same, then I think it is just about time for me to move on and leave my once trusted online community.
"Are they short-shorts?" T.B.

[skreamer 1]

Quote

At this point, I'm fairly offended by this thread.

I'm not! It made for some very interesting reading and got me thinking. Some pretty bright people argued some interesting points. Are we supposed to ban all discussions on religion, politics, evolution etc.?
Now, would you like your dummy back Aggie?
Will
"Look before you jump, don't die until you're dead"

[AggieDave 6]

You missed my point.
"Are they short-shorts?" T.B.

[james1010 0]

" Simply having biological functions isn't normally how we define death. Why would we use that same criteria for defining life?"
WWWHHHAAATTT???? . . . . life and death are opposites, they don't share the same criteria . . . . amazingly strange statement.
Anyway, Quade, I didn't mean to start a creation/evolution debate yesterday, but since so many decided to respond I feel led to give just one more reply . . . Evolution is a theory, it cannot be tested, it's not happening today, the fossil record shows no transitional forms, and the second LAW of thermodynamics dissproves it . . complex systems do not arise out of chaos or by chance . . all complexity in this world stems from design . . name one that does not.
Anyway, back to Bush . . I agree with you, Quade, on the advantages of ADULT stem cell research, but not embyonic, and Bush should draw the line there . . not shutting down all research . . he's wrong on that. BTW, promise I'll hush about the creation/evolution thing.
SKYDIVE!!!!!

[jfields 0]

Dave,
From what I understand (usually very little), the comments about people not understanding science were aimed generally at the public at large, not simply at those who disapprove of cloning research for religious reasons. I'm in favor of cautious use of cloning, but I self-admittedly fall into the "damned ignorant" category myself.
I don't know squat about the science behind all this stuff. I'm not going to get into debates on what precise point after conception a "life" is created, or at what point we lose the right to it. There will always be debate on the ethics of medical research. That is nothing new. The debate itself is healthy, because it focuses people on the issues and tends to steer us back toward something in the middle ground, rather than at either of the extremes.
Justin

[mountainman 0]

I am not reading this or getting into a heated arguement, but I am just glad that Gore wasn't in there during 9/11.
Or Ralph Nader....
That would have been bad.
JumpinDuo.com...come and sign the guestbook.

[Sinkster 0]

In reply to:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If Descartes proves he exists and after a long tortured argument then decides that because Descartes exists then God exists -- what happens after Descartes ceases to exist?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Descartes' proof is not dependent on Descartes' existence. If you will notice in my outline of his argument the proof for the existence of God is based on the nature of causality, not the existence of Descartes. What you're saying is similar to saying that the theory of relativity is dependent on the existence of Einstein.
If you want to attack that part of the argument then all you have to do is attack the notion of causality. If I were you, I'd have used the Induction Problem posited by Hume to say that Descartes notion of causality is flawed since there is no necessary connection between causes and their effects. There are other arguments against Descartes', but you would have to know more about the argument to present them.
The reason Descartes' starts with the "cogito" is to gain an Archimedian Point from which to build the rest of his philosophy. The "cogito" is a starting point that is meant to be impervious to any kind of extreme doubt. That's why I mentioned it to give a complete picture of Descartes' reasoning for FallingMarc.
Most (God bless them) religious people may not require proof for the existence of God, but I believe in the Christian God because of the extensive proof of His existence. Faith will always obviously play a role, but faith does not necessarily mean believing in what is not real or possible, but rather trusting in a God that you have already established to be real based on an understanding on history, science, mathematics, philosophy, and the nature of the world. I suggest reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for a complete chain of reasoning for belief in the Christian God. C.S. Lewis, himself an athiest, did not want to believe -- but after careful study -- he decided that there was no other way.
Also, who are you to judge Descartes for deciding not to release his own work so as not to end up in shackels or worse? Does that make his arguments any less right? Your attack is known as ad hominem because it does not address the issue, but rather the character of Descartes. It is a logical fallacy. Or perhaps I am just as wrong as Descartes if I don't camp out in front of abortion clinics and prevent entry so I can get arrested. I guess my convictions just aren't great enough.
Descartes' important point about the mind/body distinction was by demonstrating that, he showed good reason to believe that we have immortal souls that continue on after our body is dead.
So, a person is not a person until they start to think? Then when does someone begin to "think" as you call it? This is a huge problem for you because it is arguable that even a newborn baby does not think yet. I mean really, they can't even talk, all they do is cry and make funny sounds and poop themselves. They can't even walk. Drats! Who knows? Let's just f*ck it and do what's best for us!
-Sinkster

[ChromeBoy 0]

Quote

, but I am just glad that Gore wasn't in there during 9/11.

No doubt. He would have probably apologized to the Taliban and asked them not to do it again.

[james1010 0]

" The debate itself is healthy, "
I agree with you, Justin, debate can be alot of fun, too. Unfortunately alot of times it gets some folks downright steamed, especially if it concerns liberal vs. conservative. . that's not healthy.
I enjoy a good debate and expressing my views, but I don't think any less of those who don't share it, especially in this community. . I was just telling my wife (whuffo) that skydivers are the most full of life people you'll ever meet and the comradery among them is astounding, even with those you've never met . . that's one of the big things that's pulling me further into this sport . . . but I guess that's another thread.
James

[skybytch 273]

Quote

I along with others on these forums have personal beliefs that do not conform with the more liberal views of the more outspoken people in this thread and when we express those, we have been condemned for having a lack of scientific knowledge. A healthy discussion is one thing, but when I feel like people are basically calling those who believe similarly to what I believe idiots

I've been watching this thread and unlike you Dave, I've been impressed once again with the lack of name calling and "condemnation" - seems to me that everyone who is involved is expressing their opinion without calling those who hold differing views idiots. Justin said it well - "the comments about people not understanding science were aimed generally at the public at large, not simply at those who disapprove of cloning research for religious reasons." - nor, imho, were they meant to be taken personally by anyone.
An open discussion is a great thing. I've learned a lot reading the last few "religious" or "philosophical" themed threads. It's only by having beliefs and opinions challenged that we can open our minds to the points of view that others hold - and possibly change our own opinions as a result.

Quote

and when a "trusted" individual in a some what position of "authority" on the site does the same, then I think it is just about time for me to move on and leave my once trusted online community.

Whoa... what I read in that is that you feel that moderators shouldn't be allowed to express their opinions here, especially if those opinions conflict with the beliefs that you hold. I've just gone back and reread all of quade's posts on this thread and I don't see any place where he calls anyone an idiot - he's simply refuting points made by others and asking questions about those points... as are those who disagree with him.
You will meet many "trusted" people who hold some form of "authority" in your life and not all of them are going to agree with your point of view. Granted, in most cases you'll never know that because there will likely never be an opportunity for those views to be expressed. But imho holding a position of "authority" does not negate a person's right to have and express their opinions, nor does it negate a person's right to disagree with the opinions of others who may or may not hold the same "authority" positions.
pull & flare,
lisa