ESCR and Humility

From a Voice from Eden comes this Guardian Unlimited story, "Stem cell hopes distorted by 'arrogance and spin.'"

Lord Winston, one of Great Britain's pioneer ESCR advocates, warns that the spin has exceeded the capacity of the research. He predicts that a "backlash" could happen should the hype continue:

"When disappointment sets in, as may be possible, we can expect a massive backlash by the 'right to life' groups, who are always ready to pounce when they perceive a chink in our arguments," he will say. He singles out embryo stem cells as a case study in scientific arrogance and the dangers of "spinning" a good story.
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Embryos showed a remarkable propensity to produce abnormal chromosomes, he said. Stem cells that had differentiated into one kind of tissue had been seen to change back again. If these were transplanted to a patient, they might cause harm.

Research into embryo stem cells could mean a clinical spin-off reasonably soon in cancer research, he said, but in their desperation to get legislation on to the statute books scientists may have convinced parliamentarians that therapy for Alzheimer's disease and other conditions might be available in a few years.

In fact the natural life cycles of stem cells - 48 hours, or even 72 hours - posed huge problems. Lord Winston said that that length of time might mean the disease overtaking the patient. "That replication also means there will be faster growing cells in the same culture that will probably swamp the slower growing cells. And those cells that are growing faster are almost certainly not expressing genes in the 'normal' way.

Well, "Right to Life" groups, AKA Fools, won't need to wait for any chinks in ESCR advocates' arguments. Common sense and Natural Law already reveal chinks the size of Lincoln Tunnel in their Reasonable arguments. The largest contradicting fact being that embryos are unborn human beings; it's immoral to kill them even to ensure life-saving treatments to others.

However, if he's worried that the breach between the promises of the advocates and the performance of ESCR-derived treatments may wake people up, he has good cause. Few people like being hyped. Fewer like spending money to be so used. Parlimentarians, smelling the change in the wind, would likely drop whatever funding ESCR advocates asked for in order to save political face.

The Reasonable song of the Great-I-Am has lulled many sensible Fools-in-the-making to sleep. If a demonstration of how ESCR fails to deliver its promises motivates them to make the moral decision, I'll take the victory that saves those lives first! Then, I'll help finish waking them up, so they can see why it was so wrong to experiment on other human beings to begin with!

Lord Winston has stared into the abyss known as the empty tomb. Truth has begun to stare back. Let's hope more people catch his gaze!