Knights & Knaves Alehouse

dcs wrote:I think it's reasonable to speculate that someone whose job depends on the legality of X will be biased in favor of keeping X legal. If someone has ethical issues with stem-cell research, it's unlikely that he'll go into that field.

I work with adult stem cells (mouse, canine, human). My future prospects would probably be improved if embryonic stem cell research were retarded by legal problems (more money for my own grants, more prestige and accomplishments in my field). However, it's still incumbent upon me to be extremely well-informed on what's happening with embryonic stem cell research and I can tell you that the vast majority of what people are hearing reported about stem cell research (both adult and embryonic) by those with anti-ESC agendas, those who are supposed to be neutral (the media) and even a large number of the pro-ESC non-scientists is simply dead wrong.

The fact is, most of the politically motivated pro-ESC people are too ignorant to make a decent and coherent pro-argument on anything but emotion and ALL (as far as I can tell) of the anti-ESC people are too ignorant to even formulate a decent lie about the issue. The voting public is, for the most part, getting their information from people who couldn't tell you what a MAPC, a small fragment homologous replacement vehicle or a sub-ventricular niche is and (what's worse) wouldn't even know where to look to find out. If the media were really afraid that American scientists would be too biased to report the facts correctly, it would be easy enough to interview, say... a British, German, Italian or Japanese ESC researcher. All of those countries have made great contributions to our understanding of the potential of ESCs in the clinic and have outstanding scientists who would be invaluable sources of information and who would have absolutely no financial interest in what American law (and especially Missouri law) has to say about the availability of ESC research methods or therapies. But that doesn't happen because hearing the cold hard facts is so much less entertaining than a VERY STRONG OPINION PRESENTED FORCEFULLY but founded on smoke and mirrors.

So the people with the real facts get ignored while the ignorant and uninformed, who are - let's be honest - no less biased, have their opinions swaddled in the legitimizing folds of the evening news and the national newspapers.

I also think it's extremely shortsighted to assume that anyone who works in embryonic stem cell research has no moral or ethical issue concerning the sanctity of life. The morality and ethics of our research is one of the most intensely discussed and regulated topics in the field of biomedicine, not only because of the use of human embryos but because of the use of human and animal subjects in our work. We already operate under extremely cumbersome self imposed restrictions in order to protect and respect the people and animals we work with. To dismiss the opinions of the research community on either the scientific or moral issues surrounding ESC research based on the assumption that self-interest and monetary concerns will be the overriding influence on those opinions is, IMHO, just further evidence of ignorance.