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End of Stem Cell Debate

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CmdrBretz

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Where the stem cell debate ends the "playing god" debate will begin. Arch-Christians will invariably launch furious political opposition to any biological advancement of this nature.

The improvement over last year's results was simple. The four transcription factors used by Yamanaka reprogramme cells inconsistently and inefficiently, so that less than 0.1% of the million cells in a simple skin biopsy will be fully reprogrammed. The difficulty is isolating those in which reprogramming has been successful. Researchers do this by inserting a gene for antibiotic resistance that is activated only when proteins characteristic of stem cells are expressed. The cells can then be doused with antibiotics, killing off the failures.

The emphases are mine. It would be almost amusing if some Christians also tried to make the argument that discarding the millions of skin cells that failed to be reprogrammed was immoral. Fortunately, that would presuppose a decent amount of scientific literacy. Many such critics still fail to realize that evolution does not state that man evolved from a monkey. They will never be able to understand how this works.

Edited by DarkWaters
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Definitely neat. But I agree in that this shouldnt be neccessary if one can apparently use embroyos for this.

Yeah, I dont see the Chrisitians complaining about the loss of some skin cells (well a few million) quite yet :-P.

I guess God doesnt mind if we use mice though, even though its apparently one of his creatures. Maybe Gods too busy to watch the mice :-P

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I guess God doesn't mind if we use mice though, even though its apparently one of his creatures. Maybe God's too busy to watch the mice :-P

There's no rationality in the way seriously religious people "think". An example -- I have some very religious relatives. Several months ago one of them fell off a ladder and was seriously injured. His wife said that they took this as a sign of God's love for them, because he wasn't hurt more severely (!). My first reaction was "Apparently God didn't love him enough to hold the damn ladder up!"; my second thought was "Or maybe God is pissed at him and wanted to smite him to teach him a lesson." Either of those seem more plausible to me than interpreting a major injury as a sign of caring and love.

Then again, maybe Christians are masochists.

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There's no rationality in the way seriously religious people "think". An example -- I have some very religious relatives. Several months ago one of them fell off a ladder and was seriously injured. His wife said that they took this as a sign of God's love for them, because he wasn't hurt more severely (!). My first reaction was "Apparently God didn't love him enough to hold the damn ladder up!"; my second thought was "Or maybe God is pissed at him and wanted to smite him to teach him a lesson." Either of those seem more plausible to me than interpreting a major injury as a sign of caring and love.

Then again, maybe Christians are masochists.

I realize that , they are totally irrational. You dont need to convince me of that, I was in fact merely poking fun at them. I dont for a moment seriously expect them to be rational or consistent (at least when it comes to most things)

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