No doubt you’ve heard. The senate passed the bill to allow for expanded federal funding of embryonic stem cell research and Bush vetoed it, the first such veto of his presidency.

I’m hot. Not even because of people’s positions but rather the hypocrisy I see permeating this issue. The issue is what to do with thousands (more than 400,000 actually) fertilized eggs that sit in frozen storage around the county, left over from in vitro fertilization (which produces many more fertilized eggs than are used in the women seeking to get pregnant). The bill would have allowed for federal funding towards research using stem cells from these fertilized eggs. Some view this as tantamount to murder.

The irony is that if someone really feels that way, then in vitro fertilization is, to put it most bluntly, killing a handful of lives to create one or two. Yet I’ve never heard the outraged screams against in vitro fertilization that we’ve heard these last few days over embryonic stem cells.

Christians simply cannot have it both ways. You cannot say that abortion or stem cell research is morally wrong, and then turn around the moment you can’t have children and say, “Thank God for in vitro fertilization!” as you run off to the clinic creating excess embryos, and then blissfully enjoy the new family without ever reflecting on how you got it. If people really believe that life starts at the moment of conception, they cannot simply make exceptions when it’s convenient for them.

What defies belief to me is Bush’s 2001 “compromise” over federal funding of stem cell research, where he decided to allow federal funding for existing stem cell lines, justifying the position as limiting research only to the cases “where the decision on life and death has already been made.” I’m sorry Mr. President. The decision on “life and death” (in his words) has already been made. There’s over 400,000 embryos waiting to be thrown in the trash, and apparently that’s a better option that using them with the aim of curing disease.

I do not wish to villify people that hold pro-life convictions. However, particularly in the stem cell debate, I think we’ve gotten terribly close to the Catholic idea that even birth control is sinful (a position I’m strongly opposed to). I’m sorry, I do thank God every day for birth control, and actively pray that it continues to be effective. If though one does not accept that there is a difference between a small clump of cells with the potential for life and a baby, then one must be consistent in that belief.

Yes, I obviously support embryonic stem cell research. But I’d like to think I’m humble enough to recognize that my opinion is not the only opinion. I can respect, though I disagree with, someone who holds the conviction that life begins at conception. It’s hard to respect that position however when it becomes so clearly contradictory.

With most of the criticism of evolution and support for intelligent design coming from conservatives circle, the Wall Street Journal has an op-ed on the subject worth reading titled Misplaced Sympathies. The article’s a nice read, but here’s an excerpt.

It was a preoccupation with defeating materialism that inspired many of Darwin’s contemporary detractors. Richard Owen, a 19th-century English anatomist, privately conceded that “The Origin of Species” was the best explanation “ever published of the manner of formation of species”–but because he thought that natural selection denied the possibility of human uniqueness, he savaged the book in public. Ms. Himmelfarb made a related argument in a recent review of two new editions of Darwin’s works, decrying the “mechanistic and reductivist interpretation of all human life, including its emotional and intellectual dimensions, in the name of Darwinism.”

But there is a problem here. At a time when the life sciences are advancing at an astonishing pace, it is simply too late to be taking up Owen’s mantle. There is no longer any serious dispute about the evidence for natural selection; it seems that every gap in our current explanatory model has a Tiktaalik waiting to fill it, whether it comes from the Canadian tundra or a DNA microarray. The logic of Darwin’s theory has also undeniably shed light on some of the puzzles of human psychology. Of course this doesn’t mean that natural selection explains everything about the human condition, or that we shouldn’t be wary of attempts to use it as a cudgel against religion.

(via Dispatches)

Just when I thought Tiktaalik (tic-TAH-lick) was becoming my favorite word I learn that Hawaii may once again make humuhumunukunukuapuaa the state fish, this time permanently.

Update: Here’s how to say it.

A couple days back, I blogged about an Afghan that was to be executed for converting to Christianity from Islam. After an international outcry, he’s been set free.

The problem I see with this story is that he wasn’t set free because people came to their senses and realized you shouldn’t run a country where you execute people for their beliefs. Far from it, the reason given for his release was “he was mentally unfit to stand trial.”

He’s seeking asylum outside of Afghanistan. He better get it too, and quick. The general public seems more than willing to handle his execution themselves for his so-called crime.

The so-called golden rule, those words spoken by Jesus in Mathew 7:12 should be quite familiar to most people.

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

It is these very words I think that are the guiding principle behind a Christian apprecation of the seperation of church and state.

Don’t believe me? Witness the state of affairs in Afghanistan.

Abdul Rahman, 41, has been charged with rejecting Islam, a crime under this country’s Islamic laws. His trial started last week and he confessed to becoming a Christian 16 years ago. If convicted, he could be executed.

That’s right. Their getting ready to kill a guy for switching religions. I guess that solves the problem of free will. Showing just how insane the situation is:

The state-sponsored Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has called for Rahman to be punished, arguing he clearly violated Islamic law.

How many contridicitons can the name of one instituion possibly have? A state-sponsered but independent commision that’s supposed to support human rights but is calling for punishing someone for excerising their religious faith?

Mohammed Jan, the neighbor of the guy’s father sums up the state of freedom quite well.

For 30 years, we have fought religious wars in this country and there is no way we are going to allow an Afghan to insult us by becoming Christian. This has brought so much shame.

The only thing shameful here is Afghanistan’s human rights and the strain of Islam that’s resulting to violence at every turn to solve their differences. In the spirit of the Golden Rule, and for my own neck, I’ll take seperation of church and state, thank you.

Fresh on the heels of Europe’s spineless apologizing over the Danish cartoons, I read of a case where a fringe British historian named David Irving has been sentenced to three years in jail for denying the Holocaust. It’s a crime in Austria to deny the Holocaust.

I’m literally speechless. The way to deal with a Holocaust denier is not by sending them to jail. As disgusting as it is that someone would advocate such opinions, they ought to have the right to do so. Freedom of speech is the most fundamental of democratical ideals. Without it, a democracy is a sham.

We had a German teacher in high school (I never had classes with her) that was Holocaust denier herself. From what I understand, as a little girl, she was a German living in Poland under bad conditions, when the German’s marched through “liberating” her. It very well may have bettered her circumstances. Because of these fond memories, she refused to give any validity to the Holocaust. I’m not sure of all the ins and outs that went on at my high school, but she began to be express her opinions more frequently and more forcibly. It was well known that she cut out references to the Holocaust in books in her classroom, and that students could provoke an angry outburst from her by asking Holocaust questions. She was an older women, and when she retired, the rumor was that she’d been forced out. Retire early or we’ll let you go.

That’s how speech should work. Freedom of speech does not mean that your speech lacks consequences. This lady should not have been put on trial and sentenced to jail. Rather society should simply reject her message. If she’s hired to teach German and is advocating beliefs that are not supported by History, there’s going to be repercussions in her dealings with society.

The same should be true for David Irving. If he’s a historian that believes the Holocaust is a myth, his success at being a Historian and sharing his ideas with others should be abysmal. The fact that crazy people will eat his message up is not something you fix with a law. There again, society should set a strong selective pressure (to borrow the evolutionary analogy) against such ideas.

I don’t know if any of you remember Viktor Yushchenko, but Seed Magazine has an article up on his poisoning while he was running for president in Ukraine.

Tasteless but highly toxic, the dioxin Yushchenko ingested was administered in a dose probably less than 1 mg. A drop in a bowl of soup would have gone undetected, said Prodanchuk. Yushchenko was served a rather large dose, roughly a quarter of the lethal quantity for rhesus monkeys. Once ingested, the dioxin—a fat-soluble chemical—moves from the blood to fatty tissues. The body then tries to eliminate the dioxin through its sebaceous glands, which are what causes skin to grow oily or pimply. Half a dose of dioxin gets eliminated every few years but never completely rids itself, Prodanchuk said.

The dioxin found in Yushchenko’s blood—pure 2,3,7,8-TCDD—is “the most potent of all the dioxins,” said Daniel Hryhorczuk, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Illinois. “I doubt someone could have been sophisticated enough to give a dose in the range where you’d be guaranteed to maim and not kill,” added Hryhorczuk, implying that the intent was most likely Yushchenko’s death, not disfigurement. Hryhorczuk said the dioxin was probably not a homegrown concoction made in Ukraine, but rather, the work of a foreign laboratory. “To make a compound this pure requires a lot of sophistication.”

The thing that just blew me away about this situation was that it sounded like something straight out of a Tom Clancy novel. Someone tried to knock of the future president of a country, by poisoning no less. For a few days, we heard all about in the news, but the story quickly fell off the radar and I’ve heard barely a blip since. Who did it? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the US (or even Ukraine) knew who did it but is keeping quiet for political reasons. As the article points out, perhaps the prime suspect is Russia. What could possibly be done? Go to war?

This whole thing screams of a huge conspiracy. As the article discusses, the poison used had to be made by a country with high amounts of scientific sophistication. The article mentioned that all of Ukraine didn’t even have the equipment to analyze the substance and had to send off samples to other European countries for testing.

I don’t know if we’ll ever learn the truth, but I imagine if we did, it would be as shocking and audacious as any Tom Clancy book.

So I saw the headline that Dick Cheney had accidently shot someone, and as I read the story, I knew that my thoughts should have been along the lines of, “I hope that guy’s okay…”. Instead, the first thing that came to my mind was, “Every comedian’s prayer has just been answered…”

One hundred and ninety seven years ago, two people were born today, two people that would truly change the world.

One was born in Shrewsbury, England, the other in a one-room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky.

One ended up losing his Christian faith by the end of his life, mainly due to the death of his 10 year old daughter and his difficulty reconciling that to an all loving God. The other was never a practicing Christian and never went to church as an adult, though he used religious language frequently, and may have been spirutual himself. (Here’s a reference for more on that.) It would surprise most people to learn which person had which religious beliefs.

Both have also been snubbed by Google today. I fully expected to see some nice artwork in the Google logo honoring at least one of them, perhaps both! Instead, we get the boring winter olympics Googlized logo.

Very few people are remembered 197 years after their birth. These two are in no danger of being forgotten in the next 197 years either. I’ll be reflecting on both of these gentlemen today and how they changed the world for the better.

A rather interesting thing as happened.

There’s was a guy named George C. Deutsch, appointed by George W. Bush, to work with NASA’s public affairs office.

There has been an enormous amount of controversy among scientists, for the perception that he and others in that capacity tried to limit the access by the press to scientists working on global warming. See story.

What’s interesting is that George C. Deutsch claimed to have recently graduated from Texas A&M. People were already mad at the guy for his role these controversies, when a blogger did a little research and uncovered that while had attended A&M, he had never graduated.

All these quickly spread throughout the blogosphere, and within a day, he’s been fired. Seems that he did indeed claim to be a college graduate on his resume when he got the job.

While I find it very interesting the speed and lethalness with which blogging can bring things to light, I find it more interesting (and troubling) that a 24 year old PR guy can get inside a big scientific agency like NASA, and start trying to make science match political goals… He shouldn’t have had his job in the first place.

One of the top scientists who was making the charges of censorship, James Hansen, stated it best when he said,

The foundation of a democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly informed public. That’s the big issue here.