Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

Kevin Drum's comment can also be applied here too:

"Kerry, relying on the Economic Policy Institute, should be saying not that 'new jobs are paying $9,000 a year less than old ones' but that 'jobs in the industries that are growing pay an average of $35,410 a year, while jobs in the industries that are shrinking pay $44,570 a year.'"

My favorite part was, "On Aug. 9, 2001, when Bush authorized federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research but limited it to cell lines created before that date, there wasn't much outcry for more freedom."

Huh? Not much outcry? Doesn't Saletan even read Slate? Here's Slate's summary of the negative reaction to this decision from major papers around the country.
http://slate.msn.com/id/1008111

Ya know, i first became aware of saletan during the clinton impeachment, and he wrote largely sensible stuff at a time when hardly anyone else was.

He has, however, declined much more into shtick and cant since then....

IHe makes three general charges, none of them reasonable in context. The charge that stem cell proponents are "religious" ignores the fact that this administration has made some unprecedented breaches of the separation of church and state, of which the stem cell matter is only one example. He sounds like Creationists who whine "Darwinism is a religion too".

The charge that it's "ideological" ignores the fact that we have a large set of institutions designed for the purpose of putting disinterested scientific expertise at the service of government. That was the explicit motive of the NSF. It's designed to avoid politics, much less ideology. This administration has trashed it at every opportunity.

And his charge that Bush's ban is limited shows willful ignorance of the real world of funding. Yes, states can fund stem cell research. The schoolchildren of Chad could go out and sell cookies for a research fund too.

The quality of his arguments is on the level of posters to Free Republic or LGF. The tone of the writing suggests that he received a more expensive education. He's just using it to polllute his intellectual environment.

Can Saletan read? Is Saletan complaining about Kerry statements or the way the media is reporting the issue?

"On the three year anniversary of President George Bush's ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, John Edwards pledged that a Kerry-Edwards administration would overturn the ideologically-driven ban as part of its plan to put America back on the path of scientific excellence."

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0809a.html

Is the way Kerry refers to Bush's stand on Stem Cell Research any different then Bush calling the Estate Tax the "Death Tax"? I think not!

To be fair, and I don't follow Kerry rhetoric closely enough to know if bakho's version is the only one Kerry has uttered, there is a monstrous difference between making something illegal and prohibiting federal funding of the same.

I do know that I hear Kerry supporters talk about 'religious crazies that will ban stem cell research' all the time.

"there is a monstrous difference between making something illegal and prohibiting federal funding of the same."

There's no difference in the fact that the research isn't carried out either way. There's a difference in legal status which makes it look like a slick political maneuver. It appeases the base who can believe that the presnit stands with them against godless baby-killing scientists. But it isn't "ban", so apologists for the presnit can accuse his detractors of unfairness. Of course, it violates a number of principles conservatives used to consider worthile. It encourages anti-intellectualism and general hostility to science. It blatantly injects the doctrines of favored sects into public policy decisions. And by presenting it as a decision reached after prayer and religious meditation, it presents the President in the role of head priest or mediator between the people and God, a role which the Founders apparently forgot to write into the Constitution.

Saletan is a fucking goofball if I've ever seen one. And he's only about half as smart as he thinks he is, maybe less.

I long ago lost any scrap of respect for Saletan's work. His obsession with Kerry is bordering on clinically insane easing into the personna of a paranoid conspiracist.

'Is the way Kerry refers to Bush's stand on Stem Cell Research any different then Bush calling the Estate Tax the "Death Tax"? I think not!'

People have to die in order for the tax to be collected, so the phrase "Death Tax" is highly accurate.

The phrase "ban on stem-cell research" is blatant dishonesty in two ways. First, there is no ban on the actual research; there is a ban on funding. It would be like calling a ban on federal funding of abortion a "ban on abortion." Second, the government is declining to fund only a portion of stem-cell research - that which uses embryonic stem cells. Adult stem-cell research may receive funding.

The dishonest phrase disguises the fact that adult stem-cell research even exists. It therefore gets little notice and its relevance to the debate therefore gets the shaft.

People have to die in order for the tax to be collected, so the phrase "Death Tax" is highly accurate.

Since it's not a tax on death, it's totally inaccurate. "Estate tax" is ancient, unobtrusively familiar and precise, qualities that conservatives supposedly value. When I think of someone useing the term "estate tax", it's a family lawyer looking sover as he says "About your grandfather's estate tax...". Death tax" calls to mind dumb twits grinning at each other as they go out of their way to use it, because it's sooooo clever.

And "ban on stem-cell research" isn't at all deceptive. It's abbreviated, but everyone knows exactly what it refers to, since there are few examples of a government attacking a whole area of science to please religious authorities. In fact, I can't think of an instance since um the late Middle Ages.

"Death tax" falls under the "pro-life" and "pro-choice" monikers. All three are abbreviations that everybody understands - and that the opposing camps don't like.

"Ban on stem cell research" is high fraud. Some people don't know that adult stem cell research exists. Some people know it does, but don't know that it's made significant progress. Most important, some people don't know what exactly the government is banning, so the press should not tell them that the State is banning something that it is not.

Not only did Bush not ban stem cell research by others, he also increased federal funding for it. In 2003, federal support for Human Embryonic stem cell research was $25 million and federal funding for all stem cell research was $521 million.

See chart at http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005467

It's been my experience that normal, unpretentious people use the accurate terms "anti-abortion" and "estate tax" in conservation.

The dishonesty is in claiming that work on adult stem cells makes any difference to the policy question. The present situation is that work on enbryonic stem cels provides information that isn't obtainable from adult stem cells. If this weren't the case, no one would propose work on early embryos, since adult material is easier to obtain. It's a simple practical matter. Equally straightforward is the question of whether we determine matters of public policy on the basis of religious doctrine.

Bringing up adult stem cells seems to be a ploy to reassure people that church-state separation can be safely violated without any danger to their future medical care. Presumably, you would be willing to sacrifice "unborn life" indiscriminately if you didn't know about the adult stem cell work. How is this the adherence to principles that "conservatives" pat themselves on the back for? Or is it the case that you are principled and just want to use athe issue to score political points?

Work on adult stem cells affects public attitudes toward the policy. People are fed heightened expectations on the high specualtion that embryonic stem cells can cure degenerative diseases, backed by sparser evidence than that supporting the existence of Saddam's nuclear program, and adult cell research is underreported. Therefore, a lot of people get the impression that Bush is standing in the way of a cure for Alzheimer's.

There are two possible policy decisions: whether to stop private-sector embryonic research, and whether to stop funding it. Roe v. Wade ruled that life starts at delivery, so even if the government did pass a ban, it would get struck down in record time. I don't think that even the quixotic Alan Keyes is supporting such legislation (but give him time).

The other, as mentioned repearedly, is funding. I take the libertarian stance on government funding of research. When I think of people who can competently determine where scarce resources should be allocated to enable scientific advancement, Trent Lott and Ted Kennedy aren't among them.

Public expecations are irrelevant to some principles that the Republicans used to favor and now violate routinely. One is that beliefs of favored religious sects shouldn't determine public policy. Another is that public officlals shouldn't lie, as Bush did about the adequacy of available cell lines for research purposes. The standard way to deal with a scientific question is to ask a committee chosen to reflect imformed knowledge of the scientific specialty. But Republicans don't do this any more. They stack the committees in neo-Lysenkoist fashion and lie about the findings like the material about abortion and breast cancer on a government site. Compared with this, overstating the prospects for early applications is stem-cell research is trivial.

Bush is certainly impeding research progress, if not the specific goal ot a cure for Alzheimers. And Roe has nothing to do with the issue. And the analytic distinction is bullshit. All you're demonstrating is that like most Republicans, you're willing to advance brain-damaged arguments to promote the cause.

Roe is relevant to why embryonic stem cell research can't legally be banned. Indeed, it is *the* deciding legal factor; if the law doesn't regard the unborn as persons, there is no legal argument for banning their use in experimentation.

When life begins is the central concern of the issue. I've seen no arguments in this thread supporting the claim that an embryo is not a human life. I've seen religion-bashing, as if the embryonic stem cell cure for Alzheimer's weren't a leap of faith, as if only religious people opposed funding of embryonic stem-cell research. Tell it to Nat Hentoff.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/hentoff072401.asp

Roe has little or nothing to do with the legal definition of "persons". Blackmun reviews the history of abortion and in passing hotes that defining the fetus as a person has no basis in this area, in keeping with other areas of common law (property, tort, crim). It's a decision about the government's power to regulate procreative behavior, which is logically independent of the question of the status of a fetus.

Nor does it concern religion direcly. The legislatuve purpose in criminizing abortion could have been a public health concern with the life safety of the mother or a national defense consideration in wanting to increase the population. The decision goes off on an individual right to privacy that trumps those concerns as well. In contrast, the stem cell decision was sold as a triumph of religion. But there's no way to bring suit on behalf of the class of people injured by the ban, so Bush's violation of the Constitution has no remedy.

Other than the minor issue of the holding in Roe, you certainly demonstrate an in-depth familiarity with the controllinglegal principles and our current understanding of stem cell biology.

And I am Michiko, Empress of Japan.

Looking at your previous comment, it seems rather ironic that a hawk for an unproven, highly speculative scientific venture would invoke the name of Trofim Lysenko.

Which brings me to this: if the government is to fund scientific research at all (which I do not support), it must fund only that research which has produced results.

Actually, Lysenko parallels to this topic are a bit limited. He served as a precautinary tale against central planning, which is not the way that medical research is run in this country. (Government education is a target-rich environment for better parallels to Lysenkoism.)

As for the junk science aspect, Lysenko's error was in claiming that such-and-such procedure will achieve such-and-such results. There is no parallel among opponents of embryonic research.

(Many of them *do* believe a scientific claim that many supporters do not - that life starts at conception. Some abortion foes argue that life begins when the fertilized egg is implanted into the uterine wall. I'd love to see Bernard Nathanson and John Willke weigh in on that.)

Steven Milloy of JunkScience.com argues that embryonic stem-cell research is indeed junk science.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125873,00.html

'Mouse embryonic stem cells were first grown in a laboratory in 1981. It took 20 years to make similar achievements with human embryonic stem cells — and merely growing stem cells is no where close to employing those cells in therapies. Embryonic stem cells must be directed to grow into specific cell types and that growth must be controlled — they can proliferate indefinitely in the lab. Uncontrolled stem cell growth may have tumor-forming potential. Because embryonic stem cells don't come from the patient being treated, there may also be problems associated with immune system rejection following transplantation of foreign stem cells.

'None of this is to say that embryonic stem cell research can't possibly lead to some improvements in biological understanding or future therapeutic treatments, but such speculative progress of who-knows-what value isn't in the foreseeable future. The only thing certain is that the cost of that research will be high. If embryonic stem cell research had real and imminent possibilities, private investors would be pouring capital into research hoping for real and imminent profits. Instead, venture capital firms are contributing to political efforts to get taxpayers to fund research.'

One more thing: how can government make sound decisions on science if the experts radically disagree with each other? Maybe Bjorn Lomborg could offer some insight.