This Blog considers assisted suicide/euthanasia, bioethics, human cloning, biotechnology, radical environmentalism, and the dangers of animal rights/liberation. My views expressed here, as in my books and other writings, reflect my understanding that the philosophy of human exceptionalism is the bedrock of universal human rights. Or, to put it another way: human life matters. (The opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of any organization with which I am affiliated.)
I have checked this out. The actual paper published in Nature states that all 16 embryos were destroyed and 4-7 cells taken from each 8-10 cell embryo. The press release from ACT told a different story and the media stampeded. In other words, they wrote off the press release, not the actual published science. Shameful.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 5:09 PM
5 Comments
I am a Senior Fellow in Human Rights and Bioethics at the Discovery Institute and the author of 12 books, including A Rat Is A Pig Is A Dog Is A Boy, which is relevant to the issues considered by this blog.
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5 Comments:
The issue isn't the Nature paper. The problem is with the hyping of that paper and the false statements made about it in the ACT press release, and the consequent false reporting in the media.
In fact, the researchers did not take one cell from an early embryo, allowing the embryo to survive, while obaining embryonic stem cell lines. They destroyed all the embryos and took 4-7 cells per embryo. Not the same thing at all.
If the PR had said this is proof of principle, I would not be only at the beginning of a process of what I hope will discredit the PR and the reporting. The actual study proves that obtaining ES cells from a single blastomere might be able to be done. It has not, in fact, been done.
Oh, and one more thing Matthew: Thanks for contributing.
Dr. Wilson: hello. And this blog usually links to actual studies when relaying information. Be cautious of scientific sources; SCIENCE Magazine regularly prints ill-informed and/or politically charged material.
The media always write off a press release. That's par for the course.
Why should they dig into the report when ACT has done the work for you? The media is a business with deadlines, money to be made, and readers to please. They are not the academic critics.
And for that reason, I'm grateful that you are there to catch these kind of errors.
I have found, particularly as I've taken more action on this issue, that reporters are responsive to gentle correction on these matters.
Whether it be simply not making distinctions between adult and embryonic or problems like this, they will listen and take note.
Encourage them to follow the money--that they know how to do!
Tim
10,673 days
A growing problem in this field, in my opinion, is the increasing politicization of the science journals. This is a corruption of science because it makes them special pleaders rather than objective disseminators of information.
NATURE actually retains its integrity, in this regard. SCIENCE is destroying its reputation quickly. The NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE has actually stated it will publish in the area of stem cell research with an eye to impacting the political debate--which is not what a good science journal should be about and makes its reliability shaky.
Still, in this particular issue, the media are the culprits. ACT has issued press releases before that overstated its scientific research, or created intentionally false impressions. The media should know this by now, but they are so in the tank or hungry for headlines to sell papers, they don't care. And that is a corruption of journalism.
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