Funny thing! I have been posting about embryonic stem cells for probably 5 years. My first post was that beside being unethical, there was no empirical evidence that embryonic stem cells would produce any cures. Despite the fact that adult stem cells have about 80 successful applications, the agenda keeps coming around that embryonic will cure diabetes, cure spinal injuries, end alzheimers and Parkinson's. Yet the score is still 80 to 0 (unless you count the researcher who was so desparate he was willing fake things).

Especially since the bailouts, I am sure there are many scientists who are eager to make money doing embryonic stem cell research to suck up tax payer money. What could be better? Get money and not have to produce any results. Wouldn't the money be better spent in related fields which are producing results? For those of you who will claim the infamous researcher was fooled and did not "fake" anything one question:

Doesn't that underscore how unverifiable this research is when (assuming for the sake of argument the researcher was honest) that fake data was undetectable from real?

Interesting post, yet you seem to be (intentionally?) ignoring several obvious facts.

1) of course in the early stages of ESCR there was no "empirical" evidence to support it...because the definition of empirical is "derived from or guided by experience or experiment." i.e. there has to be the opppurtunity for research on a large scale to even provide the oppurtunity for empirical evidence. Furthermore, i would argue that until you have conducted EXHAUSTIVE research in the subject there is no empirical evidence to say that ESCs WON'T provide a cure for the aforementioned maladies.

2) the lack of ethics of one researcher should not be held against an entire community of medical researchers. To do so could be likened to saying "I know this one italian mafia guy who does bad things, therefore all italians are mafioso with no ethics."

3) it's easy to have "a score of 80 to 0" when the team w/ a score of 0 hasn't legally been allowed to have posession of the ball for the past several years.

PLEASE, try to make some sort of open-ended post here to promote DISCUSSION rather than trying to preach rhetoric to others. This is a forum for discussion, and thought. Soap-boxing doesn't work on the interwebs, that's just the nature of it.

Sweet retort! Couldn't have done any better myself! I'm finding that most of the anti- forces fall back on circular logic, which as some know, usually holds very little merit... Good job!

Embryonic stem cell research began in 1984. Human embryonic stem cell research began in 1998.

It has not been illegal to do embryonic stem cell research. It was just you could not get federal funding for it. WARF was doing research through all this time.

How does one prove ESC's (or anything for that matter) has no cures connected with it? You can also do exhaustive research to prove that the world is flat too. But what's the point?

I am all for discussion of the facts; apparently you don't want to have them on facts but on fiction.

You don't get a cure unless you do the research but you don't do the research unless there is a cure?

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is called insanity.

How do we know embryonic stem cells will cure diabetes, spinal cord injuries, and Parkinson's?

These are the cures which are hyped but where is the research?

Sorry, you do the research to prove or disprove a hypothesis. If a hypothesis is that something will lead to a cure your research is aimed at determining the value of your hypothesis. This may lead to a cure.

The hypothesis is still being tested which is why it cannot be said there is a cure or not. This research is going on all over the world, even here in the USA, up till now it has not been federally funded. It is hoped that federal funding will accelerate research in order to determine the validity of the hypothesis.

But why spend tax dollars to disprove that omega 3 oils won't cure/treat/support/help:

arthritis, prostatitis, cystitis and anything else ending in "itis."

memory, recall, reasoning and focus. You'll swear you're getting younger and smarter.

depression, bipolar and psychosis

ADD and ADHD dyslexia, dyspraxia and compulsive disorder

Protection from heart attack and stroke

Reduction of breast, colon and prostate cancer

Developing Altzheimer's Disease

Allergies

Eye Health

PMS Symptoms in Women (apparently doesn't do anything for PMS symptoms in men)

Improves Skin and Hair Health

Crohn’s disease

lower cholesterol

Fibromyalgia

and last but not least "proof" that stem cell research is unnecessary: Omega 3 can prevent juvenile diabetes (Type 1).

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I like this description best:

"Omega 3 benefits work like magic."

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Think about it. It is not even proper English. No, wait it is proper English. The benefits (listed that is) work like magic to sell the stuff. Is it a coincidence that it is an oil?