Krauthammer: President Obama's "Science Fiction"
Charles Krauthammer, writing an op-ed in today's Washington Post, talks about his opinion about the Obama' stem cell policy and his perspective having served on the President's Council on Bioethics.
My favorite rant against Obama's decision is here:
"Obama's address was morally unserious in the extreme. It was populated, as his didactic discourses always are, with a forest of straw men. Such as his admonition that we must resist the "false choice between sound science and moral values." Yet, exactly 2 minutes and 12 seconds later he went on to declare that he would never open the door to the "use of cloning for human reproduction.""
Clearly this is horrible compared to the vapid language used by President Bush 8 years earlier that research on stem cells "offers both great promise and great peril, so I have decided we must proceed with great care." Great, great, great.
In any case, one would not expect conservatives to do anything but to attack President Obama's stem cell policy. Krauthammer is another voice in the crowd attempting to attack the logical consistency of the policy and the definition of "ethics" and "values" used by the new kids on the political block.
Summer Johnson, PhD
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But Summer what is your actual problem with the op-ed? Shouldn't you as a bioethicist be disturbed at the concept of a President describing certain aspects of science as 'value-free' zones? If we don't want AIG execs making our financial policy or Halliburton's board making our military policy...why would we accept George Daley and other researchers making our stem cell policy?
- by Charles Camosy, PhD on Mar 13, 2009 at 7:20 PM | link
Lets just be thankful that unlike Bush, at least Obama can spell "Great"!
But in all seriousness, this should have been thought out more, and by Obama contradicting himself it makes me wonder how sure he is of his decision and where exactly he thinks he stands!
- by Alex on Mar 17, 2009 at 8:15 AM | link
Charles, thank you for your comment. While I do not believe that science can be entirely value free, I do agree with President Obama's general sentiment that science should be free of the pervasive ideology that has so seriously corroded it the last 8 years. While no one can prevent the inevitable ways in which individual scientists world views will creep into their research as they do it (even as they do their best as they must to keep their own personal religious and ideological views out of their professional work as they ought to), it is unacceptable for the government to allow the President's (or any other government official's) overarching religious or other ideological views to have sway over science and to allow that to govern it. Instead, the prevailing scientific evidence of that time should govern what direction research proceeds. Whether we accept George Daley or any other stem cell researcher view should be only the result of whoever is the leading stem cell researcher at that time and nothing more.
- by Summer Johnson, PhD on Mar 21, 2009 at 11:22 AM | link