The Blind Faith of Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Michael Fumento has a great article which discusses the media's role in the myths of embryonic stem cell research, the less-than-honest embryonic stem cell proponents, how money-making plays a role, some advances in adult stem cell research and the faith that people have mistakenly placed in embryonic stem cell research and its proponents.

Some excerpts:

Perhaps more important, the media aren't telling people how much more advanced ASC research is, or how rapidly it's making breakthroughs. Certainly they're not telling people about it nearly as often as they're hailing the promise of ESCs – and when they do, they tend to undermine the news with pooh-poohing, often-groundless quotes from ESC advocates. (More on that later.) .....

There's a great irony here, however. As these reporters picture themselves standing for the cause of reason against the forces of dogma, they also don't realize that the ESC research vocabulary-so filled with "mays" and "coulds" and "one days," promising a miraculous future somewhere down the road-reflects a dogma all its own.....

But what, precisely, has Melton accomplished toward curing diabetes with ESCs? When interviewed by The Wall Street Journal last year, the most he could say was "We are convinced we can do it. We just don't know how."

That's not science; that's faith. But it's not a religious faith, and so reporters don't see it for what it is.

HT: Second Hand Smoke