OnPrincipleBlog

One of the defining decisions of the first Bush term was the President’s Executive Order ending the Federal funding of Stem Cell research. This executive decision provides a perfect highlight of Principle #1: People Are the Prime Movers.

Stem Cell research has been and will probably continue to be the new lightening rod of Pro-Life / Pro-Choice debate. The President’s decisive action established a clear line of leadership on this issue. Despite the false hopes, exaggerated claims and shoddy science, this one man - in the right position at the right time - stemmed a tide that may have led to countless thousands of destroyed embryos and a larger desensitizing ripple through human society.

Low and behold, during the intervening years since that decision, the smart money has invested in extracting stem cells from adults - negating the need to destroy embryos. In one recent study, scientists discovered that male testes are a veritable farmyard of stem cells. Apparently, the female ovaries look to provide a similarly fertile field (pun intended).

Adult stem cells taken from testicles could be a source for everything from blood vessels and heart tissue to new brain cells, report Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers.

Unsurprisingly, the combination (stem cells + testes!) caught the attention of journalists. Australia’s ABC News did a nice job of pointing out that the findings, made in mice, have a long way to go before helping people, and that women’s ovaries might provide equally adaptable adult stem cells. Scientific American noted that similar findings were made earlier in the year, so at least this isn’t a one-off.

The BBC hinted that men would be reluctant because extracting the cells would be “very painful,” but didn’t say how it’s done; apparently it’s like getting a biopsy, which I’d imagine is rather less painful than, say, heart disease or dementia. The New York Post covered it briefly — mostly, I suspect, to let their headline writers have some fun. (The result: “New Ballgame for Stem Cells”.)

On Principle,
CBass

Interesting post on some new fossil findings which is casting new light on outdated Evolutionary theories.

The post is relatively short and written for novices as myself. Some key excerpts:

The recent analysis of H. habilis and H. erectus fossils recovered near Lake Turkana, Kenya, in 2000 muddies the place of H. habilis in human evolutionary scenarios and widens the gap between H. erectus and modern humans.

This conclusion spawned headlines in a number of popular media outlets that challenged the validity of human evolution. (For example see here and here.) As is often the case, the headlines exaggerated and sensationalized the implications of these fossil finds.

For human evolution to be declared a fact, anthropologists must define the evolutionary route that transformed an ape-like creature into modern humans—replete with a progression of intermediate forms. The insight gained from this recent work highlights how far evolutionary biologists are from establishing this requisite understanding.

Just goes to show, scientific advance is a much more complicated, step-wise route of progress and what high school text books, the media and popular culture would simplistically assume.

This post if from Reasons to Believe. A ministry, headed by Astrophysicist Hugh Ross , dedicated to exploring and “providing powerful new reasons from science to believe in Jesus Christ”. I’ve found the majority of their research to be well founded, clearly presented and consistently faithful to the Bible.

In a nutshell, this ministry adheres to all basic tenets of the Christian faith - including the inerrancy of Scripture. Stemming from the words of the Bible, they also believe that creation depicts the nature and character of the Creator. Thus, they purport that a truthful study of nature should align with a faithful exegesis of Scripture.

Specifically, RTB promulgates, among other findings:

1. A testable, Scientific model for Creationism - one which support an old Universe/old Earth view. (I may write more on this later.)

2. That the Earth was populated with advanced (multi-cellular) life forms through carefully controlled miraculous intervention by the creator.

3. That fossils of early hominids are real, but that these creatures were animals similar to modern apes, lacking the unique capacities of human spirituality and sophisticated intellectual, physical, artistic and social capacity.

I highly and heartily recommend subscribing to the “Today’s New Reason to Believe” email.

On Principle,

Christian

Well, maybe not.

At a sizable risk of getting injured in a stand against prevailing currents of pop-culture, I have discovered a flaw in the much vaunted Google Earth service. In fact, I find this discovery to be somewhat reminiscent of the lone scale missing from Tolkien’s mythical dragon, Smog, in The Hobbit. Yes, with only one scale missing, the powerful dragon was brought low throw a single arrow. And yes, what I’m about to share is one missing scale in Google’s all-pervasive power - it’s all-seeing eye.

First, to set the stage. Perhaps you’ve heard of Google’s new “Street Level View“. In concept, the idea is quite cool. Google has sent specially equipped trucks to drive through the streets of a few pilot cities, collecting 360 degree images as they drove. Google then, somehow seamlessly, blended these “street level” images with it’s Google Earth satellite images. Through Google Maps, you can type in an address on one of the streets so filmed for the pilot launch, zoom out to see the entire city or region or zoom in on a particular address and then open a window to show the “street level view”.

One webizen was able to see his cat perched in the window of his 2nd floor apartment. Other’s are quite dismayed by the “ickiness” of “spying” on unsuspecting folks just living their normal lives. But everyone admits that having instant, integrated access to this odd assortment of average folks, living average lives is truly spectacular. Imagine the muscle-flexing bragging rights this level of pervasive coverage of the world, “at your finger tips”, Google has earned? If they can do this, what else are they working on?

Want to invest?

Now, for that dragon killing flaw in Google’s armor. For Google, it’s dominance is just that, its dominance. Through Google Search, it seemed to have virtually captured every piece of online data, categorized it and made it amazingly available when relevant to your needs or whims. Through Google Earth and Google Maps, the media giant seemed to have acquired mind-numbing quantities of data on the entire world and, again, made them available for productive use - and relevant advertising. Now, through Street Level View, Google seems to be flexing its muscle to show that it can capture and maintain images of every major address in every city and integrate it with Search and Maps such that any location on Earth can be searched, seen and integrated with limitless depths of relevant information (oh yeah, and advertising). Total dominance. And dominance means coolness, “buzz”, street creds (oh yeah, and advertising $’s). Without total dominance and presumed relevance, Google Street Level View is just an odd peep show.

With this in mind, I “Googled” my house. Disclaimer: I live in a fairly new neighborhood in a fairly new house. By “fairly new” I mean 2 years and 1 year old, respectively. Remember when I included that Google must “capture and maintain” images. It seems this is a harder task than even Google would have us believe. I live in Smog’s missing scale, the chink in Google’s armor. If their technology is just a reactive response to natural disaster or war, who cares. Time, CNN and Fox News give us that. With commentary to boot! If it is to be “in Google we trust”, then we want total coverage of the subject with updated relevance. Not native pasture land where developers and we greedy consumers have long ago (2 years is a long time on line) scraped the land, laid concrete and generally made things better.

On Principle,
Christian