No. This is advocacy. Propaganda. The writer is not as ignorant as many on the topic, but Mr. Dizikes allows his bias in favor of destroying human embryos for research purposes to prevent fair statements, of which his intellect surely is capable, on the various paths stem cell research can follow to benefit humanity and to distort what is going on when the government showers money for research. In his lead paragraph, he wrote that President Obama “removed George W. Bush's ban on federal funding for new embryonic stem cell research in March, the president cast his decision as part of a larger effort to remove politics from science. No longer would research, Obama said, be shackled by a ‘false choice between sound science and moral values.’ " Mr. Dizikes started with a misleading statement. President Bush did not ban federal funding of “new” research, but did limit federally funded research to a limited number of existing embryonic stem cell lines. It is foolish to pretend that President Obama was engaged in an “effort to remove politics from science.” Much of Mr. Dizikes’s article happily recounted the benefits to states, primarily Blue, that want funding. And Charles Krauthammer, whom I will cite later, referred to the President’s irritating propensity to create straw men and then proceed to knock them down. Only 325 words aftrer his remark on false choice, sound science, and moral values, he said, “And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.” Dr. Wilmot in Scotland has his problems with Dolly, but perhaps we can make a successful clone of, say, George Soros. How exciting. And learn from the clone, which could replicate the original’s “philanthropy,” as one of his journalist-admirers wrote. Researchers have problems with embryonic stem cells. Read of many cures coming from them lately? They have had problems with animal clones. But scientific research ought not be clouded by ethical concerns, in the view of many. Some Japanese thought so, when they did research on what they called “maruta,” or blocks of wood. Those blocks of wood, which we would call prisoners of war, reportedly aided research that later produced valuable medical benefits. In the same way, some German scientists did research on subjects who were about to die, anyway, so they let them soak in chill water until they died. That, presumably, was intended to inform the Germans of the limits of their pilots if ditched in the water and thus guide them with whatever protective clothing would sustain the pilots’ lives. People set the ethical limits of scientific research differently; the President and Mr. Dizikes show no concern for the moral judgments of others, people who are just as concerned as they are with finding ways to prevent, slow, reverse, or cure certain dread diseases and injuries. But the President presented a “fase choice” on beneficial stem cell research. Stem cell research not involving embryos also is promising; I believe that this government has deliberately cut off any pending on those approaches, however. As with many on the social left, Mr. Dizikes drops the "embryonic" qualification too readily. Note, for example, the reference to "stem cell science." Does research on adult stem cells lie outside the pale of stem cell science? No. But Mr. Dizikes makes it seem that government funding for embryonic stem cell research is the sole criterion for determining what constitutes "stem cell science." And why don’t rich seculars like George Soros fund the research? Why force me to pay for it, indirectly? He dismisses the development of "induced pluripotent stem cells," which are, as he writes, "adult cells reprogrammed to mimic embryonic stem cells. In theory, IPSCs could bring the political battle over stem cells to an end, since producing them does not involve embryos. But many scientific hurdles remain to be cleared before IPSCs can be considered a safe and complete replacement for embryonic stem cells." True, difficulties exist. But so do difficulties with using stem cells derived from embryos. I am no specialist, but am not aware of much success with such cells. I believe that they entail rejection difficulties, with a treated subject’s body rejecting any cellular construction derived from another embryo. (That wording allows for preliminary research on animals.) He also wades blindly through the presumed economic benefit of research to various states. Yes, as government pours money into a state or community for research or any other purpose, workers flood in for construction or whatever continuing work the funding entails. And other workers surround the prime dollar recipients, either doing specialized work, as battery makers located near to auto workers, or getting secondary and tertiary benefits: for example, the people who clean office floors, build and sell workers' homes, and operate and staff food markets, and so forth. The money that comes from government has to come from revenue or bonds. In Massachusetts, money for embryonic stem cell research came from a $1 billion state bond. The state has to pay the interest for such bonds. And it is now facing a multibillion-dollar deficit. I have not noticed the Democrats rethinking that bond, but they are reducing state funding support of cities and towns. California, I believe, has also floated a huge bond to fund embryonic stem cell research. How is the California budget going these days? On a national level, this government is digging deep into debt funding, digging a hole that causes one to doubt whether this country will slide from first-world economic status to third-world. This government continues because of the sufferance of the government of mainland China (to use a neutral descriptor). Remember the CNN advocate, to use a less neutral term, telling a tea-party demonstrator on April 15 that Illinois would get $5 billion of federal money? Where did that money come from? The government, yes, but ultimately the state’s residents were expected to get money from the taxes that you and I pay and the debt funding to which the government resorts, with income falling below outgo. To fund embryonic stem cell research, Red states will be bled of some of their wealth, to be redistributed to Blue states who either have no moral problem with funding embryonic stem cell research, or to other states who would be only too happy to set any ethical concerns to the side, in favor of getting federal money. The American left has much in common with the people who led the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution of 1917 in Russia, with its later Stalinist permutation, with Italian Fascism, and with German Nazism. The U.S. left shares the vengeance that animated most of those--the Fascists were less harsh than the others--and the same desire for concentrated and heightened government power over individuals and groups. Mr. Obama came into office an ignorant, bigoted man. (Evidence of the latter defect appeared in a 1995 interview in which the “mainstream” press showed no interest, perhaps because they share the President’s prejudices.) Some of his policy statements suggest he is learning, though a bit late, that people who do not support him also support better policy choices. Still, as Charles Krauthammer has written, "Dr. James Thomson, the discoverer of embryonic stem cells, said 'if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.' " Will the President think enough about embryonic stem cell research? No.