Truth? What Does That Have To Do With It?

The stem cell debate illustrates just how political, ideological, and religious science has become says William Saletan in an article for Slate. The article shows just how scientists are willing to shade the truth to get funding. In this case the DNC is only too willing to play along because it gives them a big emotional pull especially when it is linked with Alzheimer's as they have been doing repeatedly.

The trouble is, the Alzheimer's hype isn't true. On June 10, the Post's Rick Weiss reported that "given the lack of any serious suggestion that stem cells themselves have practical potential to treat Alzheimer's, the Reagan-inspired tidal wave of enthusiasm [for stem cell research] stands as an example of how easily a modest line of scientific inquiry can grow in the public mind to mythological proportions. It is a distortion that some admit is not being aggressively corrected by scientists." Why don't scientists dispel the myth? "People need a fairy tale," NIH researcher Ronald McKay told Weiss. "Maybe that's unfair, but they need a story line that's relatively simple to understand."

Via Catholic Analysis.