Sharing Life — Abortion, Stem Cells, Euthanasia, Intelligent Design, Reproduction Technology

A federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that a local school district cannot assert that Darwinism is theory only with gaps unsupported by evidence. Further, the District cannot state that there is scientific evidence that there is an intelligent design to the Universe. The judge’s reasoning is essentially that because there can be no scientific verification for the existence of God, the existence of God is not a matter of science, but religion. The judge found that the School Board members lied when stating that they had no religious purpose in including Intelligent Design (I.D.) in their biology texts. The purpose, according to the judge, was patently religious. Therefore, he ruled, the practice violated the constitutional mandate separating state and religion. The L.A. Times coverage (12-21-2005) of the decision is found at L.A. Times Coverage.

This decision is wrongly decided on the law because the judge failed to grasp the actual nature of science as it is practiced and taught. Theoretical science routinely constructs theories having little or no actual evidentiary support. The theory is the starting point for testing the predictive value of the theory as it is applied to the observed universe. Much of cutting edge science does not have the benefit of observable or quantifiable data, but rather relies on what “may be occurring” beyond observation to understand “what is occurring” within observation. For example, Einstein’s theory of relativity was well ahead of any observations because the means of observation were not then in place. As observations became available, they were explained by the theory (for example, the time/space/gravity/speed/energy relationships in showing the relativity of the time-space field). Thus, the theory had explanatory power, and acquired greater credibility. Yet this “time/space/energy” field is not seen or measurable. Only its effects are known. So it is with God. Yet, this federal judge presumed to place God outside the scope of scientific inquiry because he saw “God” as a religious pursuit exclusively. He was, in a word, a person captured by his categories.

This decision, while hailed by Darwinists (for their own metaphysical purposes), will ultimately be discredited as deeper thinking advances the cause of Truth.

As a lawyer, I’m aware that any proponent of a proposition has the burden of “producing evidence” to meet the ultimate “burden of proof”. First, if Darwinists state life has resulted by random natural forces, then they have the burden of producing evidence to answer the questions: “What do you mean that life originated by random events?” and “How did you come to that conclusion?”. Greg Koukl at “Stand to Reason” () suggests a third question to expose a particular fallacy in the proponent’s argument: “Could you clear up for me how micro-evolution is proof of cross-species evolution?”

On the other hand, we have overwhelming evidence that God exists. I am listening to J.P. Moreland’s CD from my Apologetics Certificate Program at Biola, “The Case for God”. Moreland lays out multiple arguments that cumulatively carry the burden of proof that God is the originator of all existence, and particularly organic life. You cover some of these in your extensive “lessons”.

Since Evolutionists maintain only “natural processes” are at work, they refuse to entertain alternative propositions for the origins of life. In the law, a proponent (plaintiff) only wins by “default” when there is no “answer” on file, and no evidence presented in rebuttal. The best defense, I have learned from trial strategy, is a good offense. Particularly, the best defense is to present an alternative, independent reason for why things happen as they did. The “Case for God” is scientific. Nature is full of God’s intelligence, and screams his handiwork even to the deaf. Even the phrases “Natural Selection” and “Natural Processes” suggest an Intelligence that “selects” and “processes”.

You may have heard of SETI. It is an organization funded by the government, using scientific investigation, to systematically “Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence”. It had to adopt criteria for identifying “intelligence” “out there” when it found it. The criteria are: 1) complexity; 2) order; 3) non-repetition; 4) the whole of the structure is dependent on every part.

So, a human sentence (or a series of 100 prime numbers, as in the case of the movie “Contact” with Jodi Foster) satisfies all four criteria. Take biologist Michael Behe’s cellular flagellum identified in his book “Darwin’s Black Box”. Remove a part of the flagellum apparatus, and the whole thing ceases. The living cell is a complex, ordered, non-repeated, whole operation that communicates information. Metaphorically, it is a “statement” that has “meaning”, i.e., purpose. This is of course the Intelligent Design [“I.D.”] argument, but is only one of 4 or 5 others that Moreland summarizes.

Making the case FOR God, based on scientific evidence is the best way to expose the weaknesses of the case for a purely “random chance” theory of life. Chuck Colson tells the story of Anthony Flew, long renowned atheist, in his book “The Good Life” (2005). Flew was “overcome” in his atheism by the evidence for I.D. He simply could not deny that life was too complex, ordered, and unique to be the product of chance. [It requires much more “faith” to believe in chance than to believe in design in view of the evidence.]

In conclusion, the “Origin of the Species” has become more like a religious text than an scientific treatise.

THE NATION
No Embryos Lost to New Stem Cells
By Karen Kaplan
Times Staff Writer

October 17, 2005

Scientists say they have created viable embryonic stem cell lines without destroying any embryos — a development that could clear ethical barriers that have sharply restricted federal funding for the controversial research.

Two separate techniques were demonstrated in mice, and researchers are optimistic the processes could be replicated with human cells. The new methods were published online Sunday by the journal Nature.

Scientists and ethicists said the approaches offered a potential compromise with social conservatives who see embryonic stem cell research as an untenable trade-off that amounts to destroying life to create medical cures.

Dr. William B. Hurlbut, a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, said he had persuaded several religious and conservative philosophers that at least one of the new approaches was morally sound.

But given the intractable debate about when life begins, there are lingering ethical concerns.

Neither method “really quells the ethical debate,” said Dr. George Q. Daley, a professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. “It’s not clear it’s going to answer all the critics.”

Protection of human embryos has been the guiding principle behind President Bush’s stem cell funding policy.

Bush was the first to approve federal money for the research, but he limited funding to the cell lines already in existence in 2001 to avoid having taxpayers subsidize the destruction of embryos. Scientists have said that only about 20 of them were usable.

Those lines, which have proven unsuitable for some research, were derived from frozen embryos donated by couples that no longer needed them for in vitro fertilization.

The federal restrictions have hampered scientists seeking to tap the therapeutic potential of embryonic stem cells, which have the capacity to grow into any cell type in the human body. Researchers believe, for example, that the cells might eventually be used to treat juvenile diabetes by growing replacements for faulty islet cells that make insulin.

Some researchers have moved forward by using private funds to create their own lines of embryonic stem cells. California has taken the most aggressive position, passing Proposition 71 in 2004 to provide $3 billion for stem cell research.

One of the new approaches reported in Nature is based on a routine procedure used by fertility clinics to look for genetic defects in embryos.

Dr. Robert Lanza, medical director of Advanced Cell Technology Inc. in Worcester, Mass., and an author of one of the papers, extracted a single cell from a mouse embryo that developed in the laboratory into an eight-cell bundle.

After removing the cell, called a blastomere, Lanza’s team surrounded it with human embryonic stem cells from the Bush-approved lines, allowing the mouse cell to pick up the appropriate biochemical cues to start behaving like a stem cell.

Using 125 blastomeres, they were able to create five cell lines that tests found had the same properties as embryonic stem cells.

To demonstrate that the single-cell biopsy posed minimal risk to the embryo, seven-cell mouse embryos were implanted into surrogate mothers. They resulted in live births 49% of the time, virtually the same as for the regular eight-cell embryos.

Lanza said human stem cell lines could be created using single cells extracted for genetic diagnosis at in vitro fertilization clinics.

In a laboratory dish, the extracted cell would be allowed to divide into two. One cell could be screened for genetic defects and the other used to create stem cells, he said.

“It’s relatively simple,” Lanza said. “It does not damage the embryo, and it’s been used on thousands of healthy babies.”

The other approach, developed by MIT biologist Rudolph Jaenisch, relies on deactivating a gene needed to implant an embryo into a uterus.

Jaenisch altered mouse DNA and inserted it into an egg whose own DNA had been removed using a common stem cell procedure called nuclear transfer.

Because the resulting embryo could not attach to the uterus, it would have no chance to develop into a healthy baby, thus presumably avoiding any ethical quandary. Hurlbut, the presidential advisor, strongly backs this approach.

After the DNA insertion, the egg was prompted to begin developing and stem cells were harvested a few days later.

To complete the experiment, the researchers turned the silenced gene back on. The resulting stem cells demonstrated the same abilities as traditional embryonic stem cells.

Scientists say this approach is attractive because it offers the ability to tailor stem cells to specific patients.

Although the process is cumbersome, scientists would probably be willing to do it to qualify for federal funding, Jaenisch said.

But both methods still present some ethical hurdles.

Some scientists believe that a single human blastomere may be able to develop into an embryo, throwing Lanza’s method into the same ethical terrain as conventional stem cell methods, said Daley, the Harvard professor.

He said that Jaenisch’s method seemed like no more than a cosmetic solution.

“A process that dooms an otherwise normal embryo to later demise” may not “answer all the critics,” Daley said.

Dr. Irving L. Weissman, the director of Stanford University’s stem cell institute who wrote a commentary accompanying the Nature papers, said the new methods amounted to “a diversion of good science by politics,” but that the trade-off would be worth it if it would speed the delivery of therapies to patients.

Hurlbut, the member of Bush’s bioethics panel, said the new research might at least spark a debate about what would make embryonic stem cells ethically palatable to all Americans.

“We need an answer,” he said.