Every once in a while, I hear some smartass evangelical atheist try to convince people that GWBush initiated some great religious fanatic foreign and domestic policy. I keep my head of course, and mostly I have kept quiet. But it's getting a little tiresome and at this point I feel that it is necessary to kill the myth that Bush was anti-science based on his opposition to embryonic stem cell research.
Myth: Bush was against stem cell research.
Fact: Bush was against federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Research on existing lines of embryonic stem cells was never curtailed.
Myth: Bush opposed embryonic stem cell research because of religious reasons.
Fact: Bush opposed embryonic stem cell research for moral & ethical reasons.
Myth: Embryonic stem cell research was promising.
Fact: It promised, but did not deliver. As of 2006, there were 76 proven therapies using adult stem cells and zero from embryonic stem cells.
Myth: We can never know what we might have gained.
Fact: The ban was reversed by Obama in 2009.
Myth: Now science can proceed.
Fact: Pluripotency in human adult stem cells was bio-engineered in 2007. The presumed reason to use embryonic stem cells was their pluripotency.
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