A Democratic president banned the use of federal money for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research, a Republican president restricted federal hESC funding to existing lines and a Democratic president continues to limit federal money for hESC research. Who is regarded as anti-science on this issue? Republicans.
I know, I know, Democrats are anti-science on plenty of other things - animal research, agriculture, vaccines and a whole list of others - but this is just about hESC research and there it is clearly just a Republican issue. The mainstream media and science bloggers say so.
In the immortal Richard Donner classic "Scrooged", the following exchange takes place between Frank, the president of the network, and his boss, Preston:
Preston: Do you know how many cats there are in this country?
Frank: No, ummmm...I don't have...no.
Preston: Twenty-seven million. Do you know how many dogs?
Frank: ...in America?
Preston: Forty-eight million. We spend four billion on pet food alone.
Frank: Four...?!
It's rare that you will find me arguing for gender quotas. Obviously I am not for discrimination but, at least in science, mandating representation - which is discrimination against the qualified in the interests of sex organs - does not lead to better science, it leads to equality at the expense of excellence.
Economics, however, is not science and some mandated equality might help. Science says so.
Conservatives, who generally agree on the value of individual freedom, want the government to limit marijuana. Progressives, who generally agree on the value of big government, don't want the government to limit marijuana.
Conservatives, who generally agree on the merits of capitalism, like genetically modified organisms, as long as they aren't researched using human embryonic stem cells and curing people of serious illnesses. Progressives, who generally dislike capitalism unless it is the magical sort that works in a world where regulation of fossil fuels and mandates and subsidies for lousy alternative solutions from 1600 A.D. will still allow capitalism to flourish, dislike genetically modified organisms because they hate science.
Quantum entanglement was strange when it was conceptualized. It violated Einstein's famous speed limit in his Theory of Relativity and he called it
spukhafte Fernwirkung - “spooky action at a distance” and sought to note the flaws in
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the
Copenhagen interpretation. The result was the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox.