Mister Cook and his usual "righteous" politics of binary exclusions.

Mister Cook from the fascist patriarchal Opus Dei which essentially promote the same anti-feminist misogynist mind-set and politics as criticised in todays posting critical of the awful sharia laws.

Kinder-Kuche-Kircher.

If you check out his website you will find that it is full of the politics of binary exclusions.

And that most of the authors (and the people who post comments too) presume that their point of view is the only correct one (because it is "faithful" to the teachings of the catholic "magisterium"). And that by extension everyone else who promote a contrary view is inevitably wrong or promoting "relativist" errors, and thus false culture. This includes even those from other faith traditions, and ESPECIALLY christians of a liberal persuasion (who wont submit to the "authority" of the "magisterium")

Such people also presume that they have "gods" mandate or commission to convert everyone else to the one true way---just like their islamic mirror image likenesses. (I would prefer catholic rule to sharia rule though).

Speaking of the "authority" of the "magisterium" why not check out The Criminal History of the Papacy by Tony Bushby.

Science cannot work in a vaccum. It must work within a moral and ethical framework.If this framework is discounted by saying the end jistifies the means we will end up with a corrupt science (e.g.Nazi experiemnts were corrupt science).The means is often the ends in the making, if we so easily dispose of embryonic cells , we may find ourselves on the moral slippery slide of treating something more developed so lightly( oops nearly forgot about abortion).

Foxydude Nazi really is that the best you could come up with? How about the corruption of science leads to people say condoms will not help stop AIDS from spreading, or that birth control is bad for the environment!
As for Mr Cook, it must be great haven't superior morals and judgement then us mere mortals. Just when in the process of human reproduction should the cells involved be thought of as a fully fledge human being. Is a subject for community debate, it should not be up to a decreasing small but loud group to decide for the rest of us. Unlike Mr Cook I respect people’s right to believe that even the act of birth control is immoral. However I believe that that is a individual choice. For public policy these things should be decided based on good science and public feeling, It seems quite clear to me that on the whole most people and scientist are comfortable with the idea of not calling a bundle of half a dozen none differentiated cells a human being.
The reality is no one would run into a burning building to save a zygote or blastocyst in a petri-dish

There are, in fact strong arguments for holding that no one was ever a zygote or a blastocyst. Pre-implantation embryos (or pre-embryos) do not become children, they make them. That is, they are not potential persons; nor are they living human beings.

The arguments, though, are complex, and the author does not seem to have understood them.

One argument leads to the conclusion that we are brains, not bodies. The full arguments concern the nature of personal identity--but a quick version notes that brain death is death.

A second concerns the criteria for physical identity. It starts from the scientific fact that every surviving pre-embryo splits into two--an inner group of cells that will give rise to the foetus, and an outer group that creates the umbilical chord, the extra-embryonic membranes and the foetus's contribution to the placenta. But until a number of divisions have taken place, there is nothing to differentiate those cells that will give rise to the central group, and those that will give rise to the outer group.

Moreover, sometimes other divisions take place, when identical twins are produced. What this means that a given group of cells may give rise to the umbilical chord etc., or to any of or any group of a number of babies.

The ordinary criteria for physical identity do not apply for those reasons. No group of cells in a pre-embryo is a potential person, for there is no determination of what persons there will be; the group as a whole is not a living human being, not is it a human life.

That's a sketch. More details on request

Thanks ozbib, I learned something although I was already on the side of the scientists rather than the religious zealots.

Perhaps Michael Cook can explain something to me:

As I understand it, the Catholic objection to experimenting on embryonic stem cells is because embryos are 'human', and they are 'human' because they have the potential to become human beings. At least, that's the only way I can describe it in empirical language: purely supernatural reasons I simply can't get my head around, and they are unlikely to carry much weight in a discussion anyway. Mr Cook tacitly acknowledges this fact by failing to mention them, though they clearly mean much more to him than any purely rational considerations.

BUT... the research by Shinya Yamanaka referred to in this article would appear to indicate that pretty much every cell in the human body has the potential to become a human being.

Taking this as true, does it not mean that -- from a Catholic perspective -- any action that causes the death of any cell in a human body is murder? Every time I cut myself shaving I cause the death of hundreds of my own cells -- does that make me a serial killer? Any surgeon who removes a cancerous tumour also removes thousands of healthy cells -- do they belong in jail?

One of us is being absurd, and I don't think it's me. Please explain, Mr. Cook.

The Catholic position has been riddled with such absurdities. A number of adjustments have been made, in an effort to preserve the view.

One problem has been that the position implies that every unfertilised ovum and every sperm are potential persons--as long as the right conditions obtain. So is the thing which consists of a sperm in one body and a ripe but unfertilised ovum in another.

The response has been to rely on the ideas that the ovum and the sperm are two things, not one; and that though both are human and alive, they are not human lives.

But that response relies on adopting criteria for counting things (which is arbitrary), and accepting the criteria for indentity of things (which is not, but which leaves them open to the objections I raised in my earlier post).

The problem that every live human cell turns out to be a potential person is met by insisting that for something to be a potential person, it must to develop into one by purely natural processes. I take it that that means, without human intervention. (That would also deal with the sperm and ovum problem--for this purpose, human intercourse is not purely natural.)

But the problem is that a zygote does not produce a child by purely natural processes (as that is defined). For the mother must eat.

Perhaps Michael Cook, you could provide a response?

I quite agree that scientific research needs to be within ethical boundaries.

The problem is that once again religion is trying to assert its dogma as the guiding ethics.

As has been shown from Gallileo onwards to contraception, religious dogma is a disfunctional moral compass that serves the church over the community.

When the world recognises that priests, bishops, mullahs etc are authorities on their religions and not morality, then maybe science can proceed ethically to produce benefits for us all unfettered by dogma.