Word Of The Day: Sophistry
Even more reason that we shouldn't trust politicians when they start talking science. These are excerpts from an article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune on July 19, 2006.

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Experts rip Rove stem cell remark
Researchers doubt value of adult cells
By Jeremy Manier and Judith Graham
Tribune staff reporters

When White House political adviser Karl Rove signaled last week that President Bush planned to veto the stem cell bill being considered by the Senate, the reasons he gave went beyond the president's moral qualms with research on human embryos.In fact, Rove waded into deeply contentious scientific territory, telling the Denver Post's editorial board that researchers have found "far more promise from adult stem cells than from embryonic stem cells."....

But Rove's negative appraisal of embryonic stem cell research--echoed by many opponents of funding for such research--is inaccurate, according to most stem cell research scientists. The field of stem cell medicine is too young and unproven to make such judgments, experts say.

"[Rove's] statement is just not true," said Dr. Michael Clarke, associate director of the stem cell institute at Stanford University, who in 2003 published the first study showing how adult stem cells replenish themselves.

If opponents of embryonic stem cell research object on moral grounds, "I'm willing to live with that," Clarke said, though he disagrees. But, he said, "I'm not willing to live with statements that are misleading."

Dr. Markus Grompe, director of the stem cell center at the Oregon Health and Science University, is a Catholic who objects to research involving the destruction of embryos and is seeking alternative ways of making stem cells. But Grompe said there is "no factual basis to compare the promise" of adult stem cells and cells taken from embryos.

The bill heading for Bush's desk would expand federal funding of work on stem cells taken from embryos. Such cells come from extra embryos originally created for in-vitro fertilization. Many experts believe embryonic stem cells could one day help regenerate damaged tissue for patients with conditions such as diabetes, spinal cord injury or Parkinson's disease, though embryonic cells have not yet been tested in humans.

Adult stem cells, which usually come from bone marrow transplants or umbilical cord blood, are widely considered less flexible than embryonic stem cells in forming many types of tissue. Yet adult stem cells already are in common use for certain conditions, such as replenishing immune cells after cancer treatment and treating some bone and blood disorders.

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius on Tuesday could not provide the name of a stem cell researcher who shares Rove's views on the superior promise of adult stem cells.

One of the only published scientists arguing that adult stem cells are better is David Prentice, a former professor of life sciences at Indiana State University and now a fellow at the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group. Prentice compiled of 72 diseases that have been treated with adult stem cells. Yet most of the treatments on the list "remain unproven," wrote Teitelbaum of Washington University and his co-authors, who claimed that Prentice "misrepresents existing adult stem cell treatments."

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Keep in mind, friends, that any time a politician or mouthpiece for a political organization like the Family Research Council tries to give scientific reasons for why they're opposed to something... they're usually cherry-picking scientific evidence that supports their view, rather than taking the scientific findings as a whole and then forming their opinions. There's a word for that, and it's "sophistry": looking for evidence for something you've already decided.