The Naturalistic Assumptions of Evolution and Modern Science!

By Dennis Edwards --

Very few people today realize that modern science is based on naturalistic assumptions. Modern science is based on the philosophy or belief system in naturalism. Naturalism is the belief or philosophy which states the following: First, only the natural exists. There is no metaphysical or supernatural. Second, everything can be explained as a result of random natural causes. These two axioms are the foundation stones upon which naturalism is built and of which the General Theory of Evolution is the outgrowth.

In the past science was defined as knowledge, or the search for knowledge, or the search for the truth of the how and the why of nature and the physical world around us. With this definition of science, scientist of the past did not separate their belief in God from their science. In fact, their science was an outgrowth of their belief in God. If there was a rational God who created a rational world then, scientists reasoned, they could search and find out the rationale that God used to uphold His creation. Like Kepler said, “We were merely thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”[1]

Because scientists believed in a rational creator they searched for the rationale behind the creation. Their belief in a Divine Creator did not deter their scientific investigation, but rather justified and enhanced their scientific inquiry. Indeed, their scientific inquiry was a result of their belief system and their belief system justified scientific inquiry and predicted the results: scientific discoveries of the laws of nature, physics, chemistry etc. In a purely naturalistic world, why should we expect that there be any laws of nature if everything is a result of random, uncaused processes? As C.S. Lewis expressed in the following quote:

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts - i.e., Materialism and Astronomy - are mere accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It's like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.[2]

In other words, naturalism does not make sense. Nevertheless, it appealed to man’s baser instincts and therefore it took hold in the hearts and minds of the men who wanted to be free from the moral constraints of formalized religion and a God of retribution.

So we see, as a reaction to the moral restrictions imposed by the religious element of society in the 18th and 19th century and earlier, learned men, wishing to free themselves from the shackles of religiosity, began to oppose Biblical interpretations of nature. As an outgrowth of the Age of Reason, as opposed to the age where men accepted things by faith, because that is what the Church taught; and as a result of the political and social upheavals of the 18th century with the French and American Revolutions, enlighten thinkers began to promote naturalism. By the late 1700’s and early 1800’s naturalism made headway in the scientific community.

Scotland’s James Hutton’s book The Theory of the Earth promoted uniformitarianism. Uniformitarianism is the belief that only natural processes happening in the present can be used to explain the world around us and its past history. Hutton’s mantra was “the present is the key to the past.”[3] Later, Charles Lyle’s Principles of Geology published in 1830 built on Hutton’s ideas and propagated his naturalistic interpretations as the correct way to do science and interpret the world around us. Lyle’s goal was to get Moses out of science,[4] and he greatly succeeded. Lyle was a great friend of Darwin and continually encouraged him in his writing of the Origins, so much so, that Darwin confessed that it seemed like his ideas came from the mind of Lyle.

It was not long before the idea that all of life and natural occurrences could be explained by unguided natural forces without soliciting supernatural explanations. Biblical interpretations of past events, or catastrophism seemed childish. By 1855, four years before Charles Darwin published the Origins of the Species, we see Charles Spurgeon, the famous British Baptist evangelist admitting his acceptance of naturalistic assumptions. He said,

Can any man tell me when the beginning was? Years ago we thought the beginning of the world was when Adam came upon it. But we have discovered that thousands of years before that God was preparing chaotic matter to make it a fit abode for man, putting races of creatures upon it, who might die and leave behind the marks of his handiwork and marvelous skill, before he tried his hand on man.[5]

Thomas Chalmers, the Scottish theologian and professor from the University of Edinburgh was the first to popularize the Gap theory early in the 19th century. He accepted the millions of years that both Hutton and Lyell propagated. Chalmers developed the theory mainly for the purpose of accommodating the great ages demanded by evolutionary geologists.[6] Natural theology became the popular theology of the day and was the idea that the science of nature was just as an important “revelation” as the scriptures themselves. The two could not contradict each other.

Rather than look for the weaknesses or faults in the scientific reasoning or assumptions, the 19th century man embraced naturalism as taught by Hutton and Lyle and abandoned the traditional Flood geology. Flood geology which had until then been the accepted method of explaining the geological features lost credibility and the atmosphere was ripe for Darwin’s ideas a few years later. Chalmers’ Bridgewater Treatise was published in two volumes in 1833 and went through 6 editions. His books were effectively an encyclopedia of pre-evolutionary natural history, commissioned and published whilst Charles Darwin was on board the Beagle.

The evolutionist Derek Ager in 1981 commenting on this period of history said the following:

My excuse for this lengthy and amateur digression into history is that I have been trying to show how I think geology got into the hands of the theoreticians (Hutton and Lyle) who were conditioned by social and political history of their day more than by observations in the field… In other words, we have allowed ourselves to be brain-washed into avoiding any interpretation of the past that involves extreme and what might be termed ‘catastrophic’ processes![7]

Evolutionist Stephen Jay Goule when writing about the Great Scablands debate said something similar.

The ‘establishment,’ as represented by the United States Geological Society (a modern day scientific organization), closed ranks in opposition (to a scientist’s interpretation of the geological features that supported catastrophic and therefore Biblical processes)…. Instead of testing Bretz’s flood on its own merits, they rejected it on general principles… Bretz stood against a firm, highly restrictive dogma (uniformitarianism) that never had made any sense: the emperor had been naked for a century. Charles Lyell, the godfather of geological gradualism (uniformitarianism), had pulled a fast one in establishing the doctrine of imperceptible change (uniformitarianism).[8]

Here we see that it was not scientific dating methods that gave us the millions of year, not scientific observations in the field, but theoreticians who had rejected the traditional Biblical analysis of the geological column. The acceptance of millions of years came before any modern day scientific dating methods. Such dating methods proofs were similar to Dr. Jan Baptista von Helmont’s experiment proving that Aristotle’s idea of spontaneous generation was true.[9] His experiment was merely verification. He placed dirty underwear and wheat in an open jar in a corner of the home and left it for two weeks. At the end of which he found adult mice in the jar and concluded that spontaneous generation was true. Today’s modern dating methods all too often fall under this outrageous category. They assume the millions of years and then seek a method that confirms that assumption and are oblivious to any evidence which contradicts or calls into question the conclusions or initial assumptions that were made.

By the middle of the 19th century Biblical interpretations began to be seen as infantile or at least unscientific. Naturalism became accepted as the philosophy of science and religion. Men rejected traditional Biblical interpretations, though few men admitted that it was because of the restrictive moral implications forced on society by the religious institutions. Nevertheless, from the time of the French Revolution there was a new awakening in man’s desire to be a free moral agent, an agent who followed his own dictates rather than those imposed upon him by ancient religious institutions. Men wanted to be free from the laws of touch not, taste not, think not, etc. Religion was seen by many as a hindrance to intellectual progress and, therefore, political and scientific progress. Naturalism was embraced because it eliminated God from scientific inquiry and at the same time freed man from the moral confines that religion demanded. If the world around us could be explained by purely naturalistic means, man would not need to invoke the help of the supernatural and could in a sense free himself from its moral restrictions. Man could be free to act and behave according to his own dictates and not to those of a book written thousands of years before to an entirely different culture and people. These underlining reasons helped lead to the rejection of Biblical interpretations.

Later in the 20th century, we see an interesting confession by Aldous Huxley, the grandson of Thomas Huxley, Darwin's closest friend and promoter. Grandfather Thomas Huxley had done much to help defend the evolutionary theory at its beginnings and is credited to winning the famous Evolution/Creation debate with abolitionist William Wilberforce. Thomas Huxley did more to defend evolution than Darwin himself and became known as Darwin’s Bulldog. However, he was not totally convinced of Darwin’s mechanism for evolution. Later in 1960, grandson Aldous spoke honestly about his own hidden agenda.

I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning, consequently assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption . . The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world (and this is what evolution ultimately teaches) is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do (moral freedom is the goal, to be free from religion’s restrictive confines). For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.[10]

So here we see Aldous Huxley, one of the most influential liberal writers of the 20th century, confessing that his rejection of a creator and his support of atheistic/naturalistic philosophy stemmed from his desire for sexual liberty. The apostle Peter in prophetic words had said the following:

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.’ (This is what uniformitarianism preaches that the present natural processes are the same as those that have been in the past.) For this they are willing ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.[2Peter 3:3-6]

In other words, they are willingly ignorant of the creation act by God and the historical global catastrophic flood of Noah.

What has happened down through the centuries is that the false hypocritical religious systems have driven men from God. As men rejected God, they became proud in mind and their foolish hearts were darkened.[Romans 1:21] Professing themselves to be wise, they in fact became fools believing in the illogical and contradictory.[Romans 1:22] Instead of man being made in God’s image, we became descendants of creeping things, birds and four-footed beats, the Theory of Evolution. Saint Paul prophetically predicts the very same in his letter to the Romans.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.[Romans 1:21-23]

Most people today do not realize they have bought into naturalistic assumptions by accepting the Big Bang and the General Theory of Evolution. Naturalism is so strongly accepted into our society, we no longer reject its tenants conscientiously. We do not realize that the scientific models that we are taught as truths are those models that assume naturalistic assumptions and steer clear of Biblical ones. These models assume there is no metaphysical. They assume that past events can be explained by random natural forces happening today. By changing the definition of science to mean natural processes by which we can explain the world around us, modern day science has eliminated God from the discussion and conned mankind into accepting its naturalistic philosophy without mankind even realizing it.

Let´s take a look at the Big Bang Theory as an example. When formulating their model of the beginning of the universe evolutionists steer clear of anything which validates the Biblical framework. In the Biblical framework we would expect to find our galaxy near to the center of the universe. We would expect to find the universe expanding from that central region. Dr. Russell Humphreys has made such a model and has found some interesting discoveries concerning distant starlight, time and gravity.[15] His model postulates the possibility, because of gravities affect on time, of time passing slower on earth than at the end of the universe. He speculates that although billions of years could have passed at the far distant end of the universe, it could be possible that only six thousand years of earth time passed here on our planet. In choosing his model, Dr. Humphreys starts with a universe with a center and with our galaxy near that center. That would put our galaxy near the gravitational center of the universe. Since it is an established fact that gravity effects time and causes time to pass more slowly, time on earth would be expected to pass slower than time at the outer fringes of the universe where the universes gravitational well would have a much weaker affect. Dr. Humphreys’ universe also has an edge.

However, evolutionists when doing their model of the beginning of the universe avoid those two assumptions made by Dr. Humphreys: the universe has a center and our galaxy is near that center, and the universe has an edge. Internationally renowned astrophysicist George FR Ellis explains it in the following manner:

People need to be aware that there is a range of models that can explain the observations .... For instance, I can construct a spherically symmetric universe for you with Earth at its center, and you cannot prove otherwise based on observations, (that it is wrong) ....you can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide it.[16]

Ellis is admitting that evolutionists exclude a model like Dr. Humphreys’ because of philosophical reasons. They exclude it because it would give credence to the Biblical story, not because the evidence negates it. The fact is that the evidence supports Dr. Humphreys’ model over the traditional Big Bang model, but because of its Biblical ramifications, Dr. Humphreys’ model is ignored.

Evolutionist Professor of Genetics Richard Lewontin made a similar confession of evolutionist’s anti-Biblical bias. He said,

We take the side of evolutionary science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism, that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.[17]

Modern science is full of naturalistic assumptions which are contrary to reality. Because of modern man’s bias against God the naturalistic assumptions are assumed to be true without scientific evidence to back them up. It’s about time we re-evaluate the state of modern science’s condition. Ben Stein’s documentary, Expelled; No Intelligence Allowed, questions modern science’s bias and dictatorial control of modern thinking.[18] Dave Schoch in his book, The Assumptions Behind the Theory of Evolution, has said the following:

The truth can only be made up of facts, not assumptions. We should not be teaching assumptions as facts to our children, especially a theory that only stands upon one assumption after another.[19]

It is about time we take a closer look at our educational and scientific community and see exactly what’s going on. Future generations are dependent on us standing up for our convictions and exposing the false evolutionary doctrine for the mythological hocus-pocus that it is. Let’s get back to true scientific investigation without bias and prejudice whatever form it may take. The future of our children and the world depends upon it!

[1] http://www.icr.org/article/thinking-gods-thoughts-after-him/

[2] http://creation.com/cs-lewis-on-materialistic-thoughts
[3] http://www.thebrpage.net/theanswer/?article=james_hutton_(1727-1797)
[4] http://creation.com/charles-lyell-free-science-from-moses
[5]John Morris: http://www.icr.org/article/826/174/
[6]Gap Theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_creationism
[7] Derek Ager, The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, Macmillan, 1981, pg. 46-47.
[8] Stephen Jay Gould, The Great Scablands Debate, Natural History, Vol. 87:7 (Aug.Sep 1978) pg. 12 & 14.
[9] Evolution: the Grand Experiment, page 12.
[10] Aldous Huxley, "Confessions of a Professed Atheist," Report: Perspective on the News, Vol. 3, June 1966, p. 19.
[11] 2Peter 3:3-6
[12] Romans 1:21
[13] Romans 1:22
[14] Romans 1:21-23
[15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3XSz5TEInU
[16] http://evidencepress.com/short-answers/are-we-in-the-center-of-the-universe/
[17] http://evidencepress.com/short-answers/are-we-in-the-center-of-the-universe/
[18] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5EPymcWp-g
[19] Dave Schoch, The Assumptions Behind the Theory of Evolution, pg.

Originally published August 25, 2014

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The Birth of Evolution in a Nutshell

Dennis Edwards:

Charles Darwin was born on February 12th, 1809, the same day as Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was destined to become President of the United States during its darkest and deadliest hour when more than 500,000 American lives would be lost in the Civil War, and Lincoln himself assassinated in 1865 and die at the age of 56. Darwin would ultimately die in 1882 at the age of 73, but his theory of evolution would captured the minds of millions and lead them from faith in God to scientific fatalism and here’s the story. 

Until the 19th century, in the western world, the idea that God created the world about 6,000 years ago was quite universally accepted. Archbishop James Usher´s The Annals of the World first published in 1658 dated creation to about 4004 BC. The age of the earth and geology traditionally had followed this Biblical world view. Society was largely structured on the values laid out in the Bible.

It was in 1788 that James Hutton first published The Theory of the Earth, his book on geology. Here he explained uniformitarianism, or the idea that the present was the key to the past. In other words, by measuring the rates of natural processes in the present, scientists could extrapolate backwards to determine how long it took for geological features to form in the past. Traditionally, the geological column had been judged as the result of Noah´s flood. Hutton suggested that geology must be judged by natural causes present today and not by supposed events of the past. He said,

“The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now… No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principles.”[1]

For example, rather than seeing the Grand Canyon as the result of the catastrophic flood some 4,000 plus years ago, it was now seen as the result of slow natural processes over millions of years. He wrote, “But surely, general deluges (Noah´s Flood) form no part of the theory of the earth; for the purpose of this earth is evidently to maintain vegetable and animal life, and not to destroy them.”[2]  The final line in his book stated, “The result, therefore, of our present inquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning,–no prospect of an end,"[3] confirming his idea that the creation and flood events were not valid.

Charles Lyell, a contemporary of Darwin, following on Hutton´s ideas, wrote his own tome,  Principles of Geology, which was published in 1830. Lyell, like Hutton, was from Scotland. He had trained as a lawyer and used his lawyer´s power of persuasion to draw a brilliant defence in favour of uniformitarianism and millions of years rather than the hitherto idea of catastrophism. Catastrophism was based on the Biblical events of the creation and the worldwide flood of Noah and therefore needed only thousands of years of earth time.

Lyell himself confessed that his goal in life was to get “Moses out of science,” for until that time the creation -flood / catastrophism had dominated the geological interpretation of the geological column. Lyell saw himself as “the spiritual saviour of geology, freeing the science from the old dispensation of Moses.”[4] His Principles of Geology was the most influential geological work in the middle of the 19th century and helped consolidate the concept of millions of years. He said during a lecture that “….the physical past of geological inquiry ought to be conducted as if the scriptures were not in existence.”[5] Such a position is not unbiased but is recommending that science take an anti- Biblical stance.

When Darwin took his five year trip around the world, passing through the now famous Galapagos Islands off the western coast of South America, he took his Bible with him. He had graduated university with a Divinity Degree. However, the captain of the ship the Beagle offered Darwin a copy of Lyell´s Principles to read. Doing so, slowly changed Charles world view. He abandoned the creation/flood model and accepted uniformitarianism and millions of years.

Once Darwin had abandoned the Biblical model and accepted uniformitarianism with the millions of years, he was open to finding a new reason for the variety of life not based on Biblical assumptions. Hutton had already toyed with these ideas but had “rejected the idea of evolution originating species as a 'romantic fantasy'. Hutton thought that natural selection allowed species to form varieties better adapted to particular conditions and was therefore evidence of benevolent design in nature.”[6] Creation scientists agree with this completely.

People normally picture the scientist as an unbiased scholar searching for the truth of the how and the why of things or of nature. But the truth is quite different. Every scientist starts off his work with assumptions, or a belief system of how he interprets the world around him. The data or evidence does not speak for itself, but needs to be interpreted. The scientist´s world view will affect how he interprets the data or evidence that he discovers.

Let´s take a look at how the scientists on a famous TV program CSI or Bones do their science. The investigators are trying to find out how something happened. They cannot go back in time, so they make a theory and then check to see if the evidence fits their theory. If the evidence shows the theory false, they throw out the first theory and develop another or revise or adapt the first. By doing science in the present, they try to determine how the murder might have occurred in the past. However, since they were not there, they can never be sure if they are right.

Often in the program they first think it is one person and then another, until finally they come up with the right person. Ultimately, they try to get a confession, or an eye-witness testimony because all they have is circumstantial evidence and that might not hold up in court. Sometimes in a program a bad cop fudges the evidence to make it look like someone was guilty when they were not. Sadly many of today´s scientists are fudging the evidence in order to have the public believe that the evolution of “molecules to man” has really taken place.

The famous British biologist D. Watson clearly expressed this view way back in 1929 when he said, “Evolution is a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.”[7]

When talking about evolution, we are talking about “molecules to man” evolution or common descent from the first living organism. The evolutionary tree of life demonstrates all life springing from one source. Biologists often claim that since a change does take place in a species, therefore “evolution” has occurred. This is an example of what some scientists call “micro-evolution.” Creationist scientists agree that some form of “speciation” does take place, but never does a new type of “kind” of animal develop. Creationists would call this variation within a species or “kind” of animal.

Dr Jason Lisle talks about the shift of one meaning of a word in an argument to another meaning in his book Discerning Truth: Exposing Errors in Evolutionary Arguments. He says, “Evolution can mean “change” in a general sense but it also refers to the idea that organisms share a common ancestor or “particles to people” evolution. Many evolutionists seem to think that by demonstrating evolution in the sense of change it some how proves evolution in the sense of “common descent” or “particles to people” evolution. You might hear someone say, `Creationists are wrong because we can see evolution happening all the time. Organism are constantly changing and adapting to their environment.´ But the fact that animals change does not demonstrate that they share a common ancestor. This is a very common fallacy used in evolutionary arguments.”[8]

The finches´ beaks may be different, but they are still finches. The dogs may be Great Dames or Chihuahuas, but they are still dogs. The moths may be black or white peppered, but they are still moths. The bacteria may be resistant or non-resistant to pesticide, but it is still bacteria. Natural selection and mutation may have occurred, but no new genetic information has been added to the DNA of the organism. New genetic information would be necessary for a new body part or body function to appear. The error of the Neo-Darwinians is that they teach that fundamentally information is created by mutations.

Scientists have even discovered that some bacteria possess a genetic capacity to resist certain antibiotics. Mutations are not involved. In other cases, structural defects are caused in the organism where the antibiotic would attach itself thus making the bacteria resistant. But rather than saying that the bacteria gained resistant, we could say that the antibiotic lost its ability to attach itself to the bacteria. The mutation in the bacteria caused a structural defect in the bacteria prohibiting the attachment of the antibiotic.

Normally what we see in nature is variation within a kind of animal or organism, not “molecules to man” evolution. The term “micro evolution” is used in these cases, but “micro-evolution” plus millions of years will not give us “macro-evolution” or “molecules to man” evolution. The problem remains; neither natural selection nor mutations can add new genetic information to the DNA.

Sir Fred Hoyle, the famous British mathematician and astronomer, questioned the very origins of the first cell through evolution. He said, “The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 zeros after it. It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole General Theory of Evolution. There was no primordial soup, neither on this planet nor any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must, therefore, have been the product of purposeful intelligence.”[9] As a mathematician he strongly argued against the mathematical probability of evolution. Because the improbability was so high, he concluded that evolution was impossible.

“Molecules to man evolution” has no mechanism. There is no way for one type of animal to change into another, no matter how much time is involved. When Charles Darwin was writing his Origins of the Species, the scientific community knew nothing of Mendel´s genetic studies. Mendel published them at about the same time as the Origins, but in French. However, scientists did not become aware of Mendel´s studies until the beginning of the 1900´s. Evolutionists were hoping Mendel´s genetics would offer the mechanism for evolution. But they were sadly disappointed.

Genetics proved a dead end and clearly showed that a great variety within a species was possible to obtain, but to a limit. The gene pool was limited; therefore the genetic variation possible was also a limited. Genetics did not help, but just confirmed the idea that there existed a barrier between the different “kinds” of organisms and that barrier could not be crossed. In fact studies show that a good course in genetics, even if taught by an evolutionist, reduces the student´s belief in biological evolution.

Today scientists know that neither natural selection nor mutations can create new genetic information. New genetic information would be necessary, for example, to change a reptilian lung into an avian lung. Biologist Michael Denton does a good study on this topic which can be seen on YouTube on “From a Prince to a Frog,” [10]

In his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Denton wrote, “Neither of the two fundamental axioms of Darwin´s macro-evolutionary theory- the idea that all of life forms are linked together and ultimately lead back to a primordial cell and the belief that all the adaptive design of life has resulted from a random process – have been validated by one single empirical discovery or scientific advance since 1859.”[11]

Reiterating the point once again, neither natural selection nor mutations, which evolutionists claim are the mechanisms for evolutionary change, can form new genetic information.

Dr. Lee Spetner, who holds a PHD in physics from MIT said in his book called Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution: “In all the reading I have done in life-science literature, I have never found a mutation that added information. All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce genetic information, not increase it.”[12]

British scientist Michael Pitman has commented that “neither observation nor controlled experimentation has shown natural selection manipulating mutations so as to produce a new gene, hormone, enzyme or organ.”[13]

A final quote on the subject by Dr. Wilder- Smith a famous British geneticist: “The chemistry of mutations in the genetic code has an effect similar to that of water on a text. Mutations modify or destroy already existing genetic information, but they never create new information, they never create an entirely new biological organ. Herein lays the error of New Darwinism which teaches that fundamentally new information is created by mutations.”[14] Some fascinating lectures and debates by Dr. Wilder – Smith can be found on YouTube.

Today, many children are born with one of the thousands of genetic defects or diseases. These defects/diseases are a result of mutations in the parental genes. Evidence from science clearly shows that mutations are usually deadly or dangerous and not beneficial. The few that may be beneficial, like sickle cell anaemia, are still caused by the loss of or damage to the genetic information.

Why are students still being taught in their textbooks that natural selection together with mutations are mechanisms for evolutionary change? Evolutionists do not want to let the cat out of the bag. They do not have a better answer and do not want to admit that they have not found a mechanism for evolution. They hide the facts because they believe their paradigm so strongly and because the only viable alternative is divine creation.

Like one evolutionist Professor of Genetics Richard Lewontin said, “We take the side of evolutionary science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism, that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door,”[15] or repeating the Watson quote, “Evolution is a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.”[16] Scott Todd from Kansas State University has said something similarly, “Even if all the data should point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.”[17]

The argument is not science verses religion as evolutionists like to present it. The argument is between two differing world views. Duane Gish said, “The battle is with the evolutionary philosophy and faith, not science. Evolution is a powerful religious concept, which if correctly understood, negates all of Christianity.”[18]

Evidence does not speak for itself. The fossils are not found with dates already attached. They do not talk. Science does not say anything. It is the scientists who make value judgments about their observations. But, if they are good scientists, they should make their judgments based on whether the evidence is in accordance with known laws of nature or physics, not according to their particular bias about origins. The evolutionist Bateson has confessed, “We cannot see how differences into species came about, variation of many kinds, often considerable, we daily witness, but no origins of species. Meanwhile, though our faith in evolution stands unshaken, we have no acceptable account of the origin of species.”[19]

Science can never prove what happened in the past. Scientists can speculate, and can formulate theories. But historical science can never be proved in a laboratory. Historical science deals with speculating about how events or processes took place in the past. Historical science is at best philosophical, because it deals with assumptions about past events. Neither creation nor evolution can be proven in the laboratory. They are historical scientific models or ways to view the evidence and interpret how events happened in the past. They are not scientific facts. However, the scientific facts should align with a scientific model that is accurate.

Science which we perform in the laboratory is called operational science and is done by following the scientific method: observation, hypothesis, experimentation, observation, conclusion, testing and verification. Operational science has given us the man on the moon, mobile phones, laptops, modern medicines and so on.

But “origins” or historical science is speculation about past events and as such does not come under the same category as operational science. We are not able to go back in time and observe what happened at the beginning of time. Scientists speculate about the past and make ideological judgments before doing the science or the mathematical equations. Like Stephen Hawking admits in his book The Brief History of Time. When talking about the big bang, he mentions that he must add “a mixture of ideology.”[20]

Internationally renowned astrophysicist George FR Ellis who worked closely with Hawking said when talking about the Big Bang that, "People need to be aware that there is a range of models that can explain the observations .... For instance, I can construct a spherically symmetric universe for you, with Earth at its center, and you cannot prove otherwise based on observations, (that it is wrong) ....you can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide it."[21]

The point he is trying to make, as an honest scientist, is that the idea of the Big Bang without a center and without an edge is an ideological decision. Scientists choose a model without a center and without an edge to keep away from the Biblical idea that the earth is special and has a special place in the universe. However, if you start with the earth´s galaxy near the center of the universe, which the observable evidence cannot disprove and seems to agree with, you come to totally different conclusions. See Russell Humphreys´ Starlight and Time on the YouTube.[22] Today´s leaders of scientific inquiry purposely choose a center-less and edge-less universe for philosophical reasons, because they “cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”[23]

Basically, there are two world views in the scientific community: the Biblical creationist world view and the naturalistic evolutionary world view. The naturalists believe that the world and everything in it can be explained only by what we find in the natural material world. They do not believe in the supernatural. Naturalism was popular world view in the 19th century and on into the early 20th century. You have many naturalist writers at that time such as Stephen Crane, Jack London, and Ernest Hemingway, to name a few, which ultimately led to the existentialism of Kafka, Sartre and Camus.

We need to understand that naturalism is the underlining philosophy of evolution. The evolutionary scientists have tried or are trying to change the original reason for science and meaning of science. Science originally was the search for the truth of the how and the why of the world around us. Today´s scientists like to define science as the search for naturalistic reasons to the how and the why of life and the world around us. Even if the evidence should point to the supernatural, evolutionists will not accept it. They claim that the supernatural is outside the realm of science. Evolutionary scientist Ernest Mayr said in 1988, “In scientific controversies, there is rarely any argument about facts. It is rather their interpretation that is controversial.”[24]

By buildings their theory on the false premise “there is no supernatural,” the evolutionists were bound to come to the wrong conclusion. A false premise will not lead to a correct, logical conclusion. The supernatural does exist. Thousands of people experience it every day. People experience healings. They hear voices that keep them from danger. They have dreams or visions that warn them about some evil or tell them of the death of a loved one. Scientist and doctors have written numerable books about people who have had life after death experiences. Just recently a book about a young child who had a Near Death Experience has been quite popular. People have supernatural experiences that change their lives. The supernatural is real.

Naturalism starts with the metaphysical conclusion that there is no supernatural. Therefore, naturalism is false. Therefore, evolution which is founded on naturalism is also false. Honest scientists should be more open to the problems within the theory of evolution and consider the creation model as a viable alternative. Dave Schoch in his book The Assumptions Behind the Theory of Evolution says, “The truth can only be made up of facts, not assumptions. We should not be teaching assumptions as facts to our children, especially a theory that only stands upon one assumption after another.”[25]

In the book In Six Days: why 50 scientists choose to believe in creation,[26] scientists with doctorates in various scientific fields give clear testimony and reasoning to their personal decisions to accept the Biblical creation model over the current more popular evolutionary model. These scientists not only reject the Darwinian evolutionary model as unscientific, but chose a literal six day creation event to be the most scientific of the choices.

For more information on the creation/evolution debate from the Biblical creationist viewpoint the following websites are available, although there are many others:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/

http://creation.com/

http://www.creationtoday.org/

http://www.icr.org/

Also, on YouTube many creation documentaries can be found as well as interesting debates between creationists and evolutionists. Jesus said, “Seek and you shall find.”[Matthew 7:7]  He also said, “You shall seek me and find me when you shall search for me with all your heart.”[Jeremiah 29:13] If you really hunger and thirst after “truth” you will find it. That´s a promise!

Originally published April 20, 2013.

Footnotes:

1. Hutton, James; http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scottishenlightenment/jameshutton/learnmore.asp.

2. Hutton, James; The Abyss of Time: Changing Conceptions of the Earth's Antiquity After the ...

By Claude C. Albritton; page 100 chapter 8.

3. Hutton, James;. http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/vestiges-of-james-hutton.

4. Lyell, Charles; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lyell.

5. Lyell, Charles; God and nature: historical essays on the encounter between Christianity and ...

edited by David C. Lindberg, Ronald Leslie Numbers, “Geologists and Interpreters of Genesis,” page 337.

6. James Hutton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Paul N. Pearson (16 October 2003). "In Retrospect". Nature V. 425 #6959, p. 665. Comments on Hutton's 3-volume 1794 work, An Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge and of the Progress of Reason, from Sense to Science and Philosophy.

7. Watson, D; http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/to-the-reader.php.

8. Lisle, Dr. Jason; Discerning Truth; 20010, page 20.

9. Hoyle, Sir Fred; (1981)"Hoyle on Evolution,"

Nature, Vol. 294, No. 5837, November 12, p. 148

10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtDX17KjjG0
11. Denton, Dr. Michael; http://www.trueorigin.org/isakrbtl.asp.

12. Spetner, Dr. Lee; Tornado in a Junkyard (James Perloff), 1999, page 26.

13. Pitman, Michael; Tornado in a Junkyard (James Perloff), 1999, page26.

14. Wilder- Smith, Dr.; Tornado in a Junkyard (James Perloff), 1999, pg. 27.

15. Lewontin, Professor Richard; “Billions and billions of demons,” The New York Review; http://dailyevidence.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/the-divine-foot/.

16. Watson, D; http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/to-the-reader.php.

17. Todd, Scott; correspondence to Nature 401(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999; http://creation.com/a-designer-is-unscientific-even-if-all-the-evidence-supports-one.

18. Gish, Dr. Duane; Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics, 1993 p. 42,.

19. Bateson; http://www.scribd.com/doc/132636931/Predicament-of-Evolution quoted by George McCready Price, 1925.

20. Hawking, Dr. Stephen; http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/1998/01/21/review-relative-cosmology.

21. Ellis, FR. George; http://www.allaboutscience.org/big-bang-theory.htm.
22. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mooHSXTR2RE

23. Lewontin, Richard; http://creation.com/amazing-admission-lewontin-quote.

24. Mayr, Ernest; http://bevets.com/evobiaspics.htm.

25. Schoch, Dave; 2008.

26. John F. Aston (Editor), 2001.

Read More

Water CAN Move Mountains – Rapidly

By Bruce Malone:

Four million people per year visit the Grand Canyon and ponder the incredible forces which cut this chasm out of the earth. Did the small river at the bottom carve through the many layers of sediment over eons of time or did a catastrophic event carve the canyon more rapidly? These are the competing explanations for the origin of the Grand Canyon. How could a flood, though, have accomplished so much? As the following examples show, moving water has enormous erosion capabilities.

In the spring of 1983 the spill-way tunnel of the Glen Canyon Dam had to be opened to allow drainage of water from Lake Powell. When one of the spillways was fully opened the flow pattern changed and blocks of rock were seen hurtling out of the spillway exit. The water became red with dissolved sandstone and there were noticeable earth tremors. The spillway was immediately closed for inspection. The survey team discovered incredible erosion damage to the spillway tunnel caused by cavitation of the flowing water. In a matter of minutes, flowing water had penetrated the three foot thick, steel reinforced, walls and ripped a 150 foot diameter hole into the surrounding rock requiring 63,000 cubic feet of concrete to repair.

In the scab lands of eastern Washington is an even more dramatic example of the incredible erosion force of rapidly flowing water. An ancient lake was blocked at the end of the ice age by an ice dam in northern Idaho. When the water breached the dam it ripped through Montana, Idaho, and Washington leaving 16,000 square miles of scarred terrain and deeply cut valleys. At one location, the flood cut a 50-mile long trench 6 miles wide and 900 feet deep through solid rock! An estimated 10 cubic miles of Columbia Plateau basalt was eroded in a matter of hours by this single event. The process by which moving water can cause such extensive damage is illustrated above.

Could the Grand Canyon have been carved out by similar catastrophic events and processes? Many qualified geologists are coming to believe this is exactly what has happened. These geologists have proposed that a large area of the southwestern United States was covered by water which apparently broke through a natural dam and very rapidly eroded much of the Grand Canyon to its current depth. The water for this rapid erosion came from water left on the plateau when the global flood receded.

There are many other examples of moving water accomplishing massive geological changes. Yet all of these local examples pale in comparison with the effect a worldwide flood would have on regional geological features. If there were a worldwide flood; the illustrated destructive forces would be in operation during and subsequent to the event. The result would be the rapid accumulation of very thick sedimentary deposits over massive regions. During such an event, valleys would be filled with sediment thousands of feet thick.

A single worldwide flood is still the best explanation for the sedimentary rock layers that cover our planet. Geologists who believe in an old Earth do not reject the evidence for this flood based on scientific observations. They simply choose to interpret the evidence based on the assumption that there never was such a flood. Could it be a philosophical aversion to accepting that which is supernatural in its origin? Would a geologist who accepted a worldwide flood as the formation of our planet’s geological features be welcome in the present science community? Or would this “politically incorrect” interpretation cause him to be ostracized? To accept a worldwide flood as a factual event would profoundly affect other areas of science, as well: including biology, palaeontology, and anthropology. Would such an interpretation be allowed by the scientific community?

Originally published November 16, 2012.

Read More

Stem cells and Genesis

Original article found http://creation.com/stem-cells-and-genesis

by Jonathan Sarfati

[2001; Updated from time to time with new research information; last update 2 September 2014]

Editor: We are re-posting this 2001 Journal article on the front page, because it is an overview of what has been a very controversial issue. The basic biblically-based moral principles have not changed, of course: that is: research that destroys embryos is immoral, even if it could be demonstrated to lead to cures, while there is nothing wrong with adult stem cell research. Embryonic stem cell research is also intimately linked to abortion and human cloning.

The scientific discoveries since this paper have likewise amply vindicated the original article’s points that adult stem cell research was a very fruitful avenue of research, already with proven cures. It has actually been hard to keep up with all the new lines of adult stem cell research, that is convincing many scientists that there is no longer even a scientific case for embryonic stem-cell research.

On 17 December 1999, the cover story of Science 286(5448) hailed stem cell research as the ‘Breakthrough of the Year’. The cover story ‘Capturing the promise of youth’ contained the headline, ‘In 1999, researchers recognized the extraordinary potential of stem cells, immature cells with the ability to become different kinds of tissue — and perhaps to heal many different kinds of illness.’

But embryonic stem cell research has more recently been the object of controversy in both the US Senate and the media, as well as in governments around the world. Recently, a senator quoted Genesis in order to justify research on stem cells derived from embryos, even if it meant their destruction.

In some ways, the controversy is unnecessary because of well-known science deliberately overlooked in many circles even though the above Science article mentioned it — the great potential of adult (i.e. non-embryonic) stem cell research. But in another sense, the controversy shows a terrifying malaise in Western society not seen since Germany in the 1920s–40s. This can teach us many things, and has become especially topical for Creation Ministries International because some participants in the controversy have quoted Genesis to justify their stances. Those who want to skip the main article can go to the Summary.

In an address on 9 August 2001, President George W. Bush announced that he would prohibit federal (i.e. US-Taxpayer) funding for destroying human embryos for stem cell research, but not funding for 60 already-existing stem cells lines obtained by past killing of embryos. See White House Fact Sheet on Bush’s ESCR Decision. For CMI’s comment, see this Addendum

What are stem cells?

To understand stem cells, it’s necessary to summarize briefly the development of an individual. Each individual begins as a single cell—azygote or an ovum fertilized by a spermatozoon. This fertilized ovum has all the instructions coded in the DNA to make us what we are physically (given the right environmental conditions).

But as the embryo grows, different cells in different places have to specialize, so that only certain instructions are executed—the cells become differentiated. The instructions are there, but turned off somehow. There are complicated genetic switches involved, and also a process called methylation—attaching methyl groups to the chemical ‘letters’ of DNA which code for instructions that need to be ‘turned off’.

All the on/off switching must occur in the right sequence; the information of this sequence is partly encoded in the DNA, but there are also controls outside the genes, hence the term epigenetic. This is why it would be impossible to clone dinosaurs and mammoths even if we found intact DNA—we would need the ovum (mother’s egg) too.

The result of these elaborately designed switching sequences is that bone cells execute only instructions pertaining to bone—the instructions for blood, nerves, skin, etc. are still in the cells’ DNA, but turned off. Similarly for blood, skin and other types of cells.

However, stem cells are undifferentiated to some degree, because they are like embryonic cells in that many of their instructions haven’t been turned off, so they have the potential to grow into many types of tissue. Therefore many researchers have high hopes that they could be used to regrow damaged tissue. They hope that it could help Parkinson’s disease, insulin-dependent (Type 1) diabetes (IDD), heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and repair nerves damaged by spinal injuries.

Several terms are sometimes used to distinguish types of stem cell in terms of the degree of differentiation. The fertilized ovum is calledtotipotent, i.e. has the total potential to form a whole organism. It first divides into several identical totipotent cells, which in some cases can develop into identical twins. The early stage of the embryo’s development forms a blastocyst, or hollow ball of cells. The outer layers form the placenta, while the inner cell mass develops into the tissues required for the organism. The inner cells have the potential to form most types of tissue — but not an organism, because the information for the placenta has been turned off. Such cells are called pluripotent, because they have the potential to develop into most tissues. As embryo develops further, more specialization occurs, and the stem cells have less potential, but can still develop into a number of tissue, so are called multipotent.

The main controversy is the use of stem cells from embryos — embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). These stem cells are the pluripotent inner cells of the blastocyst which develop in the first few days after fertilization. Some high-profile celebrities with disabilities or diseases are pro-ESCR, e.g. the quadriplegic former Superman star Christopher Reeve, insulin-dependent diabetic Mary Tyler Moore, and Michael J. Fox who has Parkinson’s.

Where are stem cells found?

What has been largely overlooked are the many successes of treatments with adult stem cells. In this context, this doesn’t mean the stem cells are necessarily from adult humans, but merely not derived from embryos. Therefore such cells from body tissues are formally calledsomatic stem cells, from the Greek σωματικός (sōmatikos) from σώμα (sōma, sōmat–) = body.

One obvious benefit is that there will be no problem with tissue rejection by patients to stem cells from their own tissues! This wilful ignorance of the proven merits of adult stem cells suggests another agenda (discussed below) beyond the emotive appeals that pro-life sentiment is allegedly hindering potentially life-enhancing research. As shown, one point must be emphasized: despite media portrayals, there is not widespread opposition to stem cell research per se — it’s a matter of where the stem cells come from. CMI does support stem cell research — using the tried and tested adult stem cells. Indeed, they have been responsible for over 70 successful treatments compared to 0 for embryonic, for example:

Adult stem cells are ‘Hidden in the nooks and crannies of our brains, bone marrow, and hair follicles.’1

Adult stem cells can mend broken hearts — literally! For example:

C.J. Chiu, a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at McGill University Health Center in Montreal, injected a type of stem cell from bone marrow, called a stromal cell, into the hearts of rats. These cells differentiated into new heart muscle that made the right connections to nearby cells so they could all beat together.2

Cardiologists from Johns Hopkins University biopsied tiny amounts of tissue from pig’s hearts after they induced a heart attack. Then they extracted the stem cells, transplanted them into the heart. After two months, the cells had developed into mature heart cells and vessel-forming endothelial cells, repairing the damage. See Adult pig stem cells repair heart damage.

Fetal stem cells were extracted from human amniotic fluid, and they grew into heart valves. The researchers rightly described this as "ethical", since the baby is not killed. See Heart Valves Grown From Womb Fluid Cells .

There are many causes of blindness involving the deterioration of blood vessels in the eyes. The hereditary disease retinitis pigmentosa (RP) involves degeneration of blood vessels, while age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy are caused by excess growth of blood vessels. In an experiment by a team from Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA led by Martin Friedlander, a type of stem cells from bone marrow called endothelial precursor cells (EPCs) could be injected into the eyes of mice. They had no effect on healthy mice, but in mice with a genetic defect that causes blood vessels to degenerate, the EPCs incorporated themselves into the blood vessels and preserved them from degeneration. And EPCs genetically modified to produce a protein that inhibits blood vessel growth would stop new blood vessels growing, so show promise to treat the diseases resulting from proliferation.3

Friedlander points out that eye diseases often involve nerve problems as well as vascular ones. But this might be solved by an ealier study also involving adult stem cells. In rats, stem cells from the hippocampal region of the brain were transplanted into their eyes, and migrated to damaged parts of their retinas and even began to make nerve connections. This may have promise for helping restore vision in patients with these problems as well as retinal detachment.4

Stem cells and other versatile ‘transient amplifying cells’ found in the outer root sheath of hair follicles can be transformed into skin cells which can be used for skin grafts.5

A team led by University of Florida immunologist Ammon Peck permanently cured insulin-dependent diabetes in mice, with stem cells from adult pancreatic ducts. The stem cells differentiated in vitro into the insulin producing structures called the islets of Langerhans. These islets were injected under the skin of adult mice with IDD, and they functioned as a pancreas, releasing insulin, and blood vessels developed toward them. In a week or so, the mice could regulate their blood glucose levels again. Dr Peck said:6

‘Our first observation was the fact that one can take a single stem cell and induce it to grow and differentiate into a full-functioning organ, containing all the differentiated, end-stage cells found in the exocrine pancreas.’

PPL Therapeutics PLC, the British firm that helped clone Dolly the sheep, intends to experiment with a new technique calleddedifferentiation, i.e. undoing the process of differentiation. They hope to return a skin cell from an adult human to its embryonic state—they claim to have already achieved this with a cow.7

Closer to home, the husband of one of the AiG(USA) staff had a bad case of bone marrow cancer, and donated over 30 million of his own stem cells, which were extracted from his blood prior to his first bone-marrow transplant. These are called hematopoietic [blood-forming] stem cells.

In the middle of 2007, papers reported on how bone marrow stem cells could be used for vascular tissue engineering, forming soft tissue and blood vessels including the smooth muscles important for vasoconstriction, and developing new skin. Bone marrow stem cells also aid hearing recovery by repairing injured cochlear fibrocytes when injected into the inner ear, and repair faulty eyesight by becoming producers of ‘keratocan, a natural protein involved in the growth of the cornea—the transparent, outer layer of the eyeball.’.

Bone marrow stem cells have also been used to rebuild a woman’s windpipe. Claudia Castillo, a 30-year-old Colombian mother of two living in Barcelona, Spain, suffered respiratory damage from tuberculosis, which also clogged her windpipe. A pan-European surgical team obtained a seven-centimetre tracheal segment from a 51-year-old transplant donor who had died of cerebral haemorrhage. They removed all the donor cells and antigens leave the connective tissue ‘skeleton’. Then they obtained bone marrow cells from Castillo, cultured into a large population, then some were matured into cartilage cells (chrondrocytes) by a method devised by Professor Anthony Hollander at the University of Bristol, and others were used to generate epithelial cells. Using a novel bioreactor which incubates cells, developed at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, chondrocytes were then seeded into donor trachea on the outside on the outside, while the epithelial cells were seeded on the inside to form the lining. Four days later, this manufactured windpipe was used to replace Castillo's left bronchus. A month after that, it bled during a biopsy, showing that blood vessels had already grown back normally.

Martin Birchall, Professor of Surgery at the University of Bristol, stated: ‘Surgeons can now start to see and understand the very real potential for adult stem cells and tissue engineering to radically improve their ability to treat patients with serious diseases. We believe this success has proved that we are on the verge of a new age in surgical care.’

Anthony Hollander, Arthritis Research Campaign Professor of Rheumatology and Tissue Engineering at the University of Bristol, agreed: ‘This successful treatment manifestly demonstrates the potential of adult stem cells to save lives.’

This major medical breakthrough for adult stem cell cures was published in The Lancet.52

An abundant source of stem cells is umbilical cord blood, which already have proven themselves in treating leukemia. A more recent discovery was that stem cells from umbilical cord blood were injected into mice which had suffered strokes, and they effected a 50% recovery in brain tissue. The About Genetics article Umbilical Cord Stem Cells: Hope for Millions? reports (21 February 2001):

‘Researchers attending the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science presented research suggesting that stem cells from umbilical cord blood may be as useful as stem cells found in fetuses. This breakthrough may lead to an easing of tensions surrounding stem cell research and could eventually lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of brain damage and brain disease. …

‘Given the abundance of umbilical cord stem cells and the fact that umbilical cord cells are already being used for other disorders like childhood leukemia, many researchers expect that umbilical cord stem cells will start being used to treat stroke victims within the next few years.’

Umbilical cord stem cells enabled a 37-year-old woman in South Korea to walk after a bad fall from a bridge into a creek had paralyzed her 19 years before. The researchers described in Cytotherapy (September 2005)46 how Hwang Mi-soon first recovered feeling and then movement in her legs, then stand upright. She proved that she could walk with a frame, and there is demonstrable ‘regeneration of the spinal cord at the injured site.’

Umbilical cord blood stem cells have also grown a liver. Dr Nico Forraz and Professor Colin McGuckin of Newcastle University, UK, worked with NASA scientists in Houston, US, to grow an artificial miniature liver. Although these livers are the size of a small coin, they are the first step to grow a fully grown liver. Meanwhile, they will reduce the need to test drugs on humans and animals. For this research, Drs Forraz and McGuckin won the science and technology award at the North East Universities Business Planning Competition. But as Wesley Smith points out, this is The Big Stem Cell Research Breakthrough The Media Won’t Disclose.

Probably the best source of stem cells is liposuctioned fat, which should not be hard to obtain in the country with the highest rate of obesity in the world. Researchers have grown cartilage, muscle, or more fat cells, from such stem cells, depending on the nutrients in which the cells were grown.8 Charles Vacanti, M.D., professor and chairman of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and a co-editor of Tissue Engineering commented:9

‘These findings are extremely significant for several reasons. They demonstrate the tremendous potential of adult-derived stem and progenitor cells, which are potentially superior to fetal-derived cells. Not only do they avoid the problems associated with rejection, but they may also be simpler to differentiate into the specific tissue needed. Most significantly, their use will very likely obviate the therapeutic need for fetal cells, making that ethical debate a moot point.’

In fact, stem cells derived from fat, adipose-derived adult stromal (ADAS) cells, have healed a rat’s skull fracture too big to fix by itself. This is proof that it can work in a living animal. If it could be applied to humans, it would be a whole new way of mending broken bones and repairing other defects now requiring bone grafts and prosthetics. See Fat stem cells heal broken skulls.

Stem cells from fatty tissue have also been engineered into cancer-killers.

In 2006, stem cells from fatty tissue were shown to differentiate into smooth muscle cells—smooth muscle is the involuntary type essential to movement of the intestine, blood vessels and urinary tract. The abstract of the paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences states:

‘Clonal studies of adipose derived multipotent cells demonstrated differentiation of these cells into smooth muscle cells in addition to trilineage differentiation capacity. Importantly, smooth muscle-differentiated cells, but not their precursors, exhibit the functional ability to contract and relax in direct response to pharmacologic agents. In conclusion, adipose-derived cells have the potential to differentiate into functional smooth muscle cells and, thus, adipose tissue can be a useful source of cells for treatment of injured tissues where smooth muscle plays an important role.’47

The article Stem cells from skin grow into brain tissue provided still more evidence for adult stem cell benefits.10 A team led by Jean Toma and Freda Miller at McGill University’s Montreal Neurological Institute, Canada, grew stem cells from skin (the dermis) into smooth muscle cells, fat cells and brain cells. They were successful with stem cells from mouse skin and from human scalp. The article commented:‘The new research, published Nature Cell Biology, bolsters the view that scientists can find alternative — and less controversial sources of stem cells … one intriguing aspect of growing them from stem cells found in skin is that scientists could have a vast and easily accessible supply. This breakthrough may lead to an easing of tensions surrounding stem cell research and could eventually lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of brain damage and brain disease. …‘Patients receiving new tissue grown from stem cells taken from their own skin would face far fewer problems of rejection, if any, than they would after receiving a transplant of stem cells derived from human embryos.’

The article Brain cells offer disease hope yet again ‘proves that embryonic stem cells are not the only stem cells able to be developed into new cells.’ A team at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, grew neurons from adult neural stem cells (NSCs) from mouse brains.11 The authors state: ‘This demonstrates that a predominant, functional type of stem cell exists in the periventricular region of the adult brain with the intrinsic ability to generate neural and non-neural cells.’ They believe that the technique can be applied to humans and offers ‘hopes of a treatment for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.’

The leading German biological journal Naturwissenschaften showed that mesenchymal stem or mesenchymal progenitor cells (MSC) from adult bone marrow stroma ‘have the potential to develop either in vitro or in vivo into distinct mesenchymal tissues, including bone, cartilage, fat, tendon, muscle, and marrow stroma (connective tissue), which suggest these cells as an attractive cell source for tissue engineering approaches.’12

Mesenchymal stem cells are able to regenerate the cells that comprise the gel-like tissue inside the vertebral discs, the nucleus pulposus, and thus treat chronic back pain. For this, Dr Stephen Richardson, of the University of Manchester’s Division of Regenerative Medicine in the School of Medicine, was named Northwest Young Biotechnologist of the Year (sponsored by Nature). He said, ‘Once implanted the differentiated MSCs would produce a new NP tissue with the same properties as the original and would both treat the underlying cause of the disease and remove the painful symptoms.’ One-off treatment to stop back pain — Using patients’ own stem cells.

The NewScientist.com article Ultimate stem cell discovered describes the ‘exciting’ experiments by a team led by Catherine Verfaillie of the University of Minnesota. They extracted (or possibly generated) what is probably a truly pluripotent stem cell from adult bone marrow.13 These multipotent adult progenitor cells (MAPCs) have been grown into many different tissue types, including muscle, cartilage, bone, liver and different types of neurons and brain cells. This discovery should have been the final nail in the coffin for ESCR by removing the last excuse, the latter’s supposedly greater versatility. But the deafening media silence provides further support for my arguments below that the secular media have an anti-life agenda.

New Scientist described a successful treatment of the disease using a patient’s own neural stem cells extracted from his brain.14Parkinson’s disease is caused by damage to brain cells that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. So the stem cells were grown in the lab under conditions that favoured the development of neurons that made this vital neurotransmitter, then implanted into the patient’s brain.

‘Before the operation, the man’s condition had been deteriorating, despite drug treatment. But now, three years after the treatment, the patient has no symptoms …’

Conversely, the article pointed out that neural cells from aborted babies ‘alleviates the Parkinson’s symptoms in some, but can cause serious side effects such as a worsening tremor.’ See also the web version, Re-implanted stem cells tackle Parkinson’s, 8 April 2002.

A Welsh baby boy Rhys Evans has been cured of the fatal ‘bubble boy’ disease using cells from their bone marrow. The disease is caused by a defective gene on the X-chromosome that stops the development of T cells, a vital part of the immune system. Researchers at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, used a modified retrovirus to add a normal copy of the gene to the stem cells. Rhys now has normal T cell levels seven months after treatment, and another boy is doing well three months after treatment.15

Muscle stem cells have been grown into muscles themselves, as well as components such as connective tissue, blood vessels and nerves. Researchers have injected such stem cells into mice with a disease similar to Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and much of the wasted muscles regenerated, so that up to 20% of the muscle mass came from the stem cells. This treatment is still in the early days though. 16

Duchenne muscular dystrophy could also be helped by a novel type of adult stem cell, called a mesoangioblast, which can be harvested from small blood vessels. Giulio Cossu and colleagues ‘preprogrammed’ to develop into muscle cells in dogs. These stem cells:

‘show several distinct advantages over these other cells. They are relatively easy to isolate, and their numbers can be expanded greatly in tissue culture without losing the ability to form muscle. When mesoangioblasts are infused into arteries, they pass through vessel walls to engraft within, and rescue, damaged muscle cells with a surprisingly high efficiency. Such properties are ideal for treating a disease such as muscular dystrophy in which muscles all over the body need to be repaired. ’50

Bone marrow stem cells helped to restore damage to hearts after a heart attack. These cells were extracted from the bone marrow of six patients, and injected into the boundary between living and dead heart muscle tissue. All six patients showed improvements in heart strength and blood supply, indicating that the stem cells differentiated into cardiac muscle and blood vessels.17

Bone marrow stem cells have generated brain tissue, so could lead to treatment for Alzheimer’s. Eva Mezey’s team at the US National Institute Neurological Diseases and Strokes analysed the brains of four women during autopsies, all of whom had bone marrow transplants from men. Some of the brain cells from all four women had the male Y chromosome, conclusively proving that they came from the marrow. Mezey thinks that damaged tissue attracts circulating stem cells via chemical signals. Their work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Transplanted bone marrow generates new neurons in human brains.

Some Italian researchers at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan used adult neural stem cells to cure mice with multiple sclerosis. These stem cells from the brain ‘almost abolished’ the ‘functional impairment’.40 ‘The stem cells help repair scarred and inflamed brain and nerve tissue.’41

Adult stem cell researcher was named 2003 Queenslander of the Year! This was Professor Alan Mackay-Sim, deputy director of Griffith University’s School new Institute for Cellular and Molecular Therapies in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. He has extracted stem cells from the upper part of one side of the nose, because that is the only area of the nervous system outside the brain that can regrow. He has transplanted these stem cells to the spinal cords of paraplegic patients in the hope that the damaged nerves can regenerate. It is too early to know whether it will work, but so far there have been no ill effects to the patients. Prof. Mackay-Sim also hopes to use nasal stem cells to treat Parkinson’s and schizophrenia. His work has been supported by the Queensland State Government as well as a $50,000 grant from the Catholic Church designed to support adult stem cell research.42

This was not the only research into adult stem cells in Queensland. The husband-and-wife professors Gordon and Julie Campbell have grown new blood vessels from hematopoietic stem cells. This should be a great help to patients needing heart bypass surgery. At present, the arteries needed must come from another part of the body, and this can be painful and slow to heal.42

Professor Perry Bartlett’s work with brain stem cells to replace repair damaged nerve cells was the cover story of Nature.43 He believes that this research could also help us to understand brain function, and help repair damaged or diseased brains and retard aging. He has been appointed to the University of Queensland’s foundation chair in neuroscience.42

Olfactory stem cells have been shown to be most versatile. Indeed, Adult stem cells from the nose have now helped paraplegic patients walk. From the primary source, Carlos Lima et al., Olfactory mucosal autografts and rehabilitation for chronic traumatic spinal cord injury, Neurorehabil Neural Repair 24(1):10–22 | doi: 10.1177/1545968309347685.

Of the 13 patients assessed by functional studies, 1 paraplegic patient (patient 9) can ambulate with 2 crutches and knee braces with no physical assistance and 10 other patients can ambulate with walkers with or without braces with physical assistance.

One tetraplegic [paralyzed in both arms and legs] patient (patient 13) ambulates with a walker, without knee braces or physical assistance.

John Gurdon and colleagues used immature frog eggs to reprogram nuclei of both mouse and human adult cells so they become like stem cells. The mouse or human Oct-4 mRNA appeared two days later, and this a definite indicator for stem cells. The effect was even stronger when the genetic material was injected into the frog egg nucleus. The Nature brief stated, ‘Gurdon and colleagues hope to analyse and isolate the molceules responsible, so that, in future, adult cells taken from patients can be reprogrammed directly. This would allow the production of a limitless supply of donor-matched stem cells and replace damaged and diseased tissue.’44

The L.V. Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, India, has cured a number of cases of blindness due to corneal disease and surface damage. They have a 70% success rate in treating over 180 patients by implanting cells obtained from cultured adult stem cells. This technique can repair the whole outer surface of the eye, improving on previous methods that repair only the cornea.45 And in June 2010, an article reported on an Italian success in restoring corneas damaged by caustic chemicals, using the stem cells from a patient’s healthy eye to repair the burned eye — Stem-Cell Cornea Fix: ‘Miracle’ Treatment Restores Sight in People Blinded by Chemical Burns, reporting on the study Limbal Stem-Cell Therapy and Long-Term Corneal Regeneration in the New England Journal of Medicine. Later, researchers reinforced the role of these limbal stem cells in maintaining and repairing the cornea, and how a genetic deficiency in their production can lead to blindness from a cloudy cornea. 

See ABCB5 is a limbal stem cell gene required for corneal development and repair (Nature (2014) | doi:10.1038/nature13426) and Helping the blind to see: scientists regrow human corneas from adult stem cells (LifeNews.com, 9 July 2014).

The pulp of baby teeth is a good source of stem cells, as researchers from the Hanson Institute at South Australia’s Royal Adelaide Hospital have shown. See Aussie scientists get teeth into stem cell Research.

Elmer Price, of the University of Missouri – Columbia, has ‘isolated adult stem cells from blood that can be directed to turn into five types of cells, including bone, blood vessel and nerve cells. The study is the cover article in the August edition of Stem Cells and Development[49]’ according to Researchers grow neural, blood vessel cells from adult stem cells. This article quotes Dr Price on both the advantage of this procedure to produce another kind of MAPC and the disadvantage of embryonic stem cells (more on the latterbelow):

Embryonic stem (ES) cells are able to give rise to the remarkable diversity of cell types that constitute a whole organism such as a human. However, this ‘pluripotency’, or the ability of the cells to become anything, can also be a curse because ES cells can be misled by biochemical signals when they are transplanted into an adult during cell transplantation experiments. This often leads to the generation of unwanted cell types and, on occasion, tumor formation. Because of this, ES cell transplantation can raise serious safety issues. In this study, we developed adult stem cells from the blood of an mature animal that were able to be directed into specific cell types such as neurons and blood vessel cells, but they were not as pluripotent as ES cells. We have not observed any evidence of tumor formation. …

In theory, embryonic stem cells have the ability to become almost any cell type or organ. Very complex chemical signals need to be in place with embryonic stem cells in order for them to develop into the appropriate type of cell. However, we have shown that if you can isolate adult stem cells, you can make them generate the appropriate type of cell with much more ease and specificity. One day, we may be able to isolate similar adult stem cells from a patient, manipulate the cells in a petri dish, and then re-introduce them back into that same patient as a therapy.

According to the World Science article Breakthrough may let scientists make stem cells on demand:

‘Two re­search teams say they appear to have suc­essfully turned ordinary hu­man cells into powerful stem cells, which could permit break­through medical treat­ments. “We are now fi­nally in a position to make patient-specific stem cells for therapies with­out fear of immune rejection and to make disease-specific stem cells that will reveal the underlying cause of many human diseases,” said Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, lead author of one of the new reports [his paper will be in Cell, 30 November 2007].

…

‘A separate team of researchers with the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported achieving similar results in another re­ort, published in the Nov. 23 issue of the journal Sci­ence.

…

‘“The induced cells do all the things embryonic stem cells do,” said stem cell scientist James Thomson, a member of the University of Wisconsin team. “It’s go­ing to completely change the field.”’

29 January 2014: BBC News reports that stem cells can be made from blood cells:

Now a study shows that shocking blood cells with acid could also trigger the transformation into stem cells—this time termed STAP (stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency) cells. Dr Haruko Obokata, from the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology in Japan, said she was “really surprised” that cells could respond to their environment in this way. She added: “It’s exciting to think about the new possibilities these findings offer us, not only in regenerative medicine, but cancer as well.”

The breakthrough was achieved in mouse blood cells, but research is now taking place to achieve the same results with human blood.

The scientific paper is Obokata Haruko and seven others, Stimulus-triggered fate conversion of somatic cells into pluripotency, Nature505:641–647 30 January 2014 | doi:10.1038/nature12968.

Update: the images in this paper have been questioned.See Bob Yirka, Image anomalies cast shadow on acid-bath stem-cell study,phys.org, 18 February 2014. Riken national research institute concluded that Okubata fabricated and doctored images. The paper was subsequently retracted.

2 September 2014: with all the publicity about the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, it’s worth noting that even the ALS website must admit: Most significantly, stem cells can be created from skin cells (induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells).

iPS cells have emerged in recent years as by far the most significant source of stem cells for ALS research. A simple skin biopsy provides the skin cells (“fibroblasts”). These cells are treated in a lab dish with a precise cocktail of naturally occurring growth factors that “turns back the clock,” transforming them back into cells much like those that gave rise to them—stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells can be isolated from fertilized embryos less than a week old. Before the development of iPS cells, human embryos were the only source [not true as shown above] of human stem cells for research or therapeutic development. The ethical issues involved hindered development of this research. Most stem cell research in ALS is currently focused on iPS cells, which are not burdened with these issues.

The above examples demonstrate very clearly that there is vast potential for adult stem cell research, so the pleas for embryonic stem cell research are unnecessary from a scientific point of view, quite aside from the moral issues discussed below. Therefore the quotes by authorities below are amply supported by real experimental evidence:

Geneticist Dr David Prentice, who teaches life science at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, says:18

‘[A]dult stem-cell research … has already shown itself to be extremely promising for treating numerous degenerative diseases such as heart disease, stroke, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. Adult stem cells have been shown in animal models to repair heart damage, provide therapeutic benefit for stroke, and reverse diabetes. And adult stem cells have already been used successfully in human patients to relieve lupus, multiple sclerosis, and arthritis, to name a few.’

Markus Grompe, a professor of molecular medical genetics at Oregon Health Sciences University reinforced this point when commenting on another study:19

‘This would suggest that maybe you don’t need any type of fetal stem cell at all … that our adult bodies continue to have stem cells that can do this stuff.’

Joseph Kincaid, M.D., Vice-President of Right to Life of Michigan, said:

‘The current debate in Washington over funding destructive embryonic research is completely overshadowing this ethical and very promising research. In fact, most media reports fail to concede that research using embryonic stem cells has not produced a single cure or successful treatment yet.’20

Interestingly, an article supporting ESCR and criticizing President Bush’s veto of a bill to allow federal funding for it, and generally dismissive of adult stem cells (e.g. for alleged shortage of supply), had to admit:

‘Adult-derived stem cells are the only form of stem-cell therapy to make it to the clinic so far. For example, stem cells from bone marrow have been used for more than 30 years to treat blood disorders. Adult stem cells are less likely to cause tumours than embryonic stem cells, and less likely to be rejected by the immune system.’51

See also a summary, Benefits of Stem Cells to Human Patients: Adult Stem Cells v. Embryonic Stem Cells.

Problems with adult stem cells?

Two papers in Nature in April 200221,22 have resulted in huge glee from the media, including claims from ESCR proponents such as ‘couldn’t have come at a better time’, and a widely-reproduced Associated Press report quoted a U.S. researcher from an ESCR company as saying the two studies ‘call into question almost all of the data generated using adult stem cells.’ The British newspaper Daily Telegraph called the papers a ‘serious setback’ to hopes for adult stem cells, and its compatriot The Independent, proclaimed ‘Study Weakens Anti-Abortionists’ Adult Tissue Claim’. The Washington Post subheading baldly asserted: ‘Adult Cells Found Less Useful Than Embryonic Ones’. Agence-Presse France announced: ‘“Breakthrough” in Adult Stem Cells Is Hype, Studies Warn’. In Australia, the AAP declared, ‘New Research Tips Debate on Stem Cells’, which seems to have influenced some Australian politicians.

But what really happened? Adult stem cells from mouse brain and marrow were mixed in a petri dish with embryonic ones. The researchers found that while the NES cells had started to differentiate into mature tissue, in at least some cases this was only because they were fusing with the embryonic cells. And they found a potential danger in these hybrids because they had two sets of chromosomes, something that could prove dangerous if it occurred within the human body. One Tom Spears, a Canadian science writer, really took the biscuit by describing these as ‘Hybrid “Frankencells”.’

From this problem with mixing adult and embryo cells, the incredibly illogical conclusion was drawn that adult stem cells are a waste of time, and we should intensify ESCR. But aside from ignoring the proven successes above, it shows amazing intellectual dishonesty not to pass at least some blame on the co-culprit, the very embryonic stem cells they are trying to promote! And how it could be construed as the slightest evidence for danger to humans from adult stem cells boggles the mind, since real patients as opposed to petrie dishes have no embryonic stem cells in sight for the adult ones to fuse with!

The lead author of the first study, Dr Naohiro Terada, said, ‘our message was somehow distorted by media people.’ He admitted that the research: ‘turned out to be a cautionary tale for scientific interpretation of some of the previous reports describing pluripotency of adult stem cells. But we never said adult stem cells are no longer hopeful, nor dangerous. If someone took our message that way, that is a misinterpretation.’

Dr Terada explained that the entire program at the University of Florida was aimed at: ‘trying to prove therapeutic roles of adult stem cells (not human embryonic stem cells), and that is the central policy of our program. ‘My lab’s standpoint is that there are still so many things to learn from mouse embryonic stem cells for basic understandings of stem cells. We do hope we can apply such knowledge obtained from mouse ES cells to a better use of human adult stem cells.’

Leading adult stem cell researcher (and not an opponent of ESCR) Prof. Perry Bartlett (see above) agrees that the problem was most likely caused by the embryonic stem cells, not the adult ones—see Doubts about adult stem cells premature.

What about embryonic stem cells?

As shown, this should be a non-event because of the widespread availability and superiority of non-embryonic stem cells, but the reason itis an event will be discussed below. All the same, the debate over embryonic stems cells raises important moral issues where there has been sloppy thinking driven by emotive rhetoric. The question could be, would it be right to use embryonic stem cells to alleviate severe diseases if there were no alternative?

When does human life begin?

Because Creation Ministries International uses the Bible as the basis for its thinking in every area, it has always taken a strong pro-life position, i.e. that innocent life should not be intentionally harmed from conception (fertilization) till natural death—see Q&A: Human Life: Abortion and Euthanasia. As explained in Abortion — The answer’s in Genesis, this is because the Bible states that murder, the intentional killing of innocent humans, is wrong (Exodus 20:13, Matthew 19:18, Romans 13:9); and that life begins from conception (Psalm 51:5). Here, the Psalmist explicitly states that it was ‘me’ that existed from conception, not some blob of cells that later became ‘me’. The whole tenor of Scripture is that the individual is a human being right from the beginning of biological life; there is nothing to indicate that there is any secondary event of ‘ensoulment’ after the beginning of biological life.

While the Bible doesn’t explicitly mention the union of sperm and egg, this is the scientifically irrefutable beginning of the individual’s life. Note that this doesn’t deny the sufficiency of Scripture, but uses real experimental science to elaborate on its clear teaching. Throughout church history, theologians have applied this principle to oppose abortion right from the moment the new individual was present in the womb.23

It is analogous to using hybridization studies to elaborate on the boundaries of the created kind to eludicate the Biblical teaching that animals reproduce ‘after their kinds’. E.g. the wholphin, a (fertile!) hybrid of a (false) killer whale and a dolphin shows that they are really members of the same created kind, despite man’s classification of them into different genera. See Ligers and wholphins? What next? It is very different from the long-agers who use ‘science’ (really uniformitarian assumptions about the past) to contradict the plain teaching of Scripture on creation in six literal days about 6000 years ago, or theistic evolutionists who contradict the ‘after the kinds’ teaching and assert that one kind turned into another. See refutations of Progressive Creationism and Theistic Evolution.

Much of the populist ‘pro-choice’ rhetoric can be diffused by bringing the questioner back to the key issue: the nature of the being involved. If this is indeed a human being, then substitute, say, ‘two-year-old’ for ‘the unborn child’ in all the pro-abortion arguments, as in thisresponse to someone offended by the term ‘Baby killers’. This substitution would imply that it is acceptable to murder a two-year-old if this would mean that some vital organs could be harvested that would greatly improve the quality of life for others.

However, with the rise of evolution, many pro-abortionists accept that the baby is human, but deny that there is any basis to believe the Biblical teaching that it is wrong to take innocent life simply because it is human. Atheistic philosophers such as Peter Singer have extended this denial of sanctity of human life beyond unborn babies to newborns and elderly people, and he explicitly relates this to the ‘fact’ of evolution and its corollary of a denial of a Creator who sets moral absolutes. His popularity among academia in the former Allied nations shows that they haven’t learnt from Nazi Germany what happens when a society bases morality on evolution. The Germans have, and Singer has had much difficulty spreading his neonazi beliefs there. People like Singer show that it is ultimately futile to try to build a Christian ethic without Christian theology, which in turn is all ultimately based on God’s creation as recorded in Genesis.

Disadvantages of Embryonic Stem Cells

One obvious one, as mentioned before, is tissue rejection by most patients. Another was discovered by a team led by Dr Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, who recently published in the journal Science.24 They showed that embryonic stem (ES) cells used in cloning mice often result in severe abnormalities because the epigenetic state of the ES cell genome was found to be extremely unstable. That is, the genes per se were OK, but the ES cells had lost much of the switching information, so that they no longer turned on and off the right instructions at the right time. An alleged strong point of embryonic stem cells over adult ones is that they would be the most undifferentiated, so supposedly have the most potential to grow into different types of tissue. But this experiment shows that such pluripotent cells may be in reality too undifferentiated. This also explains the tendency for ES cells to formteratomas, benign tumours containing mixtures of tissue types.25

The Washington Post reported:26

‘If the same is true for human embryonic stem cells, researchers said, then scientists may face unexpected challenges as they try to turn the controversial cells into treatments for various degenerative conditions.’

To demonstrate the politically charged atmosphere (and further exploding the myth of the ‘unbiased scientist’), the researchers, at the last minute, deleted a sentence in their article alluding to this problem. Instead, they added a sentence emphasizing the cells’ therapeutic promise, because they were: ‘afraid that any mention of that potential problem in the article might be exaggerated by political factions that oppose the research on religious and ethical grounds.’

It’s difficult to see why pointing out real experimentally proven dangers of using ES cells should be considered ‘exaggerating’.

‘Embryonic’ stem cells from unfertilized egg: may avoid moral problems

There is a possible exception to the rule that embryonic stem cell research is immoral: embryonic stems cells resulting from unfertilized eggs. Since individual human life begins at fertilization, if the egg is not fertilized, then a new human being hasn’t formed. Fulvio Gandolfi and Tiziana Brevini of the University of Milan, Italy, claim to have formed such stem cells via parthenogenesis (from Greek παρθένος (parthenos) virgin and γίνομαι (ginomai) born). Normally, unfertilized eggs have two sets of chromosomes, and one set is expelled during fertilization. But the Milan researchers managed to coax the egg to divide for a few days with an electrical or chemical shock. Such human parthenotes can’t survive any longer, because certain genes required for development come from the sperm. The stem cells extracted here exhibit most of the molecular markers of pluripotency.48

But for the rest of this article, ESCR refers to stem cells from real embryos that come from fertilized eggs.

Cloning

There is a strong link between ESCR and human cloning. Unlike tissues derived from the patients own adult stem cells, tissues derived from embryonic stem cell are very likely to face rejection. That is, unless the embryo was the result of cloning, i.e. making an individual who is genetically identical copy of the patient. The link between ESCR and human cloning was demonstrated in practical, economic terms when the stock of companies involved in ESCR plummeted when the US Congress banned human cloning.27,28 Therefore it’s worth summarizing the issues (for more information on both the scientific and ethical issues involved in both human and animals cloning, see Q&A: Cloning).

The fact that life begins at fertilization is the main reason that human cloning is wrong. Such experiments would inevitably cause embryos, i.e. tiny human beings, to be formed and intentionally destroyed. This can be shown by comparing the effort required to make the first mammal clone, the famous Dolly the lamb. Dr Ian Wilmut, her ‘maker’, took 277 tries to get it right. This would be a loss of human life, which is unacceptable, and University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Art Caplan called it ‘barbaric human experimentation. The way this science is now, it’s not working well in animals. You don’t want to do it in people.’29 Significantly, Dr Wilmut also does not support human cloning.29

[After the first draft of this article, he changed his mind, without any attempt to retract the biological science behind his former reasoning, and now plans to clone human embryos by the same process of nuclear transfer. However, in his recent book After Dolly: The uses and misuses of human cloning, Wilmut argues that it is ‘criminally irresponsible’ to clone humans. And in November 2007, Wilmut decided that he won’t pursue it after all, because ‘a new method pioneered by Japanese scientists has better potential for creating embryonic stem cells by growing them from a patient’s own cells and forgoing the destruction of human life. He was referring to Professor Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University, who has ‘shown he can turn mice cells into versatile stem cells capable of overcoming disease. It reverts adult stem cells to their embryonic state.’ See British scientist who created Dolly won't engage in human cloning.].

Also not surprising is that Dr Panos Zavos, a former University of Kentucky researcher, who announced plans to clone humans (outside the USA), claimed that human cloning is ‘part of human evolution’.29 If he means goo-to-you evolution, he’s talking nonsense, because by definition a clone has identical genetic information, while evolution requires information to increase. But there is some truth to his comment, although not in the way he meant it. As stated, evolution does lead to a moral vacuum, as admitted by atheists Lanier and Dawkins, and human cloning is very much part of this. Instead of refraining from murder, human cloning treats one class of people as disposable.

Does Genesis support ESCR?

This surprising question arises because of recent newspaper headlines, e.g. ‘Senators use Bible for lessons on life in stem cell debate’.30Gordon Smith, a Mormon Republican senator of Oregon, who normally opposes abortion, is reported as providing this amazing exegetical ‘insight’ on Genesis 2:7:

‘After reading the passage, Smith said it described a “two-stage process” for creating humans: First, God formed man from the dust of the ground. Then, the verse says, God breathed into man’s nostrils “the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

‘Cells, Smith said, are like the dust of the earth, giving form to man but not the “breath of life”. To gain that spirit, he said, the cells must be placed in the mother’s womb.’ … ‘“I believe that life begins in a mother’s womb, not in a scientific laboratory”, Smith said.’ [Smith’s fellow Mormon Republican senator, Orrin Hatch of Utah, also supposedly pro-life, is probably even better known for this argument]

It’s notable that former US President Bill Clinton also (mis)used this verse to try to impress gullible evangelicals that he was one of them, but he instead claimed that the mention of ‘breath of life’ shows that babies aren’t human until they start breathing, i.e. until they are born. This was an excuse for him to veto even bans on ‘partial birth abortion’. But several points must be made in response to these claims:

The creation of Adam and Eve was a special case—neither of them had mothers or came from an embryo, so it’s illegitimate to extrapolate from their example. It would be just as (il)logical to claim that since they began lives as adults, human life today doesn’t begin till adulthood!32,32

Following on from this, the passage teaches nothing whatever about the embryo gaining a spirit when placed in a mother’s womb, because obviously wombs are not remotely in view here.

Smith’s [and Hatch’s] argument commits the opposite error of pro-abortionists who claim that while the baby is in the mother’s womb, s/he is not a separate individual who must be protected from murder. That is, both sides erroneously believe that where a being is makes a vital difference to what a being is. Smith would presumably reject the pro-abortionist argument, but seems unable to see the inconsistency of his own position.

Since this passage says that Adam ‘became a living soul’ (Hebrew נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה, nephesh chayyāh), on a superficial reading this would seem to indicate, if anything, that the life and soul occurred together. It’s certainly hard to imagine that someone could use this to teach that a soul enters some time after biological life begins. But in reality, this passage isn’t trying to address the issue—‘soul’ in this context is not referring to the non-material aspect of a human being that survives physical death, although it sometimes has this meaning, e.g. nephesh in Genesis 35:18 and the Greek equivalent psyche in Matthew 10:28. Rather, in the first two chapters of Genesis, nephesh chayyah means ‘living creature’, and is applied to vertebrate animals including land and sea animals as well as man.

Other pro-abortion rationalizations

There are several other pro-abortion arguments that have surfaced recently, although they are not new.

Identical twins

Ref. 30 cites claims that it is ethical to research embryos up to 14 days, because there is the possibility of forming identical twins. This supposedly means that it is ‘illogical … to treat an embryo as an individual if it could still become two people’, and claims that a minority of Roman Catholic philosophers reason ‘that the soul, the hallmark of the individual, could not enter an embryo that has the capacity to divide in two.’

But this is fallacious. Twinning may be a form of asexual reproduction, where one embryo divides into two, but this doesn’t mean that s/he wasn’t an individual before then. Rather, s/he was one of those rare individuals with the capacity for asexual reproduction. As usual, the point can be clarified by substituting teenagers for embryos, a morally valid substitution if the embryo is human, and positing a world where a small percentage of teenagers split into two identical ones on their 16th birthday. Then it would be less plausible to argue that the teenager wasn’t alive before s/he split, or that life didn’t begin till 16.33

The early embryo doesn’t look human?

Newsweek34 uses a picture of a 3-day-old embryo, apparently with the aim of convincing people that it doesn’t look human, so it isn’t truly human. But arguments from appearance are often deceptive.

Statues and store mannequins look human, but are not; abnormal-looking humans like the ‘elephant man’ are still human. The important thing is that the latter and not the former are individual members, like us, of the single created kind humanity i.e. descendants of Adam and Eve (corresponding to the man-made classification of genus Homo).

Therefore, the 3-day-old embryo, being an individual descendant of Adam, does look human—just the way a 3-day-old human should look! A five-year-old doesn’t look like an adult human, but it doesn’t mean that a five-year-old is not human—rather, s/he looks like the way a five-year-old should look.35

Most zygotes never make it to term?

On a recent BBC series, The Human Body, there was fascinating live photography of conception and the growth of the embryo. But the program asserted that only one in six survive to term. Other figures are very different, saying that 50–80% survive.36 This rather seems like the various figures bandied about with human and chimp DNA similarity—they seem to grow with the telling—is it 96% or 99%?

But this is irrelevant to the humanness of the embryos. For comparison, there are parts of the world where there is a high infant mortality rate, but this doesn’t mean that infants are not human. And of course, all we humans have virtually a 100% mortality rate! But the fact that all people will die naturally does not make it acceptable to commit murder, so an allegedly high embryonic mortality rate does not make it acceptable to destroy embryos intentionally.

Media mendacity

The 1 July 2001 cover of Newsweek read: ‘The Stem Cell Wars: Embryo Research vs. Pro-Life Politics: There’s Hope for Alzheimer’s, Heart Disease, Parkinson’s and Diabetes. But Will Bush Cut Off the Money?’37,38 Unfortunately this is typical of the media deceit about pro-lifers—usually there are emotive arguments about denying ‘a woman’s right to choose’, raising the phony spectre of horrific back-alley abortions,39and more recently, claiming that the handful of shootings of abortionists (which we deplore—two wrongs don’t make a right) is somehow typical of the millions of pro-lifers. This time the media are trying to lay a guilt trip on pro-lifers for allegedly denying hope to sufferers of diseases and disabilities. As shown above, this is deceitful, mainly because it downplays the real human lives that would be extinguished, and also because it ignores the many successes of non-embryonic stem cells.

The agenda seems to be—convince people that it’s OK to discard embryos in the name of research, which will entrench a view in the public mind and the law of the land that embryos really have no humanity. Or else it will encourage the idea that it’s acceptable to kill one class of humans to benefit another. Then the pro-abortionists would have won the entire argument that the preborn have no real intrinsic rights. The slippery slide is that all unborn babies could be defined as disposable tissue rather than a unique human individual. And as Peter Singer shows, the slippery slide won’t stop at birth. If a culture discards Christian morality, advanced scientific knowledge won’t prevent disaster, but rather, make it more horrific. Germany at the time of the Nazis was the most scientifically and culturally advanced nation in the world.

The media and religion

Often, media hectoring of pro-lifers is accompanied by thundering about keeping religion separate from politics, imposing morality on others, and abusing ‘fundamentalists’ who actually believe that the Bible is important in deciding moral questions. Two points:

People might get the wrong impression that the secular media really are against religion mixing with politics or imposing morality. They are not! The important questions are: ‘Which religion should be mixed with politics?’ and ‘Whose morality should be imposed?’ Humanists have no qualms about imposing the religion of humanism on society, especially the government school system. And of course, all laws impose morality—laws against murder and rape impose on murderers and rapists the moral view that murder and rape are wrong! It seems the only acceptable morality to impose is one that agrees with the media élite. Imposition is certainly the right term—pro-abortionists not only want the ‘choice’ to kill unborn babies, but to coerce taxpayers to fund this ‘choice’.

The media aren’t opposed to quoting Bible verses! Not, of course, if the verses are used to support what’s generally understood to be traditional Christian morality—that would be unthinkable. But it’s OK to twist Scripture to support a liberally-approved cause. This was amply shown above in the inane eisegesis by Senator Smith quoted with approval by the news reporters. The media also tend not to mind wrenching out of context passages against judging others (the context was always against hypocritical judgments, whilerighteous judgment is commanded—John 7:24)—but only to justify a ‘non-judgmental’ view of practices approved by the liberal elites, e.g. abortion, homosexual activity, fornication etc.—judging ‘fundamentalists’ and creationists is OK, of course!

Summary

Scientific issues

Stem cells are those with the potential to form many different types of tissue

They are found not only in embryos but in many types of non-embryonic and even adult tissue

Their potential for growing many types of tissue means that they show promise for treating many types of diseases and disabilities

The best treatments to date are from non-embryonic stem cells, and the best source so far is liposuctioned fat

Conversely, embryonic cells have had no successes, and experiments have shown potential dangers

Embryonic stem cell research is closely linked with human cloning, to avoid the problem of tissue rejection that is a non-issue for somatic stem cells derived from the patient

Human life begins at fertilization

Therefore, ESCR and human cloning inevitably lead to death of tiny human beings

Ethical issues

The Bible teaches that humanity starts at the beginning of biological life

Since murder, intentionally killing human life, is wrong, it follows that ESCR, human cloning and induced abortions are wrong because they all involve intentional killing of human embryos

Genesis 2:7 does not support the view that the human embryo does not have a soul or humanity

The secular media is largely biased towards abortion

The secular media is not against imposing one’s religion or morality, as long as it’s humanistic religion or morality

The successes of non-embryonic stem cell treatment have largely been overlooked

Justifying the killing of embryos for research or medical benefits will help dehumanise them in the eyes of the public, and perpetuate the idea that one class of humans is expendable

The previous point seems to be the real agenda behind the push for ESCR

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Addendum: CMI’s comment on President Bush’s decision

CMI, along with many conservative Christian groups, is pleased that President Bush decided to forbid funding of any more destruction of human embryos, and with his restatement of his strong opposition to human cloning. He also refused to allow harvesting of stem cells from 100,000 embryos frozen at fertility clinics, as many evolutionary scientists would prefer, but which we oppose. The President also affirmed the uniqueness of each individual embryo and cited with approval an ethicist who dismissed as ‘callous’ an attempt to pretend that the early embryo isn’t really human. Further, he affirmed that ‘human life is a sacred gift from our Creator’ and that ‘we recoil at the idea of growing human beings for spare body parts or creating life for our convenience.’ The President also affirmed the important Biblical principle (cf.Romans 3:8) ‘even the most noble ends do not justify any means.’ On 14 August, President Bush promised to veto any congressional bill that would allow embryos to be destroyed for research.

He also correctly pointed out that stem cells are readily available from non-embryonic sources, on which there has been a virtual media blackout, as pointed out in this article. Fortunately, after President Bush’s decision, there seems to be a slight increase in the media’s admitting this fact. But he said:

‘However, most scientists, at least today, believe that research on embryonic stem cells offers the most promise because these cells have the potential to develop in all of the tissues in the body.’

As has been shown, this appears to be contrary to the experimental evidence.

However, President Bush’s go-ahead for funding on 60 already-existing stem cells lines obtained by past killing of embryos has raised far more debate among conservative Christians. Some have said that since nothing will bring these embryos back, we may as well research these stem cell lines that might save lives in the future. We recognize the agonizing moral dilemma that led to the decision. A similar dilemma was faced by medical researchers concerning the results of ghastly Nazi medical experiments involving the torture-murder of living prisoners. Here was data which could possibly save human lives; should its source mean it should not be utilized to possibly do good? So, on this view, we should be grateful that the President has at least stopped further embryo destruction for research purposes, and we should recognize that there is a limit to how much a politician can achieve against substantial opposition even within his own ranks.

But others have claimed, in our view correctly, that while we should indeed be grateful for President Bush’s decision to abolish funding for more embryo murders, his other decision to allow research on existing stem cell lines still perpetuates the view that human embryos are disposable commodities rather than human life (e.g. the Family Research Council response). Therefore it makes it harder to defend embryos from the mass murder perpetrated in abortion mills in the Western world. This is the contrast with the ‘Nazi dilemma’ mentioned above — the Nazis’ atrocities have ceased, but thousands of unborn babies are murdered every day.

There is also a key moral principle that profiting from immoral acts makes one a participant in them, and provides an incentive to commit them. By allowing research to continue, the President has inadvertently rewarded those who committed an act he himself said was unethical, i.e. those who destroyed these embryos in the first place. Further, the President’s ban on funding of more research, while good in itself, when combined with the limited permission, actually gives these people a monopoly on selling embryonic stem cell tissue to federally funded researchers.

[Update 2006: see also an analysis of more recent political events involving stem cell research:

US Senate passes embryonic stem cell bill; President vetoes.

Legalized Cloning in Australia: What are the issues?]

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References

Hall, A., Awaiting the Miracles of Stem-Cell Research, Business Week Online, 29 November 2000. Return to text.

Cited in Hall, ref.1. Return to text.

a) Cohen, P., Stem cells could save sight, New Scientist 175:(2354):18, 3 August 2002. Return to text.

Newman, L., Transplanted Stem Cells May Aid AMD Patients, Ophthalmology Times, 15 February 2001; commenting on research by Young, M.J. and Klassen, H.J. in Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, September 2000. Return to text.

Coghlan, A., Hair today, skin tomorrow, New Scientist 170(2296):19, 23 June 2001. Return to text.

Cell Therapy: Stem Cells Reverse Diabetes in Mice, Applied Genetics News, March 2000. Return to text.

New Technique May Create Embryonic Stem Cells Without Using Embryos, Wall Street Journal, 3 August 2001. Return to text.

Zuk, P.A. et al., Multilineage Cells from Human Adipose Tissue: Implications for Cell-Based Therapies, Tissue Engineering 7(2):211–228, April 2001. Return to text.

Liposuctioned Fat Is Good Source of Stem Cells, Say Researchers in Tissue Engineering, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (Biotechnology publishers). Return to text.

Toma, J.G. et al., Isolation of Multipotent Adult Stem Cells from the Dermis of Mammalian Skin, Nature Cell Biology 3(9):778–784, September 2001. Return to text.

Rietze, R.L. et. al., Purification of a pluripotent neural stem cell from the adult mouse brain, Nature 412(6848):736–739, 16 August 2001 — see online abstract. Return to text.

Jochen Ringe et al., Stem cells for regenerative medicine: advances in the engineering of tissues and organs, Naturwissenschaften 89(8), August 2002. Return to text.

Yuehua Jiang and 15 others (including Verfaillie), Pluripotency of mesenchymal stem cells derived from adult marrow, Nature 418(6893):41–49, 4 July 2002.Return to text.

Stem cells do their stuff for Parkinson’s patient, New Scientist 174(2338):5, 13 April 2002. Return to text.

Stuff of miracles, New Scientist 174(2337):7, 6 April 2002. Return to text.

Body builders, New Scientist 173(2336):16, 30 March 2002. Return to text.

Randerson, J., Stem cells fix the damage, New Scientist 177(2377):14, 11 January 2003. A more recent article is Check, E., Cardiologists take heart from stem-cell treatment success, Nature 428(6986):880, 29 April 2004: ‘Adult stem cells have long been viewed as less flexible than embryonic stem cells, which can divide to produce any cell type in the body. But recent studies of human cells suggest that adult stem cells can also turn into many cell types, including heartm brain and liver cells.’ Return to text.

Interview With Genetics Prof. David Prentice on Stem Cell Research, National Review, 8 June 2001. Return to text.

Fumento, M., Embryonic stem cell research alternatives exist: Use them, Washington Times, 31 July 2001. Return to text.

Right to Life of Michigan, 27 July 2001. Return to text.

Terada, N. et al., Bone marrow cells adopt the phenotype of other cells by spontaneous cells fusion, Nature (416(6880):542–545, 4 April 2002. Return to text.

Ying, Q.-L. et al., Changing potency by spontaneous fusion, Nature (416(6880):545–548, 4 April 2002. See also commentary on these two papers, same issue, pp. 485–487. Return to text.

Beckwith, F.J., Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights, pp. 140–141, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, 1993. This is the most comprehensive demolition of pro-abortion arguments, covering science, ethics, law and Scripture. See my review, Antidote to abortion arguments.Return to text.

Humphreys, D., et al., Epigenetic stability in ES cells and cloned mice, Science 293(5527):95–97, 6 July 2001. Return to text.

Orkin, S.H. and Morrison, S.J., Stem cell competition, Nature 418(6893):25–27, 4 July 2002. Return to text.

Weiss, R., Clone Study Casts Doubt on Stem Cells: Variations in Mice Raise Human Research Issues, Washington Post, 6 July, 2001. Return to text.

Wesley J. Smith, Cloning Debate Proves ESCR “Bait and Switch”, National Review, 3 August, 2001. Return to text.

Christian Medical Association; 2 August 2001. Return to text.

Human cloning attempt to be outlined Tuesday, CNN.com, 7 August 2001. Return to text.

Zitmer, A., Senators use Bible for lessons on life in stem cell debate, The Greenville News, 19 July 2001. Return to text.

Beckwith, Ref. 23, pp. 145–146. Return to text.

Geisler, N.L., Christian Ethics, pp. 138–139, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, 1989. This is a good presentation of Biblical Christian ethics both in theory and in practice (see also his online article Any absolutes? Absolutely!), and Ch. 8 covers the abortion debate well. Both this and Ref. 30 refute the argument used by Clinton, but I don’t think anyone had thought of Smith’s outlandish argument when either of those books were written. Return to text.

Beckwith, Ref. 23, p. 97. Return to text.

The Stem Cell Wars, Newsweek Cover, 1 July 2001. Return to text.

Beckwith, Ref. 22, pp. 97–98. Return to text.

Beckwith, Ref. 22, pp. 96–97. Return to text.

Ref. 34. Return to text.

See also the critique of Ref. 34, Miller, J.J. and Ponnuru, R., Cell Games: Newsweek vs. pro-lifers, Washington Bulletin, National Review Online, 3 July 2001.Return to text.

Beckwith, Ref. 23, pp. 54–59 documents the deceit of pro-abortionists in inflating statistics of deaths from illegal abortions. Sometimes they were so absurd that the quoted numbers turned out to exceed the deaths of woman of childbearing age from all causes! Most importantly, this appeal to pity is totally irrelevant—because abortion kills innocent humans, it amounts to claiming that murder should be legal and safe, because people will murder anyway, and if it’s not safe they could get hurt unnecessarily. Return to text.

Pluchino, S. et al., Injection of adult neurospheres indueces recovery in a chronic model of multiple sclerosis, Nature 422(6933):688–694, 17 April 2003; Steinman, L., Collateral damage repaired [perspective on this paper], same issue, pp. 671&8211;672.Return to text.

Stem cells cure MS mice, New Scientist 178(2391):22, 19 April 2003. Return to text.

Forging ahead at the forefront of science, Courier Mail, 5 July 2003. Return to text.

Rietze, R.L., Valcanis, H., Brooker, G.F., Thomas, T., Voss, A.K., and Bartlett, P.F., Purification of a pluripotent neural stem cell from the adult mouse brain,Nature 412(6848):736–739, 16 August 2001. Return to text.

Pilcher, H.R., Turning back the clock, Nature 424(6946):265, 17 July 2003. Return to text.

Nature 427(6974):478, 5 February 2004. Return to text.

Kang KS, Kim SW, Oh YH, Yu JW, Kim KY, Park HK, Song CH, Han H., A 37-year-old spinal cord-injured female patient, transplanted of multipotent stem cells from human UC blood, with improved sensory perception and mobility, both functionally and morphologically: a case study, Cytotherapy 7(4):368–73, September 2005. Return to text.

Rodríguez, L.V., Alfonso, Z., Rong Zhang, Leung, J., Wu, B. and Ignarro, l.J., Clonogenic multipotent stem cells in human adipose tissue differentiate into functional smooth muscle cells, PNAS 7(4):368–73, 31 July 2006; <www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0604850103>. Return to text.

Geddes, L, Virgin birth stem cells bypass ethical objections, New Scientist 191(2558):19, 1 July 2006. Return to text.

Price, E.M., Prather, R.S. and Foley, C.M., Multipotent adult progenitor cell lines originating from the peripheral blood of green fluorescent protein transgenic swine, Stem Cells and Development 15(4):507–522 , August 2006. Return to text.

Chamberlain, J.S., Stem-cell biology: A move in the right direction, Nature advance online publication | doi:10.1038/nature05406; Published online 15 November 2006. Return to text.

The lure of stem-cells biology, Nature 442(7101):335–336, 27 July 2006. Return to text.

Clinical transplantation of a tissue-engineered airway, Lancet doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61598-6, 19 November 2008.

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