YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY... (via Judd Heartsill):

Dissing Darwin: As Texas grapples with the future of biotech, our long-standing hostility toward one of modern science’s founding fathers is about to cost us plenty. (Michael Ennis, April 2005, Texas Monthly)

[A]s Texas enters the twenty-first century, dissing Darwin is
about to get very expensive.

That's because the scientific revolution Darwin started in the nineteenth
century-transforming biology from the domain of amateur naturalists like
himself into a disciplined science probing ever deeper into the mysteries of
life-has finally come to fruition. We are leaving behind the digital age and
entering the biotechnology era, with the promise and peril of regenerated
limbs, cloned replacement organs, and genetic cures. Indeed, George W.
Bush's first major televised address as president concerned "stem cells," a
term that has now entered the everyday lexicon. (Found in days-old human
embryos, stem cells are capable of developing into any kind of body tissue
and could potentially yield treatments for everything from paralysis to
Parkinson's disease.) Although the president dismayed researchers with his
split decision to limit federally funded embryonic stem cell research to
several dozen "lines" previously obtained from embryos unused in in vitro
fertilization, his cautious approach created an opening for enterprising
states. Last November, California voters committed $3 billion to fund
largely unrestricted stem cell research over the next decade; not wanting to
miss out on what is being called the biotech "gold rush," a host of
governors from Wisconsin to New Jersey have proposed spending hundreds of
millions each to compete for biotech businesses and researchers.

...no Darwin? No Mengele.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 5, 2005 10:40 AM