Clark Withholds $60 Million Pledge to Stanford 469
vocaljess writes: "In an op-ed piece in Friday's New York Times (which you have to register to read, blah blah blah), Netscape creator Jim Clark has announced that he will withhold $60 million he had pledged to donate to Stanford University to build a center for biomedical engineering and science. He states "I believe our country risks being thrown into a dark age of medical research. Biologists are at the threshold of the most important set of discoveries in history, and rather than teach and lead, our politicians react and follow a conservative few. This legislative action will cause the United States to miss a revolution in biology.""
Re:The USA is doomed anyways (Score:1, Funny)
Re:The USA is doomed anyways (Score:3, Funny)
Everything you've said about Europe being better basically has to do with the difference in the size of the US vs. Europe---both in people and in area. For example:
1) It's alot easier to be better in telecommunications when your country is the size of one of our states. We're still trying to get cell towers to every part of the US, because its so big.
2) Public transit only works if you have a large number of people in a small area (see New York). In the US, most people prefer to spread out and live in the suburbs---doing things like owning their own house.
3) Television. To upgrade us to HDTV you have to upgrade the facilities of each and every local network in every big and small town. That's not a small task
Frankly, I can't believe how quickly intelligent people want to go down this stem cell road. Come on, did you read Brave New World and think it was a *good* idea? Did you see Gattaca and say "I want a society like that!". Don't you want to take a small step back and look at the ethical ramifications of using stem cells, with their own distinct DNA, as fodder for whatever experiments we want to conduct? Don't you realize this is not an end, but a beginning of some huge ethical situations?
And not to mention that embryo stem cells have a big disadvantage over adult ones---namely the fact that they have different DNA and will be as prone to rejection as any other transplant. Adult stem cells, of course, don't have this problem.
Re:Message to the Masses About the US Government (Score:2, Funny)
You need to re-read the Constitution I'm afraid.
Regarding federal funding, this falls under the "general welfare" statement in Article I. I believe the Supreme Court has said something on this matter. You know, the Court that interprets the Consititution?
Concerning some of the offtopic points:
Amendment 16 allows for an income tax. Was ratified by the US States I believe.
Regarding state rights. They don't have any in reality. There was a little war concerning that idea. I think it was called the Civil War.
Oh, by the way, just a bit of sarcasm in these remarks!
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater.... (Score:1, Funny)
Mr. Clark is definately within his rights to give his money as he sees fit, but I still feel that he is being foolish, and many of the supporting opinions for him here have a very childish "I don't agree so I'm taking my ball home with me" attitude that ignores the realities and consequences of his actions.
Not all of the greatest biotechnology research is just stem cells. There are TONS of other important and vital research possibilities and techniques as well - and Mr. Clark screws them as well. This seems to be an endemic problem in the US - people are so concerned for their personal freedom, but forget (or ignore) their free choices' effects on everyone else. Mr. Clark doesn't like Pres. Bush's decision (fine - I hate it myself), Mr. Clark is concernced about the state of biotech research in the US, so he then screws the NON-STEM-CELL researchers by witholding funds - that's punishing everyone for who the new biotech center is important because of a governmental decision that they couldn't control! And now the research of many grous affiliated with the center will suffer, instead of possibly just the stem-cell groups. Brilliantly selfish, and egocentric, but it's not surprising, as I've noticed this trend in our US society for quite a while.
As I said - it is his money, and he has (and should always have) the right to spend it as he wishes, but I don't think it's right to be so congratulatory - he's screwing over valuable researchers who don't use any controverisal cells for something not their fault - and it seems he's doing some ego-stroking of his own. But I still expect lots of people here to support him wholeheartedly - far be it for
Sincerely,
Kevin Christie
Program in Neuroscience
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
crispiewm@hotmail.com