Rationally Speaking: How Stupid is Bush, Really?

[Ian David]

COLUMN By MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI
From Rationally Speaking
July 19, 2006

I'm talking about the so-called Leader of the Freest Nation in the World, stubbornly refusing to sign a bill that will be sent his way that authorizes stem cell research conducted on cells extracted from embryos discarded from artificial fertilization procedures.

The key word here is "discarded." Bushy Boy insists that the bill would require tax payers to subsidize research that intentionally destroys human life. Again I ask: how stupid is he, really? What exactly does he not understand about the fact that such embryos would otherwise be discarded?

That means destroyed, annihilated, disintegrated and not used for research. These embryos are byproducts of the (if not immoral, certainly ethically questionable, in a planet of six billion) attempt to produce more human beings by artificial means (which, by the way, I don't recall being sanctioned in the Bible either).

To the stupidity of our leader, of course, we have to add the idiocy of our elected representatives, who are also passing (in the House, notoriously more idiotic than the Senate on most matters) two additional and completely useless bills. One encourages scientists to look for alternative ways to obtain stem cells. As if scientists actually needed such encouragement to begin with (they've been looking long and hard for years). The third bill comes closest to pure insanity: it actually prohibits a practice known (to fear-mongering Republicans) as "fetus harvesting," the implantation of human fetuses for the sole purpose of harvesting stem cells. The problem is that such a practice doesn't exist, has never existed, and has not been proposed by any scientist whatsoever.

One more time, folks, how stupid are these people, really?

Massimo Pigliucci, Ph.D., is a professor of evolutionary biology at SUNY-Stony Brook. He is the author of the IHS Continuum for Humanist Education course, Evolution, Creationism, and the Nature of Science. He is also the author of two books, Denying Evolution: Creation, Scientism, and the Nature of Science and Tales of the Rational: Skeptical Essays About Nature and Science. "Rationally Speaking" began as an online column in August 2000, and was syndicated by HNN since 2003. For more information, visit Rationally Speaking.

Editor's Note: Please refer to "Senate OKs Expansion of Stem Cell Research" in Media Roundup for the latest developments in stem-cell legislation.


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[whistle]

1. Shit-for-brains pretty much sums up Dubya's intelligence quota...

...throw in uncultured, uncouth, uncivilized, uncaring, unfeeling, undone.....and I think stupid is a good codeword for the man.

[sutz12]

2. Pretty much....

If he saw the proverbial "turtle on a fencepost" he would probably think God put it there and leave it to starve.

[MichiganVote]

3. 92 IQ tops, VIQ= about 88

[MarkDevin]

4. Bush is dumber than Dan Quayle put together!

:evilgrin: