Save us Obama!

"In fact, scientists calculate that Obama has four years in which to save the world."
From a short piece in which Newsnight's Science Editor Susan Watts talks about "the environmental challenges President Barack Obama faces." (The Watts What blog has much of the piece transcribed with other comments.)

This piece is a true classic from the BBC. Obama is going to save the world from destruction unlike that nasty President Bush who ignored scientists and listened to religion instead, leading him to oppose stem-cell research and thereby encouraging people not to accept science but to believe in the bible instead of evolution. But the scientists are now free again. Huzzah!

Some helpful points:
  • President Bush did not have a distaste for stem-cell research. He opposed embryonic stem-cell research which involves the destruction of human embryos.
  • You do not have to be a religious person to oppose embryonic stem-cell research, simply a person who does not agree with the destruction of human life.
  • Opposing embryonic stem-cell research does not imply opposition to science, only opposition to the immoral use of science. (We all know of immoral uses of science in the first half of the twentieth century in certain parts of Europe.) In fact, most opponents of embryonic stem-cell research are keen to promote adult stem-cell research.
  • You can believe in the bible without rejecting the idea of evolution. Many Christians and indeed many scientists do. Among the Christians, we might mention Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.
Many thanks to a BBC insider for alerting me to this piece. And H/T to Is Barack Obama the Messiah? for the picture by Alex Grey.

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