It is always amusing to see someone make a post which is completely out of touch with reality. Can you produce any evidence that humans are not driven by instinct to project a construct of personhood on the unborn?
The fundamental flaw here is emotional. The person calling himself 'The Fallible Fiend' is reacting emotionally and not rationally.
He sees the discussion of the evolutionary psychology of the mass popular appeal of embryonic stem cell research as a personal attack on the character of people involved in such research.
This is enormously silly. Every single post I have made on the topic has differentiated between three or four different groups of proponents of Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy.
The Scientific professionals who believe in it because they have spent years in the field and are committed to it.
The polticians who support it because it is part of their party platform.
The desperate people suffering from currently incurable diseases who are willing to grasp at any straw.
The masses of people who for some reason believe in it.
In not a single post have I suggested that group 1 or 2 above sees embryonic stem cell therapy as emotionally equivalent to human sacrifice. He is essentially defending his communtity against a charge that has never been made.
All I have done is suggest that the idea appeals to the masses because of that subconscious similarity.
He says, "The parallel is all the more obvious to someone who ascribes motives and reasoning to people which they do not possess. Not all people are driven by instinct to believe that embryos are human beings. It's doubtful that anyone thinks of embryos as human beings out of instinct."
He is forced to deny the influence of evolution on human psychology in order to make the above statement. As I stated before only a nutcase creationist could believe what he believes and integrate it logically with his belief system.
Of course the mass of humans is driven by instinct in how they perceive the world. Of course reproductive behavior is one of the most strongly instinctively driven areas of human behavior. Ergo, seeing the unborn as human must be instinctively driven to prepare for the arrival, they do require tremendous care. They are among the most helpless of all young in the biosphere.
For more factual evidence relating to this issue you might try reading
http://www.overalltech.net/huff/YAbortion.htm His emotional involvement is clearly shown by his inability to make a coherent statement.
"Some people may consider the promise of embryonic stem cell research to be a miracle, but those are the people who are already prone to believe in fairy tales. That some people have unreasonable expectations doesn't mean everyone does. For the most part, this is a strawman created and fostered by religious fanatics. So far as I can see, most people who support this kind of research have no expectation of pay-offs in the near term."
Let us take his sentences, "That some people have unreasonable expectations doesn't mean everyone does. For the most part, this is a strawman created and fostered by religious fanatics."
Does this make any sense? He is apparently either saying that religious fanatics fostered the belief in miracle cures from embryonic stem cell therapy or that the idea there is a belief in such cures is fostered by the religious nutcases.
Anybody familiar with the popular debate is fully aware that the entire reason for seeking government research money for embryonic stem cell therapy is because of the belief in such miracle cures.
Every speech made by a proponent of the idea in Congress includes a poignant and heartrending description of some individual suffering from Alzheimer's or some other disease who will be denied his miracle cure because of President Bush's heartless religious fanaticism.
The idea is quite clearly that miracle cures are not only offerred and guaranted but that they will be available in 6 months or a year if only that evil religious fanatic nutcase Bush were not in office.
The Fiend does admit that no real scientist expects any tangible results from embryonic stem cell research in the near future. Thirty years is probably a realistic estimate, if ever.
Meanwhile, adult stem cell therapies are already in clinical trials and being readied for public use.
The argument for government sponsorship of embryonic stem cell research is the promise of miracle cures for desperate people currently suffering. All of those people will be dead by the time any results from Embryonic stem cell therapy are available. By that time, everything that it makes available will already be provided by adult stem cell therapy and in a form which is inherently safer than embryonic stem cell therapy.
Science changes and you have to keep up with it. The idea that embryonic stem cell therapy offered promise not provided by other means is based on the assumption of a total inflexibility in the adult organism. Virtually every scientific discovery in this area since the discovery of embryonic stem cells has undermined and tended to refute this assumption.
It is outdated, antiquated, science, like a geocentric universe.