Steven Pinker, the famous Harvard psychology professor, has a new article out in the TNR on Bush's advisory panel on bioethics. The article makes an interesting argument on the concept of dignity being misused to condemn a technology that could ease the suffering of millions. While I can only recommend this article (The Stupidity of Dignity), it is Leon R. Kass, the advisor of bio ethics to President Bush who stole my attention. I commonly do not refer to people as nutjobs, but considering the remarks by this far-right, well, nut, I can't help myself. Here's a taste of Mr. Kass' insight into the human condition. While you read this, please remember that President Bush appointed this man as one of his advisors and put him in charge of putting together his council on bioethics. These words were written by an advisor Mr. Bush actually listens to:

"Worst of all from this point of view are those more incvilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone - a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive... Eating on the street - even when understaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to eat - displays [a] lack of self-control: It beckons enslavement to the belly... Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to the mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable protions, just like an animal... This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought ot be kept from public view, where, even if we feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior."

At this point, one may say harmless nonsense. Obviously no one is going to take Mr. Kass' calls for the banishment of public eating seriously. Yet, Mr. Kass has been influencial in cutting funding for medical research he considers to "violate human diginity" (Neither he nor any of the members of the panel have defined what they mean by "dignity"). According to Mr. Kass the desire for a long, healthy life is nothing more than "an expression of childlish and narcisistic wish incompatiable with devotion to posterity" - afterall, "would professional tennis players really enjoy playing 25 percent more games of tennis?" This man, through his attempt to force far-right beleifs on the American public has successfully delayed progress in medical research. Fortunately he has not gone unchallanged and some states, such as California, continue to fund stem-cell research, as does the private sector. Thanks to this nonsense, however, millions of American will suffer from brutal diseases, such as Alzheimers and cancer, or watch their loved ones suffer.