[boots]

Found this amusing, so I thought I'd post it.

The Worst Jobs in Science

enjoy.

[BRussell]

Heh, among "stool sample analyzer" and "flatus odor judge," they have "post-doc."

[vmpaul]

Very funny stuff. Thanks for sharing.

The sad one is #16. U.S. STEM CELL RESEARCHER -due to Bush's catering to the right-wing, research in this country has been stymied. Potential help for millions is being thwarted for political reasons.

I always thought the worst would be a High School Science teacher having to teach Creationism with a straight face.

[BlackGriffen]

*Laughs nervously*


This is the career choice I've made? From the looks of it, I'll likely end up a post doc, then what?

I still plan on doing grad school, but...

BlackGriffen

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by vmpaul:
Very funny stuff. Thanks for sharing.

The sad one is #16. U.S. STEM CELL RESEARCHER -due to Bush's catering to the right-wing, research in this country has been stymied. Potential help for millions is being thwarted for political reasons.

The US Government is funding stem cell research. Furthermore, unfertilized eggs can be a source for stem cells.

If the decision were made to cater to the right, their would be no research whatsoever. The decision as made with the WHOLE country in mind - including the 50% or more that you disagree with.

Stem cell research, on a global level, is moving along just fine. Had the world's progress on this research completely depended on the Bush decision, I think we'd have seen a more generous policy in your favor. But that's not the case.

I just don't think the US was/is quite ready for an open market of fetal parts. Bush reserved the right to revisit his decision in the event that breakthroughs are discovered.

[vmpaul]

It is barely funding research and has hobbled progress with their restrictive policies.

from the Popular Science article linked by boots:
Their (scientists) ability to study actual stem cells is hobbled by the federal regulation triggered in 2001 by President Bush's famously faux-Solomonic—tear the baby in half!—decision to limit the cells a federally funded researcher can study to those coming from the 78 cell lines cultured prior to the date of the regulation. In practice, though, only 11 approved lines have been made available to researchers. It's like handing an oceanographer a cup of salt water and saying, "Study only this."

Furthermore, some 'staunch liberals' such as Sen. Orrin Hatch , Sen Arlen Spector, and NANCY REAGAN have all publicly opposed or questioned Bush's stance on this issue.

from Wired article linked above:
Hatch is one of the few conservative Republicans who opposed the bill, which would outlaw therapeutic cloning -- a technology that many researchers say is crucial to implementing embryonic stem-cell treatments. Most anti-abortion members of Congress favor the ban.

Hatch devotes an entire chapter of the book to the stem-cell issue, which he says he thought and prayed about, finally concluding that destroying an embryo outside the womb does not constitute murder.

Originally posted by spacefreak :
Furthermore, unfertilized eggs can be a source for stem cells.

Fine. but there's no reason why research can't be happening on BOTH fronts until real therapies are discovered. Until, then Bush is taking a political position to appease an extreme faction of his party at the possible expense of millions of people suffering from debilitative diseases.

So much for 'compassionate conservatism'.

[boots]

Originally posted by BlackGriffen:
*Laughs nervously*


This is the career choice I've made? From the looks of it, I'll likely end up a post doc, then what?

I still plan on doing grad school, but...

BlackGriffen

Don't be too nervous. Most of the sciences have industrial demand for PhD's. In my field (organic chemistry) the vast majority of PhD's go into the bio-tech industry (usually after a 2 year post-doc), not academics. Physics, I'll grant, doesn't have the industrial size (hense demand) as pharmaceutical research, but there are companies like Lockheed Martin (sp?) and Boeing....not to mention the small engineering companies.