Glen Davis

Wow. I woke up this morning and saw all sorts of news articles that suggest Stanford is about to engage in human cloning.

For example, there’s this story from the San Francisco Chronicle: Stanford University announced plans Tuesday to create a $120 million institute to study the overlapping biology of cancer and stem cells, including a plan to start cloning new stem cells from human embryos. (source)

Here’s what Stanford has to say: Stanford University Medical Center is not engaged in human reproductive cloning. A story published Dec. 10 by the Associated Press incorrectly characterized the nature of research that would take place at the newly announced Institute for Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Creating human stem cell lines is not equivalent to reproductive cloning. The first step in the process of creating a stem cell line involves transferring the nucleus from a cell to an egg and allowing the egg to divide. This is the same first step as in reproductive cloning. However in creating a stem cell line, cells are removed from the developing cluster. These cells can go on to form many types of tissues, but cannot on their own develop into a human. Future research in this field, which will also be pursued at Stanford, will attempt to produce stem cell lines by transferring the nucleus into other embryonic stem cells rather than into eggs. (source)

It looks like the human cloning angle of the story was a little over-hyped in the news, and as far as I can tell, they’re going to be working exclusively with non-fertilized eggs (although I guess in one sense they’ll be creating their own).

I found this quote particularly interesting: “Our avowed goal is to advance science,” said Stanford medical professor Dr. Irving Weissman, who will direct the school’s stem cell effort. “For any group to stay out of the action and wait for someone else to do it because of political reasons is wrong.” (news source, emphasis added).

I don’t pretend to really understand all the science, and so I don’t know how to evaluate what they’re planning to do from a moral standpoint. I do know that political reasons and moral reasons aren’t the same thing at all, although the two categories frequently overlap.

In fact, Weissman intermingles politics and morality in his own comment: the reasons for staying out of the research would be political, but the reasons for engaging in it are moral. That seems a little convenient–almost by definition if doing one thing is political then doing the opposite is political as well. By and large the same observation holds true with respect to morality.

I know that it’s difficult to choose the right words when you’re being interviewed and don’t have time to craft the perfect response, but I found his wording revealing. It doesn’t reassure me that people are thinking through the ethical issues as rigorously as they are the scientific angles.

The news articles I read were pretty superficial, and so I hope I’m wrong.

Christmas is upon us. This year, I’ve been struck by the Christmas colors that Stanford flaunts on its logos. I suppose that makes Stanford sort of Christmassy.

But in a more important sense, Stanfords not Christmassy at all. Christ isnt at the center, and celebrating Christmas without Christ is like being married without a spouse. Something essential is missing.

God has called us here to help a school with Christmas colors develop true Christmas spirit. Christmas is about Jesus being bornnot just born in a manger 2,000 years ago, but being born in each of our hearts. Until every heart becomes a manger, well be proclaiming the Christmas story to the students at Stanford, whether its December or July.

So if you’re ever on campus and you hear some fool yelling “Merry Christmas” at a wildly inappropriate time of year, be sure to tell me hi.

Forget stuffing the turkey–we stuffed our apartment this Thanksgiving! Not only did Glen’s brother and Paula’s college roommate travel down from Washington state, but we were able to host over 20 Stanford students in our home for lunch on turkey day (nearly 30 total people)!

Let me tell you–that’s an awful lot of people to cram into one apartment!

In case you’re wondering why they didn’t head home to visit their families, all the students were international students (mostly from Singapore). Traveling internationally and getting jet lagged is a big hassle (and pretty expensive) for such a short break from school.

For many of them, this was their first real celebration of Thanksgiving. Think about it–how many other countries celebrate the pilgrims’ survival? To my knowledge, only Canada…

Several of our guests were already following Christ, but many have yet to experience God’s transforming love. The Kingdom of God flows through relationships, and so please pray that God would use our hospitality as a catalyst for spiritual growth in these students’ lives.

Cooking for so many people was a huge task, as was seating them. Thanks to Greg, Rachel, and Ailin for helping to prepare the food, and many thanks to Southbay Christian Center and Three Cities Assembly for loaning us chairs and tables, and a heap of thanks to Pastor Mike Brown of International Assembly of God (as well as his worship leader Paul) and Josh Wong and Ming Fai Wong for helping to cart the chairs and tables to our place. We couldn’t have done it without you!

UPDATE: our Photo Gallery has been updated with pictures from the Thanksgiving feast!