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The title "Stem Cells from Cord Blood, In Utero Stem Cell Develop
ment, and Transplantation-Inclusive Gene Therapy" suggests that
more than one topic is combined in one workshop. Indeed, at first
glance the recovery of stem cells from cord blood has to be seen as
separate from the attempts to achieve effective in utero therapy by
stem cell trans plantation, because the first issue deals with an
innovative stem cell source as an alternative to bone marrow, which
is already spreading rapidly in medical practice, whereas the
second topic is still strictly ex perimental and only investigated
in medical centers with the appropri ate background. It is,
however, not only justified, but helpful to com bine the two topics
in one workshop and consequently to cover them in the same volume
of the Ernst Schering Research Foundation Work shop series, because
they are intimately related and both based on the new insights into
the biology of stem cells. Professor Werner Arber, the Nobel
Laureate from the University of Basel, pointed out in his In-
Professor Dr. W. Holzgreve VI Preface The participants of the
workshop troductory Lecture that our understanding of hematopoietic
stem cells as descendents of totipotent cells and our current
approaches to using them in post-and prenatal therapy have been
furthered significantly by genetic engineering technologies which
are "artificial contributions to the process of biologic
evolution.""
Everything evolves, science tells us, including the public language
used by scientists to sustain and perpetuate their work. Harkening
back to the Protestant Reformation--a time when the promise of
scientific inquiry was intimately connected with a deep faith in
divine Providence--Thomas Lessl traces the evolving role and public
identity of science in the West. As the Reformation gave way to the
Enlightenment, notions of Providence evolved into progress.
History's divine plan could now be found in nature, and scientists
became history's new prophets. With Darwin and the emergence of
evolutionary science, progress and evolution collapsed together
into what Lessl calls ""evolutionism,"" and the grand scientific
identity was used to advance science's power into the world. In
this masterful treatment, Lessl analyzes the descent of these
patterns of scientific advocacy from the world of Francis Bacon
into the world of Thomas Huxley and his successors. In the end,
Rhetorical Darwinism proposes that Darwin's power to fuel the
establishment of science within the Western social milieu often
turns from its scientific course. Rhetorical Darwinism: Religion,
Evolution, and the Scientific Identity received the Religious
Communication Associatons ""Book of the Year"" award in 2012.
Tenacious hope, the heart of a just and free society. During the
Enlightenment, Scottish intellectuals and administrators met the
demands of profit and progress while shepherding concerns for
self and other, individual and community, and family and
work. Communication Ethics and Tenacious Hope captures
the “unity of contraries,” offering the Scottish Enlightenment
as an exemplar of tenacious hope countering the excesses of
individualism. Ronald C. Arnett reveals two stories: the struggle
between optimism and tenacious hope, and optimism’s ultimate
triumph in the exclusion of difference and the reification of
progress as an ultimate good. In chapters that detail the
legacies of Lord Provost George Drummond, Adam Smith, David Hume,
Thomas Reid, George Campbell, Adam Ferguson, and Sir Walter Scott,
Arnett highlights the problematic nature of optimism and the
ethical agency of tenacious hope. Arnett illustrates the creative
union of education and administration, the ability to accept doubt
within systems of knowledge and imagination, and an abiding
connection to local soil. As principles of progress, free
will, and capitalism swept Europe, proponents of optimism
envisioned a world of consumerism and absolutes. In contrast,
practitioners of tenacious hope embraced uncertainty and compassion
as pragmatic necessities. This work continues Arnett’s
scholarship, articulating the vital importance of communication
ethics. Those seeking to discern and support a temporal
sense of the good in this historical moment will find in this
timely work the means to pursue, hold, and nourish tenacious hope.
This insightful theorization of the Scottish Enlightenment distills
the substance of a just and free society for meeting dangerous and
uncertain times.
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