Oh My God!
From the Baltimore Sun
Diana Schaub, a Loyola College professor and adviser to President Bush, is convinced that cloning and embryonic stem cell research are evil. She says this belief was formed, in part, by watching Star Trek.
The show has "left me receptive to the view that mortality is, if not precisely a good thing, then at least the necessary foundation of other very good things," she wrote in an article last year. "There is something misguided about the attempt to overcome mortality."
Her interest in mortality and Star Trek could be regarded as the quirks of an academic if not for her position on the President's Council on Bioethics, a 18-member panel that advises Bush on some of the most polarizing subjects in society.
She has likened embryonic research to slavery and has compared slacker students to lawless American soldiers in Iraq. Administration critics faulted her appointment to the council last year, saying she would push a conservative agenda.
But Schaub, a registered Republican who is chairwoman of Loyola's political science department, doesn't see her views as conservative or liberal. She says they are the logical result of studying Abraham Lincoln -- and yes, Captain Kirk.
"I find that there are good reasons to be opposed to embryonic stem cell research and human cloning," she said. "Both Lincoln and the Enterprise argue that there ought to be certain moral limits to the scientific project, and they help us articulate what those limits are."
BTW, this article is being discussed at TrekWeb under the title Bush Adviser: "Because STAR TREK Says So!"