"Chris Clarke"  wrote
>
> I'll begin by saying that I am completely in favour of stem cell
> research as I do see a lot of potential benefit as a result of its
> careful application.
>
The first point is that there is nor controversy about stem cell research,
but only about research on human stem cells derived from embryos which are
sacrificed for the purpose.
Scientifically, there's nothing interesting about humans that we can't study
in mice, though practically there might be a case for using human cells if
the cell types are better researched, the genes better identified, and so
on. There's also the problem that if you are trying to cure a disease which
has no mouse analogue, then you have to do your experiments in humans.

There is no such thing as "careful application" of research. It takes you
where it leads you.
>
> If stem cell research successfully cures certain genetic diseases in
> many individuals, as scientist predict, will it negatively impact
> human evolution?
>
No effect will be noticeable for thousands of years. By then germ line
engineering will probably be routine, so there's nothing to worry about.
>
> Will society simply use stem cells like penicillin for certain diseases,
or will it
> follow the diabetes research model where insulin does work for the most
part,
> but further research into cures has continued?
>
We don't know how society will choose to allocate funding. At the moment the
problem in Britain is that funding bodies are putting ever tighter
restrictions on how money is spent, which in the short term means that you
do cost-effective science, but in the long term will probably kill the big
breakthroughs. Very few people are working on consciousness compared to
cancer, for instance, but if we solved the problem of consciousness that
might solve every disease, including cancer.
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