Hi everybody! I have a grammatically problem.

Paraphrasing Edmund Burke, 'all that is needed for the triumph of a misguided cause is for good people to do nothing.' One such cause is the cessation of biomedical research due to animal rights.

Anybody-- Should there be any punctuation in the "quote"?

in deference to animal rights.

Edmund Burke was a political whore and a howling hypocrite, his undoubted eloquence for sale to the highest bidder. The quote is actually: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men do nothing." For Burke to have described himself and the capitalist exploiters for whom he was the mouthpiece as good men, just makes me want to retch.

Those are two sentences, and as silly as the topic may be, they are both grammatically correct. The idea of that prose, however, is rather purple.

The second sentence is not grammatically correct and, stylistically, is not as clear as it could be. First, the theory belongs to the cause and should be acknowledged. Second, the subject of "ruling out" is the theory. As such, the sentence should read:

One such cause now seeks to end biomedical research because its theory that animals have rights rules out their use in research.

The sentence is awkward--it is not, however, grammatically incorrect.

Vicent, please feel free to make use of Setanta's invaluable expertise on Edmund Burke. As far as the second sentence is concerned, the phrase "ruling out their use in research" is devoid of a subject and, therefore, constitutes a sentence fragment. Whether that makes it grammatically incorrect or just makes it awkward is irrelevant--even to this nitpicker.

That's a rather dense reading . . .

One such cause=subject
now seeks to end=verb
biomedical research=object
because of the theory that animals have rights ruling out their use in research=a dependent clause

The lack of a comma between rights and ruling makes is scan in an awkward manner, and it is not well constructed--neither is it grammatically incorrect.

Snotty tone really helps your argument, eh?

Carrying a grudge in from the other thread?

You win, Setanta, but please tell us why it is poorly constructed and how you would write it. Even with the comma, the dependant clause seems messy.

I don't dispute that it's messy, although i used the term awkward.

Grammatically, a few errors exist, but not many. Philosophically, it could be ridiculous.