Birth control pill: the new pollutant
One chapter in Iain Murray’s recently released book, The really inconvenient truths: seven environmental catastrophes Liberals don’t want you to know about – because they helped cause them, is “The pill as pollutant: and other environmental menaces the Left ignores.”
I’ve written several times (here, here, and here) on the topic of estrogen waste from the birth control pill causing gender-bending fish in our waterways.
Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote a great piece on all this August 1:
… Murray writes: “Why don’t we have more outcries about hormones, and campaigns to save the fish populations? Why aren’t environmentalists lobbying on Capitol Hill to keep these chemicals from being dumped into our rivers?…
“Maybe because the source of these chemicals is not some corporate polluter, but something a little more dear to the Left: human birth-control pills, morning-after pills, and abortion pills.”
The contraceptive pill has fundamentally changed American life, making sex more casual, morals looser, husbands and wives more distant. Its messed with women’s fertility. In short, it has been a game-changer, in some fundamental and not-so-good ways. And because its introduction came 40 years ago, at a time when American culture was enamored with Woodstock, feminism and free love, prescient warnings and cautions – most notably from Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae in the summer of 1968 – went unheeded.
But we may soon have reason to regret our embrace of the little white pill. For the first time, mainstream culture and the left may be forced to take a look at the side effects of oral contraceptives. Never mind the women, of course. Never mind the men and children affected in various emotional and other ways. The fish! Have mercy on the fish!…
Ironically, the environmental groups have long been on the same page as the abortion-industry foot soldiers, embracing anything that assuages fears of overpopulation (no longer a worry, as Western countries, particularly in Europe, face plummeting birth rates)….
But, Murray writes, “By any standard typically used by environmentalists, the pill is a pollutant. It does the same thing, just worse, as other chemicals they call pollutants.”
So what does that mean for us and the fish? Nothing straight away, Murray tells me. There’s more than pollution at stake here for the left, so, expect “outright denial at there being a problem, obfuscation of the science when strong arguments are presented, attempts to deflect attention onto much rarer and less harmful industrial estrogen, and ad hominem accusations, in this case an allegation of religious zealotry/being in the pay of the ‘very well-funded pro-life industry’ I imagine. The effort will be based on making it unacceptable to bring up the issue in polite conversation, such that anyone who does so will end up stigmatized.”…
With the science out there, Murray argues… “The EPA and FDA (ought) to have the courage to do what their counterparts in the U.K. had the courage to do and label the pill as the pollutant it is.”
Choice needs to be based on information…. When you interfere with a natural process, there are consequences, not all of them good – and you should be mindful of them. It’s not just fish that end up getting hurt.
Right, which leads me to my conspiracy theory.
If the pill feminizes male fish, what does it do to male children? It must do something – decrease fertility? feminize boys, i.e., create gays?
I’m sure the Left is not touching this pollutant for all the reasons Lopez and Murray noted.
But could there be an insidious motive for allowing estrogen to remain in the human water system?
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
That’s quite a conspiracy theory, Jill. But I’d say it’s grasping at straws.
“creates gays”
LOL…pip..grasping at straws is RIGHT!
Have you ever wondered why there are more females than males being born in the U.S? I think Jill is onto something..
Jill,
I have to side with Elizabeth and pip on this one. Great post, until your side bar. Conspiracy theories attached to articles like this help keep the truth about pill pollution out of the mainstream media. Even if you believe it to be truth, use that as a separate post.
Michael
All, if we know estrogen feminizes male fish, is it not reasonable to conjecture it feminizes male humans?
Do you agree even of the remote possibility?
If so, you’re not the first. If you don’t think the gay lobby has talked this through and condones the potentiality, you don’t understand the gay lobby.
“gay lobby.” LOL
Yes, because it’s the gayzzz with the conspiracy theory to turn all us straight people into teh gay! Ahh, run!
Right.
Ah, resorting so quickly to castigation (not to be confused with castration) rather than discussing the topic on its merits…. Yes, that is the easy, simple way.
Hal, am I to read you do not think there is a gay political lobby?
Jill,
It’s just that it’s so laughingly ridiculous, that’s all.
PiP, do you agree with the growing body of evidence that estrogen in our waterways is feminizing male fish?
I’m not an expert on the “feminized fish” question but it sounds like junk science. If it’s happening at all it’s more likely due to some other pollutant which is present in larger quantities.
Just when I think I understand the thought process of anti-choice, anti-birth control, anti-gay extremists, they astound me anew.
The birth control pill makes men gay!
And that is why the “gay lobby” promotes the pill! (when not busy “recruiting” young boys to become gay!)
I’m not sure how Jill’s theory squares with the several thousand year history of gay men prior to 1960, but what the heck.
Jill, you should understand that many are chomping at the bit, for whatever reason, to jump on anything that speaks of homosexuality as something that should not be desired. Even to the point where a pro-life person would vote pro-death just cause the homosexual agenda is more important to them then the pro-life agenda. Scientific facts that the fish exposed to these pollutants develope abnormal sexual organs and become sexually infertile will just be ignored by them. In there eyes anybody who would even bring up a conversation of these facts and try to relate it to the same effects on humans is gay-bashing.
I won’t say the water makes gay. Rather I attribute higher incidences of homosexuality to increased rates of divorce and sexual abuse. But I will concede to hormones in the water as well as the chemicals in plastics having some influence on girls reaching puberty at alarmingly earlier ages.
Hal, am I to read you do not think there is a gay political lobby?
Posted by: Jill Stanek at August 7, 2008 10:22 AM
Jill, what I think is funny is that you’re worried about the gay lobby, like it’s some nefarious group. I’m glad there are groups working for full civil rights for homosexuals. And, I think it’s funny that you imply (if I’m reading you correctly) that the “gay lobby” supports estrogen in our water supply because it is creating more gay boys.
PPC, 10:32a, wrote: “And that is why the “gay lobby” promotes the pill! (when not busy “recruiting” young boys to become gay!)”
PPC, you either didn’t understand my point or are purposefully misconstruing it. Which is it?
I said it is possible estrogen in our waterways is being ignored by the Left for more than one reason. The obvious reason is that the BC Pill is foundational to their interests.
A secondary reason may be that the gay lobby does not find the notion that estrogen in water may feminize boys abhorant. Why would they? It helps promote their gay gene theory as well.
Anybody know what percentage of the people who work at PP (the leading promoter and distributor of BC) are gay? Is it a far greater than the percentage of gays in the population in general?
Is it twice or three times the percentage? If so then can anybody tell me why? It can’t be cause “they” need BC…lol
The term “Gay Lobby” makes me think of a really well-decorated vestibule.
Seriously, the article had me until the “conspiracy theory.” I am concerned about the prensence of chemicals and drugs in our water. Absolutely. I think it needs to be researched immediately. I think attaching the problem to some sort of silly “OMG! The water is turning people gay! That’s even worse than giving them cancer!” sentiment is certainly not going to help raise serious awareness of the issue, in my opinion.
“I said it is possible estrogen in our waterways is being ignored by the Left for more than one reason. The obvious reason is that the BC Pill is foundational to their interests.”
That’s possible.
“A secondary reason may be that the thought that estrogen in water may feminize boys is not abhorant to gays. Why would it be? It helps promote their gay gene theory as well.”
That’s [what’s a nice way to say insane?]
well said truthseeker…
Hal,
I can see them now taking the pills home and flushing them so they can make money for the BC manufacturers they promote claiming they are distributing their “health services” to a greater number of people. An insidious consequence of the disposal, wether intentional or not, is exposing US to those hormones. Or would you just ignore/deny that the fish in the rivers and in Lake Tahoe are actually getting sexually neutered by these hormones in the water? Which is it, are denying the scientific evidence or just the insidious agenda theory?
Jill do you know how many hormones are injected into farm animals? Let’s talk cows, cows are pumped full of hormones and they’re excreting in one day what would probably take a normal person a month. All that hormonal waste runs into rivers, farmers use that water to water and wash fruit and vegetables, fish swim in it (sometimes people swim in it to).
Cows, any animal, mammal, aren’t designed to be pumped full of hormones. If we even just let cows live naturally, on decent farms with “real” food and didn’t force breed them constantly do you know how much better… everything would be? Our health, the environment etc…
Oh but silly me, that would mean everyone’s death if they had to go a few days without their precious hamburgers (and don’t forget your order of fries that could have feed Ireland during the potato famine!).
In other news some people have wondered what my view on prayer is. I just saw this video that about sums it up.
http://bettybowers.com/betty4president/
Oh Jill, you are hilarious. Why would gay people or “the left” want to turn everyone gay? If we didn’t have people like you to make us gays feel like we have a struggle to fight, then we wouldn’t have to worry about planning our gay rights parade. Thanks for making it easier for me to be proud of being gay! Keep on the bashing, it just makes us madder and more flamboyant.
(and don’t forget your order of fries that could have feed Ireland during the potato famine!).
Posted by: Jess at August 7, 2008 10:54 AM
Free the potatoes to be the delicious food they can be. Just say no to the trans-fatty animal fat ban.
Here are some sources:
http://www.planetizen.com/node/16981
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/02/tech/main713257.shtml
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/12/the_cows_missed_gores_movie.html
http://www.sierraclub.org/factoryfarms/
http://www.ecoworld.com/Home/articles2.cfm?TID=150
http://www.hsus.org/legislation_laws/federal_legislation/farm_animals/2007_factory_farming_pollution.html
http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/Antibiotics-Factory-Farming-Facts.htm
The last one is especially interesting!
“Livestock waste has been linked to six miscarriages in women living near a hog factory in Indiana.”
http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/Antibiotics-Factory-Farming-Facts.htm
Six dead babies. I hope your sausage was worth it.
Jess,
will you reconsider your decision to take BC and the abortion pill after seeing what it does to the fish? You’re not going to contribute to their suffering, are you?
gogayforjill,
Get mad and flamboyant; just tell your frinds and neighbors to quit flushing the BC. And dont flush the condoms either, they clog up the sewer system.
Truthseeker, lol
Free the potatoes!
I love you truthseeker : ) You see, you can eat these foods without destroying everything. I’ve cut back on dairy and only buy eggs that are free range-organic. It means less of the things I like but I think it’s worth it if we all do it we can send a message to these people who run the factory farms that we deserve REAL food.
I’m not saying it’s bad to eat meat but I think if you really knew what you were eating you would be just as passionate for change.
Jasper like I said eating meat itself isn’t bad I don’t think taking those pills if you need it is bad. I don’t see why I should spend a few days every months throwing up, having diarrhea and being unable to walk when I can take something the alleviate the symptoms.
And I don’t think having a baby at ten (when I first got my period) would have been the best solution either.
“Or would you just ignore/deny that the fish in the rivers and in Lake Tahoe are actually getting sexually neutered by these hormones in the water?”
sexually neutered is a quite a bit different than being gay. (at least from what I’ve been told)
Again, you guys continually focus on the wrong aspect of the problem…yeah, so it’s bad that hormones are leaching into our water supplies. I don’t disagree there. What I do disagree with is the purposeful demonization of the birth control pill, when it’s obvious that what is REALLY the problem is filtration techniques and the system to make sure the water being released into the environment is clean. There have to be other insidious chemicals in the water than just “TEH EVIL ABORSHUN PILLZ”. Take up the fight where it really belongs- with the people in charge of cleaning our water. I’d be there with you just as strongly. But blaming all the problems on the fact that women use a pill to postpone or prevent the all-important almighty pregnancy is pointing the gun at the wrong target. Get off your high horse, take off the blinders, and get to the REAL root of the problem- the people who are supposedly in charge of cleaning our waste water.
Volz presented a third study showing that exposing estrogen-sensitive breast cancer cells to extracts of channel catfish caught in areas of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers near Pittsburgh with heavy sewer and industrial waste causes the cells to multiply.
The study suggests that the fish contain substances that mimic the actions of estrogen, the female hormone.
“We believe there are vast quantities of pharmaceutical and xeno-estrogenic waste in outflows from sewage treatment plants and from sewer overflows, and that these chemicals end up concentrated and magnified in channel catfish from contaminated areas,” said Volz.
“These findings have significant public health implications, since we drink water from the rivers where the fish were caught,” he said. “Additionally, the consumption of river-caught fish, especially by semi-subsistence anglers, may increase their risks for endocrine-related health issues and developmental problems.”
The three studies were funded by grants from the Highmark Foundation, the DSF Charitable Trust and the Heinz Endowments.
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2007. All rights reserved.
xeno-estrogens would also include ethinylestradiol (hormonal birth control).
I believe it’s just not politically correct for the left to go after this issue since the women’s rights movement is founded on TWO platforms:
accessible birth control and abortion
For that reason they also ignore the plight of millions of their sisters in the Third World who are aborted. 10 million missing sisters and NO ACTION from ANY western feminist. For shame.
What makes us think they’d be concerned about the effect BC has or might have on the environment and/or their fellow humans?
I’m not saying it’s bad to eat meat but I think if you really knew what you were eating you would be just as passionate for change.
Posted by: Jess at August 7, 2008 11:07 AM
Jess, I have a house next to a farm in Wisconsin and I now the farmer well. His cows graze on the open grass every day and live the life a cow is supposed to live. He told me he would sell me one for $1000. I am thinking about getting a big deep freeze and buying one from him cause I know the meat would be the best.
Lyssie,
Those are good points you make. If the hormones in the water supply are supposedly “feminizing” gay men, or creating gays, then go after the water supply people to do a better job. Once they do a better job, no more gay guys! yaaay!
*eye roll*
Truthseeker-
I have no problem acknowledging the fact that the hormones in the water are messing with the fish. I do have a problem with baseless conspiracy theories though that are made in an effort to insinuate that if you just take away this contamination in the water, the guys would just go straight. If THAT’S the case, tell them to stop drinking the water, and POOF, they’ll like women.
Only it’s a stupid assertion, as are most conspiracy theories.
Why would a western feminist fight for an Americans right to have an abortion then condemn women in other countries for having one?
The point of the story, it would seem, is that environmentally unsound contraceptives are getting a free pass — even while environmentally unsound other things don’t — because the left sees pregnancy prevention as an ultimate good. That’s a valid point that should be examined, rather than beginning an inflammatory tangential discussion about homosexuality.
“Jess, I have a house next to a farm in Wisconsin and I now the farmer well. His cows graze on the open grass every day and live the life a cow is supposed to live. He told me he would sell me one for $1000. I am thinking about getting a big deep freeze and buying one from him cause I know the meat would be the best.”
I think this is a very good and proper use of cows, TS. My wife comes from a farming village and lots of her friend’s families did this. Jess, what do you think about this? You mentioned that you don’t think eating meat is bad in itself, and it seems to me that this is the best way to do it if one believes that eating meat can be morally good or morally neutral. You use the whole cow, it feeds an entire family for probably months (??), it was raised and slaughtered in a humane way, etc.
I wish it was more like this in general. What do you think, Jess?
Eek truthseeker! A family friend bought a cow to eat and raised it from a calf. He ended up thinking of it as a pet and after he killed it was so disgusted he couldn’t eat it.
I say go for it but I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up with another member of the family : )
http://www.thedjlinkdomain.co.uk/pictures/cute/cow.jpg
“His cows graze on the open grass every day and live the life a cow is supposed to live.”
— except for that part right at the end, when they’re led into the shed and–
If you cared to read the hundreds of articles on the subject I posted (lol) you would see that the problems associated with consumption of meat rise with the number of factory farms that take business from independent farmers.
I am all for independent farmers who take proper care of their animals. It’s when you turn your food into a product, mass producing it and forsaking quality for quantity that all the problems begin.
Elizabeth, 11:25a, said: “I do have a problem with baseless conspiracy theories though that are made in an effort to insinuate that if you just take away this contamination in the water, the guys would just go straight.”
Elizabeth, I’m not sure that is possible, and that was not my conjecture. If fish have been androgenized by estrogen in water – and there is plenty of evidence of that phenomenon occuring in various places – I don’t know the damage can be undone, and I didn’t theorize that.
Bmmg39, 11:28a, said: “The point of the story, it would seem, is that environmentally unsound contraceptives are getting a free pass — even while environmentally unsound other things don’t — because the left sees pregnancy prevention as an ultimate good. That’s a valid point that should be examined, rather than beginning an inflammatory tangential discussion about homosexuality.”
Bmmg39, I disagree. If male fish androgeny is an outcome of estrogen-polluted water, why would we not examine outcomes for male humans?
bmmg39 of course it would be best if no one ate meat anymore but realistically we have a long way to go. I think it’s best we begin by taking baby steps before we gallop off into the sunset : )
http://www.fatfreevegan.com/
Jill, I think that would fall under the heading of “environmentally unsound,” if chemicals are changing people in ways they didn’t seek, themselves. But we can do that without making it sound as though homosexuals (or straight but not stereotypically “manly” men) have something wrong with them.
What do you think about the links I posted Jill?
Jess, as a matter of fact, I think human growth hormone in meat products has contributed to the recent phenomenon of early sexualization of girls in the West.
Lyssie’s right — IF (and I say if because this demonization of the pill ignores the far larger problem of hormones entering the water supply as part of agricultural runoff) there is an environmental problem caused by the pill or by any other drug, we have two choices. We can stop using the drug, or we can figure out a way to alleviate the environmental effects. There are many millions of women who find the pill to be a great benefit to their lives. Some would get similar benefit from other methods of birth control such as the Mirena IUD (much lower hormonal dose), but others wouldn’t. Given how great the benefit is, working on improved water treatment techniques is clearly a better choice than telling everyone to stop using the pill. (It would have the additional benefit of removing other drugs from the water as well — drugs that I assume even the Right doesn’t consider immoral, such as antibiotics and pain medication.)
Absolutely agree Jill!
Let’s let of kids be kids again : )
of = our
Jill, I believe that early menarche is a world-wide phenomenon.
At least that’s what they told me in med school.
!!!
I skipped right over the conspiracy theory in the original post.
Do you really, honestly, truly, believe that there is any possibility whatsoever that The Left (cue scary music) is trying to make more people gay? Or is this a bid for attention by saying the craziest thing possible, ala Ann Coulter?
Jill:
Why do they call it a birth control pill when really it is a conception control pill, no?
I suspect that the actual effects of all the estrogen laden waste products pumped onto our golf courses, irrigating our crops, and into aquifers as tertiary treated water are much, much worse than even you can imagine or state. I understand that it takes about 500 years for rain water that seeps through the ground to end up in an aquifer. Just more proof of the proverb, “we reap what we sow”. It wasn’t until after the Roman Empire fell that they realized that lead piping, only available to the elite of Rome, made most of them go insane.
So PIP, your ongoing immature view of life, is well, ongoing and I suspect won’t change until you do a little more suffering or should I say reaping at the hands of your own impoverished choices. Not scolding you, just warning you and begging that you become, well, a little bit more conservative, if for just to save yourself. It’s amazing to me that you can just sluff this off at grasping at straws yet me so willing to embrace the lie of envolution. It’s very curious and am sure evidence of something.
Again Jill, as my trip to Yellowstone revealed that tree huggers are expert at denial, of course, this goes with being a rabid Liberal and I think a prerequisite for being a card carrying member of the Left. Deny that abortion is murder, deny that God exists, deny creation, deny that gay marriage is an abomination, ad infinitum. Yes, be a Liberal, deny the truth.
Bobby (Stud):
Have you ever had elk meat? I understand it’s very low in cholesterol and fat. I and my nephew were permitted to bring two home in October from the Grand Canyon area. That’s about 600 pounds of meat. I suspect that game animal meat is much healtier than production meat from cattle, although out here is Arizona, the cattle graze on the same land as the elk, deer, antelope, big horn sheep, etc. Will keep you posted.
Really SoMG? Maybe in other industrialized countries? Can you maybe link an article, I’m really interested.
1. Insofar as I know, Natural Family Planning, in addition to its other benefits, is 100% envirofriendly.
2. Kids should stay kids as long as possible — I’m a 35-year-old kid, myself — but the message should reach both the girls and the boys. Our boys should be told they don’t need to go out and “score” just because restrictive gender norms and stereotypes tell them they should.
What about this HisMan?
http://www.slate.com/id/2196784/
Jess, it’s just what they said in med school. You’ll have to google it yourself.
Well HisMan I suppose the elk would be healthier since it’s not raised on a factory farm where animals are kept in the smallest spaces unable to get exercise and standing in their own excrement and are pumped full of unnatural hormones.
Just watch out for hikers and runners when you go hunting. Lest you accidentally shoot me, who contains birth control and antidepressants. I guess I’m not organic : / I’d probably be kinda muscly and stringy too.
Deny that abortion is murder, deny that God exists, deny creation, deny that gay marriage is an abomination, ad infinitum. Yes, be a Liberal, deny the truth.”
Why are you gonig after PIP? dozens of comments and you rail against just her and her “impoverished choices.”
I deny these things and others. Because I know the truth. You, my friend, are the one who’s suffering from an “immature view of life.” You prefer to believe a child’s fairy tale, written by men who didn’t even know the world was round, and ignore the last 1000 years of science and elightenment.
SoMG I found this article which lists possible causes. They mentioned insecticide. Which would make sense since they use it in so many different places, so it would be a worldwide thing.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/children/03/31/early.puberty.wmd/
Keep on the bashing, it just makes us madder and more flamboyant.
Well now there’s a mature attitude. “Take that Jill! Now I’m gonna wear TWO boas!”
How can you call her post silly and hateful and then say she’s making you hateful so you’re now going to act sillier???
I’m not even weighing in on the original post…just saying that this comment made me giggle.
SoMG & Jess,
I know this is more of a problem in the African American population (I’m not sure if it is among all people of African decent or not)
I read an article that theorized that this might be because of increased bottle use among African Americans (and thus more exposure to BPA) and also placental products used in hair care products.
Whatever the cause, precocious puberty is definitely a problem, and I think we are seeing that it is a problem that we (humans) are causing.
The article I posted said obesity, and since obesity is higher among African Americans that could be a link. I also think insecticides might be a big factor. And the human growth hormone of course.
Ohh HisMan,
Evolution is a sound scientific theory. Note that I did not say a sound RELIGOUS theory. These are 2 different subjects entirely and should be treated as such. You don’t believe evolution exists? Just look at antibiotic-resistant bacteria aka MRSA..that in itself shows that EVERYTHING evolves in order to survive.
Question: In the past, the societal response to earlier menarche and sexual activity has been to lower the age of consent. Why is no one considering this now???
I wish you guys would stop ragging on the BC pill and instead look at an even bigger problem: the over use of antibiotics and the hideously high concentrations of antibiotics in the water.
Note the VAST increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria. Pseudomonas- one of the most common nosocomial infections besides strep and staph is also one of the most DANGEROUS infections because Psuedomonas are notoriously antibiotic resistant. Pseudomonas infections are one of the many infections that kill of premature infants in NICUs- a Psuedomonas infection in a NICU can shut it down for months.
So where are all these antibiotics coming from? Idiot doctors that over-prescribe antibiotics (to treat VIRUSES, GUH!) to idiot parents who demand a magic cure all when their little brat is a wee bit on the sickish side. That and farmers who pump their animals with antibiotics to keep them from getting sick so they can get fatter, and fatter and therefore sell at a higher price.
The fact that you don’t give a crap about ANY of this is very telling. I hope somebody close to you gets MRSA or VRSA or VRE, then you’ll HOPEFULLY realize how idiotic your tangents on teh evil Estrogenz in teh waterz are.
Woah, Woah Rae. First of all, how do you know that we don’t care about antibiotics? I know that most parents are *very* aware about this problem.
Also, did you really just wish dangerous diseases on our families? I don’t care how much I dislike someone, I don’t wish them or their families harm.
As for hgh, my son is on it for SGA and they actually try to delay puberty for kids on hgh so they have more of a chance to catch up. Of course, human use and livestock use is probably vastly different.
Lauren, the very fact Jill never mentions the antibiotic problem in her posts that she kvetches about birth control pills tells me that she’s more concerned about those damn pills and faggy fish than she is about what is a major public health crisis that we are too damn lazy as a nation to deal with.
And yes, I do wish that. Call me a b*tch. But usually “drastic” measures are needed to get your point across…kind of like putting up pictures of dead, bloody babies to get people to change their mind on abortion.
If male fish androgeny is an outcome of estrogen-polluted water, why would we not examine outcomes for male humans?
Because humans and fish are totally different. Humans aren’t immersed in polluted water their whole lives either.
The post was specificially about problems wich liberals were unlikely to face. I think (obviously) liberals are plently likely to acknowledge the issues with antibiotics, and thus, was outside the scope of the post.
I won’t call you a b*tch, but I do think that it is very telling that you would actually wish someones child harm simply because you THINK they don’t agree with your position.
Showing someone the truth about who is killed in an abortion by showing them a picture is vastly different than taking their child and tearing a limb off.
—————————————–
Question: In the past, the societal response to earlier menarche and sexual activity has been to lower the age of consent. Why is no one considering this now???
Posted by: SoMG at August 7, 2008 12:41 PM
——————————————
One reason is that people’s minds haven’t matured as quickly as their bodies have. An eleven year old girl (and she’s still a girl) who menstrates is no more mentally reading for sex and pregnancy (menses is a female’s physical signal for readiness for reproduction) than one who doesn’t. I would doubt that anyone would argue that boys aged 10-15 are more mature and ready for the social, emotional, spiritual, and physical dimensions of sexual activity than they were 40 years ago. They may have more knowledge of sex, but not more responsibility and readiness.
Consent is not about physical readiness as much as mental readiness. (Of course, I know people who are over 40 who still don’t act mentally ready, but still…)
HisMan,
conservatism is not salvation. For someone who is warning me, why are you turning politics into a religious game? Don’t you think that is a dangerous path to go on–turning Jesus into a political figurehead to be manipulated for your own political goals? Jesus himself would be ashamed of anyone, ANYONE, turning his teachings into a ploy for political gain, and during his time, he scolded his own disciples for doing just that.
I find it funny that in the one little piece of common ground you could find with the other side about BC (it’s tainting our water), you spend MOST of the article on some religious anti-BC rant/anti-gay conspiracy theory so that anybody who WOULD want to help you out on this is definitely not going to help you…
And, you make yourself look ridiculous and crazy.
Oh, and I haven’t been around because my son was VERY ill. He had a fever of 105 for a short while. I see that things seem to have gotten really crazy while I’ve been gone though.
I do so love the way the word “liberal” is hurled around as an insult through clenched teeth here, and “conservative” automatically equals anti-gay, religious, etc.
X, I’m sorry to hear about your son. How is he doing now?
Of course it’s telling Lauren. I often tell those who want to gut AIDS research funding because they don’t want to “help them gayz becuz they deserve it!” that I hope they get AIDS, because they’ll change their tune on damn quick once THEY are the ones suffering, not other people who don’t really matter…
Besides, this is not the first article Jill has done on polluted water- and in NONE of them did she mention antibiotics being a problem- because they pose a much more SERIOUS problem to public health (especially that of INFANTS).
x: Sorry to hear about your son’s illness. I hope he’s doing better now.
I do so love the way the word “liberal” is hurled around as an insult through clenched teeth here, and “conservative” automatically equals anti-gay, religious, etc.
Is there a question here?
Actually, speaking of AIDS, did anyone see the article yesterday that they have some very promising research going on right now that might lead to a cure?
http://www.fox11az.com/news/topstories/stories/NWkmsb20080730_hiv_breakt-hrough.1971ecbd.html
Of course it’s telling Lauren. I often tell those who want to gut AIDS research funding because they don’t want to “help them gayz becuz they deserve it!” that I hope they get AIDS, because they’ll change their tune on damn quick once THEY are the ones suffering, not other people who don’t really matter…
Besides, this is not the first article Jill has done on polluted water- and in NONE of them did she mention antibiotics being a problem- because they pose a much more SERIOUS problem to public health (especially that of INFANTS).
Posted by: Rae at August 7, 2008 1:12 PM
I can appreciate your concern, I’m against the over-prescribing of antibiotics as well. Maybe it’s just another problem the drug companies don’t want to acknowledge because it will affect their bottom line. Why are you making the connection between BC water pollution and antibiotics? The only way the two are related is they both affect living beings and drug companies. Antibiotics are a topic for another blog, IMO.
The point of the story, it would seem, is that environmentally unsound contraceptives are getting a free pass — even while environmentally unsound other things don’t — because the left sees pregnancy prevention as an ultimate good. That’s a valid point that should be examined, rather than beginning an inflammatory tangential discussion about homosexuality.
Posted by: bmmg39 at August 7, 2008 11:28 AM
……………………………….
I think that you are correct in stating that Iain’s agenda is to divert attention away from corporate farming practices. The proverbial look over there so I can pick your pocket.
Corporate farms collect huge amounts of sewage which is either dumped somewhere or sprayed on crops. Never mind the hormones livestaock are pumped with. Salmanella or ecoli anyone? Theorizing that human waste is the culprit for ‘femine fish’ in the face of such an obvious cause of health danger is foolish at best.
The other ‘point’ I love is the DDT excuse for malaria. We don’t have malaria outbreaks and don’t use DDT here in the States? How could that be? Could there be safer chemicals available for mosquito control? Let’s send the dangerous stuff to Africa? Why? Is one of Iain’s buddies sitting on warehouses full of the stuff hoping to turn a profit from a liability?
This guy’s agenda is clearly the financial interests of big business rather than the health and well being of the planets citizens.
I make the connection because Jill here is making birth control pill pollution in water seem like such a friggin’ disaster and that it’s sooooo dangerous and leads to “moar gayz” in the world because it also happens to feminize fish (so do many additives in plastics, folks- in fact it’s just as likely the additives in plastics that resemble estrogen are ALSO at fault for fish feminization and early puberty in girls).
Birth control in the water while problematic is NOT as severe of a problem as antibiotics. Birth control in the water does not lead to dead babies and closed NICUs like antibiotic resistant Psuedomonas do.
I personally believe that being gay is a choice influenced by environmental circumstances rather than our physical make-up/genes. So I would highly doubt that hormones in the water would suddenly make men gay, but I could see where it could make them slightly more feminine. But I wouldn’t put it past the liberals to put a blind eye to the problem because of their own agenda as Jill has mentioned.
Hormones in the water, in meat and other food stuffs has to be affecting us in some way or another. The problem is we don’t know exactly what these hormones are doing to us. We are not tracking this and it may already be too late to reverse. What we do know is that the population of boys being born has been decreasing and girls are going through puberty younger and younger. Patricia brought up the topic of cancer and I think this could be very relevant as well.
On another note, although very off-topic, Elizabeth said the following:
“Evolution is a sound scientific theory. Note that I did not say a sound RELIGOUS theory. These are 2 different subjects entirely and should be treated as such. You don’t believe evolution exists? Just look at antibiotic-resistant bacteria aka MRSA..that in itself shows that EVERYTHING evolves in order to survive.”
Evolution is just that.. a theory, and a shaky one at that. Intelligent Design/Creationism is not a religious theory. If you actually did some research instead of just repeating what the atheists want you to believe, you would know that it is a legitimate scientific theory. What you are talking about is something very different which is adaptation (which every Creationist accepts). A good place to start is with a non-biased author who looks at today’s growing problems with the Theory of Evolution: http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Theory-Crisis-Michael-Denton/dp/091756152X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218133714&sr=8-1
And for the really curious person, just about everything there is to know about Science and Christianity is discussed here: answersingenesis.org
Jess, I have a house next to a farm in Wisconsin and I now the farmer well. His cows graze on the open grass every day and live the life a cow is supposed to live. He told me he would sell me one for $1000. I am thinking about getting a big deep freeze and buying one from him cause I know the meat would be the best.
Posted by: truthseeker at August 7, 2008 11:25 AM
…………………………….
Is your neighbor certified organic? Or at least practising responsible farming techniques? I wouldn’t wish to live next to a farm that did not let alone consume anything they produced.
Answers in Genesis is crap.
And while evolution IS a theory so is gravity.
You must believe in “intelligent falling” don’t you.
Thank you all for your concern. He’s much better now, but there were a couple nights of really, really high fever that quite upset me.
“I do so love the way the word “liberal” is hurled around as an insult through clenched teeth here, and “conservative” automatically equals anti-gay, religious, etc.
Is there a question here?”
Just an observation. I really don’t think things are as cut-and-dry as many people here think they are, and I do believe that’s a problem both sides of this issue need to come to terms with. As someone kind of caught in the middle, it’s easy for me to see.
Josef Greindl CD of the day: Josef Greindl singt Carl Loewe Balladen.
Carl Loewe was a composer of great dramatic ballads who was much more famous in his time than he is now. He wrote a version of “Erlkonig” which is arguably better than Schubert’s.
Greindl shows he doesn’t need to hide behind an orchestra.
Sally, we have friends who buy half a cow from (I believe) the Amish every year.
It’s great because you choose which cuts of meat you’d like and you know that the cow was raised in an environmentally friendly and humane way.
Oh.My. GOD. Do we have to ONCE AGAIN explain what THEORY in SCIENCE means as opposed to what saying the word “theory” in everyday speak is? You would think after the billionth time, reading comprehension 101 would have sunk in.
*headdesk*
P.S. Jamers, Adaptation is one of the components of evolution.
Jamers, you wrote “[Intelligent Design] is a legitimate scientific theory.”
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH ROTFL!
Seriously, scientific theories make testable predictions. What does ID predict?
ID (as defined by Michael Behe who is generally accepted as its definitive proponent) postulates a force or a phenomenon or a SOMETHING about which it claims to know only three details:
1. It is “intelligent” enough to design irreducibly complex biochemical structures and pathways,
2. it is (or at one time was) powerful enough to create what it designs, and
3. if we only knew more about it it would explain all our unanswered questions about biochemistry.
How can anyone seriously claim this is anything other than a theory of the supernatural?
Hey SoMG. I don’t take a stance on ID vs. Evolution, but I wondered what you think about the following. I too consider Behe kind of the guy when I think of ID. Incidentally, he believes in common decent i.e. that we all evolved from the same initial “organism.” (I know very little about this stuff, so bear with me if my language is imprecise) But I think Behe’s irreducible complexity theory can be formulated in a scientific manner. His theory basically says that there are certain “things” (like having to do with the cells) that could not have evolved as they are i.e. that if you take away any sort of “part” from it, it amounts to nothing that would be useful, so that either the entire thing or none of it should exist. Now, he thinks that this can be proven scientifically. If that is true that it can be proven scientifically (which I think is probably where the general debate is, of which I have no understanding), then one is now left with the question of what is the most probable explanation for the existence of this cell. So everything I’ve discussed I think you would agree is purely a scientific question. It may be good science or bad science, but it is all science so far. I think what ID does is says that given that science (which may be bad) the best possible explanation for the existence of the cells is a designer. I don’t know how much sense that makes.
Bobby B, the problem is that Michael Behe (and ID proponants generally) assert irreducible complexity without proof or evidence.
Behe has been criticized, rightly IMHO, for failing to consider the effects of REDUNDANCY on irreducible complexity. The argument (for what it’s worth) that for instance the bacterial flagellum cannot function if even one of its components is mutated to loss-of-function fails if the gene is duplicated or if its function is replaced by another gene.
Sally, we have friends who buy half a cow from (I believe) the Amish every year.
It’s great because you choose which cuts of meat you’d like and you know that the cow was raised in an environmentally friendly and humane way.
Posted by: lauren at August 7, 2008 1:56 PM
……………………………
Sweet! Although I wouldn’t be so sure about ‘humane’ treatment. The Amish believe in man’s dominion over lesser animals. Many own puppy mills. Dogs that live their lives in wire cages. Their paws never touching anything more than wire many rescued have had to be taught how to walk on solid ground. Dogs continually bred until they die in those wire cages.
This discussion of evolution is off-topic, but since it has been brought up, I’ll put my two-cents in:
Evolution is an out-of-date, 19th century hypothesis, or series of hypotheses. Charles Darwin, a trained observer, was proposing what he thought he saw in his observations.
However, a scientific theory requires verifiable proofs that can be demonstrated by many scientists over a large period of time. The so-called “theory of evolution” has not withstood the test of verifiable proofs.
For example, there is no evidence of transitional species. The evolutionists used to claim that the variations and transitions happened over such great epochs of time that they could not be observed. Then they claimed that these changes happened so quickly that they also cannot be observed. And how are they to be observed? By the fossil evidence. No one denies the existence of extinct and somewhat more primitive species. But the fact that there appears a hierarchy in the order of living creatures does not prove that all living things evolved from simple forms to the most complex.
In fact, it requires a huge leap of faith, and blind faith at that, to believe in evolution. Why blind faith? Because there is no evidence or proof of evolution. You really have to be a “true believer” to accept evolution.
The liberals who believe in evolution are always asking for empirical evidence of the existence of God. But their trust in the scientific method ends when it comes to evolution. Evolutionists have had over 150 years to prove their hypothesis and have not been able to do much more than to prove adaptation.
“the problem is that Michael Behe (and ID proponants generally) assert irreducible complexity without proof or evidence.”
Right, yeah that I can believe because I don’t know enough biology to say either way.
“Behe has been criticized, rightly IMHO, for failing to consider the effects of REDUNDANCY on irreducible complexity. The argument (for what it’s worth) that for instance the bacterial flagellum cannot function if even one of its components is mutated to loss-of-function fails if the gene is duplicated or if its function is replaced by another gene.”
As far as I’m concerned, that’s a fair criticism. But so from that point of view SoMG, it WOULD be science, just bad science, right? That’s all I’m trying to say; that some of it should be considered science, even though it may be bad (which I have no idea). I mean, you would not consider the ABC link business ID; you would call it junk science, but at least the methodology would be scientific or at least attempting to be scientific.
I’d stop taking the pill in an instant if they’d come out with a non-hormonal IUD that fit my nullipara self. Want to reduce the use of hormonal BC? Support research and access of effective non-hormonal methods.
I buy beef from a guy who raises his cattle free range on the prairie. I like that I know him, that I can go to his ranch and drop in, see that the cows are well cared for.
Josef Greindl CD of the day: Josef Greindl singt Carl Loewe Balladen.
Carl Loewe was a composer of great dramatic ballads who was much more famous in his time than he is now. He wrote a version of “Erlkonig” which is arguably better than Schubert’s.
Greindl shows he doesn’t need to hide behind an orchestra.
Posted by: SoMG at August 7, 2008 1:55 PM
………………………….
I’m not a fan of opera but rather enjoy classical piano. One of my recently discovered cousins is Matti Raekallio. I understand he is teaching at Julliard. I am also aquainted with Falko Steinbach who’s compositions I find as unpleasantly aggressive as the man himself.
I have no point. Just felt like sharing.
Opinionated, there is tons of evidence for evolution. Literally–if you printed it all out it would weigh several tons.
Bobby B, if you want to understand what ID is and what it is not the best source of INFORMATION (not unbiased commentary) I can recommend is PZ Myers. I know you hate him but he is the best source of info on ID and he understands evolution as well as anyone on the planet except for those who specialize in studying it.
Sally, my favorite pianist is Michael Raucheisen. He also accompanies the best singers of Schubert lieder.
“Sweet! Although I wouldn’t be so sure about ‘humane’ treatment. The Amish believe in man’s dominion over lesser animals. Many own puppy mills. Dogs that live their lives in wire cages. Their paws never touching anything more than wire many rescued have had to be taught how to walk on solid ground. Dogs continually bred until they die in those wire cages.”
Sally, it would be nice if you showed the same compassion for unborn children as you do for dogs…As far as I know, the Amish don’t suck the brains out of dogs or rip their limbs off….
Elizabeth:
Evolution is a sound scientific theory.
http://www.y-origins.com/article6.htm
THE CASE OF THE MISSING LINKS
Where are Darwin’s predicted fossils?
Why are the missing links essential to Darwin
Sally, I hate to hear that about the dogs.
“if you want to understand what ID is and what it is not the best source of INFORMATION (not unbiased commentary) I can recommend is PZ Myers.”
Wow, if almost anyone else recommend him for anything, I would blow off the recommendation. But I’ll definitely consider looking at what he has to say now (though his website makes me so sad)
“I know you hate him…”
I don’t hate him. I hate what he did and some of what he does, but he remains in my prayers and I hope to see him in heaven some day.
Sally, it would be nice if you showed the same compassion for unborn children as you do for dogs…As far as I know, the Amish don’t suck the brains out of dogs or rip their limbs off….
Posted by: Jasper at August 7, 2008 3:21 PM
……………………………
Dogs are capable of feeling pain, embryos are not. Your morbid fascination with the extreme minority of abortions of fetii posessing brains, heads and limbs is really weird Jasper.
Sally, I hate to hear that about the dogs.
Posted by: lauren at August 7, 2008 3:27 PM
………………………………
I think that an analogy to the lives of woman could be made. Kept in invisible and/or economic cages to be bred to death.
Kept in invisible and/or economic cages to be bred to death.
Yes, because abortion frees them from those “cages” that they put themselves in in the first place.
We need to start distinguishing between two types of anti-evolutionism:
The one that says evolution cannot explain EVERYTHING or rather, everything it claims to explain (Intelligent Design falls into this class) vs the one that says evolution (defined as the illusion of design produced by the long-term conjunction of random variation and natural selection) does not occur at all.
SoMG,
You believe evolution explains EVERYTHING?
I sure don’t…and I would definitely NOT classify myself as anti-evolution in any way shape or form. So maybe there should be 3 different groups. The 3rd would be people who respect evolution and science, but also have a belief/faith in God.
Yes, good distinction. I think people also talk about macro vs. micro evolution? I hate all of the words evolution/ID/creationism as blanket terms because they all can refer to soooo many different things.
Elizabeth,
I think when SoMG said “everything”, (s)he meant our entire biological history. (S)he also added “or rather, everything it claims to explain.”
Hm, okay then, that makes a little bit more sense.
Eliz., No I don’t believe evolution explains EVERYTHING.
It does not explain abiogenesis, Maxwell’s Equations, or why there is something rather than nothing.
Religious beliefs should be entirely independent of scientific beliefs. There is therefore no need for your proposed third group.
SoMG,
Okay that’s fine. I think science and religion should be independent as well. That would solve a lot of issues people have with either I think.
“Eliz., No I don’t believe evolution explains EVERYTHING.
It does not explain abiogenesis, Maxwell’s Equations, or why there is something rather than nothing.
Religious beliefs should be entirely independent of scientific beliefs. There is therefore no need for your proposed third group.”
Good grief! I completely agree with SoMG yet again! What the heck is going on today?
I read the article that KC referenced,
THE CASE OF THE MISSING LINKS Where are Darwin’s predicted fossils?
and I found it enlightening and straightforward. We are talking about scientific evidence here, or, rather, lack of evidence.
http://www.y-origins.com/article6.htm
Here are a few select excerpts:
T. S. Kemp, curator of the zoological collections at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, is one of the world
Those are some very interesting quotes, Opinionated. That first quote is from Oxford University Press, which I think everyone can agree is a reputable publishing company. Very fascinating. I wish I understood all this stuff!
To clarify: all of the text of my post at 4:53 PM after “Here are a few select excerpts:” is quoted directly from the article in question.
I’m not a fan of opera but rather enjoy classical piano. One of my recently discovered cousins is Matti Raekallio. I understand he is teaching at Julliard. I am also aquainted with Falko Steinbach who’s compositions I find as unpleasantly aggressive as the man himself.
I have no point. Just felt like sharing.
Posted by: Sally at August 7, 2008 3:09 PM
Do you like Angela Hewitt, Sally? She plays mostly Bach. My daughter specializes in Bach, although she is now showing promise with 20th century pieces too. I have recently discovered Lang Lang.
And BTW, there doesn’t have to ALWAYS be a point! Glad to know a little about you Sally. ;-D
Opinionated: I am an x-geologist. I like your post and agree with the last part. Over time, geologists realized there are major problems with the theory as Darwin proposed it. At that time (1800’s) the knowledge of the fossil record was very limited and it was generally believed that it would eventually provide the support for his theory. This has NOT happened, leaving us to wonder where the proof will come from. Either that or the theory is wrong. Hence we now have catastrophism and other theories…
What about that fishapod thing that made a big splash a couple years ago?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1181611,00.html
Science has always been my worst subject but I remember just from reading the normal news sources it seemed like that was considered a transition sort of fossil.
“What about that fishapod… splash…”
I like your pun, Alexandra.
Heh, Bobby, I saw that just as I was submitting the post and was like, “Oh, no, now everyone will think I inherited my dad’s sense of humor!”
Patricia,
Thank you. I’m a layperson at all this. I simply follow normal reasoning processes in my thinking, and from what I gather, there is a void of evidence of macroevolution. I am not saying there could not be evolution. But evidence supporting the original hypothesis or theory as they like to call it, is lacking. Unfortunately, it’s another one of those “secrets” that many in the scientific community do not want to admit to. Sooner or later the truth of the lack of evidence in the fossil record will be known. Or will it?
Alexandra, I like the quote by the U of C paleontologist:
“This is not some archaic branch of the animal kingdom,” says Shubin. “This is our branch. You’re looking at your great-great-great-great cousin!”
If the fishapod is actually a transitional form, that means there are thousands of unanswered questions about its origins and descendants. And, that is simply only one of supposedly millions upon millions of transitional forms that are supposed to have existed, according to Charles Darwin.
As for hgh, my son is on it for SGA and they actually try to delay puberty for kids on hgh so they have more of a chance to catch up. Of course, human use and livestock use is probably vastly different.
Posted by: lauren at August 7, 2008 12:49 PM
………………………..
What is SGA?
Sally,
SGA= Small for gestational age.
He was 2lbs 4oz when he was born, and now at 3 yrs weighs 23lbs.
He’s about 35 inches tall.
Before starting the growth hormone he was 2.5 yrs, 31 inches, and 19lbs.
Without the hgh, his projected adult height would be under 5ft.
I should also add that children who are growth hormone deficient are at greater risk for heart/lung problems, though thankfully my son has not had any.
Sally: “Dogs are capable of feeling pain, embryos are not.”
If you poison someone’s iced tea so that she dies painlessly in her sleep, is it not as big a deal because she didn’t suffer or feel pain?
I’m not saying it’s bad to eat meat but I think if you really knew what you were eating you would be just as passionate for change.
Posted by: Jess at August 7, 2008 11:07 AM
……………………………..
Are you familiar with Slow Food International?
Sooner or later the truth of the lack of evidence in the fossil record will be known. Or will it?
Nope I don’t think so. Because many geologists have understood this problem and been working on it for years.
When I was in school in the late ’70’s, uniformitarianism (the present is the key to that past and processes occurred in the past as they do now)was the thought of the day. It is now apparent that the world does not necessarily operate according to the rules of this theory and it’s been ditched.
It is definitely NOT politically correct to promote any theory of origins other than evolution. It usually spells the death of a science career. However, many many scientists secretly do not support the theory of evolution.
Kept in invisible and/or economic cages to be bred to death.
Yes, because abortion frees them from those “cages” that they put themselves in in the first place.
Posted by: Elizabeth (Gabriella’s Momma) at August 7, 2008 4:00 PM
………………………….
You believe that women throughout history have created their own socio/economic cages? How do you arrive at this?
Do you like Angela Hewitt, Sally? She plays mostly Bach. My daughter specializes in Bach, although she is now showing promise with 20th century pieces too. I have recently discovered Lang Lang.
And BTW, there doesn’t have to ALWAYS be a point! Glad to know a little about you Sally. ;-D
Posted by: Patricia at August 7, 2008 5:06 PM
…………………….
Oh oh! You have unwittingly sent me off into another genealogical tangent. Hewitt is a name I am researching. Spent all of yesterday working on Hewitt families as a matter of fact. If I disapear, you know where I have gone.
I’ve not heard of Angela. No surprise. I don’t actively seek out classical music or pay much attention to classical musicians. I admit to be a rocker with heavy metal leanings.
How long has your daughter studied? My mother sent me for piano lessons. The teacher wouldn’t teach me anything other than Sunday school ditties. I quickly lost interest. I wanted to play the Beatles. No one would buy me the music and I could never play by ear as my mom and sister did/do. Oh well. Someone needs to be the audience!
My sister used to play 96 Tears by Question Mark and the Mysterians on the church organ after Sunday services. Something she is entirely too straightlaced to do now.
Oddly, my second husband’s brother and the singer for Question Mark were best friends…..
I’m not sure you want me to get all off topic. I can chatter away sometimes.
Sally,
SGA= Small for gestational age.
He was 2lbs 4oz when he was born, and now at 3 yrs weighs 23lbs.
He’s about 35 inches tall.
Before starting the growth hormone he was 2.5 yrs, 31 inches, and 19lbs.
Without the hgh, his projected adult height would be under 5ft.
Posted by: lauren at August 7, 2008 5:45 PM
………………………………
Holy cow! My son was 24# at 1 year. Reading ahead, I assume that stature isn’t the major concern but rather proper internal organ growth. Sounds like you have a lot of worries.
Sally: “Dogs are capable of feeling pain, embryos are not.”
If you poison someone’s iced tea so that she dies painlessly in her sleep, is it not as big a deal because she didn’t suffer or feel pain?
Posted by: bmmg39 at August 7, 2008 5:51 PM
………………………………..
One must have a brain capable of functioning to attain sleep. Embryos are as incapable of sleep as they are sensory awareness. Try again.
Sally, I like when you chatter away!
Hal:
You calling the Biblical account a fairy tale is in and of itself a monumental denial. Why? Because over 500 people saw the resurrected Christ. It’s forgivable though as He patiently waits for you as you simmer in your ignorance.
Further, the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy is proof of the existence of God and the truth of the Bible. If you’re interested I’d be happy to provide you with proof.
Hal, you need a revelation of the reality of the living God. I pray you get one soon or at least have enough of an open mind to accept the truth once you realize it. Then you won;t have to be tormented by the thought of living in eternity without your daughters and wife.
Also, Hal, the truth is not changed by one’s denial of it. You can diss God all you want. You will still be held accountable just like everyone else. And real manhood is demonstrated by a male’s ability to be Christlike.
Liz:
There’s a vast gulf between observing that bacterium mutate due to a stimulus and single cell creatures given enough time turn into human beings.
Further, evolution directly contradicts the Biblical account of creation despite what PIP says. I’ll stick with the Biblical account, thank you.
Again, if creation is true, there’s nothing to say that cells haven’t changed since then.
Alexandra, I like it when she gets chatty too. She can be very sweet. I like to understand a little bit about who Sally is.
Opinionated, everything in your posts is easily explained by the enormous incompleteness of the Fossil Record. Which I bet is really what Stephen J. Gould was griping about in the line you quoted from him if you put it back in context. I haven’t seen the total speech or whatever but that’s what I’d bet (if I were a betting man) he had in mind, based on what I’ve read and heard of him. As I recall it was one of his (many) pet peeves. He enjoyed his pet peeves.
We lack fossils of the very large majority of extinct species. And of most varients of the extinct species we do have fossils of. Just think for a minute what is required to become a fossil. Then think for another minute about becoming one with recoverable DNA. (Side note: even so, we have way many more fossils than we have analyzed. We could stop digging now and still have enough fossils to serve as dissertation topics for everyone on Planet Earth who wants a PhD in Natural History.)
Similarly, Michael Behe’s complaints about evolution are easily explained by the paucity of our knowledge of biochemical history. He claims on his web site (or at least he did when I last read it) that ID is so a falsifiable theory (therefore a scientific one), that in order to prove it false it would be sufficient to document the genetic evolution, base-pair by base-pair, of an important complex macrobiological feature. Well we can’t do that because it happens too slowly in macrobiology and the Genetic Record (that is, the total collection of sequence data of DNA obtained from fossils) is too sparce and spotty, not because of ID. When people point this out to him he says something like well then you’re just ASSUMING that evolution can explain everything, you don’t really KNOW that it can. Which is true but ID cannot explain ANYTHING (an appeal to the supernatural/unknown is not an explanation) and even if it could, the Principle of Occam’s Razor demands going with the weaker hypothesis, the one that explains or appears to be able to explain all the data and also IMPLIES THE LEAST EXTRA STUFF, until it is proven insufficient by new data that it cannot explain, not until someone says it MIGHT be insufficient because we don’t know all the details.
Besides, if we did it (documented the genetic evolution, base-pair by base-pair, of an important macrobiological feature), he’d just say, OK, that one wasn’t really irreducibly complex, but this one is, and he’d point to ANOTHER unanswered question in evolutionary biology and say it was evidence for ID. The argument at the heart of ID and all its varients is: You don’t know everything about nature, therefore there is something supernatural. That’s just one step above “There must be something supernatural because I feel so strongly about it!” which is Rene DesCartes’ proof.
Early organic chemists believed that no biomolecule could ever be synthesized except by a biological organism, never by artificial means, that there was something “beyond physical nature” about Life and that science was inherently incapable of making molecules identical to those isolated from biological samples. It was just common sense. It was the same fundamental error as ID. Except before 1828 there was some excuse for it; there isn’t now when we are regularly seeing detailed natural genetic-evolutionary explanations emerge for things we were not supposed to be able to explain as our abililty to measure and process data continues speeding up and our long-term cultures get older.
The fact reamins we don’t know what the extremely large majority of biomolecules do. The genome just tells us the sequences of the proteins, not how they interact with each other or with non-proteins (the so-called “Interactosome”), and not even really the proteins as it doesn’t say anything except the most general rules of thumb about how they fold up into their “natural” shapes or anything at all about how they get chemically modified after translation.
My bet for the next science question ID propagandists will jump on and claim chemistry cannot explain: The question of how intracellular proteins go where they’re supposed to go in the cell, which is more than 99% unanswered. We’re still at the hunt-and-peck stage–tagging traceable particles (microscopic specks of gold dust, each coated with a layer of bio-grease) with selected chemical groups of atoms and then shooting them into cells and recording where they go. And trying to make and explain mutant proteins which go to the wrong places. The real detailed answer to this question most likely contains more information than we are currently able to store. Too many big molecules interacting with each other and with small molecules all at the same time. Not irreducable complexity but undocumentable complexity. The same problem which kept the pre-urea-synthesis chemists from conceiving of biological organisms as chemical reactors. The reaction equation is too big to write down.
A movie to watch if you want to understand how science feels under the demands of the IDers (and the demands of AIDS patients when HIV was new): George Romero’s DAY OF THE DEAD, the third in the trilogy that begins with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. The scene where Dr. Logan explains to Captain Rhodes how difficult it is to conduct research on zombies in an underground bunker but that there is no other choice. Best line: “Civility must be rewarded, Captain. And if it’s not rewarded, [pause], there’s no use for it. [Longer pause] There’s just no use for it at all!”
Alexandra, I like it when she gets chatty too. She can be very sweet. I like to understand a little bit about who Sally is.
Posted by: Bethany at August 7, 2008 7:48 PM
………………………..
Ok Bethany. I’m emailing you a pic for your gallery. Circa 1959, Sally and her daddy.
I had been hanging upside down on the back of grandma’s sofa. Auntie Phil got me to sit down and pull my dress down to take the pic. I haven’t changed a bit. Just gotten older.
Sally, I would love that! :) Thank you..my email address is in the sidebar. :)
Sally is very sweet….but don’t tell anyone. :D
Sally, I would love that! :) Thank you..my email address is in the sidebar. :)
Posted by: Bethany at August 7, 2008 8:23 PM
………………………………..
You have mail! Let me know if it came through ok. I still don’t have a total grip on my Mac.
“Because over 500 people saw the resurrected Christ”
or said they did. How many Elvis sightings have there been? UFO abductions? Bigfoot?
Sally, it came through and I am going to post it on the who’s who page right now! Thank you so much. I sent you a reply, just to let you know.
:)
I was going to get off the computer right and post the picture later but I decided to do it now, cause I just really like the picture. :)
Check it out, you guys…bottom left. Adorable. You can click to enlarge the picture:
http://preciousinfants.com/whoswho.htm
Hi Sally
My daughter has studied for 6 years now. She is working on her Gr 9 Royal Conservatory of Music exam for January 09. She also studied violin but she will have to drop this instrument at least for this year because piano requires about 3 hours of practice time/day. It’s simply become too much. She also has to study for theory exams as well. Between exams she competes in music festivals to attempt to win scholarship money to finance her music “habit”!
Sounds like you are into genealogy!
awww, the pic of Sally = she’s soooo cute!!!
God bless!
And bmmg39, I for one would be very grateful to a murderer who murdered me painlessly rather than painfully.
“And bmmg39, I for one would be very grateful to a murderer who murdered me painlessly rather than painfully.”
You couldn’t be grateful, because you’d be dead!
LOL-sorry, I couldn’t resist that one. ;)
I don’t know about all this fish hormone stuff, but I do think that all these artificial chemicals in our environment CANNOT be a good thing for any of us. Yuck.
I am not sure when the requirement that the complex biochemical feature to be exhaustively explained be “macrobiological” came into it (the requirement for falsification of ID that is). As I recall Behe’s main example of irreducible complexity in DARWIN’S BLACK BOX was a microbial flagellum. The IDers inserted that modification to their falsification requirement just in time to avoid being nailed by Lenski’s long-term bacterial culture which learned how to eat citric acid instead of sugar. Good thinking, guys, too bad it was so last-minute.
I know many of who rebel against God and, unable to grasp the meaning of Scripture passages, they call God a wicked God or deny God’s existense all together. Hal and SoMG and Ray, Open your eyes to the truth of the evil of abortion and seek forgiveness. You can take heart, for the mercy of God is infinite.
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband unto them, saith the LORD:
But this shall be the covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel: After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying KNOW the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
Jeremiah 31:31-34.
“Truthseeker”, don’t you have anything to say about Intelligent Design?
And I prefer “But who may abide the day of His coming? For He is like a refiner’s fire, and who shall stand when He appeareth?” Especially when it is sung by Donald McIntyre, who knew all about expressing anxiety in a big way from playing Wotan everywhere in the world. See
http://www.amazon.com/Handel-Messiah/dp/B000001GY3/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1218188816&sr=8-1
Sally,
I’m speechless. Thank you. Just thank you.
If your own kids are half as cute as you were, wow!
Sally,
When I was searching for my birth mother I had to spend a lot of time on “ancestry” sites. You could help a lot of adoptees with your expertise. Have you ever thought of doing that?
Rae, you said “Answers in Genesis is crap.”
That is a bold statement, but you use nothing to back up your claim. I think Answers in Genesis is the bane of every atheist. They like to say things just like this because they can’t argue them away. They just want to be left alone to their miserable ideas of life accidentally starting in a puddle of goop or on the backs of crystals or whatever (oh yeah and they also want to push their false, racist, biased, ignorant views on others).
SoMG, you said “Seriously, scientific theories make testable predictions. What does ID predict?”
I challenge you predict the future of evolution, and I don’t mean microevolution. Nobody that I know of anyways, including myself and all creation and intelligent design proponents that I have ever read or heard speak would even think of refuting microevolution (that’s just dumb). Macroevolution is a whole other story though. Evolution from one species to another has never been proven and can’t be tested. And since it cannot be tested, it therefore cannot meet the criteria:” capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation..” And sorry, but studying how an organism operates (DNA, mutations, reproduction, natural selection etc.) does not tell us how it came into existence in the first place.
So maybe I shouldn’t define ID as a “scientific theory,” but then we couldn’t define evolution this way either. Oh and by the way, Creationism and Youth Earth Creationism are religious theories, Intelligent Design is very different. Heck, some of the scientists studying ID want to use it to prove that aliens started our existence, not God.
You all keep telling Christians to separate their religious beliefs from their scientific beliefs, but you won’t actually do that yourselves. The primary goal here is to wipe out God from the picture. And if you are actually a Christian and feel the same way, then you are denying the fact that we were created by God to be logical beings seeking truth in all things. We are suppose to try our best to understand the world around us, to question things, instead of … you know…sticking our heads in the sand.
If you haven’t realized yet, many attempts to define ?science? are circular. Isn’t ?science? about following the evidence wherever it may lead? Our individual worldviews bias our perceptions (yes even the pro-evolution scientists). The atheist paleontologist, Stephen Jay Gould, made the following candid observation:
Our ways of learning about the world are strongly influenced by the social preconceptions and biased modes of thinking that each scientist must apply to any problem. The stereotype of a fully rational and objective ?scientific method?, with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots is self-serving mythology.”
Of course there are some aspects of “science” we can all agree on: Operational science involves discovering how things operate in today?s Creation-repeatable and observable phenomena in the present. This is the science of Newton. However, where we all seem to disagree is our ideas of Origins Science, which deals with the origin of things in the past (which are unique, unrepeatable, unobservable events). Operational science involves experimentation in the here and now. Origins science deals with how something came into existence in the past and so is not open to experimental verification / observation.
“Truthseeker”, don’t you have anything to say about Intelligent Design?
Posted by: SoMG at August 8, 2008 4:49 AM
I find the most rational explanation is that everything must have been created at some point, except God, who is the creator of all things.
who created God? and why?
@Hal: Man created God so we would have a scapegoat for when life sucks.
Hal, please read to better understand our views on God:
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c039.html
Thanks Bethany.
No problem, Hal… I used to ask myself that same question.
It’s very difficult to comprehend the idea of not having a beginning, so I can understand why people are sometimes skeptical.
Oops, well, I guess “very difficult” isn’t right. Impossible is more like it. I don’t think anyone can really comprehend it. lol
Jamers,
TalkOrigins and the director ExtantDodo on YouTube both refute AiG/Ken Ham’s arguments very well. Check them out.
“Evolution from one species to another has never been proven and can’t be tested”
No. It has been demonstrated both in the wild and in the lab many times. Again I don’t want to go too much into detail as it would take a while, but ExtantDodo does intricate movies addressing these issues.
“so is not open to experimental verification / observation.”
If a logical model is set up and experiments verify all of the parts of this model, it follows to reason that the end result of the model is also verified.
Sally,
When I was searching for my birth mother I had to spend a lot of time on “ancestry” sites. You could help a lot of adoptees with your expertise. Have you ever thought of doing that?
Posted by: mk at August 8, 2008 7:38 AM
…………………………………
Searching for living people or even more recently deceased people that don’t/didn’t wish to be known is a great deal more difficult than what I do. And much more expensive.
Also, I hesitate getting directly involved in searches that might create negative drama in people’s lives. It can be hard enough when a dead ancestor turns out to be something other than what one thought them to be. Know what I mean?
Did you find your birth mother? If so, I’d love to know how you went about it.
Hi Sally
My daughter has studied for 6 years now. She is working on her Gr 9 Royal Conservatory of Music exam for January 09. She also studied violin but she will have to drop this instrument at least for this year because piano requires about 3 hours of practice time/day. It’s simply become too much. She also has to study for theory exams as well. Between exams she competes in music festivals to attempt to win scholarship money to finance her music “habit”!
Sounds like you are into genealogy!
Posted by: Patricia at August 7, 2008 9:12 PM
……………………….
That would be an understatement Patricia.
I think it so important that parents support and nurture their children’s passions and talents. I believe they become happy and productive adults.
Sally,
Think of it as helping then. Someone that longs to know their birth mother would need your help in locating her. Your job would be done and you wouldn’t have to deal with the drahma…:)
I think it would be very valuable to help people find each other.
You have such a passion and a gift.
By the way, the picture of you and your Daddy is TOOOOOO CUTE!!
bmmg39: “If you poison someone’s iced tea so that she dies painlessly in her sleep, is it not as big a deal because she didn’t suffer or feel pain?”
sally: “One must have a brain capable of functioning to attain sleep. Embryos are as incapable of sleep as they are sensory awareness. Try again.”
No, you had suggested that whether one feels pain or not should be our criterion for whether or not to intercede. This is what I mean: those who favor killing embryonic human beings often suggest that their personhood is a mere religious idea, but when it’s demonstrated that the personhood of human embryos is rooted in science, they then abandon science in favor of less scientific criteria for personhood (ability to feel pain, ability to sleep, size, how “cute” they are, if they can laugh or cry, etc.).
“And bmmg39, I for one would be very grateful to a murderer who murdered me painlessly rather than painfully.”
The grateful dead. Right.
I doubt that the jury would look upon the murderer favorably because she had used a pillow rather than a hacksaw for her handiwork.
Jill,
Thanks for mentioning this book. I’m interested in reading it, especially since so many borties have gone to the lengths they have here to bash it here.
Odd, since one of their own, Frederick S. Jaffe, former vice-president of Planned Parenthood, outlined in a 03-11-69 memo several proposed measures to limit the world population. These included mandatory abortion of children conceived out of wedlock, increased homosexual orientation activity, encouraging women to work outside the home, postpone or avoid marriage (the real, committed, one man-one woman kind), “educate” (read, indoctrinate) for family limitation, AND FERTILITY CONTROL AGENTS IN THE PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY. I don’t know much about Iain Murray-this is the first I’ve heard of him- but what I know about Jaffe and his ilk gives Murray more than sufficient credibility for me to buy and read his book ASAP.
P.S. Jaffe’s proposals also reveal, I think, who the real “anti-choice” extremists are…Jaffe & friends. Well, whoda thunkit?!
jtm,
Is this the document where your information comes from?
http://perso.infonie.be/le.feu/ms/histdoc/jaffe.pdf
Jill,
Can we verify that this is a real document and not a hoax as many people are calling it to be??
Because if it is legitimate, it is quite shocking.
Jamers; no, I had not seen that document, but I expect it is not a hoax, as nothing in it is inconsistent with the nature, ideology & overall agenda of the Population Police. They really do view everyone different from them as their disposable property, just like other slaveowners.
Jill, re: conspiracy and Satanism in general; check out http://www.henrymakow.com.
prettyinpink,
I’m familiar with talkorigins. Try:
http://www.trueorigin.org/to_deception.asp
jtm,
The document I linked to seems to be the origin of this information, but I will try to find out more.
I too am familiar with henry makow’s website (previously savethemales.org). I find that I agree most of his opinions of femininity and sexuality but I find him a bit too far on issues such as Zionism and One World Order conspiracies.
No, you had suggested that whether one feels pain or not should be our criterion for whether or not to intercede. This is what I mean: those who favor killing embryonic human beings often suggest that their personhood is a mere religious idea, but when it’s demonstrated that the personhood of human embryos is rooted in science, they then abandon science in favor of less scientific criteria for personhood (ability to feel pain, ability to sleep, size, how “cute” they are, if they can laugh or cry, etc.).
Posted by: bmmg39 at August 8, 2008 2:24 PM
……………………………………
I suggested no criteria for anything. I stated the fact that an embryo is not capable of feeling pain and a puppy is. You chose to run off on a tangent.
Personhood is a societal construct. It certainly isn’t a scientific term. Throwing science into a pot full of philosophical theories and stirring it all around doesn’t change science into philosophical theories or theories into facts.
“And bmmg39, I for one would be very grateful to a murderer who murdered me painlessly rather than painfully.”
The grateful dead. Right.
I doubt that the jury would look upon the murderer favorably because she had used a pillow rather than a hacksaw for her handiwork.
Posted by: bmmg39 at August 8, 2008 2:27 PM
…………………………….
So, your concern isn’t about suffering in death but rather punishment for the living.
Sally,
Think of it as helping then. Someone that longs to know their birth mother would need your help in locating her. Your job would be done and you wouldn’t have to deal with the drahma…:)
I think it would be very valuable to help people find each other.
You have such a passion and a gift.
By the way, the picture of you and your Daddy is TOOOOOO CUTE!!
Posted by: Carla at August 8, 2008 2:06 PM
…………………………..
Thanks Carla.
I wouldn’t turn anyone down asking for my help but as I said, my resources are limited and I wouldn’t feel right about taking money when I am not licensed as a genealogist or private detective. Private matters can be tricky. For instance, I have a family member that searched out her bio dad. Turns out a portion of his family is involved in dealings of a nefarious nature. Imagine being a 3rd party snooping around. Could be dangerous. I’m not sure that I’d be prepared for such possible adventures.
Although it just occured to me that one of my cousins and her husband are bounty hunters. Perhaps I could enlist …………
Oh dear! Now you and MK have me mulling the possibilities over.
Jamers: I can remember in the 1970’s reading news stories about population control adovcates wanting to put BC into the water supplies of major North American cities. They were quite serious about this idea and it was shot down at the time as draconian. I was a teen at the time I remember being glad that I lived in an area with well water!
Sally,
I’ll be out of town for a week, but when I get back, I’d love to share my search with you…it was pretty wild.
Whoa, how are all these pills getting in the water supply? They’re damn expensive, I make sure not to let a single one go anywhere but where it’s supposed to- ma belly :)
sally: “Personhood is a societal construct. It certainly isn’t a scientific term.”
“Person” = “human being.” Science textbooks make it quite clear when a human being’s life commences. (Hint: they don’t agree with you.)
“So, your concern isn’t about suffering in death but rather punishment for the living.”
My concern is preventing the death from taking place, whether it entails suffering or not.
Sally,
I’ll be out of town for a week, but when I get back, I’d love to share my search with you…it was pretty wild.
Posted by: mk at August 8, 2008 7:53 PM
………………….
I am totally intrigued! Have a lovely week!
sally: “Personhood is a societal construct. It certainly isn’t a scientific term.”
“Person” = “human being.”
………………………….
Taken from a dictionary. A dictionary is not a scientific source. Words and their usage are subject to individual as well as societal meaning.
………………………………..
Science textbooks make it quite clear when a human being’s life commences. (Hint: they don’t agree with you.)
………………………..
Actually, science is incapable of agreement or disagreement. That a human embryo is an embryo of the human species is hardly a scientific breakthrough. That it is existing/being is also hardly news worthy. Be, being, been. Pre-exists, exists, existed. No matter how you phrase it in any language, an embryo is an embryo. Human or not. That is science.
……………………………….
“So, your concern isn’t about suffering in death but rather punishment for the living.”
My concern is preventing the death from taking place, whether it entails suffering or not.
Posted by: bmmg39 at August 8, 2008 10:18 PM
………………………..
Death is not preventable. Suffering might be. Seems to me that the best energy/concern is spent on the attainable.
To each his own.
“who created God? and why?”
Hal, what a naive question. Your question presupposes that God had to have been created and once “wasn’t.” What atheists fail to realize, however, is that for there to be “something” now, there had to always be “something.” Because “something” cannot come from “nothing.” Something can only come from something else and that would always have had to have been there.
I can’t believe that logical thinking people can actually believe that something came from nothing. That’s not science. That’s magic! The belief that there once was no time, no space, no energy, no anything, and then one day it all decides to blow sky high for no apparent reason and make planets and time and energy is completely laughable. Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t that contradict the law of inertia?
Then these people want to argue that somehow we got time, space, energy and life. And that somehow that life went from chaotic disorderly life to rational, progressive thinking evolutionists. But don’t the laws of thermodynamics state that mass, matter and energy left by themselves go from order to disorder? Is evolution the greatest wishful thinking the world has ever seen?
“Actually, science is incapable of agreement or disagreement. That a human embryo is an embryo of the human species is hardly a scientific breakthrough. That it is existing/being is also hardly news worthy. Be, being, been. Pre-exists, exists, existed. No matter how you phrase it in any language, an embryo is an embryo. Human or not. That is science.”
I’ll be more than happy to quote from science textbooks should you deem it proper. They tend to go just a tad beyond conjugating verbs.
“Death is not preventable. Suffering might be. Seems to me that the best energy/concern is spent on the attainable.”
Well, of course death isn’t PERMANENTLY preventable, but certainly killing can be. Otherwise, we can all just take poison and then die in our sleep…
who created God? and why?
Posted by: Hal at August 8, 2008 10:56 AM
Nobody Hal. God always was and God created all things.
@Hal: Man created God so we would have a scapegoat for when life sucks.
Posted by: Rae at August 8, 2008 11:06 AM
No Rae. Man did not create God, rather, man “perceives” God. And using God as scapegoat would only make ones life suckier.
Something I don’t understand:
Some of you say there must be a God because otherwise who created the Universe?
But when asked who created God, you say He is eternal and requires no creator.
What I don’t understand is, if you can say that about God, why can’t you say it about the Universe? What prevents us from saying time, space, matter, and energy are eternal and require no creator?
Jamers, you wrote: “I challenge you predict the future of evolution”
OK. I predict that if you put Astyanax (a fish) in a dark underground river where all the food is buried in the river bottom, the descendants of the fish will develop stronger, more sensitive lower jaws than the original “seed” fish, and also will have no eyes. That’s a verifiable or falsifiable prediction of evolutionary theory.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/hitchens_luskin_lion_mouse.php
You wrote: “Nobody that I know of anyways, including myself and all creation and intelligent design proponents that I have ever read or heard speak would even think of refuting microevolution (that’s just dumb). ”
You are wrong, on two points. First of all, the original Creationists denied that evolution of any kind occurs at all. If you haven’t read these original Creationist claims, then you don’t know enough about your subject, and are in danger of failing your prelim/oral exams. Secondly, well, I’ll quote Wikipedia: “Misuse: The term ‘microevolution’ has recently become popular among the anti-evolution movement, …. The claim that microevolution is qualitatively different from macroevolution is fallacious as the main difference between the two processes is that one occurs within a few generations, whilst the other is seen to occur over thousands of years (ie. a quantitative difference). Essentially they describe the same process….The attempt to differentiate between microevolution and macroevolution is considered to have no scientific basis by any mainstream scientific organization, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science.”
You wrote: “Creationism and Youth Earth Creationism are religious theories, Intelligent Design is very different. ”
True. ID is a version of Creationism with all the religion, and all the predictive power and scientifically testable claims, stripped out. So it does not embarrass its proponents, as Creationism does, by making claims which can be proven wrong; however, the cost is it ceases to be a scientific theory.
You wrote: “some of the scientists [sic] studying ID want to use it to prove that aliens started our existence, not God.”
Really? Who?
More: from http://atheism.about.com/od/evolutionexplained/a/micro_macro.htm
“….for biologists, there is no relevant difference between microevolution and macroevolution. Both happen in the same way and for the same reasons, so there is no real reason to differentiate them. When biologists do use different terms, it is simply for descriptive reasons.
When creationists use the terms, however, it is for ontological reasons
On one level it makes no sense to challenge someone to “predict the future of evolution” but leave out what you call “microevolution”. That’s like if I challenge you to predict the future of the Bible but leave out the Old Testament. Worse–the OT is only one half the Bible but most (according to mainstream scientific opinion, all) evolution is microevolution.
There’s nothing difficult about imagining a sexual organism, maybe a one-celled sexual organism (I don’t know much about about prokaryotic reproduction and DNA exchange but you can make cells that won’t reproduce unless they get infected by phage so you could consider the cells female and the phage male members of a combined “species”) that mutates through the generations until eventually the descendents are no longer reproductively compatible with the progenitors, and are therefore a different species. Or a species splitting into two reproductively incompatible lines. There’s no reason what you call “macroevolution” COULDN’T be the result of a long sequence of microevolutionary events. Its no more a legitimate justification for an appeal to the supernatural than the shining of the Sun was before the astronuke people figured out the reaction equation.
“But when asked who created God, you say He is eternal and requires no creator.
What I don’t understand is, if you can say that about God, why can’t you say it about the Universe? What prevents us from saying time, space, matter, and energy are eternal and require no creator?”
That’s a great question, SoMG. There are both scientific and philosophical reasons for believing that the universe must be finite. To date, our best big bang cosmology points to a beginning of the universe; the initial singularity where all of space, time, and matter came into being from what otherwise would be considered nothing. There have been attempts to come up with other models, but they have all failed. There is also the second law of thermodynamics, which implies that the universe must have had a beginning since the amount of entropy is decreasing. That is extremely brief and there is tons that can be said about the science.
Now philosophically, if the universe has been around for an infinite amount of time, one has to be willing to accept some of the strange consequences of an actual infinity existing. You’ve probably heard of things like Hilbert’s Hotel and Cantor’s theory of infinite sets. One would have to accept certain scenarios like supposing I had an infinite number of blue and red marbles, and I assigned the blue ones an even number and the red ones an odd number, and then I gave you all the red (odd) ones. I’ve given you an infinite amount of marbles, and I still have infinitely many marbles. But instead, suppose I give you all the marbles numbered greater than 5. I’ve given you infinitely many marbles, and if fact you have EXACTLY as many marbles as I gave you before, but now I only have 5 marbles left, not infinitely many.
Now that isn’t a contradiction; that is consistent with mathematics. But if our universe is infinite, one would have to be willing to accept that the above scenario could happen. There are tons upon tons of other strange scenarios that one could come up with, like Hilbert’s Hotel. This too can be greatly expounded upon, and since it involves my expertise, I’d be happy to go through more examples or the mathematics of infinity.
Oh, another thing SoMG, is that there is what is called the “Argument from Contingency” for God’s existence. It seems that the universe is a contingent, that is, it does not have to exist. There is no reason why it must be. Now that isn’t the argument, but the idea is that there has to be some thing which is not dependent for its existence on something else, and it would seem that the universe does not fit that criteria
I guess you could say understanding the Sun required new basic science and that’s all the IDers are asking for, a new basic science in addition to the laws of chemistry (which include random mutation) and natural selection over a long time, that would do a better job of explaining the details of species-to-species evolution or the lack therof in higher organisms. Well start developing it then. Propose some new lab-testable scientific hypotheses that account for interspecies variation in higher organisms better than long sequences of microevolutionary events. Hint: you will quickly run into the same problem IDers accuse “Darwinists” of: for higher organisms the data are too sparse and generating new data is too slow.
And until you figure out more about your new basic science, stop calling it “intelligent” and “design”. The subject of your new basic science could turn out to be some set of new physical laws that somehow accounts for interspecies variation in higher organisms better than microevolution over long time but does not involve intelligence or design. You don’t know anything about it (yet) so how can you say?
Oh another thing that is interesting to note. Aquinas’ proof from a first cause actually does not require the universe to be finite. I don’t quite understand how that works, but he argues that even if the universe is infinite, it must have a cause. I don’t get it, but maybe it works…
Now that isn’t a contradiction; that is consistent with mathematics.
A biologist, a physicist, and a mathematician were sitting in a café watching the crowd. Across the street they saw a man and a woman enter a house. Ten minutes later the couple reappeared together, with a third person.
“They have multiplied,” said the biologist.
“No, it was simply an error in measurement,” the physicist sighed.
“If another person enters the building, it will be empty again,” the mathematician concluded.
BA DUM CHING!
Carry on.
Yes, Bobby B, I have even taught a course on Recursive Function Theory including several different Infinities and the Goedel Theorem. Do you know the expression “You can’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs?” None of the paradoxes about Infinity seem to me in any way to interfere with the idea that time and space might be infinite. The fact that someone might be going on ahead of me twice as fast doesn’t mean I can’t travel in the same direction forever; you could say it suggests the opposite.
As I understand it, all the matter/energy was gathered in one place before the big bang but there was infinite time before then and infinite space around the singularity and maybe even other singularities too far away for us to detect. Maybe I’m missing something, I heard Stephen Hawking once but I didn’t understand a word he said except the bit about betting on a scientific outcome with a colleague and losing and having to buy him a subscription to PENTHOUSE.
If you’re not already familiar with it, (in which case shame on you for a cultural illiterate) read Isaac Asimov’s short story THE LAST QUESTION.
I think the phrase “The size of the universe” means a sphere whose radius is the maximum distance Relativity would let you travel (infinitessimally slower than the speed of light) in the time from the Big Bang until now.
I don’t think there’s any edge beyond which you could not travel like the barrier at the edge of the galaxy in Star Trek or a wall of non-existance like in StarTrek TNG. Lots of stuff could be going on out beyond it but the light couldn’t get here so we’d never know.
“None of the paradoxes about Infinity seem to me in any way to interfere with the idea that time and space might be infinite.”
Yeah, I understand, SoMG. Like I said, it isn’t a contradiction, it’s just something that most people would not be able to accept, and which may not make sense in reality, I don’t know. Of course, there is so much weird stuff in math that I don’t know what’s “normal” anymore. I don’t know if you’ve studied any measure theory, but there is the Banach-Tarski paradox which gives you that you can take a sphere on any radius, cut it up into finitely many pieces, and reassemble it into a sphere of ANY other radius. So yeah, lots of counter-intuative results, but nothing necessarily contradictory.
But now as I understand it, without the initial singularity, there was np space time nor matter. They all came into being with the initial singularity and there was no “before.” Here are some quotes
“The universe began from a state of infinite density. . . . Space and time were created in that event and so was all the matter in the universe. It is not meaningful to ask what happened before the Big Bang; it is like asking what is north of the North Pole. Similarly, it is not sensible to ask where the Big Bang took place. The point-universe was not an object isolated in space; it was the entire universe, and so the answer can only be that the Big Bang happened everywhere.”
Richard J. Gott, et.al., “Will the Universe Expand Forever?” Scientific American (March 1976), p. 65.
SoMG: I don’t think there’s any edge beyond which you could not travel like the barrier at the edge of the galaxy in Star Trek or a wall of non-existance like in StarTrek TNG. Lots of stuff could be going on out beyond it but the light couldn’t get here so we’d never know.
Right – there is no “out there” as in beyond the universe – that’s thinking about things in a three-dimensional way, and it just ain’t like that.
“Will the Universe Expand Forever?”
Bobby, one really wild thing is that after a “Big Bang” it’d be normal for the rate of expansion to slow, as gravity acted on matter.
However, not long ago it was shown that the rate of expansion is increasing, and that was a big “Whoa” moment for me.
Doug,
“However, not long ago it was shown that the rate of expansion is increasing, and that was a big “Whoa” moment for me.”
Yeah, pretty crazy, ehh? I have no idea why that would be the case.
SoMG you said: ?First of all, the original Creationists denied that evolution of any kind occurs at all. If you haven’t read these original Creationist claims, then you don’t know enough about your subject?
No it is obvious you don?t know enough about your subject. I am truly surprised to find you so misinformed about Creationists? beliefs. I don?t know what ?creationists? you are reading, but all of the respected ones have no problem with microevolution. I think the best example of one of the original Creationists is Henry M. Morris who founded the Institute for Creation Research. But this is clearly a straw man argument, so let me set the record straight for you and then we can get on with the discussion: Creationists do believe microevolution is an observable fact, and they do believe speciation can and does occur. So back to the point.
Ok so you can?t predict the future of macroevolution as I expected since all you gave me was a simple example of microevolution that I already agree with. Then you go on to quote from Wikipedia:
“The attempt to differentiate between microevolution and macroevolution is considered to have no scientific basis by any mainstream scientific organization, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science.”
Then from athiest.org:
“….for biologists, there is no relevant difference between microevolution and macroevolution. Both happen in the same way and for the same reasons, so there is no real reason to differentiate them. When biologists do use different terms, it is simply for descriptive reasons.?
The fact that mainstream ?scientific? organizations refuse to distinguish between microevolution and macroevolution only proves my point. Of course they don?t want to differentiate between the two because they know they don?t have ANY evidence of macroevolution. ALL of their arguments for macroevolution are by using models of microevolution (just as you tried to do earlier), which proves nothing. It cannot prove where an organism originated from.
In order for microevolution to become macroevolution something very fundamental must occur: new genetic information must arise in an organism. The organism must then pass on its genes on to its descendents, and with later accumulations of changes over several generations, eventually macroevolution will occur. This theory actually seems pretty logical on the surface, but alas it is not what we observe when microevolution occurs. In fact, we observe exactly the opposite of what must happen if microbe-to-man evolution is true. And that is, we see organisms become more specialized as they adapt to their environment, or when speciation occurs. Furthermore, this new information must be information that the life form did not originally possess.
I said: “Some of the scientists studying ID want to use it to prove that aliens started our existence, not God.”
You replied “Really? Who?”
This actually pertains to my secret hobby (but don’t tell anyone) as I have been following this idea through the many cults I study and lately into the realms of what we call ?science? today. One of the largest ufology cults are all time the sending their “scientists” to the Intelligent Design conferences, as they are very enthusiastically trying to prove that aliens were responsible for our existence. Try looking them up sometime: (http://www.rael.org/). They and many other groups out there (I?ve got more examples of you are interested) are coming to this conclusion. (I also found Richard Dawkins’s comment about the possibility of aliens being our creators quite amusing, (http://www.discovery.org/a/4809), but I digress.)
Jamers, you wrote: “In order for microevolution to become macroevolution something very fundamental must occur: new genetic information must arise in an organism. ”
No problem! That happens in microevolution. A mutated gene contains new genetic information. Even if it’s only one new bit (a point mutation). You’ll argue that it lost some old information, but that’s not always true–an organism can duplicate a gene and then one of the duplicates can mutate. New information is thus generated by microevolutionary events, with no loss of old information.
You wrote: “…we see organisms become more specialized as they adapt to their environment, ”
Not always. Sometimes evolution causes a decrease in specialization. Richard Lenski’s citrate-eating e. coli can eat citrate AND/OR the sugars that the progenitors require. That’s LESS specialized.
The original Creationists–go back to the Scopes trial if you like–denied evolution altogether. It’s just silly to say they didn’t. That was the whole point.
Isn’t Behe’s insistance that the bacterial flagellum could not have evolved a denial of microevolution? It cannot be a denial of macroevolution because that by definition means a new species, and “species” is defined by sexual reproductive incompatibility, and bacteria reproduce asexually.
Jamers, you wrote: “I don?t know what ?creationists? you are reading, but all of the respected ones have no problem with microevolution. ”
There are no “respected” Creationists. Not today.
Also Jamers you seem to have missed one of my posts, which is key so I’ll duplicate it (sorry Jill):
I guess you could say understanding the Sun required new basic science and that’s all the IDers are asking for, a new basic science in addition to the laws of chemistry (which include random mutation) and natural selection over a long time, that would do a better job of explaining the details of species-to-species evolution or the lack therof in higher organisms. Well start developing it then. Propose some new lab-testable scientific hypotheses that account for interspecies variation in higher organisms better than long sequences of microevolutionary events. Hint: you will quickly run into the same problem IDers accuse “Darwinists” of: for higher organisms the data are too sparse and generating new data is too slow.
And until you figure out more about your new basic science, stop calling it “intelligent” and “design”. The subject of your new basic science could turn out to be some set of new physical laws that somehow accounts for interspecies variation in higher organisms better than microevolution over long time but does not involve intelligence or design. You don’t know anything about it (yet) so how can you say?
Michael Medved, a famous conservative and a fellow of the pro-ID Discovery Institute, agrees with me.
Money quote: “The important thing about Intelligent Design is that it is not a theory … Nor is Intelligent Design an explanation. …. Intelligent Design doesn’t tell you what is true; it tells you what is not true. It tells you that it cannot be that this whole process was random.”
Read the whole thing, it’s very short.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/128010.html
Also read this: probably the single most important document for understanding ID (more important than DARWIN’S BLACK BOX)
http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html
What I don’t understand is, if you can say that about God, why can’t you say it about the Universe? What prevents us from saying time, space, matter, and energy are eternal and require no creator?
Posted by: SoMG at August 9, 2008 3:59 AM
That is the other possibility, but to mortals with finite minds who cannot even comprehend eternal time, but it seems to me less than likely that matter itself is eternal and more likely that there exists a God who is Creator of the heavens and the earth, of all that is seen and unseen.
Bobby and SoMG, That black whole where your Big Bang starts was once just a thought that the Creator willed into being.
“Truthseeker”: Ooooooooooooooooooh that’s heavy man. (Takes another bong hit).
And we can so comprehend eternal time. It’s just the absence of a stopping event. Comprehending the absence of something is easy!
Absence of a stopping event: Like the chorus in the middle of Haydn’s CREATION. Der Herr ist gro
“”Truthseeker”: Ooooooooooooooooooh that’s heavy man. (Takes another bong hit).”
@SoMG: Heh, dude- here’s some of my Vicodin…it may help with your buzz…I know it’s helped mine.
*dry swallows like House*
“Actually, science is incapable of agreement or disagreement. That a human embryo is an embryo of the human species is hardly a scientific breakthrough. That it is existing/being is also hardly news worthy. Be, being, been. Pre-exists, exists, existed. No matter how you phrase it in any language, an embryo is an embryo. Human or not. That is science.”
I’ll be more than happy to quote from science textbooks should you deem it proper. They tend to go just a tad beyond conjugating verbs.
“Death is not preventable. Suffering might be. Seems to me that the best energy/concern is spent on the attainable.”
Well, of course death isn’t PERMANENTLY preventable, but certainly killing can be. Otherwise, we can all just take poison and then die in our sleep…
Posted by: bmmg39 at August 8, 2008 11:09 PM
………………………………….
Nothing is stopping you from taking poison and dying in your sleep. There is no otherwise.
Of course science is not involved in conjugating verbs. It is a study in facts rather than linguistics.
“Bobby and SoMG, That black whole where your Big Bang starts was once just a thought that the Creator willed into being.””
No arguments there, TS.
There is absolutely no conflict between Darwin, evolution, and an ancient earth and
belief in God. Even the Catholic church
acknowledges this.
I’m not sure exactly how old the earth and the universe are, or how life developed over the eons, but I AM convinced that the notion that the world is only 6,000 years old is preposterous.
This is 1,000 after the ancient Sumerians invented glue. This doesn’t mean that I think any kind of behavior is aceptable, or that I’m a loose-living,
promiscuous “hedonist”, etc. In fact, I’m anything but this. I’m a pretty normal guy.
As for great pianists, I’d recommend any
recording by the terrific Frenchman Jean
Yves Thibaudet, who records for Decca records. He’s done the complete piano music of the kooky but fascinating French composer Erik Satie, concertos by Mendelsshon, Grieg, Schumann etc, and other stuff. He happens to be gay, but who cares ?
He’s a marvelous pianist.
There is absolutely no conflict between Darwin, evolution, and an ancient earth and
belief in God. Even the Catholic church
acknowledges this.
I’m not sure exactly how old the earth and the universe are, or how life developed over the eons, but I AM convinced that the notion that the world is only 6,000 years old is preposterous.
This is 1,000 after the ancient Sumerians invented glue. This doesn’t mean that I think any kind of behavior is aceptable, or that I’m a loose-living,
promiscuous “hedonist”, etc. In fact, I’m anything but this. I’m a pretty normal guy.
As for great pianists, I’d recommend any
recording by the terrific Frenchman Jean
Yves Thibaudet, who records for Decca records. He’s done the complete piano music of the kooky but fascinating French composer Erik Satie, concertos by Mendelsshon, Grieg, Schumann etc, and other stuff. He happens to be gay, but who cares ?
He’s a marvelous pianist.
“Nothing is stopping you from taking poison and dying in your sleep.”
However, we don’t have the right to make that decision for another human being (born or otherwise), whether we ensure a “painless death” or not.
“Of course science is not involved in conjugating verbs. It is a study in facts rather than linguistics.”
Great. Take the cue, then.
“Nothing is stopping you from taking poison and dying in your sleep.”
However, we don’t have the right to make that decision for another human being (born or otherwise), whether we ensure a “painless death” or not.
…………………………………
So your comment had no point.
……………………………
“Of course science is not involved in conjugating verbs. It is a study in facts rather than linguistics.”
Great. Take the cue, then.
………………………..
You don’t seem to be able to find the cue let alone a point.
SoMG you said:
“A mutated gene contains new genetic information. Even if it’s only one new bit (a point mutation). You’ll argue that it lost some old information, but that’s not always true–an organism can duplicate a gene and then one of the duplicates can mutate. New information is thus generated by microevolutionary events, with no loss of old information.”
No, and again no. I’ll repeat: Successful macro-evolution requires the addition of NEW information and NEW genes that produce NEW proteins that are found in NEW organs and systems (not duplicated information/genes/proteins/organs the organism already had to begin with). Making a new organ would require a large number of different genes present simultaneously. Changes in the same body plan-no matter how dramatic-do not automatically prove macro-evolution. Also, losing structures, or misplacing their development, should not be equated with the increased information that is needed to form novel structures and cellular systems.
You still haven’t given me evidence of macroevolution, only microevolution.
Richard Lenski’s citrate-eating e. coli experiment only furthers my argument. This is not evolution but rather adaptation. This loss of information and functional systems as observed in Lenski’s lab, only further proves that this type of mutation does not lead to a net gain that moves bacteria in an upward evolutionary direction.
If developing the ability to utilize citrate under certain conditions using random mutations of a pre-existing citrate utilization system is so rare, then how even more improbable is it to believe that these same random mutations can lead to completely new information and functional systems that allow micro organisms to become humans.
The Scopes trial? You’ve got to be kidding me. Stop playing your best against our worst. William Jennings Bryan is not considered to be a founder of Creationism in the least. Sure he was a creationist and a strong critic of biological evolution, but he accepted geological evolution and an old age for the earth, which the true Creationists do not. Again, I don’t know what this has to do with the discussion, as I am not using these “examples” as experts in this field. You are.
I didn’t miss your other comment, I just don’t respond to ignorance. You say you know so much about Creationists, yet you make statements like “I guess you could say understanding the Sun required new basic science and that’s all the IDers are asking for, a new basic science.” No we are not asking for a new basic science, actually we are trying to go back to the original scientists who believed in a divine Creator and that man was a special creation separate from plants and animals. If anything Evolution is the “new science” and ironically this “new science” is now being refuted by your own scientists.
SoMG you said “Also read this: probably the single most important document for understanding ID (more important than DARWIN’S BLACK BOX)”
Umm.. why is this the MOST important document for understanding ID? Again just because Creationists believe in an inteligent creator (A.K.A designer) doesn’t mean they have the rights to the title Intelligent Design.Is this what you are trying to argue?? As I have already said, other non-christian, non-creationists groups are using this term to describe the science they are promoting as well.
Sorry, I am trying to copy from an old version of Windows and it seems to have messed up my last post. This should be easier to read:
SoMG you said:
“A mutated gene contains new genetic information. Even if it’s only one new bit (a point mutation). You’ll argue that it lost some old information, but that’s not always true–an organism can duplicate a gene and then one of the duplicates can mutate. New information is thus generated by microevolutionary events, with no loss of old information.”
No, and again no. I’ll repeat: Successful macro-evolution requires the addition of NEW information and NEW genes that produce NEW proteins that are found in NEW organs and systems (not duplicated information/genes/proteins/organs the organism already had to begin with). Making a new organ would require a large number of different genes present simultaneously. Changes in the same body plan-no matter how dramatic-do not automatically prove macro-evolution. Also, losing structures, or misplacing their development, should not be equated with the increased information that is needed to form novel structures and cellular systems.
You still haven’t given me evidence of macroevolution, only microevolution.
Richard Lenski’s citrate-eating e. coli experiment only furthers my argument. This is not evolution but rather adaptation. This loss of information and functional systems as observed in Lenski’s lab, only further proves that this type of mutation does not lead to a net gain that moves bacteria in an upward evolutionary direction.
If developing the ability to utilize citrate under certain conditions using random mutations of a pre-existing citrate utilization system is so rare, then how even more improbable is it to believe that these same random mutations can lead to completely new information and functional systems that allow micro organisms to become humans.
The Scopes trial? You’ve got to be kidding me. Stop playing your best against our worst. William Jennings Bryan is not considered to be a founder of Creationism in the least. Sure he was a creationist and a strong critic of biological evolution, but he accepted geological evolution and an old age for the earth, which the true Creationists do not. Again, I don’t know what this has to do with the discussion, as I am not using these “examples” you are bringing up as experts in this field. You are.
I didn’t miss your other comment, I just don’t respond to ignorance. You act like you know so much about Creationists, yet you make statements like “I guess you could say understanding the Sun required new basic science and that’s all the IDers are asking for, a new basic science.” No we are not asking for a new basic science, actually we are going back to the original scientists who believed in a divine Creator and that man was a special creation separate from plants and animals. If anything Evolution is the “new science” and ironically this “new science” is now being refuted by your own scientists.
SoMG you said
“Also read this: probably the single most important document for understanding ID (more important than DARWIN’S BLACK BOX)”
Umm.. why is this the MOST important document for understanding ID? Again just because Creationists believe in an inteligent creator (A.K.A designer) doesn’t mean they have the rights to the title Intelligent Design. Is this what you are trying to argue??
sally: “Nothing is stopping you from taking poison and dying in your sleep.”
bmmg39: “However, we don’t have the right to make that decision for another human being (born or otherwise), whether we ensure a ‘painless death’ or not.”
sally: “So your comment had no point.”
Evidently, you’ve forgotten your own post. I wrote that my goal is preventing the death of the unborn (e.g. an embryo some think should be killed for experimentation), and you wrote that death isn’t preventable and that the more worthwhile goal is preventing suffering. I responded by saying that we can and should at least prevent a human being’s death from taking place sooner than it needs to; if death is really superior to living with any sort of suffering, then we had may as well all take poison.