We are getting closer and closer…

Jamie posted this at 3:30 PM EDT on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 as Brave New Worlds

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Why he turned down the offer to attend the signing ceremony:

It’s worth reading Bush’s 2001 speech on stem cells again.

At its core, this issue forces us to confront fundamental questions about the beginnings of life and the ends of science. It lives at a difficult moral intersection, juxtaposing the need to protect life in all its phases with the prospect of saving and improving life in all its stages.

As the discoveries of modern science create tremendous hope, they also lay vast ethical mine fields.

As the genius of science extends the horizons of what we can do, we increasingly confront complex questions about what we should do. We have arrived at that brave new world that seemed so distant in 1932 when Aldous Huxley wrote about human beings created in test tubes in what he called a hatchery.

[snip]

Research offers hope that millions of our loved ones may be cured of a disease and rid of their suffering. I have friends whose children suffer from juvenile diabetes. Nancy Reagan has written me about President Reagan’s struggle with Alzheimer’s. My own family has confronted the tragedy of childhood leukemia. And like all Americans, I have great hope for cures.

I also believe human life is a sacred gift from our creator. I worry about a culture that devalues life, and believe as your president I have an important obligation to foster and encourage respect for life in America and throughout the world.

And while we’re all hopeful about the potential of this research, no one can be certain that the science will live up to the hope it has generated.

You got absolutely none of this from the supposedly thoughtful Obama. With him, stem cell research seems completely devoid of ethical dilemmas. I’m glad we finally got a smart guy in the White House who understands all sides of the issues.

Apollo posted this at 8:54 PM EDT on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 as Brave New Worlds, CHANGE!, Kraut-hammered, Science & Evolution

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The thought of this gives me the heebee jeebees. I see it possibly going lots of places, and not one of them is good. If all it takes to justify cloning one is to answer the question, “Could they talk?” I don’t think the scientists have a proper respect for the revulsion that most people would feel at doing such a thing.

Apollo posted this at 9:54 PM EST on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 as Brave New Worlds, Science & Evolution

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Work your way through this plainly biased reporting. What’s striking is how the reporter tries to overwhelm you with bill numbers, quotes about different amended versions of bills, and obtuse analysis about what is or isn’t extreme, to obscure this basic fact: when faced with a law that gave legal rights to babies accidentally born alive, and that specifically said it had no other impact on abortion laws, Barack Obama used his power to kill the bill.

The thought of babies being exposed in America – not in a Communist dictatorship, but in America – should be absolutely revolting to any civilized person. Yet there was Obama, approaching this issue skeptically because he was afraid that it might impinge on abortion rights.

if that fetus, or child—however way you want to describe it—is now outside the mothers’ womb and the doctor continues to think that it’s non viable but there’s, let’s say, movement or some indication that, in fact, (the fetus is) not just coming out limp and dead, that, in fact, they would then have to call a second physician to monitor and check off and make sure that this is not a live child that could be saved.

So in Obama’s world view, the rights of newborns – and if it is “outside the mothers’ womb,” it is not a fetus – are so negligible that the possibility that the law might require a second opinion on whether some babies are in fact alive was too high a burden to place on a woman seeking an abortion.

…essentially adding an additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physicians to induce labor and perform an abortions. Now if that’s the case… I think it’s important to understand that this issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births.

The bill was specifically about babies who came out alive. Obama couldn’t take his eyes off of his abortion dogma long enough to see that there were babies being exposed, left to die in closets. Faced with evidence that this monstrous practice was occurring in his state, Obama couldn’t bring himself to get worked up about it. Instead, he took the opportunity to rise in defense of abortion rights, and to criticize and kill the bill that tried to save the lives of living, breathing babies.

This sort of abortion uber alles philosophy is monstrous. We ought not expose babies. Those who see a bill written to ensure that living, breathing babies are not intentionally killed, and are primarily concerned with the burden on abortion rights of requiring a second opinion in a few marginal cases have priorities that leave me utterly aghast.

Apollo posted this at 11:19 PM EDT on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 as Audacity of Hype, Brave New Worlds

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I’m sort of freaked out by these shoes:

Dorothy posted this at 8:25 AM EDT on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 as Brave New Worlds, I have seen the future. . .

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If scientists take this no further than helping the blind to see, I will be terribly disappointed. I want x-ray and infrared visions, and the ability to zoom. Perhaps also the ability to network my eyes with others. Science has already let me down by letting us get to 2008 without flying cars; I hope they don’t now further disappoint by restricting bionic eye research to letting the blind see the visible spectrum.

Apollo posted this at 2:26 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 as Brave New Worlds, I have seen the future. . ., Science & Evolution

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I’m going to avoid saying anything witty because these just aren’t funny.

From the NYT, via Megan McArdle, we learn that the number of parents — generally, well-educated yuppie types — are choosing to not vaccinate their kids:

SAN DIEGO — In a highly unusual outbreak of measles here last month, 12 children fell ill; nine of them had not been inoculated against the virus because their parents objected, The parents who objected to their children being inoculated are among a small but growing number of vaccine skeptics in California and other states who take advantage of exemptions to laws requiring vaccinations for school-age children.

The exemptions have been growing since the early 1990s at a rate that many epidemiologists, public health officials and physicians find disturbing.

Children who are not vaccinated are unnecessarily susceptible to serious illnesses, they say, but also present a danger to children who have had their shots — the measles vaccine, for instance, is only 95 percent effective — and to those children too young to receive certain vaccines.

Measles, almost wholly eradicated in the United States through vaccines, can cause pneumonia and brain swelling, which in rare cases can lead to death. The measles outbreak here alarmed public health officials, sickened babies and sent one child to the hospital.

…

In 1991, less than 1 percent of children in the states with personal-belief exemptions went without vaccines based on the exemption; by 2004, the most recent year for which data are available, the percentage had increased to 2.54 percent, said Saad B. Omer, an assistant scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

And from ABC, via PZ Myers, we can watch Creationists seriously mess with the mids of their kids:

Tom posted this at 12:54 PM EDT on Monday, March 24th, 2008 as Brave New Worlds, Edjamacation, Science & Evolution

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[gapes, dumbfounded, unable to make sound]

Now consider the Finnish rock band called The Leningrad Cowboys. A little while ago, they held a concert in Russia, in which – to the screaming applause of Russkie teen-agers – they got the Red Army Choir to join them on stage for a performance of “Sweet Home Alabama.” In English.

H/T: Jonah

Tom posted this at 10:07 AM EDT on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 as Brave New Worlds

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As Jamie often notes, real-life technology is advancing faster than the creators of Star Trek imagined. On one front, however, Gene Roddenberry appears to have overshot the mark, though only a bit. Here’s a interesting snippet of debate about how genetic engineering is likely to intersect with reproductive freedom and abortion policy:

The author makes much of the arbitrary line in the sand she’s drawn wherein she places high value on individual liberty for women to control their own bodies and timing of reproduction yet she devalues the individual choice of embryonic trait selection which leads me to question whether she stands for principle or outcome. If the principle of individual liberty is paramount, as we see with free speech cases where disagreeble speech is frequently defended, then we should expect support for individual exercise of reproductive freedom even when one may personally disagree with the choice made. If the outcome is of the highest importance, then we should see the jettisoning of principle when it is no longer convenient. I believe the author is arguing the latter position and this may come to be exploited by those who oppose her viewpoints on abortion, for if one jettisons principle when it is inconvenient to one’s immediate concerns then it becomes harder to argue on the basis of principle when one’s position is threatened.

Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!

Tom posted this at 2:28 PM EDT on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 as Brave New Worlds

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News from Britain:

A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at birth because she is deemed capable of “emotional abuse”, even though psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that she will harm her child in any way.

Social services’ recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met.

Hexham children’s services, part of Northumberland County Council, said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer from Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself.

Under the plan, a doctor will hand the newborn to a social worker, provided there are no medical complications. Social services’ request for an emergency protection order — these are usually granted — will be heard in secret in the family court at Hexham magistrates on the same day.

From then on, anyone discussing the case, including Miss Lyon, will be deemed to be in contempt of the court.

Miss Lyon, from Hexham, who is five months pregnant, is seeking a judicial review of the decision about Molly, as she calls her baby. She described it as “barbaric and draconian”, and said it was “scandalous” that social services had not accepted submissions supporting her case.

“The paediatrician has never met me,” she said. “He is not a psychiatrist and cannot possibly make assertions about my current or future mental health. Yet his letter was the only one considered in the case conference on August 16 which lasted just 10 minutes.”

Ain’t socialized medicine grand?  (H/T)

Hubbard posted this at 10:21 AM EDT on Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 as Brave New Worlds, Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

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In this post, Amber dismisses all arguments regarding the eminent demographic bust as right-wing kookery because she sees it as an ad hominen attack:

The blogosphere kerfuffle on defining eugenics has largely failed to include the creepy exhortations for Western women to have more babies, which often come from right-wingers or nationalists. Why stress reproduction by native women? Wouldn’t Angelina-Jolie-style baby importation (or just increased immigration) also provide future participants for the pension system pyramid scheme? I don’t buy that we avoid these two options due to fear of cultural change; even if you required immigrants to be brainwashed to worship the Declaration of Independence and apple pie, there would still be a surplus of applicants. (emphasis added).

With equal over-personalization, I post my dad’s recent NPR interview on the subject.

NB: To answer Amber’s perfectly fair question, Jolie-style importation (and immigration in general) are ways to make up for declining birth rates, but are unlikely to solve the problem.

Edit: Amber and I continue the debate on the comments section.

Tom posted this at 5:35 PM EDT on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 as Brave New Worlds

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It’s certainly possible to manipulate genes to improve a species.  Indeed, Norman Borlaug has probably saved more lives than anybody in history by developing high yield crops.  The thing to remember with Mr. Borlaug, however, is that he’s been experimenting with plants, which are much simpler than animals.

Breeding animals is an order of magnitude more complicated.  Turkeys, to pick one example, have become so dumb that they can’t mate and need to be artificially inseminated—and after all that trouble, they’re not bright enough to sit down before laying eggs.  To pick a less extreme but still instructive example, purebred dogs may have some flashy characteristics, but they usually have worse health and behavior problems than mutts.

Genes are enormously complicated in the ways they interact with each other, but the transhumanist movement seems to think that this can be overcome with splices and perhaps some selective breeding and culling.  The topic of eugenics came up over at Ross Douthat’s blog, and Prettier than Napoleon had this to say about it:

How about this: Hector Dauphin-Gloire and his ideological compatriots can have a society where pain, suffering, and death feature prominently, and the rest of us can pursue transhumanist ends to avoid these things. The problem is not that people have these bizarre ideas about the necessity of suffering for development of virtue, it’s that they seek to make the rest of us “virtuous” by causing us to suffer and die.

It is certainly true that suffering does not necessarily lead to virtue, as anybody who’s been around very sick people knows.  But being skeptical of (as I am) or opposed to (as Dauphin-Gloire is) transhumanism isn’t causing transhumanist proponents to suffer and die; that happens anyway; it’s part of being human.

People have been trying since the beginning of history to use knowledge to stave off suffering and death.  And some good men, like Mr. Borlaug, have been successful.  But the danger of meddling with complex systems is that unforeseen effects may make things worse.  The social engineers of the Great Society tried to end poverty with generous welfare payments and subsidized housing; they got an explosion of illegitimacy, a sagging work ethic, and a crime wave.  Now, the transhumanist bioengineers propose that we tinker with genes.  We still can’t locate, let alone manipulate, all the genes that affect skin color, and they expect to cure complicated diseases like cystic fibrosis?

In every movement, no matter how admirable, exist the bureaucratic souls who carry every idea past the point of insanity.  As the word “transhumanist” suggests, we’re blurring the line between human and animal.  To be skeptical of transhumanism’s potential requires a rudimentary understanding of science and a desire not to see humans treated like dogs and turkeys.  (Religion is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition.)

Perhaps the transhumanists will find the fountain of youth that eluded Juan Ponce de Leon.  But it seems unlikely.  Until then, suffering and death will bring out our virtues—or our vices.  Will the fear of death, combined with the promise or will o’ the wisp of transhumanism, bring out good or bad?

Hubbard posted this at 11:05 PM EDT on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 as Brave New Worlds, Philosophy

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The sad state of the American death penalty has created a situation where, given the option between killing the condemned in a manner that is dignified and humane or killing the condemned in a way that appears dignified and humane, we think appearance is more important than reality. So we get crap like this:

Prison staff had problems finding a useable vein on Clark, and one vein they did use collapsed. The execution team also apparently tried to administer the lethal drugs through the original IV line by mistake, according to written accounts that the execution team is required to submit.

During the first injection attempt, Clark finally pushed himself up and said, “It don’t work.”

During the second attempt at finding a vein, he asked, “Can you just give me something by mouth to end this?”

This man deserved to die, but he did not deserve to die like that. No one does, but this is where the pursuit of uncruelty has led. A sensible and humane execution lets a man die on his feet (or at least nearly so). Not strapped to some gurney like a sick dog.

The problems during the execution led the state to change its lethal injection process to ensure that veins can be found more carefully and quickly to avoid similar delays.

But in May, an execution team again struggled to find veins in another inmate’s arm. Christopher Newton died nearly two hours after the scheduled start of his execution.

Executions, yes; lethal injection, no.

Apollo posted this at 9:37 AM EDT on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 as Brave New Worlds, I, For One, Welcome Our Judicial Overlords!

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The Post has what could be an interesting story. James Madison, who we thought died childless, may have some black descendants. There are, though, some issues with the story:

Nearly finished with her memoir, “The Other Madisons,” Kearse described an oral history that reads like a 19th-century soap opera: It begins with a kidnapped African slave, Mandy, who Kearse says was impregnated at Montpelier by Madison’s father. The child, Coreen, later gave birth to Madison’s child, whom she named James Madison.

The Post doesn’t even hint at it, but by my calculations this story would have James Madison impregnating his half-sister. Which, aside from other issues, would produce a child who was 3/4 white. Jefferson’s more colorful predilections were well-circulated rumors during his lifetime, but I do not believe there were similar rumors of Madison. Had there been a slave matching this description (more cream than coffee, born on the plantation to a mother who was mixed and born on the plantation), I cannot imagine word of that would have stayed secret until now. And inbred interracial paternity? How does that stay secret during the ugly fights of the 1790s? The story then proceeds that Dolley Madison sold the slave Jim. Would she really have sold the slave who knew such a damning secret?

It would be somewhat interesting if we found out Madison really did have a child. But I would be very, very surprised.

Apollo posted this at 11:06 AM EDT on Monday, June 11th, 2007 as Amer-I-Can!, Brave New Worlds

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In the latest news from across The Pond, England is about to be sucked into a giant vortex of irony:

CCTV in action

“Talking” CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be extended to 20 areas across England. They are already used in Middlesbrough where people seen misbehaving can be told to stop via a loudspeaker, controlled by control centre staff.

About £500,000 will be spent adding speaker facilities to existing cameras.

Shadow home affairs minister James Brokenshire said the government should be “very careful” over the cameras.

That’s right folks – the country that gave us George Orwell is ever so slowly morphing into his nightmare vision of the future. Remember War Is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go write in my journal, our of sight of my telescreen, just in case.

Jamie posted this at 11:57 AM EDT on Friday, April 20th, 2007 as Brave New Worlds, Liberty and/or Security

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