>> ^jwray:
Bush got elected on a platform of small government and humble foreign policy. He did exactly the opposite. The only people he kept his promises to were the social conservatives (by OFBCI and trying to stop stem cell research and comprehensive sex ed).


George Bush in 2007 spent less in every budget category than Bill Clinton in 1997, when adjusted for inflation. Federal Budgets are public information available for every fiscal year, please look into information yourself before repeating things you hear on tv.

Bush got elected on a platform of small government and humble foreign policy. He did exactly the opposite. The only people he kept his promises to were the social conservatives (by OFBCI and trying to stop stem cell research and comprehensive sex ed).

All it takes is a few rich and influential people (or a majority of the population) to get diseases that could be cured through stem cell research for all opposition for it to collapse.

The current problems in the world are insignificant in the long run.

We thought we were righteous in the 20th century for resisting the human sciences, but in the next couple of decades reprogenetics and regenerative medicine (stem cells) are going to begin fundamentally changing the human condition in favor of greater equality, personal choice, and freedom from disease.

Cheaper energy from advances in nanotech and solar power is set to arrive within 10 or 20 years.

Etc. Etc.

Favourites

1) Season = Autumn; long shadows, orange/yellow/red leaves, warm sun, cool wind
2) Place in the world = Irvine, CA, but I haven't seen enough of the rest of the world yet for an educated answer
3) Children's book = don't remember
4) TV Series = too many
5) Word = ?
6) Film = too many
7) Curse = ?
Creature = crocodiles and siftbot
9) Past time = programming and movies
10)Person = my wife, the love of my life

Which one?

11) Dog or cat = cat, they clean themselves and you can leave them alone for days
12) Sweet or savoury = savory
13) Cereal or Toast = cereal
14) Tan or pale = pale
15) Shoes or barefoot = shoes
16) Desktop or laptop = laptop
17) Drive or walk = drive
18) Drama or comedy = drama
19) Sex or food = sex
20) Futurama or Simpsons = Simpsons

The Sift

21) Your fave personal submission = motorcycle guy texting on a freeway or MarineGunrock eating a sandwich in 2 minutes
22) A great comment on one of your vids = ?
23) Most off the wall member = homoerotic blankfist
24) Favourite user name = hmm. that's a toughie. top of my head: fissionchips
25) Your most used channel = asia
26) Personal dumbass moment = ?
27) Best avatar = ?
28) Partner in crime = dag, literally
29) Do people offline know of your sift problem = no (but people online usually tell me all about their sift problems )
30) Idea for the site = it's so perfect already

About you

31) Where do you live = Irvine, California
32) Smoker/non-smoker = non; I hate being prisoner to wandering smoke from nearby smokers
33) Left or right handed = right
34) Hair colour = black
35) Relationship status = married and fulfilled
36) How tall = 5'11"
37) Children = not yet
38) Ever had an operation = birth; wisdom teeth
39) Best feature = don't have one
40) Use four words to describe yourself = immature, jocular, simple, passionate

If you could...what, who, when etc

41) Bring a famous person back from the dead = George Washington, but then he'd kill himself seeing what we've done to the country; maybe Bradley Nowell of Sublime
42) Give 50 grand to any charity = stem cell research
43) Send someone on a one way ticket to the moon = everyone who thinks we didn't go there
44) Relive a moment in your life = meeting my wife
45) Have a superpower = have and share regeneration/immortality
46) Find out one thing you've always wanted to know = all other types of life in the universe
47) Have the opposite gender deal with something you have to = urinal backsplash; trying to get into a girl's pants
48) Be president for one hour = that's not enough time
49) Delete a period in history = no
50) Achieve one thing = sell any of my own software for a lot of money

My old roommate is working on stem cells in muscle tissue. It should be in PNAS in a couple weeks, as well.

This really was a great nobel prize. The applications as a result of this work have been so far reaching it is truly amazing. For those of you who don't know, Shimomura found that certain proteins in jellyfish glow under UV radiation. Then I think Martin figured out how to tag other proteins, in such a way as to tell us where specific proteins are located in the cell. Location and function are closely related in the cell, and this has allowed biologists to determine the function of many proteins and what are termed pathways.

It is probably one of the most significant discoveries of our time.

>> ^SDGundamX:
>> ^jwray:
Life doesn't start at conception, it's a continuous process that started 3 billion years ago. Only sentient life forms have the moral status of persons. A fertilized egg is not sentient.

This is by far the best argument I've heard for the moral grounds for abortion (and also extends to stem cell research). It may be what chilaxe was trying to say but I just couldn't understand the way he was saying it. "Sentient" in animal rights is defined as "capable of suffering" and I'm guessing that's how you're using it here (correct me if I'm wrong). Such a definition neatly sidesteps the issue of consciousness.
So okay, I'll agree with you on this--a zygote and the subsequent stages of celluar development are not sentient for some time--estimates vary from the 13th to the 24th week of pregnancy.
I'm not so sure sentience is a pre-requisite for humanity, though. I pointed out above the case of someone in a coma. chilaxe's counter to that was that we believe "their feelings are there in some manner." But those in a deep coma do not respond to pain and will not remember any pain should they eventually wake up. Hence no suffering. Have they therefore lost their humanity? Are they no longer a person?
The answer to both questions is quite clearly no. I'm interested in understanding "why not," because if only sentient life forms have the moral status of persons then a deeply comatose patient should have lost that status by virtue of being beyond suffering. If the argument is that "well, they may wake up and therefore be sentient again" then I would say you have to include developing fetuses as humans because they too may well be sentient someday--if someone doesn't destroy them first.


The difference is that the person in a coma with the possibility of recovery had some desires in the past that ought to be considered, while the fertilized egg never had any desires.

I would argue that a person with severe brain damage, in a persistent vegetative state, with no hope of ever recovering consciousness (such as Terri Schaivo during her 15 minutes of fame) has lost their personhood. If the brain is dead, then they are, for all moral purposes, practically dead.

You're awesome. I thought it was funny how you thought this argument was good while I thought it was stupid. But now I realize that it's because you understood what he meant better than I did.

In reply to this comment by SDGundamX:
>> ^jwray:
Life doesn't start at conception, it's a continuous process that started 3 billion years ago. Only sentient life forms have the moral status of persons. A fertilized egg is not sentient.


This is by far the best argument I've heard for the moral grounds for abortion (and also extends to stem cell research).

>> ^jwray:
Life doesn't start at conception, it's a continuous process that started 3 billion years ago. Only sentient life forms have the moral status of persons. A fertilized egg is not sentient.


This is by far the best argument I've heard for the moral grounds for abortion (and also extends to stem cell research). It may be what chilaxe was trying to say but I just couldn't understand the way he was saying it. "Sentient" in animal rights is defined as "capable of suffering" and I'm guessing that's how you're using it here (correct me if I'm wrong). Such a definition neatly sidesteps the issue of consciousness.

So okay, I'll agree with you on this--a zygote and the subsequent stages of celluar development are not sentient for some time--estimates vary from the 13th to the 24th week of pregnancy.

I'm not so sure sentience is a pre-requisite for humanity, though. I pointed out above the case of someone in a coma. chilaxe's counter to that was that we believe "their feelings are there in some manner." But those in a deep coma do not respond to pain and will not remember any pain should they eventually wake up. Hence no suffering. Have they therefore lost their humanity? Are they no longer a person?

The answer to both questions is quite clearly no. I'm interested in understanding "why not," because if only sentient life forms have the moral status of persons then a deeply comatose patient should have lost that status by virtue of being beyond suffering. If the argument is that "well, they may wake up and therefore be sentient again" then I would say you have to include developing fetuses as humans because they too may well be sentient someday--if someone doesn't destroy them first.

I don't know if it is a strong enough reason for you on its own, but consider the Supreme Court, swampgirl. In the next four years, there will almost certainly be 2 resignations, both on the liberal side. In the next eight years, there could be as many as 5 resignations. If McCain is elected, you can expect to have one of the most conservative Supreme Courts in history. If Obama is elected, you can expect a more balanced court (since he will primarily be replacing liberal Justices). An ultra conservative court will invite litigation on all of the most radical proposals from the right wing. It won't just be a matter of the Court overturning Roe, and upholding the kinds of abuses that have been going on for nearly eight years (illegal surveillance, suspending habeus corpus, etc.). Imagine school prayer being compulsory. Imagine creationism being required teaching. Imagine not just gay marriage being outlawed, but homosexuality itself being outlawed. Imagine a permanent ban on all stem cell research, not just preventing federal funding of it. Imagine an expansion of executive power that would make Cheney drool. Imagine the removal of even more of the checks and balances in our government.

Some of those may be a stretch, but just imagine a Court in which Alito is considered the moderate.

What? This is just wrong. There have been several scientific advances which goes very much against the bible and religious thought. Evolution is the easy one to point at; Carbon dating, geology and stem cell research. I may misunderstand what you mean by "ideological tolerance", however, so please elaborate.

What I meant was that science only seems to progress in places where there is substantial freedom of thought, both for religion and for science. While it's true that there have been substantial scientific advances which go against the theological attitudes of certain (occasionally substantial) elements of the Christian church, these scientific advances only occurred in areas where neither "scientific" nor "religious" reasoning was given primacy or control.

Darwin is an excellent example. (Though it should be understood that evolutionary theory was already more or less accepted by biologists at the time; the main questions were what the mechanism of evolution might be. So-called theistic evolution was the predominant viewpoint.) In England at that time, Catholics and Protestants were both allowed to worship freely. Atheists were beginning to be open about their lack of faith. The term "agnostic" was coined around that time. An increase in ideological tolerance was the predominant trend.

The jump from orthodoxy and orthopraxy is a small one. Orthodoxy concerns your thoughts and beliefs while orthopraxy is focused on actions. The law is still laid down by the religion. And to set my sights again, the "big three" have both elements in them.

The jump from orthodoxy to orthopraxy is very easy, to be sure. One need only look to the Catholic and Orthodox church or Sunni Islam to see that to be the case. The reverse is not true. Predominantly orthopraxic religions have a very difficult time implementing orthodoxy. Specific schools or branches might have their own teachings, but do not condemn competing branches as "going to hell" or anything like that.


Well, how can you believe in a religion with supernatural elements then? Supernatural elements do not exist in our natural reality and thus cannot be disproved or proved. There is no discernible reason why one belief in a supernatural being is right and any other is wrong. There is plenty of corroborating evidence towards there NOT existing any supernatural beings. Every evidence ever properly studied shows no traces of the supernatural.

I dislike the term "supernatural." In its most literal sense of referring to things that are "above nature," it applies mainly to monotheistic ideas about the world. In the Big Three, God is "above nature" as its inscrutable, unlimited Creator. Thus, anything God does is by definition "supernatural." In religions which do not have this stark distinction between nature and the divine, it is not clear exactly what one means in referring to a belief or even as "supernatural."

Until someone has hashed out what it means to say that something is "supernatural," the term is almost useless, especially when talking about religion in general.

Though it should be pointed out that, from the Christian point of view, one would not expect to find scientific evidence of the supernatural. Science makes use of methodological naturalism, so science cannot study the supernatural. The disagreement is about faith, knowledge, and the ethics of belief, and not about science.


Government and religion have also had overlaps - in the olden times religion acted as a secondary government that collected its own tax. But the difference is that we choose our government and we change the people in the government on a regular basis. I would argue that religion is not been an agent of change as such, because it has just been fragments of bigger religions that rebelled against "big brother". People have been agents of change, not their faith.

A couple of points need to be looked at.

First, religion and government did not merely overlap in the past, but were almost inseparable. Each city had its own patron deity, the worship of which was the civic duty of every member. (Again, this was because of a combination of the necessity of joining together with the ease of using the shared ideologies of religion to make that happen.)

Second, saying "people have been agents of change, and not their faith," makes a distinction that would more or less collapse your entire argument against religion. It is no more true that the rebels were religiously motivated than it is that the oppressors were. To say that the rebels were acting as individuals and not as religionists, is to imply that the oppression was instigated by individuals, and not by their religion. In both cases, it was individuals performing the actions, but religion certainly helped.

Our current situation of "separation of church and state" is something we can thank the Christian tradition for. Christianity started out as a relatively non-political religion--though many of its doctrines made it easy to turn it to that cause. After the collapse of Rome and the spread of Christianity, the feudal system was the means by which the state ruled. The Church had relatively little control, so the ideological dispute over the proper relationship between the two continued for some time. Eventually, the state won. (With spectacularly beneficial results for just about everyone.)

Applying separation of church and state can be difficult depending on the religion; the distinction between government and religion is not always so clear. Hinduism made the transition just fine. Islam may eventually learn to make the transition, though it will only be with serious difficulty. Christianity is no longer a significant political force in most of Europe.

In any case, I think we can more or less agree that the Big Three have some seriously problematic tendencies toward authoritarianism. This is unfortunately true of almost every form of monotheism. I do not believe that eliminating them is even close to feasible, however. Any kind of solution for this problem is going to have to involve understanding of why these religions tend toward authoritarianism, along with collaboration and dialogue, especially with the anti-authoritarian elements within these groups.

Pantheistic and polytheistic religions have much less of a problem with authoritarianism, for the most part. (Though I wouldn't refer to them as "small," necessarily. Buddhism and Hinduism make up a fifth of the world's population between them.)

(First off, great discussion. Thank you!)

"It sounds to me, gwiz665, as if your beef is not really with religion, but with malignant ideological authoritarianism."

Agreed. But (and I will avoid the grand sweep of saying "all") the big monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) are malignant ideological authoritarianisms. I have no problems with the personal religions that keep to themselves and do no real harm (see wicca). I think it is a shame that they include supernatural elements, because they are false, but as long as this isn't used as an excuse to do harm, my problems are limited to an intellectual debate about truth vs. falsity.

"It has only been in areas of ideological tolerance--for both religious and scientific thought--that any major scientific advances have occurred in the last two hundred years."

What? This is just wrong. There have been several scientific advances which goes very much against the bible and religious thought. Evolution is the easy one to point at; Carbon dating, geology and stem cell research. I may misunderstand what you mean by "ideological tolerance", however, so please elaborate.

"Orthopraxy vs. orthodoxy"
The jump from orthodoxy and orthopraxy is a small one. Orthodoxy concerns your thoughts and beliefs while orthopraxy is focused on actions. The law is still laid down by the religion. And to set my sights again, the "big three" have both elements in them.

""Supernatural" elements do not always require faith. "Faith" does not always mean "unquestioning belief.""
Well, how can you believe in a religion with supernatural elements then? Supernatural elements do not exist in our natural reality and thus cannot be disproved or proved. There is no discernible reason why one belief in a supernatural being is right and any other is wrong. There is plenty of corroborating evidence towards there NOT existing any supernatural beings. Every evidence ever properly studied shows no traces of the supernatural.

Government and religion have also had overlaps - in the olden times religion acted as a secondary government that collected its own tax. But the difference is that we choose our government and we change the people in the government on a regular basis. I would argue that religion is not been an agent of change as such, because it has just been fragments of bigger religions that rebelled against "big brother". People have been agents of change, not their faith.

I accept that my condemnation of "all religions" is a bit harsh, because I know little about all the tiny denominations and smaller religions. My main attack goes toward the big three religions, who I think we could do without. The smaller religions have elements that I don't agree with, but as long as their thoughts don't bleed into politics and what the rest of us must do, they can do whatever they want.

yeah, I saw this study when it was published over a year ago. Some interesting stuff that we can do with stem cells -- especially if the religious right stops needlessly interrupting progress. Good things pig cells work just as well.

A new study out of Yale University confirms what argumentative liberals have long-known: Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder. In essence, schooling conservatives makes them more stupid. From the Washington Post article on the study, which came out yesterday:

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration's prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation -- the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration's claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

A similar "backfire effect" also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.

In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might "argue back" against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation. Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same "backfire effect" when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration's stance on stem cell research.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-sweeney/theres-no-arguing-with-co_b_126805.html

yes, it was on purpose, as you instigated his comment (which I was replying to with the other side of the coin).

In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:
You commented this to me instead of Doc_M. I still like you though.

In reply to this comment by bamdrew:
MY understanding is that two things ruffle feathers:

1)no cell lines derived from extra sperm-plus-egg after in vitro fertilization ("no you may not use this for experiments, its precious... now off to the incinerator with it"),

and

2)arbitrary limits on what scientists can do based on a moral feeling, determined independent of the usual methods employed to protect populations or otherwise limit research, and which lead to a somewhat illogical end; telling scientists its not moral to add chemicals to human stem cells moments after they've added them to a dish of any other animal's stem cells can seem odd... they're both a couple of dishes with cells in them... neither is going to ever bark or say hi.

And slippery-sloping it, as some do, to saying things like "if we let them do this they'll have cyborgs modeled with Arnold's stem cells" is bogus, precisely because according to them scientists can do the same thing by reversing adult cells into pluripotency. Anyhow, placing restrictions on a tool like the use of a human cell line for moral reasons is strange to me,... and I'm more curious how far the pendulum will swing when it swings back the other direction.



In reply to this comment by Doc_M:
You can probably guess by now that I am not an abortions supporter for most reasons, so naturally, I don't support production of new embryonic stem cell lines by that method. I think that the advances of adult-derived stem cells are FAR more valuable than any other research of its type. I have friends who study embryonic lines and those who study adult derived lines. I have to confess that that the adult derived lines seem to produce more results and more promising futures than the embryonic lines ironically.

I support a ban on embryonic stem cell line generation simply because there is a significant chance that it is wrong. We don't need them. We have shown that we don't need them. Let's work on something we know to be worth what is spent. I feel similarly about animals; use them only when absolutely needed, and though that is often, use them minimally.
And BTW, Net, 3.2 million is nothing. Talk to me in billions. My lab alone (of thousands) is budgeted a million a year, though lately we haven't been spending that much.