A Simple Fact about the Process of Evolution

From Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, page 120, by Daniel Dennett (Viking Penquin 2006):

Evolution is all about processes that almost never happen. Every birth in every lineage is a potential speciation event, but speciation almost never happens, not once in a million births. Mutation in DNA almost never happens-not once in a trillion copyings-but evolution depends on it. Take the set of infrequent accidents-things that almost never happen-and sort them into the happy accidents, the neutral accidents, and the fatal accidents; amplify the effects of the happy accidents-which happens automatically when you have replication and competition-and you get evolution.

More on the "murder" of embryos

Quoted from A Companion to Genetics, Eds. John Harris and Justine Burley (Blackwell Publishing, 2002), by Richard Dawkins in his article Collateral Damage Part I in the Dec 2006/Jan 2007 Free Inquiry magazine:

We now know that for every successful pregnancy which results in a live birth, many, perhaps as many as five, early embryos will be lost or miscarry (although these are not perhaps "miscarriages" as the term is normally used, because this sort of very early embryo loss is almost always entirely unnoticed). Many of these embryos will be lost because of genetic abnormalities, but some would have been viable. How are we to think of the decision to have a child in the light of these facts? One obvious and inescapable conclusion is that God and/or nature has ordained that "spare" embryos be produced for almost every pregnancy and that most of these will have to die in order that a sibling embryo can come to birth. Thus the sacrifice of embryos seems to be an inescapable and inevitable part of the process of procreation. It may not be intentional sacrifice, and it may not attend every pregnancy, but the loss of many embryos is the inevitable consequence of the vast majority of (and perhaps all) pregnancies. For everyone who knows the facts, it is conscious, knowing, and therefore deliberate sacrifice; and for everyone, regardless of "guilty" knowledge, it is part of the true description of what they do in having or attempting to have children.

For the Children

From Family Research Council's Washington Update, December 8, 2006, by Tony Perkins:

"Study after study demonstrates that no amount of care or financial privilege can compensate for the missing physical and emotional benefits experienced by children who enjoy the lifelong love and presence of a married mother and father.

"Comprehensive studies published in the peer-reviewed journals Archives of General Psychiatry, Interpersonal Violence, Social Service Research, Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Nursing Research, Developmental Psychology, Adolescence, and others too numerous to list here, all cite the devastating effects of domestic violence, increased substance abuse, mental health problems, sexual identity confusion, depression, and suicide associated with the homosexual lifestyle. A child fortunate enough to escape those realities still faces a distinct disadvantage throughout childhood--the irreplaceable influence of the missing biological parent. In rearing children, the complementary contributions of a mother and father are rooted in the innate differences of the two sexes, and can no more be arbitrarily replaced than can the very nature of male and female."


As a neurologist I don't keep up with any of the journals cited, so I'm not aware of any of those studies. But what the FRC and its ilk don't seem to understand or refuse to acknowledge is that the benefits to a child of having "lifelong love" don't necessarily have to come from a married mother and father. Some married parents are abusive and cruel, whereas some homosexual parents can easily provide the love and nurturing that children need. There may be a lot of psychopathology among a subset of homosexuals, but I suspect that much of that is due to their marginalization by society and their fear of persecution, not their homosexuality itself.

Comment by a friend (RO):
"The tremendous conceit among these people is that they present the mother/father/children nuclear family scenario as some sort of universal, ancient and timeless form that has served humanity since we got thrown out of Eden. What needs to be done to counter their argument is to point out constantly that not only is the American/Western/Christian nuclear family a recent phenomenon, its present form bears no resemblance to only a few decades ago. Furthermore, the fact of abuse, mental despair and dysfunction in the very family structure these outfits claim to be the one and only road to stability makes their very claims transparent and false. Sometimes a scholarly article or two appears on this subject, but the argument needs to go mainstream and constant -- if only to counter the immersion tactics these groups use to make their message seem to be the only one."

Slaughter of Innocents?

There are many anti-choice articles on the internet that equate the discarding of the unused embryos resulting from in vitro fertilization procedures as "murder." Although a little stupid, it's at least logical--in a perverse sort of way--given the degree of irrationality of that group of people.

As I noted in my previous post, there are those who equate the discarding of to-be-discarded embryos with killing "little human beings," hence the "murder" designation. As if believing the discarding of unused embryos weren't bizarre enough, along comes a news article that has to take the cake. Now someone is actually bringing murder charges against those who do discard these microscopic cell clusters. They ought instead to be charged with destroying the hopes of millions of humans who suffer from debilitating diseases who could potentially benefit from stem-cell research.

Little Human Beings?

A local physician, who shall remain unnamed for obvious reasons, wrote a letter to the editor of our local newpaper in which he said Michael J. Fox was wrong to call for embryonic stem-cell research. His reason was that these embryos, the ones left over from in vitro fertilizations, were "little human beings"! I fired off a response today, so I don't know if it will be published. Here is the text of my response with the doctor's name expunged:

"It is always distressing to read nonsense coming from anyone, especially from someone presumably educated in medicine. To call embryos "little human beings," as ________ did ("Fox wrong on stem-cell stance") is absurd. Really now, are eggs little chickens? Are human beings so inconsequential that a collection of a few undiffentiated cells [see picture above] gets to be elevated to the exalted status of human? The embryos (actually microscopic cell collections with no human characteristics whatever) in question are left over from in vitro fertilizations and if not used are destroyed. Tossed out, dumped in trash. Now doesn't using these instead to help cure devastating human diseases and unnecessary suffering a more compassionate option?"

In the upper right corner is a picture of three embryos as they appear prior to implantation in the uterus. Do you see anything resembling a human? I know, some see these little cell clusters as "potential humans," (although that potential at this point in their development is pretty shaky), but it is quite a stretch to call them "little human beings." Strange that those who protest against the use of these cells in research are rarely heard protesting at all about destroying them if they aren't used in fertilizations.

Empathy Center?

Neuroscientists have recently discovered an unusual set of neurons in primate brains and mostly likely in the human primate. Called mirror neurons (see Wikipedia for detailed description), these cells respond to an observed behavior in other primates. They create in the observer the sensation that they too are performing the same behavior, thus they mirror the observed behavior. I personally experience this daily and I suspect most of us do. If I see someone fall, for example, I instantly experience a similar sensation as if I had also fallen. Something like a sympathy pain. After hearing of this phenomenon and recognizing it in myself, I began to wonder if this part of the brain was what might be called the empathy center. I figured that if a person can feel what another person is experiencing, a sense of empathy will arise in the observer. And I'm guessing this feeling is due to those mirror neurons.

And this brings to mind another thought and a question: What if the reason some people have no empathy for those less fortunate than they is that they have a mirror neuron deficit?

Makes you wonder -- do conservatives have a mirror neuron deficit?

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
John Kenneth Galbraith

Ahhh! Sweet Victory!

Thinking back over the takeover of Congress by the Democrats last Tuesday is like settling into a nice warm bath. What a relief from the growing fear that this country was being taken over permanently by a group of criminals with no concern for morality, the Constitution, or the democratic principles this country was founded on, all for the sake of keeping power in their hands. It had a lot of right-thinking American patriots ready to escape to Canada. Personally I was thinking Scotland. I like Scotland. Of course I like America better, but I couldn't live with what those bastards were doing to our beloved country. And I feared that I would never again get to vote them out. What a relief that the true American patriots awoke.

Now let's hope the Democrats can start the process of turning away from despotism and back to democracy. There are already signs of it. Orange Coast College students have voted to forbid the forced pledging of allegiance to a flag, any flag. (I'm reminded of one of my favorite poems by e.e. cummings, "I Sing of Olaf," and the line: "I will not kiss your f.ing flag.") That is contrary to what a free people should have to do. South Dakotans have rejected the ban on abortions their legislatures voted in a few months ago. Don't you love it when Americans rebel and refuse to be corraled like sheep by moronic politicians?

Hate Taxes?

As the saying goes, "Nothing is certain but death and taxes." And no one wants to pay taxes. The federal government taxes your income, the state taxes your income, they tax your food, your medications, your gas, your electricity, they tax you for owning property, they even tax your tax refunds. Then after you start drawing your Social Security they even tax that if you make too much money when you retire. What is it with all these taxes?

But have you ever thought about living in a country that didn't raise money through taxes? Let's take a look at some scenarios.

1. A city with no revenue through taxes would not be able to maintain the streets (although they don't do that great a job anyway), but somebody has to do it. Imagine the shape of our roads and bridges if they were totally neglected. Within a few years they would be virtually impassable. The solution would be that you, maybe along with a group of your neighbors, would have to pay a street contractor to fill your potholes every few months so you could get to and from work or school or shopping store. You'd probably need a second job to help pay for the work, especially after a storm or, say, a street light went out, or a tree fell across your street.

2. Who are you going to hire to provide security for your home, your car, and your family to protect them from roving gangs of thieves? Your own private guard service? You'll need to keep one around your house 24/7, and one to escort your kids to school, and one or two at school to protect them there unless the schools were locked behind razor-wire fences. And of course those guards (and you) would have to be heavily armed to help battle the bad guys. Good luck.

3. What if your house catches fire? A private fire-fighting group may be available in your vicinity, if you have the money to pay them. Otherwise you would have to construct your house out of fireproof materials, which could be costly. The fire-fighters would probably have to be paid in advance, say by a subscription service or an insurance policy. Add that to your bills for the security service and the street contractors.

4. How are you going to make sure your water is safe to drink? There are chemists for hire if you can afford one. And will the clean water make it to your house when you turn the tap? And sewer breakage? Who's going to tackle that mess? Your favorite plumber? How much per hour are you able to pay?

5. And then there are those aggravating federal taxes. Hmm. Where do I start? How much does an Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, an FBI, a CIA, and a Coast Guard cost if you have to pay your share directly out of your pocket? Well, you already do of course through those taxes. But who's going to pay them if we eliminate taxes? Or if we cut taxes so deeply that we have to lay off most of them?

6. People we elect to represent us in Congress or in the White House maybe don't deserve as much as they make, but still we do have to pay them something, even if it galls us to do so. It would help if we elected people who would be more careful with the money we send them. We could probably get by with less taxes if we elect those who promise not to throw it away on trivials, like the $223 million bridge in Alaska that connects an island of 50 people to a town of 8,000. And you wonder where your tax money goes.

7. The excellent network of interstate highways in this country are of course also supported by taxes. Can you imagine having to pay tolls everywhere you go?

8. If it weren't for the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Center for Disease Control, FEMA, among other tax supported governmental health and emergency management agencies, we would quickly be ravaged by tainted food, poorly tested and potentially lethal medicines (more than we are now), epidemics, flood and storm disasters, etc. OK, assuming those organizations actually were under competent management anyway.

9. Big controversy but still has to be funded somehow--Medicare and Medicaid. Maybe some would like to see them funded some other way than through taxes, but without some form of public assistance, sick people without resources would end up getting treated anyway, but healthcare institutions would have to charge more to people who do have insurance or go broke and not be able to provide care to anyone.

10. Oh, another biggy: public education and loans to college students. Do I really have to go into what would happen to this country if the government ceased to fund these and we all had to home school or pay for private schools? Come to think of it, that's happening now.

11. Of course, we could still fund all those sometimes necessary government agencies, even though they do waste a lot of money due to poor management. How? Just borrow the money, as we're doing now. Of course that increases the money the country owes to our creditors (the national debt), but unfortunately that doesn't help much in the long run, because we still have to pay our creditors interest on what we borrow. One of the creditors we owe the most money to now is China. Yeah, that's a good idea.

12. Then there is the possibility that private enterprise could supply all these needed services. Yeah, right. Investors in those private enterprises expect to see a profit. CEO's expect their multi-million dollar compensation and retirement packages (even if they don't manage well enough to make the companies profitable). The millions of everyday people who work at the bottom levels of those enterprises (corporations) would end up getting the short end of the stick and probably lose their retirement packages or benefits ("too expensive" or "reduces corporate profits").

So do you still think you're paying too much in taxes? Do you like the idea that extremely wealthy people get tax breaks that are supposed to trickle down to you, but don't? Do you like paying a quarter of your income (or more) to the government, while outrageously profitable corporations have loopholes that allow them to avoid taxes, like setting up operations in countries without income taxes? The really wealthy, although recipients of the biggest tax cuts, have more to protect and therefore more to gain by paying their fair share. You can always use your vote to help change that injustice.

So don't complain about paying taxes. Just vote to be sure your tax money is spent wisely and that everyone pays their fair share. Living in this wonderful country of ours is a privilege, and taxes are the membership fee.