Hard News: Medical Matters
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(groans, smacks forehead, reminds self to *always* check spelling and meaning of a foreign term...but thanks Russell. Now ROFL I can remember, roffle roffle roffle-)
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If you all wanted me to leave you could just ask. But it's really childish to expect that just because you ridicule someone he will throw some toys and run off. Now at the risk of banging a drum, let me reiterate that I did provide us an opportunity to move this conversation forward. I am under the impression that even though most people do not like the fact that at conception we have life and humanity it is grudgingly accepted as fact. At least on some level. So *BAM* can *BAM* we *BAM* move *BAM* on?
As I said before, if we can all accept that at conception a baby is alive and human then the next question becomes the nature of that life and humanity. I notice I am being ridiculed for my belief that my body is mine to decide to do with as I please. If I were asked for a kidney I would be justified in saying yes or no based on the fact that a kidney is my body and mine to keep or donate as I please. As you might guess I would under no circumstances allow a completely unrelated procedure to be done upon my unborn child. You do all realise that this is perfectly non-contradictory to a person who believes that his child is not his wife's body, right?
And since you guys love the word 'conflate' so much I am going to use it right now! Who in their right mind conflates a procedure designed to save lives with a procedure designed to take them?
Anyway, I digress...
So who here believes that at conception a baby is part of the mother's body? If you believe it is a part of the mother's body when do you think it separates? If you believe it separates do you have any scientific evidence for that point or is it simply a philosophical position you hold?
Again I am quite taken aback that none here would join me in condemning the Chinese government. I think I'm being ridiculed because I do not condone the choice people might make to terminate their children's lives. I also condemn other people making that choice for them (it's probably the worst thing I can imagine happening to a woman). How about the "pro-choice" people? Shouldn't pro-choice mean you are even more outraged by a regime that would remove people's right to choose on this most sensitive of topics?
I am interested in how you might collectively respond to simple questions. If all you are going to do is keep hurling abuse and questioning my intellect then perhaps it's a waste of my time. But I'm a guy who lives by faith. Maybe somewhere out there is a respondent who is capable of answering. Perhaps if I just keep believing that for long enough...
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Grant,
I think pretty much anyone here does not condone what China does to enforce abortions on the unwilling...
But maybe they are not taking it up with you because it's a complete side issue to the main topic at hand...
Of course 'pro-choice" means people should be free to choose NOT to do something as well as free to choose to do it.
As an aside, seeing as you bought it up... I think the fact that China IS willing to at least admit over-population is an issue is actually pretty admirable. Although I cant see any possible government actions that might address that issue, that wouldnt be pretty reprehensible.
As it happens, China's population density, while higher than ours, isnt that high by global standards. India and parts of western Europe being much higher.
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OK. I don't necessarily want to stray off topic. It was simply an aside to Mark who lives there. It's something I assume most will agree with your analysis of. So if we agree that China's policy is evil then we can get back to the rest of my post :)
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Again I am quite taken aback that none here would join me in condemning the Chinese government.
Grant, perhaps you missed it when I said:
Pro-choice means you're against forced abortion as well as prohibited abortion. But the entire Chinese government isn't here
You're not being ridiculed, your inconsistency is being pointed out, even though you might not see it as such. Just as you're trying to suggest pro-choice people are being inconsistent by not protesting sufficiently about another country's tangentially related policies. It's no more relevant than questioning pro-life people on their approach to warfare or the death penalty.
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Ok that map was too simplistic, averageing China's whole area...
This more detailed map shows China's most densely populated parts to be equally dense as India+ western Europe, (and half of it almost empty)
http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/population-health/map-192.html
My point is they are at least addressing an issue that is equally serious in parts of the world that appear to not be addressing it.
I just cant see any good way to address it more directly than making (non-threatening) suggestions....
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None of that is about belief, it is about knowing. Knowledge and belief are not the same things. I know that quartz is made of silicon and oxygen, I fail to believe crystals of it have paranormal powers.
Couldn't the last part of that be rewritten to be "I believe that crystals do not have paranormal powers (based on my scientific knowledge and complete lack of any verifiable proof that they do)".
But my question was more about the edges of scientific knowledge. Gravity we can be incredibly confident about.
A volcano erupting tomorrow? Still fairly confident, but not so much. We believe it won't happen based on what scientists know about volcanos, and the data that they have about this volcano.
But some of the things that we believe to be true about volcanoes are probably actually not true. And we don't have a lot of data about what is going on under the ground. That doesn't make the science of volcanoes bad or not useful, but there's areas that cross over, and surely part of the scientific process is saying "we believe this to be true", and you grow more confident of that statement as investigate further, to the point that it gets like gravity where everyone believes it with absolute confidence, so it becomes accepted fact.
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Craig, Deborah answers your question spectacularly though possibly inadvertently through some quoting goodness in her
latest blog.If your taste in science fiction goes beyond Battlestar, there are some interesting books written by Lois McMaster Bujold set in a society where sex-selection (pre-conception) was briefly possible - the resulting glut of men, once they hit their thirties, were not grateful. A Civil Campaign is most directly related. Some of her others explore what happens when machines can gestate babies, including one set on an all-male planet running out of fresh ovarian cell-lines.
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Craig, briefly, what Danielle said, on both counts. I promise a longer answer, but probably not til tomorrow sometime - the rest of my day is about to get even busier than the first part has been today.
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You're not being ridiculed
That's the funniest thing I've read all day. Well done! :D
your inconsistency is being pointed out, even though you might not see it as such. Just as you're trying to suggest pro-choice people are being inconsistent by not protesting sufficiently about another country's tangentially related policies. It's no more relevant than questioning pro-life people on their approach to warfare or the death penalty.
:squint: I'm willing to study potential inconsistencies if you like, but I stated quite clearly that I would expect pro-choice people to condemn China's forced abortion practices long before protesting the points I've made here. If people wish to be inconsistent then I will point it out, but it seems to be more a case of people avoiding the subject like the plague. I can make assumptions from that. But I haven't (yet).
:)
As you suggest people have questioned my stance to test my consistency. I've been asked if I would donate organs and I answered that one in a manner consistent with what I believe. I have an opinion on the death penalty and war as well which I'd be happy to share. Since you seem to consider these matters somewhat irrelevant though I guess we should stick to the main question I've been trying to address. That is, given we all agree that a baby at conception is alive and human, what is the nature of humanity and life at such a young age?
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Rich - I followed the statement with the one fact we can all agree on. We don't know it all - the only absolute fact we really know.
I don't dispute scientific rigour, but would like it to share the space a bit with other ways ok knowing.
My fave was the Taniwha in the Waikato & Transit building around the Taniwha, it's wetland habitat, and the safer curved road that followed.
The different way of knowing was supported by that soft science of ecology & latter supported with the growth in knowledge about road design - straighter ain't always safer.I've been wondering if the Maori concept of all things having 'Mauri' might be reflected in scientific knowledge of molecular vibration?
Is scientific knowledge catching up with maori knowledge? -
Shep, that is a truly interesting question and a truly unanswerable one- at least, from my tribe's perspective (we acknowledge that tohuka, trained in traditional knowledge, have become extinct with us
(Kai Tahu, just in case somebody didnt pick up on the 'tohuka'!))"Mauri" is a really skatey concept to define: *everything* has a mauri
(including humanity.Including individual humans. They are not one & the same.) Mauri *can* be encapsulated in a physical object
(the mauri of certain whales in earth & a stone & words on Mahia Peninsula) but not totally limited within that containment. The mauri of Aoraki-te-mauka lives on within Kai Tahu (and earlier iwi.)All I've learned is that a combination of words (and fire in certain instances, and water or earth(in various forms) in others) and a physical object can *contain* mauri - and the *contained* contained mauri can be disrupted/damaged or destroyed.
But we are looking at a system of thought - and experience & practise- that has been ...I was going to say 'corrupted' but 'adulterated' would fit too...out of effective use for generations.
Who now feeds stars?
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Couldn't the last part of that be rewritten to be "I believe that crystals do not have paranormal powers (based on my scientific knowledge and complete lack of any verifiable proof that they do)".
No, I fail to believe it because there is no good evidence in favour of the hypothesis. The only belief I happen to hold is that the scientific method is the best way of knowing things. We use 'belief' far too freely IMO. We use when know would be a much better, more accurate term.
A volcano erupting tomorrow? Still fairly confident, but not so much. We believe it won't happen based on what scientists know about volcanos, and the data that they have about this volcano.
Yes, but the point is that science can put confidence intervals on its knowledge based on measuring something. There is nothing to measure when it comes to crystals and morphic fields. There is plenty to measure when it comes to volcanoes and that includes comparing what we measure know with what we meausured the last few times it errupted.
Knowledge that comes with error bars and probability measurements is called science. Knowledge that doesn't have these is what we call beliefs, we have beliefs about things we have an absence of or an incomplete knowledge of and are guesses about what might be there.
Sceptics about science are invited to leave via the window of this fifth floor room.
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O, I answered Shep in good faith to the question: I am sure we both realise the matter is tangential!
And, to make an outright but again, wordy! answer,
in case my wordy response was not understood,
Maori knowledge was a product of time & stage. The olds were *really* good observers (some of the biological observations are just starting to get their due)but 'mauri' - like 'hu', 'ha', 'ihi', 'wairua', 'kehua'
(all components of a human being) are components of a *religious* system that is now effectively dead. (All examples I have across over the past 45 years have been so infected by xtian belief as to be - null.)No, scientific knowledge -in general - is not catching up with Maori knowledge *but* there are some areas (paticularly to do with biological understanding and psychology) where today's science could learn a bit-
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Islander - to that extent, we can all learn from each other.
Science in its essence has existed in all cultures for millennia.
I once saw a book called the Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori. I didn't get a chance to read it, however, it got me to thinking: of course, they must have studied the stars in a scientific manner. It would have certainly helped with their nagivation.
There are other examples of scientific knowledge residing in ancient cultures, such as the Bible saying that "the life is in the blood" which scientists only recently concurred with.
Sometimes we can be deluded that Modern Science thus science is about 500 years old. However, science goes right back to our most basic observations, understandings, and inferences about the way the world is.
I like how Heinlein's Man from Mars in Stranger in a Strange Land says that on Mars, there is one word that means science, philosophy and religion; thus he is puzzled why we see a distinction where the Martians do not.
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Grant, I'm not a condemner, sorry.
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Peter - "The only belief I happen to hold is that the scientific method is the best way of knowing things."
This is just one way of knowing something but not always the best way.
Beer, whiskey, & wine are not known for their scientific value, nor is a rose, a sun set, or the laughter of children.
These are some of the things I know the best and place noscietific value on them.Islander - I know northing of 'hu', 'ha', 'ihi', & 'kehua'. Could you explain a little if it's not too much to ask?
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Simon - "Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori" o that's a compilation by Elsdon Best, and a goodie too...yes, Polynesians knew the stars and sky-maps because - they could die if they didnt.
I very much agree: to me, science is our best tool, but our second-gained tool(I think we could argue whether utilising rocks or control of fire was the first biggie.)
For me, it is now the best tool we have- and, there is a great deal we can learn from past observations but - as stated above -some old knowledge comes loaded with some old religion (and/or cosmology.) -
Oh. Mark. You're not a condemner? Do you at least have an opinion?
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Happy to do so Shep:
in Maori terms a human (this also applies to a lot of non-human animals but let's keep it simple:)
is composed of
*tinana (physical body)
*hinekaro (mental aspect of physical body- also has a lot of other ramifications but let's not go there now)
* ha- breath- when there is no breath, there is no life
*hu-huge number of meanings but ultimately, to be articulate as an individual
*ihi -essential force, power
*kehua - nearly equivalent to ghost or walkabroad
*wairua- sort of like "spirit of a human" but not a soul
-trust this helps -
i'll just check,
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i think there are 100s of countries around the world that punish lawbreakers in an inhumane manner.
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and in typing that i feel disappointed that i can only type 100s of countries and not 1000s of countries, which i figure would be way more interesting.
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not that if there were 1000s of countries I'd wish them to punish lawmakers in an inhumane manner.
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or lawbreakers
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