Abortion

[pood]

Why did you bring up NASA if was just some other unidentified ideologues?
Tom

Three chemists are now unidentified ideologues? Oh, my! They were never unidentified — all you need to do was click the link.

How droll. But who was it who said the following?

science only matters when it supports your world view.

So I guess scientists who don’t support your world view are suddenly “unidentifed ideologues.” Got it!

 

[TomC]

I did NOT attribute the paper to NASA.

How did NASA get brought into this discussion?

You sound more and more like the YEC. They'll make vague references to scientific authorities. But when those authorities don't support their world view they can't remember why they even mentioned them in the first place. They may not even remember having done so.

Like Ken Ham often says, "Many scientists say..."
Tom

 

[TomC]

Three chemists are now unidentified ideologues?

No.
Just the ones who don't understand water.
Tom

 

[pood]

I did NOT attribute the paper to NASA.

How did NASA get brought into this discussion?

You sound more and more like the YEC. They'll make vague references to scientific authorities. But when those authorities don't support their world view they can't remember why they even mentioned them in the first place. They may not even remember having done so.

Like Ken Ham often says, "Many scientists say..."
Tom

I know you are desperately floundering to save face. Let me walk you through it slowly.

You have been repeatedly claiming that there is a scientific consensus about the definiton of life that supports your claim that women ought to be forced to bear children that they do not want.

I linked a paper by three chemists, whose bylines are given in a link you obviously did not click. The paper‘s topic is broad: Is there a common chemical model for life in the universe? That is the title of the paper, with the names of the three “unidentified ideologues” given right under the title, which you would have known had you bothered to click the link and read the paper rather than blather in an uninformed way about it.

Sensibly, the paper begins by asking, How do we define life? As a starting point for discussion, the paper refers to a 1994 panel convoked by NASA (but not NASA itself) that arrives at the following definition: “life is a chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.” The paper then CRITIQUES this defintion, noting crucially: “no non-trivial term can be defined to philosophical completness.”

The point, for the ten thousandth time, being that there is no scientific consensus on the defintion of life, and any attempt to enlist science in support of your claim that women ought to be forced to bear children that they do not want because science says zygotes and embryos and fetusus are not just examples of life but are human children is PLAIN WRONG. Science does not support your view. I suggest you go back to thinking Jesus ensouled the little zygotes.

Your slur about YECs is just another example of your desperate floundering. Neither I nor you are YEC, but it seems to me you are fully Catholic in practice when discussing this subject, but you are trying to hijack science to support your view. Science will not cooperate.

 

[pood]

Tom

Three chemists are now unidentified ideologues?

No.
Just the ones who don't understand water.
Tom

Why don’t you actually read what they wrote? Because what you’re really doing is making yourself a victim of your own formulation: “Science only matters when it supports your world view,” right? So now these scientists not only don’t matter but are falsely slurred as unidentified ideologues. Yeah, everyone knows what a bunch of ideologues chemists are!

 

[TomC]

Why don’t you actually read what they wrote?

Same reason I don't follow Ken Ham's suggestions.

If the suggestee is anti-science due to their ideology, I'm unlikely to bother spending time on their links.

Tom

 

[Toni]

The article then goes on to discuss how it is even impossible to define “water”

Your authority can not explain what "water" means.
But somehow, they're a moral authority. They can explain life.

At least to your satisfaction.

The definition of water is not dependent upon any moral authority.

You are really reaching here.

 

[pood]

Why don’t you actually read what they wrote?

Same reason I don't follow Ken Ham's suggestions.

If the suggestee is anti-science due to their ideology, I'm unlikely to bother spending time on their links.

Tom

Let’s see what you’ve done in this thread:

Poisoning the well and ad hom combined -- three chemists in a peer reviewed paper (which has nothing specifically to do with abortion in any case) are unidentifed ideolgues and anti-science because they use their expertise to argue that there is no definition of life that can be given to philosophical completemess, which undermines your argumemt that science supports your position on abortion. Well-poisoning: casting asperions on people who wrote a paper you refuse to read. Ad hom: saying their arguments are wrong because they are “unidentified ideologues” (they are neither ideologues nor unidentified) and “anti-science. Check and check: well-poisoning and ad hom.

Hurling personal insults You called me an ignoramus and a liar and you have slurred people who disagree with your position as moral monsters, likening us to Vladimir Putin and genocidal slave traders, among other worthies. Check again: personal insults aplenty.

Nice work!

 

[pood]

The article then goes on to discuss how it is even impossible to define “water”

Your authority can not explain what "water" means.
But somehow, they're a moral authority. They can explain life.

At least to your satisfaction.

The definition of water is not dependent upon any moral authority.

You are really reaching here.

It‘s truly astounding. “They‘re a moral authority .. they can explain life … “

NO! YOU are the one claiming to explain life! THEY are questioning ALL proffered definitions of life, and they are not claiming to be a moral authority about anything — YOU are the one claiming to be a moral authority!

When you write this shit, I suggest that you look in the mirror.

 

[Toni]

Why don’t you actually read what they wrote?

Same reason I don't follow Ken Ham's suggestions.

If the suggestee is anti-science due to their ideology, I'm unlikely to bother spending time on their links.

Tom

Really? First of all, I am not in the least convinced you understand what science is. Secondly, despite your sprinkling of I’ll understood ( by you) and totally irrelevant to this discussion, scientific terms or rather, ‘scientific terms’ you honestly do not understand what science is, what biology is, developmental biology, the biology of pregnancy, physiology, human rights or anything other than the limits of your personal experience: you once had a girlfriend who may/may not have been pregnant but if she was, she had a very early miscarriage ( but no positive pregnancy test) and got mother had an ectopic pregnancy. You feel aggrieved about the loss of the possible pregnancy and grateful that your mother’s life was saved. Oh, and whatever you learned in Catholic school.

None of that has a damn thing to do with science, although I do tremendously sympathize with you over the possible loss of a possible child and your relief that your mother did not die a premature and needlessly painful needless death over a pregnancy that could not possibly result in a live birth. I’m sincere: I do understand how it is to know that your mother’s life hangs in the balance and what it is to loose an early pregnancy. I understand how painful and how frightening that is.

I also understand how much religious upbringing sinks in and comes up in one’s life, even if one is certain that one has rejected some/all of those teachings. Been there, as well.


But it’s not science and it has nothing at all to do with a woman’s right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy, whatever circumstance has led her to the point of needing to make that decision.

 

[TomC]

I know you are desperately floundering to save face. Let me walk you through it slowly.

Let's start by you explaining how NASA got brought up in this thread.

Then I'll talk about the other poster who thinks a woman gets pregnant when someone walks up to them and tethers themselves to her.

That's the level of rational thought I'm seeing in this thread.
Tom

 

[pood]

I know you are desperately floundering to save face. Let me walk you through it slowly.

Let's start by you explaining how NASA got brought up in this thread.

Huh? I just explained all that, in detail!

Earlier you said, “discussion over.” I suggest you adhere to that. At this point you are just making a fool of yourself.

 

[Rhea]

That would certainly go to the Supreme Court.

It did, it has. Roe v Wade decided she should not be forced to donate her organs against her will to a fetus.

s/donate/loan/

You guys just don’t seem to get his. At all.

Due to my (relatively healthy) pregnancies, MY IMMUNE SYSTEM IS GONE FOREVER. (Not to mention the scars that change the function and reliability of my abdomen)

It wasn’t a fucking “loan,” it is damaged for good. For the rest of my life I deal with allergies and asthma that were created during pregnancy. Expensive meds - for the rest of my life. Hacking cough every year, twice a year. The fear during covid of the asthma I have that was caused by my relatively healthy! pregnancy.


I get so disgusted by your privileged declarations that pregnancy is no big deal.
This is why I don’t think you men should even be allowed to vote on it. You have NO IDEA what you are even talking about, and you have this assholish arrogance that you think you do.

The callous disregard for the health and well being of women that the pro-forced birthers show is just disgusting.

 

[bilby]

The article then goes on to discuss how it is even impossible to define “water”

Your authority can not explain what "water" means.
But somehow, they're a moral authority. They can explain life.

At least to your satisfaction.

You should invest in a mirror.

I'm not the one claiming that NASA is relevant here in this thread.
Tom

You cannot explain what “water” means*. But somehow, you are a moral authority. You can explain life.

At least to your satisfaction.






*To the standard being discussed by the people who raised the difficulty of defining the word. I am fairly sure that you imagine that you can, and that it’s easy. But I am also absolutely sure that if you do so imagine, you are mistaken.

 

[bilby]

Pood said that NASA doesn't know the meaning of water.

Is this childish caricature of Pood’s clearly stated and far more complex and nuanced position really all you have been able to glean from their posts; Or are you fighting a strawman because you recognise your inability to address the arguments actually being made?

I don’t think you are genuinely as stupid as you are pretending to be. But the longer this discussion goes on, the more infantile your summaries of other posters positions seems to get.

Pood pointed out that NASA showed that a scientific definition of life that was philosophically complete is impossible.

They further say that this is a fundamental attribute of scientific definitions, and used water as an example of something apparently well defined that also fails to meet that objective.

That this was done by NASA is irrelevant; It’s attributed to them as a courtesy, because taking credit for other people’s work is rude. The attribution isn’t intended to give authority to the argument; The argument carries its own authority by dint of being right.

The fact at issue here is that your claim to be supported ‘by science’ is nonsensical, and constitutes an appeal to authority fallacy.

Your retort that “Pood said that NASA doesn't know the meaning of water”, sounds like something I would expect to hear from a primary school student who is enraged at having lost an argument, and is attempting to declare that everyone else is stupid too.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

And I note the continued lack of a definition of exactly what attributes make something worthy of protection.

Something relative to its being Alyson Hannigan?

 

[Bomb#20]

Three chemists are now unidentified ideologues?

No.
Just the ones who don't understand water.
Tom

Can you define water? Does D₂O* count as water? How about HDO? What else can be in a solution that's mostly H₂O and still have the solution qualify as water? 3% NaCl? 5% C₂H₅OH? What's the criterion for something to be "water"?

(* I.e., "heavy water".)

 

[Worldtraveller]

Well, Tom's certainly changed my mind.

I am revising my position in support of abortion only up to the pint of....how old are you, Tom?

 

[Bomb#20]

Life Cycle of a Primate is elementary science.

I will assume that you are referring to human life: Most biologist say that life begins at fertilization, when a sperm penetrates and egg allowing it to form a zygote which will continue to grow and divide and differentiate--assuming that it implants properly and...

Twenty lashes with a wet noodle for you both, and a remedial reread of The Foundation Trilogy. Let's all say it together: "A circle has no end."

Science is not what it says in an elementary science textbook, nor is it what most biologists say, because textbooks and majorities are authorities, and science is not a matter of authority -- it's a matter of falsifiable theories tested against observation. The claim "Life begins at fertilization" has no observable implications different from what "Life begins at ovulation" or "Life begins at quickening" or "Life begins at puberty" imply. Therefore it is not a scientific claim. The thing to remember about a life cycle is that it's a cycle. The stages of a cycle go around and around in a circle. A circle has no end and no beginning. Claiming any particular point in a cycle is "the beginning" is an exercise in labeling, not an exercise in making a testable prediction.

 

[TomC]

Well, Tom's certainly changed my mind.

I am revising my position in support of abortion only up to the pint of....how old are you, Tom?

I'm 63.

So, you're revising your opinion in support of Salvador Ramos. I'm pretty sure that none of the people he aborted were older than I am.
Tom