What do physicists say after they’re turned in zombies?
“Branes….”
A Joke For You
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Author Archives: Jerry
Utilitarianism 101 for Animal Liberation
The famous utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer became an early darling of the animal rights movement for his book, Animal Liberation. Imagine, then the betrayal that some felt when Singer came out in favor of not just any animal research, but primate research.
This should not be too surprising if one has studied a bit of utilitarianism, which measures actions by their ends, not their means–it is a consequentialist philosophy, after all. Therefore, while animals do sometimes trump human babies in Singer’s calculus most of the time (which is one reason why many folks detest him), it need not be always the case. In fact, as I recall, Singer did concede in Practical Ethics that in some cases humans could justifiably eat animals if there were not other viable food source (e.g., the Gobi desert or the Arctic circle, I would suppose, where edible plants are in short supply). I guess the animal lib types were too busy hyperventilating about Singer’s otherwise strong support to notice that little fly in the ointment.
Take home message: it’s really hard to pin anyone down if he’s a utilitarian, because if society wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and decides that a particular minority has too much property or is otherwise cramping the style of the majority…well, I mentioned something about the ends justifying the means, yes?
Atrocities have been and will be committed by people of all philosophical and ideological stripes, but perhaps we can at least steer clear of philosophies (like Singer’s) that threaten to hopeless muddle any and all moral lines and let us lie to ourselves about what’s really going on? In this regard, I stand with the animal lib types, though I’m not against animal research per se.
Latin Goodness
A BoingBoing contributor interprets a Latin sign on a church wall as being a threat, but the "memento mori" message is a Medieval reminder to us that we are mortals. Rather, I think the message is really a reminder to those goofing off outside that the fun won't last forever (and therefore they should consider going into the Church to help ensure a pleasant eternal hereafter!).
Helping Our Persecuted Brethren
I really don't have anything new to say about the Muslim anger over what Benedict said; I will merely reiterate that he cited one dialogue between an Emporer and a Muslim that touched on the nature of God and reason, and that he did not try to make that Muslim a representation of all of Islam. For the best (from what I've seen) source on what the Pope really meant, go here. (HT: Amy Welborn)
Now as fun as it is to pontificate on faith and reason, and the clash of civilizations or lack thereof, Christians in the Middle East and North Africa have been sorely pressed for a long time, and if it wasn't this statement of Benedict that sparked the current round of church-burnings and shootings, it would have been something else in the near future.
I urge you to support groups like CNEWA or Aid to the Church in Need; I know from personal experience that you can set up monthly automatic donations with CNEWA (either a general donation or a specific sponsorship of a child, seminarian or novice religious).
Importantly, CNEWA also helps education Americans about the Eastern Churches–it may be surprising to many Republicans that some Palestinians are Christian, and they are getting the greasy end of the stick from Muslim and Israeli alike.
CNEWA's ecumenical outreaches may mean that they'll be helping the Orthodox Palestinians rebuild their churches that were damaged in this most recent outbreak of violence.
A Spectral Smack-Down
Arlen Specter reamed out Advanced Cell Technologies scientist Rober Lanza for their hype about having found a way to non-lethally harvest embryonic stem cells. As you may have heard, this development was only theoretical, as all of the embryos were destroyed so all their cells could be harvested and the chances of getting viable embryonic stem cells would be optimized. And since the success rate was two percent, "optimized" is very relative. We therefore cannot say that we have a non-lethal (let alone non-harmful) method of harvesting human embryonic stem cells (hESCs).
At first, ACT was only guilty of hype, which it has done before, but now folks on the web are calling out Lanza for having left out some critical details: when the AJOB blog, which is very pro-embryonic research, has an entry called "Paging Dr. Hwang?", you know something juicy came out.
What folks now say is that ACT soaked the harvested cells (blastomeres, to be precise) in the same dish as the original embryo, providing some cellular signals that would help the harvested cells live and be viable embryonic stem cells. This doesn't nullify the ultimate premise of their research, but it's black eye for Nature and a further disgrace to ACT. Perhaps ACT wanted this technique for themselves, and while they wanted the hype of a Nature article, they didn't want competitors replicating those results.
(HT: Wesley Smith, who has posted half a dozen entries on this topic. You'd be well-served to read his and AJOB Blog's many fine points about this issue, particularly AJOB's entry on the "Kevorkianization of Stem Cell Research"–I'll even forgiven them for conflating all stem cell research with embryonic stem cell research…this time. 😉 )