When Your Doctor Wants You Dead

This is no joke.

The U.K.’s present not-as-great-as-advertised administration is working a physician-assisted suicide bill through Parliament.

It is true that many religious groups vehemently
oppose the Joffe Bill, but they are not the only ones. They unite with
medical representatives and disabled groups, who fear that doctors’
judgements about ‘quality of life’ may imply that their own lives are
not worth living.

This is no abstract fear voiced by philosophers such as Baroness Warnock, as Jane Campbell, writing recently in The Times
(London), discovered. Campbell, who suffers from spinal muscular
atrophy, a muscle-wasting illness that means she cannot lift her head
from her pillow unaided, was hospitalised for a case of pneumonia. The
consultant treating her said that he assumed she would not want to be
resuscitated should she go into respiratory failure. When she protested
that she would like to be resuscitated, she was visited by a more
senior consultant who said that he assumed she would not want to be put
on a ventilator. According to the Disability Rights Commission, this
was not was not an isolated incident. As Campbell says, these incidents
‘reflect society’s view that people such as myself live flawed and
unsustainable lives and that death is preferable to living with a
severe impairment’ [SOURCE.].

The kind of experience Mrs. Campbell had is not rare. There is a profound ambivalence on the part of many in the medical community about keeping patients alive.

I know.

I’ve seen it.

When my wife was dying at age 27, the doctors and nurses and hospital administrators all put pressure on us to try to get her to agree not to insist on all the life-sustaining measures that were available. When she adamantly did insist on them (her specific words were "I. Want. To. Live."), they were dismayed and did a lot of grumbling and head shaking and eye rolling out of her presence (but not out of mine).

The medical community is in such danger of forgetting the Hippocratic Oath (which they no longer take)’s requirement to do no harm to the patient that we do not need the doorway of death opened any wider than it already is.

Too many doctors are already trying to shove patients through it out of false compassion–NOT because it will help the patient but because the doctors and nurses and administrators are wanting to keep costs down and because THEY are simply tired of having to take care of the patient and watch her suffer.

This obviously doesn’t apply to every doctor or nurse or administrator. Many still have their hearts in the right place. But many do not.

Too many.

Regarding Britain’s upcoming bill, THOUGHTFUL ATHEIST WRITES THOUGHTFUL ARTICLE AGAINST ASSISTED SUICIDE.

Crichton on "Scientific Consensus"

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus

is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science

is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees

that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

MORE TOMORROW.

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH.

Crichton on “Scientific Consensus”

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus
is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science
is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees
that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

MORE TOMORROW.

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH.

Maybe Journalism IS Good For Something . . . Sometimes

Ever tried finding out the customer service number for Amazon.Com?

So have I.

So have many——–many, many millions of people.

None have succeeded.

Until now.

CRUSADING JOURNALIST UNCOVERS AMAZON’S CUSTOMER SERVICE NUMBER!

And just in time for Christmas!

The guy outta win a Pulitzer Prize.

BTW, the number is 800-201-7575.

You hear me? 800-201-7575.

Call it early. Call it often.

Maybe Journalism IS Good For Something . . . Sometimes

Ever tried finding out the customer service number for Amazon.Com?

So have I.

So have many——–many, many millions of people.

None have succeeded.

Until now.

CRUSADING JOURNALIST UNCOVERS AMAZON’S CUSTOMER SERVICE NUMBER!

And just in time for Christmas!

The guy outta win a Pulitzer Prize.

BTW, the number is 800-201-7575.

You hear me? 800-201-7575.

Call it early. Call it often.

Crichton on Predicting the Future

Continuing excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we’re
asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?
And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody
lost their minds?

Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they
worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably:
Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all
the horse[manure]? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it
would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for
sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy
source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and
Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900.
Remember, people in 1900 didn’t know what an atom was. They didn’t know
its structure. They also didn’t know what a radio was, or an airport,
or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet,
an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, . . . . [COPIOUS EXAMPLES
SNIPPED] . . . None of this would have meant anything to a person in
the year 1900. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about.

Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s
even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the
future. They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment’s
thought knows it.

MORE TOMORROW.

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH.

Scary Science Stories #2

Yesterday I told you Scary Science Story #1, which ended more or less harmlessly because Virus W turned out to be more or less harmless to humans.

After that story, you could breathe a sigh of relief.

Now listen to this one:

  1. Chimpanzees are out running around in the wild doing chimpanzee things.
  2. Somehow these chimps develop a virus that we will refer to as Virus X.
  3. Virus X spreads widely in their population.
  4. Humans come and capture some of these chimpanzees.
  5. They are then turned over to scientists.
  6. The scientists vivisect the chimpanzees to obtain their kidneys.
  7. The kidneys are used to culture a vaccine to cure a disease that harms humans: polio.
  8. Somewhere in this sequence of events (possibly as far back as step 3 or as far forward as step 10), Virus X mutates into Virus Y.
  9. Unbeknownst to the scientists who cultured the vaccine in chimpanzee kidneys, the process they are using does not kill Virus X or Virus Y, neither of which which
    has yet been identified by human science.
  10. Virus Y piggybacks on the polio vaccine.
  11. The infected vaccine is sprayed into the mouths of thousands of human beings in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).
  12. Millions of people in the Congo become infected with Virus Y.
  13. Surrounding nations become a region of pandemic Virus Y infections, with the Congo–and specifically the villages where the oral polio vaccine was distrubted–as its epicenter.
  14. Virus Y is passed from people in this region to people all over the globe to the point that 80 million people have been infected worldwide.
  15. Virus Y does not immediately kill humans, which is why it is able to spread so far.
  16. But after about ten years, Virus Y creates Syndrome Z, which is 100% fatal.

The real name of Virus X is Simian immunodeficiency virus or SIV (technically, it’s one strain of SIV).

The real name of Virus Y is Human immunodeficiency virus-1 or HIV-1.

The real name of Syndrome Z is Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or AIDS.

The theory that Oral Polio Vaccine was the means by which HIV entered the human population is called the OPV AIDS Hypothesis.

The above story may be true, though it is highly controversial.

This is probably because HIV-1 does kill humans.

Since it does kill humans, the polio vaccine makers are
circling the wagons and impeding investigations of the matter–and
possibly lying about their vaccine cultivation methods in order to
cover themselves. All those are very human reactions.

Some have even been openly dismissive of why the matter should be investigated.

I’ll tell you why the matter needs to be investigated: Because if it’s true then it’s the biggest bloody medical disaster of all time and we need to know about it!

Even if it’s not true, we still have to be on guard against such things, for the case of SV40 (Scary Science Story #1) shows that things like this can happen.

READ WIKIPEDIA’S ENTRY ON THE SUBJECT.

READ AN EARLY ARTICLE THAT POPULARIZED THE OPV AIDS HYPOTHESIS.

READ A WEBSITE THAT CONTAINS THE LATEST ARGUMENTS AND COUNTER-ARGUMENTS.

My Governator Offers Some Bad Advice

So Ah-nold was over in Berlin (which, some may be surprised to learn, is not the capital of his home country) and in a magazine interview he apparently dished out a little advice for the Republican party:

Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has taken an
unorthodox approach since winning office last year — standing by a
promise to toe a conservative line of fiscal matters while veering left
on social issues such as gay rights and the environment.

In an interview with Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily,
Schwarzenegger said that "the Republican Party currently covers only
the spectrum from the right wing to the middle, and the Democratic
Party covers the spectrum from the left to the middle."

"I
would like the Republican Party to cross this line, move a little
further left and place more weight on the center," he was quoted as
saying. "This would immediately give the party 5% more votes without it
losing anything elsewhere" [SOURCE.]

No.

What Ah-nold is recommending is a return to the 1970s, when we had liberal Republicans in office like Gerald Ford and Nelson Rockefeller as party leaders. You know what that got us: Jimmy Carter! (Well, actually, anti-Nixon sentiment also had to do with giving us History’s Greatest Monster.)

What Ah-nold is recommending is "Let’s do the timewarp again." He may think that electoral success for Republicans is just a jump to the left, but if anything it is to be found a step to the right (Reagan country).

Now, we all know that after the political conventions, candidates of both parties try to soften their image and appeal to the mushy middle voters who haven’t yet made up their minds. During this time they say a lot of phony baloney stuff meant to appeal to people unable to figure out which side of the fence to fall off. That’s fine. The party faithful know that the candidates have to say this stuff, but they don’t really mean it. They may have to throw the mushy middle a few bones (which it could use, being mushy and all), but they still plan to govern in a way consistent with the party faithful’s core values.

For the party faithful of the Democrats, that means an anti-life governing policy.

For the party faithful of the Republicans (or at least an indispensible element in the Republican coalition), that means a pro-life governing policy.

It’s their intent to honor these values that is the reason the party faithful are voting for them in the first place. If they betray those values, the party faithful will stay home and the candidate will lose.

That’s what almost happened to Bush in 2000 when a previously unnoticed drunk driving record emerged in a classic, last minute dirty trick. Four million Evangelicals stayed home and Bush got into a squeaker that it took the Supremes to decide.

This illustrates the problem with what my governator is recommending: If the Republican party does more than make token gestures toward those who are liberal on social issues like gay marriage and abortion (e.g., letting Ah-nold and Rudy speak at the convention), if it allows its governing center to shift on these issues then pro-lifers will immediately desert the party.

It would be worth it to have four (or even eight) years of a pro-abort president to teach the Republicans that these issues are NON-NEGOTIABLE, because their understanding that is the only way these battles can ultimately be won. They may throw occasional bones to blue-leaning people, but they have to deliver red-meat to the redstaters.

Were the Republican party to permanently shift its governing center leftward it would permanently cease to be the majority party.

Sorry, Ah-nold. That kind of governating may work in blue states like California and New York, but not elsewhere.

Sigh. Why Do Biblical Archaeologists Make Such Inflated Claims?

HERE’S A STORY IN WHICH AN ARCHAEOLOGIST CLAIMS TO HAVE DISCOVERED "THE CAVE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST."

He hasn’t.

At least, there appears to be inadequate evidence to propose that he has.

The cave, which is located on the grounds

of Kibbutz Tsuba just outside Jerusalem, is "about an hour’s donkey

ride from Ein Kerem, the village where Christian tradition says John

was born," Gibson says.

It is also on the edge of the Judean desert, where John was known to hold spiritual retreats.

He decided to start excavating after

discovering a crudely-drawn picture of John the Baptist carved into the

limestone walls "dressed in camel hair robes" as described in the

Gospel of Matthew.

Several crosses and a rough drawing of a

severed head were also carved into the walls, illustrating John’s death

by beheading at the hands of Herod Antipas, ruler of the northern

Galilee region at the time.

Underneath the picture of John is a small niche "designed for a relic", Gibson explains.

"These drawings are the work of Byzantine

monks who used to gather in the cave to tell the history of John the

Baptist," he said, pointing out an area around the eyes where vandals,

or iconoclasts, had tried to destroy the pictures.

Excavations, which took place between

2000 and 2003 in conjunction with a team from the University of North

Carolina, revealed a space some 24 metres (yards) long, 4.5 metres wide

and four metres high, with 18 huge steps leading down to a large

rectangular pool.

"Its use for baptism rituals dates back to the Iron Age, the era of the kings of Judea," he said.

Okay.

So it’s a cave near Ein Karem. Lots of caves in the area. Doesn’t prove John the Baptist went to this one.

It’s got carvings from Byzantine monks who met there centuries after John’s time to talk about and presumably pray to John the Baptist. Again, doesn’t prove he was there.

Oh, and it’s got a mikvah in it. Big whoop. There are ancient mikvahs all over the place in Israel. Ritual immersions were a major ceremonial practice in ancient Judaism, and the fact you’ve turned up a mikvah–even a mikvah near Ein Karem–in no way proves the presence of John the Baptist. What were all the people in the area who weren’t John the Baptist supposed to do for their ritual immersions?

Further, though the way the story is worded is ambiguous, Gibson may be saying that this mikvah dates back to the Iron Age, in which case it predates John by centuries.

All of this hardly justifies the claims Gibson is apparently making for the place:

"The first concrete evidence of the existence of John the Baptist has been found on site," 46-year-old Shimon Gibson told AFP.

Gibson, who holds a degree from

University College London and has written several works on Biblical

archaeology, believes the discovery to be "the first archaeological

proof of the historical veracity of the Gospels".

This is nothing more than the archaeological snake oil that is regularly peddled to tourists in Israel, where a spot that has no verifiable connection with a biblical figure or figures will be pronounced to have such a connection for purposes of making it a tourist destination so the locals can make money off it. (E.g., "the field of the shepherds," which is just a field near Bethlehem that nobody can remotely prove is where the angel appeared to shepherds to tell them about Jesus’ birth).

Now, I don’t want to diss biblical archaeology at all. There are some sites where we know for a fact

that this is exactly where someone was or something happened. (These

are the sites that impress me most.) I just get frustrated with the

overinflated claims made for many of these places for purposes of

tourism.

John the Baptist’s cave, which has been restored by Kibbutz Tsuba, will be opened to the public early next year.

Big surprise.

Sigh. Why Do Biblical Archaeologists Make Such Inflated Claims?

HERE’S A STORY IN WHICH AN ARCHAEOLOGIST CLAIMS TO HAVE DISCOVERED "THE CAVE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST."

He hasn’t.

At least, there appears to be inadequate evidence to propose that he has.

The cave, which is located on the grounds
of Kibbutz Tsuba just outside Jerusalem, is "about an hour’s donkey
ride from Ein Kerem, the village where Christian tradition says John
was born," Gibson says.

It is also on the edge of the Judean desert, where John was known to hold spiritual retreats.

He decided to start excavating after
discovering a crudely-drawn picture of John the Baptist carved into the
limestone walls "dressed in camel hair robes" as described in the
Gospel of Matthew.

Several crosses and a rough drawing of a
severed head were also carved into the walls, illustrating John’s death
by beheading at the hands of Herod Antipas, ruler of the northern
Galilee region at the time.

Underneath the picture of John is a small niche "designed for a relic", Gibson explains.

"These drawings are the work of Byzantine
monks who used to gather in the cave to tell the history of John the
Baptist," he said, pointing out an area around the eyes where vandals,
or iconoclasts, had tried to destroy the pictures.

Excavations, which took place between
2000 and 2003 in conjunction with a team from the University of North
Carolina, revealed a space some 24 metres (yards) long, 4.5 metres wide
and four metres high, with 18 huge steps leading down to a large
rectangular pool.

"Its use for baptism rituals dates back to the Iron Age, the era of the kings of Judea," he said.

Okay.

So it’s a cave near Ein Karem. Lots of caves in the area. Doesn’t prove John the Baptist went to this one.

It’s got carvings from Byzantine monks who met there centuries after John’s time to talk about and presumably pray to John the Baptist. Again, doesn’t prove he was there.

Oh, and it’s got a mikvah in it. Big whoop. There are ancient mikvahs all over the place in Israel. Ritual immersions were a major ceremonial practice in ancient Judaism, and the fact you’ve turned up a mikvah–even a mikvah near Ein Karem–in no way proves the presence of John the Baptist. What were all the people in the area who weren’t John the Baptist supposed to do for their ritual immersions?

Further, though the way the story is worded is ambiguous, Gibson may be saying that this mikvah dates back to the Iron Age, in which case it predates John by centuries.

All of this hardly justifies the claims Gibson is apparently making for the place:

"The first concrete evidence of the existence of John the Baptist has been found on site," 46-year-old Shimon Gibson told AFP.

Gibson, who holds a degree from
University College London and has written several works on Biblical
archaeology, believes the discovery to be "the first archaeological
proof of the historical veracity of the Gospels".

This is nothing more than the archaeological snake oil that is regularly peddled to tourists in Israel, where a spot that has no verifiable connection with a biblical figure or figures will be pronounced to have such a connection for purposes of making it a tourist destination so the locals can make money off it. (E.g., "the field of the shepherds," which is just a field near Bethlehem that nobody can remotely prove is where the angel appeared to shepherds to tell them about Jesus’ birth).

Now, I don’t want to diss biblical archaeology at all. There are some sites where we know for a fact
that this is exactly where someone was or something happened. (These
are the sites that impress me most.) I just get frustrated with the
overinflated claims made for many of these places for purposes of
tourism.

John the Baptist’s cave, which has been restored by Kibbutz Tsuba, will be opened to the public early next year.

Big surprise.