I will take scientific facts over your personal opinion every day of the week, and twice on Sunday. You are welcome to your opinions. I am content with my opinions. Win-win.
I don't understand which facts you are talking about or how they affect my argument. edit: though maybe we are talking cross purposes.
I quickly showed the difference between a sperm, an ovum, an embryo, and a fetus by using facts. The pics are cool, but the very brief descriptions are the money shot. "...but shares none of the meaningful characteristics we think of as human..."
Sure, but my point is that this: is not what could be called a higher lifeform in any objective sense - which I don't think anyone has claimed. Instead the pro-life argument, as i understand it, revolves around the fact that you can claim that it is human, and that being human entitles it to certain rights. My argument is that this is a false rational, and that it isn't the fact that it is human that is important, the important thing is what it actually is -- it's charecteristics, it's capabilities, it's lack of ability to think.
The problem with abortion of a fetus is that there is no way to be sure you are not accidentally aborting a cat. suprisingly few veterinarian clinics have been shot up for euthenising cats however.
How much can neonates think compared to a 3rd trimester human fetus? Where do you think the line exists between human and just a clump of random cells?
I'm not really qualified to say, but most european countries put the cutoff point at between 12 and 24 weeks (though the later is usually only if there is some other reason to do it, such as medical risk to the mother - 12 weeks is the commonest).
Now we are cooking with gas. I do NOT believe in a ban on all abortions. The pragmatist part of me does not believe a ban is politically viable anyhow. 24 weeks gestation is quite late, but 12 weeks might be too low of a cut off for a new law. The longer one waits, the greater the risk to the woman and the more the fetus looks and acts like a neonate. It sounds like we are in the same ballpark on the matter. What say you? Edit: My wife has lost 4 "babies" during our marriage, at the following weeks of gestation: 8, 15, 17, and 20. If you try and tell her otherwise, momma grizzly gonna appear. But she also does not want to ban abortions, "because each woman has to live with the consequences of her choices." Like me, she believes that late term abortions are almost always murder. I denounce anyone that advocates violence against Planned Parenthood, btw.
Yeah, I think somewhere around 12-16 weeks seems reasonable barring complications. My head says that later shouldn't be an issue, but my stomach struggles to suggest killing anything that looks like a baby. If nothing else, socialogically it seems like a slippery slope to go down if there isn't a definative point where killing is not ok - and trusting this to the gut maybe isn't a bad thing. If you're interested this shows the laws in various european countries: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6235557.stm I was actually supprised to learn that abortion in the UK isn't available on request, though the permitted circumstances seem broad enough that it is likely the same in practice. Sorry to hear about the miscarriges.
They hit her a LOT harder than they hit me. I mean, she felt life in her 4 different times and then it died. I never felt the kicks. Tough situations. Many European nations have a gestation limit of 12 weeks. Some as late as 28 weeks gestation--except for Ireland which has no limit. The pic you pasted is most helpful, once one understands that 12 weeks is the median average across the pond. It sounds like we were butting heads, even though we actually essentially agree. Perchance we arrived at "the answer" in different ways, but we seem to actually be much closer to allies than enemies. Again, very helpful and informative link. +17 to you.
In the category sad stories that sound like domestic abuse or some sort of street fight we have a winner
Except in areas where you disagree with the science... like climate change? Granted, there are legitimate arguments against the causes and solutions there.
I don't buy the urgency argument that politicians are pushing, but I do believe humans need to do a lot more to conserve this beautiful planet. Scientists should continue to vigorously pursue as many facts as possible about the climate, and I believe that is happening. A LOT of money should and is being poured into researching this very complex matter. In the last few days, Obama claimed that "99.5%" of scientists agree that climate change is happening exactly as they predicted. Same speed, same degree, and the same percentage of each cause--apparently. Science is not a democracy. And the more that politicians insist that scientists are virtually monolithic on climate change, the less I believe the politicians. In short, I smell a rat. Continue to research the crap out of climate change, but keep both eyes open.
The problem is that there is a point of no return, and we are fastly reaching it. It's also urgent because getting billions of people to make changes in their daily lives takes a long time, and we don't have a long time.
The irony is that the developed nations will likely suffer the least, at least initially, and it is all those developing island countries that will get hit first, as some already have: http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...on-front-line-of-climate-change-a6757796.html Anyway, as far as I have seen, it is true that model after model developed by independent groups of scientists largely agree with each other. And given the carbon footprint the US places on the world, if the US isn't leading the charge on this issue, I don't think it matters what anyone else does. Of course, one has to get China and India on board too, though China seems already headed towards a renewable direction in terms of energy production, which in 2013 already accounted for almost 10% of their energy mix, compared to the US ~13%.
http://wattsupwiththat.com IMO, many billions of people will never willingly make enough sacrifices to decrease CO2 emissions sufficiently. There is but one inescapable path to save the planet. Can u see it?
Yea, that frequently cited BS is pretty moronic. So, glad to see you are aware of it, but gonna rant anyway, because this is exactly the kind of bullshit data manipulation that gets on my nerves Cherry picking data points to prove a point while ignoring the greater overall context and trends. None of that is a study or research either, and is just largely anti-climate change repeating each other over and over with the same 3 or 4 charts all with the same start date, when the longer term trends cannot be denied. This is basic statistics. If I said I got no exotics in 5 packs and said it was rigged, you'd tell me I was being silly. Because 5 packs doesn't mean much when we are talking about these kinds of things. Just like 18 years is almost nothing when we are talking differences of a couple degrees in 100 years! There's a reason they picked 18 years and 9 months ago to start their "haitus." Because it's one of the only data points in the last 100 years that would let them argue so convincingly, starting with an EXTREMELY warm year. Compared to actual climate models, these charts tell us almost nothing except that data can be manipulated. I love this line from the article too: "The start-date is not “cherry-picked” so as to coincide with the temperature spike caused by the 1998 el Niño. Instead, it is calculated so as to find the longest period with a zero trend." Imagine if I had opened 100 packs recently, and I got 1 exotic per pack except for the last 5, and then I came and told you, "Dude, the system is rigged, I haven't gotten an exotic 5 packs in a row!" Then you might say, "but you got one in the previous 95! What the heck?!" That line in the article would be me respondng in this situation with, "I didn't cherry pick the last 5 packs, I just 'calculated' the longest period without an exotic." Yea. LIKE IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE. Of course that year would be "calculated" to be the start given your original intent. It's also the same date that's been used to "debunk" global warming for years. This isn't how science works. You don't decide on what you want to prove then go and calculate things until you get what you want. You will almost always find a way to do so. Lastly, these sites that propagate such cherry picked data tends not to report or care that the IPCC's reports DO talk about these slowdowns. In fact, I remember reading the IPCC's 2013 report that literally used the words "slow down" but these sites would have you believe this is being ignored by the scientists. Notice how the charts use the IPCC's 1990 predictions. Seriously? ~ The truth of the matter is we are continuing a trend of record temperatures on earth, 13 out of the 14 warmest years ON RECORD (not just in the last ~20 years) have occurred in the past 15 years. Guess what the 14th one is? 1998... the starting point of the alleged hiatus: Of course, should this short-term trend continue (and is not just due to the several outlier years in the 18 year sample that had extremely low temperatures), then we may need to begin to re-examine the ideas. That's what science is. We learn, we predict, we analyze, and we update our findings. This is why it is called Climate Change now, and not just Global Warming. Because while global warming was the first observed problem, it is not the only consequence of what is happening.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/...-facts-about-global-warming-at-cop21-display/ The first link I provided you debunked the "cherry picking" claims. It also clearly showed that almost all the temperature models have been quite wrong to date, and on the high side. The entire set of data tells me we still need to research more. What do u personally believe to be the correct path forward? Precisely how can humanity save the planet?
