Dawkins controversial again.

smacl wrote: »

I'm comfortable with a woman having an abortion for whatever reason she sees fit. I'm equally not comfortable with the idea of other people dictating when a woman should or should not have an abortion.

The sex selective issue therefore rather depends on whether the woman is coming under external pressure to have a child of a given gender, as was so often the case in China in the times of the one child policy.

Thanks.

Cabaal wrote: »

Oh I get it,
You have a problem with a few thousand followers in any given country that "might" demand something by changed.

But you've not real problem with followers of the catholic religion demanding a country do something that Vatican says?

After all we saw last year that the Vatican and its followers tried to pressure the Irish state into voting the way the Vatican wanted, they did this by trying to blackmail TD's.

Ah the religion card and straw man comes out, I'm not in the slighest bit religious and never have been. Religion has nothing whatsover to claiming it's imoral NOT to abort DS children, but I guess as long as you can somehow shoehorn religion in there to jusify killing DS children, it's A-OK

Cabaal wrote: »

and yet a very high up Cardinal says the Vatican has no responsibility for the sex abuse and I don't see posters here being too outraged by it

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/pell-compares-priests-to-truckers-as-victims-given-apologies-20140821-3e3mk.html

Dawkins represents just himself, the Cardinal represents the Vatican and god...as such comments made by Cardinals are far far more damaging then anything Dawkins might ever say.

I read about that in today's Irish Independent, so I think there'll be plenty of outrage for Cardinal Pell as it gets digested.

Note that Cardinal Pell in no way sought to legitimise or minimise the awfulness of child sex abuse. Whereas Dawkins said, of a school teacher who sexually abused him and other boys:

"I don't think he did any of us lasting harm....
......I am very conscious that you can't condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don't look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can't find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today."

jank wrote: »

I am curious of this blackmailing? Can you elaborate? Did money change hands? Were there threats?

On the grand old master of A&A himself, well a first name has never been so appropriate.

Individual priests/bishops publicly reminded individual catholics of the rules of the catholic church. This is considered blackmail by Cabaal.

Cabaal wrote: »

Do you consider it acceptable for another country to try force government officials to vote a certain way as acceptable behavior?

If the USA was trying to apply pressure on TD's to vote a certain way on something I'm sure you'd be the first to cry about it.,

No I wouldn't. It happens all the time. It's called diplomacy.

Irish catholic bishops reminding Irish Catholics of the rules of the RCC is not an international issue either.

Cabaal wrote: »

Irish Bishops following Vatican guidelines when it comes to handling of sex abuse victims and sex abusing priests must also have nothing to do with the Vatican either.

That truck company comparison must be true after all....

Cabaal's Debating Tips:
No.1: When loosing one argument, blame the church and continue to switch topics.

Cabaal wrote: »

If a women becomes pregnant and she finds out the fetus will face constant pain and suffering when it comes to term and given she's the one that will have to raise and care for it she decides that an abortion is the best way to proceed then this is her decision.

Maybe, but "constant pain and suffering" is hardly a fair description of the Downs Syndrome condition. Certainly as kids they are as happy and perhaps happier than normal kids. I'm not sure Dawkins has factored this in to his "sum of human happiness" equation, he seems more fixed on the extra burden/responsibilities attaching to the parents. Maybe the parent's choice was between the Downs Syndrome baby and remaining childless or undergoing extensive/expensive fertility treatment. From their perspective, there may have been other "happiness" factors to take into account.

In fairness to Dawkins, he does say

..I agree that that personal opinion is contentious and needs to be argued further, possibly to be withdrawn..

so he is not trying to be dogmatic, he is open to debate and simply encouraging people to think for themselves before they act, which is always a good thing.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Resorting to anecdotes is kinda proving the point really; appeal to emotion if all else fails.

How about we put it this way. We have a couple doing IVF and they have two embryos which can be implanted, one with Downs and one without, but both are otherwise equally healthy. Now should the clinic tell the couple and allow them to implant only the non-Downs embryo? How is that scenario any different at all from doing an amniocentesis and then having to decide on whether to have an abortion?

Because the egg is already implanted?

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Oh, I thought conception was when the magic happened?

Well I had thought to edit my post and say embryo, but I figured you'd get the idea (anything Dawkins can do... ), but yeah, the embryo is already implanted, whereas with IVF, the embryo hasn't been implanted already.

The two situations aren't really comparable in that respect. I understand what you're saying, but your argument, like Dawkins, fails to take account of any emotional attachment at an individual level. It's far too simplistic to compare natural conception with IVF as if they're exactly the same thing.

Pre-implantation screening can take place before, as the name suggests, implantation; whereas with natural conception, the embryo is already there from the time the fertilised embryo has implanted in the wall of the womb, and if the parents actually want a pregnancy, flippantly recommending to them that they abort and try again if downs is detected, I personally would sink Dawkins teeth back into his lungs if he were to say to me that it would be immoral not to abort and save adding any more suffering to humanity!

Individual morality is no basis on which to decide ethics for humanity, and twitter is probably the worst medium to even try and have that discussion.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Well, that depends... if one takes the 'life begins at conception' view then there is no difference, in either scenario a life is ended. You don't need me to tell you that this is the official catholic line. In practice nobody really seems to believe this. We don't have homicide investigations when the morning after pill is used. We don't have funerals and headstones for miscarried embryos, early miscarriages are quite common but all you get in hospital is a shrug and 'try again'. If an early miscarriage can be so commonly and glibly dismissed as one of 'nature's mistakes' then isn't Down's one of nature's mistakes?

Let's ignore the Catholic view then (as many people DO actually believe this that aren't even Catholic, but that again brings morality into the discussion, and I personally would try and steer clear of it, as Dawkins should have done in order to answer objectively as an evolutionary biologist), and go with the generally accepted scientific definition of when life begins as at implantation.

Then the two scenarios are still different as the embryo has already been implanted in natural conception, and hasn't been implanted in IVF.

I'm not sure how you make the leap from early miscarriage to downs as 'natures mistakes' as that would imply that nature was sentient, when a 'mistake' in human evolution is merely a matter of perspective. Your body and the way it functions could hardly be described as an accident. You evolved that way, in the very same way as if a person is born with downs, a 'genetic mistake of evolution' is merely a matter of perspective.

The intended result is exactly the same. Couples going through IVF have it worse than the average trying-to-conceive couple who think little of it if nothing happened this month and know they can try again.

Again, whichever couple has it worse is merely a matter of perspective. There are numerous factors involved in both methods when trying to conceive, and either method could be viewed as 'adding to the sum of human suffering'. To glibly remark that a couple would think little of it if nothing was happening and try again is the same argument Dawkins makes that ignores the emotional investment and the feeling of failure and the stress involved that again 'adds to the sum of human suffering'.

You can see how Dawkins moral argument really doesn't hold up very well already under examination, and that's even before we've addressed the question of genetic mutations and disorders and whether it is ethical and logical to abort and try again, and the effect that would have on the balance of evolution.

Did he claim anything other than the expression of a personal view? At least he doesn't claim to have the power of eternal damnation or some such. Churches are very fond of deciding they know what the ethics of all humanity should be.

I'm not sure why you're egging to bring the religious perspective into this tbh. I know we're in the A&A forum but no mention of religion was made. Dawkins didn't claim anything other than a personal view, and he based his personal view upon his morality, and he bases his morality on the balance of the sum of happiness and suffering in the world. He made no claims as to the power of eternal damnation, but he made claims if you want to look at it that way that failing to abort a downs foetus would be condemning that person to a life of eternal suffering, adding to the sum of all suffering in the world, thereby logically (by Dawkins logic anyway), reducing the sum of happiness in the world.The equation has to balance on both sides.

Now, because Dawkins only looked at the negative consequences concerning the welfare of a person born with downs, basing his opinion on his own personal morality, it doesn't follow any reasonable line of logic that he wouldn't also look at the whole person and examine whether his perception of downs as a genetic mistake in terms of the greater picture of evolution, might actually be a mistake in itself.

The only logical conclusion, that can be drawn from Dawkins point of view, is that humanity needs to stop procreating now, before we further add to the sum total of human suffering, because even attempting to procreate can be stressful, and add to the sum total of human suffering. If we do that though, human beings would eventually become extinct.

How would that sound coming from any other evolutionary biologist than Dawkins? Would you say it was complete horse manure? I certainly would.