The Destruction of Female Through Sport

Back in 2010, I blogged about transgendered people and sport. I have no idea what has become of Lana Lawless. A cursory google search showed only outdated links.

The issue has come up again now that female male Fallon Fox has admitted to fighting in MMA in the women's division. I commented at AVFM and GLPIGGY.

My argument is that Hormone Replacement Treatment (HRT) amounts to doping. Although estrogen is not considered performance enhancing, it is in the same category as testosterone which is definitely performance enhancing. Paul Elam states in his response, "without the estrogen the individual would not have qualified to compete, it would make sense to me that this is a form of doping."  I agree.

Taken to its logical end, the argument that a man should be able to compete with women if he undergoes gender reassignment (GR) and HRT means that the reverse should also be true. This is why, in my comments at both places, I posed the question: when will women be allowed to dope with testosterone in order to "fairly" compete with men in men's only divisions?

I don't think that this idea quite sunk in with readers yet.  This is the inevitable conclusion of this gender defining nonsense. If gender is only a construct and we consider someone who undergoes HRT and GR to be identical in every way to a naturally born member of the chosen sex, then a woman should have the right to compete with men and use PED's (testosterone) to level the playing field. In the Liberal, post-modern mindset, giving women this advantage would only be fair since without it, women are excluded.

I'm taking this line of thought to its inevitable conclusion. It starts as allowing only male females (women who have been given GR to become men) into male sports division. But eventually, more and more women will want to compete and will start altering their bodies to become more male-like. If they can take that advantage in order to compete, some will. The flood gates will open and soon you'll have divisions filled with men competing against steroid-pumping females and nobody will be able to say one word or even construct an argument within their own mind because they won't understand how wrong it is.


Secondary Point:
The Science Whore is in full view in this issue. Fox uses the argument that "Doctors" have stated that using HRT negates all advantage of being born a man. I'm assuming that "Doctors" means her own pro-Gender-Reassignment doctors. This appeal to authority is pathetic. "Doctors" are not scientist. The opinion of two doctors is not substantive evidence any more than the opinion of 2 out of 3 dentists means that one toothpaste is better than another.

Using Science as a Whore - How to Increase School Resources

This CBC article showed up on my Google News Search. Toronto District School board published a study showing that its students are worried about the future and losing sleep over it.

Toronto public high school students are more worried about their future than their relationships or family matters
 

...More worried about the future than they are about their relationships and families? I'm not sure if I should be more alarmed about the ranking of the level of worry on these subjects or whether they are worried about them at all.

This was the first time the board surveyed its students on mental health issues.
"What our research showed us is that there's certainly a gap in the area of mental health and we need to focus more of our resources in the area of mental health," Schwartz-Maltz told the Canadian Press.
"These surveys drive programming in our schools, they give us a snapshot of the way our kids are feeling and they drive what we do."

Read: We need more resources to fund more staff to provide more programs to "help" young people.

The TDSB is trying to inflate its importance, just like every single government body. When a study like this is performed, the actual results are at the same time irrelevant and predetermined.

The questions are tilted to favour the desired outcome - 'Are YOU concerned about YOUR future?' As far as I'm concerned, the more youth that answer, yes, to that question the better. Frankly, kids need to be concerned and, in this economy, you'd be nuts not to be concerned unless you're filthy rich. It's a perfect example of a leading question. When you hear the question, it immediately puts worry into your mind and you start to ask questions about your future. The wacky thing is, the psychologists who phrase the question know this perfectly well. They know what confirmation bias is. They study, negativity bias and framing affect in school - many probably wrote final papers on the subjects. They understand that double-blind studies should be used to ensure their own biases don't affect the science. I'm tempted to blame this on the Dunning-Kruger affect, but, it seems more likely that they use their vast knowledge of the human psyche to ensure the results match their desired outcome.

The numbers, inflated as they are, make no difference to the study's conclusion. Someone thought it would be a good idea to put more psychologists, social workers and other programs in school, or some such measure. If there isn't a problem, they need to find one and make sure that it is the school board's problem to fix. So, they performed a study on their students to support this desire. How many students need to be concerned about their future to justify spending X million dollars on better mental health support? One is not related to the other, so the whole exercise is meaningless.

The sad part is, they're talking about taking dollars that could be spent on music, sports, arts and other educational programs so that schools can do more about mental health issues. Why not have a school system focused on school issues, and health departments focus on health issues?

Once again, science whores are trotted out to the public to give the illusion that we're thinking about important issues, when we're really trying to increase funding from taxes to hire more social workers. The full colourfully graphed report is here.

I'm Free

As I was walking down the train platform this afternoon, I couldn't help noticing the average people on the train are victims of the system and society for which they are working.  Commuters like me spend a great deal of their time working for a system - whether private concern or government - that has no interest in advancing their understanding of truth.  Each spot filled on the train, seating or standing, represents a specialized understanding of specialized information in order to perform a specialized role that enables their department to perform its intended function within the organization.

Beyond this special knowledge and skill, these people are at the mercy of government and other corporations to for information required to make crucial decisions what is best for their well being.

I began riding these trains about 8 years ago when I moved to the suburbs.  At that time, despite being much younger than the average rider, I felt rather average.  I didn't think of myself as over weight, but, I carried between 25-35 extra pounds.  It didn't matter if I was in a workout phase or not, I carried extra weigh, mostly around my waist. 

Fast forward to this afternoon, when I walked down the platform looking at my train-mates, I noticed that probably 2 out of 3 of them are where I was or worse.  I feel like the fortunate misfit because I've lost most of my stomach fat and I can lithely bounce up the steps and glide effortlessly down the platform while my former self would have struggled to keep pace.  I get comments, such as, "You're lucky" from people who don't realize that I've lost so much weight.  I shrug and say that it was easy to lose weight once I understood how.

I can't blame people for thinking that.  There truly are people who are lucky enough to stay skinny despite putting very little thought into how they eat.  I am not one.  Before discovering the manosphere and learning of the paleo/primal diet, I followed the conventional wisdom put forth by the system that I supported with my daily labours.  I ate whole grain cereal with soy milk and a banana for breakfast.  When the hunger came raging back in a couple of hours, I alleved it with whole grain oatmeal or whole wheat bread, fruit and yoghurt.  Lunch was left overs from the home-cooked meal the night before - usually meat with vegetables and rice.  It was what you called a balanced diet, although, I must admit, it was not low in fat.  I didn't worry, because my cholesterol readings were great and so was my blood pressure thanks to genetic predisposition.  But, the gut and all the extra weight remained, while friends stays rail thin eating burgers and fries for lunch almost every day.  Of course, many were more overweight than I was.  These people tried to tell me that the difference was all about how I ate and worked out.

Now that I know better, I feel like Tommy from the rock opera by The Who (I'm Roger Daltry sprinting down the beach while people mindlessly stare out of their cars with sunglasses):

If I told you how to reach the highest high
You'd laugh and say nothing's that simple.
But you've been told many times before
Messiahs pointed to the door
No one had the guts to leave the temple
 

Like the character Tommy, I feel this urge to spread the news I've discovered.  I stare at the people who share my car with their varying states of overweight and know that I can't reach them.  They could feel as good as I do, but they're victims of the system that asks for them to devote all of their time and considerable brain power to performing their duty.  Nobody is challenged to take time to read blogs or volumous books like Taubes' Good Calories Bad Calories to understand how the messages that conventional wisdom are misleading them.  One person actually said when I explained the basics, she felt like I was asking her to change religion.  I acknowledged the similarities and said that the proponents of conventional wisdom are like blind followers and can't see the problem because they are part of it.  Overall, I try to temper my enthusiasm so I don't sound like a preacher.  I just say things like, "Yeah, I don't need that bagel, because I had three eggs and some bacon this morning, as usual." while they stare agog.

I think that Keoni's post called Feedlot USA sums it up the best.  The people are not concerned that their waistlines are growing while the system takes care of their every need and tells them what to think.  It's a shame, but the only way for any person to do what I have done is to seek the truth.  The Internet is an enormous resource filled with information, however, for most, it is not a priority.  They just don't have the desire, energy, time and/or ability to challenge the status quo. There is an inate urge to challenge the BS that they are fed.  Everyone scoffs and rolls their eyes at something when their BS detectors go off.  But the system has people too confused to know what they're scoffing at.  There is so much conflicting information and all of the information is never provided, or is only provided piecemeal and twisted, so people can't put all the pieces together.  It's a nagging uneasiness that slowly eats away at you if you let it, or it gets subdued with junk food and beer until it rolls over and goes to sleep.  But, if you follow truth - that elusive goal, you can control your health, your state of mind and even your destiny.  Truth, if you're brave enough to face it, can set you free.

* edited ending  since I was deprived of sleep at time of publishing.

Stay The Hell Out of My Crucial Life Decisions - Spanking ed.

The Canadian Medical Association Jounral has come out and said that spanking should be banned. Editor-in-Chief, John Fletcher is calling on the goverment to remove the protection for parents who use reasonable force to discipline their kids (read the G&M article if you want the wording of the law or read the whole thing here).
This is the problem when health experts try to influence the law and politics.  They are so blind to their religion of science that they can't see its flaws.  I am not one to go around calling science a religion.  True science has nothing to do with religion.  But, when you have well-meaning people jump all over shoddy scientific studies to advocate criminalizing normal parental behaviour.

Listen to the study that is being held up as evidence.

Harsh physical punishment such as pushing, grabbing, shoving, slapping or hitting was associated with increased odds of mood disorders, anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug abuse, and several personality disorders. Researchers found 2 percent to 7 percent of mental disorders were attributable to harsh physical punishment
 

Ok, pushing, grabbing shoving, slapping are not the same as spanking. This earlier G&M article doesn't even mention these details.

It's hard to let these experts realize that it's a whore they are sleeping with.  They have real feelings for her and they obviously aren't the ones paying, so you just have to shout at them:  SCIENCE IS A WHORE!

Dr. Fletcher says he’s not advocating for the criminalization of the occasional poor parenting choice. “If the aim is to improve parenting,” he writes, “then calling the police is the wrong approach.”

Instead, he’s hoping to shift the focus to how ineffective spanking actually is.

 Just what does he think he's doing?  Obviously he is a medical expert, so he is not too knowledgable about the law (neither am I), but when you criminalize a behaviour, you are calling for the troups (police, CPA) to move in.  The point of the law, is not to protect child abusers. It is to protect parents -who are human and make mistakes and have to deal with real day-to-day issues in the best way they can - who might otherwise have their lives destroyed by the system that has a monopoly on legal violence. The whole unintended consequences argument is totally lost.  I'm not saying that spanking is always necessary - it should probably be used perhaps 1-2 times for most children (in the entire time it takes to raise them).  But allowing the government into the homes of parents should only be done as a last resort in cases of serious abuse.  This do-gooder (mostly leftist) notion to let no single act of harm go unpunished is deeply disturbing.  Do they really blindly believe in the holy grail of government so much that they can't see that the loss of freedom and the potential for severe punishment of minor transgressions is far more harmful than a parent spanking their child once too often?
I truly believe that the love between parents and children can overcome the pain from overuse of spanking (not abuse) and we are better off letting the love heal the wounds rather than some over reaching government agency.

Liberal war on Childhood Aggression

I just have time for a quick post about a G&M article equating aggression with behavioural problems.  I don't know if liberal media  and research community make this mistake on purpose in order to further the anti-bullying agenda or whether they just don't understand that aggression is a natural behaviour, whereas, behaviour problems are the result of poor social conditioning.

Aggression is a useful trait for sports, business and social circles if channelled and trained properly.  If a child is taught proper self-discipline and empathy, aggressiveness will help him or her succeed in the world.

The NYU study, which seems problematic because it is based on parental reports and observation - how much and what type of observation is not stated - really points to socialization by parents.  Of course parents who have difficulty socializing with their children will have children with difficulty socializing in school.  Acting out, defiance and hostility are the result of poor social skills and self-control.  These are learned behaviours. 

There are countless ways that an aggressive nature can be expressed.  This is shown by the lack of correlation between infant temperament and difficulties in Kindergarten and Grade One.  With proper parenting, the children with aggressive temperaments quickly adapted to the school environment and showed no behavioural problems.  Poor parenting resulted in problems no matter what the temperament was.

Confirmation bias is astounding amongst Blank Slate believers is astounding.  The scientific method cannot filter it out of sociological studies.

Pinker - The Blank Slate, Preface

I just picked up Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate The Modern Denial of Human Nature and I wonder how I managed to avoid this book for so long.  I'm sure that I've read it quoted many a time at various blogs but even the preface reads as if Pinker read my thoughts and articulated them better than I ever could (I really should have studied more in school).

My goal in this book is not to argue that genes are everything and culture is nothing - no one believes that - but to explore why the extreme position (that culture is everything) is often seen as moderate, and the moderate position is seen as extreme.

Nor does acknowledging human nature have the political implications so many fear.  It does not, for example, require one to abandon feminism, or to accept the current levels of inequality or violence, or to treat morality as a fiction.  For the most part I will try not to advocate particular policies or to advance the agenda of the political left or right. I believe that controversies about policy almost always involve tradeoffs between competing values, and that science is equipped to identify the tradeoffs but not to resolve them. Many of these tradeoffs, I will show, arise from features of human nature, and by clarifying them I hope to make our collective choices, whatever they are, better informed.

It is so sweet to read words like these.  It's like the first time I read Bertrand Russel only without the glassy eyed idealism that always left me shaking my head.  He continues.

The refusal to acknowledge human nature is like the Victorians' embarrassment about sex, only worse: it distorts our science and scholarship, our public discourse, and our day-to-day lives. 

Trying to talk to most intelligent, well-educated people about child-rearing, food or politics is always frustrating for me because someone always tries to point out that we're only conditioned to think and act the way we do... and if "we could only get past our preconceptions we can become anything we want."  [Eye-roll-to-face-palm-to-double-fist-clench-gaze-to-the-heavens-to-double-handed-forehead-slap-pull-hair-to-primal-scream].  How many times did I meet a girl who seemed reasonably intelligent and we got along so well until we hit this wall.

I blame the Bobo Experiment.  Everyone in my university took Psych 101.  One of the most prominent and easiest to remember sections was on Albert Bandura's experiment that seemed to suggest that children could be taught not to behave aggressively by being shown positive role models - and only positive role models.  I wondered, while I read about the text book, why there wasn't already a formula for world peace over 30 years after this remarkable discovery.  Whenever this came up and someone tried to argue that this proved violence/rape/theft/etc. were learned behaviours, I tried to point out that human nature has a role in such negative behaviour too.  I believe that my inability to keep my mouth shut on this subject was the main reason I didn't have many dates in University.

Social Engineerin​g, the Bully and the Science Whore

Tara Parker-Pope at NYT writes an article outlining the latest scientific findings about bullying.  Looking at the social structures of high-school students, the study found that the kids at the top of the social hierarchy and the ones at the very bottom seem to show the least aggression towards others, while the ones in the middle and near the top tend to show the most. You can read the entire article for the full explanation.  Basically, the authors subcribe to the theory that the top echelon kids have do not have to exercise aggression to keep their positions while the middle and near-top kids are fighting eachother for rank.  That is plausible, however, they dismiss the notion that the top-rung kids are just nicer and therefore popular.  I'm sure that in many cases, the upper echelon kids are the top percentile in social skills, so, they just make friends much more easily.  Others will recognize the power of their charisma and fight for opportunities to win their favour.
 I'm sure that both dynamics occur to some extent but scientists seem to have trouble with duel theories; they prefer simple explanations that can be tested so they tend to favor all or nothing theories
So far, these findings seem to be a fairly interesting study in social standing which is fine.  What I have a problem with, is the tone of the rest of the article and findings.  It turns from factual to practical.  Sociologists need to justify their existence and funding, so they try to drive policy with their scientific knowledge.

The research offers a road map for educators struggling to curb bullying and aggression both inside and outside of school. One option may be to enlist the support of students who aren’t engaged in bullying — those at the very top of the social ladder, and the two-thirds who don’t bully.

A road map?  So why is it the job of educators to stifle students' natural inclinations to fight for status? What business, are the personal affairs of students, of the educators? To think that somehow school officials can control the social lives of all students is the epitome of hubris.  Defining all acts of aggression as "bullying" is misguided.  Using this way of thinking to convince teachers to try and remove aggression is highly disturbing.  Why?  Adolescents are learning to use this behaviour.  They are learning the consequences and rules for aggression.

Pretend that sociologists, like Dr. Gallagher, achieve their goal of removing or suppressing aggression among the student populace.  Everyone in school gets along.  No one is intimidated, put down, jostled, ignored, shamed, hit, laughed at or teased.  One big happy student body ready to take on the world with their peaceful outlook on life hand-in-hand.  I see two obvious problems with this.  One, the next generation of leaders, thinkers and doers will be unprepared to handle the real world and be overwhelmed by the hyper-competitive cultures from elsewhere.  Two, their ability to question and challenge authority, essential for a good democracy will be seriously compromise - basically they would be sheep.

Of course, it is a rediculous concept from the start.  Trying to curtail outward aggression will simply make it more subversive and dangerous.

“It does highlight that it’s a typical behavior that’s used in establishing social networks and status,” said Dr. Gallagher, an associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry. “Schools and parents need to be tuned into this as a behavior that occurs all the time. It means that school districts need to have policies that deal with this, and I think it means also that we need to turn to the adolescents for some of the solutions."

Well, at least we're turning to adolescents for the solutions; that puts a nice friendly face on all of this doesn't it? Why must sociologist attempt to recommend policy about the personal lives of students? What type of policy could be effective in curbing social ambition or even preventing aggression amongst the social status climbers and who thinks that this is desirable?

In the name of stamping out bullying?  Bullying is the act of picking on a weaker person repetetively.  Adults with the best of intentions are trying to protect their kids.  Nobody wants to think about the consequences that such proposed social engineering would have in the long term.

This is not a conspiracy.  It is simply a misguided notion used by sociologists to gain funding for the great social engineering experiment and a reaction to overblown, media-driven fear of a simple aspect of human nature.  It fits in nicely with the war on the male.  Aggression and bullying are seen as male-type behaviours and viewed negatively.  Unfortunately, many babies are still in this bathwater and we will need them as western civilization faces its challenges in the future.

Science on the Street Corner

A quick round up of recent sightings of science walking the street picking up dates.

Sharon Begley at Newsweek tells us how math whiz, Dr. John P.A. Ioannidis, slices through scientific studies showing us how Everything We Hear About Medicine Is Wrong.

But at NIH Ioannidis had an epiphany. “Positive” drug trials, which find that a treatment is effective, and “negative” trials, in which a drug fails, take the same amount of time to conduct. “But negative trials took an extra two to four years to be published,” he noticed. “Negative results sit in a file drawer, or the trial keeps going in hopes the results turn positive.” With billions of dollars on the line, companies are loath to declare a new drug ineffective. As a result of the lag in publishing negative studies, patients receive a treatment that is actually ineffective. That made Ioannidis wonder, how many biomedical studies are wrong?

Surprised? Why?

biostatistician Steven Goodman of Johns Hopkins ... worries that the most-research-is-wrong claim “could promote an unhealthy skepticism about medical research, which is being used to fuel anti-science fervor.”

What is an unhealthy skepticism?  I agree that the anti-vaccine hysteria is a problem, but shouldn't we then be encouraging skepticism about skepticism instead of trying to demand unquestioned compliance with science doctrine?


Jay P Greene explains, with respect to education, exactly what I've thought about so-called scientific reasoning and how it is misapplied and over-trusted in many aspects of life.

Science has its limits. Science cannot adjudicate among the competing values that might attract us to one educational approach over another. Science usually tells us about outcomes for the typical or average student and cannot easily tell us about what is most effective for individual students with diverse needs. Science is slow and uncertain, while policy and practice decisions have to be made right now whether a consensus of scientific evidence exists or not. We should rely on science when we can but we also need to be humble about what science can and can’t address.

He goes on to explain how scientific studies are completely misinterpreted, perhaps intentionally, by ideologues who push their agenda anyways.  With study sponsors like these, who needs scientists?

We already have a taste of this from the preliminary report that Gates issued last month. Following its release Vicki Phillips, the head of education at the Gates Foundation, told the New York Times: “Teaching to the test makes your students do worse on the tests.” Science had produced its answer — teachers should stop teaching to the test, stop drill and kill, and stop test prep (which the Gates officials and reporters used as interchangeable terms).
Unfortunately, Vicki Phillips mis-read her own Foundation’s report. On p. 34 the correlation between test prep and value-added is positive, not negative. If the study shows any relationship between test prep and student progress, it is that test prep contributes to higher value-added.

CBC News - Canada's government-run science pimp uses the old toilet seat comparison to scare us about mall food court trays.  Did anyone really eat straight off of those things anyways?  They wait until the end of the article, by which time 25% of readers have already ordered a year's supply of anti-bacterial wipes, to offer a reasonable statement.

Despite the presence of some serious pathogens, they are not a major concern for healthy people, Hancock said.
"The number of bacteria that are transferred from a tray, even if it's in the range of hundreds of bacteria, they're not sufficient to cause disease because we have very efficient systems in our body for getting rid of bacteria."

I hope they got their money's worth with our hard-earned tax dollars.  See, not everyone can (or should) send swabs to a university lab because it's bloody expensive.  I think new rooms are always stocked with an emergency swab kit. 
Editor:  "Slow news week, get out the swabs and start testing surfaces."
News Hack:  "What surfaces?"
Editor:  "Any surface people eat near or touch.  Then make sure you compare the results to our stock toilet seat results"

Remember, this is the same organization that warned us that chicken has bacteria on the surface.  Is that why my mom slapped me when I licked raw chicken breasts?




Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2011/02/14/bc-food-trays-bacteria.html#ixzz1E5GTmMXj

Onestdv, The Breastfeeding Consultant.

So Onestdv is out chasing yet another conspiracy.  This time he says that infant formula is part of the plot to undermine the family.

Infant formula is simply another example of a technology enabling the women's movement, not the other way around. Before infant formula, mothers who couldn't breastfeed had to find willing mothers to lend their milk or pay for a wet nurse. Big business, as always, filled the gap and continues to gather huge profits (egad).



The point One fails to mention is that in the heydays of science (50's -60's), the prevailing notion was that science had surpassed nature and that there was no way that nature could provide the kind of nutrient-filled food that the powers of science had cooked up. Then, we discovered that the mother's immunity was passed to the child. Of course, this small, but important difference was blown way out of proportion. Suddenly, the pendulum swung and baby formula was painted as an evil corporate plot and everyone said that nothing MEN invented could be as nourishing as a woman's all-natural milk. The science-whore was used to link breastfeeding to higher IQ and link formula to obesity. I suspect it’s more a function of income level since lower income people are less likely to breastfeed.


Women are now shamed for letting a single drop of formula touch their child's digestive system. Go to a maternity ward and witness the bleeding and cracked nipples and weeping mothers ashamed that they can’t get it right refusing to believe that they should taint their babies with that poison.

ONE has it backwards. The breastfeeding craze is perpetuated by the leftist Gaaia worshipping feminists. Like other religions that cause suffering, it is propogated by the piety of other sufferers (usually women). The same way that Muslim women don the veil to tell other women that god hates them; mothers pass guilt trips for even thinking about using formula along with a whole host of other overblown fears and parenting misteps.

In regard to the US government funding:  It appears as though even the WIC is moving toward milk banks as an alternative to formula.  This move would suggest that the government is moving away from the somewhat counterproductive practice of funding formula for anyone on the plan.

Questions About The Moral Landscape

I’m currently reading The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. I am greatly impressed by his reasoning and I am glad that someone is finally tackling the question of ethics and morality from a scientific perspective. Ethics, says Harris, should be seen as an "underdeveloped branch of science."

I’ve long felt that something was wrong with the typical liberal moral relativistic stance that says we can’t judge any other culture’s way of thinking as right or wrong. Although I couldn’t join them in their supposed neutrality, I often called myself I a moral relativist simply because I thought the only other option was to be a fundamentalist. I believe that nobody has the right to decide what’s right for you, but of course nobody has the right to inflict harm on others unjustly. However, I don’t need to fall into moral relativism in order to see that there are many paths that are morally acceptable.

In his new book, Harris defines the right moral path as one that increases human well-being and the wrong one as one that decreases it. So, a society that performs female circumcision or brainwashes children to become killers is obviously not on the right moral path. Well-being can be scientifically tested and discussed using logical means

This Moral Realism is such an elegant way of thinking because it doesn’t over simplify any act to its singular consequence (i.e. killing is wrong) and it doesn’t absolve anyone of thinking hard about his choices. Answers must be sought using all available knowledge about oneself and one’s surroundings. Like moral relativity, there is a lot of room for different ways of living – different peaks on the moral landscape, as Harris would call them, but there is also room for pointing out how some ways could be changed to make them better.

I continue to enjoy this book and hopefully I’ll write more when I’m done. For now, I see a few difficulties, which I will explain.

A lot of people will be hesitant to give science the authority to rule their morals because they would lose control of their decisions and values that they feel are instinctual and arrived at by carefully looking into their hearts. Pure science is cold, calculated and has no room for feeling. People will be afraid that science could tell them to live in such a way that does not conform or goes directly against their current firmly held values and ask them to do things that they just cannot, morrally, perform. How would you respond to this?

Another difficulty arises because science is, in this political and economic world, a commodity. It is often used and abused by special interests, ideologists, business and even religion to further their goals. To discover scientific answers takes a lot of money, and individuals do not have the money to do their own research or the expertise to distinguish good science from propaganda, judge the validity of conclusions or interpret findings for themselves. A real fear that must be acknowledged is the possibility that science could be used for manipulating people or a weapon for twisting reality and perception even more than it is today. It is doubtful that a majority of any population can become sophisticated enough to avoid manipulation. Even more dangerous, I think that highly educated people are actually more susceptible to grand ideas that sound good in theory but can have disastrous affects if applied in practice.

Lastly, I also pose a test to the theory. Suppose that moral realism attains its deserved stature and succeeds in producing a thriving, society but the society thrives to the point of exhausting resources. What if that society then decides that in order to continue to thrive and maximize well-being for most people, it must abandon peace and do horrible harm to a portion of the people? Are we then thrust back to the in-group, out-group battle? How would you approach such a situation?

Science is a Whore

If you're like me, this is just an obvious statement. However, everywhere in the media, science is portrayed as this community of dedicated professionals seeking the truth about the universe. People who question anything portrayed as scientific are labelled wackos, heretics or even worse Naturopaths.
Don't think an H1N1 shot is necessary? You're ignorant of science.
Don't believe that Global Warming is the harbinger of Armageddon? You're a right-wing stooge for big business.
In reality, there is no community voice from science. In order to make money, scientists must find a company willing to pay them for data manipulation or a university willing to fund their research. The justification for any scientific work is always money or politics. Pure science is simply a tool for selling a product or an idea.
Want to prove that your party's position is justified? You simply pay for a scientific poll. But how scientific can an opinion be? Doesn't matter as long as the sample size is big enough to make the results accurate to within +-2% 19 times out of 2o.

Just listen to this science fiction writer's account of trying to make a living as a marine biologist.
He spent ten years getting a bunch of degrees in the ecophysiology of marine mammals (how's that for unbridled optimism), and another ten trying make a living on those qualifications without becoming a whore for special-interest groups. This proved somewhat tougher that it looked; throughout the nineties he was paid by the animal welfare movement to defend marine mammals; by the US fishing industry to sell them out; and by the Canadian government to ignore them. He eventually decided that since he was fictionalising science anyway, he might as well add some characters and plot and try selling to a wider market than the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

There is much more but I'm neither a writer nor a scientist for a living. I can only squeeze blog entries between coaching soccer practice and carting kids to friends for play dates. This idea will be explored further but for now I'm off to change a rear-facing car seat to front-facing for my growing boy.