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Aug. 8, 2006 John has written a few articles lately which mention me. I'm not going to respond to each one or each little opinion, but I will point out some inconsistencies and silliness that keeps popping up, in no specific order (here is one, for others, search the main useless-knowledge.com page for “John Waters”). Besides attacking those who, in John's eyes, attack Christianity, John enjoys attacking the validity of Christian myths, humanists, and scientists. In one of John's recent numerous articles, he seemed a tad upset that I claimed he attacked science (even challenging me to find such an instance in his writings!), yet, this theme can be clearly seen in his articles. John somehow thinks that the practice of science has no ethics, that scientists are cold and immoral and cruel to animals by default. I think it's odd to lump a group by their profession. Do all constructions workers show an amazing amount of empathy, while all florists show cruelty? Perhaps florists show cruelty to flowers. After all, to prepare a floral arrangement usually entails killing the flowers by cutting them from the living plant to which they are attached, all in the name of, more or less, vanity. So, the first point in this ramble would be that John has issues with science. In my humble opinion, this stems from the fact that John claims to be a researcher, yet relies on supernatural mysticism for his “research”. He dislike science because his “work” is fundamentally unscientific, despite his many claims to the contrary. Keeping with the floral theme, I wonder if John would weep for a rose stem just cut, and therefore, sentenced to death? A rose plant is alive, after all; I'll get back to this point later. Going back to fertility clinics and abortion, I'm thrilled that he finally addressed this point. It took him four or five articles, but I guess late is better than never. My claim was that the “potential” argument quickly vanishes for most of stem cell research because that research is mostly based on fertility clinic left-overs – fertilized eggs which will never ever become adult humans. John responded by not responding, and giving useless examples of three year old children and other typical pro-life straw man arguments designed to stir up emotion. Here, finally, John responds and shows his inconsistent morality on the issue in the process: In my opinion if the end justifies the means, contraception isn't wrong as long as it is safe. In the same way, in fertility clinics helping women get pregnant, killing the extra unwanted embryos is part of the medical methodology. A strict moralist probably will encourage doctors to find other sources of stem cells besides human embryos. Some other opinions of John Waters you might consider quotes are: "What is possible in theory isn't always good to put into practice." and "Once a human being is known to exist people need to help the growing person recognize, nurture, develop, educate, and demonstrate his or her special faculties. Abortion breaks this rule." and "Statistically speaking in a population encouraging carelessness in sex makes it more likely that sexually transmitted diseases will result as well as unwanted pregnancies. Strict morality is a protection against both." and so forth. Going by the bold-face bit, it seems that John has little issue with man generating thousands of fertilized eggs, the vast majority of which will live out their life in a freezer where they will eventually die. The end is that a woman eventually gets pregnant, the means are the production of scores of fertilized eggs. This is what the issue boils down too, this is why I mock the “life at conception” crowed eagerly and will continue to do so. John's “potential” argument clearly must involve even basic contraception, let alone this deliberate creation of life. After all, John claims this: A scientist can't prove that human life begins when the fetus is first conscious or the fetus is first sensitive to light, or to sound, or to pain, and so forth. It's a matter of personal opinion when a human life begins. So who's opinion do you pay the most attention to? We can study the medical science, but what do the experts on morality say? So here I am scratching my head, trying to understand John's jumbled attack on science and his support of some morality that I can't put my finger on. Who's opinion is John drawing from? Clearly, according to his past articles on the subject and given his weak “potential” argument, John does believe that a fertilized egg deserves every shot, yet, he doesn't have an issue with those thousands of wasted lives from clinics - UNLESS they are used for study which may alleviate those who are, by the measure of any man, humans with full human rights! We are all paradoxes to some extent – morality and ethics are complicated subjects. However, I personally try to be as consistent as possible and the “evil scientists”, rather, science as an institution in modern days, tries as well. John's morality seems, instead, to be akin to throwing confetti in the air – a mish-mash of pseudo-Christian ideals, anti-science hippy sentiments, and feel-good, weepy, pro-life propaganda. What good is attacking Einstein and how he treated women, for example? John's writing is riddled with this kind of flim-flam, go-nowhere, anecdotal, vilification. Stephen Hawking divorced his wife and married one of his nurses! What does this say about his black hole research? Absolute nothing, of course. John again brought up the cruel death of an insect to once again cast negativity on the evils of science. I will attempt to tie the above together into some coherent whole, tying together ethics, science as an institution in terms of animal research, abortion and so on. Recall above the rose example. Would John weep at the cutting of a rose for the rose's sake? I tend to doubt even an “empath” [is John a Betazoid??] would. Why not? A flower is a living thing. What is it that makes mowing your lawn less than evil? What about pulling a weed? When you mow, at least the grass comes back. What about consciously killing a weed? Clearly, these issues go a little deeper than merely feeling our way around them. It sure SEEMS bad to torture a wasp. Perhaps ignorance is bliss after all? With knowledge comes responsibility and demands more of us. Anyone claiming to be ethical in the modern era, but lacking the required knowledge, can never be truly ethical, not really, not when it comes to these bio-tech issues which will continue to crop up and whose specifics are outside of normal human day to day realities. We have to take new information into account. The reason that we don't feel guilty about killing plants is, of course, that plants don't have the equipment to feel pain or to perceive their world. Yes, John, I speak of the physical, touchable, probable, testable, equipment of thought and feeling – they lack it. Do plants have souls? If they do, we shall all be punished for keeping our lawns nice, now won't we? We cannot define our morals based on magical or non-existent knowledge! Are rats just humans with equal rights? Are the souls of plants capable of feeling pain? The answers are indeed personal at some level, however, we all must live together in some sort of practical reasonable way in this pluralistic society that allows for both fake new-age Christians like John, real Christians, humanists and Hindu. Wasps and butterflies and head lice and roaches and house flies and ticks and mosquitoes and lobsters and fleas all have about the same mental capacity – the same ability to react to pain. Ever give your kids a lice treatment, John? We do already have the knowledge to understand which parts of our physical beings are capable of processing reason and experiencing pain. Based on this understanding, if I were to very carefully and methodically try to kill a roach as slowly as possible it would do no great injustice. I might have my head examined, especially if I took pleasure from this, but the roach is akin to a naturally evolved robot. I could program a robot to react as if in pain and have it attempt to escape in order to preserve itself. Now, John may wander into metaphysical lala-land again and say that we cannot really know how the roach feels (or my robot), but then again, we cannot really know how grass feels, can we? Why don't we base our morality on that which we DO know? I asked John once if he dinned at Red Lobster. I wanted to suggest that if John eats lobster that he is as immoral as researchers doing “cruel” things to wasps. After all, they do boil lobsters alive. I enjoy lobster, but I'm not sure it's worth the price. It's good, but not THAT good, IMO. I'd rather have shrimp or crab meat... Going on up the shrub of life, we see a clear pattern of increasing brain power with increased perceptions and abilities. A very early fetus does not have the mental circuitry to appreciate, contemplate or perceive pain. Just like grass, it simply does not have the stuff required! We know from studying humans with very strange and peculiar brain damage which areas are responsible for emotion, for memory and so forth. John would likely be offended by this real knowledge, but there seems to be, as of yet, no evidence for an immortal soul. Indeed, there seems to be no need for one at all! We can argue that a fertilized egg has a soul which somehow experiences pain against all known knowledge...of course, we can argue the same for grass... However, even if we give all life forms the utter benefit of the absolute doubt based on superstition, then the common denominator would seem to be to allow folks to make up their own mind with their own gods. In other words, Choice. Realize, that debating this is fine and dandy, but the underlying issues are actual laws and research grants and health clinics and money to the UN and many really-real implications. At some point, opinion and theory has to be translated into action, or inaction, by the government. Let's make sure that legislation takes the form of rational, reasonable, arguments. Science as an institution in terms of animal research gives the animal the benefit of the doubt. Based on how the animal responds to its environment and based on the brain capacity and so forth, the animal is treated humanely. A wasp is not given pain killer in other words, a monkey, however, is. I tried to carefully explain this once, using an octopus as an example of a creature which, to most people, isn't worth caring about. The reason-enhanced morality of science, however, does extend these creatures special considerations regardless of how otherwise grotesque they may seem due to their amazing mental escapades. That hardly seems like a cruel and detached position for that institution to take; it's not anecdotal or wishy-washy, it's an accepted norm. John didn't respond directly to this issue, he ignored it as he does any which tosses his arguments into the rubbish bin. If my personal morality can never be perfect, I can at least make sure that it takes all real knowledge into account and I can strive to make it as consistent and reasonable as possible. John on the other hand is free to waste his empathy on grass, mold, and Doritos (good Lord, think of the corn that was killed!) - or whatever else he dreams up, while attacking those who make an honest attempt at living a moral life and bettering mankind. For my part, I won't feel guilty about mowing my grass or stem cell research or killing cat fleas or eating seafood (even if it's boiled alive), will feel guilty about running over a squirrel, and remain upset that humans kill 100 million sharks every year. ------------ About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys. I now have a blog that I will start to increasingly maintain and update. Here is the link: fredsuberview.blogspot.com/ About my personal background and life: I was born, I got some education, worked, ate, and had some kids. It seems I like to write � something that was unknown to me until relatively recently...How's that for detail? ;) Hate mail is welcome unless you are from the Army Of God. Please! It's not that I mind seeing pictures of aborted fetuses in my inbox, but once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all... Email: dahlek65@gmail.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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