John Stossel: The left's war on science

RammerJammer14 said:

Spoken with the condescension of someone who thinks he is so right he does not need to address an argument.

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You're not making an argument. You're positing scientific falsehoods without any explanation or factual backing whatsoever. You're claiming "it is known" when it is not. I truly don't mean to be rude, but an argument of authority only works when you are an authority on the subject.

good lord, i hop on a long flight and all of these new folks show up on the ns board

Maybe the thread title should be changed since only the first few posts are on the topic.

TIDE-HSV said:

They can be removed and differentiated into any organ. However, give it up. No matter how it's clothed, it's a religious argument, so there's no gaining understanding, no discussion, really...

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We probably shouldn't tell him about induced pluripotent stem cells.

This thread has gone off the deep end.

Abortion is a no win argument. Period. I think there are about 5,000 threads about it already if anyone wants to keep that going (to be clear, I am not a NS moderator so I am speaking as a request).

RammerJammer14 said:

I would have multiquoted this with my last post but don’t know how to do that on the mobile app. Anyways, to your point:

It is not that an adult is “no more worthy” but that the embryo is “equally worthy”.

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My point was that both formulations of the concept establish moral equivalence between an embryo and an adult. I deliberately phrased it that way to show how that idea can have the opposite effect of the one you desire.

RammerJammer14 said:

In what way does an embryo’s life being valuable diminish the value of an adult’s life? Does a newborn child 3sec out of the womb also diminish the adult’s life by placing them on the same moral plane? After all, they are vastly different in terms of development, independence, cognitive ability, contribution to humanity, etc. There is no difference between the value and potential of human life from the embryonic stage to the newborn to the adult to the old man in his deathbed. I would argue that the embryo and the newborn are more worthy of protection as they are innocent and fully dependent on others to sustain their lives until they are able to do so themselves many years down the road.

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The problem is that an embryo's life is simply not as valuable as an adult's life. You can present arguments as to why you think that is not true or should not be true, and such arguments will include things like "They are both human life" but you will never escape the fact that embryos do not have the same status that adults do, and that your position is opposed by a lot of people with thoughtful, legitimate reasons for believing the way they do. Science isn't going to prove the worth of an embryo, because that is a moral and ethical question, which is outside the realm of science. We know through science that an embryo has a unique set of DNA, which helps establish it as a unique individual, and helps put the stamp of "human life" on it, but if you already don't value embryos, that label doesn't carry much weight. That doesn't mean that adult's life is not valuable, but if you rely on the label "human life" to value that adult's life, then lesser beings achieving that prestigious label waters down the meaning of that label, and we have to examine why we really care about an adult life but not an embryo. Of course, you say we should care about them equally, but I say that the status of "human life" isn't the real reason we care about them. I do care about people, but I do not care about embryos. The "human life" label is irrelevant to me if it includes embryos. If I am forced to re-examine why I care about people, then the result may be other than what you desire. I may reach the conclusion that our opinions don't matter and that people are simply animals that can think better than other animals, whose role in the universe is as insignificant as can be. If pressed, the science would likely show that none of us really matter, and that it's irrational egocentrism that enables us to believe otherwise. That is how the value of an adult's life gets diminished. And it really is a philosophical question, not a scientific one.