That same bozo who sent me the Hitler quote sent me another image in reply:
Fair enough. Darwin got a lot of things wrong. I’m actually going to be lecturing my intro biology students on where Darwin screwed up in a few weeks, focusing mainly on his bad genetics, but I’ll toss that quote into the mix, too. To be perfectly fair, I’ll also include the more complete quote below the fold…and no, nothing in the larger context excuses it.
The quote is from the Descent of Man, and not only is it a sexist comment, he throws in some casual racism, too.
Difference in the Mental Powers of the two Sexes.—With respect to differences of this nature between man and woman, it is probable that sexual selection has played a highly important part. I am aware that some writers doubt whether there is any such inherent difference; but this is at least probable from the analogy of the lower animals which present other secondary sexual characters. No one disputes that the bull differs in disposition from the cow, the wild-boar from the sow, the stallion from the mare, and, as is well known to the keepers of menageries, the males of the larger apes from the females. Woman seems to differ from man in mental disposition, chiefly in her greater tenderness and less selfishness; and this holds good even with savages, as shewn by a well-known passage in Mungo Park’s Travels, and by statements made by many other travellers. Woman, owing to her maternal instincts, displays these qualities towards her infants in an eminent degree; therefore it is likely that she would often extend them towards her fellow-creatures. Man is the rival of other men; he delights in competition, and this leads to ambition which passes too easily into selfishness. These latter qualities seem to be his natural and unfortunate birthright. It is generally admitted that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly marked than in man; but some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilisation.
The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man’s attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands. If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music (inclusive both of composition and performance), history, science, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison. We may also infer, from the law of the deviation from averages, so well illustrated by Mr. Galton, in his work on ‘Hereditary Genius,’ that if men are capable of a decided pre-eminence over women in many subjects, the average of mental power in man must be above that of woman.
Amongst the half-human progenitors of man, and amongst savages, there have been struggles between the males during many generations for the possession of the females. But mere bodily strength and size would do little for victory, unless associated with courage, perseverance, and determined energy. With social animals, the young males have to pass through many a contest before they win a female, and the older males have to retain their females by renewed battles. They have, also, in the case of mankind, to defend their females, as well as their young, from enemies of all kinds, and to hunt for their joint subsistence. But to avoid enemies or to attack them with success, to capture wild animals, and to fashion weapons, requires the aid of the higher mental faculties, namely, observation, reason, invention, or imagination. These various faculties will thus have been continually put to the test and selected during manhood; they will, moreover, have been strengthened by use during this same period of life. Consequently, in accordance with the principle often alluded to, we might expect that they would at least tend to be transmitted chiefly to the male offspring at the corresponding period of manhood.
Darwin was a man of his time, and he takes for granted the narrow Victorian view of gender roles, and also mistakes a cultural imposition for a biological disposition. That last paragraph is particularly interesting, though, for the way his theory of heredity was creeping in. Darwin subscribed to pangenesis, a Lamarckian way of thinking, so that practice of a trait during life, such as frequent exercise to build up physical strength, would actually be transmitted to your children — and in particular, that male traits, identified as male because his culture defined them as male, would be specifically transmitted to male children.
He was wrong, you know.
It would actually be an educational and entertaining exercise to go through all of Darwin’s books and pluck out the stuff he got totally wrong — it would be a long effort, though, and as we see here, would be thoroughly misinterpreted by creationists. Darwin is not our prophet. He came up with some really good ideas, and some really bad ideas, and they’ve been winnowed by experiment and evidence over the last century and a half, with the bad ones getting mostly discarded (sadly, there are still some scientists who argue for the inferiority of women and non-white people) and the good ones being retained. The Descent of Man is not holy writ, and we now see it as an interesting historical document…but more current papers are much more relevant to modern scientific thinking about evolution.
I’ll also point out that modern Christianity works the same way — they’ve winnowed out most of the bad ideas about slavery and race and justice, for instance, from the Bible, although they also tend to pretend that the flaws weren’t there in the first place, unlike scientists, who tend to readily repudiate errors, even when held by extremely eminent people. Religious believers also tend to be far slower at expunging fallacies than scientists — I think you’ll find more conservative Christians agreeing with the extended Darwin quote above than you will scientists.
This does not sound so terribly different from Sam Harris’ bullshit or all the fuck we regularly get to hear from atheoracist dudes
So evolution is wrong because Darwin was a sexist pig? Not only is that a nauseating ad hominem attack on evolution but if we were to follow that logic, no religion ever would come out looking very good either. Fortunately we know better than to use ad hominems, right? Well, not everyone.
How does that advice they give to lawyers go…
If the facts are on your side, pound the facts.
If the law is on your side, pound the law.
If neither the facts nor the law are on your side, pound the table.
Or in this case, pound the scientist. This is nothing but an ad hominem attack that does nothing to counter the evidence behind evolution.
So, more than a century ago, a scientist had some pretty backward views… excuse me while I properly dress myself… ok… *monocle pops out of place, cummerbund flaps up, looks aghast!*
Yep, Darwin had some awful views, and he was wrong about a lot of things, and we need to point these things out and, more importantly, address them when they’re still held by people over a century later, long after reality has taken a long, hard look at such silliness and mocked it senseless, but it’s not like this has any bearing on evolution.
Dawkins is starting to look more ridiculous every time he expresses a thought, but memes are still probably a reasonable idea. (Interestingly, though, I once watched a tv programme on the BBC where an Anglican priest walked us through the history of the theory of Evolution and declared it, not only not in opposition to Christianity, but accurate and a good thing to believe, before having a little panic about memes, rejecting them entirely because they meant that the continued belief in Christianity had nothing to do with the truth of it… quite a baffling conclusion to an otherwise reasonable documentary.)
Right now, we have a famous scientist who admires the work of a “feminist” who has made at least two videos for Prager University’s video classroom.
(Yes, I am talking about the renowned atheist, Richard Dawkins, and Christina Hoff Sommers, who is happy to have her work showcased at the creationist supporting “Prager University”.)
This is largely an extension of their belief that humanists structure their beliefs in the same fragile way that fundies do. Biblical literalism requires that every single aspect of their belief system (that is, the parts of the Bible they acknowledge + whatever folk superstitions they’ve written into it) must be true for any element to be true. Moreover, they have to wrap that system under the authority of its author, God. They think that the theory of evolution is a static text written by Darwin, rather than a series of independent, but interrelated propositions first suggested by him. If they can get in one swift blow to the theory as it stood 140 years ago, they think they can discredit the entire thing.
Stallions can be tricky; mares can be moody. The best way to get a nice steady riding horse is to get a gelded male – Wait. What was that analogy supposed to be illustrating?
This is really no different from the old “deathbed conversion” canard creationists are wont to roll out. It is irrelevant. Darwin’s personal opinions, whether he actually held them or not, doesn’t invalidate nearly 200 years’ worth of empirical evidence.
How awesome we white knight manginas are.
While reading the Darwin quote, I got an idea, and I thought I put it to discussion here. Humans show very little sexual dimorphism compared to some other species, but how much do people here think our ideal of gender equality (or in this case just sex equality) is dependent on this? If, for example, only 1% of the population was born female, but females were 10x the sizes of males, might there be situations where equal treatment wasn’t justified? Or if woman were born with duplicate organs, in-built bolter rifles and power armor, I might be tempted to argue against men serving in the space marines. Would I be wrong in this hypothetical scenario?
That’s one difference between science and religion.
If evolution were a religion, Darwin’s words would be accepted as infallible. Evolutionists would have to either agree entirely with everything in his writings, even if reality proved them wrong, or try to come up with some rationalization about how they were true at the time but something big came along and changed them.
Instead we can just say, Darwin was wrong, here are some adjustments to his ideas that fit reality better. And Darwin had character flaws, something we also would not be able to say if he were our god.
Yes. You have a harder question?
Don’t you just love it when religidiots assume that all atheists/scientists/people who recognise that evolution exists must somehow worship Darwin and take his word as holy writ, so that if they can just undermine Darwin as a person they will hey presto succeed in undermining the evidence and arguments for evolution. It’s quite breathtaking how completely they manage to misunderstand, well, pretty much everything.
Hey! Creationist bozo! How about you bring your bullshit in here rather than hiding behind email and bad memes.
It’s their job. Or more specifically, it’s a requirement to maintains a certain sort of religious belief.
Grumpy Cthulu, I must pose a counter-question that may cause you to rethink the premises underlying the question that you have posed. What does sexual dimorphism have to do with gender?
Not to in any way forgive his assumptions here, but I seem to recall Darwin arguing elsewhere that even if one to assume that different “races” (ibid) had different innate capabilities, it was the duty of civilization not to accept this but to work towards a level playing field.
Not sure he was capable of seeing how this would apply to gender as well, but other men of his time managed to have that insight.
There is what’s called the historian’s fallacy, and that’s what’s being played out here: the expectation that people who lived in the past would conform to modern standards of things like gender and race issues, etc., and then judge them when they fall short. Darwin was actually a pretty average Victorian man when it comes to his views on women. No surprise there. It doesn’t mean he had character flaws, and it doesn’t make him evil, nasty, bad, misguided or anything but a man of his time and place.
Harris, on the other hand . . .
Nomuse, I’m not sure that’s such a good viewpoint, considering the time in which Darwin was writing. That ‘level playing field’ would mean deference to the innate capabilities (read: lesser abilities) of each ‘race’ and would necessarily be racist, or it is tied up in some kind of eugenics. I can’t imagine a scenario that in Darwin’s time would be anything other than terribly racist and/or horrifyingly inhumane.
Oh, look it’s an abrahamic kettle calling Darwing black.
Tell that creationist that if xe enjoys finding racist, sexist and otherwise objectionable content in obsolote texts the bible is going to fucking blow their mind.
And for the 1921283345th fucking time….Darwin is not our pope…it’s not our prophet, it’s not someone our acceptance of the modern evolutionary synthesis hinges on in any way shape or form. Get it into your thick skulls, even if he had eaten grilled babies for breakfast and had a torture chamber where he performed the most unspeakable acts, a) it would change absolutely nothing in terms of what is actually true about biology and b) he would have still been better than your god.
Yes, darwing….what all the cool kids do.
Given that space marines are given these things in the course of their upbringing and training anyway, it probably wouldn’t matter if women had them by default.
I suddenly find myself wondering if the sisters of battle get the geneseed treatment… it would make a lot of sense, but I haven’t read anything to confirm that this is the case… hmm….
Anyway, as far as I’ve ever been aware, the point of gender equality is not to treat people with different abilities and performances in exactly the same way, but to treat people with equivalent abilities and performances, even if they don’t have the same arrangement of chromosomes, in the same way.
That being the case (and feel free to correct me, anyone, if I’ve completely misunderstood feminism in believing as I do) then a woman who starts life with a redundant set of organs and a killamajig suit should have the same opportunities to shoot green people as men who are gifted with their redundant organs and killamajig suit in youth, since they should both be on an equal footing once their killamajig training is complete.
Dhall @ #18, that’s not what’s being done here, though it’s prudent to point out that fallacy to watch out for.
It is possible to evaluate someone’s words and actions based on standards apart from their historical reality without engaging in a fallacy. No one would fail to acknowledge that Darwin was fairly average by the standards of his time, but he wasn’t progressive either. By comparison, however, to the standards we here consider minimally acceptable, Darwin would be, at least, an awful racist. There are examples, too, of exemplary forward thinking people of his time (someone else here must be able to come up with them) who would fit in here, in fact. On that point, I might go so far as to say that, without engaging in historical relativism, Darwin was both wrong and racist in his time, he just happened to hold the ‘kinder’ (*cringe*) view of the majority.
@azhael, 21
I was thinking of Darwing Duck….
Oh, everything I said @ #23, exchange sexism for racism and it still works. I should think you could take any number of discriminatory attitudes and freely exchange them, but I don’t know (nor do I know if anyone knows) what Darwin might have thought about gays and trans* people, for instance. I can’t imagine it would be any better.
I think another thing to keep in mind here is that a lot of god-botherers think that people (and everything else) are actually degenerating over time. Adam and Eve were near-perfect humans who lived for 900 years, then Noah lived for 600 years, and so on until you get to us who are so full of sin that we die before 100 usually.
So if Darwin was such a flawed scientist 150 years ago, well, that must mean the evolutionists of today are really depraved monsters!
@22:
Going backwards; Equal judgment of merit is a part of it. Two more parts though, that I think matter quite a lot: That be acceptable to make the choice to get a killamajig shit (Opportunity of choice vs. locked social roles), and that people realize that when you start without it, you have to go get it first, you can’t just assume that everyone starts with one and the inborn knowledge of how to use it. (Recognition of privileged start vs meritorious performance). The problems thread together, and there are certainly more besides. It’s a complex problem.
Also, the Sisters don’t get the marine mod suite. They do what they do on their zeal alone – Compared to them the Marines have the privileged start.
Huh, when I first read it I interpreted it as basically-men and women are the same but men get more credit for intellectual pursuits because sexism. (Silly 21st century outlook.) I prefer my interpretation. But yes, much like creationists using Darwin’s lack of knowledge to try to disprove evolution, this does little to impact my beliefs about the equality of the sexes.
Creationists condemn Darwin (and by extension evolution) for being racist, when they are themselves racist. The same is true for sexism.
The same kind of thinking from the creationist camp infests military thinking too (probably because they are the same kind of people):
“If we kill their leader the power of their army will be totally destroyed.”
Science has plenty of valuable workers to continue the good fight.
Athywren #4
Well, he’s not wrong; on the face of it, meme theory means precisely that. Of course, that doesn’t make the idea wrong.
nomuse
Indeed, men well before his time did as well (and people of other genders, without a doubt, but it’s a lot harder to find out about them, because patriarchy, basically.); Haji Bektash Veli, founder of the Bektashi Sufi order in the 13th century is quoted as saying ” Educate your women, a nation that doesn’t educate its women cannot progress”. Also “Whatever the language, religion or color of one might be, a good human being is a good human being”, and quite a number of other sayings that would fit in well around here (“Do not forget your enemy is also a human being.”). Granted, he also said a whole lot of rot about God and the Quran and suchlike, but if you leave those bits aside, he seems like he had his head on fairly straight.
Thomathy @23,
What’s interesting is that in this very passage Darwin himself, writing in 1871, hinted at such people.
I wonder who he had in mind.
And even if we have to judge a historical figure’s attitudes by the standards of their day, it is worth noting that sometimes there were other people with a minority viewpoint that turned out to be right or at least on the right track. This is one of those times.
If convincing evidence emerged that Darwin was a serial killer whose scientific work was fraudulent from beginning to end, it would make not the slightest difference to the status of modern evolutionary biology. Of course, PZ’s correspondent is utterly incapable of understanding this – or indeed, anything much at all.
Re 32, one person Darwin would have had in mind was his contemporary John Stuart Mill, who strongly and vocally favoured women’s suffrage, and was mocked in the Victorian press for his views.
Even Socrates, 5th century BCE, takes something approaching that in the Republic, along with some more ambiguous things in other dialogues. (Plato himself was apparently just a fucking mess on that front, with his “noble lie.”) Also, some Epicureans, Stoics and others were comparatively a lot more fair about gender and race than their contemporaries. And much of this was written down in one form or another, a lot of which at least some people did continue to read up until the present day, translate, expand upon, etc.
That’s just one of many reason why, besides being irrelevant most of the time, it’s always mind-boggling to hear someone talk as if people way back when* just didn’t know any better, because as far as they were concerned nobody ever argued otherwise. Yeah, they certainly could have heard otherwise — you are the ignorant one and you’re just assuming this about these historical figures, apparently because it makes you feel better, or maybe it’s just a good story to tell yourself. Besides that, with very few exceptions like fucking hermits or something, they live with women every day (people of other races, not so much), so it’s pretty hard to be so pig fucking ignorant about them. That’s the sort of ignorance you really have to search for and then protect, to rationalize your hateful bullshit.
*It’s never clear when the real “enlightenment” supposedly happened, when people no longer had such a pathetic excuse. 1650? 1750? 1850? 1950? Five minutes ago?
If people were less into the concept of hero worship we would spend far less time wondering whether or not to excuse things which larger historical contexts make close to inevitable. In an overview of attitudes on race or gender in Victorian Britain, Darwin’s beliefs are of interest, provided they’re compared to those of many others. Elsewhere they’re largely irrelevant, because nobody with any sense is interested in trying to award him points out of 10 for superlative human being-ness according to our standards. A detailed consideration of the complicated career of Alfred Wallace is a good counteract for people at risk of worshiping Darwin.
@10 Yep, a sentient species in which the female was ten times the size of the male and ate the male after sex might have some really interesting ethical challenges. Which is of course a trope in numerous science fiction novels. But we are not such a species.
Darwin was only one of many people who contributed to the theory of evolution. There were many before him and many after. What was significant was that he was the first person to propose a theory that worked without the need for either a God or an intelligence behind it. Lamark had almost all the right ideas but not the rigor. And he didn’t see the gap in his theory so he didn’t see it as a problem.
Had Lamark and Darwin been contemporaries it is quite possible we would joint credit evolution.
“unlike scientists”
The essential difference between scientists and apologists (yeah, there are exceptions): scientists admit and correct past errors, apologists correct and deny them.
Gwynnyd @7
Win.
Charles Darwin was a man of his time (and more specifically an upper middle class Englishman) though not as conservative as some; married women took care of their husbands and children; single women (such as his niece Snow Wedgwood who was considered one of the most intelligent, male or female, in the family) took care of parents, siblings, or other relatives needing care. He knew Harriet Martineau though it was his brother Erasmus who seems to have been smitten by her (the rest of the family seem terrified that they might actually marry). He did contribute some to building a science lab around 1880 for students at Girton and Newnham colleges (the two women colleges at Cambridge) and in at least one letter that
“I should regret that any girl who wished to learn physiology shd. be checked, because it seems to me that this science is the best or sole one for giving to any person an intelligent view of living beings, & thus to check that credulity on various points which is so common with ordinary men & women.”
though he next stated
“I shd look at it as a Sin to discourage any boy from studying physiology who had the wish to do so; & I make the distinction between a boy & a girl, because as yet no woman has advanced the science.”
Letter to E.M. Dicey, 1877 (letter 10746 in the Darwin project)
His letter to Caroline A. Kennard (9 Jan 1882) also sums up his view that women (at least in his milieu) were intellectually inferior.
“The question to which you refer is a very difficult one. I have discussed it briefly in my `Descent of Man’. I certainly think that women though generally superior to men to moral qualities are inferior intellectually; & there seems to me to be a great difficulty from the laws of inheritance, (if I understand these laws rightly) in their becoming the intellectual equals of man. On the other hand there is some reason to believe that aboriginally (& to the present day in the case of Savages) men & women were equal in this respect, & this wd. greatly favour their recovering this equality. But to do this, as I believe, women must become as regular `bread-winners’ as are men; & we may suspect that the early education of our children, not to mention the happiness of our homes, would in this case greatly suffer.”
Caroline Kennard wrote back a long letter that concluded.
“Let the `environment’ of women be similar to that of men and with his opportunities, before she be fairly judged, intellectually his inferior, please.”
What a badass response from Caroline Kennard!
What a shame we’re still having the same arguments 130 years later.
A point Sam Harris has yet to grasp.
Martin Luther was a virulent anti-semite, which by this reasoning, renders protestantism invalid.
Athywren (#4):
I remember seeing that programme too, and if I recall correctly, his objection to memetics was that it implied that we didn’t hold our beliefs based on their reasonableness and left us no grounds for supposing that said beliefs tracked the truth. In other words, memetics undermines trust in the reliability of our cognitive faculties.
Now while I don’t consider memes to be much more than a useful metaphor, this struck me as being an invalid criticism, because being rational, or testable, or truth-tracking, or whatever strikes me as being a rather good survival strategy for a meme. Of course, there are plenty of other memetic survival strategies that don’t involve being reasonable or true, but the objection that memetics undermines trust in our cognitive faculties wholesale doesn’t really hold up. Memetics actually makes no difference, since it is consistent with beliefs being held, propagated and acquired both rationally and irrationally.
It is almost exquisite in a quite disgusting way how obtuse somebody can be. Here we have a scenario where we are essentially asked to abandon knowledge of reality supported by mountains of evidence based on the fact that one of the people involved in the early stages of the development of that knowledge was morally flawed and held objectionable views, even though no one has ever claimed that Darwin was morally perfect and this has absolutely nothing to do with the truth of evolutionary theory. Meanwhile, these same people who are pretending that this invalidates our hard earned knowledge, are making outrageous claims of moral perfection for their god, even though the creature depicted in their texts is the vilest, most morally disgusting monster that could ever exist, and this doesn’t seem to have any impact on their acceptance of their bullshit even though it can be argued that it hinges mainly on that very thing.
Christians, you couldn’t make them up.
@Orakio, 27
Fair points, it completely failed to occur to me that being born with the marine suite as standard would be a case of privilege.
Once again demonstrating that women must work twice as hard to get half the credit! Mind you, I suppose it also demonstrates the power of faith… so… *cough.*
@azhael, 45
Ah, but God isn’t a moral monster because, you see, God is the source of all morality… therefore nothing he does is wrong, so shut up about the terrible things He does in a thankfully fictitious historical fantasy!
In his book entitled The Descent of Man, 1st ed. (1871; rpt. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), Volume II, p. 404, Charles Darwin stated that “man is descended from some lowly-organised form.” In other words, Darwin stated that “we are descended from barbarians.” Id. Descent is the sine qua non of evolution. There is one and only one definition of descent: the passing of heritable traits from ancestor to descendant. Therefore, a human zygote is a human descendant: a member of the human species: a human being. However, in the case of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 162 (1973), the United States Supreme Court rejected the biological concept of descent and held as a matter of constitutional law that “the fetus, at most, represents only the potentiality of life.” Clearly, according to the Supreme Court, Darwin was wrong. Unless, of course, the United States Supreme Court lied.
http://410us113.wordpress.com/2014/08/06/the-big-lie
Devastating argument!
You win!
Liedector, your point is?
C’mon, Nerd.
liedetector saw a dead thread with the word Darwin and saw an opportunity to score a big zinger about abortion.
It makes perfect sense!
There are a couple of vocabulary problems…
And this has to do what with the price of potatoes in Boise? Or anything else?
Sooooo…Harry Blackmun used a phrase in the Roe v. Wade decision that you perceive to be at variance with something Darwin said 100 years prior, therefor….evolution is false? Is that the takeaway here?
liedetector@47,
I was speculating before coming to this thread as to what sort of numpty you were, a creobot or an MRA – someone with a nym like that is always some sort of numpty. But evidently you think you’re extremely clever, and that your brilliant logic will force us to abandon either evolutionary science, or women’s right to choose. But the answer to the supposed dilemma you pose is a simple one: the Supreme Court did not lie, but it did use the wrong word, because a fetus is undoubtedly alive, and indeed, if it is a human fetus, a member of the species Homo sapiens. What it is not, is a person: it “represents only the potentiality of” personhood. Of course even if it was a person, it would not have the right to make use of another person’s body without their consent – any more than a person with failing kidneys can comandeer another person’s kidney.
Yay! You managed to understand Darwin! Now you’re just 150 years behind current science, instead of 2000! A winner is you!
Is anyone surprised that liedetector was a driveby?
Based on history, no, but I’m going to think about anything until Liedetector tells me why what he said is important to me….*snicker*
In response to vaiyt @ 54.
You do not believe in descent with modification. You are a denier.
In response to Nick Gotts @ 53.
In the case of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 150 (1973), the United States Supreme Court stated, “Logically, of course, a legitimate state interest in this area need not stand or fall on acceptance of the belief that life begins at conception or at some other point prior to live birth. In assessing the State’s interest, recognition may be given to the less rigid claim that as long as at least potential life is involved, the State may assert interests beyond the protection of the pregnant woman alone.”
Nicky, you lied.
Lie detectors have been proved to not work, ie are a scam. What are you?
you telling other people what they believe?BWAahahahhahahaha, you are funny, and stupid.
This from a proven liar and bullshitter? Bwahshahahhhahahahhaha You are funny and stupid.
liedector, what is your intent for your non-sequitur fuckwittery? Can you even explain it?
Shorter liedetector: The sky is blue, therefor banana! Q.E.D.
liedetector@58,
Use my name, scumbag, and stop lying; nothing in what you quote in any way conflicts with my #53.
Nerd, I suspect their argument is a version of “if humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys”. Hard to tell, though. Racism appears to be involved.
I’m purposely playing stupid to get liedetector to explain what they mean. Let them speak for themselves. That’s the easiest way to expose the lies of liedetector, who can’t seem to have the self-reflection to catch their own lies.
Huh… I have a banana ready to become lunch, and the sky is, indeed, blue.
Seems legit, actually.
Of course it’s legit. I’m never sarcastic.
In response to Nicky @ 63.
In Comment #53, you stated that the Court was referring to the potentiality of “personhood.” However, the Court had made its point perfectly clear. See Comment #58.
Nicky, you lied. Twice.
And you lie again, not detecting your own lies. What is any connection between Darwin and a SCOTUS decision? You lie if you pretend there is one….
There’s no-one call “Nicky” here, lyingshitspigot. And what I said, quite clearly, is that they ought to have referred to potential personhood. There is no evidence whatever that they “lied” – that is, deliberately promulgated a falsehood – but what they said is clearly erroneous, because the fetus is alive. Those who start the accusations of lying, as you did, are frequently the readiest liars. That’s certainly so in this case.
@liedetector
Here, I’ll indulge you.
No human being, living or not, has the right to forcibly use another’s body for their benefit. Poof! There goes your red herring.
In response to Nicky @ 70.
In Comment #53, you supplied the evidence: you stated that “a fetus is undoubtedly alive.” I’ll repeat your word: “undoubtedly.” However, the Court stated otherwise. See Comment #47.
NickyBoy, you lied. Thrice.
Your sperm/egg is alive. So the fuck what. And no babies are killed in abortions liar and bullshitter. The fetus isn’t born yet. You need to quit lying to yourself, then quit lying to us.
Still haven’t connected the relevancy of Darwin quote to a SCOTUS decision a hundred years later. Until you do, non-sequitur, meaning deliberate lie.
So liedetector obviously thinks they’ve executed the mother of all gotchas here but I still haven’t figured out what they think they’ve gotten. Is it that evolution is false or that abortion is murder or is it that the US Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of how reality works?
In response to Potty Mouth @ 73.
A human egg is not a descendant. A human sperm is not a descendant. However, a human zygote is a human descendant: a member of the human species: a human being.
http://410us113.wordpress.com/2014/08/06/the-big-lie
Potty Mouth, you lied.
liedetector
Say something sensible or I’m sending an Alert.
Lying drivel. You change the goalposts, with the word descendant, which is meaningless until born. You claim it is a baby. Let’s do an experiment. We are across from an abortion center, that also provided OB/GYN care. We take photographs from across the street of every identifiable human going in, and then out. Match up the pictures, and then show me the human being going in that didn’t come out using those photographs. You can’t. You lie. You bullshit. You are stupid.
Still no link to the Darwin quote and the SCOTUS decision a hundred years later. You can’t/won’t try to show one, because there isn’t any. You know that. You lie if you think there is, but won’t show us the link….
Oh, and Lyingblatherer, the woman in question is fully human, and her humanity is not in doubt. Show non-religious “evidence” where the rights of the potential human trumps her rights as a full human. You can’t do that, as you can’t demean the woman in any way….
Someone clearly has something against foul language. Someone ought to confront the reasons why.
In any case, liedetector, it doesn’t matter if the fetus has no rights, or if the fetus has the same rights a 50 year old does. It doesn’t matter if the fetus is or isn’t a person. Among all the rights possessed by humans there is no right to use the body of another. To survive, a fetus must use the body of a pregnant woman, and it doesn’t have that right. You don’t have the right to demand I give you a blood transfusion. I don’t have the right to demand Nerd give me a kidney. A fetus doesn’t have the right to use a pregnant woman’s body. In all cases, consent must be given and maintained for the human to use the body of another human.
So continue spouting off about human beings all you want.
No human being has the right that you want to confer.
Oh, and another problem you have is that just because someone is genetically a human being doesn’t mean they’re a human person (i.e. possessed of the qualities that determine personhood). Why don’t you list the personhood qualities a fetus possesses. Then when you’re done I’ll simply point you back to my point that no human has the right to the use of another human’s body.
But hey, it’s nice to know you’re a forced birther who wants to enslave women for nine months.
Which makes all your whining about people being “potty mouths” ridiculous. You’re being called bad names, but you’re advocating enslaving half the population of the planet. You need to recalibrate your morality you fuckstain.
Hmm, how many fallacies can be unpacked from one silly sentence? A descendant is a person who lived a life after they were born. A zygote is clearly not a sentient being, regardless of the source of its DNA.. A zygote, by definition, is not a descendant. It’s the animal version of a seed. The vast majority of zygotes and seeds die due to natural selection, they do not go on to become an adult organism. It’s a very practical and efficient point in the reproductive process to weed out unfavorable gene combinations. It takes far less energy and resources to make many many zygotes than it does to gestate a mammal to term and raise it to adulthood. Only an willfully blind idiot would privilege a zygote or seed over a sexually mature adult.
In his book entitled The Origin of Species, 1st ed. (1859; rpt. New York: Penguin Classics, 1985), p. 115, Charles Darwin stated, “Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however, slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring.”
Between human beings, heritable traits are passed at fertilization – not birth.
Potty Mouth, you lied. Twice.
You, liar and bullshitter, are presupposing Darwin has anything intelligent to say on the modern abortion argument. He doesn’t. Darwin is not my god. I don’t recognize his authority on anything outside of his version of evolution. Why you think I do is your lie and bullshit. You don’t understand science, which has increased its knowledge in the 150 years since Darwin. And that scientists have no ultimate authority. YOU LIE AND BULLSHIT.
Get over yourself liar and bullshitter. Either show the conclusive physical evidence your fetus is more of a person, and more of a human being, than the woman carrying it, (and you show your misogyny by pretending she is less of a human being than the fetus), or you have nothing. And you have nothing., What a fool and idjit you are….
So the “zygote” is human.
So what?
A person needing a kidney is a human being too. Doesn’t mean I should be required by the government to give them mine.
You’re shit even at making shit arguments.
As far as I can tell liedetector is not actually communicating with anyone in this thread.
Hordeling: X
liedetector: Someone else said Y! One of you is lying!
Horde: Um…what?
liedetector: Another lie!!
Horde: erm…
liedector: More lies!!!!!!
Seven of Mine @85
From what I can tell, in the 1850s Charles Darwin said something about human descent in regards to evolution. In the 1970s Harry Blackmun said something about abortion. liedector has decided that one of these two are lying about something or other. Furthmore anyone who disagrees with liedector about this nebulous something or other is also lying. Plus being a pottymouth is being a pottymouth. Or something or other.
In response to Potty Mouth @ 82.
The theory of evolution is descent with variation. Descent is the passing of heritable traits. Evolution is the passing of the heritable variations. Descent is the sine qua non of evolution.
Between human beings, heritable traits are passed at fertilization – not birth. Therefore, a human zygote is a human descendant: a member of the human species: a human being.
Potty Mouth, you lied. Thrice.
liedetector
You are failing to make your point.
Jesus is weeping.
Hey, why’s everybody picking on the fish character from The Amazing World of Gumball? Don’t make him challenge you to a game of Dodj or Daar! ;)
Nothing to with abortion, liar and bullshitter. And until birth occurs, the cycle isn’t complete. Your germ cells are human life, but aren’t a person or child. They are cells. You have nothing, will have nothing, and your thinking is bullshit.
In case you aren’t terminally stupid, changes with birth, including the oxygenation required to turn on the brain. Boy, are you one stupid fuckwitted idjit.
Still no evidence that the fetus is more of human being than the woman, and any presupposition of that fact is prima facie evidence for terminal misogyny on your part. Put up or shut the fuck up. You lost before you even started, you are that pathetic and evidenceless…
liedetector,
It would really help your argument if you’d tell us what you’re actually arguing instead of calling people liars and pottymouths. All you’re doing now is pissing people off with your whines and accusations.
liedetector, you’re tiresome and have worn out your welcome. You are now restricted to posting only on Thunderdome. Post anywhere else and you will be banned.
liedetector
re: PZ’s warning
That includes posting an agreement here.
A link to the Thunderdome is on the sidebar.
Thunderdome link (sharpens titanium fang):
\http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/10/06/thunderdome-55/#respond
lyingshitspigot@72,
I have not lied, lyingshitspigot. Yes, a fetus is alive, and I have said the Supreme Court were wrong to say* that it is not. But that does not mean they lied; one can be wrong without lying.
Yes, both a human egg and a human sperm are, biologically speaking, members of Homo sapiens. Whether they are “human descendants” (a peculiar term), depends on how you want to use that term. Your whole dishonest schtick is based on absurd quibbles about terminology. The only liar in this whole matter is you.
*Actually, looking at what they said again, it’s less clear that they were wrong, because they actually referred to “the potentiality of life” and “potential life”, which indicates that they were referring to a life: a person’s history or career between birth and death. They would probably have agreed that the fetus is alive, biologically speaking; but it represents only the potential of having a life in the biographical sense.
In response to Professor Myers @ 92 and 93.
Thank you, Professor. You honor me with your restriction.
I believe in evolution: the passing of heritable variations from ancestor to descendant.
Professor, you have my promise: At Thunderdome, I will tirelessly defend evolution.
I understand what liedetector’s problem is. Xe can’t read. If xe’d read PZ @92 and chigau’s amplifying post @93 then xe’d know not to post here.
Jeez. Why can’t they ever understand simple instructions. Liedetector is now banned, as he was hoping to be.
Me, mocking a smoking crater:
liedetector at 87:
In response to:
Either the pro-fetus spokesperson can’t read or they believe it axiomatic that
Human being = More human than a woman
(Reads through the thread backwards)
Okay, my verdict is on “can’t read”. Or ,rather, won’t read. Definitely explains why they deliberately and arrogantly walked right into the banhammer.
*removes banhammer splat protection from the thread*
Dang, sharpened my titanium fang for nothing. But grog/swill is on the house with your completed BINGO card from Liedetector…..