Awesomely horrible

We have a long history in developmental biology of studying the most amazing freaks of nature — damage to developing organisms can produce astonishingly ghastly results as the embryo tries to regulate and recover, yielding results that are almost normal. There’s even a whole subdiscipline of the field, teratology, dedicated to studying aberrations of embryology. The word is perfect, since it is derived from a Greek root that means both “wonders” and “monsters”.

An unfortunate child in Colorado was the recipient of one of these wonders/monsters. Diagnosed with a brain tumor, when surgeons opened up his skull, they found fragments of a fetus inside: two tiny feet, part of a hand, coils of intestine. The surgery was successful and the child is doing fine now, but this was the most well-organized ‘tumor’ I’ve ever heard of. It’s not clear exactly what it was; there are things called teratomas, where a particular kind of cancer recapitulates a developmental program and builds tissues, things like skin with hair or teeth or chunks of muscle and bone and gland, but those aren’t this well organized. They tend not to produce complete organs, but partially differentiated sheets and lumps. Another possibility is fetus in fetu, where a fragment of the very early embryo is isolated and begins its own independent pattern of normal development, and then is engulfed by the larger and faster growing sibling embryo. Sometimes people late in life will be surprised to learn that there is a partially developed twin imbedded deep in their body. There is no question in any of these cases, however, that the tissue is not an autonomous individual. It is a piece of human-derived tissue that has executed part of the program of cell:cell interactions and induction that these kinds of cells are capable of doing.

Something struck me when I saw the photograph of this particular surgery. Here it is, a photo of a fetal foot flopping out of a bloody baby’s brain (don’t click if you’re squeamish). As I’m sure you’ve noticed, anti-choice people love to parade about with gory photos of aborted fetuses, and they love to dwell on little details like a recognizable hand or face. This picture is exactly like those, yet realize this: there was no human being behind those little baby toes. The existence of these fragments of non-sentient tissue endangered the life of a child, and there was no question that they needed to be extracted.

This is also how we should view abortion. It’s ugly and messy, and there’s something disquietingly resonant of humanity in the pieces of the embryo or fetus, but we shouldn’t be fooled. Those are beautifully patterned collections of differentiated cells, but there is no person there.

Same as the old boss

This is not an auspicious beginning. Guess who is going to deliver the invocation at Obama’s inauguration? None other than the smilin’ face of right-wing fundamentalism, Rick Warren.

As we’ve pointed out several times before, in 2004 Warren declared that marriage, reproductive choice, and stem cell research were “non-negotiable” issues for Christian voters and has admitted that the main difference between himself and James Dobson is a matter of tone. He criticized Obama’s answers at the Faith Forum he hosted before the election and vowed to continue to pressure him to change his views on the issue of reproductive choice. He came out strongly in support of Prop 8, saying “there is no need to change the universal, historical defintion of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population … This is not a political issue — it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about.” He’s declared that those who do not believe in God should not be allowed to hold public office.

Obama had a chance to set a non-sectarian, progressive tone at this event, and he has chosen to kow-tow to the wretched evangelical movement.

Jingo bells

Oh, no — more hysteria over Christmas from Bill O’Reilly, joined now by Gretchen Carlson, the blinkered bigot host of some other Fox program. The dialog is hilariously stupid.

Billo blows it early, claiming that Christmas marks “the birth of Jesus Christ, which is what the holiday is based on”, which is simply not true. Midwinter festivals have a long history predating Christianity, and Christianity simply coopted this one, right down to the date and many of the pagan traditions that go with it. The name is taken from Christianity, but so what?

Then the two begin a duet of historical revisionism. Carlson is upset because public spaces contain a multitude of different displays, and she complains that her children won’t be able to see “the thing I was able to see growing up”, which seems to be a complete lack of diversity — the only displays she remembers seeing as a child were entirely Christian, and to her this is a good thing.

Billo claims “there was no controversy over Christmas … everybody said Merry Christmas”, again as if this were a good thing, and completely ignoring that this controversy is one he invented. Yes, people said “Merry Christmas”, and they also said “Happy Holidays”…and we still do. Even atheists.

I like Carlson’s next suggestion, made while completely oblivious to what she is saying: “People can have their right to free speech, just don’t pick December 25th to do it”. Right. You can speak freely, except on 25 December, and, ummm, the days around Christmas, which nowadays spans the period from shortly before Halloween to sometime around New Year’s Day. And Easter is off limits, too. And St Crispin’s Day. And Shrove Tuesday. And Pentecost Sunday. Oh, and the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus…

Oh, OK — you get 3 hours of free speech on the second Tuesday in July, at 2am, as long as you don’t say it anywhere outside of your house. And only if you have a house — no poor people.

Billo makes a prediction: “They’re going to try to revoke the federal holiday … you can’t have a federal holiday based on religion”. The first part is wrong, the second part is right. You can’t have the state endorsing a religious holiday. However, atheists aren’t at all interested in revoking our midwinter holiday, and I haven’t heard of anyone lobbying to get the day off the calendar. We also have a clear-cut court decision from the federal judicial system, Ganulin v. United States. O’Reilly is going to be pained to learn this, but legally, he isn’t getting Christmas off because he’s a Christian. It’s a secular holiday in the US.

Courts have repeatedly recognized that the Christmas holiday has become largely secularized. …By giving federal employees a paid vacation day on Christmas, the government is doing no more than recognizing the cultural significance of the holiday.

For those who think human bones would make a great gift

Here’s an interesting new blog, Moneduloides, that seems to have an emphasis on human evolution, if you’re into that sort of thing, and it currently has a short list of good texts for Christmas presents. <moan> I’ve done absolutely no Christmas shopping at all this year, so if the economy tanks and my family hates me, it is all my fault. I just have to get out from under this stack of grading first.

New Advent podcasts

If you haven’t been keeping up with the New Humanist Advent Podcasts, there are many new ones since I last mentioned them: Ben Goldacre, Martin Rowson, Chris Addison, Ben Miller, Andrew Collins, , Eddie Izzard, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and Laurie Taylor. I do have to mention that Eddie Izzard totally stole my suggestion of celebrating Isaac Newton, and turned it into a weird ramble about how intelligent people have bad parties where there is no bathing and no shagging going on. I think I am horribly offended, even if it is true that very few parties that I’ve attended have involved bathing or shagging. Perhaps I’m not really offended, but just moderately worried that I’ve missed out on a lot of very fun parties.

First they came for the mad scientists…oh, hey, that’s me!

Man, it’s getting to the point where a fellow can’t even build a death ray or an island fortress shaped like a skull without someone getting pissy about it. Take this account, for instance, of a few people just playing around with skeletons and lab coats:

A group of students had their ‘Mad Scientist’ party brought to an abrupt end when police mistook them for terrorists.

The private party, held in Hackney, north London, was organised by a group of friends dressed in white laboratory coats and wigs, who put on a display of theatrical ‘experiments’ to entertain guests.

But when police entered the building for a routine check in the early hours of Sunday morning, they discovered scientific debris and plastic skeletons and mistook it for terrorist paraphernalia or drug-making equipment.

Caretaker of the property, Richard Watson, 29, was arrested under The Anti-Terrorism Act and questioned while the entire area was evacuated and roads cordoned off with police tape.

He said: ‘I was handcuffed and put in the back of the police van for over an hour while the bomb squad and drugs team came down.

‘There was a ridiculous amount of police there. Every time I looked out of the van I could see a new group of them swarming around.’

Three fire engines and three ambulances were also called to the scene as Mr Watson was searched and interrogated.

Note to self: clean up debris in basement soon.