Pediatric neurosurgeon Michael Egnor : Fetuses not only experience pain but experience it more intensely than do adults: “Much of pro-abortion advocacy is science denial—the deliberate misrepresentation of science to advance an ideological agenda. Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University, wrote a misleading essay on that theme in the New York Times, “Science won’t end this debate” (January 22, 2019).” Michael Egnor, “More.” at Mind Matters     See also: The Governor Of Virginia: Killing Babies Is OK By Me (Barry Arrington) and Does brain stimulation research challenge free will? (Michael Egnor) Follow UD News at Twitter!

Yesterday two stories out of Virginia went viral.  In the first the Democrat sponsor of an “abortion” bill confirmed that she intends to allow the babies to be killed up to the moment of birth.  See here. You can read the text of the bill in this article.  Under the proposal a baby could be killed up to the moment of birth if a doctor says it would help the woman’s MENTAL health.  Depressed that you are about to have a baby?  Well, let’s kill it. The second story is about the Virginia governor’s foray into apologetics for killing little babies.  (When I first wrote this I almost wrote “infanticide.”  I am not going to use that word anymore.  It Read More ›

Writing at his blog: With few exceptions, most scientists and philosophers think that morality is at bottom based on human preferences. And though we may agree on many of those preferences (e.g., we should do what maximizes “well being”), you can’t show using data that one set of preferences is objectively better than another. (You can show, though, that the empirical consequences of one set of preferences differ from those of another set.) The examples I use involve abortion and animal rights. If you’re religious and see babies as having souls, how can you convince those folks that elective abortion is better than banning abortion? Likewise, how do you weigh human well being versus animal well being? I am a Read More ›

He offers seven reasons for rational dissent and doubt: 1. The evidence doesn’t exist. 2. The historical timelines that purportedly support it are constantly mutating. 3. The theory is a complete failure as a predictive model. 4. The theory is scientifically and technologically irrelevant. There are no evolutionary engineers. 5. Theoretical epicycles are increasingly required to maintain its viability. 6. The theory is a repeated failure as an explanatory model. 7. There is a very long track record of scientific fraud surrounding it. Vox Day, “Dark stream: The descent of TENS” at Vox Popoli He offers a vid to back up these statements: Hat tip: Ken Francis See also: Science fiction writer is not a Darwin fan Vox Day: Notice Read More ›

One of the issues we must face is whether there is enduring moral truth that can be warranted to such a degree that it rightly governs our thoughts, words (especially in argument) and deeds. Where, given that we have an inner voice (conscience) that testifies to duty under moral law, as well as an inescapable sense of duty to truth, right reason, prudence, justice, uprightness etc., if that intuition is false, then our whole inner life becomes tainted by grand delusion. A lot is at stake, in short. A quick first answer is, that we may recognise that grand delusion is self-referential, incoherent, self-falsifying — a case of reduction to absurdity. That is, we see the inescapability of being governed Read More ›

Around 565 million years ago, just when life was getting seriously underway: The finding, reported online January 28 in Nature Geoscience, supports an idea previously proposed by simulations that Earth’s inner core is relatively young. It also provides insight into how, and how quickly, Earth has been losing heat since its formation 4.54 billion years ago —key to understanding not only the generation of the planet’s magnetic shield but also convection within the mantle and plate tectonics.Carolyn Gramling, “Earth’s core may have hardened just in time to save its magnetic field” at ScienceNews The powerful recent phase protects lifefrom damaging radiation. Paper. (open access) See also: Researchers: The Moon made life on Earth possible and What becomes of science when the Read More ›