What’s Wrong with the World

Lydia,

I'm glad you tackled the scientific end of this execrable piece. Meanwhile, James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, had this to say yesterday, more from a sociological point of view:

Man: Hero or Zero?

Here's a thought experiment about thought experiments. Suppose someone submitted an op-ed piece to the New York Times titled "Jews, Who Needs Them?" The piece asks the reader to consider, as a thought experiment, what would happen if "all the Jews on earth died tonight." It then proposes a "cost-benefit analysis," which leads to the conclusion that the effect wouldn't really be all that dire, although it would be a shame inasmuch as Jews are "entertaining."

The tone of our hypothetical piece is facetious, not hateful, and its thought experiment is meant to illustrate some broader point about Jewish culture. (We can't imagine what that point might be, but this level of detail is sufficient for our purposes.) It wouldn't stand the slightest chance of getting published in the Times, would it? Nor would any respectable paper consider it.

Try the same experiment with other minorities, and the result will be the same. Except for one group: males. Here is where our thought experiment ends, for the Times actually did publish a piece over the weekend titled "Man, Who Needs Them?" The author, Greg Hampikian, a professor of biology and criminal justice at Boise State University, actually did write these words:

"If a woman wants to have a baby without a man, she just needs to secure sperm (fresh or frozen) from a donor (living or dead). The only technology the self-impregnating woman needs is a straw or turkey baster, and the basic technique hasn't changed much since Talmudic scholars debated the religious implications of insemination without sex in the fifth century. If all the men on earth died tonight, the species could continue on frozen sperm. If the women disappear, it's extinction.

Ultimately the question is, does "mankind" really need men? With human cloning technology just around the corner and enough frozen sperm in the world to already populate many generations, perhaps we should perform a cost-benefit analysis."

Hampikian proceeds to do just that and quickly ascertains that women can do anything men can do. He then asks a female colleague "if she thought that there was yet anything irreplaceable about men." Her reply: "They're entertaining." His conclusion: "Gentlemen, let's hope that's enough."

If men are the only group one can joke about exterminating, perhaps it means that we really do live in a male-dominated culture--one in which men are the only group about which such a joke runs no risk of being taken seriously. Or perhaps it means that antimale bigotry, especially among the narrow elite, has reached potentially dangerous levels.

In any case, Hampikian's broader point is somewhat true. In the narrow terms of biological reproduction--as distinct from the social and economic functions of the family--he only slightly overstates the case when he declares men superfluous. The man is necessary to the reproductive process only at the very beginning; and a society with a low sex ratio (few men relative to women) is likely to be more fertile than one with a high sex ratio.

But as we've noted before, high-sex-ratio societies also tend to treat women better than low-sex-ratio ones do. That's simple economics: Men value women more, and therefore do more for them, when they're in short supply. Hampikian's hypothetical society, with a sex ratio of zero, would be a dystopia for women, and not only because they'd be deprived of entertainment.

In a review of Hanna Rosin's new book, "The End of Men: And the Rise of Women," Heather Wilhelm gets at the reason why. Rosin's thesis is that the successes of feminism have made men increasingly superfluous socially and economically as well as reproductively. "Having it all" actually means doing it all:

"Taking on increasing levels of paid work, housework, and childcare simultaneously--as studies demonstrate many women are doing--is far from empowering.

Surveys show that even busy career women have increased, not decreased, their child care time, and despite their supposed liberation, today's women rate their happiness as no higher than their supposedly oppressed 1970s counterparts. Even in today's higher-income, double-earner "seesaw marriages," which Rosin heralds as a more flexible roadmap to gender equity, women often run themselves ragged. Marriages where a successful female can quit her job and stay home, meanwhile, are labeled a "tragedy" for female advancement."

In Hampikian's world without men, every last burden would rest on women. And good luck finding a plumber.

"high-sex-ratio societies also tend to treat women better than low-sex-ratio ones do. That's simple economics: Men value women more, and therefore do more for them, when they're in short supply."

This is not simple economics, it is not economics at all. The proposition is most probably false.
When women are scarce, they are not respected more.
They may be "valued" more, but the "value" that men may put on them, may not translate into "respect".

Think about your own history. Your life as an egg actually started in your mother’s developing ovary, before she was born; you were wrapped in your mother’s fetal body as it developed within your grandmother.

Uhh...did he just inadvertently make a case against abortion even more strict than the staunchest pro-lifer?

Scott W., I know it's tempting to note the fact that he refers to the individual as "you," going farther back even than pro-lifers do, which means that (in a part of the article I didn't quote) he calls the actual unborn child "you" as well. (As well as recognizing the humanity of your unborn grandmother.) The thing is, his science is such trash that I'm reluctant to say anything about this or make anything of it because it's at the level of mythology. It's like a caricature of the pro-life position. Don't Catholics get accused of worshiping sperm and talking like sperm cells are babies? Hampikian is coming nigh to worshiping eggs, and he _definitely_ talks like unfertilized egg cells are babies.

This guy was trying to be cute, and it just didn't work. But I didn't see any biological errors in the article: all the mistakes I saw, including the ones you pointed out, were philosophical. The biology is at the elementary school level: eggs, sperm, embryos. But when this guy says that "you" were once an unfertilized egg, that's just really bad metaphysics.

And you didn't even point out what I thought was the most dangerous fallacy:

With expanding reproductive choices, we can expect to see more women choose to reproduce without men entirely. Fortunately, the data for children raised by only females is encouraging. As the Princeton sociologist Sara S. McLanahan has shown, poverty is what hurts children, not the number or gender of parents.

Even taking the single-parent findings at face value - and how exactly does one measure how a person is "hurt" by something? - taking them at face value, they're only valid for an instantaneous snapshot of our society. They say nothing about the effects at a later date, when significantly more children will be raised by single mothers. Maybe more importantly, they presumably measure only the effects of the child's own parental situation, not of the collective effects on all children of growing up in that common environment.

This guy just can't think. That seems pretty typical of scientists, unfortunately.

Aaron, you can call it metaphysics if you like, but let's put it this way: Suppose that some biologist were talking about dogs, and he said, "In our study, we found that dogs that were exposed to Agent X in utero had such-and-such health problems later in life." We would expect that *as biologists* they were able to identify particular canine organisms and follow them longitudinally in order to see whether *those* dogs that were exposed to Agent X in utero did have those problems.

A biologist is supposed to be capable of saying when a particular organism comes into existence and when that organism hasn't come into existence. If we just consider "you" qua organism, it just isn't true that "you" existed as an organism in the form of your mother's unfertilized egg.

Since Hampikian is talking about reproduction, it's a pretty important error, and I would call it an important scientific error, for him to pretend that a particular organism (namely, "you") existed in your mother's body in the form of an unfertilized egg.

So I'm not willing to let him off the hook even so far as to say that his error is metaphysical rather than scientific. If one is going to talk about reproduction and what is necessary for it, one had better not be telling people that a particular biological member of the species homo sapiens existed in the form of an unfertilized egg prior to any male involvement!

In contrast, your father’s 3.3 picograms of DNA comes out to less than one pound of male contribution since the beginning of Homo sapiens 107 billion babies ago.

In other news, Anheuser-Busch has said the since yeast is such a small contribution to brewing beer, they are omitting it from their formula.

This is another line in a trend I've seen lately of the media hyping up the natural superiority of women. Back in the dark ages (the 60's) women were underrepresented in the workplace and the university, so the line was that since they were equal they needed to have an equal representation. Well, time passed, and now women are overrepresented in the universities and the workplace (albeit not all jobs; we wait in vain for the plumbers and dockworkers to come into the 21st century). So the narrative has to cope somehow, either by declaring parity achieved or declaring that women are the superior species and deserve the overrepresentation. They've decided to go with the latter.

I'm interested in hearing Hampikian's warrant for stopping at the egg.

Eggs develop from something, which would be some sort of pluripotent cell, which is really a part of your mom... So absent warrant for stopping at the egg, we are all actually one in the same with our mothers, grandmothers, etc.

Turtles all the way down.

Mr. Fosi, that's funny!

Those who talk airily of the end of men are usually:

1. Those who hate uniqueness.
2. Those who proclaim their commitment to equality.
3. Those congential beta males who think that reducing the number of competing males will increase their own value in the eyes of females (spoiler alert: the problem was always quality, not quantity.)
4. Pursuant to the first 3, those who proclaim polygamy and homogamy as no big deal, as one human unit is just as good as another, requiring no special treatment, social structures, or privileges outside of their profession in life.

There is a species of desert lizard that reproduces via parthenogenesis, but since this is asexual reproduction, it has no very significant population, as clones are quite prone to extinction due to their uniform vulnerabilities.

I can think of a certain other desert religion that effectively creates and maintains a low race of mostly asexual polygamous and homogamous clones in theory and practice, though it has the added danger of slowly dominating others that refuse to see this tendency and fight it. After all, only a few picograms of DNA separate us...

But I didn't see any biological errors in the article: all the mistakes I saw, including the ones you pointed out, were philosophical.

I disagree. We can prove that the egg is "not you" scientifically. The egg won't develop into a human being on its own. There, biological proof.

Yep, and the unfertilized egg that would later be fertilized when you were conceived had, before being fertilized, only half of your DNA.

Yep, and the unfertilized egg that would later be fertilized when you were conceived had, before being fertilized, only half of your DNA.

I like that one better.

Hi Lydia,

I've put up a post over at Uncommon Descent on Greg Hampikian's New York Times article, at http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/an-anti-id-biology-professor-who-doesnt-even-know-the-facts-of-life-let-alone-evolution/ . (I've included a link to your article, of course.)

For that matter, it's not even your DNA that makes you you, as witness identical twins.

For that matter, it's not even your DNA that makes you you, as witness identical twins.

I thought that even identical twins had DNA differences, just incredibly small ones.

Biologically, it is DNA + epigenetics + contingent history of development.
The identical twins have identical DNA+epigenetics but slightly different developmental history, partly owing to different position in the womb.

I am interested that Lydia and most of the commenters here think that is a biological matter as to when an individual begins. I happen to agree, but many Christians seem to think that something called the soul comes into it.

If you were to settle the matter biologically,surely there is no simple answer? Even a fertilised cell is incapable of developing without massive assistance from the mother and with that assistance is capable of becoming not just one but many individuals.

I cannot see that Hampikian has made any scientific errors. He just put his philosophical spin on the scientific facts in a popular opinion piece.

I cannot see that Hampikian has made any scientific errors. He just put his philosophical spin on the scientific facts in a popular opinion piece.

Would you care to refute the specific points Lydia made on that subject, or do you prefer bare assertions?

The idea that I was "me" as an unfertilized egg is absolute sand-pounding biological nonsense. Full stop.

And so what if a fertilized egg is incapable of developing without massive assistance? The statement is true of an infant and even a toddler.

I think biology can settle pretty satisfactorily the question of when a unique human embryo appears. Fertilization is the indispensable point of departure, and for a professor of biology to elide this fact for political purposes is loathsome academic malpractice.

Ultimately the question is, does “mankind” really need men? With human cloning technology just around the corner and enough frozen sperm in the world to already populate many generations, perhaps we should perform a cost-benefit analysis.

You mean like this? http://youtu.be/owI7DOeO_yg

Ultimately the question is, does “mankind” really need men? With human cloning technology just around the corner and enough frozen sperm in the world to already populate many generations, perhaps we should perform a cost-benefit analysis.

You mean like this? http://youtu.be/owI7DOeO_yg

Thanks, Paul, for saving me the trouble. I'm having difficulty understanding how the fact that an unborn child needs assistance to survive does any work whatsoever to make Hampikian's statements something other than scientific errors.

But it's an interesting psychological and rhetorical indication: People on H.'s side of the aisle have been famous for implying that real personhood doesn't begin until much later. Some (e.g., Peter Singer) have gone so far as to imply that it doesn't begin after birth. Bill Clinton was famous for using the supposed mysteriousness of "ensoulment" to imply that pro-lifers were out to lunch. Now we find H. saying biological nonsense to the effect that "you" existed in the form of an unfertilized egg before fertilization, and one or two people in this thread have defended him on the grounds that somehow this is a "philosophical" or "metaphysical" rather than a biological question.

It might have been tempting for pro-lifers to have thought H. was saying something on their side, given the extreme earliness (!) of his apparent attribution of personhood. But what I think we see instead is that people with a particular political agenda always find it useful to obscure plain biological fact about when a new individual member of homo sapiens comes into existence. H. just finds it convenient to spin a biologically nonsensical myth, for the length of one man-bashing column, in the opposite direction from the one usually chosen for most of their purposes by pro-choicers. I would be quite surprised if H. is not pro-choice. (His rampaging feminism argues for it.) If so, that would mean that for other purposes, in other contexts, he's capable of questioning whether "you" exist even long _after_ conception. And why not? If it's politics rather than biology, then we say what we need to at any given moment.

"It might have been tempting for pro-lifers to have thought H. was saying something on their side"

I should point out that I was trying to be cheeky rather than taking him seriously. I looked to me like yet another example where progressives are on a rant about one thing and accidently blurt out things that wreck their narrative elsewhere.

Yeah, Scott, they get that when they don't stick to the truth. Their lies catch them out because they just don't match up. It's really hard to tell lies all over the place and make them consistent, 'cause there is no underlying principle of coherence to them.

Paul

Would you care to refute the specific points Lydia made on that subject, or do you prefer bare assertions?

The idea that I was "me" as an unfertilized egg is absolute sand-pounding biological nonsense. Full stop.

Let’s be clear – I said there no scientific errors in what Hampikian wrote.  This is an op-ed piece not a scientific paper and the whole idea is give an interesting, possibly controversial perspective which you may disagree with.  But that’s different from making scientific errors. Actually on rereading I think there is one error.  It seems wrong to say that the sperm does not merge with the egg. I don’t know what he was getting at there. 

The scientist’s job is simply to discover and state the facts about the biological process.  This does not include deciding at what stage in the process a cell or group of cells count as individual.  That is a philosophical or possibly religious decision.  The science can help us make up our mind – but it cannot tell us the answer.

As far the process is concerned he is accurate in everything he says with the exception of the statement about the cell merging.  The mother and the eggs of all her future children do all leave the womb of the grandmother at the same time (note he says "leave the womb" which is accurate, not "born" which would he inaccurate but is Lydia’s own addition). The unfertilised egg does leave the ovary. The sperm does contribute nothing but a package of DNA which is a millionth the size of the egg (he does not say that contribution is unimportant – that was another of Lydia’s additions).

And so what if a fertilized egg is incapable of developing without massive assistance? The statement is true of an infant and even a toddler.

All I am saying is that one way of looking at the development process is that an egg goes through a journey where various processes are absolutely essential for it to turn into an adult human being – one of them is fertilisation by a sperm.

I think biology can settle pretty satisfactorily the question of when a unique human embryo appears. Fertilization is the indispensable point of departure, and for a professor of biology to elide this fact for political purposes is loathsome academic malpractice.

He didn’t say anything about when a unique human embryo appears.  No one disputes that you have to have fertilisation before you have an embryo (although don’t be too insistent on “unique” – it could still turn into two or more embryos over the next two weeks).

My goodness you are strident lot – so much vitriol

"egg goes through a journey where various processes are absolutely essential for it to turn into an adult human being"

Obfuscation, obfuscation. An egg does not turn into an adult human being. No unfertilized egg will ever turn into an adult human being, because an egg is not a human being, in the biological sense, a member of homo sapiens, at all.

Mark Frank confirms what I said in my previous comment. Scientific obfuscation is the natural resting place of the left-wing sophist.

It is a scientific fact, not a philosophical and certainly not a religious decision, that an individual organism of the species homo sapiens comes into existence when the egg is fertilized, that the unfertilized egg is _not_ such an organism, and that that organism gradually develops from there on to a greater level of maturity. These are biological facts. They would be just as relevant if we were talking about any other mammal. It is not a philosophical or religious question when we have a new embryonic dog, a member of the species canis domesticus. It is not a philosophical or religious fact that no such individual organism, a member of the species canis domesticus, existed in the form of an unfertilized canine egg. The same is true of homo sapiens. These are matters of biology, but it is useful for some people's political agenda to pretend that they are not.

Hampikian _expressly_ says that he is talking about reproduction, and he _expressly_ says that women are both necessary and sufficient for reproduction, and to go along with this, he says that "you" existed in the form of an unfertilized egg in your mother's--in other words, he implies that a human being (the human being we now call "you") existed in your mother's body in the form of an unfertilized egg. That he is promulgating a blatant scientific error here in the service of a feminist agenda is really indisputable.

Obfuscation, obfuscation. An egg does not turn into an adult human being. No unfertilized egg will ever turn into an adult human being, because an egg is not a human being, in the biological sense, a member of homo sapiens, at all

Lydia - you might want to think about this a moment. An egg does not have to be a human being to turn into one! Are you really denying that unfertilised egg, once fertilised, divides, and if all goes well, eventually becomes a human being?

Don't be an ass Mark Frank (oops, too late). The point is that Hampikian uses language strongly implying the egg is ALREADY a human being, even BEFORE fertilization. And this is, as Paul has aptly stated, nothing short of sand-pounding biological nonsense.

Nice magical thinking you've got there. The egg just "turns into" a human being, whaddaya know. It's all a mystery. This might be excusable if we didn't really know enough scientific information to know better. From a macro-visual perspective (at which sperm cells and a fortiori DNA are invisible) I suppose someone watching conception and embryonic and fetal development on the equivalent of a TV screen might think, "Wow! That egg just turned into a human being!" However, such talk is inexcusable from a more scientifically knowledgeable person, who is promoting scientific confusion by insisting on such locutions.

Nothing just "turns into" a human being. Rather, at one point there is no human being. Then the sperm penetrates the egg, and a detailed process takes place by which the sperm releases its DNA packet, the DNA of the two gametes merges, extra DNA is shed, and eventually, at syngamy (approx. 24 hours after penetration of the egg by the sperm), we get two cells with the complete and determinate DNA of the new organism. If all goes well, that organism, which definitely was not the unfertilized egg, matures into an adult human being.

Mr. Frank, the stridency here derives in part from the fact that Christians and conservatives are constantly accused of being anti-science and promulgators of junk science, etc. There have been three or four high-profile books making precisely that argument in the past five years alone. Meanwhile, The New York Times publishes facile pseudo-science like Hampikian article, conservatives call them on the malpractice, and folks like you arrive to demur and obfuscate at great and tedious length.

The sort of epistemic reticence you're defending here, let us note, would by no means be confine to basic mammal reproduction. It throws cold water on all manner of scientific claims that are said to undermine religion.

For instance, if biological science, as you suggest, "does not include deciding at what stage in the process a cell or group of cells count as individual," if we must remain agnostic about such basic matters (which have been taught in schools with firm confidence for decades now), then we sure as shooting must remain agnostic about, say, the biological origins of life on earth.

Indeed, sentences like

an egg goes through a journey where various processes are absolutely essential for it to turn into an adult human being – one of them is fertilisation by a sperm

would make Aristotle blush. The whole point of modern science was _supposedly_ that it got us beyond vague talk using terms like "journey" and got us into the details of actual biology so that we could really _understand_, e.g., exactly when and how a new organism comes into existence. By focusing on efficient causes and figuring out at the microscopic level how things actually work and how they actually happen, we were supposed to stop talking about things like "tendencies" and "journeys."

The fact of the matter is that fertilization of an egg by a sperm is a crucial watershed point from a biological perspective, for after fertilization, instead of having two separate gametes, which are cells of other organisms, we have a new organism. Nourishment of the organism by its mother's body is not at all in the same category, so they should not both be referred to merely as processes taking place _to the egg_ which are essential for _the egg_ to develop into an adult human being. These are pieces of knowledge that modern biology has given us, and it is profoundly unscientific to try to obscure them.

The point is that Hampikian uses language strongly implying the egg is ALREADY a human being, even BEFORE fertilization. And this is, as Paul has aptly stated, nothing short of sand-pounding biological nonsense.

I don't think he does imply that. I think he is using "you" in a rather extended way to offer a different perspective on the development process. You could imagine another writer making a different point talking about how "you" were once a zillion atoms scattered round the earth. It is just a litery device.

But that's not really the point. The definition of what counts as a human organism, human embryo, human being or person (none of which are necessarily the same) is not being decided by doing science. H. and most other scientists agree about what actually happens to the egg as it becomes an adult human and he describes some of it in his article. The scientists may discover the odd additional salient fact, but by and large the decision about when to use these terms (which is highly controversial) is debated by polticians, lawyers, philosophers and theologians. If you don't believe me entering "when does life begin" into Google Scholar. You won't get many scientific papers!

Somewhat off topic, Larry Auster was very unhappy with the content of Ann Romney's speech.

Going back for a moment to this:

In contrast, your father’s 3.3 picograms of DNA comes out to less than one pound of male contribution since the beginning of Homo sapiens 107 billion babies ago.

It reminds me of a book Past Imperfect in which various historians were asked to comment on the accuracy of history in famous films. They got a scientist to comment on Jurassic Park where he took issue with how they took the DNA of a T-Rex and used a frog's DNA to fill in the missing sequences. To him this is exactly the kind of "eye of newt and wing of bat" view of science that runs amok when scientists take the public stage. You can't take 95% of something, throw in 5% of something close enough, and get a functioning totality. Here Smoking-the-Hempikian is just doing the witches' brew thing in the other direction--glossing over the fact the the 3.3 picograms is critical even it is small.

Here Smoking-the-Hempikian is just doing the witches' brew thing in the other direction--glossing over the fact the the 3.3 picograms is critical even it is small.

Especially since the same scientists are quick to remind us we're about 2% different from chimpanzees. Congratulations, feminists, you've gone to the new low of saying your father contributed less to you than a monkey.

It is just a litery device.

Well, no, it isn't just a literary device, given that he also says that women are both necessary and sufficient for human reproduction--which is supposed to look like a scientific statement if anything is. The two things--treating the egg as "you" and saying that women are sufficient for reproduction--go together as hand and glove. And the unimportance of the male, including the allegation of _biological_ unimportance, is the whole point of the article.

But that's not really the point.

he said, hastily moving on past Hampikian's glaring biological falsehoods.

The definition of what counts as a human organism, human embryo...is not being decided by doing science.

Rubbish. What counts as a biological human organism _definitely_ is a scientific question. And I've got a hint for ya': It's not an unfertilized gamete.

I note: Nobody tries to turn "what counts as a kangaroo organism" into some deep theological mystery. It's just convenient for some to pretend that it's an unscientific, subjective question when we're talking about human beings.

Obfuscate the biology, folks on the left. It's the only way forward for you, and very useful.

If you don't believe me entering "when does life begin" into Google Scholar. You won't get many scientific papers!

Yes, well, that's a _great_ way to find out whether the question is scientifically decidable. Maybe I should also google "Does pyramid power work?" and decide that the question is a great scientific mystery and that we really have no idea of the answer if I don't get a lot of scientific papers. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Lydia

I am sorry I am too old to take this level of personal abuse. Thank you for letting me comment.

Mark

I am sorry I am too old to take this level of personal abuse.

Something tells me that your age has little to do with why you're getting a case of the vapors over what most men would regard as a fairly civil conservation.

It must have been my use of the word "rubbish." :-) By the way, the question of when and even precisely how a new human organism begins has indeed been addressed scientifically again and again and again. Indeed, it's not the sort of thing that is at this point in any scientific doubt.

One shouldn't need to quote these things, but just by way of illustrating, giving just a few quotations showing that this is, indeed a scientific question and has been addressed scientifically, here are a few things Wesley J. Smith saved me the trouble of looking up by posting. http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2012/08/25/junk-biology-promotes-uselessness-of-men/#comments

The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology (6th Ed.) (Keith Moore and T. V. N. Persaud, W. B. Sanders Company, Philadelphia, PA, 1998), which asserts:

Human development is a continuous process that begins when an oocyte is fertilized by a sperm. (page 2)

Human development begins at fertilization [with the joining of egg and sperm, which] form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized…cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.(page 18)

The authors of another embryology textbook (Ronan O’Ramilly and Fabiola Muller, Human Embryology and Teratology, (Third Ed.), (Willey-Liss, New York, NY, 2001), also state on page 8 that upon the completion of fertilization:

a new, genetically distinct human organism is formed.

Smith himself goes on:

An egg is just a cell,...a sperm is just a cell. It is when they join that a new individual is created. Basic science.

There are a lot of prissy missies like Mark Frank in the internet tubes. You can find them on Christian blogs and so-called "skeptics" blogs.

Generally they allege abuse when they come up against one or more people who oppose their view with facts and sound interpretations, and refuse to give any ground.

If you aren't willing, even hypothetically, sort-of, maybe, a little, to concede any ground, you are being abusive. It is abusive to point out their obvious errors and patent double standards.

In this case, little Markie is just a prissy teen girl who never grew up. Don't offend his sensibilities with reality, mmmmkay?

A moment's thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.

Now, now, Mr. Fosi, we generally try to avoid having comments that are contentless except insofar as they contain negative comments about personalities.

Again, I assume it was my use of the term "rubbish" that was deemed offensive, though I consider that a particularly mild response to the egregious claim that when a human organism begins is not a matter that can be decided by "doing science." Sometimes a response like "rubbish" is called for so that people cannot simply get away with saying breathtakingly false things.

Let's stick to the content.

Alright, alright. That will do for the mockery, ladies and gentlemen.

Fair enough, my apologies to the management but not to Mark Frank.

It's hard for me to keep my keyboard to myself when a puffed-up commentator bows out after being unable to wheedle concessions.

The conclusion "unfertilized egg = human" seems to flow from an argument that is both invalid and unsound. And this seems to be additionally evidenced by the problem I mentioned earlier: if one is willing to argue that an unfertilized egg is a whole, undeveloped organism, what is the warrant for stopping at the egg?

Biologically, the egg = human argument is rubbish but even if you grant the premises, you fall down a very deep rabbit hole.

Why? The mockery was just getting good.

By the way, the question of when and even precisely how a new human organism begins has indeed been addressed scientifically again and again and again. Indeed, it's not the sort of thing that is at this point in any scientific doubt.

And indeed science, of all knowledge disciplines, is the only one that can actually answer that question based on clear evidence and standards. Philosophers resort to all sorts of asinine standards such as ones based on sentience and stages of mental development or decline. Theologians just have almost nothing to go on and debate issues like ensoulment. The simple fact that science has shown is that the only provable and reasonable standard is that a new human organism comes into existence at the moment when conception creates a new life form with a human genome that, in the course of its natural development, will become an adult human.

This is fact is simple so that it is denied by most "right-thinking intellectuals" since even a burger flipper or ditch digger can fully wrap their brains around it.

There are a lot of prissy missies like Mark Frank in the internet tubes. You can find them on Christian blogs and so-called "skeptics" blogs.

One of my coworkers floored a guy like that when he replied to the saying "we'll just have to agree to disagree" with "what a weak way to tell someone to [ed.] because you can't articulate your beliefs."

Just checking in again. I'd like to say for the record that I agree with pretty much everything Mark Frank said. I don't recall any biological errors in the article. Referring to an unfertilized egg as "you" is a metaphysical error, not a biological error. Of course an egg won't develop unfertilized; calling that egg "you" doesn't negate that fact. It's absurd to suggest that the author was trying to lie about the "facts of life" that readers have all known since childhood.

I'm not going to argue this any more, especially seeing how it went just now in the latest go-round. Just remarking, especially for Mark Frank if he's still reading these comments, that I think his point is not just correct, but obviously correct.

In other words you align yourself with plain obscurantism, but disdain to defend it because it's too daunting a task. Fair enough.

Referring to an unfertilized egg as "you" is a metaphysical error, not a biological error.

You know what? Let's just address this right now. How?

Oh, and:

I'm not going to argue this any more, especially seeing how it went just now in the latest go-round.

You realize that nobody insulted Mark Frank or really said any negative thing to him at all until AFTER he left, and we said it because we were annoyed that he was offended by virtually nothing and used it as an excuse to stop debate?

The worst said before that was "rubbish", and that was referring to his position, not him.

It gets tedious to repeat this: This is a professor of biology. His credentials are supposedly relevant to the article. If he were just saying something literary like, "You were once millions of molecules of interplanetary dust," he could be a novelist, and it certainly wouldn't matter that he is a biologist. On the contrary, he wrote an article qua biologist in which he told the readers that men are *biologically unimportant* because women are *both necessary and sufficient* for biological reproduction and men are neither (a point our commentators who want to say he didn't commit any scientific errors persist in ignoring), and he continued in this vein by saying that the unfertilized egg is "you." This was meant to have _biological_ significance regarding the unimportance of men for reproduction. The article speaks for itself.

This is why, by the way, he didn't just reverse it and say that "you" were the sperm cell, which would have made just as much sense (and nonsense). Because he was trying to obscure biological fact while pretending to explain biological fact, and he was doing so in order to argue that "mankind" is a misnomer, men are unimportant--in other words, to promote a feminist agenda.

By the way, Aaron: Your buddy Mark Frank has told us that what counts as a human organism is not a scientific question. Which, I repeat, is rubbish. So congrats: You've now defended not one but _two_ people who are making outright factually erroneous statements, when they should know better.

See just the few quotations from embryology textbooks, above. Of course, these things could be multiplied indefinitely.

I'm inclined to agree with both Mark Frank and Aaron that calling an egg "you" is a metaphysical error instead of a biological error, although I recognize Lydia's point that the this labeling was meant to have biological import given that it was made by a biologist writing about biological reproduction, so the point is moot. This post is, instead, about the exchange with Mark Frank.

A number of commenters seem to think that the worst thing said to Mark was that his view was rubbish. Calling someone's view rubbish is brusque, but seems to be nothing more than a colorful way of saying his view is "breathtakingly false". However, in two earlier, back-to-back posts, Mark was first called an ass, then he was accused of magical thinking--a form of irrationality. Lydia didn't write the former, (I mention this because Mark's complaint was addressed to her, and the rubbish comment was hers), but the latter was less than charitable. (Mark didn't say that an egg just turns into human being--he mentioned that it becomes a human being after it's fertilized.)

Finally, the "rubbish" post that prompted Mark's departure also ended with an imperative to the left--one that implied that he was intentionally obfuscating the biology. From what I can tell, he didn't know enough biology to do that. It seems to me he was faithfully reporting his beliefs about what science could and could not do. I agree that Mark was ignorant here, perhaps even culpably so, but that's a much lesser sin than intentionally distorting the truth.

So, from my perspective, Mark was not only accused of having breathtakingly false beliefs, he was also accused of being irrational, wicked, and asinine. I'd rather be guilty of the first than any of the latter.

I find these endless metalevel analyses very tedious, but I'll do a little of it before I become so totally bored with it as to be forced to stop.

If Mark is really so ignorant of biology as *not to know* that when a human organism begins is a scientific question that has been thoroughly scientifically addressed, then he _definitely_ needs to do some research, even a little research, before making definitive comments on that very topic. The evidence on that question is utterly massive. I do not know how anyone educated enough to write the comments that he wrote could seriously be unaware of that evidence. If he is, then maybe he's been reading too many columns like Hampikian's and needs to learn a little basic reproductive science instead. Once again, please do not tell me about how the Right is anti-science when we are forced to defend someone who is obviously on the left by saying that he literally doesn't know, scientifically, when a new human organism comes into existence!!

But I do not think Mark Frank is that utterly ignorant. I truly believe that he was deliberately engaging in obfuscation, and if you consider that wicked, that's your conclusion. I didn't call him wicked, but there you have it.

The statement about the egg going on "a journey where various processes are absolutely essential for it to turn into an adult human being – one of them is fertilisation by a sperm" is utterly and culpably obfuscatory. It shows sufficient knowledge of the actual facts of biology to be culpable but attempts to _pretend_ that fertilization by a sperm cell is on a par with, say, nourishment by the mother's body (which he had referenced earlier in the thread) as just another "essential process" necessary for an egg to "turn into an adult human being." This is sophistry worthy of Hampikian himself.

Mark didn't say that an egg just turns into human being--he mentioned that it becomes a human being after it's fertilized.

No, that's not correct. In fact, when I reacted with some amazement and justified dismissal to the silly comment about the egg going through a "journey" whereby it "turns into an adult human being," when I said that the egg does not "turn into" an adult human being, he actually attempted to correct me in the following words:

Lydia - you might want to think about this a moment. An egg does not have to be a human being to turn into one!

Let's please recall that this was in the context of defending Hampikian himself, who implies _quite explicitly_ at multiple points in his piece that the egg is "you" but that the sperm is not. (Note, please, that this answers the "H. was just making a literary metaphor" claim, which I anticipated in the main post! If H. was just saying something about how everything that ever contributed to you is "you," there's no explanation for the sharp distinction he draws between the egg and the sperm.)

So Mark Frank came along and made it quite clear that he was talking about the egg starting out by not being a human being and then turning into a human being. In this "journey," he alleged that fertilization by a sperm cell is just one among many of the "absolutely essential processes" that this egg has to "go through" in order to "turn into an adult human being"!

This is obfuscation of the very same sort that Hampikian engages in. Indeed, Frank made it clear from the outset that he was using the "ensoulment" obfuscation, so often used by the left, to work backwards and downplay the importance of fertilization! It's all very much of a piece: The left is uncomfortable with the unequivocal evidence of biology as to when a new individual human being, a member of the species homo sapiens, comes into existence, and therefore tries to talk as if the basic biological scientific issue of when a human organism begins is instead a heavy, metaphysical mystery. It isn't.

Hence, for the umpteenth time, Hampikian's errors certainly are scientific errors.

By the way: If it now counts as personal abuse, hence out of court, to accuse someone of engaging in scientific obfuscation and of advocating, in the process, positions that if taken seriously would have magical and irrational import (in contrast to the actual, well-known scientific facts they displace), then by that way of thinking we are seriously hamstrung in calling out such behavior when it occurs. I certainly refuse to be thus hamstrung.

I remember being told at school that every male started out as a female in the womb. And I believed them. (Against my male pride, I might add). I got very embarrassed when I tried to expound this amazing biological discovery to my mum, who's a microbiologist.
You'd think I would have remembered the significance of X and Y chromosomes. I could have saved myself a great deal of ego-recovery.

So whether it's metaphysical, biological, philosophical, or Dr. Seuss, it still a ridiculous bit of certainty to try and explicitly state as the actual 'facts of life', (especially if kids are as naive as I was). And if it's metaphysical; so is everything, eventually. Human beings are metaphysical constructs, in that useless everything-and-nothing kind of sense. Doesn't stop it from also being biological.

It is a complete misrepresentation of biology, and it belongs perhaps in a Terry Pratchett book or some humour piece, but not masquerading as an informational format. Men like to make jokes at our own expense, for the benefit of female approval, I can only assume, or just genuine good humour, but a newspaper like NYT seems hardly the place to try and get more facebook likes.

Then again, I don't read newspapers or live in America. Maybe they're supposed to be like that?

Yes, I've seen that one about "every male started out as female in the womb" in some fairly mainstream places as well. I should have compiled them. It is disgraceful.

Liberalism requires a loss of reading comprehension. Words don't mean what they say; they mean what we say they say.

Oh, well, if the problem is merely metaphysical then I disagree with him.

We do not start out as eggs. We, in fact, start out as star dust. You can see humanity floating around you everywhere, in the atoms that make up our universe. Because eventually the first woman will have breathed them in, her dust will settle into her body and form into the egg that is then passed on into her female children and their children's children all the way down to us.

And what did those first women evolve from? Why, the first living life forms on Earth, of course!

So really we were all persons right when the first living lifeforms on Earth existed-what happened after that is merely how our consciousnesses have split off from that first mitochondria or bacteria or whatever it is.

So be careful what you do to the mitochondria-they may be containg billions of the future consciousnesses of perhaps some other rational race. You wouldn't want to be responsible for the extinction of a species, would you?

This is only a metaphysical error, of course. Not a scientific one.

This is absolutely 'par for the course' on the part of the partisans of 'diversity' (except when it comes to gender coupling, when homogeneity is the way to go), not because it is metaphysical, but precisely the converse, because it is science at its most prosaically, pedanticaly empirical. It's like telling me I don't need to put the plug in the socket, when switching the table lamp on. I don't need the advice of a professor to tell me that's nonsense.

That is what makes it so remarkable. They've got away with the incredibly seminal Big Lie for 80 years and more, but when they start micro-managing their own special version of the Academie Francaise, for legislating what, in this case, must be the received 'facts', it's a bunsen-burner and a litmus paper too far. (Forget the pipette. If I can remember it from second-year Chemistry, that's all that's necessary). It's easy to blind a layman with sophisticated science, but sperms and eggs...? Turn it up, governor...

A judge in the UK recently pronounced that the word, 'abnormal', was offensive, so now, Pitkin, is it? has a matching pair for his professional accreditations. How long before 'standard deviation' becomes 'standard diversity', or even, 'standard inclusiveness'?

And now Pitkin's put himself in a very unenviable light, professionally. It must have lightened poor old Dawkins burden somewhat. Another self-made Aunt Sally to take some of the heat.

Is it possible...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7vlEq8YSaw&feature=related

Sorry, I think I got him muddled up with this bloke:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw3ZExDxySs

Greg Hampikian has made numerous false claims about the Amanda Knox case in the media. Here are the details:

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/how_greg_hampikian_abuses_two_positions_of_trust_in_serially_misrepres/

My only familiarity of Greg Hampikian's work is in relation to his support for Amanda Knox. Hampikian's work is not just questionable he intentionally sets out the mislead. I won't bore you with the details (unless you actually care in which case feel free to e-mail me).

There are three things I've seen Hampikian do that leaves me questioning his honesty. The first is he makes scientifically incorrect statements. In the Knox trial he did this before the raw data was available to the public. When it became available it was demonstrated that Hampikian was lying about the data. The second questionable behaviour is that he relies on fringe journals to support his claims. When the mainstream literature disagrees with him Hampikian just ignores it and instead relies on obscure articles in journals that publish studies on all kinds of pseudo-science. Finally the third complaint is that in his defense of Amanda Knox Hampikian claims to have run an experiment on DNA transfer that proves contamination was possible. All the literature says transfer as Hampikian describes is impossible. Not surprisingly Hampikian has not published his groundbreaking study for peer review.

More recently Hampikian has come under criticism by Andrea Vogt who requested access to his communication http://thefreelancedesk.com/the-secret-u-s-forensic-defense-of-amanda-knox/ and is being shut down by Boise State University on what are obviously fabricated justifications. There are no trade secrets for anything Vogt requested but the university is protecting their misbehaving star professor. I have no issues with Hampikian wanting to be a hired gun that will say anything for enough money but if that is how he is going to behave he needs to resign from the Innocence Project. His association with that project brings all groups that advocate for the wrongfully convicted into disrepute.

As I mentioned in the main post, Hampikian's association with the Innocence Project, allegedly working as a scientist, shows that he definitely knows where babies come from, where embryos come from, and the importance of the male half of the equation in the process. Yet the article I was writing about is written like feminist, postmodern pseudo-science. So he's without excuse and is obviously just doing whatever he wants to do and saying whatever he feels like saying for political ends. That being the case, it's not surprising that he would do so in another context as well.