Consider the reasoning process of our top leader, who has the responsibility of steering us through incredibly dangerous times. The following excerpt is from Editor and Publisher: I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true . . . One, I believe…
I can’t believe that it’s actually necessary to argue that we should allow medical research that might give numerous people a fighting change to survive horrible diseases. But here we are. We live in an age where many things have been turned upside down.
I wrote the following letter on November 27, 2005 after attending Catholic Mass at a church in my neighborhood. I attended because I had heard that priests throughout Missouri had been instructed by their superiors to preach against a proposed Missouri Constitutional Amendment that would allow stem cell research to continue
Washington University in St. Louis is a major medical research center that conducts stem cell research. The Missouri legislature has regularly threatened to prohibit stem cell research in Missouri, giving rise to a proposed Amendment that is being promoted by The Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures.
MCLC describes the amendment as follows:
…Should Missouri patients have access to medical cures that are available to other Americans?
That’s the key issue that led a coalition of patient and medical groups to develop the Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, a voter referendum measure proposed for the November 2006 statewide ballot.Stem cells could provide cures for diseases and injuries that afflict hundreds of thousands of Missouri children and adults and millions of other Americans – including diabetes, Parkinson’s, cancer, heart disease, ALS, sickle cell disease and spinal cord injury.
Unfortunately, some politicians in Jefferson City are trying to pass state laws that would ban
Does it all seem like déjà vu? It should. Most of us first heard the unfolding national story while sitting on our parents’ laps, courtesy of Dr. Seuss. A con artist comes to town to exploit a glaring weakness: the willingness of the citizens to act out of bigotry. In…
. . . To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Star Trek Mission Statement
When I hear the term “diversity” I become suspicious. For many people, diversity refers to the mechanical process of gathering different-looking people and assuming that doing this creates a melting pot of ideas and character traits. Used in this way, however, “diversity” is no less than a form of racism; the people who mechanically gather other people by their looks assume that people who look the same have the same character, intellect, and culture. This is not my experience. I have often found that groups of similar-looking people are often just as diverse (in character, intellect and culture) as groups of different-looking people. Similarly, groups of different-looking people are often culturally homogenous. You just shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. For me, then, mixing people by looks is not a legitimate form of diversity.
Understood in a broader way, however, diversity is something to which we should still aspire with vigor. To understand the importance of true diversity requires a short detour into the study of human cognition.
Humans are both assisted by and shackled by the “availability” heuristic. “Heuristics” are rules of thumb we constantly use, often unconsciously, to navigate our complex and often disorienting world. The availability heuristic is the “strong disposition to make judgments or evaluations in light of the first thing that comes to mind (or …
You’ve just noticed several people carrying signs that say “Down with Ice Cream.” You approach them to ask what is so bad about ice cream. After listening to them for a few minutes, it becomes clear to you that there is a misunderstanding. To them, the phrase “ice cream” actually means kicking dogs. They are against kicking dogs.
“Oh, you mean that you’re against kicking dogs?” you ask.
“Down with ice cream!” they nod.
It’s impossible to have a meaningful conversation without a common understanding of the words being used. “Evolution” is a good example. When I hear someone speaking disparagingly about evolution I can trigger the following exchange:
Q: What’s so bad about evolution?
A: It’s just a theory (#1) that says that everything here is just an accident (#2) and that people came from monkeys (#3).
Zero for three, every time. In short, most people who “oppose” evolution are against something other than the scientific theory of evolution. Further, most anti-evolutionists I’ve encountered don’t know what scientists say about evolution and don’t care [Good places to learn what scientists think would be here and here.]
The irony is that most people who oppose evolution are not opposed to any of the major facts upon which evolution is based (e.g., that random mutations occur, that some of these mutations make organisms more likely to survive long enough to bear offspring, or that a parent’s traits tend to be passed on to its children). In fact, opponents don’t usually …