nowhere near established science yet admissable in a court of law?

nih.gov |  Are all humans innately and equally capable of inflicting harm on others? Do we learn by our various experiences to manipulate and even harm others for our own personal gain; or conversely, to be kind and benevolent, offering help even at costs to ourselves? Although these fundamental questions pertaining to the nature of human aggression have plagued scientists and laypersons for centuries, some answers can be found in research spanning the last few decades.

The early experiments of Milgram (1963) made it clear that, under certain circumstances, individuals can be coaxed into aggression and violence. The presence of a strict authority and removal of personal responsibility for one's actions can result in aggressive behaviors that inflict harm on others. The infamous Stanford prison experiment (Haney et al., 1973) also demonstrated that the propensity toward violence and aggression can be elicited—extremely and unexpectedly—in situations, where a legitimized ideology and a powerful authority can lead to impressionability and obedience.

Yet, while these powerful studies revealed the importance of social factors in inducing aggressive behaviors, not all individuals responded in an equally aggressive manner. In Milgram's (1963) first set of experiments, while 65% (26 of 40) of participants complied with the instruction to administer what they believed to be a final, massive 450-volt shock, the remaining 35% did not comply. Many of those who engaged in the aggressive behavior stated they were very uncomfortable doing so, and every participant reportedly questioned the experiment at some point or refused money promised for their study participation (Milgram, 1963). Although the studies by Milgram and Zimbardo provide clear evidence for the role of environment and social situations in affecting aggressive behavior, there are, nonetheless, large individual differences in the propensity for violence and aggression, even under these extreme circumstances.

What factors contribute to individual differences in aggression? Behavioral genetic studies of family members' resemblance for aggressive behavior help shed light on the matter. Twin and adoption studies agree with the experimental literature on aggression, which shows that a large effect of environmental factors is evident, particularly of the nonshared variety. Yet, there is also plenty of evidence, based on a variety of definitions of aggressive behavior from children to adults, for genetic propensity toward aggression (see reviews by Burt, 2009; Miles and Carey, 1997; Rhee and Waldman, 2002). Although few behavioral genetic studies have explicitly examined the question of gene by environment (G × E) interactions, we contend that such interactions are likely to exist and that the genetic propensity for aggression should exert its effects more strongly in some situations than others. Consistent with the early findings of Milgram and Zimbardo, individual genetic predispositions should moderate the extent to which aggression can be elicited, even in extreme situations such as these infamous studies. Our view is that while many, if not most, humans may have the potential for aggression and violence under the right circumstances, not all individuals will succumb to these behaviors under the same circumstances.

This chapter will review recent evidence of genetic and environmental influences on human aggression, with particular attention to several key questions and issues.

behavioral genetics - bad science and worse just-so storytelling...,

scientificamerican |  Last spring, I kicked up a kerfuffle by proposing that research on race and intelligence, given its potential for exacerbating discrimination, should be banned. Now Nature has expanded this debate with "Taboo Genetics." The article "looks at four controversial areas of behavioral genetics"—intelligence, race, violence and sexuality—"to find out why each field has been a flashpoint, and whether there are sound scientific reasons for pursuing such studies."

The essay provides a solid overview, including input from both defenders of behavioral genetics and critics. The author, Erika Check Hayden, quotes me saying that research on race and intelligence too often bolsters "racist ideas about the inferiority of certain groups, which plays into racist policies."

I only wish that Hayden had repeated my broader complaint against behavioral genetics, which attempts to explain human behavior in genetic terms. The field, which I've been following since the late 1980s, has a horrendous track record. My concerns about the potential for abuse of behavioral genetics are directly related to its history of widely publicized, erroneous claims.

I like to call behavioral genetics "gene whiz science," because "advances" so often conform to the same pattern. Researchers, or gene-whizzers, announce: There’s a gene that makes you gay! That makes you super-smart! That makes you believe in God! That makes you vote for Barney Frank! The media and the public collectively exclaim, "Gee whiz!"

Follow-up studies that fail to corroborate the initial claim receive little or no attention, leaving the public with the mistaken impression that the initial report was accurate—and, more broadly, that genes determine who we are.

Over the past 25 years or so, gene-whizzers have discovered "genes for" high IQ, gambling, attention-deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism, dyslexia, alcoholism, heroin addiction, extroversion, introversion, anxiety, anorexia nervosa, seasonal affective disorder, violent aggression—and so on. So far, not one of these claims has been consistently confirmed by follow-up studies.

These failures should not be surprising, because all these complex traits and disorders are almost certainly caused by many different genes interacting with many different environmental factors. Moreover, the methodology of behavioral geneticists is highly susceptible to false positives. Researchers select a group of people who share a trait and then start searching for a gene that occurs not universally and exclusively but simply more often in this group than in a control group. If you look at enough genes, you will almost inevitably find one that meets these criteria simply through chance. Those who insist that these random correlations are significant have succumbed to the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

To get a sense of just how shoddy behavioral genetics is, check out my posts on the "liberal gene," "gay gene" and God gene" (the latter two "discovered" by Dean Hamer, whose record as a gene-whizzer is especially abysmal); and on the MAOA-L gene, also known as the "warrior gene." Also see this post, where I challenge defenders of behavioral genetics to cite a single example of a solid, replicated finding.

no easy answer - but them bowl haircuts though...,

nature |  Connecticut’s state medical examiner has requested a full genetic analysis of mass killer Adam Lanza, who shot 20 children, 6 school staff, his mother and himself in Newtown in December. At first glance, it is easy to understand why. Confronted with such senseless violence, it is human nature to seek solace in scientific explanations. After John Wayne Gacy was executed in 1994 for the murder of 33 young men and boys, his brain was preserved and examined for clues to what made him a monster. More than 80 years ago, scientists reportedly studied the brain of serial killer Peter Kürten, the ‘vampire of Dusseldorf’, who was executed in 1931.

This quest to understand endures as technology advances. Now, instead of looking at cranial folds and frontal lobes for clues to the massacre, geneticists at the University of Connecticut in Farmington will scour Lanza’s genes. On its own, this hunt will be about as informative as studies of the brains of murderers: not very.

The Connecticut scientists will not talk about the job they have been handed. It is not clear what they will find, or even what they should look for. Suspend disbelief for a moment and pretend that a ‘mass-shooter gene’ exists — something that no serious geneticist believes — and scientists could still draw no conclusions from a single individual’s genome.

To be sure, many links and suggestions of links have been identified between genetics, mental illness and, to a lesser extent, violence. A study using Swedish registries (R. Kuja-Halkola et al. Dev. Psychopathol. 24, 739–753; 2012) found that children born to men older than 60 were more likely to be convicted of violent crimes than were those born to men aged 40–60 years, an observation that might be linked to increasing numbers of mutations in sperm as men age. Genetic risk factors have been identified for autism, depression and schizoid spectrum disorders, but they explain relatively little. People diagnosed with schizoid spectrum disorders are more likely to be convicted of violent crimes than are those with no such diagnosis, but the vast majority of people with mental illness do not commit crimes.

Such associations hold only for groups. Many healthy people carry mutations associated with disease; many people with mental illness carry no known risk factors. Mass shooters are often young white men, yet very few young white men become mass shooters. There is no one-to-one relationship between genetics and mental health or between mental health and violence. Something as simple as a DNA sequence cannot explain anything as complex as behaviour.

But there is a dangerous tendency to oversimplify, especially in the wake of tragedy.

can biologists fix economics?

newscientist |  THE GLOBAL financial crisis of 2008 took the world by surprise. Few mainstream economists saw it coming. Most were blind even to the possibility of such a catastrophic collapse. Since then, they have failed to agree on the interventions required to fix it. But it’s not just the crash: there is a growing feeling that orthodox economics can’t provide the answers to our most pressing problems, such as why inequality is spiralling. No wonder there’s talk of revolution.

Earlier this year, several dozen quiet radicals met in a boxy red building on the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany, to plot just that. The stated aim of this Ernst Strüngmann Forum at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies was to create “a new synthesis for economics”. But the most zealous of the participants – an unlikely alliance of economists, anthropologists, ecologists and evolutionary biologists – really do want to overthrow the old regime. They hope their ideas will mark the beginning of a new movement to rework economics using tools from more successful scientific disciplines.

Drill down, and it’s not difficult to see where mainstream “neoclassical” economics has gone wrong. Since the 19th century, economies have essentially been described with mathematical formulae. This elevated economics above most social sciences and allowed forecasting. But it comes at the price of ignoring the complexities of human beings and their interactions – the things that actually make economic systems tick.

The problems start with Homo economicus, a species of fantasy beings who stand at the centre of orthodox economics. All members of H. economicus think rationally and act in their own self-interest at all times, never learning from or considering others.

We’ve known for a while now that Homo sapiens is not like that (see “Team humanity“). Over the years, there have been various attempts to inject more realism into the field by incorporating insights into how humans actually behave. Known as behavioural economics, this approach has met with some success in microeconomics – the study of how individuals and small groups make economic decisions. It has persuaded governments to “nudge” people into doing what’s best for the economy, influencing behaviour by more subtle forms of persuasion than financial inducements. In 2010, the UK government set up the Behavioural Insights Team (known as the Nudge Unit) and the White House established something similar in the US in February last year.

killer-ape antics rooted in food supply and resource security - religion and ideology are merely post hoc conversation...,

theatlantic |  A paper published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences specifically connects a severe drought across the Levant to the Syrian conflict.

The case isn’t a direct one. “Before the Syrian uprising that began in 2011, the greater Fertile Crescent experienced the most severe drought in the instrumental record,” the authors write, arguing that the drought is connected to a long-term change in the climate in the Eastern Mediterranean. “For Syria, a country marked by poor governance and unsustainable agricultural and environmental policies, the drought had a catalytic effect, contributing to political unrest.” ISIS existed in different form, as the Islamic State of Iraq, prior to the outbreak of the civil war, but the collapse of the Syrian state, combined with the fecklessness of the Iraqi armed forces and government, allowed the group to expand its reach and influence, and declare a caliphate.

Of course, scientists and security consultants get nervous when the media covers studies such as this one. They worry, in particular, about the impression that wars can be reduced to a single cause. (As one told The Guardian in May about the PNAS study, “I’ll put this in a crude way: No amount of climate change is going to cause civil violence in the state where I live (Massachusetts), or in Sweden or many other places around the world.”) Still, O’Malley did a pretty good job compressing the study’s findings into a short explanation and contextualizing it as creating the conditions for ISIS’s success, rather than drawing a direct causal link between climate change and the Islamic State.

It’s easy to see how the baldest summary of this claim—a presidential candidate says that global warming created a huge jihadist group!—comes across as silly. But the unfortunate reality is that climate change will likely produce more evidence in the years ahead of the connection between resource scarcity and war—whether it’s fodder for presidential campaigns or not.

simply about power...,

Listen, Little Man

WaPo |  Repeatedly, it’s a dynamic that has shown itself to be monstrous as the cameras are rolling. The Bland arrest happened at a moment when American policing seems too often unhinged. And the ability to alter or take people’s lives rests in the hands of officers who, when confronted in a job that requires a deft touch for de-escalation, seem criminally unable to get a hold of themselves. 

I’m the po-lice! I can do anything I want. You’re nobody deserving of a more thoughtful interaction. And there’s no societal pressure or apparently internal or human code that calls me to treat you the way I’d want somebody to treat my mother or sister or daughter. Even if I’m asking you, you don’t get to admit to a range of emotions, including, irritation — your job is to endure, or just serve up some of that forgiveness because we can’t get enough of that. 

I wish Bland had put out that cigarette. Then maybe she wouldn’t have sat in jail. Because these are the margins of life — everybody’s life and, Lord knows, black life — when you’re dealing with the police. 

racetards, bibtards, the god of the stupid - useful idiocy in service to hardcore racist elites...,

billmoyers |  Conventional wisdom holds that the rise of the religious right as a political force to be reckoned with during the 1970s and 1980s was driven by conservative Christians’ intense opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. But Dartmouth College’s Randall Balmer writes that “the abortion myth quickly collapses under historical scrutiny.” He notes that “it wasn’t until 1979 — a full six years after Roe — that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but …. because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools.”

When Roe was first decided, most of the Southern evangelicals who today make up the backbone of the anti-abortion movement believed that abortion was a deeply personal issue in which government shouldn’t play a role. Some were hesitant to take a position on abortion because they saw it as a “Catholic issue,” and worried about the influence of Catholic teachings on American religious observance.

Shortly after the decision was handed down, The Baptist Press, a wire service run by the Southern Baptist Convention — the biggest Evangelical organization in the US — ran an op-ed praising the ruling. “Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision,” read the January 31, 1973, piece by W. Barry Garrett, The Baptist Press’s Washington bureau chief.

when the god of the stupid infected the american body politic...,

HuffPo |  In the late 1960s and early 1970s, evangelical Christians widely believed the Bible says life begins at birth and supported looser abortion policies.

That was my argument in an Oct. 31 op-ed for CNN, titled, "When evangelicals were pro-choice." Understandably, not all evangelical leaders were pleased. Mark Galli at Christianity Today called the op-ed a "fake history" in the title of a response article, even while going on to say the facts in the article are actually true. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, issued a more honest response, conceding that many "evangelicals did hold to embarrassingly liberal positions on the abortion issue (including, I must admit, the Southern Baptist Convention)." But both said that the change in evangelical opinion was not driven by a late-1970s political mobilization effort.

Given the enduring importance of evangelical anti-abortion activism, the reality and significance of this history deserves fuller discussion.

That mainstream evangelical leaders widely held liberal views on abortion at the time is undeniable. These were the dominant evangelical views.

In 1968, Christianity Today and the Christian Medical Society hosted a gathering of evangelical leaders from across the country for a symposium on birth control. The purpose was to set forth "the conservative or evangelical position within Protestantism" from scholars who "shared a common acceptance of the Bible as the final authority on moral issues." The joint statement resulting from the conference, titled "A Protestant Affirmation on the Control of Human Reproduction," included the consensus of attendees on abortion.

"Whether the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed," it declared, "but about the necessity of it and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord." Circumstances justifying abortion included "family welfare, and social responsibility." "When principles conflict," they affirmed, "the preservation of fetal life ... may have to be abandoned to maintain full and secure family life."

the god of stupid people installs the soul at the moment of conception without knowing if the wetware will work...,

wikipedia |  Miscarriage, also known as spontaneous abortion and pregnancy loss, is the natural death of an embryo or fetus before it is able to survive independently.^[1][2] Some use the cutoff of 20 weeks of gestation after which fetal death is known as a stillbirth.^[2] The most common symptoms of a miscarriage is vaginal bleeding.^[1] This may occur with or without pain.^[1] Tissue or clot like material may also come out the vagina.^[3] Sadness, anxiety, and guilt may also occur.^[4]

Risk factors for miscarriage include an older mother or father, previous miscarriage, exposure to tobacco smoke, obesity, diabetes, and drug or alcohol use, among others.^[5][6] In those under the age of 35 the risk is about 10% while it is about 45% in those over the age of 40.^[1] Risk begins to increase around the age of 30.^[5] About 80% of miscarriages occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy (the first trimester). The underlying mechanism in about half of cases involves chromosomal abnormalities. Other conditions that can produce similar symptoms include an ectopic pregnancy and implantation bleeding.^[1] Diagnosis of a miscarriage may involve checking to see if the cervix is open or closed, testing blood levels of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), and an ultrasound.^[7]

Prevention is occasionally possible with good prenatal care. This may involve avoiding drugs and alcohol, infectious diseases, and radiation.^[8] No specific treatment is usually needed during the first 7 to 14 days.^[6][9] Most women will complete the miscarriage without interventions.^[6] Occasionally the medication misoprostol or a procedure known as dilation and curettage (D&C) is required to remove the failed pregnancy.^[9] Women who are rhesus negative may require Rho(D) immune globulin.^[6] Pain medication and emotional support may be beneficial.^[9]

Miscarriage is the most common complication of early pregnancy.^[10] Among women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is roughly 10% to 20% while rates among all conceptions is around 30% to 50%.^[1][5] About 5% of women have two miscarriages in a row.^[11]

charisma, capital, tax exemption - key ingredients of the spread of uhmurkan wahabism...,

WaPo |  Inside the gigantic Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea, international flags decorate the walls. They are supposed to show that the house of worship accommodates more than an ordinary church – it is the world's largest megachurch.

With more than 800,000 members, the Seoul-based community is at the forefront of a global phenomenon. Often located in stadium-like venues, these churches attract at least 2,000 believers every week, and can grow to attract tens of thousands of people. And while the United States may have started the trend, the future of megachurches may lie in the rest of the world.

Based on data from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and from the Christian nonprofit organization Leadership Network, WorldViews visualized this global and diverse movement. We used the most common definition of megachurches, which describes them as having "2,000 or more persons in attendance at weekly worship, a charismatic, authoritative senior minister, a 7 day a week community," and other features which you can find in detail here.

Why global megachurches are bigger than U.S. megachurches

Despite American roots that reach back to the 19th century, megachurches abroad now have a higher average attendance, even though the vast majority of megachurches are still in the United States. While there are 230 to 500 such churches elsewhere in the world, the Hartford Institute estimates that there are about three times more megachurches in the United States.

neoconservatards must answer for iraq before fixing their pieholes to talk about iran...,

theatlantic |  To a degree that will baffle historians, the political-intellectual complex that made the Iraq War possible remains intact, and powerful. Amnesia is part of the reason why. If Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and Benjamin Netanyahu knew that before denouncing the Iran deal they’d be required to account for their views on Iraq, they might not show up in the green room. If they did, their television appearances would take a radically different course from the course they generally take today.

The people of Iraq have no choice but to face the war’s consequences: The conflict took half a million Iraqi lives. America’s veterans must face it too: Almost one-third of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and nearly 50,000 live, or are close to living, on America’s streets. It’s only fair, therefore, that when people who championed the Iraq War appear in air-conditioned TV studios to debate the Iran deal, they be made to face that war’s consequences too. Were that the norm, I suspect the debate over Iran would barely be a debate at all.

the geopolitical alignment nobody paid any attention to

thenation |  Let’s start with the political Big Bang you know nothing about. It started two weeks ago, and here are its results: From now on, any possible future attack on Iran threatened by the Pentagon (in conjunction with NATO) would essentially be an assault on the planning of an interlocking set of organizations—the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), the new Chinese-founded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the BRICS’ New Development Bank (NDB)—whose acronyms you’re also unlikely to recognize. Still, they represent an emerging new order in Eurasia.

Tehran, Beijing, Moscow, Islamabad, and New Delhi have been actively establishing interlocking security guarantees. They have been simultaneously calling the Atlanticist bluff when it comes to the endless drumbeat of attention given to the flimsy meme of Iran’s “nuclear weapons program.” And a few days before the Vienna nuclear negotiations finally culminated in an agreement, all of this came together at a twin BRICS/SCO summit in Ufa, Russia—a place you’ve undoubtedly never heard of and a meeting that got next to no attention in the United States. And yet sooner or later, these developments will ensure that the war party in Washington and assorted neocons (as well as neoliberalcons) already breathing hard over the Iran deal will sweat bullets as their narratives about how the world works crumble.

jerry brown been lurking at subrealism - at the vatican calling tards "troglodytes"

sacbee |  Gov. Jerry Brown, issuing an ominous appeal on climate change, said Tuesday that the world may already have “gone over the edge” on global warming and that humanity must reverse course or face extinction.

Brown, speaking at a summit of mayors from around the world, has increased his already-high profile on climate change in recent months, working to coalesce support for carbon reduction policies ahead of global climate talks in Paris in December.

Pope Francis, who organized the conference after the release of his encyclical on climate change, told the group through an interpreter that he has “great hope ... that a fundamental basic agreement is reached” among global leaders.

Brown’s remarks reflected the urgency of the effort, but also its limitations.

“We don’t even know how far we’ve gone, or if we’ve gone over the edge,” Brown said. “There are tipping points, feedback loops. This is not some linear set of problems that we can predict. We have to take measures against an uncertain future which may well be something no one ever wants. We are talking about extinction. We are talking about climate regimes that have not been seen for tens of millions of years. We’re not there yet, but we’re on our way.”

Many Republicans have said the effects of climate change are overstated. As he has several times, Brown called them “troglodytes,” to applause. But the Democratic governor went beyond partisan rabble-rousing, quoting balefully from St. Paul’s biblical message to the Galatians.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article27998554.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article27998554.html#storylink=cpy

more american children than ever in extreme poverty and tards desperate to defund planned parenthood

kidscount |  The share of children under age 18 who live in families with incomes less than 50 percent of the federal poverty level.

The federal poverty definition consists of a series of thresholds based on family size and composition. In 2013, a 50% poverty threshold for a family of two adults and two children was $11,812. Poverty status is not determined for people in military barracks, institutional quarters, or for unrelated individuals under age 15 (such as foster children).

reuters |  Republican presidential candidates and lawmakers are calling for Planned Parenthood to be investigated and its federal funding eliminated after two videos that critics said showed the reproductive health care group is involved in the illegal sale of aborted fetal tissue.

White House hopeful Senator Rand Paul introduced an amendment to a highway bill Wednesday that would cut the nearly $500 million in taxpayer funding that goes annually to Planned Parenthood.

"Not one more taxpayer dollar should go to Planned Parenthood and I intend to make that goal a reality," Paul said.


Republican Representative Diane Black introduced a bill on Tuesday that would place an immediate moratorium on all federal funding for one year while Congress investigates the group's practices. Eighty lawmakers signed on as co-sponsors.


The videos show Planned Parenthood officials discussing ways to perform abortions to preserve fetal tissue for research and the costs involved. They were secretly recorded by anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress.


Planned Parenthood says it does not profit from fetal tissue donation and only receives payment for associated costs, which is legally permissible.

thank GOD its moved past what Ridley Scott could imagine back in the day - now just gotta keep Tards out the way!

thescientist |  Late last year, Steve Goldman of the University of Rochester and his colleagues reported that they had transplanted immature glial cells from donated human fetuses into the brains of immunodeficient mouse pups. These human glial cells matured into astrocytes and developed as the primary astrocyte population in the newborn mouse brain. One unexpected outcome of the team’s research, published in the Journal of Neuroscience (34:16153-61), was that these human-mouse chimeras outperformed normal mice almost fourfold in a variety of cognition tests, underscoring the importance of astrocytes in regulating synaptic plasticity and neural connectivity to enhance learning and memory. But the study also raised important ethical considerations—namely, what biological properties differentiate Homo sapiens from other organisms, and when should such “humanized” animals be afforded the rights that people currently enjoy.

Goldman is quick to state that the enhanced memory and learning performance of these human-mouse chimeras did not make the mice more human. “It’s still a mouse brain, not a human brain, but all the non-neuronal cells are human,” Goldman told New Scientist at the time of the publication. “This does not provide the animals with additional capabilities that could in any way be ascribed or perceived as specifically human. Rather, the human cells are simply improving the efficiency of the mouse’s own neural networks. It’s still a mouse.”

At the same time, the team had ethical reservations about repeating these types of experiments on monkeys, presumably following the National Academies’ guidelines that no human embryonic stem cells should be introduced into nonhuman primates at any stage of fetal or postnatal development. Is there really an ethical difference in performing these experiments on mice as opposed to monkeys? The scientists have not addressed this question, perhaps because it is a difficult one to answer.

Human intelligence, as difficult as it is to define, is often thought to be one of the most important characteristics that differentiate Homo sapiens from all other organisms. However, the capacity to humanize animals has the potential to complicate this assessment of being human. For example, should the definition of human or humanlike intelligence be psychometric, based on a constellation of cognitive processes, or should it be neurophysiologic or neurogenetic because it is inextricably linked to the brain? The question of distinguishing human and nonhuman characteristics has arisen regarding our close primate relatives. Last October, a New York Appeals Court announced that it will consider the issue of whether chimpanzees are entitled to “legal personhood.” Similarly, in December, an appeals court in Argentina recognized orangutans as having basic legal rights, stating that these primates deserve living quarters in a sanctuary and not in a zoo.

while tards fret about biological waste, I'll be metabolically and nootropically viralled out...,

wikipedia |  Gene doping is defined by the World Anti-Doping Agency as "the non-therapeutic use of cells, genes, genetic elements, or of the modulation of gene expression, having the capacity to improve athletic performance".^[1]

A complex ethical and philosophical issue is what defines "gene doping", especially in the context of bioethical debates about human enhancement.^[2] The idea stems from research done in the 1970s to treat human diseases by fixing the underlying genes.^[3] An example of gene doping could involve the recreational use of gene therapies intended to treat muscle-wasting disorders. Other applications include increasing muscle growth, blood production, endurance, oxygen dispersal and pain resistance. In such cases, nothing unusual would enter the bloodstream so officials would be a lot better and not detect anything in a blood or urine test.^[4] The new gene may be identical to the natural gene and may not be in every cell of the body. Some viruses target certain organs, such as the kidney or liver, thus only samples taken from these areas could lead to detection.^[5]

The historical development of policy associated with gene doping began in 2001 when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Medical Commission met to discuss the implications of gene therapy for sport. It was shortly followed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which met in 2002 to discuss genetic enhancement at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Also in 2002, the United States President’s Council on Bioethics met twice to discuss the ethics of genetic technology related to sport. In 2003, WADA decided to include a prohibition of gene doping within their World Anti-Doping Code, which is formalized in its 2004 World Anti-Doping Code. Further, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) met in 2003 and 2004 to discuss the science and ethics of gene transfer technology for sport.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has already asked scientists to help find ways to prevent gene therapy from becoming the newest means of doping. In December 2005, the World Anti-Doping Agency hosted its second landmark meeting on gene doping and drafted a declaration on gene doping which, for the first time, included a strong discouragement of the use of genetic testing for performance. In September 2010 a WADA funded research project reported for the first time that the direct and long-term detection of gene doping by the abuse of gene transfer techniques is possible in conventional blood samples.^[6] The first product to be associated with genetic doping emerged on the approach to the Turin 2006 Olympic Winter Games, where repoxygen was discussed as a possible substance in use at the Games.

authentic christian church struggling to hold onto millenials..., (tards gotta go!)

religiondispatches |  Pope Francis is popular among young Catholics, with only two percent having a negative view of him. But the American church hierarchy is not looked on so kindly, and there is an increasing emphasis on a separation between politics and religion. A full 80 percent of respondents said they felt no need to follow the bishops’ advice when it comes time to vote, and 77 percent said Catholic politicians were under no obligation to follow the bishops either.

They are also opposed by a wide margin to bishops withholding communion to the divorced and remarried, those who support legal abortion, and those who support marriage equality.

What’s missing from this survey, however, is the question of church attendance. How much are these Catholics who disagree with and question church teaching are actually showing up? Christian Smith, the head of the National Study of Youth and Religion at Notre Dame, says the situation with Catholic millennials participating in church culture is “in fact, grim.” Only 16% of millennials self-identify as Catholic according to Pew. That 16% is the group the church is struggling to hold on to.

So if they are increasingly choosing the liberal side in the culture wars, are they really still Catholic?

Canon Law 204.1 states that a Catholic not only has to be baptized, but also “share the profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical governance” to be “considered in communion with the Church.” Canon Law 208-223 has more specific rules for acting out the obligation of the laity, but some of those rules are ambiguously stated, including 209.1, which tells us that “the Christian faithful, even in their own manner of acting, are always obliged to maintain communion with the Church,” or 210, which says that Christians should try to lead a “holy life” but “according to their own condition.”

The linguistic ambiguity of Canon Law, along with the fact that very few Catholics bother to read it, means that belonging to the church is ill defined.

For most Catholics—and especially for younger ones whose Boomer and Gen X parents may themselves have drifted from the church, slipped in their catechesis, or willfully ignored some of its teachings on sexual issues (the increasingly smaller number of children born to Catholic families is empirical evidence of that)—their Catholicism may have always been a self-defined identity rather than a strident one.

The Pope, Science, and Economics. Of the Three, Economics is by far the most Detached from Reality

evolution-institute |  Anyone who thinks that science and religion can’t mix should read Pope Francis’s Encyclical “On the Care of Our Common Home”. Not only does it provide an admirable scientifically informed summary of global environmental degradation, but it correctly diagnoses the current economic worldview as part of the problem. It is economics, more than religion (at least as rendered by Pope Francis), that is detached from reality.

TVOL is pleased to provide an assessment of the Encyclical by the distinguished ecological economist John Gowdy, who has served as an advisor for the Evolution Institute since 2009.

The Encyclical provides a theological argument for environmental stewardship in addition to a scientific argument. The theological argument is an interesting object of analysis in its own right, as I will describe in a companion article.

why Trump is a refreshing departure from typical N-1 contamination of politics and distortion of reality

NYTimes |  A hidden-camera video released last week purported to show that Planned Parenthood illegally sells tissue from aborted fetuses. It shows nothing of the sort. But it is the latest in a series of unrelenting attacks on Planned Parenthood, which offers health care services to millions of people every year. The politicians howling to defund Planned Parenthood care nothing about the truth here, being perfectly willing to undermine women’s reproductive rights any way they can.

The nine-minute video clip released by the Center for Medical Progress, an outfit apparently created in 2013, invites viewers to “Hold Planned Parenthood accountable for their illegal sale of baby parts.” In it, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, is seen discussing the collection of fetal tissue in a lunch meeting with two people posing as potential tissue buyers. A second video, released on Tuesday, shows another Planned Parenthood staff member discussing fetal tissue.

After the first video’s release, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky pledged to “introduce an amendment to pending Senate legislation to immediately strip every dollar of Planned Parenthood funding.” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called for defunding and for “an investigation of Planned Parenthood’s activities regarding the sale and transfer of aborted body parts.” The House Energy and Commerce Committee is undertaking an investigation, and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana have ordered investigations in their states.

The full video of the lunch meeting, over two hours long and released by the Center for Medical Progress after complaints by Planned Parenthood, shows something very different from what these critics claim. Clearly, the shorter version was edited to eliminate statements by Dr. Nucatola explaining that Planned Parenthood does not profit from tissue donation, which requires the clear consent of the patient. Planned Parenthood affiliates only accept money — between $30 and $100 per specimen, according to Dr. Nucatola — to cover costs associated with collecting and transporting the tissue. “This is not something with any revenue stream that affiliates are looking at,” she said. Under federal law, facilities may be reimbursed for costs associated with fetal tissue donation, like transportation and storage.

According to a letter sent by Roger Evans, a lawyer for Planned Parenthood, to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the video is a result of a yearslong campaign of deception. The head of the Center for Medical Progress, David Daleiden, created a fake company called Biomax Procurement Services almost three years ago for the purpose of tricking Planned Parenthood employees, the letter alleges, even setting up exhibits at Planned Parenthood’s national conferences. The letter also says Biomax offered a Planned Parenthood affiliate $1,600 for a fetal liver and thymus, presumably to trap the affiliate in the act of accepting a high payment for fetal tissue. The affiliate declined.

angry negresses will only accept the blackest bish if she gets N-1 industrial sponsorship...,

pimppreacher |  Rachel should look and learn. As black as she thinks she is because the “dues” she thinks she’s paid by attending a HBCU, studying Black culture and history and becoming a Black woman subject matter expert in her mind is just more insult to injury and is dismissed by us. No, she still lacks one facet of negro culture that is essential for her to be let into the club: The Black Church. Politicians know this and so do Corporations which is why you see more and more corporate sponsors of church events. All this studying of black culture and one would think Rachel would have gone this route already by getting a black pastor sponsor. If she wants to make it, a black pastor sponsor is a MUST. That said, due to her DEFCON-5 Level of transgression with black women, it is going to take someone really powerful to wash all her sins away. The only one with this much domination and influence with black women is the Kingpin of the Black Church itself: TD Jakes.  

Yes, if Rachel somehow got mentored and counseled by TD Jakes, she would be redeemed. She could “church” with us and eventually get promoted to Armor Bearer or First Assistant. He could help her get her black hair care beauty line to be picked up at Target. The invitations to speak would begin pouring in again, and women everywhere would come hear her testify of how God brought her a mighty long way. She will never really repent, but we won’t care. All that matters is that she has learned how to preach and can make hair weave references in her messages for added humor. Then she would meet the criteria to be a panelist speaker for Mega Fest because she has been Jakes-Redeemed. Once you are Jakes-Redeemed, you become Teflon. This Jakes-Redemption is a Willy-Wonka Golden Ticket to write her own path.  

Why do you say this Ms. Justice? Well because there are so many others that are under this protection and no one is able to touch them. Who I say? Well let’s see, there’s Oprah Winfrey who also needed Jakes-Redemption so her own spirituality can be finally validated. It doesn’t matter if Oprah has or has not accepted the salvation of Jesus Christ. 

Look at Tyler Perry. Tyler, also very wealthy, needed Jakes-Redemption and protection to steer rumors away about his sexuality. And if he were to have a Bruce Jenner moment of courage in the future, the Teflon Jacket he got with his Jakes-Redemption Packet (please see his $1 million dollar donation at the last MegaFest), would still keep him from any condemnation or loss of revenue because of it. 

N-1 is what makes you deuterostems unique...,

delanceyplace |  Today's selection -- from Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. According to Dr. Harari in this monumental best-seller, the truly unique thing about human beings -- the key thing that distinguishes us radically from other animals and allows us to create large, complex social organizations -- is our ability to have a commonly held belief about things that do not exist or cannot be empirically demonstrated at all:

"The truly unique feature of [Homo Sapiens or Sapiens] language is not its ability to transmit information about the [tangible]. Rather, it's the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all. As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled.

"Legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution. Many animals and human species could previously say, 'Careful! A lion!' Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution (which occurred about 70,000 years ago), Homo sapiens acquired the ability to say, 'The lion is the guardian spirit of our tribe.' This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language.

"It's relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don't really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven. But why is it important? After all, fiction can be dangerously misleading or distracting. ...

"But fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively. We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the nationalist myths of modern states. Such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers. Ants and bees can also work together in huge numbers, but they do so in a very rigid manner and only with close relatives. Wolves and chimpanzees cooperate far more flexibly than ants, but they can do so only with small numbers of other individuals that they know intimately. Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. That's why Sapiens rule the world, whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.

"Our chimpanzee cousins usually live in small troops of several dozen individuals. ... There are clear limits to the size of groups that can be formed and maintained in such a way. In order to function, all members of a group must know each other intimately. Two chimpanzees who have never met, never fought, and never engaged in mutual grooming will not know whether they can trust one another, whether it would be worthwhile to help one another, and which of them ranks higher. Under natural conditions, a typical chimpanzee troop consists of about twenty to fifty individuals. As the number of chimpanzees in a troop increases, the social order destabilises, eventually leading to a rupture and the formation of a new troop by some of the animals. ...

someone collect the establishment's tears in a shot glass...,

fictional democrat version of Trump, or, Bro. Feed's whole screed with no struggle to read...,

wikipedia |  A down-on-his-luck Democratic Senator, Jay Bulworth is losing his bid for re-election to a fiery young populist. Bulworth's socialist views, formed in the 1960s and 1970s, have lost favor with voters, so he has conceded to more conservative politics and to accepting donations from big corporations. In addition, though he and his wife have been having affairs with each other's knowledge for years, they must still present a happy façade in the interest of maintaining a good public image.

Tired of politics, unhappy with his life in general, and planning to commit suicide, Bulworth negotiates a $10 million life insurance policy with his daughter as the beneficiary in exchange for a favorable vote from the insurance industry. Knowing that a suicide will void his daughter's inheritance, he contracts to have himself assassinated within two days' time.

Turning up in California for his campaign extremely drunk, Bulworth begins speaking his mind freely at public events and in the presence of the C-SPAN film crew following his campaign. After dancing all night in a club and smoking marijuana, he even starts rapping in public. His frank, potentially offensive remarks make him an instant media darling and re-energize his campaign. Along the way he becomes romantically involved with a young black activist named Nina, who tags along with him on his campaign stops. Along the way he is pursued by the paparazzi, his insurance company, his campaign managers and an increasingly adoring public, all the while fearful of his impending assassination.

After a televised debate where Bulworth drinks out of a flask on air and derides insurance companies and the American healthcare system, he decides to hide at Nina's family's home, located in the ghetto of South-Central Los Angeles. While hiding at Nina's he wanders around the neighborhood, where he witnesses a group of kids selling crack, and buys the group ice cream. After saving the group from a racially motivated encounter with a cop, he finds out they are "soldiers" of L.D., a local drug kingpin whom Nina's brother owes money to. Bulworth eventually makes it to a television appearance arranged earlier by his campaign manager, during which he raps and repeats truths Nina and L.D. told him about the lives of poor black people and their opinions of various American institutions, like education and employment. Eventually he offers the solution that "everybody should fuck everybody" until everyone is "all the same color" stunning the audience and his interviewer.

After Bulworth's TV appearance he escapes with Nina and goes with her back to her house, where she reveals that she is the assassin he indirectly hired (ostensibly to make the money needed to pay off the debt her brother owes to L.D.) and will now not carry out the job. Bulworth, finally relieved that he is not in danger of being killed, falls asleep, having not slept for the past several days.

The next morning the press and Bulworth's campaign managers converge on Nina's house, all eager to talk to him. L.D. also comes to Nina's house, and having had a change of heart says he will let Nina's brother work off his debt instead of hurting or killing him. Bulworth emerges from the bedroom looking rested, and as he steps outside he invites Nina to go with him, who eventually joins him after some hesitation. Bulworth and Nina embrace and begin to kiss as people cheer. As Bulworth happily accepts a new campaign for the presidency, he is suddenly shot in front of the crowd of reporters and supporters by an agent of the insurance company lobbyists, who were fearful of Bulworth's recent push for single-payer health care.

Bulworth's fate is left ambiguous. The final scene shows an elderly vagrant, played by Amiri Baraka, whom Bulworth met previously, standing alone outside a hospital. He exhorts Bulworth, who is presumably inside, to not be 'a ghost' but 'a spirit' which, as he had mentioned earlier, can only happen if you have 'a song'. In the final shot of the film, he asks the same of the audience.

donald trump singlehandedly destroying establishment newspeak doublethink and political correctness...,

McCain did graduate at the bottom of his class, 894 out of 899...crashed three very expensive Navy jets...two in training...A “war hero” doesn’t get promoted to squadron commander of the air field named after his own grandfather; immediately after crashing his third airplane. A “war hero” doesn’t have all military records that cover his time in Vietnam and all disciplinary actions against him censored and sealed “as a matter of national security.” A “war hero” doesn’t get 28 medals awarded “for bravery” for no other reason than being shot down and captured. A war hero doesn't allow himself to be used as a pawn and go on a celebrity public relations tour, because he’s the son of two acclaimed Navy admirals. A war hero doesn't repeatedly try to send other people's son's into war and harms way. A “war hero” doesn’t repeatedly cheat on the wife who dutifully waited for him at home and then divorce and abandon her. A "war hero" doesn't unleash the consummate tard's tard Sarah Palin on a unsuspecting American public.

skip gates on afro-cubans worse than david brooks on tahnussy coates....,

theroot |  As much as I love Professor Gates and ALL that he has and continues to do to reveal the true state of affairs and the imbalances that are yet to be addressed by the U.S. in particular, I was a bit disappointed in the article.  The article seems to suggest that there is a place on earth where the poison of racism has been or could be eradicated!  To reiterate the sentiments of 'Haile Selassie' on this forum, THIS CANCER has infected the WORLD.

With all the best intentions the Cuban Government could only do its best to encourage equality.  The white scourge of Cuba that fled to Florida/the U.S. were the ones upholding racism and oppressing blacks - period.  The fact that where the money flowed, the status quo was bound to remain unchanged does not require a leap in comprehension.  In similar fashion, despite the efforts of many political parties to open education to lower income folks i.e. blacks, the status quo of "white moneyed-power" remains the same throughout the West Indies.  Indeed, this is the situation with America and the climb for blacks out of poverty remains a steep hill.

The above struggle of blacks to deal with all they have been subjected to from the original crossing to-date, is clearly demonstrated by Prof. Gates's own "Many Rivers To Cross" documentary.  Thus I am surprised the article does not appear to have taken into account the effect of such oppression on future generations.  Worse than just the racism that was in play before the economic collapse in Cuba, the economic collapse itself would be much more devastating to the blacks already at the bottom of the economic rung.  In addition, the logic in the slaveholders' strategy to withhold education from their slaves, is inescapable.  How could the slaves seize the reins of power without knowledge? Therefore, lack of empowerment of blacks was almost sealed from nation to nation. 

I have travelled several times to Cuba but never used the tourist package.  Instead I was honoured to be hosted by a family in Havana, the couple Alex and Conchita with their wonderful WELL-EDUCATED, eleven-year old son.  Yes, the downside included flies, the inability to even purchase bare necessities (and things appeared to have gotten worse after 2008 as well; perhaps less money in circulation due to the U.S.A's own economic woes?), etc., etc but the love and friendliness I experienced, I had not found on any of my other travels except maybe, in Panama.  Alex and Conchita's son could speak fluently three languages, Spanish (of course), English and Italian!  Plus he stumbled through some conversational French.  He could also play the piano.  They were brown-skinned, their neighbour had a white complexion.  They had grown up in Havana and white or brown were very good friends.  I was truly impressed by the comraderie.

It is fortunate that due to less overt racism, the dark Cubans aren't as persecuted as black Americans.  IMO if America had not helped to suffocate the Cuban economy, there would have been a good chance of lifting the darker Cuban farther up the educational ladder and thereby ensuring access to positions of power.  ALL Cubans are definitely more accepting of people of different complexions - what with half of Africa, Germans and Italians inundating the Island every year - than are Americans.  One of my most horrible experiences was in MIAMI when my BLACK wife was almost refused service.  They don't look at your mixed complexion children and ask if the BLACK one is adopted for instance! Cubans are so mixed that they are accustomed to dark-complexioned people with green eyes, or three children of the same parentage looking different to each other.  Despite, continuous mixing of races in America, you still get these ignoramuses asking these intrusively rude questions. 

Another overlooked fact is that MOST of the impoverished Caribbean and Latin America look to SPORTS to lift them out of poverty.  Not just because the Cuban Government used sports to give its populace a means of validation but because it is general knowledge that the Americans are batsh*t crazy about sports.  American sports scouts traverse Latin America and the Caribbean particularly.  Cubans know that if they could get to say, Santo Domingo, they might get recruited.  There are groups that review and broadcast scoring stats to U.S. scouts.  The fact is NO HUMAN wants to live in POVERTY and the good ole U.S.A. ensured that Cuba would be punished for ejecting its racist, criminal overlords.  Despite the embargo, Cuba managed to educate its population. People from other Caribbean Islands go to Cuba for its medical advantages.  Cuba offers the opportunity to study medicine for almost free, on the condition that you return to your country and serve your people.

brooks resents tahnussy resents uhmurkah while the sages smile and continue prepping for hard rain...,

 

crooksandliars |  In his much-mocked column "Listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates While White," David Brooks makes a great show of deference to his subject, and to black political activists in general:

The last year has been an education for white people. There has been a depth, power and richness to the African-American conversation about Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston and the other killings that has been humbling and instructive.

Your new book, “Between the World and Me,” is a great and searing contribution to this public education. It is a mind-altering account of the black male experience. Every conscientious American should read it.

But I think Corey Robin reads the column correctly:

Near the end of the column, Brooks actually seems to blame Coates himself for black Americans' failure to achieve the American Dream:

This dream is a secular faith that has unified people across every known divide. It has unleashed ennobling energies and mobilized heroic social reform movements. By dissolving the dream under the acid of an excessive realism, you trap generations in the past and destroy the guiding star that points to a better future.

Read that last sentence again. Brooks is suggesting that Coates's own book is going to destroy the American Dream for multiple generations of black people -- a dream to which they could otherwise readily gain access.

The opening statements of respect in this column are not to be read literally. They're Brooks's version of "Brutus is an honorable man." Brooks may respect Coates's book as memoir, but, as political and cultural analysis, it's repellent and dangerous, in his view. Don't let the kind-sounding words fool you.

info-capitalism is inherently malthusian, sharply favoring the right side of the bell curve...,

guardian |  Today, the thing that is corroding capitalism, barely rationalised by mainstream economics, is information. Most laws concerning information define the right of corporations to hoard it and the right of states to access it, irrespective of the human rights of citizens. The equivalent of the printing press and the scientific method is information technology and its spillover into all other technologies, from genetics to healthcare to agriculture to the movies, where it is quickly reducing costs.

The modern equivalent of the long stagnation of late feudalism is the stalled take-off of the third industrial revolution, where instead of rapidly automating work out of existence, we are reduced to creating what David Graeber calls “bullshit jobs” on low pay. And many economies are stagnating.

The equivalent of the new source of free wealth? It’s not exactly wealth: it’s the “externalities” – the free stuff and wellbeing generated by networked interaction. It is the rise of non-market production, of unownable information, of peer networks and unmanaged enterprises. The internet, French economist Yann Moulier-Boutang says, is “both the ship and the ocean” when it comes to the modern equivalent of the discovery of the new world. In fact, it is the ship, the compass, the ocean and the gold.

The modern day external shocks are clear: energy depletion, climate change, ageing populations and migration. They are altering the dynamics of capitalism and making it unworkable in the long term. They have not yet had the same impact as the Black Death – but as we saw in New Orleans in 2005, it does not take the bubonic plague to destroy social order and functional infrastructure in a financially complex and impoverished society.

Once you understand the transition in this way, the need is not for a supercomputed Five Year Plan – but a project, the aim of which should be to expand those technologies, business models and behaviours that dissolve market forces, socialise knowledge, eradicate the need for work and push the economy towards abundance. I call it Project Zero – because its aims are a zero-carbon-energy system; the production of machines, products and services with zero marginal costs; and the reduction of necessary work time as close as possible to zero.

Most 20th-century leftists believed that they did not have the luxury of a managed transition: it was an article of faith for them that nothing of the coming system could exist within the old one – though the working class always attempted to create an alternative life within and “despite” capitalism. As a result, once the possibility of a Soviet-style transition disappeared, the modern left became preoccupied simply with opposing things: the privatisation of healthcare, anti-union laws, fracking – the list goes on.

If I am right, the logical focus for supporters of postcapitalism is to build alternatives within the system; to use governmental power in a radical and disruptive way; and to direct all actions towards the transition – not the defence of random elements of the old system. We have to learn what’s urgent, and what’s important, and that sometimes they do not coincide.