I’ve had two draft blog posts in the last week, one on Kyler Murray and one on UF shortstop Richie Martin, with some other players included in each piece. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday, my last before heading off to spring training, which will make chat times irregular for the rest of the month.
The University of Chicago Press has published a new edition of the essential baseball book The Hidden Game of Baseball: A Revolutionary Approach to Baseball and Its Statistics
And now, this week’s links…
- Dr. Paul Offit, who invented the rotavirus vaccine and is one of the most ardent and erudite advocates for universal vaccination, on how the modern vaccine-denial movement is putting our children at risk.
- Meanwhile, Representative Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who chairs a House science subcommittee, didn’t get his kids vaccinated. There’s no justification for having him anywhere near a science policy-making body, and he just feeds right into the whole children-as-property fallacy with his comments.
- From the New York Times: Is most of our DNA just junk? It turns out the question of whether noncoding DNA serves any useful purposes is tied up in debates over genetics research and has even drawn in the cranks who push creation “science.”
- Speaking of creationism, the irreducible complexity fallacy gets a good slap upside the head at the National Center for Science Education’s blog in a post tearing up that misconception. Evolution doesn’t favor increasing complexity, and, as the post asks, what exactly do you mean by “complexity” in the first place?
- Radley Balko, who keeps churning out great investigative pieces, on as bad a case of police and DA corruption as you’ll see. A process server who served papers to a police officer ended up arrested and charged with assaulting the officer, with seven corroborating witnesses, most or all cops, backing it up … but the alleged assault never happened. And as far as I can tell, none of those cops has been charged or suspended in the case.
- The man credited with bringing farm-to-table to Dallas long before that was even a term passed away last week at 58. Tom Spicer supplied produce to many of the Metroplex’s finest restaurants.
- What purpose is served by a law that prevents a woman whose baby is almost certainly nonviable from terminating the pregnancy? That’s the very real case of a North Carolina woman, Whitney, who had to head two states away to have an abortion because North Carolina has banned all abortions past twenty weeks. This seems to me to be a medical issue, not a right-to-life vs. reproductive rights question, and therefore one best determined by the patient and her doctor.
Keith, couldn’t you make that same argument regarding any late term abortion law? Do you really think there should be no limits on abortion at any time in pregnancy? So if a fetus is 32 weeks old and viable it has no rights?
Come on, I’m pro choice for the record, but it is really sad when people use science only to support their political positions and ignore it when they feel like it.
I don’t think that is what Keith is saying. The example he uses here shows how trying to legislate medical decisions is a minefield. In fact he is quite clear on why, especially in this case it is a medical question.
@Andrew: Exactly. Thank you.
Andrew, did you actually read what he linked. That’s EXACTLY the argument they’re making sir.
Matthew, I don’t think that you read what I linked, or what I wrote. Your analogy compared a fully healthy, viable fetus at 32 weeks to the linked piece’s true story of a likely non-viable fetus at 20 weeks. I’d say “straw man,” but that’s too kind a term for such an inapt comparison.
Keith, you linked an opinion piece from reproductiverights.org. They strongly oppose any type of late term abortion ban, no matter at how many weeks, no matter if the fetus is viable or not, that is a fact. The fact they are making their case using an example of a non-viable fetus doesn’t change this.
From the piece you linked:
“Restrictions that prevent doctors from working with women to provide the care they need jeopardize a woman’s health, future, and life—as well as the integrity of the medical system.”
So I fail to see how my argument playing devils advocate for the other side of these laws they want to abolish is a straw man.
Are you against any law banning abortion at any time like reproductiverights.org is?
So I fail to see how my argument playing devils advocate for the other side of these laws they want to abolish is a straw man.
You’re arguing against something no one here is supporting, which is a strawman. The piece I linked provided a very specific example of where a blanket 20-week abortion ban – which, by the way, may be unconstitutional – results in an outcome that is suboptimal for all parties concerned. Nobody benefits from forcing a woman to carry a nonviable fetus to term, even if the abortion would take place after the twenty-week threshold; it puts the woman’s health at unnecessary risk and imposes unnecessary costs on her, her health insurer, and the health care system.
As for your emphasis on the site hosting that article, that’s irrelevant as well (it’s the genetic fallacy, judging an argument or piece of evidence by who’s making/presenting it, rather than on its own merits).
I’ve always been opposed to abortion-as-birth-control, but I’ve also been uncomfortable with making a sometimes life-saving medical procedure illegal. But nuance is seldom tolerated on this topic. I get called a liberal for thinking it should be legal and a right-wing nutjob for thinking it should be rare.
I still agree with Keith here. The quote you include seems to emphasize the medical nature of the case. On the more general question (which was not what his post was about), I would note that in Canada the Supreme Court threw out the abortion law decades ago. We have no law and no government has been tempted to try and pass one. I am comfortable with the idea that doctors and their patients make these decisions.
Okay, how about if we add more context with their previous paragraph:
“While abortion later in pregnancy is very rare, the fact remains that for the individual women who face these circumstances, the ability to make these personal, private, complicated, and often very difficult decisions for themselves matters a great deal.
Restrictions that prevent doctors from working with women to provide the care they need jeopardize a woman’s health, future, and life—as well as the integrity of the medical system.”
They are arguing against any type of late term abortion restrictions. Nothing wrong with agreeing with them, I just happen to strongly disagree.
Keith, how am I arguing against something no one is supporting? ReproductiveRights.org CLEARLY is against any type of late term abortion ban. You linked one of their opinion pieces, which I happen to disagree with, It’s clearly not a strawman my friend.
As for the genetic fallacy, I also couldn’t disagree more strongly. What conclusion am I making based SOLELY on their origin of the material? They are against any type of late term abortion ban, I disagree, not based on who is making the argument but because I disagree with the position.
Keep on trolling dude.
Hi Kieth, I admittedly haven’t read it quite yet but National Geographic’s latest issue has the following words writ large on the cover: “The War On Science”. It should be a good one.
Not to change the subject of abortion – but out of curiosity why link an article of an early farm to form gentleman? Seems out of place.
The obituary?