Signs of the Times

"PETA Killed 95 Percent of Adoptable Pets in its Care During 2008"

Hypocritical Animal Rights Group’s 2008 Disclosures Bring Pet Death Toll To 21,339

WASHINGTON DC – Today the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) published documents online showing that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) killed 95 percent of the adoptable pets in its care during 2008. Despite years of public outrage over its euthanasia program, the animal rights group kills an average of 5.8 pets every day at its Norfolk, VA headquarters.

. . .

In addition to exposing PETA’s hypocritical record of killing defenseless animals, the Center for Consumer Freedom has publicized the animal rights group’s ties to violent activists, and shed light on its aggressive message-marketing to children.

The Center for Consumer Freedom

Manipulating the Science

A campaign on Facebook has recruited tens of thousands of supporters to bombard the Vatican with condoms to protest against the Pope's controversial remarks about the spread of HIV.

The Daily Telegraph reports organisers have claimed that 60,000 have pledged to send prophylactics to the Pontiff as a result of the call on the social networking site.

. . .

"Whether the Pope's error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear," it said. "When any influential person, be it a religious or political leader, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record."

Funny, I remember reading something recently which makes similar statements but aimed at a different public figure, who many consider to be a secular saint (Rape Rates: Kinsey’s Junk Science & Other Unreported Sex Crimes).

Alfred Kinsey’s sex “findings” displaced the common law and Judeo-Christian theories of human sexuality, which had dictated our conduct, culture, and sex-crime penalties. The ideals of delayed rewards, complete abstinence before and fidelity within marriage, said Kinsey, were scientifically false, constraining, repressing, and, (most condemnatory), “hypocritical.”

The test of a good scientific theory is its predictability. Kinsey predicted that when people believed his theories and data, divorce, venereal disease, “illegitimacy,” sex crimes, and all sexual dysfunctions would decrease. You many have noticed that Kinsey’s predictions didn’t quite pan out. The science was bad.

Now we face the post-1950s skyrocketing rates of divorce, adultery, new and virulent strains of “venereal disease,” “illegitimacy,” rape, statutory rape, child sexual abuse, incest, abortion, juvenile sex crimes, schoolhouse sexual harassment, sex and pornography addictions, and, well, shall we say, a passel of “gender confusion.”

I'm no expert on these things, but I do know that someone who follows the Pope's teaching on sexual conduct will definitely be MUCH less at risk to contract or spread the HIV virus (or cause permanent damage to their urethra) than if they follow Kinsey's teaching. To assume a nation of people can't have healthy restraint and control of their sexual impulses and that the condom is the magic ticket out of their troubles is degrading, insulting, and dangerous. I wonder if all those condoms just makes the victimization of women over there that much easier.

Maybe there should be a facebook group intending to send thousands of toothbrushes to the Kinsey Institute to protest the manipulation of science to fit his ideology.

And besides, it's quite possible that the good intentions of our country and others is doing more harm than good (Why Foreign Aid Is Hurting Africa: Money from rich countries has trapped many African nations in a cycle of corruption, slower economic growth and poverty. Cutting off the flow would be far more beneficial, says Dambisa Moyo).

Fewer Choices

Fake ad from Salvo 6. Text below.

Some Choices Are Just Wrong

Like elected officials choosing to turn off the $336,000,000 faucet of taxpayer funds going to Planned Parenthood—after all, the abortion giant took in only $1.02 billion last year.

Or like voters choosing to ensure that women receive enough information to make a fully informed decision about abortion.

Or like legislators choosing to protect 13-year-olds from being taken across state lines by unscrupulous third parties to circumvent parental involvement laws on abortion.

Or like a community choosing to rescue girls from sexual exploitation by requiring personnel at abortion clinics to report cases of statutory rape or suspected abuse.

Help us liberate choice from those who choose wrongly—like doctors and pharmacists who put their moral integrity ahead of abortion ideology. Keep choice safe by keeping choice away from those who are not pro-choice!

The Coalition to Protect Roe v. Wade

And since I'm on the subject, check out these links:

The Coat Hanger Conundrum: Why It’s a Deceptive Pro-Choice Defense by Greg Koukl

Fight FOCA - The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) Endangers Women and Silences the Voices of Everyday Americans

Decode:Fetus (from Salvo issue 2, spring 07)

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Salvo issue 8 (Spring 09) is now available! Individual copies and back issues can be purchased here.

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Physics: Dante's proton

Physicist Bob Estes draws my attention to his post, Dante's Heavenly Vision and the Physics of the Proton:

Now I want to consider Dante’s attempt to convey through poetry the mysterious concept of the Holy Trinity, which in his faith was a certainty. On reading the final canto of Dante’s Paradiso recently, I came across an image that immediately reminded me of something else I’d thought of before: the conceptual similarities between our scientific description of the proton and the Triune God; only now a particular detail of Dante’s description of what he had seen made the similarity appear stronger than I had realized before.

Near the end of his time in Heaven (Paradiso) Dante was finally empowered to behold God, his ability to comprehend mysteries directly by sight alone having been enabled by Divine grace. Here is the Singleton translation of lines 115-120 of Canto XXXIII of Paradiso.

Within the profound and shining subsistence of the lofty Light appeared to me three circles of three colors and one magnitude; and one seemed reflected by the other, as rainbow by rainbow, and the third seemed fire breathed forth equally from the one and the other.

This is far from being a clear picture, and Dante had said beforehand that description-even distinct memory-of what he had beheld was impossible. But I was struck this time by how much Dante’s word-painting resembles our own nebulous physical picture of the proton. The essentials of Dante’s vision were three equally sized circles (or spheres) of three colors and two distinguishable types, with some sort of continual interaction occurring among the circles. The image of the rainbows reflected in each other, with each circle yet of a different color, seems to my mind to be saying that the colors are changing, but in a co-ordinated way. I might add that Dante’s original description of God was as a point of blindingly bright white light.

Well, I have long been a Dante fan (illustrations here), and my favourite illustration is from an edition of the Paradiso.

(Note: This illustration aims at a different point from Dr. Estes', namely that all the blessed are linked as all the petals of a flower are linked to its stem. Thus questions of precedence in Paradise are not matters for envy. Wherever the petal is placed, it is linked to the stem that nourishes it.)

Also at Colliding Universes, my blog on theories about our universe:

Bible & Film

Here is a link to a slideshow compilation at telegraph.co.uk showcasing some great movie posters of films inspired by the Bible. I figured this might interest some people other than myself, so here is a list of the movie posters they feature along with links to the movie's description at IMDB:

The Passion Play of Ober-Ammergau, 1898, USA. Directed by Henry C Vincent

Adán y Eva, 1956, Mexico. Directed by Alberto Gout

The Robe, 1953, USA. Directed by Henry Koster

The Silver Chalice, 1954, USA. Directed by Victor Saville

Sodom and Gomorrah, 1962, USA/Italy/France. Directed by Robert Aldrich

Salomé, 1923, USA. Directed by Charles Bryant

The Ten Commandments, 1956, USA. Directed by Cecil B deMille

Ben-Hur, 1959, USA. Directed by William Wyler

The Gospel According to St Matthew, 1964, Italy. Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

The Bible: In the Beginning..., 1966, USA/Italy. Directed by John Huston

Le Fils Prodigue (The Prodigal Son), 1912, France. Directed by Camille de Morlhon

Golgotha, 1935, France. Directed by Julien Duvivier

Noah's Ark, 1928, USA. Directed by Michael Curtiz

Fabiola, 1949, Italy. Directed by Alessandro Blasetti

Il Messia, 1975, Italy/France. Directed by Roberto Rossellini

The Last Days of Pompeii, 1935, USA. Directed by Ernest B. Shoedshack

Christus, 1917, Italy. Directed by Giulio Antamoro

Chemical Bonding

So did you enjoy that one-night stand? Good. Now provided no one is pregnant and that you haven’t contracted some type of STD, you’re pretty much off the hook, right? I mean, both of you can just go on with your lives, no harm done and an enjoyable time had by all. Perhaps you’ll even do it again sometime—who knows?

Well, I hate to break this to you—though you’re probably realizing it on your own even now—but the human organism doesn’t really work this way. Indeed, the more we learn about the biochemistry involved in sexual intercourse, the more apparent it becomes that sex can never truly be casual, that the chemical bonds formed by copulation are incredibly strong and suffer trauma if broken.

Responsible for such bonds are oxytocin and vasopressin, two of the many chemicals released in the body during sex. Where the latter creates a desire in the male to stay with his mate, inspires protectiveness, and drives him to care for his territory and offspring, oxytocin—generated by both men and women during sexual climax—produces the pleasure sensation associated with intercourse and leads to intense emotional pair-bonding. So fierce is the chemical connection between sexual partners, in fact, that significant emotional, physical, and psychological distress can result from any attempt to sever this connection.

Research also shows that the human brain has both lust and love circuits. Attachment behavior—sex coupled with permanence, exclusivity, and devotion—triggers your love circuitry, which in turn promotes physical health, emotional wellbeing, and other positive psychological effects. Onetime sexual encounters, on the other hand, trigger only the lust circuitry. Plus, the absence of constancy and commitment in all such provisional relationships (not just spontaneous hookups) communicates a lack of regard for the partner that’s then internalized, eliciting in both participants depression, dissatisfaction, and the disruption of future bonding potential.

And this, of course, brings us back to you. That sinking feeling you experienced this morning as you tossed on your clothes and slipped awkwardly out of the room? Yeah, there was probably more to it than just the embarrassment of not being able to remember your partner’s name. Rather, your psyche was most likely trying to tell you to stay put—that what you did requires a commitment now beyond merely vowing to never engage in such behavior again.

Originally printed in Salvo issue 2.

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Salvo issue 8 (Spring 09) is now available! Individual copies and back issues can be purchased here.

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Pride & Prejudice & Post-Modernism

Here are a few links which will make any Jane Austen fans out there laugh . . . or cry.

This is the story of Pride and Prejudice written out as a facebook news feed.

And heres "the Classic Regency Romance—Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!" Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Late Dates

The vast majority of young singles aren’t concerned with the moral or religious aspects of premarital sex. They accept it, along with delayed marriage, as the cultural norm. But there are other long-term ramifications that should concern them. Unwanted pregnancies, often leading to abortion, are among the most obvious consequences of unchaste living, but there are many others.

Dr. Miriam Grossman, a psychiatrist at UCLA, discusses these consequences in her book, Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student. In her practice, Dr. Grossman has witnessed firsthand the physical and emotional fallout experienced by young people who have bought into the “free love” mentality left over from the 1960s. It’s now called “hooking up,” and it’s still far from free. Her patients aren’t even deliberating about delayed marriage—that’s a given. They’re delaying commitment of any sort. But what they’re not delaying is sexual activity and its repercussions.

As Grossman writes, “Not long ago, a psychiatrist might call casual sexual activity ‘mindless’ and ‘empty.’ Before political correctness muzzled our nation . . . a campus physician might advise a student that it is love and lifelong fidelity that bring joy and liberated sensuality and provide the best insurance against sexually transmitted diseases. . . . Traditional marriage and parenthood were valued milestones. To search for meaning, and to make sacrifices for a higher purpose—these were noble endeavors that defined our humanity. Things have changed. . . .

Taken from Late Dates: The Dangerous Art of Marital Procrastination written by Marcia Segelstein for the Spring 09 issue of Salvo.

Phineas Gage: Evolution of a lecture room psychopath

Phineas Gage: The evolution of the lecture room psychopath

by Denyse O'Leary

In Intro Psych 101, you probably studied (or will study) Phineas Gage, the 19th century railroad worker whose personality completely changed after a tamping rod went through his skull - thus demonstrating the frontal lobe theory of personality.

Or, is this just another of the many things we know that ain't so?

For the story go to The Mindful Hack, here.

The Mindful Hack is my blog on neuroscience and spirituality, which supports The Spiritual Brain

Cognitive science: The glad, sad, mad computer - or anyway, merry chrysanthemum!

As Joseph Dumit (STS, University of California Davis) will tell it tomorrow at York University tomorrow (Tuesday, 24 March 2009, >12h30 - 14h00, Paul A. Delaney Gallery (320 Bethune College):

True Demons of Cognition: When Computers were Glad, Sad, and Mad yet Logical; or, a Brief History of Experimental Epistemology at the End of Cognitive Science

This talk proposes that we are approaching the limits of a cognitive neuroscience approach that adopts a too-simple model of circuits to account for emotions, pathology, meditation, and subjectivity. During the 1950s and ‘60s, experimentation with circuits co-produced computers, cognitive psychology, cybernetics, psychiatry, anthropology and psychoanalysis, with sometimes disturbing results. This work valued circuits for their innate, pathological irrationality, and for the way in which they portrayed time (subjective, logical, existential and even psychoanalytic) as something that fed back into a better understanding of the wiliness of machines. Such conceptions of time, however, proved short-lived. They were erased, curiously, by the advent of a cognitive psychology that took computers as models of (human) rationality, and which subsequently generated an image of computers as taken-for-granted objects, completely understood.

I am not sure what any of this means. The human brain is nothing like a computer, and efforts to make it appear so are efforts at creating illusions. I have long thought that the brain is more like an ocean, in the sense that you can drop down a probe, and turn up something you never expected. And every brain is different, so there are billions of oceans out there. A research heaven, if only the researcher were immortal.

Merry Chysanthemum? That's the computer's first Christmas card. Gives you some idea what to expect.

See also: