First Akin and now Richard Mourdock weighs in on rape.
This is getting pretty embarrassing. :smack:
Not really an anti-science position.
“I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
That is certainly an anti-rational position by someone who believes that he has some special insight into the intent of “God” without any sound theological basis. I’m going to guess that his grasp on the fundamentals of reproductive biology are equally shaky.
Stranger
That’s why I say it’s not an anti-science position; it’s an ascientific position. He’s not disputing that rapes make babies, or whatever.
He is completely dissembling cause and effect. Pregnancy from rape is, by his rationale, not the unintended consequence of a criminal violation of the prospective mother’s person, but an explicitly identified part of “God’s plan”. By that logic, such as it is, we should exonerate the rapist as well. After all, if not for his criminal action, there would be no conception; hence, he also has no volition in the matter.
There is really no way to apply religious dogma to public policy that is not anti-scientific and irrational. To hold a belief in some supernatural phenomenon is one thing and can be considered “ascientific”; to apply it to laws and interpretations thereof–especially in ways that are not only unprovable but aren’t held by either the general public or even accepted theological doctrine–is in opposition to rationality and scientific thought.
Stranger
The logic of the ‘God’s Plan’ position drives me crazy.
Rape is evil, but a pregnancy that is a result of that evil is part of God’s plan.
Abortion is evil, but the result of it is not part of God’s plan? Or is it part of God’s plan so we shouldn’t try and stop it? Or trying to stop it and failing is part of God’s plan and people doing what we are supposed to stop is part of God’s plan too. Or maybe saying something stupid is part of God’s plan to not have him elected, or…
Do these people not ever think?
If God can intend a rape, He can intend an abortion.
When I managed to get pregnant three times in two years, using extremely effective birth control each time, my mother said something to the effect that maybe God was trying to tell me something. I said that God was clearly telling me that I needed to hurry up and get my tubes tied.
- Both sides have their loons. But lefty loons have de minimus traction. Take the thread that Bricker linked to. There have been serious studies and serious scientific concerns about the use and spread of GM pollen. Now some of those fears have been addressed by Monsanto and apparently some of the studies have been challenged. But that’s a normal scientific process. Those veering off into crackpottery have secured far more influence in Europe than they have in the US.
Put another way, compare that thread to global warming ones. I saw more discussion of science in the GMO thread than heel-digging and instance upon the validity of batshit sourcing.
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I have to agree with Really Not All That Bright: while the opinions of Richard Mourdock are odious and bizarre and his nonapology was laughable, he was primarily making a moral claim, which is usefully distinguished from, say, statements about female anatomy.
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Democratic liberals, moderates and conservatives operate in the tradition of the Enlightenment, the same one that inspired the founding fathers. Burkean conservatives arguably have a similar influence and Adam Smith was a card-carrying member. But modern conservatives seem reflect Romantic POVs. As one commenter stated: The gap is baked in. Liberals are enlightenment thinkers with the resulting underlying view of constantly questioning every idea and testing it against the evidence. The Republicans are Romantics with emotion based certainties divorced from evidence or reason.
Thinking damages their calm.
Stranger
Worse yet, it may cause them to question what they know to be true.
And if they get in the habit of thinking, they might get ideas too complex to be expressed in a sound bite or on a bumper sticker. Can’t have that.
Another anti-science update, this time from the fine state of South Dakota, via a political attack ad that attacks - among other things - the fact that the Democratic challenger actually has a science education:
You can watch the commercial at the link. The commercial also bizarrely comes down on the Democratic guy for hosting “a raucous national corndog day party” at one point - apparently corndogs are of the devil or something? I have no idea…
What I do know is that the Republican candidate seems to think that saying “While you were getting scientific degrees and learning about the planet and trying to make renewable energy profitable, I worked on a farm” is a winning formula for an attack ad.
Don’t get me wrong: Farm work and helping the family business are noble pursuits. I would be offended if her opponent ran ads that attacked her for those choices… But I am flabbergasted that the choices that the Democratic candidate made should be attacked.
But they are… Because the GOP doesn’t like science and they damn sure don’t think a scientist should be elected to office.
Due to redistricting, the entire Texas Sate Board of Education is up for reelection this year. The Texas Freedom Network is on top of supplying information on the candidates. Terri Leo is the outgoing rep for my district; from 2009:
Ms Leo has endorsed the current Republican candidate–Donna Bahorich, founder of Home Ed Plus:
Texas was Ground Zero for the Religious Right’s takeover of the Republican Party. The Texas Freedom Network works very hard to support public education, civil rights & science in our state… (Despite Governor Rick’s blathering, Intelligent Design is not taught in Texas Public Schools!)
I agree that while what Mourdock said about God and rape was reprehensible, it is not within the parameters of scientific purview since God is not testable.
Besides, he can say stupid things that are unscientific as well:
This Republican tool still might win as his contest for the US House seems headed for a recount after he got the better part of $9 million to take out a 16-year Democratic incumbent after redistricting made it more favorable for Rouzer. (Smithfield Herald)
Nov 1st NYT: The Congressional Research Service has withdrawn an economic report that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth, a central tenet of conservative economic theory, after Senate Republicans raised concerns about the paper’s findings and wording.
The decision, made in late September against the advice of the agency’s economic team leadership, drew almost no notice at the time. As Shumer said, “This has hues of a banana republic. They didn’t like a report, and instead of rebutting it, they had them take it down.”
OBTW: “Conservative economic theory”, AKA Supply Side Economics has essentially no empirical basis. There are serious conservative economists, but they trend towards neo-monetarism: they don’t make appeals to ludicrous parameter values of economic behavior. So they didn’t rebut because they couldn’t: talking points don’t counter hard evidence. Withdrawal of a Congressional Research Report on Tax Rates Raises Questions - The New York Times
Center-left take on the matter: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/11/01/1125901/nonpartisan-government-agency-withdraws-study-on-high-income-tax-cuts-after-gop-complaints/
You would cut your caucus in half. I think eventually you would replace them (and perhaps more) with rational Republicans but you would take a HUGE short term hit.
Most serious conservative economists specifically deny the political version of supply side economics. Tax cuts do not pay for themselves at current tax levels.
Isn’t there a pretty decent non-crazy argument for not allowing a rape exception?
If they think an embryo or fetus is a human with all the rights of a human, then one that’s a product of rape shouldn’t be “killed” any more than a born child of rape should be killed.
I personally am pro choice, so this isn’t going to work on me, but it has a slightly better chance than lies that I knew were bullshit when I was 13.
Absolutely. I’m pro-choice too, but if you start from the (undisprovable) premise that full human personhood begins at conception, then that’s an ironclad argument for advocating an absolute ban on abortions with no exceptions in cases of rape and incest. By that logic, you can’t abort an embryo that a rapist has fathered on you any more than you can kill a baby that somebody’s left on your doorstep.
Where Mourdock was dumber than a box of underachieving rocks was in trying to make spiritual/religious claims to justify that premise: not just “It’s a fully human person so you can’t kill it, end of story” but “The circumstances of the impregnation are unimportant compared to the God-given gifts of life and personhood” and blah de blah de theologico-metaphysical blah.
If he’d stuck to simply insisting on the premise itself, many people would still have disagreed with him but he wouldn’t have looked like a fanatical misogynistic loon.