freeman3 wrote:Thanks for the article from the Princeton scientist--I certainly learned something. But I don't think a scientist is in any better position to define what a human being is or when human life begins than anyone else . It's still a philosophical question.

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:In most socialist countries, the native population is nose-diving. So, there are few pregnancies of any kind.

Would you care to supply some evidence and some definitions? What do you mean by "native population" - just anyone who is born there, or those from the indigenous social groups?

Which countries do you consider socialist for the purposes of this assertion - is the UK one of them?

Over what period do you measure decline?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/ ... es-stupid/

If you want to save time, this is a map. http://www.mapsofworld.com/europe/thema ... -rate.html

From the map:

Among the European Countries, birth rates lie between 8.2 and 15.3 per 1000 people. Albania has the highest birth rate whereas Germany and Italy have the lowest. Most of the countries of Europe have birth rates ranging from 9 to 11 per thousand people per year.

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:In most socialist countries, the native population is nose-diving. So, there are few pregnancies of any kind.

Would you care to supply some evidence and some definitions? What do you mean by "native population" - just anyone who is born there, or those from the indigenous social groups?

Which countries do you consider socialist for the purposes of this assertion - is the UK one of them?

Over what period do you measure decline?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/ ... es-stupid/

If you want to save time, this is a map. http://www.mapsofworld.com/europe/thema ... -rate.html

From the map:

Among the European Countries, birth rates lie between 8.2 and 15.3 per 1000 people. Albania has the highest birth rate whereas Germany and Italy have the lowest. Most of the countries of Europe have birth rates ranging from 9 to 11 per thousand people per year.

Neither of those articles answer my questions to YOU. Both talk about birth rates, but you specifically mentioned population - the only place in either article that mentioned population said that Spain's was higher than in 1975.

You got all prissy when people answered you with links. But at least they went some way to answering the questions.

freeman3 wrote:What I would expect is a standard acceptance in the scientific community as to the criteria for what constitutes life with regard to an organism and then a showing that a zygote meets that criteria . If she showed that , I missed it.

"Zygote: This cell results from the union of an oocyte and a sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo). The expression fertilized ovum refers to a secondary oocyte that is impregnated by a sperm; when fertilization is complete, the oocyte becomes a zygote."10 (Emphasis added.)

This new single-cell human being immediately produces specifically human proteins and enzymes11 (not carrot or frog enzymes and proteins), and genetically directs his/her own growth and development. (In fact, this genetic growth and development has been proven not to be directed by the mother.)12 Finally, this new human being�the single-cell human zygote�is biologically an individual, a living organism�an individual member of the human species. Quoting Larsen:

"... [W]e begin our description of the developing human with the formation and differentiation of the male and female sex cells or gametes, which will unite at fertilization to initiate the embryonic development of a new individual."13 (Emphasis added.)

In sum, a mature human sperm and a mature human oocyte are products of gametogenesis�each has only 23 chromosomes. They each have only half of the required number of chromosomes for a human being. They cannot singly develop further into human beings. They produce only "gamete" proteins and enzymes. They do not direct their own growth and development. And they are not individuals, i.e., members of the human species. They are only parts�each one a part of a human being. On the other hand, a human being is the immediate product of fertilization. As such he/she is a single-cell embryonic zygote, an organism with 46 chromosomes, the number required of a member of the human species. This human being immediately produces specifically human proteins and enzymes, directs his/her own further growth and development as human, and is a new, genetically unique, newly existing, live human individual.

After fertilization the single-cell human embryo doesn�t become another kind of thing. It simply divides and grows bigger and bigger, developing through several stages as an embryo over an 8-week period. Several of these developmental stages of the growing embryo are given special names, e.g., a morula (about 4 days), a blastocyst (5-7 days), a bilaminar (two layer) embryo (during the second week), and a trilaminar (3-layer) embryo (during the third week).14

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:In most socialist countries, the native population is nose-diving. So, there are few pregnancies of any kind.

Would you care to supply some evidence and some definitions? What do you mean by "native population" - just anyone who is born there, or those from the indigenous social groups?

Which countries do you consider socialist for the purposes of this assertion - is the UK one of them?

Over what period do you measure decline?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/ ... es-stupid/

If you want to save time, this is a map. http://www.mapsofworld.com/europe/thema ... -rate.html

From the map:

Among the European Countries, birth rates lie between 8.2 and 15.3 per 1000 people. Albania has the highest birth rate whereas Germany and Italy have the lowest. Most of the countries of Europe have birth rates ranging from 9 to 11 per thousand people per year.

Neither of those articles answer my questions to YOU. Both talk about birth rates, but you specifically mentioned population - the only place in either article that mentioned population said that Spain's was higher than in 1975.

Oh brother. I said "native population."

Look, why is Merkel all excited about these refugees from the Middle East? Because Germany needs the population. Germans don't have enough babies to maintain their current population, nor do the Italians, nor does much of Europe. That's the issue.

You got all prissy when people answered you with links. But at least they went some way to answering the questions.

You seem to be a bit "prissy" about the answer, but that's because you're looking for something I didn't say. Not my fault.

danivon wrote:Without such definitions, I can't even begin to deal with your assertion. With them, and with some real data, I may be forced to accept it. But then again, perhaps you fear that you just made it as a snarky throwaway comment and it may end up being false...?

freeman3 wrote:I don't think that an article from an obviously biased Christian scientist is the last scientific word on the matter. Here is an article from a scientist from the National Institutes of Health web site that argues that it is the development of the human brain that defines human life.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/4078859/

The expert testimony that you refer to is with regard to embryonic development. I defer to her on that (and in fact I learned something). But she asserts that a zygote is a new human being and it directs its development and the question is settled. Well, no. Other scientists have different views and there is no scientific way to answer the question. The way Christian scientists want to argue is that it is clear - cut that life begins at conception but then there is the additional question of personhood, which is a philosophical question. No , it's all a philosophical, legal, moral question. They realize the emotional impact of saying a zygote is a human life and they want to act as if it's obvious. Your expert did not lay out the criteria for defining human life and where she got it from. And she can't because such assessments are not scientific in nature. If you can summarize the argument she made and why this is scientific proof, I'll certainly consider it. Quoting a large portion of her article and saying it's in there...somewhere....doesn't quite do it.

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:Without such definitions, I can't even begin to deal with your assertion. With them, and with some real data, I may be forced to accept it. But then again, perhaps you fear that you just made it as a snarky throwaway comment and it may end up being false...?

Nope, not going to play your game. If you believe Italy will still be Italy and Germany will still be Germany after their populations become increasingly Islamic and Middle Eastern, that's fine. Believe what you like.

freeman3 wrote:I don't think that an article from an obviously biased Christian scientist is the last scientific word on the matter. Here is an article from a scientist from the National Institutes of Health web site that argues that it is the development of the human brain that defines human life.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/4078859/

Per your source, brain life begins at 8 weeks

When does the fetus's brain begin to work?

Generally speaking, the central nervous system (which is composed of the brain and the spinal cord) matures in a sequence from "tail" to head. In just the fifth week after conception, the first synapses begin forming in a fetus's spinal cord. By the sixth week, these early neural connections permit the first fetal movements--spontaneous arches and curls of the whole body--that researchers can detect through ultrasound imaging. Many other movements soon follow--of the limbs (around eight weeks) and fingers (ten weeks), as well as some surprisingly coordinated actions (hiccuping, stretching, yawning, sucking, swallowing, grasping, and thumb-sucking). By the end of the first trimester, a fetus's movement repertoire is remarkably rich, even though most pregnant women can feel none of it. (Most women sense the first fetal movements around eighteen weeks of pregnancy.)

The second trimester marks the onset of other critical reflexes: continuous breathing movements (that is, rhythmic contractions of the diaphragm and chest muscles) and coordinated sucking and swallowing reflexes. These abilities are controlled by the brainstem, which sits above the spinal cord but below the higher, more recently-evolved cerebral cortex. The brainstem is responsible for many of our body's most vital functions--heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure. It is largely mature by the end of the second trimester, which is when babies first become able to survive outside the womb.

Last of all to mature is the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for most of what we think of as mental life--conscious experience, voluntary actions, thinking, remembering, and feeling. It has only begun to function around the time gestation comes to an end. Premature babies show very basic electrical activity in the primary sensory regions of the cerebral cortex--those areas that perceive touch, vision, and hearing--as well as in primary motor regions of the cerebral cortex. In the last trimester, fetuses are capable of simple forms of learning, like habituating (decreasing their startle response) to a repeated auditory stimulus, such as a loud clap just outside the mother's abdomen. Late-term fetuses also seem to learn about the sensory qualities of the womb, since several studies have shown that newborn babies respond to familiar odors (such as their own amniotic fluid) and sounds (such as a maternal heartbeat or their own mother's voice). In spite of these rather sophisticated abilities, babies enter the world with a still-primitive cerebral cortex, and it is the gradual maturation of this complex part of the brain that explains much of their emotional and cognitive maturation in the first few years of life.