Archives March 2009

BillDo Lies About Stem Cell Ban

Today, BillDo put out a
release
boldly proclaiming
“Obama to okay killing embryos“.

It is precisely because there are ethical alternatives to killing embryos that President Obama’s decision is doubly flawed: (a) it is immoral to intentionally destroy nascent human life, and (b) it is even more irresponsible to do so when morally acceptable alternatives exist.

This is so wrong that it’s hard to refrain from saying that Bill is
flat-out, pants-on-fire lying, so I won’t. Obama’s
executive order
lifts the restriction on federal funding for stem cell research; it
doesn’t change where embryonic stem cells come from.

To the best of my knowledge, embryonic stem cells for research come
from leftover embryos for in vitro fertilization, i.e., ones that
weren’t chosen to be implanted in the want-to-be-mother. As I
understand it, people who want to
carry someone else’s child
get first crack at them. Researchers only have access to those that no
one else wants.

And finally, the leftovers are disposed of. By incineration, I
understand.

So BillDo’s “morally acceptable alternatives” no only exist, but are
being implemented, and no one has a problem with this.

What he’s saying is either “let’s shut down the IVF clinics!” (which I
doubt) or “don’t offer clusters of embryonic cells to researchers!
Throw them into the fire right away!”

People are already “intentionally destroy[ing] nascent human life”.
This has been going on for ages, but I don’t hear BillDo complaining
about that. No, he’s afraid that a lot of good might come of the
process. So FOAD, Billy.

The New ARIS Is Out!

ARIS 2008,
the American Religious Identification Survey, has just been released,
and the atheosphere is as giddy as a bunch of schoolgirls upon the
release of Harry Potter and the Adjective Noun.

The most significant finding, IMHO, is that the “Nones”
(atheist/agnostic/no religious preference) are up since 2001,
although nowhere near as dramatically as betwen 1990 and 2001. But
still the fastest-growing segment of the population.

One new feature is that, unlike the 1990 and 2001 ARISes, the 2008
survey asked “what do you believe?”-type questions, rather than just
“what do you call yourself?”

Table 3
in the
full report
(p. 5) lists atheists as comprising 0.7% of the US population, and
agnostics at 0.9%. However,
table 4
(p. 8) lists people’s answers to
the question of whether there is a god: “There is no such thing”
(atheism) comes in at 2.3%, “There is no way to know” (proper
agnosticism) at 4.3%, and “I’m not sure” (common agnosticism) at 5.7%.
(IMHO it might be interesting to see how many people haven’t really
thought about it. Maybe next time.)

In other words, there are a bunch of people who are atheists and
agnostics, but don’t call themselves that. Presumably they either just
call themselves “None of the above”, “No religion”, or “Spiritual, but
not religious”; or else they’re members of religious groups that allow
that kind of latitude, such as Buddhism or Taoism.

Table 7
(p. 11) shows that religion is stronger among women than men. In most
religions listed, there are more women than men. “None” is an
exception to this rule (as are “Eastern Religions”, “Muslim”, and “New
Religious Movements/Other”), but the skew is most pronounced: 60% of
Nones are male vs. 40% female.

Update, 16:14: USA Today has a nice
interactive graph
of the survey results.

I’m guessing that the sharp drop in “Other religions” in Wyoming, and of “Don’t know/Refuse” in Delaware represent statistical anomalies (i.e., they happened to get a bad batch of poll respondents), rather than real demographic trends.

Quickie Fundie Quiz

Who said this?:

I am embarrassed that it took me 38 years as a Christian to see in God’s Word that prison, as a form of punishment, violates the Bible.

If you said
“Kent Hovind,
currently serving 10 years in federal prison for not
rendering unto Caesar
that which is Caesar’s“,
give yourself a pat on the back and a nice steaming cup of
schadenfreude.

McCain’s Porkiest Pork

Apparently John McCain has discovered Twitter, and has recently tweeted (twitted? twote?) his list of “the TOP TEN PORKIEST PROJECTS in theOmnibus Spending bill the Congress is about to pass“.

Phil has already shown him to be an antiscience luddite (item #2 is $2 million for astronomy in Hawaii — as if that were a waste of money).

And the #1 porkiest project in the omnibus spending bill is

$1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa

It looks as though this refers to the SOMMRU, the Swine Odor and Manure Management Research Unit, at the National Swine Research and Information Center on the campus of Iowa State University in Ames.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but I for one think that a lot of people who live or work near pig farms would like it if they smelled less (remind me to check with my Iowan friend about that). Okay, maybe that’s a luxury that isn’t worth $1.7 million (or $1.8 million, if you believe the NY Times), but I bet that you can tell a lot about a pig’s health by its smell. And unhealthy pigs → reduced profits.

But beyond all that, McCain has seized on the word “odor”. SOMMRU’s About Us page shows that there’s more to their work than pig farts:

The mission of the Swine Odor and Manure Management Research Unit is to conduct basic and applied research to solve problems in the livestock industry that impact production efficiency and environmental quality. Multidisciplinary research teams generate and integrate knowledge for evaluation and development of new management practices that minimize nutrient excretion, malodorous emissions, and the release of pathogens into the environment as well as have a positive impact on animal health.

(emphasis added.)

In other words, yes, they do research on pig smell, but also work on improving farming practices.

Their Research page confirms this. How about this Salmonella study?:

Objective:

(1) Determine the persistence of Salmonella in swine manure as affected by dietary treatment. (2) Identify genes important for Salmonella colonization of the swine gastrointestinal tract and persistence in manure.

Or improving pig diet?:

Objective:

Objectives of the proposed research are: (1) evaluate the ability of commercially available enzyme preparations to improve the apparent dry matter (DM), lipid (EE), phosphorus (P), nitrogen (N), energy (E), and fiber (NDF and ADF) digestibility of diets containing 30% corn dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS); and (2) evaluate potential interactive effects between enzymes and mechanical processing (extrusion) on nutrient digestibility.

In other words, as I understand it, how can pig feed be prepared so it’s digested more efficiently (i.e., so they don’t crap out half the corn they’re fed).

Ditto the fat from your fries:

Objective:

To determine the variation in metabolizable energy (ME) content of crude glycerin samples from a range of plants and feedstuff sources such as soybean oil, animal fat, and used restaurant grease.

And corn and more corn.

Now, this doesn’t address questions inevitably related to pig farming, such as how the pigs are treated (to say nothing of vegetarians’ concerns). But if we assume for the sake of argument that pig farming is a Good Thing, these seem like the sorts of questions we should be asking, questions that directly affect the pork business.

Besides, a million bucks doesn’t buy as much as it used to. At my place of employment, I could name a couple of million-dollar “computing infrastructure” projects. In this light, $1.7 million to improve pig farming seems like a bargain.

But, of course, I could be wrong. It could be that ISU is full of weirdos who like smelling pig farts.