Posted on 11/11/2005 4:47:36 PM PST by Wolfstar
Each year in the United States, about 150,000 babies are born with birth defects ranging from mild to life threatening. While progress has been made in the detection and treatment of birth defects, they remain the leading cause of death in the first year of life. Birth defects are often the result of genetic and environmental factors, but the causes of well over half of all birth defects are currently unknown.
Following is a partial list of birth defects:
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Achondroplasia/Dwarfism |
Hemochromatosis |
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Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency |
Huntington's Disease |
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Anencephaly |
Hydrocephalus |
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Arnold-Chiari Malformation |
Klinefelter's Syndrome |
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Ataxia Telangiectasia |
Leukodystrophies |
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Blood coagulation disorders/Hemophilia |
Marfan Syndrome |
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Brain malformations/genetic brain disorders |
Metabolic disorders |
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Canavan Disease |
Muscular Dystrophy |
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Cancer: Neonatal, newborn, infant and childhood |
Neural tube defects/Spina Bifida |
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Cerebral Palsy |
Neurofibromatosis |
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Cleft lip and palate |
Niemann-Pick Disease |
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Club foot/club hand |
Osteogenesis Imperfecta (brittle bone disease) |
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Congenital heart disease |
Phenylketonuria |
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Conjoined twins |
Prader-Willi Syndrome |
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Cystic Fibrosis |
Progeria (advanced aging in children) |
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Down Syndrome |
Sickle Cell Anemia |
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Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome |
Spinal Muscular Atrophy |
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Eye, ear and speech defects |
Tay-Sachs Disease |
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Fragile X Syndrome |
Tuberous Sclerosis |
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Gaucher's Disease |
Turner's Syndrome |
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Genital and urinary tract defects |
Wilson's Disease |
Some birth/genetic defects, such as near-sightedness, are mild and do not affect the person's ability to lead a normal life. Others are so severe that the person has no chance to even live. Efficiency and economy are part of intelligently designed systems. If the "design" of human systems is so intelligent, why do tragic inefficiencies such as the following occur at all? Warning, the linked photos are graphic medical images, and are very, very sad.
Conjoined twins, i.e., monozygous twinning in which there is fusion of the twins. The popular term is "Siamese" twins. This happens when identical twin embryos become fused together during the very early stages of development. Conjoined twins occur in an estimated one in 200,000 births, with approximately half being stillborn. Here are links to three photos of severely conjoined twins:
Photo 2: essentially one torso between two babies
Neural tube defects are are one of the more common congenital anomalies. Such defects result from improper embryonic neural tube closure. The most minimal defect is called spina bifida, with failure of the vertebral body to completely form, but the defect is not open. Open neural tube defects with lack of a skin covering, can include a meningocele, in which meninges protrude through the defect. Here is a link to a severe neural tube defect.
Defects of the head/brain: In the linked photo a large encephalocele that merges with the scalp above is protruding from the back of the head. The encephalocele extends down to partially cover a rachischisis on the back. This baby also has a retroflexed head from iniencephaly.
The form of neural tube defect in the next linked photo is known as exencephaly. The cranial vault is not completely present, but a brain is present because it was not completely exposed to amniotic fluid. Such an event is very rare. It may be part of craniofacial clefts associated with the limb-body wall complex, which results from early amnion disruption.
Congenital and pediatric neoplasms: One type that can occur is a teratoma. The next linked photo shows a large nasopharyngeal teratoma that is protruding from the oral cavity.
Tumors: In the next linked photo there is a large mass involving the left upper arm and left chest of the baby. This congenital neoplasm turned out to be a lymphangioma. This baby and the one in Photo 9 were essentially riddled with cancer before birth and shortly afterwards.
Next is a gross neuroblastoma arising in the right adrenal gland. It is the most common pediatric malignancy in infancy, and 75% of cases are diagnosed in children less than 4 years old. These tumors most often present as an abdominal or mediastinal mass.
JS said: The Bible says there's no pununishment for beating a slave to death. What do you think?
I would say that whoever has not accurately read the bible.
I read it just fine. the slave is property. If the slave lingers on for a day or two, there's no problem with the beating or the resultant death.
What part of this do you agree is good moral teaching?
Indeed. When your spiritual brothers the Taliban took over Afghanistan, many ideas that were irreconcilable with their religion were banned at Kabul University.
A sociopath is one without a conscience, who obeys social norms purely when convenient. What you are claiming, in effect, is that atheists are sociopaths.
Given that I don't believe in the existence of supernatural beings, the thoughts of theologians, a field premissed on the existence of such beings, are hardly going to be of interest to me.
I would say that someone who bases a system of ethics on what we know of man's nature, and on reason, is on far firmer ground than a mere theist, who bases his on double conjecture - his own personal view of what an entirely hypothetical being wants. It's a mere accident of birth that you happen to adhere to your own particular deity; had you been born in Arabia, it is 99% certain you would be preaching the necessity of a belief in Allah. It is therefore almost comical that you claim yours is an absolute system of morality - since there all sorts of competing absolute systems of moralituy, all different at least in detail. My god is right!...No mine is!...No mine is!
The best you can hope for is your personal view. Then you will die and your personal view won't be worth pi_s against a wall. It'll die with you, and even if it doesn't, that won't matter either because everyone's destined for the dust heap of history
What a horribly negative view of the world and of your fellow humans you have.
Of course, no one except a religious fanatic thinks that the only alternative to creation is 'masses of undifferntiated molecules', or that we have no moral compass other than our own subjective thoughts. And in fact this particular straw man speaks only to the moral weakness and insecurity of its constructor.
Are you arguing for an "ordered" universe?
If so, then who or what gave the order?
If not, then from whence did you obtain your moral compass? And what makes your moral compass any more moral than Adolph Eichmann's or Pol Pot's?
Eichmann believed he was doing mankind a favor and advancing the march of Darwinistic evolution by exterminating the Jews and eliminating them from the gene pool.
On what basis can you judge him to be wrong?
There is order in the universe, sure.
If so, then who or what gave the order?
That's merely a play on words. Try logic; it works better.
If not, then from whence did you obtain your moral compass? And what makes your moral compass any more moral than Adolph Eichmann's or Pol Pot's?
People, as social animals, evolved a moral compass of sorts. It's not a very sophisticated one, but it does endow us with an innate sense of fairness, equips us to be reciprocally altruistic, and dissuades us from, for example, random violence, particularly against kin.
In order to live in more complex societies, we've by application of reason come up with more sophisticated compasses. They are more moral than those of Eichmann and Pol Pot (and Martin Luther, just so we include theistic genocidal lunatics as well) in that they don't call for the slaughter of millions of innocents.
Despite your protestations, you have an innate moral compass too. So although you may protest that without your God there would be nothing to keep you from infanticide, rape, murder and other mayhem, I am reasonably confident that if you woke tomorrow and decided religion was bunk, you wouldn't turn into a sociopath. Ironic, isn't it, that I think better of Christians than Christians think of themselves?
So why should utilitarianism be acceptible at universities?
It's one of the main schools of ethics, with a pedigree that goes back to the Greeks. This seems to be a reasonable summary.
Note that the article mentions Dennett's criticism of utilitarianism (one major criticism has always been the impossibility of utilitarianism's moral calculus); some people on this site would try to lump Dennett in with Singer, but in fact they're philosophically diametrical opposites - unless, of course, your world is divided into the Godly and heathen atheists.
You didn't read it fine. The HNV clarifies the literal translation. (only if he remain a day, or two days, he is not avenged, for he [is] his money.)
If after the beating the slave remains (continues/survives) there is to be no vengeance.
All schools of ethics are acceptable???? Why should something that leads to acceptance of infanticide be tolerated? Shouldn't there be limits to academic freedom?
So what part of this do you think is a good moral lesson?
Actually, that's not accurate, so I'll interrupt here and read the remainder of your post in a moment.
The inaccuracy is that I am not calling anyone anything.
I am saying that it is illogical for an atheist to think that one morality is ultimately any better than another, since anything that gets done is ultimately meaningless.
Not all utilitarians agree with Singer. Moreover, if a superficially attractive idea (one should act to maximize the happiness of the greatest number), upon further exploration, leads to an abhorrent conclusion, surely we should know about it?
Do you think there is a defect in the soul in any of childrren born with those diseases?
Creation may have been designed intelligently, but that doesn't make it perfect.
We should certainly know about it, but how is it explained at Princeton that the conclusion is abhorrent?
Well, that's the great thing about the marketplace of ideas, isn't it; you and I can look at it and decide it's abhorrent!
So the rest of the faculty should not gang up on the professor with the abhorrent view & try to boot him out?
No, of course not. Where have you ever seen anyone do that?
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