So now I don't have to give an example of genes refusing to do certain actions... but I have to give an example of genes refusing to do something on ideological grounds.
The fact that you even ask the ideological ground behind genetic actions is so strange ? Do you believe in intelligent design ? Without intelligent design, after all, there is no ideological ground behind genes.
In reality estimating the efficiency of energy processing in cells is very easy (you just burn them (and their offspring), generating in a specific time interval, and see what kind of energy comes out), and you find the result of said estimation on every box of cereal : the calories.
You will find that there isn't all that much variation between species in energy content, or at least you will find the same energy sources for the same amount of time all generate almost exactly the same amount of energy regardless of species. Putting any photosynthesiser for x hours in the sun and they will generate very similar amounts of heat. Any small animal that eats x insects will generate very nearly exactly the same amount of energy from digesting them.
That's because that's a large part of the fitness function of these animals and plants. And if the outcomes of the fitness function were to be a few percent better than average, they'd conquer the earth before you can say "infestation" and if a few percent less it would take 2 years and they'd be extinct.
The other part is investing the energy acquired, meaning, of course, the efficiency of that investment in the world they live in.
Such a criterium helps looking for explanations why a certain gene survived, whereas your criterium allows no such explanations. It also allows the running of simulations that generate actually useful results, whereas the "passing genes" criterium can be programmed in, but does not generate useful results (it generates whatever you accidentally put in before the simulation started instead, leading to lots of embarassments).
In simulations, as you're "God", calculating the efficiency of various decisions is easy. Of course, in sufficiently complex worlds, calculating is too strong a word, estimation would be more applicable. After all, you're not really God, and you can't in sufficiently complex situations run the "world" for years on end.
And yes, genes regularly take the decision not to touch a certain energy source, especially if the world they live in has some form of poison. If that makes their efficiency drop (as it always does)... it won't take long : they're giving their enemies an easy base of operations and an energy source. Generally the result is not pretty (and in evolution : everyone's your enemy, even symbiotic lifeforms)
All computers before a certain point were non-Von Neumann computers. This limited them, obviously such computers were not reprogrammable. But things like calculators of all kinds did exist. There were mechanical cash registers (even with day totals).
In theory there is no difference between what a mechanical computer can do and what our supercomputers can do. Of course, not quite at the same speed.
Since your entire post is but an insult let me just pick out one part
"The selection criterium of 'real life' is the efficiency of use of the available resources (amongst which, first and foremost, the energy source). That's of course being very general..."
That's needlessly complex and unhelpful. If one mouse can run faster than the other so the second gets eaten and doen't have children, you want to say "the first mouse used available resources more efficiently"? For gods sake why? How does that help you understand anything?
Really ? Is that needlessly complex ?
Suppose we take your criterium "putting genes in the next generation". Then the only thing we can say about genes found to survive is that... they survived. Great... Of course this exposes your criterium for what it is : a circular reference. It is not a selection criterium at all.
In the words of someone a lot smarter than me "you should make things as simple as possible but no simpler"
Obviously the first mouse used the resources she had very inefficiently : she lost control of the resources she was given at birth (by getting eaten), and failed to acquire more (again... by getting eaten).
Now that's something you can program... whereas a circular reference is obviously useless. Worse : circular selection criteria cause positive feedback loops in the program, meaning they merely amplify preset ideas that were present before the program started.
(much like your argument is in defense of preset ideas, without considering the usefulness of the argument itself)
Really?!? This is fascinating; I never heard about that! Other than humans, I know of no species that has had access to any energy source other than the Sun (for photo-synthesizers), Food (for eaters) or Geothermal heat (for those weird worm things along the Atlantic vents). Please do tell, what species are you referring to that has refused to eat and starved itself into extinction on ideological grounds? (I'm assuming it's an eater we're talking, as photo-synthesizers aren't much for ideological anything, but I guess you never know about the worm-things...)
Funny how you state several blatant untruths: That humans have access to energy sources plants, fungi,... do not. Yet there are plants that process energy from wind, sun, geothermal, radiation, food, hell, even oil has live bacteria in it that, very slowly, use the oil... exactly which energy source do we have that plants don't (note that plants DO use nuclear power, if that's what you meant).
Plants and fungi, in fact, have access to several energy sources that we do not have meaningful access to : sub-ocean geothermal, lots of types of nuclear power that we do not know how to use, some bacteria are known to extract power from cosmic radiation (not the background radiation, that's too weak, the rest of it) (which is a big problem, since this is a skill that's not very useful within the athmosphere, indicating that those bacteria partially completed their evolution in space).
But one easy example is the cuckoo : the cuckoo is born in a nest that is not his mother's (or father's) but the nest of a member of another species. The way this animal collects energy is by throwing the original eggs of his "foster-parents" out of the nest, and then getting fed by his foster parents (cute picture heh ? Belies how horribly, I don't know another word, evil the situation of that bird really is).
But any book about cuckoo's will tell you there are cuckoo birds that refuse to throw other eggs from the nest. They die (they generally starve).
Now this is an extreme example, a bird that lowers his food intake by oh, somewhere between 50 and 80% as a genetic decision, and they get killed.
You say terror has always been bound to ideologies - that's true, but it's a statement of the obvious,
Hence, you can also say that looking for religion as the ultimate culprit is in practice a rather pointless exercise - because even if there is something that makes members of a particular religion fundametally more likely to blow themselves up (which you haven't exactly bothered to prove if you haven't come
Two diametrically opposed statements (since a religion clearly is an ideology). Since the second basically states the first is obviously wrong, why am I trying to reason with you ?
You state both A and (not A) as true statements (and add the word "obviously"). With blatant dishonesty like that, why bother actually using any argument ?
If by "falsity of his statements" you mean that yes, you can kill them all, then you're of course technically correct, because it's possible to kill everybody. This statement however is utterly useless, because if we start from the premise that we can kill everybody, our policy decisions aren't going to be good.
No I mean that killing every last adherent (e.g. every last muslim) in large geographical areas (including "everywhere") has been demonstrated to be possible by muslims, who have exterminated large ideologies, by comitting continued genocide on native peoples, in large geographical areas. I just visited an exhibition about the Tuareg, a now extinct north-African black culture that has been exterminated by islam-sanctioned slave trade (which is, by the way, still continuing, and yes, still islamically justified. After all "the prophet" raped kidnapped people, and sold them into slavery later on, on "direct orders from allah". You can't get more islamic than that).
But since actual truth is not of intrest to you (otherwise you wouldn't make self-contradictory statements) I have little hope of a decent response. You say about yourself that you're obviously wrong, so let's leave it at that.
It is obvious that you are defending preset conclusions, without caring about the consistency of your arguments. Clearly you have motives in this discussion other than increasing understanding or actually usefully reasoning about a big problem.
I am however interested in what your true reasons are for defending these assertions that you know to be false. Are you a racist ? Are you a marxist ?
If what you say is true, then how did any computer program ever pass the Turing test ? Lots of computer programs have succeeded in convincing a human that they were human.
Yes we are a long way away from walking, breeding, and loving (oh so cute) machines. We're getting closer every day.
If you applied the same thinking to any science field - that if not improved in "decades" it should be abandoned - I doubt we'd have any field left. Lots of fields were not improved in centuries, and a few can very easily be said to not having been improved for a millenium.
The problem with "human-like" programs is that if you know their code and how they work, you feel embarassed being the thing they're trying to imitate. Or you should. They are not complex, they do not follow logic,... they simply parrot what they've heard before. The fact that this tactic works means that parotting others is one of the main mechanisms directing human behavior.
you obviously can't kill all the Muslims, or convert them to something else, or change the nature of a world religion. At least IMHO you can't have much hope for
Actually in over a dozen countries, muslims have demonstrated the falsity of your statements. In dozens of muslim countries believers of other faiths are extinct, and they have not become extinct peacefully, but through prolonged genocide and persecution comitted by muslims. Historically, the "state religions", which come in all shapes and sizes, prove you wrong in more than 90% of history. If you are prepared to commit prolonged genocide, you most certainly can kill all muslims/christians/hindus/... or convert them all. The entire middle east is an example of this, and the state of religious freedom in the "muslim holy places" exemplifies just how simple it is : simply kill anyone even suggesting a different thinking pattern, do this for long enough and you will succeed.
There is not a single country, either middle eastern, asian or african, where islam peacefully became a force of any meaningful size. Islam was spread by invasions, genocide and slave-trade.
Worse: the "international community" accepts their methods, as Sudan's massacres blatantly exemplify. Then again, the "united nations" (then league of nations), which seems like the definition of "international community" has never been on the side of justice. They even supported hitler (at least enough to threathen to attack anyone opposing him militarily, right INTO WWII). Sometimes it gets as bad as calling the only reason to resist muslim genocides "racism" (like Israel, Ethiopia,...)
Of course, once that first falsehood is understood to be bullshit, the rest of your argument crumbles like a deck of cards. Even in other places the concept of "state religion" (the only non-"state" religion is Christianity, of course, but that was not universally so throughout history). Worse : lots of ideologies that are not generally called a "religion" do the same, communism being the most blatant example.
Terrorism, very similar to today's existed before the 2 Egyptian kingdoms merged. So blaming the US for it seems a bit... idiotic. Muslims have used terror campaigns throughout their history, and the paedophile prophet himself did it, on "direct orders" from allah. Terror has always been bound to specific ideologies, and while islam is not entirely unique as a terror ideology, it is by far the one making the most use of it.
That video's not very honest. After all any simulation that does not take water management into account would predict that most of Belgium and just about all of Holland would flood today.
Yes without dikes and other water works stuff will probably start going very wrong. But you have 40 years or more to build them. OTOH having dikes would make it loads easier to irrigate those "great plains" that are supposed to dry up.
I appreciate that you're an evolutionary biologist. I have a degree in artificial intelligence. I know too little about actual lifeforms but I know a lot about using these algorithms.
This is not a basic assumption of evolution. It just isn't part of the theory. Evolution requires: variation, inheritance of that variation and selection among those variants. That's the fundamental basis of the theory.
You forgot the actual selection criterium, which is of course where both economics and the inability to change the environment come from. Without the "real life" criterium you could be talking about intelligently designing barbie dolls (and even there efficiency matters).
The selection criterium of "real life" is the efficiency of use of the available resources (amongst which, first and foremost, the energy source). That's of course being very general and assuming that you accept that stuff like "getting eaten" would also not be an efficient use of available resources (not for the one getting eaten at least). But we gladly do so because not doing so would necessitate a great many selection criteria, which have no counterpart in "real life".
There are entire "kingdoms" whose members depend on taking energy away from other species, on ground where they have the advantage. Like trees, or bushes, or even grass.
Refusing to use an energy source on ideological grounds is not unheard of in evolution. What is unheard of, however, is a species surviving such a decision.
Let me get this straight... evolution theory states it's intelligent to *NOT* use all available energy for your own species... and the reason it does this is... popular opinion ?
Are you seriously claiming this ???
It's fine to argue that it's okay to be as greedy and acquisitive as possible, just don't drag evolution into it. I don't agree and I point to the general agreement in the necessity of the rule of law as my support for my stance.
You state that tragedy of the commons has nothing to do with evolution theory, an inherently economic theory, yet you claim that "popular opinion" does have something to do with evolution.
Economics is the science of what happens to limited resources, like... everything in the real world. Economics is NOT "the science of money". Economics has many more things to say about nature than it even says about markets and the like.
Perhaps we should hold a vote if gravity should be lowered... wouldn't that be cool ? Imagine Shaquille O'neil jumping 8 meters in the air. Of course it is a bit dependant on your assertion that popular opinion is more powerful than the laws of physics...
Evolution theory does not state people never act like idiots... just that they'll get themselves killed if they do. Which is, incidentally, exactly what a lot of economists are claiming will happen if laws like carbon limiting are encacted. Laws, like popular opinion, have *ZERO* influence on physical principles, like evolution theory, except that people obeying laws are selected just like anyone else. In nearly all cases these are selected *against* (not that 1 look in any city center wouldn't have told you that)
Absolutely! Turns out, based on our best understanding, it looks like the best way we can see to adapt and deal with it is to do things like reducing worldwide carbon emissions. And doing things like that, what with the whole "worldwide" bit, takes a fair amount of whining about it. Sorry if it bugs you, but we're just trying to adapt and not die, so it seems unlikely we will stop.
Are you really this thick ? A basic assumption of evolution is that it's useless trying to prevent change in the environment. You see if you disadvantage yourself, that will make others, who have zero regard for the environment do it. (and since you, like every American, simply hire Chinese guys to pollute for you, I fail to even see the point)
This will have 2 consequences : 1) your effort at self-restraint turns out to be futile (but only after doing a lot of damage of course), the environment changes anyway. 2) the other guys get an evolutionary advantage, which they will use to attack you, and spread their polluting ways to literally the ground under your feet.
Either that, or evolution is wrong. Why don't you tell me which...
Right. They "average" significantly higher than the expected sea level. So only PARTS of our highly expensive coastal real estate will end up underwater. That shouldn't be any problem at all. Not mention the fact that much of the densely populated and very low-lying nation of Bangladesh,
So we, and any other humans, animals and plants on this earth will have to adapt - or die. Do you think you can stop that ?
What part of this is new or even slightly unexpected, exactly ?
Except that the great plains, the breadbasket of the US, is predicted to become significantly drier... to the point where agriculture would become essentially impossible over large areas currently being farmed. But that's OK, Greenland is going to become very productive!
You mean those same predictions that predicted 2008 to be the warmest year in a century ? (for added fun google for "200X warmest year" and "200X coldest year" for any year past 2003. See the IPCC scurrying and denying it's past alarmism, in messages that contain even more alarmist predictions (and shrill) by the year).
And even if you're right : Again, things will change, and if you don't adapt, you'll have problems. You might even die.
Deal with it. Or don't. Either way we'll be rid of anyone wining about it.
I thought you people believed in Darwin, and that that theory is good (or at least better) ?
Actually the mosquito habitat once reached into Denmark, and Canada on the other side of the atlantic.
The mosquito was purposefully and steadfastedly eradicated by (late*) middle age development, not due to climate. We are not currently protected from the mosquito by the climate, except perhaps in Alaska.
This near eradication was, without a doubt, amongst the best things to ever happen to Europe.
If the mosquito becomes a problem - we'll kill it. We've done it before, and once the green nutters lose a few kids to "conservation efforts" they will be right beside the normal people.
The point is not that global climate change is going to destroy us. The point is that it is change that will cost us an enormous amount of money, suffering, and a complete overhaul of global political situations. It's unlikely that it will kill us. But it will completely change how we live. Are you prepared for that?
Whether or not the earth warms all those things will happen. Do you seriously think you get a choice ?
Not to burst your bubble, but "our habitat", of large mammals in general becomes actually much better (esp. much larger, but also easier to farm) at a higher global temperature. Lush forests in greenland house a hell of a lot more creatures, and humans, than ice valleys and gletsjers.
There are probably disasters that global warming causes, if it indeed happens in any significant way (ie. not like it's currently happening), but there are many good things too. The last "globally warmed" climate saw a rich civilization in Greenland, with huge orchards and wineries, lush forests, rich wildlife, etc. The same goes for a sizeable part of Siberia. With but a few degrees temperature gain, life there (and it's a fucking huge place) will become much, much easier.
The same goes for quite a few spots on the southern hemisphere. There is also the little tidbit that global warming stops desertification, and makes e.g. the sahara lose ground. The advantages of that can hardly be overstated.
But, of course, coastal cities might be in for a world of hurt (although given that holland has an average elevation of -2 meter, whereas the worst US coastal city has an average elevation of +3 meter, and something like New York has over 5, the absolute worst case sea level rise of 95 centimeters by 2100 should not be a problem for any US coastal city, or for Holland for that matter. A more problematic city is Venice, but whether or not the sea level rises, we will have to move Venice or give it to the sea in less than 150 years anyway).
We are warmblooded mammals. The reason we beat the dinosaurs was the fact that dinosaurs don't do well at all in colder climates. Mammals on the other hand, can live in temperatures as low as -40 degrees celcius on average. At current global temperature, most reptiles are limited to tropical climates. The larger reptiles are even limited to warmer-than-their-surroundings rivers in very warm climates. Not that a 6 degree rise will allow crocodiles to live in Europe, but they might colonize the mediterranean coast and a few other rivers than the nile.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but the association IPCC - pro global warming studies is clear (in fact it's sponsorship has resulted in several cases of blatantly faked pro-global-warming data, so you'd presume it's a lot of funding).
But can you give an example of the reverse ? The IPCC funding (and keeping funding) of a specific anti-global-warming study ? (e.g. a study showing that earth albedo is related to average temperature, thereby creating a massive negative feedback preventing any serious temperature rise)
I wonder what argument the GP is trying to make. Suppose he's 100% correct and Bush actually used the law to silence scientists (an unlikely proposition, since the decision would be reversed in court before long, but hey let's say it's true) (Besides, it's been shown Obama's not above that sort of thing)
That makes his argument "see, Bush silenced his critics, now I want to silence mine".
Come on. Just because there's one guy in the world that got away with murder does NOT make murder A-OK.
Either way, I don't see what this has to do with the debate about abortion or stem cells.
It means it is possible to attack a person in a manner that destroys his performance in a performance-based sentience test.
Read any psychologist book about how humans fare in isolation. You will find losing the ability to speak, think, emphatise with other, and other abilities that are considered essential indicators of "sentience" are lost after stopping communication sometimes after a few weeks. Nobody can seriously remain sane after even 2 or 3 months. That's not to say nobody's ever succeeded at staying alone for a year without going mad, but it's not something that happens very often.
Why? Saying "But this other person doesn't have sentience either" isn't an argument against the point. The obvious examples being people who are brain dead - there's plenty of people who believe it's fine to let such a person die.
Let's take a more interesting example. Take suicide terrorists. Clearly they do not score a 100% on a performance based test of sentience. Or take merely the way people live under sharia, like in somalia. Clearly if you make empathy required, they will turn out to be seriously lacking. So will half the prison population of any western state. Take the average cult-nutter : again, they will not fare that well on a sentience test.
That's what I mean when saying that on a performance based sentience definition scores of humans will fail the test.
Also, it would be trivial to write a program that succeeds the sentience test. It would be like today's situation with captchas : there are certainly a few thousand programs that beat human performance at captchas, and I know several actual human that, due to age or mere disinterest, fail captcha tests (and I know one that can't because of a handicap. Finding the "sound" link in pure html is truly not that easy for blind people). The same would be true of a performance based sentience test.
Given that the discussion is about making the crime of murder only apply to sentient beings, I would tread very, very, very carefully.
Speaks volumes about how much "climate scientists" believe in their own evidence : Not. At. All. Clearly they believe repression is necessary to sustain the global warming theory (never mind anthropogenic global warming).
It also proves that the grandparent posts were correct in asserting that anyone, no matter how reputable, finding anti-global-warming evidence is attacked. I mean, this guy is right up there with Fermi, Hawking, Feynman and other legends.
Cows are a ridiculous example, since they've long made the evolutionary choice of serving as human's food.
For them (well... for their genes), there has never been a better decision. There is no single large mammal, anywhere in history, that had numbers that even approach the number of cows alive today.
Unfortunately, there is also another side to your question. A human, 2-year-old child is perfectly able to not become sentient, or at least lose the ability to respond in what we'd consider a sentient way to other humans. Several human babies have, obviously by accident, been raised by various large animals. Wolves, dogs, apes,... all have raised human infants, and in all cases the resulting adults were not capable of developing sufficient cognitive ability to live in human society. Only one of them ever learned basic speech.
Some psychologists claim that any human being, if isolated from communication for a long enough period, will actually lose sentience. Or at the very least will lose the ability to speak, read, or even feel pain.
So the problem is simple : a 2-year old child would not be sentient by the criterion that you imply. And there are human adults alive that would not satisfy this criterion either. Entire uncivilized tribes would fail that distinction, and would be considered animals. Taken to the extreme, certain ideologies could be taken as distinctly non-sentient (or less sentient) than others. I assume you at least consider every adult human (in this case, say > 12 years) sentient, so your implied criterion would be a non-starter.
So any real useful criterion for sentience would have to focus on the potential of becoming a feeling, growing, loving, talking, thinking... being. It would not do to focus on actually having achieved anything, but merely on the potential. Any such criterion, of course, would consider a feutus sentient, which is correct, imho.
Last time I checked, both humans and animals have "software" running on their brains. The difference between humans and animals is opposable thumbs and language.
Since "you" share identical neural hardware with all humans, and the difference between you and anyone else is encoded in a very large number of what are essentially chemical integer storage tanks, I'd rethink that one. You, as distinct from me, for example, is at least 99.98% a difference of software. Of digits that are kept updated by the neurons in your brain.
And it's not just minds that have both hardware and software distinction in the human body. The immune system and the digestive system both have components that are shared by genes, and components that are independant of genes, and only help or direct (or in some cases sabotage) the actions of the "hardware".
And I don't even mean the extreme interpretation, where one points out that AIDS, or any other virus, is merely alien software running on human hardware. AIDS, and other viruses are very much like a computervirus, in that they have no living hardware of their own.
I agree with you that a 6-week-old baby could realize that scissors killing it are bad. However, I was not aware that a baby could be aborted 6 weeks after being born. Perhaps you were thinking
Needless to say, I mean 6 weeks after conception, not birth.
Not that there aren't people pushing post-natal abortion too. Why do these people always call themselves liberals ? I thought the whole principle of "maximizing liberty" involved maximizing everyone's liberty, including, obviously, that of those babies... Or put it another way, why does the liberty of so many types of victims never get a consideration in the liberal mind ? Not just babies, mind you, but women born in the wrong country, or blacks in muslim africa, or hindu, christians in Pakistan, Iran or Iraq... all are ignored by "liberals".
That's, of course, your prerogative. Unfortunately things like this move fast. Since historians have set about determining historic birth rates, one thing has become clear : there isn't a single society in history that has survived a birthrate under 2 children per woman for 40 years.
And, of course, you will still be alive in 40 years, and will be forced to cope with the world your current behavior creates. By that time there will be no more Russia or Europe. In fact, before another 10 years pass Europe will be hardly recognizeable the way things are going there.
And, sorry to say, but anyone knows after a walking a single day on the streets of Brussels, that that will mean Europe will be the enemy, militarily as well as ideologically, of America.
Of course, you will not consider this in any way your fault. Instead you will be using excuses like "if I was the only one changing my behavior nothing would have changed", and there will be millions people using that excuse. And that would be technically true.
But don't worry, after all, in the second world war there were many people like you. A huge percentage of them comitted suicide once they realized the party was over and it was time to pay the piper.
This is a very recent situation. You might want to ask your grandfather if he thought about it the same way, since I guarantee the answer will be negative.
Or at the very least, your grandfather had to deal with big consequences if he chose to not have many kids. But ask him, I'm sure he'll tell it more colorfully than I ever could.
It's just that today there is a great disconnect between the needs of the one and the needs of the many. The need of society as a whole is clear : there cannot be enough children, ever, not even if having those children causes famines or worse. The needs (and "wants") of individuals should reflect that need, and if evolution is true, it's a matter of (not that much) time before they do : either people realise that many kids are a necessity, or they find themselves pushed aside by another (ethnic ? religious ?...) group that does.
i guess your next argument is that those cells MIGHT become a child, but by that logic i'm a murderer everytime i jack off since every sperm MIGHT have been a child, right?
Just so you the human nervous system activates on the 18th day of pregnancy. You know, about 10 days before even a very attentive woman would realise she's pregnant. At that point the nerves fire, they move the muscles, they register the impulses coming from the sensory organs. It is not just active, but it starts learning about it's environment (for example, many stick their thumbs in their mouths, even if the mouth is but a little bump in the face at this point). In other words, the essential part that makes humans different from animals, the "software" that when running on the brain constitutes a human IS running. The mind is active, and starts exploring it's surroundings. This is days before a pregnancy test will start testing positive (well the ones in the shop here say 2-4 weeks, so most of the time they'd test negative when a baby becomes sentient). Before the 22nd day the brain will take control of the most important muscle of the human body : it will instruct the hearth to start beating (there is an actual signal required from the brain stem to start up the heart : babies without a brain stem develop a heart, but it never beats).
That higher brain functions and analytical capacities develop very, very early on can be illustrated in a manner so dramatical to disgust even the biggest proponent of abortion in a very simple way : a 6-week old baby that's getting aborted FIGHTS the scissors inserted to rip it to shreds, meaning a baby of that age realises what is happening, or at the very least realizes that those scissors are there for a very bad reason, and is capable of enough coordination against those scissors to convince a human (s)he's fighting her abortion.
Of course, once you realize the timing of this, it makes the whole of abortions morally reprehensible, since all abortions obviously take place after pregnancy is verified, and therefore it is active, thinking minds that are getting aborted in practice. If these killings (of sentient beings, or at least sentient enough to attempt to fight an abortion) are forbidden, however it will put an end to the MTV generation, for a very simple reason : if you fuck once a week, with a condom, on average you will get pregnant after 2 years. If you fuck once a week with the pill, it will be only 1.5 years. If you combine both, you can expect a little over 4 years before the chances of being pregnant are bigger than the chances of not being pregnant.
In other words, without abortions of babys with active minds, without killing of sentient beings in utero, any sexual encounter would have, on average, a 1% chance of resulting in a child, with one preservative, and about 0.5% with 2 preservatives (both condom and pill). It is my opinion that would be the end, before many years pass, of tolerating sex outside marriage, if merely to avoid getting swamped by babies without parents. In any case, there would be a great many consequences of "free" sex running around.
And that is, of course, the real reason behind abortion : creating the possibility of "free" sex, by killing sentient, thinking human beings. Nobody hears their screams, after all.
It is for that reason that I believe that now that the excuse of "but they're not sentient" is shown to be a moot point, nobody will change their mind. After all, all it is is an excuse, not an actual moral argument. People, including many here, simply realise the consequences of abortion : free sex, discos, parties,... the works. Such things would not be able to last without abortions. And morality ? What's 5 dollar plus good morals ? 0 dollars, since you've given them all away.
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So now I don't have to give an example of genes refusing to do certain actions ... but I have to give an example of genes refusing to do something on ideological grounds.
The fact that you even ask the ideological ground behind genetic actions is so strange ? Do you believe in intelligent design ? Without intelligent design, after all, there is no ideological ground behind genes.
In reality estimating the efficiency of energy processing in cells is very easy (you just burn them (and their offspring), generating in a specific time interval, and see what kind of energy comes out), and you find the result of said estimation on every box of cereal : the calories.
You will find that there isn't all that much variation between species in energy content, or at least you will find the same energy sources for the same amount of time all generate almost exactly the same amount of energy regardless of species. Putting any photosynthesiser for x hours in the sun and they will generate very similar amounts of heat. Any small animal that eats x insects will generate very nearly exactly the same amount of energy from digesting them.
That's because that's a large part of the fitness function of these animals and plants. And if the outcomes of the fitness function were to be a few percent better than average, they'd conquer the earth before you can say "infestation" and if a few percent less it would take 2 years and they'd be extinct.
The other part is investing the energy acquired, meaning, of course, the efficiency of that investment in the world they live in.
Such a criterium helps looking for explanations why a certain gene survived, whereas your criterium allows no such explanations. It also allows the running of simulations that generate actually useful results, whereas the "passing genes" criterium can be programmed in, but does not generate useful results (it generates whatever you accidentally put in before the simulation started instead, leading to lots of embarassments).
In simulations, as you're "God", calculating the efficiency of various decisions is easy. Of course, in sufficiently complex worlds, calculating is too strong a word, estimation would be more applicable. After all, you're not really God, and you can't in sufficiently complex situations run the "world" for years on end.
And yes, genes regularly take the decision not to touch a certain energy source, especially if the world they live in has some form of poison. If that makes their efficiency drop (as it always does) ... it won't take long : they're giving their enemies an easy base of operations and an energy source. Generally the result is not pretty (and in evolution : everyone's your enemy, even symbiotic lifeforms)
It's merely a non-"Von Neumann architecture" computer. (read second paragraph)
All computers before a certain point were non-Von Neumann computers. This limited them, obviously such computers were not reprogrammable. But things like calculators of all kinds did exist. There were mechanical cash registers (even with day totals).
In theory there is no difference between what a mechanical computer can do and what our supercomputers can do. Of course, not quite at the same speed.
Since your entire post is but an insult let me just pick out one part
"The selection criterium of 'real life' is the efficiency of use of the available resources (amongst which, first and foremost, the energy source). That's of course being very general..."
That's needlessly complex and unhelpful. If one mouse can run faster than the other so the second gets eaten and doen't have children, you want to say "the first mouse used available resources more efficiently"? For gods sake why? How does that help you understand anything?
Really ? Is that needlessly complex ?
Suppose we take your criterium "putting genes in the next generation". Then the only thing we can say about genes found to survive is that ... they survived. Great ... Of course this exposes your criterium for what it is : a circular reference. It is not a selection criterium at all.
In the words of someone a lot smarter than me "you should make things as simple as possible but no simpler"
Obviously the first mouse used the resources she had very inefficiently : she lost control of the resources she was given at birth (by getting eaten), and failed to acquire more (again ... by getting eaten).
Now that's something you can program ... whereas a circular reference is obviously useless. Worse : circular selection criteria cause positive feedback loops in the program, meaning they merely amplify preset ideas that were present before the program started.
(much like your argument is in defense of preset ideas, without considering the usefulness of the argument itself)
Really?!? This is fascinating; I never heard about that! Other than humans, I know of no species that has had access to any energy source other than the Sun (for photo-synthesizers), Food (for eaters) or Geothermal heat (for those weird worm things along the Atlantic vents). Please do tell, what species are you referring to that has refused to eat and starved itself into extinction on ideological grounds? (I'm assuming it's an eater we're talking, as photo-synthesizers aren't much for ideological anything, but I guess you never know about the worm-things...)
Funny how you state several blatant untruths : ... do not. Yet there are plants that process energy from wind, sun, geothermal, radiation, food, hell, even oil has live bacteria in it that, very slowly, use the oil ... exactly which energy source do we have that plants don't (note that plants DO use nuclear power, if that's what you meant).
That humans have access to energy sources plants, fungi,
Plants and fungi, in fact, have access to several energy sources that we do not have meaningful access to : sub-ocean geothermal, lots of types of nuclear power that we do not know how to use, some bacteria are known to extract power from cosmic radiation (not the background radiation, that's too weak, the rest of it) (which is a big problem, since this is a skill that's not very useful within the athmosphere, indicating that those bacteria partially completed their evolution in space).
But one easy example is the cuckoo : the cuckoo is born in a nest that is not his mother's (or father's) but the nest of a member of another species. The way this animal collects energy is by throwing the original eggs of his "foster-parents" out of the nest, and then getting fed by his foster parents (cute picture heh ? Belies how horribly, I don't know another word, evil the situation of that bird really is).
But any book about cuckoo's will tell you there are cuckoo birds that refuse to throw other eggs from the nest. They die (they generally starve).
Now this is an extreme example, a bird that lowers his food intake by oh, somewhere between 50 and 80% as a genetic decision, and they get killed.
In practice
You say terror has always been bound to ideologies - that's true, but it's a statement of the obvious,
Hence, you can also say that looking for religion as the ultimate culprit is in practice a rather pointless exercise - because even if there is something that makes members of a particular religion fundametally more likely to blow themselves up (which you haven't exactly bothered to prove if you haven't come
Two diametrically opposed statements (since a religion clearly is an ideology). Since the second basically states the first is obviously wrong, why am I trying to reason with you ?
You state both A and (not A) as true statements (and add the word "obviously"). With blatant dishonesty like that, why bother actually using any argument ?
If by "falsity of his statements" you mean that yes, you can kill them all, then you're of course technically correct, because it's possible to kill everybody. This statement however is utterly useless, because if we start from the premise that we can kill everybody, our policy decisions aren't going to be good.
No I mean that killing every last adherent (e.g. every last muslim) in large geographical areas (including "everywhere") has been demonstrated to be possible by muslims, who have exterminated large ideologies, by comitting continued genocide on native peoples, in large geographical areas. I just visited an exhibition about the Tuareg, a now extinct north-African black culture that has been exterminated by islam-sanctioned slave trade (which is, by the way, still continuing, and yes, still islamically justified. After all "the prophet" raped kidnapped people, and sold them into slavery later on, on "direct orders from allah". You can't get more islamic than that).
But since actual truth is not of intrest to you (otherwise you wouldn't make self-contradictory statements) I have little hope of a decent response. You say about yourself that you're obviously wrong, so let's leave it at that.
It is obvious that you are defending preset conclusions, without caring about the consistency of your arguments. Clearly you have motives in this discussion other than increasing understanding or actually usefully reasoning about a big problem.
I am however interested in what your true reasons are for defending these assertions that you know to be false. Are you a racist ? Are you a marxist ?
? Seems an entirely appropriate end for the man -too ...
I've seen that report on a great many sites, too.
If what you say is true, then how did any computer program ever pass the Turing test ? Lots of computer programs have succeeded in convincing a human that they were human.
Yes we are a long way away from walking, breeding, and loving (oh so cute) machines. We're getting closer every day.
If you applied the same thinking to any science field - that if not improved in "decades" it should be abandoned - I doubt we'd have any field left. Lots of fields were not improved in centuries, and a few can very easily be said to not having been improved for a millenium.
The problem with "human-like" programs is that if you know their code and how they work, you feel embarassed being the thing they're trying to imitate. Or you should. They are not complex, they do not follow logic, ... they simply parrot what they've heard before. The fact that this tactic works means that parotting others is one of the main mechanisms directing human behavior.
you obviously can't kill all the Muslims, or convert them to something else, or change the nature of a world religion. At least IMHO you can't have much hope for
Actually in over a dozen countries, muslims have demonstrated the falsity of your statements. In dozens of muslim countries believers of other faiths are extinct, and they have not become extinct peacefully, but through prolonged genocide and persecution comitted by muslims. Historically, the "state religions", which come in all shapes and sizes, prove you wrong in more than 90% of history. If you are prepared to commit prolonged genocide, you most certainly can kill all muslims/christians/hindus/... or convert them all. The entire middle east is an example of this, and the state of religious freedom in the "muslim holy places" exemplifies just how simple it is : simply kill anyone even suggesting a different thinking pattern, do this for long enough and you will succeed.
There is not a single country, either middle eastern, asian or african, where islam peacefully became a force of any meaningful size. Islam was spread by invasions, genocide and slave-trade.
Worse: the "international community" accepts their methods, as Sudan's massacres blatantly exemplify. Then again, the "united nations" (then league of nations), which seems like the definition of "international community" has never been on the side of justice. They even supported hitler (at least enough to threathen to attack anyone opposing him militarily, right INTO WWII). Sometimes it gets as bad as calling the only reason to resist muslim genocides "racism" (like Israel, Ethiopia, ...)
Of course, once that first falsehood is understood to be bullshit, the rest of your argument crumbles like a deck of cards. Even in other places the concept of "state religion" (the only non-"state" religion is Christianity, of course, but that was not universally so throughout history). Worse : lots of ideologies that are not generally called a "religion" do the same, communism being the most blatant example.
Terrorism, very similar to today's existed before the 2 Egyptian kingdoms merged. So blaming the US for it seems a bit ... idiotic. Muslims have used terror campaigns throughout their history, and the paedophile prophet himself did it, on "direct orders" from allah. Terror has always been bound to specific ideologies, and while islam is not entirely unique as a terror ideology, it is by far the one making the most use of it.
That video's not very honest. After all any simulation that does not take water management into account would predict that most of Belgium and just about all of Holland would flood today.
Yes without dikes and other water works stuff will probably start going very wrong. But you have 40 years or more to build them. OTOH having dikes would make it loads easier to irrigate those "great plains" that are supposed to dry up.
I appreciate that you're an evolutionary biologist. I have a degree in artificial intelligence. I know too little about actual lifeforms but I know a lot about using these algorithms.
This is not a basic assumption of evolution. It just isn't part of the theory. Evolution requires: variation, inheritance of that variation and selection among those variants. That's the fundamental basis of the theory.
You forgot the actual selection criterium, which is of course where both economics and the inability to change the environment come from. Without the "real life" criterium you could be talking about intelligently designing barbie dolls (and even there efficiency matters).
The selection criterium of "real life" is the efficiency of use of the available resources (amongst which, first and foremost, the energy source). That's of course being very general and assuming that you accept that stuff like "getting eaten" would also not be an efficient use of available resources (not for the one getting eaten at least). But we gladly do so because not doing so would necessitate a great many selection criteria, which have no counterpart in "real life".
There are entire "kingdoms" whose members depend on taking energy away from other species, on ground where they have the advantage. Like trees, or bushes, or even grass.
Refusing to use an energy source on ideological grounds is not unheard of in evolution. What is unheard of, however, is a species surviving such a decision.
Let me get this straight ... evolution theory states it's intelligent to *NOT* use all available energy for your own species ... and the reason it does this is ... popular opinion ?
Are you seriously claiming this ???
It's fine to argue that it's okay to be as greedy and acquisitive as possible, just don't drag evolution into it. I don't agree and I point to the general agreement in the necessity of the rule of law as my support for my stance.
You state that tragedy of the commons has nothing to do with evolution theory, an inherently economic theory, yet you claim that "popular opinion" does have something to do with evolution.
Economics is the science of what happens to limited resources, like ... everything in the real world. Economics is NOT "the science of money". Economics has many more things to say about nature than it even says about markets and the like.
Perhaps we should hold a vote if gravity should be lowered ... wouldn't that be cool ? Imagine Shaquille O'neil jumping 8 meters in the air. Of course it is a bit dependant on your assertion that popular opinion is more powerful than the laws of physics ...
Evolution theory does not state people never act like idiots ... just that they'll get themselves killed if they do. Which is, incidentally, exactly what a lot of economists are claiming will happen if laws like carbon limiting are encacted. Laws, like popular opinion, have *ZERO* influence on physical principles, like evolution theory, except that people obeying laws are selected just like anyone else. In nearly all cases these are selected *against* (not that 1 look in any city center wouldn't have told you that)
Absolutely! Turns out, based on our best understanding, it looks like the best way we can see to adapt and deal with it is to do things like reducing worldwide carbon emissions. And doing things like that, what with the whole "worldwide" bit, takes a fair amount of whining about it. Sorry if it bugs you, but we're just trying to adapt and not die, so it seems unlikely we will stop.
Are you really this thick ? A basic assumption of evolution is that it's useless trying to prevent change in the environment. You see if you disadvantage yourself, that will make others, who have zero regard for the environment do it. (and since you, like every American, simply hire Chinese guys to pollute for you, I fail to even see the point)
This will have 2 consequences :
1) your effort at self-restraint turns out to be futile (but only after doing a lot of damage of course), the environment changes anyway.
2) the other guys get an evolutionary advantage, which they will use to attack you, and spread their polluting ways to literally the ground under your feet.
Either that, or evolution is wrong. Why don't you tell me which ...
Right. They "average" significantly higher than the expected sea level. So only PARTS of our highly expensive coastal real estate will end up underwater. That shouldn't be any problem at all. Not mention the fact that much of the densely populated and very low-lying nation of Bangladesh,
So we, and any other humans, animals and plants on this earth will have to adapt - or die. Do you think you can stop that ?
What part of this is new or even slightly unexpected, exactly ?
Except that the great plains, the breadbasket of the US, is predicted to become significantly drier... to the point where agriculture would become essentially impossible over large areas currently being farmed. But that's OK, Greenland is going to become very productive!
You mean those same predictions that predicted 2008 to be the warmest year in a century ? (for added fun google for "200X warmest year" and "200X coldest year" for any year past 2003. See the IPCC scurrying and denying it's past alarmism, in messages that contain even more alarmist predictions (and shrill) by the year).
And even if you're right : Again, things will change, and if you don't adapt, you'll have problems. You might even die.
Deal with it. Or don't. Either way we'll be rid of anyone wining about it.
I thought you people believed in Darwin, and that that theory is good (or at least better) ?
Actually the mosquito habitat once reached into Denmark, and Canada on the other side of the atlantic.
The mosquito was purposefully and steadfastedly eradicated by (late*) middle age development, not due to climate. We are not currently protected from the mosquito by the climate, except perhaps in Alaska.
This near eradication was, without a doubt, amongst the best things to ever happen to Europe.
If the mosquito becomes a problem - we'll kill it. We've done it before, and once the green nutters lose a few kids to "conservation efforts" they will be right beside the normal people.
* this process actually started in Roman times
The point is not that global climate change is going to destroy us. The point is that it is change that will cost us an enormous amount of money, suffering, and a complete overhaul of global political situations. It's unlikely that it will kill us. But it will completely change how we live. Are you prepared for that?
Whether or not the earth warms all those things will happen. Do you seriously think you get a choice ?
Not to burst your bubble, but "our habitat", of large mammals in general becomes actually much better (esp. much larger, but also easier to farm) at a higher global temperature. Lush forests in greenland house a hell of a lot more creatures, and humans, than ice valleys and gletsjers.
There are probably disasters that global warming causes, if it indeed happens in any significant way (ie. not like it's currently happening), but there are many good things too. The last "globally warmed" climate saw a rich civilization in Greenland, with huge orchards and wineries, lush forests, rich wildlife, etc. The same goes for a sizeable part of Siberia. With but a few degrees temperature gain, life there (and it's a fucking huge place) will become much, much easier.
The same goes for quite a few spots on the southern hemisphere. There is also the little tidbit that global warming stops desertification, and makes e.g. the sahara lose ground. The advantages of that can hardly be overstated.
But, of course, coastal cities might be in for a world of hurt (although given that holland has an average elevation of -2 meter, whereas the worst US coastal city has an average elevation of +3 meter, and something like New York has over 5, the absolute worst case sea level rise of 95 centimeters by 2100 should not be a problem for any US coastal city, or for Holland for that matter. A more problematic city is Venice, but whether or not the sea level rises, we will have to move Venice or give it to the sea in less than 150 years anyway).
We are warmblooded mammals. The reason we beat the dinosaurs was the fact that dinosaurs don't do well at all in colder climates. Mammals on the other hand, can live in temperatures as low as -40 degrees celcius on average. At current global temperature, most reptiles are limited to tropical climates. The larger reptiles are even limited to warmer-than-their-surroundings rivers in very warm climates. Not that a 6 degree rise will allow crocodiles to live in Europe, but they might colonize the mediterranean coast and a few other rivers than the nile.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but the association IPCC - pro global warming studies is clear (in fact it's sponsorship has resulted in several cases of blatantly faked pro-global-warming data, so you'd presume it's a lot of funding).
But can you give an example of the reverse ? The IPCC funding (and keeping funding) of a specific anti-global-warming study ? (e.g. a study showing that earth albedo is related to average temperature, thereby creating a massive negative feedback preventing any serious temperature rise)
I wonder what argument the GP is trying to make. Suppose he's 100% correct and Bush actually used the law to silence scientists (an unlikely proposition, since the decision would be reversed in court before long, but hey let's say it's true) (Besides, it's been shown Obama's not above that sort of thing)
That makes his argument "see, Bush silenced his critics, now I want to silence mine".
Come on. Just because there's one guy in the world that got away with murder does NOT make murder A-OK.
Either way, I don't see what this has to do with the debate about abortion or stem cells.
It means it is possible to attack a person in a manner that destroys his performance in a performance-based sentience test.
Read any psychologist book about how humans fare in isolation. You will find losing the ability to speak, think, emphatise with other, and other abilities that are considered essential indicators of "sentience" are lost after stopping communication sometimes after a few weeks. Nobody can seriously remain sane after even 2 or 3 months. That's not to say nobody's ever succeeded at staying alone for a year without going mad, but it's not something that happens very often.
Why? Saying "But this other person doesn't have sentience either" isn't an argument against the point. The obvious examples being people who are brain dead - there's plenty of people who believe it's fine to let such a person die.
Let's take a more interesting example. Take suicide terrorists. Clearly they do not score a 100% on a performance based test of sentience. Or take merely the way people live under sharia, like in somalia. Clearly if you make empathy required, they will turn out to be seriously lacking. So will half the prison population of any western state. Take the average cult-nutter : again, they will not fare that well on a sentience test.
That's what I mean when saying that on a performance based sentience definition scores of humans will fail the test.
Also, it would be trivial to write a program that succeeds the sentience test. It would be like today's situation with captchas : there are certainly a few thousand programs that beat human performance at captchas, and I know several actual human that, due to age or mere disinterest, fail captcha tests (and I know one that can't because of a handicap. Finding the "sound" link in pure html is truly not that easy for blind people). The same would be true of a performance based sentience test.
Given that the discussion is about making the crime of murder only apply to sentient beings, I would tread very, very, very carefully.
Speaks volumes about how much "climate scientists" believe in their own evidence : Not. At. All. Clearly they believe repression is necessary to sustain the global warming theory (never mind anthropogenic global warming).
It also proves that the grandparent posts were correct in asserting that anyone, no matter how reputable, finding anti-global-warming evidence is attacked. I mean, this guy is right up there with Fermi, Hawking, Feynman and other legends.
Hurray ! We will get slaughtered, but at least those who slaughter us are in for some bad juju ! Hurray !
Wait ... that's dumb.
Cows are a ridiculous example, since they've long made the evolutionary choice of serving as human's food.
For them (well ... for their genes), there has never been a better decision. There is no single large mammal, anywhere in history, that had numbers that even approach the number of cows alive today.
Unfortunately, there is also another side to your question. A human, 2-year-old child is perfectly able to not become sentient, or at least lose the ability to respond in what we'd consider a sentient way to other humans. Several human babies have, obviously by accident, been raised by various large animals. Wolves, dogs, apes, ... all have raised human infants, and in all cases the resulting adults were not capable of developing sufficient cognitive ability to live in human society. Only one of them ever learned basic speech.
Some psychologists claim that any human being, if isolated from communication for a long enough period, will actually lose sentience. Or at the very least will lose the ability to speak, read, or even feel pain.
So the problem is simple : a 2-year old child would not be sentient by the criterion that you imply. And there are human adults alive that would not satisfy this criterion either. Entire uncivilized tribes would fail that distinction, and would be considered animals. Taken to the extreme, certain ideologies could be taken as distinctly non-sentient (or less sentient) than others. I assume you at least consider every adult human (in this case, say > 12 years) sentient, so your implied criterion would be a non-starter.
So any real useful criterion for sentience would have to focus on the potential of becoming a feeling, growing, loving, talking, thinking ... being. It would not do to focus on actually having achieved anything, but merely on the potential. Any such criterion, of course, would consider a feutus sentient, which is correct, imho.
Last time I checked, both humans and animals have "software" running on their brains. The difference between humans and animals is opposable thumbs and language.
Since "you" share identical neural hardware with all humans, and the difference between you and anyone else is encoded in a very large number of what are essentially chemical integer storage tanks, I'd rethink that one. You, as distinct from me, for example, is at least 99.98% a difference of software. Of digits that are kept updated by the neurons in your brain.
And it's not just minds that have both hardware and software distinction in the human body. The immune system and the digestive system both have components that are shared by genes, and components that are independant of genes, and only help or direct (or in some cases sabotage) the actions of the "hardware".
And I don't even mean the extreme interpretation, where one points out that AIDS, or any other virus, is merely alien software running on human hardware. AIDS, and other viruses are very much like a computervirus, in that they have no living hardware of their own.
I agree with you that a 6-week-old baby could realize that scissors killing it are bad. However, I was not aware that a baby could be aborted 6 weeks after being born. Perhaps you were thinking
Needless to say, I mean 6 weeks after conception, not birth.
Not that there aren't people pushing post-natal abortion too. Why do these people always call themselves liberals ? I thought the whole principle of "maximizing liberty" involved maximizing everyone's liberty, including, obviously, that of those babies ... Or put it another way, why does the liberty of so many types of victims never get a consideration in the liberal mind ? Not just babies, mind you, but women born in the wrong country, or blacks in muslim africa, or hindu, christians in Pakistan, Iran or Iraq ... all are ignored by "liberals".
That's, of course, your prerogative. Unfortunately things like this move fast. Since historians have set about determining historic birth rates, one thing has become clear : there isn't a single society in history that has survived a birthrate under 2 children per woman for 40 years.
And, of course, you will still be alive in 40 years, and will be forced to cope with the world your current behavior creates. By that time there will be no more Russia or Europe. In fact, before another 10 years pass Europe will be hardly recognizeable the way things are going there.
And, sorry to say, but anyone knows after a walking a single day on the streets of Brussels, that that will mean Europe will be the enemy, militarily as well as ideologically, of America.
Of course, you will not consider this in any way your fault. Instead you will be using excuses like "if I was the only one changing my behavior nothing would have changed", and there will be millions people using that excuse. And that would be technically true.
But don't worry, after all, in the second world war there were many people like you. A huge percentage of them comitted suicide once they realized the party was over and it was time to pay the piper.
All I consider is how many kids I "want" to have.
This is a very recent situation. You might want to ask your grandfather if he thought about it the same way, since I guarantee the answer will be negative.
Or at the very least, your grandfather had to deal with big consequences if he chose to not have many kids. But ask him, I'm sure he'll tell it more colorfully than I ever could.
It's just that today there is a great disconnect between the needs of the one and the needs of the many. The need of society as a whole is clear : there cannot be enough children, ever, not even if having those children causes famines or worse. The needs (and "wants") of individuals should reflect that need, and if evolution is true, it's a matter of (not that much) time before they do : either people realise that many kids are a necessity, or they find themselves pushed aside by another (ethnic ? religious ? ...) group that does.
i guess your next argument is that those cells MIGHT become a child, but by that logic i'm a murderer everytime i jack off since every sperm MIGHT have been a child, right?
Just so you the human nervous system activates on the 18th day of pregnancy. You know, about 10 days before even a very attentive woman would realise she's pregnant. At that point the nerves fire, they move the muscles, they register the impulses coming from the sensory organs. It is not just active, but it starts learning about it's environment (for example, many stick their thumbs in their mouths, even if the mouth is but a little bump in the face at this point). In other words, the essential part that makes humans different from animals, the "software" that when running on the brain constitutes a human IS running. The mind is active, and starts exploring it's surroundings. This is days before a pregnancy test will start testing positive (well the ones in the shop here say 2-4 weeks, so most of the time they'd test negative when a baby becomes sentient). Before the 22nd day the brain will take control of the most important muscle of the human body : it will instruct the hearth to start beating (there is an actual signal required from the brain stem to start up the heart : babies without a brain stem develop a heart, but it never beats).
That higher brain functions and analytical capacities develop very, very early on can be illustrated in a manner so dramatical to disgust even the biggest proponent of abortion in a very simple way : a 6-week old baby that's getting aborted FIGHTS the scissors inserted to rip it to shreds, meaning a baby of that age realises what is happening, or at the very least realizes that those scissors are there for a very bad reason, and is capable of enough coordination against those scissors to convince a human (s)he's fighting her abortion.
Of course, once you realize the timing of this, it makes the whole of abortions morally reprehensible, since all abortions obviously take place after pregnancy is verified, and therefore it is active, thinking minds that are getting aborted in practice. If these killings (of sentient beings, or at least sentient enough to attempt to fight an abortion) are forbidden, however it will put an end to the MTV generation, for a very simple reason : if you fuck once a week, with a condom, on average you will get pregnant after 2 years. If you fuck once a week with the pill, it will be only 1.5 years. If you combine both, you can expect a little over 4 years before the chances of being pregnant are bigger than the chances of not being pregnant.
In other words, without abortions of babys with active minds, without killing of sentient beings in utero, any sexual encounter would have, on average, a 1% chance of resulting in a child, with one preservative, and about 0.5% with 2 preservatives (both condom and pill). It is my opinion that would be the end, before many years pass, of tolerating sex outside marriage, if merely to avoid getting swamped by babies without parents. In any case, there would be a great many consequences of "free" sex running around.
And that is, of course, the real reason behind abortion : creating the possibility of "free" sex, by killing sentient, thinking human beings. Nobody hears their screams, after all.
It is for that reason that I believe that now that the excuse of "but they're not sentient" is shown to be a moot point, nobody will change their mind. After all, all it is is an excuse, not an actual moral argument. People, including many here, simply realise the consequences of abortion : free sex, discos, parties, ... the works. Such things would not be able to last without abortions. And morality ? What's 5 dollar plus good morals ? 0 dollars, since you've given them all away.