I presented factual rebuttals. - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 19/02/2012 01:58:46 AM
Fact: Sykes assumed the doctors she quoted did not track their cited sources to original research, even though she did just that due solely to those citations.
Fact: She disputed and maligned both their research and conclusions to support her narrative, even when they took no position on abortion.
Fact: She is an abortion advocate, not physician, and so lacks the latters knowledge and training, yet desputes even their conclusions that do not address abortion.
Fact: She repeatedly accused policy opponents of deception based soley on her "doubts" they tracked their quotes sources as diligently as she, doubt in turn resting solely on her contention that is "typical of pro life writings and websites."
It is disappointing that you (incorrectly) accuse me of an ad hominem attack after quoting a "source" that states,
Sykes made, not just an ad hominem attack, but a string of them based entirely on biased supposition: She declared Dean dishonest because she believes (but cannot know) he did not do his homework, offering no evidence except her further belief pro life advocates "typically" do not. That is evidence of bias, not validity. I advise against letting speculative and biased personal beliefs decide if/when abortion is legal.
I happen to think her assertion both valid and sound, but she made no effort to support it except further assertions of her personal opinion.
If she was just presuming it, she wouldn't have bothered to go look up those sources and see what they actually said. The practice of citing a source without reading it thoroughly (or at all, if one grabs the citation from someone else) is unfortunately not uncommon.
Perhaps not but, however common citing casually read research is, that does not establish the pro lifers quoted did so, let alone that the doctors THEY quoted did so. It is a supposition based on Sykes' low opinion of pro lifer research (and, apparently, of medical research in general, since neither Dr. Hamlin nor Dr. Helleger took a position on abortion.) She is entitled to her opinion, but it is not an argument, or at least, not a sound one.
Faraday's experiments are fairly easy to repeat. Thorough examinations of early-term fetuses are not so easy.
Not the point; Faradays experiments are only easy to repeat IF one is informed of them (i.e. through citation.) By Skyes' standard, citing a study that in turn cited Faradays experiments would be "unoriginal research" unless one explicitly cited Faraday in addition to the study that already cited it. She assumes better knowledge of the subject than leaders in the field who have the benefit she lacks in decades of medical study and practice.
Textbooks can be wrong, yes, but statements and studies in medical science textbooks have received the rigorous peer review Sykes laments as absent in the letters and speeches she rejects (except when noting they stop short of assertions pro lifers contend they make; had she herself stopped at THAT point I would not disagree with her.) That is not an argument from authority, but from the experimentation and study of medical case files on which textbooks are predicated (which Skyes again dismissed as "unoriginal research.") Textbooks can be wrong, but if she contends Intrauterine Development is wrong that "at the end of eight weeks there will be readable electrical activity coming from the brain," she should conduct some experiments of her own demonstrating that, preferably after attending med school to obtain the necessary knowledge. That would be the convincing argument dismissing the statement as "unoriginal research" is not.
In "fact," it let us take a closer look at that section of Sykes' essay, because revealing exposes her arguments to be based on bias more than science:
As with Hamlin's speech, no original research is being described here, which makes it dishonest and misleading to quote it as the source of a claim. But what did the sources Goldenring used have to say?
Andre Hellegers' "Fetal Development" was first published in Theological Studies, March 1970, and has often been republished in collections of writings on abortion. Hellegers was a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Georgetown University Hospital and first director of its Kennedy Institute of Ethics who wrote about biomedical ethics. As with the other scientists and physicians quoted here, he never used the term "brain waves," but did write that
Hellegers was talking about eight weeks from fertilization, not "at eight weeks' gestation" or "six weeks after conception" as Goldenring and Willke incorrectly claim, which makes it 56 days, not 40. But a bigger problem is that Hellegers was writing another personal essay, not reporting his own research. His source was D. Goldblatt's "Nervous System and Sensory Organs" in Intrauterine Development, a 1968 textbook which wasn't original research either.
On the other hand, Bergstrom's "Development of EEG and unit electrical activity of the brain during ontogeny" is original research. Only two courses of study on still-living aborted human embryos and fetuses have ever been done: Okamoto and Kirikae in Japan in the 1940s, and Bergstrom and Bergstrom in Finland in the 1960s. Like the Japanese researchres, the Bergstroms obtained live fetuses "immediately after separation from the maternal circulation" from hysterotomy abortions, which are no longer done, so for practical and ethical reasons this kind of research will not be repeated. But the Bergstroms, who also studied rat, guinea pig, cat, and chicken embryos, did not find anything that substantiates a claim of "brain function, as measured on an electroencephalograph" at six weeks of development, as Goldenring claims.
What they did find was published in various obscure Scandinavian journals or 30-year-old medical books that are hard to find. It's also very well described in The Facts of Life: Science and the Abortion Controversy, a book that's easily available in paperback.
They found "electrical activity" in fetal brainstem cells from 10 weeks of pregnancy (56 days after fertilization) on, but that doesn't mean much. An EEG involves measuring varying electrical potentials across a dipole, or separated positive and negative charges. Any living cell has an electrical potential across its membrane, and any living structure is a dipole, which explains why people have been able to put electrodes on plants, hook them up to EEG machines, and get "evidence" that plants have feelings. But this has nothing to do with "brain waves," which are a nontechnical term for a particular kind of varying potentials produced by certain brain structures that don't even exist in an embryo and associated with consciousness and dreaming as well as the regulation of bodily functions.
The Bergstroms did not find electrical activity of a kind that had anything to do with "brain function" until 84 days (12 weeks) of gestation, or 70 days after conception. The activity then recorded was not in any way similar to what is seen on a normal EEG, which includes what people call "brain waves." Rather, the Bergstroms stimulated the fetal brain stem and were able to record random bursts of electrical activity which looked exactly like the bursts they got from the fetal leg muscles when they were stimulated.
Perhaps most significantly, Sykes implicitly admits (but carefully avoids STATING) the Bergstrom study recorded fetal brain activity on EEGs after 56 days of fertilization. Consequently, they DID "find anything that substantiates a claim of 'brain function, as measured on an electroencephalograph' at six weeks of development, as Goldenring claims." They found electrical brain activity and measured it on an EEG, corroborating Goldenrings statement that, to the extent brain function can be measured by EEG, it was. As Dr. Helleger states, "The meaning of the activity cannot be interpreted;" we can only say EEGs measured SOME kind of brain activity. Thus the physicians with decades of study and medical practice who made medical statements (one of which does not even address abortion) were correct, and the nonprofessional abortion advocate was incorrect to say otherwise.
In "fact," she was not even correct about Dr. John M. Goldenrings NAME; that does not suggest her conclusions about his articles are any better. I found Dr. Goldenrings resume posted online: http://www.jurispro.com/files/documents/doc-221158525-resume.pdf
It is 27 pages, 14 listing authored works. His 1982 JAMA letter to the editor is correctly listed as such, but his 1985 "The Brain Life Theory: Towards a Consistent Biological Definition of Humanness" is just as correctly listed 12th among 32 "Peer review medical journal article[s]." Note: Margaret Sykes cannot be such a peer without an MD and MPH (not to mention a JD.) Again, it is not an appeal to authority to note Dr. Goldenrings assertions are informed by decades of study, experience and qualified third party examination that earned him his medical degrees (and his legal one,) while Ms. Sykes are informed by only her biased policy advocacy. That is a statement of the very kind of fact you demand: He has authority she lacks, because his multi-decade professional career consists of exactly the homework she contends her policy foes have not done, and it is to that work, not the authority stemming from it, that I appeal.
Ultimately, we are reduced to debating the definition of "brain waves," as I stated is always inevitable in these discussions. Sykes correctly and repeatedly notes "brain waves" is a "nontechnical" NONMEDICAL term: It means different things to different people, and has no firm medical definition. She nonetheless chooses to TREAT it as a precisely defined term whenever it suits her, with a definition suiting her. Unsurprisingly, that definition conforms to conclusions suiting her, which only means she knows what evidence WOULD prove her conclusions, not that she has found any. According to Margaret Sykes, first trimester brain activity such as EEGs recorded in both the Japanese and Finnish studies "doesn't mean much" yet "can be interpreted." "Factually," one of those statements MUST be false.
To suggest the EEGs be ignored because "Any living cell has an electrical potential across its membrane, and any living structure is a dipole" is disingenuous (i.e. "misleading and deceptive") since every OBJECT is a dipole of varying strength, and an electrical potential exists between ANY two objects. Obviously an EEG cannot measure the difference between the electrical potential of you or I and that of Mt. Everest, and equating what it CAN measure to that value is ridiculous. If Sykes believes that "has nothing to do with 'brain waves'" her subsequent declaration she has "no objection to saying that 'a human life' or 'human personhood' begins when brain waves are measured on an EEG" is meaningless. She has asserted EEGs do not and cannot measure "brain waves" at all, so conceding life begins when they do so concedes nothing (which was the point.)
Sykes contends "brain waves" have no precise meaning, to serve her contention pro lifers referencing them are ignorant and/or dishonest, but, to serve the same argument, then turns around and asserts "brain waves" DO precisely mean "a particular kind of varying potentials produced by certain brain structures that don't even exist in an embryo and associated with consciousness and dreaming as well as the regulation of bodily functions." She uses that contention not only to discredit pro lifer arguments on abortion, but even to reject Dr. Hellegers statement that "The meaning of the activity cannot be interpreted." His statement is perfectly logical if a first trimester EEG "doesn't mean anything"; it only falls apart if we take "brain waves" to be "in any way similar to what is seen on a normal EEG" (is "normal EEG" a clinical term?
) If "brain waves" is a vague nontechnical term (as Sykes contends through most of her article,) Dr. Hellegers statement is unassailable; if "brain waves" are a sophisticated level of cerebral electrical activity requiring correspondingly sophisticated cerebral anatomy (as Sykes occasionally contends when it suits her, as in this case) it does not. As Sykes herself repeatedly notes, medical literature scrupulously avoids using "brain waves" in the second or any other way, thus she is presumptuous to treat it as such.
Measurements of the electrical activity in the brain in the first half of pregnancy do not show the kind of activity that a developed brain does. Only the latter has actual "brain waves," which, while being a non-technical term as she admits, is still pretty well defined. If it doesn't quack like a duck, it's unlikely to be a duck. Absence of evidence does, in fact, provide some evidence of absence.
As Sykes notes, "the EEG continues to change and mature into childhood," but no one argues newborns and toddlers are not people, let alone that they can be legally killed. Just because she provides an elaborate definition for the term "brain waves," despite admitting it to be a nontechnical term scientists and physicians avoid, does not make it well defined to anyone but Margaret Sykes. Beyond that, while absence of evidence may be evidence of absence, it is not proof; black holes and atomic nuclei persisted in existence quite resolutely for millions of years before humans possessed any evidence of either. Again, I do not fault her failing to prove a negative, but very much fault her voluntarily TRYING, much less contending to have accomplished it.
If someone makes a statement that they claim is supported by evidence, and they are incorrect (knowingly or otherwise), the statement can no longer be considered valid. The person(s) making such a claim must indeed be either ignorant or dishonest in that area. They don't get to keep the statement around afterward and say it might be true, but the evidence is "inconclusive"; this is called privileging the hypothesis. It must fade back into the infinite space of all other "inconclusive" statements; without evidence, there is no legitimate reason to continue to bring it to attention.
Again, you resort to arguments from authority instead of actually arguing the issue. Degrees and experience make it more likely that a person's claims in their area of expertise will be true, but that cannot override actual, empirical evidence. You have utterly failed to discuss the issue on its merits, despite how plainly it was presented.
Dr. Helleger did not make a knowing or otherwise incorrect statement; he went out of his way to avoid making a definitive statement, because, as he DID state, the evidence cannot be interpreted. From that statement, his views on abortion and/or when a fetus is a human being are unclear. However, there is an indication elsewhere he did hold firm views on the matter: Dr. Goldenring dedicated the below linked article to Dr. Hellegers memory, noting he began formulating his "brain life theory" as an undergraduate at the Kennedy Institute for Bioethics at Georgetown University while Dr. Helleger was its chairman. He further states Dr. Hellegers encouragement was invaluable to "the thinking of a heretical young student, even though the implications of the author's theory might prove unsettling to Dr Hellegers's strongly held ethical beliefs." Had Ms. Sykes exercised a little more due diligence she might not have assumed Goldenring ignorant of his mentors letter (despite explicitly citing it.) She might not even have been as incorrect about his name as she was about the statements to which he attached it.
I have no quarrel with Sykes objecting to the use pro life advocates make of Drs. Helleger and Goldenrings work, but she goes too far in trying to discredit them as well. It is a natural impulse, since their work does encourage (WITHOUT CONFIRMING) the conclusions pro lifers tend to draw without rigorous research. It is, however, a misguided and biased impulse uninformed by the study, experience and medical practice from which the doctors benefit. In terms of empirical evidence, it is inconclusive, whether Sykes or anyone else agrees; dismissing the EEG recording in the Japanese survey as instrument error and those in the Finnish study as "background voltage" (until the point she has decided fetuses are people, when the data suddenly means that instead of the opposite) does not change that. She is free to interpret that data differently than the chair of the Kennedy Institute for Bioethics did, but no more credible than I was when interpreting astronomical data differently than Dr. Sean Carroll does, for the same reasons. Either or both of us may be right, but the smart money is on the doctors benefiting from study and observation we lack. That she considers evidence conclusive when doctors do not only proves her judgement inferior rather than superior, due to bias and the absence of their study, experimentation and observations from medical practice. Since the empirical evidence IS inconclusive, those assets are far more compelling than a self appointed online experts autobiographical credentials.
It's really not much of a debate. The parts of our brains which give us self-awareness and other factors essential for personhood are not formed in early-term fetuses. Other research, beyond what Sykes cites, shows this.
Setting aside whether the brain is merely a physical actuator of a nonphysical entity, I believe most of those studies involve people losing self awareness due to brain damage, yet no one would contend they ceased to be people as a result. If someone shot one of those test subjects in cold blood, it would be prosecuted as the murder of a PERSON, even if test data showed that person had lost all self-awareness. It is both dubious and dangerous to let higher functions determine if/when a fetus is a person, because it means the absence of such function in people outside the womb makes them no longer "people" at all. These are the kinds of issues to which Drs. Hellegers and Goldenring devoted their careers, because bioethics covers a lot more than a womans right to choose her online agenda.
First trimester EEGs are inconclusive on whether/when fetuses are people, and thus on whether/when abortion is homicide, justifiable or otherwise. Since I stated that at the beginning of this discussion, I obviously would not object to Sykes comments had she been content with it. All medical publications (including that she accepts or disputes as convenient, such as Dr. Hellegers letter) would support her as it does me.
However, asserting "abortion in the first and most of the second trimester may not be homicide" is not sufficient for her policy advocacy; she evidently feels obligated to establish "abortion prior to the third trimester is DEFINITELY NOT homicide." The lady doth protest too much, methinks; regardless, the evidence does not, and indeed cannot, support her attempt to prove a negative. It remains inconclusive, notwithstanding her unlicensed medical opinions. Claiming otherwise on the grounds doctors did not research their citations as well as she only compounds that with an attempt to prove yet another negative, unless she has an affidavit from them to that effect.
I object to Sykes' conclusions, not her personally, as a CONSEQUENCE of objections to her biased interpretations, not their CAUSE. The cause is her:
1) Open and brazen partisanship,
2) Contradictory standard and
3) Lack of first AND second hand knowledge she incorrectly criticizes as absent even in doctors, not just policy foes.
Those are objections to her arguments merits (or rather, its flaws,) not her. "Factually," she is correct when she says a first trimester EEG "doesn't mean much" but incorrect when she says "it can be interpreted." "Factually," she may or may not be correct when she says pro lifers "dishonestly" cite medical research; not only has she not established they have not personally read the research, but claiming citation of research they only read in part and/or second hand is "dishonest" overtaxes the definition of that word. She can believe pro lifers liars, and it may even be true (though I doubt it; in most cases I think it just a case of sincere and often obstinate error.) She has not proven it, nor even offered any evidence of it save that sloppy research is "typical" of them, which, unlike my objections, IS an ad hominem attack. Observing all that is an attack on her arguments merits, not its author.
Look, man, I truly regret you picked a layman with an axe to grind to prove your argument. Find an objective source and I will be happy to treat it as such.
Fact: She disputed and maligned both their research and conclusions to support her narrative, even when they took no position on abortion.
Fact: She is an abortion advocate, not physician, and so lacks the latters knowledge and training, yet desputes even their conclusions that do not address abortion.
Fact: She repeatedly accused policy opponents of deception based soley on her "doubts" they tracked their quotes sources as diligently as she, doubt in turn resting solely on her contention that is "typical of pro life writings and websites."
It is disappointing that you (incorrectly) accuse me of an ad hominem attack after quoting a "source" that states,
As is typical of "pro-life" writings and websites, however, it's doubtful whether "Jack Dean" or anyone else has actually read Hamlin's speech, which makes citing it dishonest
Sykes made, not just an ad hominem attack, but a string of them based entirely on biased supposition: She declared Dean dishonest because she believes (but cannot know) he did not do his homework, offering no evidence except her further belief pro life advocates "typically" do not. That is evidence of bias, not validity. I advise against letting speculative and biased personal beliefs decide if/when abortion is legal.
I happen to think her assertion both valid and sound, but she made no effort to support it except further assertions of her personal opinion.Precisely the problem: Her goal is portraying opponents as ignorant and/or dishonest, rather than simply advocating her own position. Toward that end she alleges (at least) ignorance in a half dozen people whose entire professional careers consisted of studying and practicing medicine. She then proceeds to "take them to school," laughably presuming she checked their sources better than they. Hence the charges of "unoriginal research," based on no more than her assumption doctors addressing other doctors at medical conferences did not bother checking the sources of the sources they cited, simply because they did not explicitly sub-cite them.
If she was just presuming it, she wouldn't have bothered to go look up those sources and see what they actually said. The practice of citing a source without reading it thoroughly (or at all, if one grabs the citation from someone else) is unfortunately not uncommon.
Perhaps not but, however common citing casually read research is, that does not establish the pro lifers quoted did so, let alone that the doctors THEY quoted did so. It is a supposition based on Sykes' low opinion of pro lifer research (and, apparently, of medical research in general, since neither Dr. Hamlin nor Dr. Helleger took a position on abortion.) She is entitled to her opinion, but it is not an argument, or at least, not a sound one.
If a leading engineer addressed an engineering conference on the subject of nuclear power, only citing a study on electrical generators without bothering to trace it all the way back to the well known Faraday experiments, would that be "unoriginal research"? Is it not a BIT presumptuous for a layman to question a professional citation of a statement on the grounds that statement itself cites one of the fields TEXTBOOKS and thus the writer and audience have not read it?
Faraday's experiments are fairly easy to repeat. Thorough examinations of early-term fetuses are not so easy.
Not the point; Faradays experiments are only easy to repeat IF one is informed of them (i.e. through citation.) By Skyes' standard, citing a study that in turn cited Faradays experiments would be "unoriginal research" unless one explicitly cited Faraday in addition to the study that already cited it. She assumes better knowledge of the subject than leaders in the field who have the benefit she lacks in decades of medical study and practice.
Textbooks can be wrong, too. You are really heavily leaning on the argument from authority right now.
Textbooks can be wrong, yes, but statements and studies in medical science textbooks have received the rigorous peer review Sykes laments as absent in the letters and speeches she rejects (except when noting they stop short of assertions pro lifers contend they make; had she herself stopped at THAT point I would not disagree with her.) That is not an argument from authority, but from the experimentation and study of medical case files on which textbooks are predicated (which Skyes again dismissed as "unoriginal research.") Textbooks can be wrong, but if she contends Intrauterine Development is wrong that "at the end of eight weeks there will be readable electrical activity coming from the brain," she should conduct some experiments of her own demonstrating that, preferably after attending med school to obtain the necessary knowledge. That would be the convincing argument dismissing the statement as "unoriginal research" is not.
In "fact," it let us take a closer look at that section of Sykes' essay, because revealing exposes her arguments to be based on bias more than science:
If we consider the fetus with the more sophisticated modern definition in mind, we find that brain function, as measured by an electroencephalograph, appears to be reliably present in the fetus at about eight weeks' gestation.6,7,8
6. Hellegers A. Fetal development. In: Beauchamp, TL, ed. Contemporary issues in bioethics. Encino, Calif.: Dickenson, 1978:194-9.
7. Bergstrom RM. Development of EEG and unit electrical activity of the brain during ontogeny. In: Jilke LJ, Stanislav T, eds. Ontogenesis of the brain. Praha, Czech: University of Karlova Press, 1968:61-71.
8. Ellingson RJ, Guenter HR. Ontogenesis of the electroencephalogram. In: Himwich WA, ed. Developmental neurology. Springfield Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1970:441-74.
6. Hellegers A. Fetal development. In: Beauchamp, TL, ed. Contemporary issues in bioethics. Encino, Calif.: Dickenson, 1978:194-9.
7. Bergstrom RM. Development of EEG and unit electrical activity of the brain during ontogeny. In: Jilke LJ, Stanislav T, eds. Ontogenesis of the brain. Praha, Czech: University of Karlova Press, 1968:61-71.
8. Ellingson RJ, Guenter HR. Ontogenesis of the electroencephalogram. In: Himwich WA, ed. Developmental neurology. Springfield Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1970:441-74.
As with Hamlin's speech, no original research is being described here, which makes it dishonest and misleading to quote it as the source of a claim. But what did the sources Goldenring used have to say?
Andre Hellegers' "Fetal Development" was first published in Theological Studies, March 1970, and has often been republished in collections of writings on abortion. Hellegers was a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Georgetown University Hospital and first director of its Kennedy Institute of Ethics who wrote about biomedical ethics. As with the other scientists and physicians quoted here, he never used the term "brain waves," but did write that
By the end of seven weeks tickling of the mouth and nose of the developing embryo with a hair will cause it to flex its neck, while at the end of eight weeks there will be readable electrical activity coming from the brain.9 The meaning of the activity cannot be interpreted.
Hellegers was talking about eight weeks from fertilization, not "at eight weeks' gestation" or "six weeks after conception" as Goldenring and Willke incorrectly claim, which makes it 56 days, not 40. But a bigger problem is that Hellegers was writing another personal essay, not reporting his own research. His source was D. Goldblatt's "Nervous System and Sensory Organs" in Intrauterine Development, a 1968 textbook which wasn't original research either.
On the other hand, Bergstrom's "Development of EEG and unit electrical activity of the brain during ontogeny" is original research. Only two courses of study on still-living aborted human embryos and fetuses have ever been done: Okamoto and Kirikae in Japan in the 1940s, and Bergstrom and Bergstrom in Finland in the 1960s. Like the Japanese researchres, the Bergstroms obtained live fetuses "immediately after separation from the maternal circulation" from hysterotomy abortions, which are no longer done, so for practical and ethical reasons this kind of research will not be repeated. But the Bergstroms, who also studied rat, guinea pig, cat, and chicken embryos, did not find anything that substantiates a claim of "brain function, as measured on an electroencephalograph" at six weeks of development, as Goldenring claims.
What they did find was published in various obscure Scandinavian journals or 30-year-old medical books that are hard to find. It's also very well described in The Facts of Life: Science and the Abortion Controversy, a book that's easily available in paperback.
They found "electrical activity" in fetal brainstem cells from 10 weeks of pregnancy (56 days after fertilization) on, but that doesn't mean much. An EEG involves measuring varying electrical potentials across a dipole, or separated positive and negative charges. Any living cell has an electrical potential across its membrane, and any living structure is a dipole, which explains why people have been able to put electrodes on plants, hook them up to EEG machines, and get "evidence" that plants have feelings. But this has nothing to do with "brain waves," which are a nontechnical term for a particular kind of varying potentials produced by certain brain structures that don't even exist in an embryo and associated with consciousness and dreaming as well as the regulation of bodily functions.
The Bergstroms did not find electrical activity of a kind that had anything to do with "brain function" until 84 days (12 weeks) of gestation, or 70 days after conception. The activity then recorded was not in any way similar to what is seen on a normal EEG, which includes what people call "brain waves." Rather, the Bergstroms stimulated the fetal brain stem and were able to record random bursts of electrical activity which looked exactly like the bursts they got from the fetal leg muscles when they were stimulated.
Perhaps most significantly, Sykes implicitly admits (but carefully avoids STATING) the Bergstrom study recorded fetal brain activity on EEGs after 56 days of fertilization. Consequently, they DID "find anything that substantiates a claim of 'brain function, as measured on an electroencephalograph' at six weeks of development, as Goldenring claims." They found electrical brain activity and measured it on an EEG, corroborating Goldenrings statement that, to the extent brain function can be measured by EEG, it was. As Dr. Helleger states, "The meaning of the activity cannot be interpreted;" we can only say EEGs measured SOME kind of brain activity. Thus the physicians with decades of study and medical practice who made medical statements (one of which does not even address abortion) were correct, and the nonprofessional abortion advocate was incorrect to say otherwise.
In "fact," she was not even correct about Dr. John M. Goldenrings NAME; that does not suggest her conclusions about his articles are any better. I found Dr. Goldenrings resume posted online: http://www.jurispro.com/files/documents/doc-221158525-resume.pdf
It is 27 pages, 14 listing authored works. His 1982 JAMA letter to the editor is correctly listed as such, but his 1985 "The Brain Life Theory: Towards a Consistent Biological Definition of Humanness" is just as correctly listed 12th among 32 "Peer review medical journal article[s]." Note: Margaret Sykes cannot be such a peer without an MD and MPH (not to mention a JD.) Again, it is not an appeal to authority to note Dr. Goldenrings assertions are informed by decades of study, experience and qualified third party examination that earned him his medical degrees (and his legal one,) while Ms. Sykes are informed by only her biased policy advocacy. That is a statement of the very kind of fact you demand: He has authority she lacks, because his multi-decade professional career consists of exactly the homework she contends her policy foes have not done, and it is to that work, not the authority stemming from it, that I appeal.
Ultimately, we are reduced to debating the definition of "brain waves," as I stated is always inevitable in these discussions. Sykes correctly and repeatedly notes "brain waves" is a "nontechnical" NONMEDICAL term: It means different things to different people, and has no firm medical definition. She nonetheless chooses to TREAT it as a precisely defined term whenever it suits her, with a definition suiting her. Unsurprisingly, that definition conforms to conclusions suiting her, which only means she knows what evidence WOULD prove her conclusions, not that she has found any. According to Margaret Sykes, first trimester brain activity such as EEGs recorded in both the Japanese and Finnish studies "doesn't mean much" yet "can be interpreted." "Factually," one of those statements MUST be false.
To suggest the EEGs be ignored because "Any living cell has an electrical potential across its membrane, and any living structure is a dipole" is disingenuous (i.e. "misleading and deceptive") since every OBJECT is a dipole of varying strength, and an electrical potential exists between ANY two objects. Obviously an EEG cannot measure the difference between the electrical potential of you or I and that of Mt. Everest, and equating what it CAN measure to that value is ridiculous. If Sykes believes that "has nothing to do with 'brain waves'" her subsequent declaration she has "no objection to saying that 'a human life' or 'human personhood' begins when brain waves are measured on an EEG" is meaningless. She has asserted EEGs do not and cannot measure "brain waves" at all, so conceding life begins when they do so concedes nothing (which was the point.)
Sykes contends "brain waves" have no precise meaning, to serve her contention pro lifers referencing them are ignorant and/or dishonest, but, to serve the same argument, then turns around and asserts "brain waves" DO precisely mean "a particular kind of varying potentials produced by certain brain structures that don't even exist in an embryo and associated with consciousness and dreaming as well as the regulation of bodily functions." She uses that contention not only to discredit pro lifer arguments on abortion, but even to reject Dr. Hellegers statement that "The meaning of the activity cannot be interpreted." His statement is perfectly logical if a first trimester EEG "doesn't mean anything"; it only falls apart if we take "brain waves" to be "in any way similar to what is seen on a normal EEG" (is "normal EEG" a clinical term?
) If "brain waves" is a vague nontechnical term (as Sykes contends through most of her article,) Dr. Hellegers statement is unassailable; if "brain waves" are a sophisticated level of cerebral electrical activity requiring correspondingly sophisticated cerebral anatomy (as Sykes occasionally contends when it suits her, as in this case) it does not. As Sykes herself repeatedly notes, medical literature scrupulously avoids using "brain waves" in the second or any other way, thus she is presumptuous to treat it as such.I dispute her conclusions because, rather than just attacking partisan misuse of those letters and speeches, she extends her attacks to the speeches and letters themselves, impugning (at least) their authors knowledge of their field and its studies along with the misuse others make of their work. I further dismiss her own partisan misuse of those maligned speeches and letters as no better than the examples she attacks. Most of all, I dispute her strong implication research shows brainwaves begin "well into the second half of pregnancy" on the same grounds she disputes that research shows they begin in the first trimester: Because the evidence is inconclusive (which I noted in my first post on the subject.)
Had she set out to argue brainwaves cannot be proven to exist in fetuses before "well into the second half of pregnancy" she would have been on firm ground. She could even cite Dr. Hellegers statement that "at the end of eight weeks there will be readable electrical activity coming from the brain.9 The meaning of the activity cannot be interpreted" as support, rather than dismiss it by insisting "It can be interpreted." Saying an OBGYN professor has more credibility on fetal monitoring than an online advice columnist does is not an ad hominem; that is an indictment of her education and experience, not her personally. Given her vitriolic and biased approach throughout, and that her specific About.com experience is "About Pro Choice Views," I also question her objectivity. If you want to see what an ACTUAL ad honinem looks like, try this statement from your source:
"As is typical of "pro-life" writings and websites, however, it's doubtful whether "Jack Dean" or anyone else has actually read Hamlin's speech, which makes citing it dishonest."
It is not an ad hominem to point out she lacks the medical knowledge and experience of those whose medical statements she disputes, or that her open bias undermines her objectivity. It IS an ad hominem to declare someone "dishonest" solely because of an ASSUMPTION they did not do their homework in turn resting solely on her belief that is "typical" of her policy opponents. Granted, it is hard to prove a negative (that Dean did not do his research,) but no one forced her to try.
That, and the naked bias motivating it, is the whole problem with her hit piece: She seeks, not to prove brainwaves and the physical structures necessary for them have only been found "well into the second half of pregnancy," but that they are ABSENT at all prior points. Had she been forced to prove that negative her efforts would be pitiable; since she CHOSE to attempt it they are simply lamentable.
Had she set out to argue brainwaves cannot be proven to exist in fetuses before "well into the second half of pregnancy" she would have been on firm ground. She could even cite Dr. Hellegers statement that "at the end of eight weeks there will be readable electrical activity coming from the brain.9 The meaning of the activity cannot be interpreted" as support, rather than dismiss it by insisting "It can be interpreted." Saying an OBGYN professor has more credibility on fetal monitoring than an online advice columnist does is not an ad hominem; that is an indictment of her education and experience, not her personally. Given her vitriolic and biased approach throughout, and that her specific About.com experience is "About Pro Choice Views," I also question her objectivity. If you want to see what an ACTUAL ad honinem looks like, try this statement from your source:
"As is typical of "pro-life" writings and websites, however, it's doubtful whether "Jack Dean" or anyone else has actually read Hamlin's speech, which makes citing it dishonest."
It is not an ad hominem to point out she lacks the medical knowledge and experience of those whose medical statements she disputes, or that her open bias undermines her objectivity. It IS an ad hominem to declare someone "dishonest" solely because of an ASSUMPTION they did not do their homework in turn resting solely on her belief that is "typical" of her policy opponents. Granted, it is hard to prove a negative (that Dean did not do his research,) but no one forced her to try.
That, and the naked bias motivating it, is the whole problem with her hit piece: She seeks, not to prove brainwaves and the physical structures necessary for them have only been found "well into the second half of pregnancy," but that they are ABSENT at all prior points. Had she been forced to prove that negative her efforts would be pitiable; since she CHOSE to attempt it they are simply lamentable.
Measurements of the electrical activity in the brain in the first half of pregnancy do not show the kind of activity that a developed brain does. Only the latter has actual "brain waves," which, while being a non-technical term as she admits, is still pretty well defined. If it doesn't quack like a duck, it's unlikely to be a duck. Absence of evidence does, in fact, provide some evidence of absence.
As Sykes notes, "the EEG continues to change and mature into childhood," but no one argues newborns and toddlers are not people, let alone that they can be legally killed. Just because she provides an elaborate definition for the term "brain waves," despite admitting it to be a nontechnical term scientists and physicians avoid, does not make it well defined to anyone but Margaret Sykes. Beyond that, while absence of evidence may be evidence of absence, it is not proof; black holes and atomic nuclei persisted in existence quite resolutely for millions of years before humans possessed any evidence of either. Again, I do not fault her failing to prove a negative, but very much fault her voluntarily TRYING, much less contending to have accomplished it.
The research evidence, as Dr. Helleger noted of one example, "cannot be interpreted." That does not support pro life claims of early fetal brainwaves, but also does not refute them as Sykes insists. Had she been content with "inconclusive" her claims would be valid (her tone would still be horrid, but civility and veracity are distinct.) Yet that would not give her moral ascendancy, prove allegations pro lifers are ignorant and/or dishonest. So she attacked the credibility of doctors as well as pro lifers, to serve her unabashed bias, on no better basis than her assumption she (but not they) read all the medical research they directly and otherwise referenced.
When an OBGYN professor says data "cannot be interpreted" and an online advice writer with no medical degree says it can, I will defer to the doctor(s) whose opinion is based on decades of medical study, practice and research rather than an overt political agenda. It is not an ad hominem to say she lacks their knowledge, experience and objectivity; it is a simple statement of fact. Sykes concedes in her second paragraph that "brainwaves" "is a nontechnical term" for very complex phenomena, and disparages its use throughout her article. She nonetheless insists research shows them present, indeed, POSSIBLE, ONLY at some unspecified "nontechnical" point "well into the second half of pregnancy." That is a bridge very much too far, but she attempts it anyway, even to the point of assailing a host of doctors whose claim to "expertise" rests on university degrees and decades of practice and research rather than an autobiographical web profile.
When an OBGYN professor says data "cannot be interpreted" and an online advice writer with no medical degree says it can, I will defer to the doctor(s) whose opinion is based on decades of medical study, practice and research rather than an overt political agenda. It is not an ad hominem to say she lacks their knowledge, experience and objectivity; it is a simple statement of fact. Sykes concedes in her second paragraph that "brainwaves" "is a nontechnical term" for very complex phenomena, and disparages its use throughout her article. She nonetheless insists research shows them present, indeed, POSSIBLE, ONLY at some unspecified "nontechnical" point "well into the second half of pregnancy." That is a bridge very much too far, but she attempts it anyway, even to the point of assailing a host of doctors whose claim to "expertise" rests on university degrees and decades of practice and research rather than an autobiographical web profile.
If someone makes a statement that they claim is supported by evidence, and they are incorrect (knowingly or otherwise), the statement can no longer be considered valid. The person(s) making such a claim must indeed be either ignorant or dishonest in that area. They don't get to keep the statement around afterward and say it might be true, but the evidence is "inconclusive"; this is called privileging the hypothesis. It must fade back into the infinite space of all other "inconclusive" statements; without evidence, there is no legitimate reason to continue to bring it to attention.
Again, you resort to arguments from authority instead of actually arguing the issue. Degrees and experience make it more likely that a person's claims in their area of expertise will be true, but that cannot override actual, empirical evidence. You have utterly failed to discuss the issue on its merits, despite how plainly it was presented.
Dr. Helleger did not make a knowing or otherwise incorrect statement; he went out of his way to avoid making a definitive statement, because, as he DID state, the evidence cannot be interpreted. From that statement, his views on abortion and/or when a fetus is a human being are unclear. However, there is an indication elsewhere he did hold firm views on the matter: Dr. Goldenring dedicated the below linked article to Dr. Hellegers memory, noting he began formulating his "brain life theory" as an undergraduate at the Kennedy Institute for Bioethics at Georgetown University while Dr. Helleger was its chairman. He further states Dr. Hellegers encouragement was invaluable to "the thinking of a heretical young student, even though the implications of the author's theory might prove unsettling to Dr Hellegers's strongly held ethical beliefs." Had Ms. Sykes exercised a little more due diligence she might not have assumed Goldenring ignorant of his mentors letter (despite explicitly citing it.) She might not even have been as incorrect about his name as she was about the statements to which he attached it.
I have no quarrel with Sykes objecting to the use pro life advocates make of Drs. Helleger and Goldenrings work, but she goes too far in trying to discredit them as well. It is a natural impulse, since their work does encourage (WITHOUT CONFIRMING) the conclusions pro lifers tend to draw without rigorous research. It is, however, a misguided and biased impulse uninformed by the study, experience and medical practice from which the doctors benefit. In terms of empirical evidence, it is inconclusive, whether Sykes or anyone else agrees; dismissing the EEG recording in the Japanese survey as instrument error and those in the Finnish study as "background voltage" (until the point she has decided fetuses are people, when the data suddenly means that instead of the opposite) does not change that. She is free to interpret that data differently than the chair of the Kennedy Institute for Bioethics did, but no more credible than I was when interpreting astronomical data differently than Dr. Sean Carroll does, for the same reasons. Either or both of us may be right, but the smart money is on the doctors benefiting from study and observation we lack. That she considers evidence conclusive when doctors do not only proves her judgement inferior rather than superior, due to bias and the absence of their study, experimentation and observations from medical practice. Since the empirical evidence IS inconclusive, those assets are far more compelling than a self appointed online experts autobiographical credentials.
She DOES do a great job illustrating why "brainwaves" is a nontechnical term. Whether the various examples of different kinds of electrical brain activity well within the first trimester, or others in the second, indicate a person is a legitimate debate. The problem is she treats it as settled, and attacks claims to the contrary, even those by leading doctors, dismissing even those supported by MEDICAL TEXTBOOKS on the assumption doctors have not read them. Is it not absurd for someone with no medical degree to assume more familiarity with medical textbooks than those who DO have the degrees REQUIRING that knowledge?
Objectively discussing an objective interpretation of medical data requires such an interpretation to discuss. An interpretation heavily biased to "refute" one with an equal but opposite bias does NOT qualify. An interpretation from an About Pro Choice Views writer with no medical degree, who nonetheless disputes the medical opinions of not only lay partisans on the other side, but doctors who take no position on abortion, is less than uncredible.
We return whence we came, and had I intended to debate what meets the "nontechnical" definition of brainwaves I would not have said at the start opinions vary.
Objectively discussing an objective interpretation of medical data requires such an interpretation to discuss. An interpretation heavily biased to "refute" one with an equal but opposite bias does NOT qualify. An interpretation from an About Pro Choice Views writer with no medical degree, who nonetheless disputes the medical opinions of not only lay partisans on the other side, but doctors who take no position on abortion, is less than uncredible.
We return whence we came, and had I intended to debate what meets the "nontechnical" definition of brainwaves I would not have said at the start opinions vary.
It's really not much of a debate. The parts of our brains which give us self-awareness and other factors essential for personhood are not formed in early-term fetuses. Other research, beyond what Sykes cites, shows this.
Setting aside whether the brain is merely a physical actuator of a nonphysical entity, I believe most of those studies involve people losing self awareness due to brain damage, yet no one would contend they ceased to be people as a result. If someone shot one of those test subjects in cold blood, it would be prosecuted as the murder of a PERSON, even if test data showed that person had lost all self-awareness. It is both dubious and dangerous to let higher functions determine if/when a fetus is a person, because it means the absence of such function in people outside the womb makes them no longer "people" at all. These are the kinds of issues to which Drs. Hellegers and Goldenring devoted their careers, because bioethics covers a lot more than a womans right to choose her online agenda.
First trimester EEGs are inconclusive on whether/when fetuses are people, and thus on whether/when abortion is homicide, justifiable or otherwise. Since I stated that at the beginning of this discussion, I obviously would not object to Sykes comments had she been content with it. All medical publications (including that she accepts or disputes as convenient, such as Dr. Hellegers letter) would support her as it does me.
However, asserting "abortion in the first and most of the second trimester may not be homicide" is not sufficient for her policy advocacy; she evidently feels obligated to establish "abortion prior to the third trimester is DEFINITELY NOT homicide." The lady doth protest too much, methinks; regardless, the evidence does not, and indeed cannot, support her attempt to prove a negative. It remains inconclusive, notwithstanding her unlicensed medical opinions. Claiming otherwise on the grounds doctors did not research their citations as well as she only compounds that with an attempt to prove yet another negative, unless she has an affidavit from them to that effect.
Unless you have any actual objections to make to the interpretation itself, rather than the person who made it, there is nothing further to discuss here.
I object to Sykes' conclusions, not her personally, as a CONSEQUENCE of objections to her biased interpretations, not their CAUSE. The cause is her:
1) Open and brazen partisanship,
2) Contradictory standard and
3) Lack of first AND second hand knowledge she incorrectly criticizes as absent even in doctors, not just policy foes.
Those are objections to her arguments merits (or rather, its flaws,) not her. "Factually," she is correct when she says a first trimester EEG "doesn't mean much" but incorrect when she says "it can be interpreted." "Factually," she may or may not be correct when she says pro lifers "dishonestly" cite medical research; not only has she not established they have not personally read the research, but claiming citation of research they only read in part and/or second hand is "dishonest" overtaxes the definition of that word. She can believe pro lifers liars, and it may even be true (though I doubt it; in most cases I think it just a case of sincere and often obstinate error.) She has not proven it, nor even offered any evidence of it save that sloppy research is "typical" of them, which, unlike my objections, IS an ad hominem attack. Observing all that is an attack on her arguments merits, not its author.
Look, man, I truly regret you picked a layman with an axe to grind to prove your argument. Find an objective source and I will be happy to treat it as such.