Abstinence Only

Growing up sex education classes consisted of the teacher standing up in front of the room reminding us that sex was bad and it was not good until you were married. However, today this method of teaching seems quite foolish as it is obvious that children younger and younger are having sex, the result sometimes being children born to people who are still children themselves. “The abstinence-only campaign has always been driven more by ideology than by sound public health policy” (NYT) the program’s strict guidelines prohibit any promotion of “contraceptive use and require teaching that sex outside marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects” (NYT). A report done on four communities where abstinence instruction was present revealed that it made no difference that these schools were taught abstinence-only instruction, students were just as likely to become sexually active at the same age as those who had not. Those who support the abstinence-only program believe that the recent decline in teenage pregnancy is due to the success of the program. However, a recent study by Columbia University and the Guttmacher Institute, “attributed 86 percent of the decline to greater an more effective use of contraceptives- and only 14 percent to teenagers’ deciding to wait longer to start having sex” (NYT).

This op-ed piece brings up an issue that is not just applicable in this case. Organizations, groups, associations, etc are constantly trying to take credit or twist something to better suit them when it really doesn’t. In this case the abstinence-only program wants to believe or take credit for the sharp decline in teenage pregnancy. Though like stated it was not this program that deserves the credit but the fact that teenagers are being proactive in their decisions and using contraceptives. So if we know that these young adults are not oblivious to sex, they know what it is and most likely are “doing it”, how come adults are so unwilling to let go of their conservative concepts to further aide in preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases? If a child comes home pregnant is it her fault or is it the fault of those who refused to educate her on different methods of protection? Once again looking back to Garfinkel and his structural and individual approach, which is right and which is wrong? I am going to take the middle of the road approach and argue that it is the individual’s fault that did not support the structure of genuine sexual education. If teens were to understand that it is a smart decision to wait until you are older to have sex however if you are going to have sex there are certain precautions that can be taken to prevent pregnancy. There is always that argument that when you tell kids not to do something they just want to do it more. Teaching teens how to take care of themselves is not condoning premarital sex it is merely helping them establish a foundation to fall back on if need be.

Bibliography-

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/opinion/28sat1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Pharmaceutical Advertisements

In a new article in the New Standard, an independent non-profit news source, discusses the link between pharmaceutical advertisements and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We’ve all seen the pharmaceutical ads for arthritis, osteoporosis, sexual enhancement, and the latest for restless leg syndrome (a problem I hear is sweeping the nation). Most of us realize how fake these commercials are and that they are a bit over the top in their method of marketing the product. The product has long stopped being the focus of the commercials, it now depends on which celebrity is a spokesperson, how funny the commercial is or how dramatic they can make the ailment seem so that everyone feel that they are suffering. The argument this article makes is that it is not right for pharmaceutical companies to get away with this and they should be held accountable for what some feel is unmoral behavior. Currently the FDA does impose certain requirements on these pharmaceutical ads and the FDA is supposed to prohibit false and misleading messages as well as clarifying the mandatory risk information (Mehta). The article claims that, “Though drug companies are required to submit their advertisements to the FDA, the agency does not review them before they are released to the public” (Mehta). It is within the FDA’s power to have these pharmaceutical companies change their advertisements if they find information that “violates regulations” (Mehta). However, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), “Released a report last November that found that the FDA reviews only a “small portion” of the advertisements it receives, and does not review with the same consistent criteria” (Mehta). The FDA has realized that their neck is on the line and has recently formulated plans to ask Congress to, “chare drug companies fees in order to fund FDA review of advertisements before they go public” (Mehta). However, consumer advocates are saying this would give the pharmaceutical companies, “way too much leverage over the FDA and has resulted in rushing drugs to the market” (Mehta). All aspects of the medical field have always been in a tough position due to the ethics and values involved.

So what is “right” in cases like these? The article suggests that pharmaceutical companies are, in some cases, getting away with false advertising because the FDA is not thoroughly reviewing advertisements before they are sent out. Whose fault is it that these false advertisements are going out, the company that produces them or the organization that allows them? People don’t care whose fault it is, they just care that it is happening and in the process proving what selfish, valueless people are making decisions on behalf of the public. Garfinkel discusses how people demand that social science be “value-free” (p.134), they “desire to build social science on the model of natural science; the ideal is of value-free inquiry “just like in physics”” (p.134). Like I discussed in a previous blog, most people don’t see in grey, they see in black and white. Therefore people expect science to be value-free because they want to believe that bias can not enter a laboratory.

Let’s look at these medical scientists who are creating these drugs, it could be argued that their work is value-free because all they do is measure and test and create drugs with the intent to help people. It is not their fault that after they create the drug the marketing department conveys it in the wrong way. That’s a great and naive belief. Who is not to say that maybe those scientist don’t cut corners a bit because they know if they can create a miracle drug they will be rewarded for it. There have always been cases like this where drugs are recalled because they are not producing the desired effect. Is this the marketing teams fault for producing a misleading advertisement, or is it the scientists fault because maybe they cut a few corners in the production of the drug so they could reap the benefits? This jumps back to a concept initiated by Garfinkel’s introduction of individual and structural factors. Like everything else the idea of “value-free” is not just a structural concept but an individual one as well. In cases like these that involve people and especially people concerned about money, there is not a chance for a “value-free” environment because despite what people would like to think, people think about themselves first and foremost.

Bibliography-

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/4716

Lawful Incest

In an interesting op-ed piece in the Boston Globe a columnist talks about how he was invited on the BBC to discuss the topic legalizing adult incest, I think I became physically ill when I read this!! Senator Rick Santorum was quoted as saying, “If the Supreme Court says you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything” (Jacoby). Again, ewww!! This whole controversy was brought about because of the Supreme Court’s decision to “declare it unconstitutional for any stat to punish consensual gay sex” (Jacoby). Other dissenters agreed with Santorum’s statement and said that if this is the Supreme Court’s decision than, “bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are all called into question” (Jacoby). A recent article was also published in TIME magazine about a man from Ohio who was “convicted of incest for having sex with his 22-year-old stepdaughter” (Jacoby). The man who was convicted is using Lawrence vs. Texas as his defense; the case challenged the “constitutionality of the laws criminalizing homosexual sodomy” (Jacoby). So the current quest is to determine if the Supreme Court will sanctify adult incest as they were willing to allow consensual gay sex.

First of all my conservative upbringing does not even allow me to process this idea, that because the Supreme Court says that it is alright for consensual homosexual sex it should then be alright for adult incest. I think that is quite a leap! First of all nowhere in the article does it mention that the Supreme Court should accept consensual adult incest but just adult incest. This makes me feel like maybe it is not consensual, which mean that under no way should it be allowed. However, if it were to be consensual sex I feel that it is not the Supreme Court’s job to justify who people can or cannot have sex with. It is not the Supreme Court’s job whether or not to determine what is morally right or wrong but merely to defend people’s rights. My question is how did we even get to the point where people desire incest. I think there is some underlying Freudian theory to explain this, the whole mother/father complex. I think we can also look at this using Garfinkel’s theory of contrast spaces. Within sexuality there are numerous different contrast spaces, the two focused on in this article are the contrast space of adult incest being acceptable and desirable and the concept space that having sex with a family member is morally repugnant (if you didn’t guess, this is the contrast space I’m in). When the question is asked, “Do you find a family member sexually attractive?” Someone who is all for incest could argue that it doesn’t matter that they are a family member they are merely a person and therefore sexual attraction can exist. Those who are against incest might point out that they could never feel sexual attraction to someone they are related to because they share a different kind of relationship with them. Is either one of these arguments right or wrong? No, both arguments are opinions and therefore not wrong, however that doesn’t make them morally or socially acceptable. A person against incest could also say that it is possible for a family member to feel some attraction for another family member, but compared to an advocate of incest they can control their feelings and not act upon them. Issues like this, of a moral nature, will never come to a definite decision as to what is right and what is wrong because there are too many different contrast spaces that have been created due to the evolution of society. Society is constantly evolving and new ideas, concept and opinions are always being introduced. We no longer live in a limited society where there is a definite right and wrong, today the grey area is constantly expanding and people need to be aware of that. Just because I feel that incest is wrong doesn’t make it wrong, but it also doesn’t make it right. That is the difficulty of these times, even though most people live in this grey area between black and white they still want black and white answers to their questions. People want someone to say adult incest is wrong or adult incest is right, they can’t accept a verdict that says people can make their own decisions.

Bibliography-

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/05/02/lawful_incest_may_be_on_its_way/

"Show Me the Science"

An op-ed piece in the New York Times discusses an issue that has become fond to me, the issue of evolution and intelligent design. This piece discusses President Bush’s proposal to teach intelligent design in schools. Up until this point the only thing being taught in public schools was the theory of evolution. The article quotes President Bush saying, “I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought” (Dennett). Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee reiterated the point saying that teaching intelligent design as well as evolution, “doesn’t force any particular theory on anyone”, he also said, “I think in a pluralistic society that is the fairest way to go about education and training people for the future” (Dennett). Dennett, the author of this op-ed piece feels that everyone is putting stock in this hoax in the form of intelligent design. He claims that people are putting as much faith in this theory as they would quantum physics or Einsteinian relativity, but they are being mislead. Dennett says that physicists are lucky because not many people grasp the basic concepts of quantum physics or Einsteinian relativity enough to dispute the findings that are considered fact. However with evolution and creationism, the facts supporting either one of them are not strong enough and are much more basic, so people are constantly questioning them and working to see if something else out there is better hence the development of intelligent design.

In chapter 4 of Latour, he discusses how theories or studies get their start. As an example he uses Charles Lyell and the development of the study of geology. Latour goes on to explain how Lyell didn’t just decide he wanted to study geology; it was a process of trial and error before he even got to the point where people would take him seriously. Yet with another example Latour points out that if no one is interested, the less there is that can be learned (Latour, p.152). He also says that if there is only one person specializing in a new topic or issue that it isn’t worthwhile and no one will take the findings seriously. New work requires others who are equally specialized to question your work, “Others who are as specialized as you, are trying out your material so fiercely that they may push the proof race to a point where all your resources are barely enough to win the encounter” (Latour, p.152). When preliminary groundwork is not laid scientists risk their work not being taking seriously, therefore completely defeating the purpose of doing the work in the first place.

So back to the issue of intelligent design, what has made it an issue worth being considered by the President of the United States as important enough to be taught in public schools? In essence intelligent design is a combination of both evolution or the natural processes of human development yet also believes that it is the Abrahamic God who is the creator. I feel that it has been a prominent issue of discussion because people are trying to make sense of interconnecting science and religion. Because of the world we live in today we are already picking and choosing bits and pieces from science and religion as to what we believe. Even those who consider themselves devoutly religious are making some concessions to their beliefs because of the lives they live, technology itself is science. Back to the question as to whether intelligent design is appropriate or necessary to teach in school, I would say that it may not be necessary but it isn’t doing harm. Like President Bush said it is part of the educational experience to be presented with different schools of thought so that children are taught to make their own decisions and have the chance to do so instead of schools forcing only one idea on students.

Bibliography-

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/opinion/28dennett.html?ex=1282881600&en=f3357abadb9ed96e&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The New Habitable Planet

Recently European scientists have discovered the most “Earth-like planet outside our solar system” (CNN.com). Obviously there would be several differences between Earth and this planet because it is not an exact replication of Earth but one that merely has a reasonable number of similarities. Among those similarities is that the temperature would be close to what the temperature here on Earth is as well as that the planet is close in size to the Earth, both factors making it to be, “the first potentially habitable planet besides Earth or Mars” (CNN.com). The differences of this new planet compared to Earth is that “sun” wouldn’t burn as brightly, as it would not be the same sun Earth has. This “sun” would, “hang close, large and red in the sky, glowing faintly like a charcoal ember. And it probably would never set if you lived on the sunny side of the planet” (CNN.com). It would also be possible for a person to celebrate their birthday every thirteen days due to the fact that the new planet circles its “sun” at a much faster speed than the Earth circles its sun. Still based on theory it is proposed that this new planet should have an atmosphere, though the scientists who discovered the planet and are doing the research are still unsure of what is in that atmosphere. It is important to determine what is in the atmosphere because if the atmosphere is too thick the surface temperature could become to hot and therefore be uninhabitable (CNN.com). According to the article there have been 220 planets that astronomers have discovered outside our solar system and have had the “Goldilocks problem”; “They’ve been too hot, too cold or just plain too big and gaseous, like uninhabitable Jupiter” (CNN.com). According to the astronomers who discovered this planet this is one of the most promising discoveries, as far as planets go, in a long time.

Why does this discovery mean so much for scientists today? Maybe scientists are desperate to discover another inhabitable planet due to the increasing deterioration of Earth. Today there is an increasing amount of panic among the people, arising because some feel that existing “rules” are no longer applicable, specifically concerning the planet and what is supposed to be normal. Kuhn says that, “Failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for new ones” (Kuhn, p.68). If the things that we believe to be stable and constant for us as humans begin changing or disappearing from existence altogether, people are going to panic. A hundreds years ago the planet being destroyed was not a huge issue of concern because things did not exist that could create such a drastic effect. But as the world grew and as technology advanced the world/environment began suffering. Now that things that we once didn’t need to question, like “is the planet going to survive forever?’ are being doubted people are starting to research and create new “rules” or theories. Hence the creation of systems to purify salt water, due to the fact that the Earth’s fresh water supply is diminishing. Or the recent increase in the ever present recycling campaign because people realize that some stuff is not reusable and just contributes to the overpopulation of landfills. Maybe the discoverers of this new planet did not go out with the intention of finding a new planet solely for the purpose of humans inhabiting it because Earth may some day no longer exist. But I think the discovery it is going to lead a lot of people to start thinking about the creation of a new planet to inhabit. Like Kuhn says it takes a crisis or the failure of something that used to be a concrete given for people to start thinking in new in different ways so that they can ultimately fix the crisis or failure.

Bibliography-

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/04/25/habitable.planet.ap/index.html

"Going Green" Hurting the Economy?

In a recent blog I read the topic being discussed was how people are fearful that going green and turning to alternate energy sources or focusing on recycling appropriate items will hurt our economy. The particular focus of concern is that curbing greenhouse emissions will harm economic growth. The Canadian government pointed out that by meeting the goal for reduced greenhouse emissions will raise unemployment and throw things into recession. China has always complained that the Kyoto Protocol would prove to damage their developing country. The Kyoto Protocol being an, “amendment to the international treaty on climate change, that assigned mandatory emission limitations for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to certain nations” (Wikipedia). On the other hand however if a country neglects to improve their environmental status there is also a large cost. For example in China’s Guizhou Province there was a substantial sulfur dioxide discharge which left 450 people in the hospital and had the possibility of contaminating crops and farmland (Rosenthal).

What are the cost people are willing to pay to keep their businesses running? Some like the company in China, are willing to risk the safety and health of hundreds of people let alone the long term damage an incident like that can do to the environment. Garfinkel discusses in chapter three of his book Forms of Explanation the different theories presented over history that argue what gives people the right for their holdings. What gives these companies who have no consideration for the environment the right or the ability to do whatever they want? Garfinkel quotes Balzac who says that, “Every great fortune begins with a crime” (Garfinkel, p.82). This quote was in reference to the mafia and how they would do whatever was necessary to come out on top. Is this not what these companies are doing when they do not take into consideration the long-term effects of their actions? I think it is, these companies are more concerned about profit margins than anything else, and discharging sulfur dioxide and harming hundreds of people is just a means to an end for them. Garfinkel also introduces Locke’s theory of holdings; “The labor of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes our of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with it, and joined it to something which is his own, and thereby making it his property” (Garfinkel, p.81). This could be argued to support these large companies in their decisions whatever they may be. The companies could argue that it is their work and the result of their labor therefore it is there right to do with their property however they please. While this argument may have worked decades ago it no longer applies now because so many new laws and liberties have been created to prevent people from claiming everything as their “property”. If we still entirely followed Locke’s theory, man could still consider his wife and his children his property and do whatever he pleases with them. Obviously this is no longer socially acceptable and laws have been introduced to prevent instances like this from occurring. So if laws can be created to protect certain things it is necessary to create laws to protect things that cannot protect themselves from organizations or individuals who share the same beliefs as Balzac or Locke.

Something else to consider though is that today we exist because the earth has been here to house us. The earth is the only thing that has remained constant over the hundreds of years of human history, yes it may have changed a bit here and there but there has always been the earth. Now today through emissions produced by us we are destroying our one constant and people are not doing all they can to protect it. Today people are so short sighted and can only see the dollar signs in front of them that they refuse to look decades down the road to how our earth will deteriorate.

Bibliography-

Rosenthal, Libby. http://blogs.iht.com/tribtalk/business/green/?p=36

Evolution vs. Religion

Like I have said before the debate between evolution and creationism has constantly been a debate one that doesn’t look like there will ever be a solution to. In a recent blog on Pure Pedantry, by Jake Young a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, there is discussion on some recent events within the Catholic Church. The blog discusses an article that appeared in The Economist that discusses how the dispute between religion and evolution has gone global. An article was written in the summer of 2005 by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, the Archbishop of Vienna who challenged, “the idea that natural selection is an adequate explanation for the diversity and complexity of life in all its forms” (Young). Around the same time this article was written by the Archbishop a Jesuit astronomer, Father George Coyne, began to raise support for evolution. Many religious scientists have placed their beliefs in something called Intelligent Design. Because I was unfamiliar with what exactly this means I turned to Wikipedia.org and though I know some of its definitions are biased, I just wanted a basic understanding;

“Intelligent design is the proposition that certain features of the universe and of living things can better be explained by and intelligent cause rather than natural processes such as natural selection. It is a modern form of the teleological argument (an argument for the existence of God), framed in such a way that it does not specify the nature or identity of the designer. Its primary proponents believe the designer to be the Abrahamic God, and claim that intelligent design is a scientific theory that stands on equal footing with, or is superior to, current scientific theories regarding the evolution and origin of life” (Wikipedia).

Despite the fact that many religious scientist are now putting their faith in this intelligent design, many Catholic physicists, biologists and astronomers are adamant that there is no reason for their to change their views and feel that intelligent design is bad science; “And they expressed concern (as the Christian philosopher Augustine did in the 4^th century) that if the Christian church teaches things about the physical world which are manifestly false, then everything else the church teaches might be discredited too” (Young). There are currently two camps among the Catholic Church trying to influence the pope on matters of science. In the one camp there are those who believe that physics and metaphysics should stay separated and that “natural phenomena have natural causes”. They also assert that, “every year the theory of evolution is consolidated with fresh evidence” (Young). The second camp includes those who believe that “Darwinian science should not seduce people into believing that man evolved purely as the result of a process of random selection” (Young). Young then brings up a good point, how long can religion survive if it continues to argue that empirical evidence is fictional? He questions, “Can it successfully argue that the science which has produced huge technical understanding and improvement in quality of life is at the same time fundamentally flawed?” (Young).

Jake Young’s answer to his final question was “no” and I would have to agree with him, how long can people keep arguing against something that is proved time and again through numerous means of research, they can’t. However, it appears by some of the comments posted in the blog from The Economist article that people are obviously not going to give up trying to disprove it. In his book Science in Action Latour does not directly talk about or discuss religion; however he does discuss the concept of networks, which he describes as a net, “The word network indicates that resources are concentrated in a few places- the knots and the nodes- which are connected with one another-the links and the mesh: these connections transform the scattered resources into a net that may seem to extend everywhere” (Latour, p.180). This concept of a network is that they are built of all these individual ideas, theories and facts and together they build this net of resources and information. This article specifically discusses Catholicism, which is its own network, as well as discusses evolution, which is also its own network. The difficulty here is if these two networks are separate of each other, is it possible for them to intertwine? Obviously several members of the Catholic clergy, mentioned in the article, do believe that it is possible for the two to intertwine as they are stating beliefs in some of the concepts of evolution. And though they are making claims that they believe in evolution, I would still like to believe that they also believe in God because they are representatives of the church. These examples of clergy extending their beliefs to accept ideas of evolution show how much more liberal the church is becoming in their beliefs. Years ago evolution wasn’t even mentioned in the church, and now it looks like it is not only being discussed but accepted. Even though Latour states that networks are independent structures, as he illustrates with his example of meteorology (Latour, p.181), where he says that to truly understand it you have to be, “inside their own network” (Latour, p.181) it is being proven otherwise by these clergymen believing in evolution. This is not to say that Latour’s theory of networks is wrong just that the theory itself has to evolve with the times. I don’t think that either network will ever be totally capable of completely intertwining or accepting the content of the other network because neither network is currently entirely backed by 100 percent proven facts. Evolution will never completely be proven because it happened such a long time ago that much of its evidence is gone. And religion, specifically creationism, will never be completely proven due to the same reasoning. However, with what each network currently contains information and fact wise it is reasonable for them to somewhat become intertwined in their beliefs.

Bibliography-

http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2007/04/evolution_and_religion_debate.php