A tricky question.

[Magus]

A human without a clue would still know that the process of pregnancy is not random, dumbfuck. It has mechanisms and direction. Ergo, it is totally unreasonable to claim that there is a 50/50 chance.

Which makes it good that I never claimed a 50/50 pregnancy chance

PS. Your insistence on talking about "bias" and "certainty" reeks of religious apologist bullshit. It's all the same kind of language they always use in order to dismiss scientific conclusions. Which, not coincidentally, is precisely what you are doing here when you unilaterally declare that science can come to no conclusion just because you personally don't find it convincing.

Going back to my second post on this thread, it says (erroneously) - that science doesn't have a conclusion for when human life begins. That should read "for when human "thought" begins." I was using the word "human" to imply the presence of humanity - aka intelligent thought.

Looking at that post, the argument I was making was that for the time period of pregnancy that science is unable to discern rational thought, it's anybody's guess whether that thought it is occurring or not.

[Darth Servo]

i think true justice in this case would be to have the rapist (if caught) be forced to raise the child after its born

You really think a rapist would make a good parent?

[Darth Wong]

He's more sneaky than he admits. He claimed that there was a 50/50 chance of human life beginning at conception when in fact there is no point during this process where life begins at all, because nothing is ever dead. He then claimed that there is a 50/50 chance of personhood beginning at conception when in fact there is no brain, and the brain is the person. He then claimed that any ambiguity automatically resolves to a 50/50 chance if you don't know any better, when in fact you should say that you don't know the odds. And then finally, he pretended that he never said there was a 50/50 chance of this proposition being true at all; just a 50/50 chance that a totally clueless person with a totally random decision-making process (like tossing a coin) would choose one conclusion or the other.

He's a fucking liar, pure and simple.

[Darth Wong]

Magus, why don't you just admit that you totally reject the scientific method? You've said as much already, whether you know it or not.

[Magus]

You are deliberately confusing the probability of someone coming to a certain conclusion with the probability of a particular conclusion being true, you deceptive little twat.

The first post this came up in, I said:

But regardless, a fetus is either a human life or it is not, and we have a 50-50 chance of getting it right.

Plainly referring to someone coming to a certain conclusion. Someone later misunderstood, and asked about it...I said:

Not at all. I'm saying that our chances of being correct in a baseless assumption about whether a fetus is a human being is 50-50.

Later, still on the second page, I clarified yet again:

Regarding the probability comments - I'm not giving a probability of such things being fact - I'm giving a probability of human beings accurately making baseless assumptions.

All three of those posts are referring to someone coming to a certain conclusion. Nowhere have I deviated from this.

[Darth Wong]

You are deliberately confusing the probability of someone coming to a certain conclusion with the probability of a particular conclusion being true, you deceptive little twat.

The first post this came up in, I said:

But regardless, a fetus is either a human life or it is not, and we have a 50-50 chance of getting it right.

Plainly referring to someone coming to a certain conclusion. Someone later misunderstood, and asked about it...I said:

Not at all. I'm saying that our chances of being correct in a baseless assumption about whether a fetus is a human being is 50-50.

Later, still on the second page, I clarified yet again:

Regarding the probability comments - I'm not giving a probability of such things being fact - I'm giving a probability of human beings accurately making baseless assumptions.

All three of those posts are referring to someone coming to a certain conclusion. Nowhere have I deviated from this.

Yet again you demonstrate that you are a fucking liar. The CHANCE OF BEING CORRECT is the same as the chance of the conclusion being true, asshole.

[brianeyci]

The best part is it'd be convincing to anybody with no mathematical training or had no idea of how probability worked (read : high school). I love his hack probability with the 1000 coin flips, and I love when he tried to use mathematical jargon to explain why talking about rights being given when the brain stem forms was wrong, as if science had to have a "complete domain" whatever his perception of domain is. The fact that HaakonKL has a low post count along with Magus too is suspicious, as if they both joined at the same time to try and thought they could convert people, HaakonKL being the one who would construct a hypothetical scenario where "abortion was assumed wrong" and Magus who would come in and defend it with pseudomath and hoped people wouldn't read the first post and come to the conclusion they were kicking ass. Evidently they had no idea that people with real mathematical and scientific training are present and easily see through bullshit, and thought it'd be an ingenious plot. Well guess what Magus, I'm laughing my ass off, thanks for the entertainment.

[Darth Wong]

Well, they have demonstrated once more that it's just not possible to push the "life begins at conception" viewpoint without being a deceptive little shit, as we have come to expect from that crowd.

[Magus]

Yet again you demonstrate that you are a fucking liar. The CHANCE OF BEING CORRECT is the same as the chance of the conclusion being true, asshole.

If A is true, and B is false:

Then the chance of conclusion A being true is 100%
The chance of conclusion B being true is 0%

The chance of you choosing A or B without evidence to back it up and choosing A (aka - being correct), is 50%.

[Darth Servo]

Magus is obviously too fucking stupid to realize that the premise "there are two possibilities" only means "50% probability" if we assume that the process is completely random.

What is an individual conclusion based on no data if not completely random?

How is this situation comparable to one with "no data". You've been given plenty of data.

[Magus]

Magus is obviously too fucking stupid to realize that the premise "there are two possibilities" only means "50% probability" if we assume that the process is completely random.

What is an individual conclusion based on no data if not completely random?

How is this situation comparable to one with "no data". You've been given plenty of data.

Because the situation I am referring to is the window of time between "pretty good chance of no thought" and "pretty good chance of thought" - in which science doesn't know and doesn't provide reliable data. I'm not discrediting science in the slightest - I simply believe that where science is not reliable, default to "playing it safe." Within that window, I'd argue that one should assume abortion is wrong.

[Darth Wong]

Yet again you demonstrate that you are a fucking liar. The CHANCE OF BEING CORRECT is the same as the chance of the conclusion being true, asshole.

If A is true, and B is false:

Then the chance of conclusion A being true is 100%
The chance of conclusion B being true is 0%

The chance of you choosing A or B without evidence to back it up and choosing A (aka - being correct), is 50%.

And now you resort to semantic games. Let's go back and look at your second post, liar:

science has yet to provide a conclusive answer as to when human life begins
...
a fetus is either a human life or it is not, and we have a 50-50 chance of getting it right

You never said "someone who is a complete idiot and just tosses a coin has a 50-50 chance of getting anything right" (which is your current position); you said "we have a 50-50 chance of getting it right". Who the fuck is "we"? Idiots who decide everything by tossing a coin?

Why don't you just admit you're a Bible thumping moron? It's as plain as the nose on your face.

[brianeyci]

The chance of you choosing A or B without evidence to back it up and choosing A (aka - being correct), is 50%.

Correct, but as pointed out by Mike already (damn I can't believe I didn't see this at first) the chance of choosing A or B is not the same as the chance of A or B being true. Go home fundies, you lose this time hahaha. Tell your people to bring better next time, preferably a mathematician turned born-again-Christian who won't make basic mistakes (now wouldn't that be fun watching Kuroneko and some Ph.D. fundamentalist mathematician duke it out.) But then again such a person is probably exceedingly rare, so start looking, they found Behe I'm sure you can find a math major who's a moron somewhere.

[Magus]

I did a very poor job of clarifying the context within which I presented my position. If I may, I would like to place that post into the proper context:

We can assume that a fetus is either a "child's life" or not. It's guaranteed to be one or the other, and science has yet to provide a conclusive answer as to when human life begins. This is understandable, as the concept of what defines a "person" is more in the realm of philosophy than science.

My wording is atrocious. "Human life," "child's life," and "person" are all referring to "being a human" or "possessing rational thought. What I am doing here is gesturing vaguely to the "window of time" I explained in greater detail a post ago. Obviously one can tell I misspoke here, since "Human Life" begins as soon as fertilization occurs.

But regardless, a fetus is either a human life or it is not, and we have a 50-50 chance of getting it right.

More poor wording. What I was getting at here is that, within that window of time, our ability to determine what is rational thought and what isn't plummets to the point that we're basically guessing.


In short, my wording is atrocious. But the principle remains consistent.

[Darth Servo]

Because the situation I am referring to is the window of time between "pretty good chance of no thought" and "pretty good chance of thought" - in which science doesn't know and doesn't provide reliable data. I'm not discrediting science in the slightest - I simply believe that where science is not reliable, default to "playing it safe." Within that window, I'd argue that one should assume abortion is wrong.

Bullshit. MOST posts on this topic are refering to between hours and days after conception and there is plenty of evidence that there is zero brain activity in the fetus at that time.

[brianeyci]

Hahaha a retcon. Nobody is going to buy it, take your fundie friends and leave and come back when you know more about math than a middle-schooler.

But the principle remains consistent

Why don't you define what exactly this principle is. Assume we know nothing, and therefore there's a fifty fifty chance that a zygote has rights or it has no rights? It's already been pointed out to you over and over that if you assume we know nothing then we know nothing and you can't determine probability, but you choose to ignore it. If that's the only trick you have, it's getting boring, try a few other ones.

[Darth Wong]

Obviously one can tell I misspoke here, since "Human Life" begins as soon as fertilization occurs.

No, for the umpteenth time, human life is continuous throughout the entire process. It does not "begin" at any point.

More poor wording. What I was getting at here is that, within that window of time, our ability to determine what is rational thought and what isn't plummets to the point that we're basically guessing.

And you were wrong.

In short, my wording is atrocious. But the principle remains consistent.

Your bloated scientific ignorance is not a "principle".

And don't pretend you just "misspoke". Anyone can clearly see how you tried to steer the debate toward your deceptive bullshit about how "we" is actually some idiot who makes all his decisions by tossing a coin. If you're going to claim that our level of scientific knowledge is so poor that it is equivalent to tossing a coin, you're just plain wrong. You need a brain to think, dumbfuck. There is no serious scientific doubt about this.

[brianeyci]

Hahaha, is it possible to alter the title of the poll to reflect what it really means? Or even remove it all together or replace it? It's obviously designed to make it seem as if there was some big controversy about abortion at SDN.

This was pretty good, for someone with the mathematical and scientific training of a rock. It's a lot sneakier than most of your hatemail pages, and it'd be convincing on a board where you couldn't flame or call someone out to be a liar.

[Rye]

More poor wording. What I was getting at here is that, within that window of time, our ability to determine what is rational thought and what isn't plummets to the point that we're basically guessing.

In short, my wording is atrocious. But the principle remains consistent.

It's dumb as hell; embryoes clearly do not have the capacity for rational thought. The chance of them actually having that faculty and yet leaving no evidence for it is remote enough to not even consider, in fact, it's the same as the beautiful cells in my ass that's floating round in a couple of members' sigs.

The mind is so verifiably dependent on the brain it's not even funny. Furthermore, scientists have already tested foetuses at various stages of development to see how they react, what is reflexes, and they can even peer at the baby in the electromagnetic spectrum and see when it's using the brain. If we have evidence for that, then maybe it'd be sensible to err on the side of caution as you put it. But prior to that? Well, I see no reason why we would think that these foetuses and embryoes are doing any thinking.

Now, I would say the sensible thing to do, then, would be to not try to save face in conceding your prior assertions at the start of the thread and instead throw out a different idea altogether.

Also, the 50/50 probability of an unbased assertion being true is nonsense. Think about it, ifpeople start making assertions on things without any sort of basis, empirical or rational, there is almost no chance of them being right, because there's no cause for anything to correspond to reality. For any baseless claim that happens to be true by coincidence, you can create hypothetically infinite similar claims that are untrue. This is why people use logic and their senses.

[Surlethe]

No...it means that if we have truly no preconceived notions about what occurred, then our distribution between believing that or not has no overall slant towards one or the other.

This doesn't apply to the reality of the situation - only the perception.

Bullshit. Since when has the perception of the situation been relevant to whether or not a newly-conceived zygote is actually human?

[Magus]

I'd like to call a time out and apologize for the mess I've gotten this thread into. In the first two pages of this thread, I hastily made some very generalized statements. Several others called me on this, and rather than correcting my statements ASAP, I defended them like an asshole and generally pissed everyone off. I'm sorry for the disruption.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that I am no longer open to debate this issue at this time, since I am seriously revising my views and thus have no arguments to defend.

[Darth Servo]

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that I am no longer open to debate this issue at this time, since I am seriously revising my views and thus have no arguments to defend.

Like your location tag?

[Surlethe]

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that I am no longer open to debate this issue at this time, since I am seriously revising my views and thus have no arguments to defend.

Like your location tag?

Better that than set in stone in a wrong position.

[weemadando]

I'd like to call a time out and apologize for the mess I've gotten this thread into. In the first two pages of this thread, I hastily made some very generalized statements. Several others called me on this, and rather than correcting my statements ASAP, I defended them like an asshole and generally pissed everyone off. I'm sorry for the disruption.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that I am no longer open to debate this issue at this time, since I am seriously revising my views and thus have no arguments to defend.

I'd really like a response to my post on page 2. I want to hear your response to that.

[Magus]

I'd really like a response to my post on page 2. I want to hear your response to that.

There is no disputing any of what you say in your post. I, however, was considering the more typical aspects of pregnancy. There will always be extreme scenarios - but it's difficult to discuss scenarios in general terms if we include every possibility.