Advance of Science fallacy

Arguing from authority fallacy

Thanks zoho, interesting website and article. Good to see some balance in this forum :)

spud

Part of the Fascist global establishment.

"Campbell has worked on issues relating to Science and its impacts in society with the Office of Science and Innovation in the UK, the European Commission and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He is also a trustee of the charity Cancer Research UK and the chairman of the charity's Public Policy Advisory Group.[9] He was a visiting scholar at Rockefeller University in spring 2008.[10]

Campbell was appointed a member of an independent panel established in February 2010 by the University of East Anglia to investigate the controversy surrounding the publication of emails sent by staff at the university's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). Due to publicity about a 2009 interview with Chinese State Radio[11] during which he expressed support for the CRU scientists, he resigned just hours after the panel was launched.[12]"

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Pharma exec, editor to be university's first visiting scholars

The Visiting Scholars Program is part of the effort set in place by the university’s strategic plan to actively promote cross-disciplinary collaborative exchange (see “From Paul Nurse”); Drs. Goodfellow and Campbell will each visit for two weeks, and in spring 2008 Dr. Campbell will return for a month’s visit. They will have office space on the fourth floor of Nurses Residence.
Drs. Goodfellow and Campbell are friends and past colleagues of university president(Sir) Paul Nurse.

http://benchmarks.rockefeller.edu/viewArticle.php?id=105&issue_id=79


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Sir Paul Nurse President of the Royal Society

Chief Executive and Director of the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation, which will be renamed The Francis Crick Institute in July 2011.

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Francis Crick

Eugenics

Crick occasionally expressed his views on eugenics, usually in private letters. For example, Crick advocated a form of positive eugenics in which wealthy parents would be encouraged to have more children.[66] He once remarked, "In the long run, it is unavoidable that society will begin to worry about the character of the next generation... It is not a subject at the moment which we can tackle easily because people have so many religious beliefs and until we have a more uniform view of ourselves I think it would be risky to try and do anything in the way of eugenics... I would be astonished if, in the next 100 or 200 years, society did not come round to the view that they would have to try to improve the next generation in some extent or one way or another."

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Royal Society

DISABILITY discrimination concern forces legal inquiry over eugenics conference
MEDIA RELEASE
PHOTO OPPORTUNITY
PLACE Royal Society, Carlton House Terrace, London SW1
DATE/ TIME 9 am Sept 30th 2004
Embargo: 8:30 AM Sept 30th 2004

People Against Eugenics (1) will be protesting today at a pro-eugenics conference at the Royal Society in London (2). Campaigners will be arguing that the Royal Society should not allow a platform to argue for the elimination of disabled people and for Cloning and designer babies.

The conference is a blatant attempt to advance a eugenic agenda, and has no semblance of balance. No disabled people have been asked to speak. The main conference organiser, the pioneer of IVF, Robert Edwards, represents the link between old-fashioned eugenics and the new free-market version.

Edwards has been a former President and a leading member of the British Eugenics Society since the 1960s (3). He believes it is a 'sin' to have disabled children (see quote 1 below). Another conference organiser, Edgar Dahl, supports sex selection and reproductive cloning.

In addition to these, John Harris and David Galton have supported eugenics as a positive good (quote 2). Harris and Jeff McMahan believe that people should be allowed to kill disabled babies, since they are supposedly less than fully human (quotes 3 and 4). Gregory Stock is a well-known advocate of 'improving' children via genetic engineering and Julian Savulescu will be arguing the 'moral' case for doing so at the conference.

Other speakers argue an absolute 'right' of parental choice to design and select our children, no matter what the social consequences. John Robertson has argued that this 'right' means that Cloning and sex selection should be allowed (4) and Savulescu believes that parents should be allowed to abort children with teeth defects (5). Timothy Murphy says that, if it becomes possible, parents should be allowed to prevent the birth of gay children, since even a massive reduction in the number of gay people would not be sufficient harm to restrict 'reproductive liberty' (6).

People Against Eugenics (PAE) rejects the claim that eugenics ended after the Holocaust. Many of these speakers clearly share the early 20th century eugenics movement's aim of preventing disabled people being born, but they have different, more up-to-date means. In fact, many early 20th century eugenicists, including the eugenics movement's founder, Francis Galton, also opposed coercive legislation, favouring persuasion and what we would today call market forces. The advocacy of 'reproductive liberty' is a key part of advancing the agenda of free-market eugenics. PAE supports women's right to choose abortion, but does not believe this includes some 'right' to design our children.

Disabled campaigner, Rachel Hurst, said: "Disabled people are human beings too - a 'healthy' nation is one in which difference is included and celebrated - not a nation designed by the powerful."

PAE campaigner Holly Williams said: "The timing of this conference is a blast from the past in a society celebrating the achievements of the Paralympics and the new disability equality act. There needs to be a bigger public debate about what sort of a society we want to live in. PAE is in favour of an inclusive and supportive society where disabled people have equal rights, and adequate financial support. Social justice will help us be a healthy and happy population. Eugenics is morally unacceptable, elitist, and medically risky."

For more information on today's demonstration contact: Holly Williams from People Against Eugenics 07775 603341, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need javaascr!pt enabled to view it , or Rachel Hurst (Disability Awareness in Action) 07939 143068 (on Sept 30th).

Quotes from speakers.

Robert Edwards: 'Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child which carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children.' (Speaking at European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, reported in Metro, 5 July 1999).

John Harris: "Eugenics is the attempt to create fine healthy children and that's everyone's ambition." Harris told the BBC that couples who choose to have disabled babies are "misguided". news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3120478.stm

John Harris: "I don't think infanticide is always unjustifiable." Daily Telegraph Jan 25 2004

Jeff McMahan: "Because of their rudimentary cognitive and emotional capacities {congenitally severely cognitively impaired human beings] have a relatively weak time-relative interest in continuing to live." The Ethics of Killing NY Oxford University Press 2002, p204.

"There are no morally significant differences between severely retarded human beings (PAE note: this means all human beings, not just newborn babies) and animals with comparable psychological capacities." Ibid, p228

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Francis Galton

His work was recognized by a prestigious Founder's Medal from the Royal Geographical Society and election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1856.

Galton's eugenics work occupied the second half of his life. His interest in the habitability of "noble" traits sprang at least partly from the qualities he saw in his own extended Galton-Darwin-Wedgwood family. His first observations were published in Macmillan's Magazine (1865), and his complete thesis was presented in Hereditary Genius (1869). Using information from biographical dictionaries and alumni records at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Galton investigated the families of notable British judges and statesmen. He concluded that superior intelligence and abilities were inherited with an efficiency of about 20% among primary relatives in these families. He also extended this analysis to "the kindred of the most illustrious Commanders, men of Literature and of Science, Poets, Painters, and Musicians, of whom history speaks."

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etc,etc,etc.