Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Good Science doesn't have a consensus

It seems that like the holocaust, no dissenting views of anthropogenic global warming are allowed. At least you wont go to jail yet for denying the existence of global warming.

Professor Aitkin told The Australian yesterday he had been told he was "out of his mind" by some in the media after writing that the science of global warming "doesn't seem to stack up".

The eminent historian and political scientist said in a speech called A Cool Look at Global Warming, which has received little public attention, that he was urged not to express his contrary views to orthodox thinking because he would be demonised.

He says critics who question the impact of global warming are commonly ignored or attacked because "scientist activists" from a quasi-religious movement have spread a flawed message that "the science is settled" and "the debate is over".

Read the full article here

Discussion and debate should be allowed, and if the science for anthropogenic global warming is good, the dissenting views can be shut down case by case, point by point.

I believe the same should be the case for holocaust deniers or revisionism. If the science and evidence for the Holocaust is undeniable, then let these dissenting views be blown out of the water case by case, point by point. To lock up people for thought crime, only adds credibility to their arguments.

David Irving was arrested in Austria and jailed for a year for denying that the holocaust killed 6 million Jews during WWII. I am not a revisionist supporter, but I'm not a supporter of political prisoners and thought criminals either.

Read about David Irving article here

FREEDOM OF SPEECH means you are not arrested or charged for your right to a dissenting opinion. Thought crime is just too 1984 for me.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Is there such a thing as different races in the human species? Or are we just one race – the human race?

I found this article: The K9 Comparison—What Dogs Tell Us About Humans

The article describes a scientist Dr Freedman who himself is in a bi-racial marriage, perform tests on different dog breeds to determine the effect of breed on behaviour.

Dog breeds provide the classic case study of within-species differentiation. Those who would dismiss race and race differences regularly point out that DNA differences between races are minimal. But, as Vincent Sarich demonstrated in Race: The Reality of Human Differences (pp. 170 – 173) human racial differences in morphology are greater than in any non-domesticated species. They are around ten times the difference between the sexes within each race and larger than the differences that distinguish the two species of chimpanzee. Despite minimal genetic differences, human physical racial differences are clearly observable.

(Studies show that humans share 98.4% of genetic information with Chimpanzees, so it only takes a little to change phenotypical differences in nature).

He submitted the paper on racial differences in neonate behavior to Science, the most prestigious scientific journal in the U.S. It had published his study behavioral differences in pups of different dog breeds without any problem or controversy. The paper on race differences, however, was rejected by a split vote of the reviewers. Interesting!

Freedman then submitted it to Nature, the British analogue to Science. It again received a split decision from the judges. Fortunately, the editor broke the deadlock by casting his deciding vote in favor of publication. [Behavioural Differences between Chinese–American and European–American Newborns D. G. Freedman & Nina Chinn Freedman, Nature December 20, 1969]

The following are the interesting scientific points to note to suggest there are different races, with different characteristics inherent in their genes.


New born babies were studied by neurologists using a maneuver called the "defense reaction", the baby's nose was briefly pressed with a cloth, forcing him to breathe with his mouth. Most Caucasian and black babies fight the maneuver by immediately turning away or swiping at the cloth with their hands. Not surprisingly, this is listed in Western pediatric textbooks as the normal, expected response.

But not so for the average Chinese babies in the study. They simply lay on their back, breathing from the mouth, "accepting" the cloth without a fight.

There were other more subtle differences. While both Chinese and Caucasian infants would start to cry at about the same point in the examination, especially when they were being undressed, Chinese babies stopped crying immediately, while Caucasian babies quieted only gradually.
The conclusions found that white babies started to cry more easily, and once they started, they were more difficult to console. Chinese babies adapted to almost any position in which they were placed. When placed face down in their cribs, they tended to keep their faces buried in the sheets rather than immediately turning to one side, as did the Whites.

Another scientific field that recognises racial difference is pharmacogenetics for example, the study of genetic differences in the tolerance and effectiveness of medicinal drugs. African American patients, on average, do not benefit as much as whites from ACE (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme) inhibitors, a standard treatment for heart failure. This is probably because of race differences in nitric oxide, which is produced by the cells that line our blood vessels and dampens contraction of the muscle cells, relaxing the vessels and lowering blood pressure. Blacks are more likely than whites to have nitric oxide insufficiency. Why, no one currently knows.

I would like to see this study conducted on children from bi-racial parents where the offspring are “pure” in their appearance of either being black/ asian/white to see if the mixed offspring will give the same response.

For example the image is of the “Hodgson twins” , where both the parents are bi-racial. They have twin daughters, one appears traditionally “black” while the other, with blonde hair and blue eyes appears “white”. To have one white offspring and one black offspring as twins is statisically a 1 in a million chance!

I’d like to see the results of the study done on these sorts of children, and the effects of mixed-race.

Genetics – interesting, no?