Ben Stein: Science Leads to Killing People

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Your discussion of this isue with barbarian reveals a very intellectualized cold attitude.
In the previous unpleasantness, I was a medic. The first thing they did in training was show us a film of horrific injuries. Things that would make you sick, just to have me describe them. Those who threw up or fainted were gone that day; never saw them again.

When someone is badly injured, you want an intellectualized, cold attitude in the person caring for him, only then can they assess the situation and do what is necessary to save his life. Being able to set emotions aside and think clearly is a gift.

Reason should be the servant of our emotions, but it still has to work, if it is to be a good servant.
 
No. In fact, he said that he didn’t want it to happen. Mims added that to the story, later.

mary:I am glad to hear he does not want it to happen, still it was irresponsible for him as a scientist to imply such an event would be beneficial to the planet:“I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us…”

You defend him for saying this. For one thing as a scientist, as you have pointed out he shouldn’t be stating values, yet he does included values when he says that:
Pianka said:
I believe it is only a matter of time until microbes once again assert control over our population, since we are unwilling to control it ourselves. This idea has been espoused by ecologists for at least four decades and is nothing new. People just don’t want to hear it."
Mary:
Here he shows a trend in the scientific community itself to argue that human beings/populations should be controled. Since his statements should be value free I would imagine you would say the Pianka and these environmentalist are stepping past their roles as scientists to say this. what kind of 'control" would he be suggesting? Government mandated policies of one child per family like in China? According to Mims in the speech he gave he indicated only that he thought a virus attacking the population would be the most effective and efficient method.If he did say that it was extremely irresponsible.
barbarian:
Sorry, Pianka is the final authority as to what he thinks.
Mary:
People mis-speak and spin what they say all the time. Mims statement was coorborated by other scientists present as well as by a partial recording of the question /answer period.

Erik Pianka’s quote:
I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us…"
Barbarian:
So he didn’t say that he wanted a worldwide epidemic after all?
Mary:
No, only that it would be clearly better off without so many of us…
A statement which could be taken in a terribly wrong way with terrible consequences. That is what I mean about him being irresponsible as a scientist.
Barbarian:
The reason it is, is that you’ve made Darwin into your personal boogyman.
Mary:
His website shows that he is a strong follower of evolutionary science from a materialistic view point. He includes his biography as if he had passed away and he is writing an obituary. But so he has a strange sense of humor? I agree I was wrong to point out his similiar appearance to Darwin, or even to see his attempt to look like Moses a bit with a staff and a snake running up and down it,… He may just have a weird sense of humor. COLOR]

Barbarian:
Besides, the evidence is that Mims was malicious, not stupid.
mary:
What evidence? Simply because Pianka put a statement on his site which softened his original speech possibly? Now if he had posted the original speech, then there would be evidence.but instead he chose to restate it in different ways, leaving the question of what he had originally stated open. Simply because Mim is associated with ID science does not make her a malicious person. Since she is corraborated by others, it increases the reasons to question Pianka’s speech.

Barbarian:
So because some creationist lied about what he said, he deserves death threats? :nope:
mary:
No, he does not deserve death threats, but neither do the people of the world deserve to be talked about as he does, indicating it would be better if many of them were not here. If that is not wishing death to them in some way, I must be misunderstanding what he is saying.

The Catholic Church teaches that each person is a gift from God to be protected and nurtured. irresponsible scientists who think it is reasonable and just to think the world would be better off without so many people are offering a platform or rationale that more evil people could act upon. I hope that never does come to pass. We can see that some governements like China have acted in ways to control population. Pianka praises the one child policy of China, a policy which has brought death by sex-selective abortions to millions of baby girls…

In Christ, maryJohnZ
 
Barbarian observes:
No. In fact, he said that he didn’t want it to happen. Mims added that to the story, later.
I am glad to hear he does not want it to happen, still it was irresponsible for him as a scientist to imply such an event would be beneficial to the planet:“I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us…”
But that’s not what he said, was it? He said it would be better if there weren’t so many people, but he did not say it would be good if an epidemic devastated human populations.
You defend him for saying this.
No. For one thing, he didn’t say a worldwide epidemic would be good. For another thing, I don’t agree that we have passed the carrying capacity of the earth. I do, as a microbiologist, entirely agree with him that a large population of any species greatly increases the likelihood of a devastating epidemic. That’s just the way it is.
For one thing as a scientist, as you have pointed out he shouldn’t be stating values, yet he does included values when he says that:
Pianka said:
I believe it is only a matter of time until microbes once again assert control over our population, since we are unwilling to control it ourselves. This idea has been espoused by ecologists for at least four decades and is nothing new. People just don’t want to hear it.

That’s not a values statement; that’s the truth. If we don’t limit our numbers, eventually microbes will do it for us. We are presently losing the antibiotic wars, and the current obsession with “antibacterial” products will eventually make it worse. It appears, for example, that the epidemic of asthma among the young is related to never having early exposure to many microbes. We don’t send them out to play, as our parents did, and their immune systems are not maturing as they should.
Here he shows a trend in the scientific community itself to argue that human beings/populations should be controled. Since his statements should be value free I would imagine you would say the Pianka and these environmentalist are stepping past their roles as scientists to say this. what kind of 'control" would he be suggesting?
So far as I know, he hasn’t suggested controls at all. He merely observed that we aren’t willing to do it.
According to Mims in the speech he gave he indicated only that he thought a virus attacking the population would be the most effective and efficient method.
But, as you just learned, Mims lied about it.

Barbarian observes:
Sorry, Pianka is the final authority as to what he thinks.
People mis-speak and spin what they say all the time.
Sorry. Not buying that one. What a person says he thinks is what you have to deal with, not what people who hate him say he thinks.
Mims statement was coorborated by other scientists present as well as by a partial recording of the question /answer period.
Sorry. The recording did not say what Mims claimed. There’s a big difference between “we’d be better off with fewer people” and “I want ebola to kill 90 percent of the human race.” And Mims tried to change the former into the latter. Not a nice man, um?

Erik Pianka:
I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us…"

Barbarian observes:
So he didn’t say that he wanted a worldwide epidemic after all?
No, only that it would be clearly better off without so many of us…
So Mims lied. Why would you support that kind of behavior?

Barbarian:
Besides, the evidence is that Mims was malicious, not stupid.
What evidence?
For one thing, he lied about what Pianka said. And then he pretended that the scientists at Pianka’s talk approved of ebola killing most of us. If that’s not malicious, I don’t know what is.
Simply because Mim is associated with ID science
Mims. A man, not a woman.
does not make her a malicious person.
Falsely accusing Pianka of hoping ebola kills most of us is what makes him malicious.

Barbarian asks:
So because some creationist lied about what he said, he deserves death threats?
No, he does not deserve death threats,
You said he deserved what he got from Mim’s lies.
Pianka praises the one child policy of China, a policy which has brought death by sex-selective abortions to millions of baby girls…
The government of China, alarmed by the rapidly-growing imbalance between males and females, has greatly restricted sonograms and elective abortions.
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb264/is_200311/ai_hibm1G1115902326
 
I said the opposite, that he does not deserve death threats.

mary:
I said his statements were irresponsible. he deserved grief from the press, not death threats. His ideas should be looked at and questioned. That is what I meant when I said he deserved grief.
If you can present the original speech perhaps we can ascertain the original content. Until then it reamsins a question and a concern.

Barbarian:

The government of China, alarmed by the rapidly-growing imbalance between males and females, has greatly restricted sonograms and elective abortions.
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb264/is_200311/ai_hibm1
G1115902326


Mary:
I am glad they reversed their old policy, or revised it. They still limit couples to one child, which forces abortions on women.
There is a huge imbalance in the number of male and female babies because of the sex-selection abortions. .I am dropping a discussion on Pianka because you can’t show his original speech so there is no support for saying Mims lied. But geting bogged down into whether there was a lie or not will not bewnfit this discussion further.
We can see this as an example of how carefully scientists have to be about how the state their views, especially in regards to the such topics as population control, if they don’t want to appear as if they are furthering views calling for different forms of genocide and governemnt control over families which is beyond what is just and moral.

I found this book online and some thoughts from de Chardin:

"When theologians insist that knowledge of God can only come through a miraculous act of divine revelation, rather than being discovered by reason, or that sinful humanity has no hope of salvation except by fiat of an all-powerful and all-loving God, then the dialogue between science and religion is interrupted prematurely. Moreover, religion has no role to play in a world which is committed finally and forever to science. That, Teilhard argues, is the greatest theological tragedy of our modern age.



In order to sustain and extend the huge, invincible and legitimate effort of research in which the vital weight of human activity is at present engaged, a faith, a mysticism is necessary. Whether it is a question of preserving the sacred hunger that impels man’s efforts, or of giving him the altruism he needs for his increasingly indispensable collaboration with his fellows, religion is the soul biologically necessary for the future of science. Humanity is no longer imaginable without science. But no more is science possible without some religion to animate it.(26)
As Teilhard envisions the future, the greatest need is for a new type of seeker, or rather the rebirth of the original type once known to the world before the divorce of science from religion.

This is a seeker who devotes himself, ultimately through love, to the labours of discovery. No longer a worshipper of the world but of something greater than the world, through and beyond the world in progress. Not the proud and cold Titan (Prometheus), but Jacob passionately wrestling with God.(27)

Thus, in the final analysis, Teilhard returns to the Bible and finds in the sacred Scriptures of his own tradition a God who is most compatible with a world in continual evolution. Not the static and unchanging God of the philosophers, the unmoved mover who stands over and against creation, but rather the same God who is so intimately related to the world as to enter into its deepest tragedies and struggles. The relevant texts of Scripture suggest that both the science and the theology of the future shall require not the detached and bespectacled observer but the passionate seeker who finds within the world of matter a supremely attractive center. The future of western culture may depend on whether enough of us have the courage to move with Teilhard from research towards adoration. "

That statement came from Chapter 5 of a book called God and Science which can be read here:
godweb.org/chardin.htm

I know Teilhard de Chardin ran into a lot of difficulties with his work. Does anyone know if his work is totally condemned by the church and what the church has said about him?

I will try to find out more. I liked what I read in this passage.
I know he was also involved in a scandal involved with a human skull and an ape jaw, but the question of his role in it was always obscured. Some think it originally was meant as a practical joke and then it went too far. Any help in understanding the difficulty the church had with Teilhard de Chardin’s view of science would be helpfulto me.

In Christ,
MaryJohnz
 
I am dropping a discussion on Pianka because you can’t show his original speech so there is no support for saying Mims lied. But geting bogged down into whether there was a lie or not will not bewnfit this discussion further.
Of course he lied. When we do see what Pianka said (and there are not just recordings, but the personal recollection of people in the audience) it is clear that Mims twisted what he said, and refashioned it into something else. Do you see a trend here? This is exactly what Benjamin Stein and his allied did. It is the modus operandi of the ID movement.

It is the Rove/Carville/Atwater ethos; “smear them enough, and enough will believe it.” In politics, the truth has no meaning, only advantage.

That ethos has no place in science, or among people of faith.
 
Regarding Teilhard, I can only say what the Church says; read his work with caution. It is no farther from orthodoxy than YE creationism, which the Church also permits us to believe, but it’s neither sound science, nor the teaching of the Catholic Church.

But whatever path leads to the truth is a good one. If you can get some inkling of the majesty of nature as God’s instrument in the world from reading Teilhard, then do it.
 
No. For one thing, he didn’t say a worldwide epidemic would be good. For another thing, I don’t agree that we have passed the carrying capacity of the earth. I do, as a microbiologist, entirely agree with him that a large population of any species greatly increases the likelihood of a devastating epidemic. That’s just the way it is.
So, Barbarian, do you advocate simply letting the current population explosion run its course, thereby waiting to see what the annual death rate from starvation will have to be before we collectively conclude that we have exceeded the human carrying capacity of the planet?

Petrus
 
So, Barbarian, do you advocate simply letting the current population explosion run its course, thereby waiting to see what the annual death rate from starvation will have to be before we collectively conclude that we have exceeded the human carrying capacity of the planet?

Petrus
Just remember we beieve in Christ, the one who worked the miracle of the loaves and fishes and fed multitudes, so if mankind would just turn to God and trust we would have no reason to fear.

God gave us a command to choose life, not death. Howver if you are going to promote something then promote abstinence rather than free sex which is outdies o God’s laww in the first place and which is irresponsible.

John Paull the II was addressing this problem in his writings on the family and human sexuality in his works on the Theology of the Body.

Population control programs which hand out condoms and birth control or offer sterilization or abortion are wrong. We are cutting God out of our wold when we do these things. That is why we are having problems.

In Christ, maryJohnZ
 
Of course he lied. When we do see what Pianka said (and there are not just recordings, but the personal recollection of people in the audience) it is clear that Mims twisted what he said, and refashioned it into something else. Do you see a trend here? This is exactly what Benjamin Stein and his allied did. It is the modus operandi of the ID movement.

It is the Rove/Carville/Atwater ethos; “smear them enough, and enough will believe it.” In politics, the truth has no meaning, only advantage.

That ethos has no place in science, or among people of faith.
What recordings of the original speech. The one transcript I posted supported what Mims was saying. Can you show where the other recordings exist? why isn’t the original speech posted somewhere if they have the recordings?

In Christ,
maryJohnZ
 
Just remember we beieve in Christ, the one who worked the miracle of the loaves and fishes and fed multitudes, so if mankind would just turn to God and trust we would have no reason to fear.

God gave us a command to choose life, not death. Howver if you are going to promote something then promote abstinence rather than free sex which is outdies o God’s laww in the first place and which is irresponsible. /QUOTE]

(1) So if the passengers on teh Titanic had jsut turned to God and trusted they would not have drowned? Do you really think God works that way?

(2) Who have you seen on this forum promoting free sex?
 
So, Barbarian, do you advocate simply letting the current population explosion run its course, thereby waiting to see what the annual death rate from starvation will have to be before we collectively conclude that we have exceeded the human carrying capacity of the planet?
That was Malthus’s gloomy take on it. But that’s not how it has to be. It is a fact that a society that educates and provides opportunity for all citizens will see population stabilize at sustainable levels. Otherwise, people will breed to excess, without truly draconian measures, such as those implemented in China. If we don’t educate and provide an economic base for a reasonably prosperous living, then we will do what Malthus predicts. There is no other escape.

And if you look at what is happening in Asia, there is reason to hope. India is now in that process, and China, Korea and Vietnam have done it. The Middle East is still problematical, as is Latin America and Africa.
 
What recordings of the original speech.
Not only a transcript, but a recording of the same speech given earlier elsewhere.

The article in the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise contains numerous misquotes and out of context quotes. All of them err in the same direction - making Pianka look bad. It is almost impossible to believe that this is the result of anything other than deliberate effort on the part of the paper.
thequestionableauthority.blogspot.com/2006/04/seguin-gazette-enterprise-and.html

The problem, Mary, is that we see this kind of behavior again, and again from IDers. It smells more of political extremism than of religion or science. And it is the kind of thing that is already provoking a backlash from decent people.

Stein and his cohorts are betting that they can radicalize the American people to their ideology. I think they’ve made a big mistake. People aren’t as stupid as he supposes.
 
MaryJohnZ;3782898:
Just remember we beieve in Christ, the one who worked the miracle of the loaves and fishes and fed multitudes, so if mankind would just turn to God and trust we would have no reason to fear.

God gave us a command to choose life, not death. Howver if you are going to promote something then promote abstinence rather than free sex which is outdies o God’s laww in the first place and which is irresponsible. /QUOTE]

(1) So if the passengers on teh Titanic had jsut turned to God and trusted they would not have drowned? Do you really think God works that way?

I would not be able to say. I am sure some people on the Titanic that day did turn to God and were saved, others God chose to take…none of us can expain God;s Will with certainty. But if you are purposefully going against God’s laws (as in many cases we are choosing to do so in our country) then I would say you were distancing yourself or your culture from God and His divine providence. I would say there is a consequence for doing that.

(2) Who have you seen on this forum promoting free sex?
There has been statements made here that safe sex programs are programs that work to reduce pregnacies. I have advocated for the abstinence approach.Ben Stein’s movie brought up Planned Parenthood, an organization which has promoted a free sex approach by selling or giving birth control to millions of teens as young as 10-12 years old at times, without parental knowledge or
support thriugh Title X tax payer dollars and public school education programs. Those things have been talked about or referred to.
 
That was Malthus’s gloomy take on it. But that’s not how it has to be. It is a fact that a society that educates and provides opportunity for all citizens will see population stabilize at sustainable levels. Otherwise, people will breed to excess, without truly draconian measures, such as those implemented in China. If we don’t educate and provide an economic base for a reasonably prosperous living, then we will do what Malthus predicts. There is no other escape.
No – Malthus was spot on in his theory that population rises and falls in proportion to the availability of food. He hadn’t counted on fossil fuels, of course, which have spurred the explosion of the human population from one to 6.6 billion people. At present, every calorie of food we consume has ten calories of fossil fuel (name removed by moderator)ut behind it (fertilizers, fuel for plowing, planting, cultivating, harvesting, transport to processing plans and distribution).

When we reach peak oil production – which many believe happened in 2006 – both food and fuel for transportation will become increasingly expensive, at the same time that people’s job stability will likely decrease. The US and other governments have no plans to engineer a “soft landing” instead of waiting for the inevitabvle population crash. This is ironic as VP Richard Cheney himself has acknowledged that we are at or near peak production. France may be your best bet for long-term survival, as they are still heavily agrarian, have a temperate climate, derive 80% of their energy from nuclear, and have a solid rail network. The US has squat.

It’s a perfect storm of factors for a drastic reduction of the human population by billions of people, and it’s upon us now. If you don’t believe me, read carefully through the following web sites:

Association for the Study of Peak Oil: peakoil.net/

LATOC – Life after the Oil Crash: lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

Oilcrash.com: oilcrash.com/index.htm

Worldometers – world statistics in real time: worldometers.info/

Solar Living Institute: solarliving.org/display.asp?catid=49
 
If we don’t educate and provide an economic base for a reasonably prosperous living, then we will do what Malthus predicts. There is no other escape…
Barbarian, take a look at this article:

“Oil Prices Raise Cost of Making Range of Goods” at
nytimes.com/2008/06/08/us/08oil.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

People don’t realize that our entire civilization – including our participation in this electronic forum – is premised upon plentiful cheap oil. That age is ending and will soon be gone forever.

You are of course free to deny this fact, but denial will not lower the price at the pump, or in the grocery store, or at Home Depot when you want new roofing shingles, or at the tire store when you need new tires, or at the hospital when you need chemotherapy. We will need to adjust to life on a planet where there is enough solar energy to support probably more people than in 1859, but not infinitely more. And our material wealth will never again be as cheap and abundant as it was between 1950 and 2000.

I’m sure pockets of civilization will survive, and the Church will survive (and perhaps thrive), but affordable air travel for the masses will all but disappear, and we will hunker down to basically local living, participating in an agricultural economy. High speed rail – if we can get the networks up and running before the end of oil – may allow some travel, but we need to get started building it soon!

Petrus
 
Prophets of doom and gloom…

“Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented.”
William Provine

“We are parasites. Nature would be much better off without us.”

Rosemary Radford Ruether

“The damage people cause to the planet is a function of demographics … we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.”

Jacques Cousteau
christianorder.com/features/features_2006/features_oct06.html

christianorder.com/features/features_2006/features_oct06.html

Does any of that that sound like choosing life to anyone here?
Our main focus should be to choose moral responses, loving responses that show a respect for each individual life. A lot of the problems we have right now could be cured if all people were trying to live by God’s laws. You wouldn’t have governments that keep food from their own people, or extremely wealthy people who
fail to lift other lives but rather use their money to promote population control measures that kill others. Can you or I see the obvious solution or soultions to these problems? No, not likely, But I beleieve that God has those answers if we pray and ask Him to show us how to resolve the dilemmas of our world, and seek Him with our whole hearts, souls and minds, we will find what we need.

I imagine some very great thinkers and problem solvers have been aborted. Perhaps answers that they would have offered died with them.

If you can understand that all the plants in a rain forest are unique and have diferent medicinal qualities and should not be destroyed, then apply that same principal to the unborn…each of them has a gift to give as well, and when we destroy them we
lost whatever that gift was.

Population control would take care of itself if we sought God in our lives and world.

Jesus said ‘why do you worry about money and food and clothing?’ Look at the grasses of the field and the birds of the air. They neither toil nor swat, yet each one of them is cared for by their heavenly Father. How much more will he care for you?’

MaryJohnZ
 
No – Malthus was spot on in his theory that population rises and falls in proportion to the availability of food.
That would make it difficult to explain Europe, for example. Plenty of food; exports food, and yet the population is stable or even declining. What it has is a well-educated and reasonably prosperous population. And as noted, the population is not increasing. Without immigration, it would be declining markedly.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4768644.stm

The US would also be losing population, if it weren’t for immigration. We have fertility rates just above 2 per family, which is just a bit less than needed to keep our population stable.

It’s funny the way things went back in Iowa. Suddenly, with corn becoming a source of fuel, farmers planted to the edge of the road, and yields shot up.

But marginal land isn’t yet being used. There is much empty land, even in Iowa, where fertile soil is ubiquitous. If things warm up a bit more, it might be a problem; central North America might get significantly drier.

And there is more fossil energy in North America than in the Middle east; it’s just in stuff that’s very laborious to mine and process. But we could do it. More expensive, yes. Disaster, no.
Not yet.

I think Pianka’s concerns are a much bigger worry.
 
A lot of the problems we have right now could be cured if all people were trying to live by God’s laws. But I beleieve that God has those answers if we pray and ask Him to show us how to resolve the dilemmas of our world, and seek Him with our whole hearts, souls and minds, we will find what we need.
If’ you’re relying on God, He has a huge logistical problem to deal with, and He’s taking his sweet time on this one. In the part of the country where I live, there is no end in sight to rising costs at the fuel pump and in the grocery store.

As Doug50 says, look at it this way: "The US economy uses 10,000 gallons of oil every second. It uses 60 billion cubic feet of gas every day and if you stacked those on top of each other they’d reach to the moon and back making the round trip 25 times…that’s every day. And the US economy burns 20 railcars of coal every minute, so that’s a 100 railcar train in 5 minutes…every 5 minutes of every day.

"Take a look around you, and not just at the plastic in you key board or the carpet under your feet or the petrochemical medicines and hygienes in you bathroom. Everything you take for granted in your modern world was made possibe by petroleum. EVERYTHING. Without petroleum the US’s 20th century economy would not have happened…at all. You would not have the professional sports to watch anywhere near the capacity you see today. Oil built the whole thing. Why? Because is was the cheap abundant energy supply that drove the whole thing.

"How much oil does the modern world use? At a rate of 1000 barrels per second, the world consumes 86 million barrels per day, or enough to fill 5600 Olympic pools every day. In one year that 2,044,000 Olympic pools. If you lay those pools end to end, you’d have a single pool 63,488 miles long…that’s every year.

“From petrochemical pesticides to natural gas derived fertilizers petroleum feeds the modern world. What’s going to replace that in this the 21st century?”

If we’re relying on God, he’s playing a pretty close game with American economic reality, to say nothing of the lives of billions of people on the planet!
 
There has been statements made here that safe sex programs are programs that work to reduce pregnacies.
The evidence shows that comprehensive sex education works better than abstinence only.
** Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person’s genitals “can result in pregnancy,” a congressional staff analysis has found.

Those and other assertions are examples of the “false, misleading, or distorted information” in the programs’ teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. **
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26623-2004Dec1.html

OK, so we lied to them a little. So what? This…

**American teen pregnancies rise for the first time in 15 years

The Bush administration came under attack yesterday for diverting funds from sex education to abstinence programmes after the first rise in American teenage pregnancy rates in nearly 15 years.

The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed the rate of births to teenagers rose by 3% last year. About 435,000 babies were born to mothers aged between 15 and 19.

The results were a sharp reversal from 2005, when the rate hit an all-time low of 40.5 births for every 1,000 teenage girls. It was the first such increase since 1991, when teenage pregnancy rates led to an intense educational campaign on contraception, condom use, and the risk of Aids and sexually transmitted disease.

The CDC study gave further weight to arguments by organisations working on reproductive health in America and abroad that the Bush administration was undermining the advances made in the 90s for ideological reasons. **
guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/07/usa.suzannegoldenberg

Some of the morons running these programs have been teaching kids that you can get HIV from sweat or tears. But they won’t tell them the mechanics behind getting pregnant. With the predictable results…

But this has nothing do do with evolution.
 
And there is more fossil energy in North America than in the Middle east; it’s just in stuff that’s very laborious to mine and process. But we could do it. More expensive, yes. Disaster, no. Not yet.
We’ll see. I wonder if you checked out the links I posted. If gasoline falls back to the $3.00 range I might begin to believe you; if it keeps going up and up I’ll believe ASPO, Simmons, LATOC, Heinberg, Kunstler and others. So far the evidence is favoring their predictions.

Petrus
 
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