Issue 66
News: The Beethoven Fallacy.
As long-time readers will probably guess, I am strongly Pro-Choice, and have dedicated the news stories in two issues of my blog (Specifically Issues nos. 21 [where I parodied an article on Jack Chick's website which is a variation on what I will talk about], and 31 [Where I ranted about a law in South Dakota which would have totally banned it, which has since been overturned.]) and have made several other references to it in other issues. Recently, I purchased Richard Dawkins' new book The God Delusion. In one section of the book, he writes about an urban legend circulating among pro-lifers since at least 1945 which goes along the lines of "If a woman with (Tuberculosis/syphilis) and her husband had (whichever one the woman didn't get assigned with) had (4-8) children already, and three of them were deaf, Two blind, and One Retarded, would you reccomend abortion? If you did, then you would have killed Beethoven." As Dawkins points out that this is very incorrect on many levels.
1. Beethoven's father had neither syphillis nor Tuberculosis, though he was an alcoholic, albeit competent enough to further Ludwig's musical development.
2. Beethoven's mother did end up with Tuberculosis only after he was born.
3. Beethoven was effectively the oldest child of his family, with the actual oldest dying in infancy , not blind/deaf/retarded.
4. Beethoven's parents only had 7 children, only three of which even survived infancy, and, to my knowledge, no real defects apart from Ludwig's deafness, which had nothing to do with the illnesses of his parents.
5. Even if a fetus could have the potential of somebody as creative as Beethoven was, there's also as much possibility of a person killing a fetus with the potential to become as evil as Hitler was.
6. Considering that, on average, only one in 1/2 Billion sperm even reach the uterus in the first place, and that afterwards, even if the egg is fertilized, the odds of the sperm-egg combination ending up being flushed out with the mother's period has been given as anywhere from 50-80%, worrying about the termination of a pregnancy seems trivial in comparison.
Band Name of the Day: Googly Gogol. A band name in the book and movie A Clockwork Orange.
Film Idea: No Film Ideas, but many film reviews in queue, so instead of a new film idea and a review of a film, I will post 2 film reviews per issue for as long as I have more than two film reviews to write, and even after that, I will only post new film ideas as they come to me.
Film Reviews of the Day: A Clockwork Orange. As deeply messed up as Kubrick's vision of Anthony Burgess' novel (Of the 50 or so he wrote, the only one for which he would be remembered), it seems to be the most perfect film I have ever seen, almost on par with The Catcher in the Rye. It is also fitting that given Alex's Obsession with "Lovely Lovely Ludwig Van" in the film, that my news article was about him.
Rocky Horror Picture Show. I haven't seen this film in a theatre, but I do own it on DVD, and to quote three characters from the film:
* It's A credit to Richard O'Brien's genius.
* A Triumph of his Will.
* It's Okay.
Quote of the Day: "Why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't want to **** in the first place?"
_________George Carlin, Back in town.
Link of the Day: Scopitones: The French Granddaddy of today's Music videos. View them here.
As long-time readers will probably guess, I am strongly Pro-Choice, and have dedicated the news stories in two issues of my blog (Specifically Issues nos. 21 [where I parodied an article on Jack Chick's website which is a variation on what I will talk about], and 31 [Where I ranted about a law in South Dakota which would have totally banned it, which has since been overturned.]) and have made several other references to it in other issues. Recently, I purchased Richard Dawkins' new book The God Delusion. In one section of the book, he writes about an urban legend circulating among pro-lifers since at least 1945 which goes along the lines of "If a woman with (Tuberculosis/syphilis) and her husband had (whichever one the woman didn't get assigned with) had (4-8) children already, and three of them were deaf, Two blind, and One Retarded, would you reccomend abortion? If you did, then you would have killed Beethoven." As Dawkins points out that this is very incorrect on many levels.
1. Beethoven's father had neither syphillis nor Tuberculosis, though he was an alcoholic, albeit competent enough to further Ludwig's musical development.
2. Beethoven's mother did end up with Tuberculosis only after he was born.
3. Beethoven was effectively the oldest child of his family, with the actual oldest dying in infancy , not blind/deaf/retarded.
4. Beethoven's parents only had 7 children, only three of which even survived infancy, and, to my knowledge, no real defects apart from Ludwig's deafness, which had nothing to do with the illnesses of his parents.
5. Even if a fetus could have the potential of somebody as creative as Beethoven was, there's also as much possibility of a person killing a fetus with the potential to become as evil as Hitler was.
6. Considering that, on average, only one in 1/2 Billion sperm even reach the uterus in the first place, and that afterwards, even if the egg is fertilized, the odds of the sperm-egg combination ending up being flushed out with the mother's period has been given as anywhere from 50-80%, worrying about the termination of a pregnancy seems trivial in comparison.
Band Name of the Day: Googly Gogol. A band name in the book and movie A Clockwork Orange.
Film Idea: No Film Ideas, but many film reviews in queue, so instead of a new film idea and a review of a film, I will post 2 film reviews per issue for as long as I have more than two film reviews to write, and even after that, I will only post new film ideas as they come to me.
Film Reviews of the Day: A Clockwork Orange. As deeply messed up as Kubrick's vision of Anthony Burgess' novel (Of the 50 or so he wrote, the only one for which he would be remembered), it seems to be the most perfect film I have ever seen, almost on par with The Catcher in the Rye. It is also fitting that given Alex's Obsession with "Lovely Lovely Ludwig Van" in the film, that my news article was about him.
Rocky Horror Picture Show. I haven't seen this film in a theatre, but I do own it on DVD, and to quote three characters from the film:
* It's A credit to Richard O'Brien's genius.
* A Triumph of his Will.
* It's Okay.
Quote of the Day: "Why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't want to **** in the first place?"
_________George Carlin, Back in town.
Link of the Day: Scopitones: The French Granddaddy of today's Music videos. View them here.
Labels: Abortion
posted by DerekAxe at 10:59 AM
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