From: Larry Margolis <margoli@watson.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: What needs to happen to discuss these issues productively.
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1992 21:30:29 GMT
Reply-To: margoli@watson.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: The Village Waterbed

In  <72857@netnews.upenn.edu>  kwelch@eniac.seas.upenn.edu writes:
> Larry
>
> >Did I say anything was?  I said that *your* interpretation of someone else's
> >letter that was quoted in a textbook does not constitute an authoritative
> >definition.
>
> I didn't really do that much interpreting, Larry.  I thought that her words
> were pretty straight forward.

1.  When you say "This says that there is a proper term called the
    'human being in the genetic sense'", this is an inference on your part.
2.  What are Ms. Warren's credentials, that we should accept her
    definition as gospel (even if your inference were valid)?  Just
    because her letter was printed in a textbook does not make her
    a language expert.

> >Kevin
> >> But it isn't these which allow the transmission for thought.
> >> It is myelination that allows for this wonder...something a fetus
> >> has around 24 weeks.
>
> >Myelination is a necessary but not sufficient condition.
>
> Correct...but it is nonetheless necessary.

Umm, that's what I said.  "Necessary but not sufficient" means that
it *is* necessary, but other things are necessary as well.  In context,
this means that before myelination (which begins around 24 weeks), the
fetus is not capable of thought.  After myelination begins, transmission
can occur, but there still are not enough axons, etc. to sustain thought -
not until 4 weeks *later*.

And now we see a wonderful piece of intellectual dishonesty which few
would even attempt.  Kevin takes an article which presents facts that
Kevin doesn't like, so he selectively cuts it and claims that it says
the opposite of what it really does.  Let's take a look, shall we?

> >Originally posted by R. Cage, the following is an excerpt from:
> >"Documentary challenges claim of fetal pain", in the
> >Ann Arbor News, 31 August 1985:
>
> >     "Does the brain even exist at conception?" narrator
> >     Jaworski asks early in the broadcast.
>
> >     "NO!!!" shoots back Dr. Michael Bennett, chairman
> >     of the neuroscience department at New York's Albert
> >     Einstein School of Medicine.
>
> I agree as well.  It exists at about 4 weeks when it begins to
> develop.

Nice of you to agree, since the article did say:
     But to a person, Jaworski's "impeccably credentialed"
     scientists concurred that "there are no brain neurons
     prior to four weeks of fetal development."
But note that the brain doesn't magically appear at 4 weeks, so when
you say "it exists" you're wrong.  It *starts* to develop.  The
article also says:
     They contend
     that the cerebral cortex, the portion of the brain
     needed for thought, feelings and conscious awareness,
     is the last part of the brain to fully develop."
            ====

> >     "Can there be a person without a brain?" Jaworski inquires.
>
> >     "No, no way," replies Bennett.  "You can't be a person
> >     without a brain, you can't be a dog without a brain,
> >     you can't be a cat without a brain or a chicken without
> >     a brain."
>
> Bennett has just admitted that at 4 weeks, when a brain is present
> in the fetus, that it is a person.  At five weeks when the brain
> is more developed, it is a person.  At 8 weeks, when the brain shows
> electrical activity, the fetus is a person.

One would think that after being corrected many times for making the
same logical error, you would learn something.  Dr. Bennet said that
no brain implies no person; this does *not* say that brain implies
person.  (In fact, he said you can't be a dog or a cat or a chicken
without a brain, so by Welch's reasoning, something with a brain is
a person *and* a dog *and* a cat *and* a chicken.  :-)

A second error is that Welch claims that a brain is present at 4 weeks;
that's simply when it starts to develop.  And the intellectual dishonesty
appears when we realize with horror that Mr Welch discarded the rest of
the article, which stated plainly that it's not 4 weeks or 5 weeks or
8 weeks, but 28 weeks - 7 months - until the brain is sufficiently
developed that we could *consider* "personhood".

     In fact, asserts neurologist and neuroscientist Dr.
     Dominick Purpura, former dean of the Stanford University
     School of Medicine, and current dean at Albert Einstein
     School of Medicine, before the 28th week of development
     the cortex lacks sufficient axons, dendrites and synapses
     to sustain the processes of thought, feeling and aware-
     ness the documentary deems necessary for "personhood".

     "We're putting the boundary condition, the limit, the
     minimal time for personhood to begin," Purpura says.  "It's
     not three months, it's not two months, it's seven months.

Kevin, the conclusion of neuroscientists is that personhood is not
possible before seven months.  If you want to try to rebut them,
that's fine, but please don't lie about their conclusions - it really
reflects poorly on yourself.  When they say 28 weeks, don't claim that
they said 4.

Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)
Newsgroups: alt.abortion.inequity