Category: Uncategorized

Memo to JP Goodwin: Think First, Then Write

Awhile ago I mentioned a presentation by a researcher named Stephen Davis that argued that a mix of ruminant/pasture agriculture would cause fewer animal deaths than a strictly vegan agricultural system. A newspaper in Connecticut picked up this story, which apparently infuriated JP Goodwin who, typically, didn’t bother to actually carefully read the story before writing an angry reply. Here’s the text of a letter from Goodwin being circulated on the Internet,

I hope the piece in your April 1st issue describing
veganism as a “killer diet” was some sort of April
Fools joke. If not, then I have now officially heard
every absurd argument ever conceived.

This article reported on a certain agriculture
professor from Oregon that claimed a strict vegetarian
diet caused animals to suffer. He made this point by
arguing that animals are butchered when crops are
harvested.

What this meat industry apologist failed to mention is
that far more crops have to be grown to fatten
livestock than would ever be consumed by human beings.

If you are concerned about field mice being hurt when
corn is harvested, then don’t eat meat. Most of that
corn is used to feed livestock. A vegetarian diet
would drastically reduce the amount of crop land
needed to feed billions.

John Goodwin
PO Box 21780
Washington, DC 20009
202 251 2748

The emphasis on the next to last paragraph is mine, because it’s a good example of the sort of nonsense Goodwin spouts. Of course the article in the Connecticut newspaper clearly indicated that this was not the case,

On the other hand, grazing animals produce food and reduce the need to drive farm equipment into the fields. Mr. Davis said less wildlife is lost to the mower blades and more find stable habitat in grazed and untilled fields.

Apparently these two sentences went over and above Goodwin’s limited reading comprehension ability so let’s be very clear. Davis is not arguing that fewer animals are killed in the current agricultural system than would be killed in a hypothetical vegan system. Instead, he is arguing that a hypothetical agriculture system that relies on pasture grazing cows and plant agriculture would result in fewer animal deaths than a hypothetical vegan agriculture system.

His point, which is apparently difficult for some animal rights activists to comprehend, is that the vegan view poses a conundrum for utilization of land ideal for bovine grazing. If you eliminate the cows and put that land into crop production, the result is clearly far more animal deaths than if you simply allow cows to graze the land and kill the cows for food.

Source:

Veganism is a killer diet. The Waterbury Connecticut Republican American Newspaper, April 1, 2002.

Untitled Letter. John Goodwin, April 2, 2002.

French Researchers Clone Rabbits

Researchers in France recently announced they had successfully cloned rabbits. Their report, published in the Nature Biotechnology, describes how the researchers used cells from an adult rabbit to produce several cloned rabbits.

Like other cloned animals, this procedure required hundreds of cloned embryos to produce six live births. Two of the rabbits died shortly after birth, leaving four clones that appear to be growing and reproducing normally.

Rabbits are an important research tool because they are genetically more similar to human beings than are other lab animals, such as mice, but they have a much shorter gestation period than larger mammals such as sheep or cows.

“The advantage is that rabbits reproduce so quickly,” Dr. Jean-Paul Renard told The BBC. “The pregnancy lasts one month, then it takes four months to sexual maturity…” The average gestation period for a rabbit is only 31 days, producing an average litter size of 8.

Combined with the cloning technique, this would allow researchers to create genetically modified rabbits for medical research purposes very quickly.

For example, one of the areas that the French researchers are already working on is creating a rabbit model for cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis is caused by a defect on a gene that happens to be very similar between human beings and rabbits. The ability to produce a large number of rabbits with a similar defect on this gene could lead to a much better animal model for cystic fibrosis and improved progress on understanding and treating the disease.

Rabbits are also used in heart disease as well as the production of monoclonal antibodies (which animal rights activists like to pretend are non-animal alternatives to research). The rabbit’s immune system is similar to human beings, and studies of how rabbits cope with organ transplants has yielded important information on preventing organ transplant rejection in human beings.

In fact, as The Washington Post noted, cloning technology itself rests in part upon advances in the understanding of reproduction obtained through extensive research in rabbits.

Sources:

Rabbits join the cloning club. The BBC, March 29, 2002.

A big hop forward: Rabbits cloned; Research promise seen in second lab animal to be replicated. David Brown, Washington Post, March 30, 2002.

These Easter bunnies are clones. Roger Highfield, Daily Telegraph (London), March 30, 2002.

Are We All Alone in the Universe?

The Independent (UK) published excerpts from a lecture given by professor of environmental sciences Andrew Watson about the possibility of ever encountering alien life forms. Watson argues that for all intents and purposes, human beings are probably alone in the universe.

Watson notes that the best evidence is that life began about 3 billion years ago on this planet, and it took 2 billion years after that for complex life to arise. Life on Earth has only about 1 billion years left before changes in the sun and environment lead to a runaway greenhouse effect that will render life impossible. So, assuming other planets where life develops are similar to Earth, sentient life has a very narrow (by the universe’s standards, at least) window in which to evolve.

According to Watson,

Out beyond our own special planet, complex life is rare, and sentient life (aliens) rare still. That a large number of planets probably exist does not make it reasonable to assume that sentient life is inevitable on at least some planets if the chances of it arising are infinitesimally low. Our evolution at a late stage of our planet’s history is consistent with beings like us being so rare that we are very unlikely to contact any other. Whether we like it or not, therefore, we are probably, in effect, alone in the universe, and this planet the only place we will ever know where the universe has come into self-awareness.

Well, hopefully we will expand onto other planets, but don’t expect any visitors to come knocking anytime soon.

Source:

Forget about aliens: we’re all alone in the universe. Andrew Watson, The Independent (UK), March 28, 2002.

Coolest Bike Accessory Ever

I don’t own a bike at the moment, but I’m going to have to go out and buy one now just to put Hokey Spokes on it.

I saw a similar technology toy that did the same thing with a frisbee — you could program a message and when it was thrown the message would be visible on LEDs installed on the outer edge of the frisbee.

But this is way cooler than that.

Can You Shout Fire in a Crowded Theater?

Inevitably it takes just a few minutes of debating free speech when some interloper will interject that there have to be limits on speech because, “You can’t, after all, yell ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater.” The Associated Press has a report about two people caught up by that sort of thinking and arrested simply because their speech was considered to incendiary to be tolerated.

To be sure, the men involved in these cases said things that the average person is likely to find reprehensible. Reggie Upshaw was charged with disorderly conduct and inciting a riot when he went to Times Square a few days after the Sept. 11 attack saying, among other things,

It’s good that the World Trade Center was bombed. More cops and firemen should have died. More bombs should have been dropped and more people should have been killed.

Police reported that a crowd had gathered around Upshaw and some in that crowd made threats against his life.

William Harvey, meanwhile, was arrested on October 4 near the ruins of the World Trade Center dressed in military fatigues and holding a sign featuring Osama bin Laden. Harvey told a crowd of about 60 who gathered that the terrorist attacks were revenge on the United States for the way it treats Muslim countries.

Now in both cases, police are certainly correct that allowing the speech to continue could have caused a riot or other public disturbance, and were wise given the circumstances to take these gentlemen into custody if only for their own protection.

But should they then be charged and prosecuted for trying to incite a riot? Judges separately in each case have ruled that their words are not subject to the First Amendment protection since they knew or should have known that their speech would be likely to incite a riot.

First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, on the other hand, told the AP that the two men’s statements were,

. . . political advocacy, detestable to almost all of us, but protected nonetheless. . . . I find disturbing the notion that people can be jailed for reasons that bear on the content of what they are saying.

I concur. Prosecuting these two nitwits seems unlikely to serve much purpose.

Source:

Judges Rule Against 2 Accused of Praising Sept. 11 Attacks. Associated Press, March 30, 2002.