News

Pediatricians warn against indoctrinating kids in transgenderism

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Lets take a closer look at a puzzle
Lets take a closer look at a puzzle

The American College of Pediatricians, an organization that values the needs of vulnerable children above the desires of selfish adults, has issued a statement about teaching children about transgenderism. (H/T George, Katy, Kevin, William)

Intro:

The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.

They have 8 points, here they are:

  1. Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: “XY” and “XX” are genetic markers of health – not genetic markers of a disorder.
  2. No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one.
  3. A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking.
  4. Puberty is not a disease and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous.
  5. According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.
  6. hildren who use puberty blockers to impersonate the opposite sex will require cross-sex hormones in late adolescence. Cross-sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and cancer.
  7. Rates of suicide are twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBQT – affirming countries.
  8. Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.

Number 7 is the one that I thought was the most interesting:

Rates of suicide are twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBQT – affirming countries.11 What compassionate and reasonable person would condemn young children to this fate knowing that after puberty as many as 88% of girls and 98% of boys will eventually accept reality and achieve a state of mental and physical health?

The source for that 88% of girls and 98% of boys is the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM, 5th edition. Seems to me that it doesn’t make any sense to steer these children towards something irreversible, (surgery!), when they will reverse themselves in a few years. Especially when giving them the drugs and performing the surgery can increase the risk of suicide – even in countries that are more affirming of the gay agenda.

It turns out that being “nice” by lying to someone doesn’t always lead to that person’s happiness. Sometimes, telling someone a hard truth that they don’t want to hear is the best thing for them. A lot of things we do when we are young are not good for us, and the longer it gets dragged out, the more harm is caused.

News

Ted Cruz raised $12 million dollars last month alone

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Texas senator Ted Cruz, his wife Heidi Cruz and their two daughters
Texas senator Ted Cruz, his wife Heidi Cruz and their two daughters

This article from the left-leaning Houston Chronicle has some amazing news about Cruz’s fundraising.

It says:

Big money flew through the checking account of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign in February, when it reported its highest monthly income and expenditures to date, soaring above the GOP pack. And for the first time, the Cruz campaign spent more than it took in.

Fresh federal filings posted Sunday show a dramatic uptick in campaign costs and contributions for the period that spanned from Cruz’s unexpected win in Iowa, the nation’s first primary contest, to the day before his momentum seemed to fall behind frontrunner Donald Trump in a string of Super Tuesday votes on March 1.

Cruz’s Houston-based campaign took in $12 million in February, according to Federal Elections Commission records, compared in $7.6 million in January and $20.5 million in the last three months of 2015 combined.

The article also notes that Trump is lying about his campaign being self-funded – he takes donations, just like all the other candidates:

Trump has collected $7.7 million in contributions since he launched his campaign in June, in spite of his repeated assertion that he self-funds the operation. He has lent his campaign $17.5 million.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to support a candidate who says things that are not true, then has to back away from them after. If he lies about silly stuff like this, then what will happen when he has to tell the truth about something important?

It’s a good thing that Cruz is surging, because the polls show that Trump cannot beat Hillary Clinton:

Latest polls show Trump losing to Clinton, but Cruz ties Clinton
Latest polls show Trump losing to Clinton head-to-head, but Cruz ties with Clinton

I’m really hoping that Cruz can pull off a winner-take-all victory in Utah, which he will if he gets over 50% of the vote. And if Cruz wins in Arizona, that could mean that he will have more delegates than Trump at the time of the GOP convention.

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Podcasts

Stephen C. Meyer debates Charles Marshall on the Cambrian explosion

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Christianity and the progress of science
Christianity and the progress of science

Here is a summary of recent podcast of Unbelievable between intelligent design proponent Stephen C. Meyer and UC Berkeley evolutionary biologist Charles Marshall. Dr. Marshall had previously reviewed Dr. Meyer’s new book “Darwin’s Doubt” in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal “Science”.

Details:

Stephen C Meyer is the world’s leading Intelligent Design proponent. His new book Darwin’s Doubt claims that the Cambrian fossil record, which saw an “explosion” of new life forms in a short space of time, is evidence for ID.

Evolutionary biologist Charles Marshall of the University of California, Berkeley has written a critical review of the book. He debates Meyer on whether Darwinian evolution can explain the diversity of life in the Cambrian rocks.

For Meyer & Darwin’s Doubt:
http://www.darwinsdoubt.com/

For Charles Marshall’s review:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6152/1344.1.full

You can get the MP3 file here.

The brief summary this time is not provided by me, it’s from Evolution News.

Excerpt:

This past weekend Britain’s Premier radio network broadcast a debate between Stephen Meyer and UC Berkeley paleontologist Charles Marshall, recorded at the beginning of November. As David Klinghoffer noted yesterday, the subject of the debate was Meyer’s book Darwin’s Doubt. Yes, that’s the same Charles Marshall who reviewed Darwin’s Doubt in Science back in September. See here for our multiple responses.

It was an excellent debate, with both participants offering important insights and good arguments, though in my opinion Meyer unquestionably had the better of it, especially concerning the key scientific question of the origin of the information necessary to build the Cambrian animals. Nevertheless, both parties came to the table ready to engage in serious, thoughtful, and civil discussion about the core issues raised in Darwin’s Doubt, and we commend Marshall not only for participating, but for focusing his critique of the book on the central scientific issues, something other critics have conspicuously failed to do.

The debate was consequently both constructive and civil. Both parties complimented, as well as critiqued, the work of the other. Marshall, for example, described the first third of Darwin’s Doubt — the section that discusses the Cambrian and Precambrian fossil record, Marshall’s own area of principle expertise — as “good scholarship.” He also said it “looks like good science” and that Meyer “writes well,” and that he (Marshall) “really enjoyed reading”Darwin’s Doubt. Meyer, for his, part expressed his admiration for Marshall’s many scientific papers in paleontology and noted that he had been looking forward to the conversation because he and Marshall clearly “shared a passion for the same subject,” despite their different perspectives. Of course, Marshall is not pro-ID and both men expressed spirited disagreements, but they did so in a mostly respectful way that made the debate all the more interesting and engaging to listen to.

I was very impressed with Dr. Marshall’s performance during the debate, although he did try to poison the well a bit against ID at the beginning, and he got nasty at the end. It’s amazing how Dr. Meyer was able to get him to stop it with the politics and get serious, just by sticking to the science. Even when Marshall got insulting at the end, it was still valuable to see how the other side has to abandon rational argument and scientific evidence once they see that they can’t win on the merits. It’s “Inherit the Wind” in reverse.

Evolution News also posted a more complete guide to the debate in this post, and I recommend that you read that post before listening to the debate if you are not familiar with the science.

This is a great debate, and you definitely ought to listen to it. I hope I’ve posted enough here to convince you. If you haven’t yet bought “Signature in the Cell” and “Darwin’s Doubt“, then I urge you to get them, although they are intermediate/advanced level books. The two books are the state of the art in intelligent design research, good enough to be debated with a University of California, Berkeley professor of biology. Dr. Meyer is the real deal, and if you want to be convincing on these important scientific issues, you need to learn the scientific evidence from his books.

If you are not a regular reader of the Evolution News blog, you really should be. It’s also a good idea to subscribe to the Intelligent Design: The Future podcast.