Bloodletting of a different sort

There was once a medical practise called bloodletting, which had been practised for millennia.  In fact, Bloodletting was also popular in the young United States of America, where Benjamin Rush (a signatory of the Declaration of Independence) saw the state of the arteries as the key to disease, recommending levels of bloodletting that were high even for the time. George Washington asked to be bled heavily after he developed a throat infection from weather exposure. Within a ten hour period, a total of 124-126 ounces (3.75 liters) of blood was withdrawn prior to his death from a throat infection in 1799.

Needless to say, that probably was what caused Washington to die, but it was "state of the art" medical care at the time the Constitution was written. This was despite William Harvey disproving the basis of the practice in 1628.  The introduction of scientific medicine allowed Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis to demonstrate that phlebotomy was entirely ineffective in the treatment of pneumonia and various fevers in the 1830s.

Things change and ideas that were widely accepted no longer have currency, which is why the US Constitution should not be rigidly interpreted.  I have pointed out that the institution of the militia came under criticism by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations for being inappropriate in a modern society.

The problem is that the US Constitution makes it clear that it is intended to "insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare" among other things.  Additionally, the Second Amendment makes it clear that a "well regulated militia" is "necessary to the security of a free State" with no amount of sophistry from Scalia and others trying to neglect the fact that "it cannot be presumed that any clause in the Constitution is intended to be without effect".

Far more evidence exists that the issues the Second Amendment were intended to address were civilian control over the military and the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia: not private guns.  The debates talk about military establishments that go out of control, which is something the Constitution spends a good deal of time trying to prevent:

For most Americans after the Revolution, a standing army was one of the most dangerous threats to liberty. In thinking about the potential dangers of a standing army, the Founding generation had before them the precedents of Rome and England. In the first case, Julius Caesar marched his provincial army into Rome, overthrowing the power of the Senate, destroying the republic, and laying the foundation of empire. In the second, Cromwell used the army to abolish Parliament and to rule as dictator. In addition, in the period leading up to the Revolution, the British Crown had forced the American colonists to quarter and otherwise support its troops, which the colonists saw as nothing more than an army of occupation. Under British practice, the king was not only the commander in chief; it was he who raised the armed forces. The Framers were determined not to lodge the power of raising an army with the executive.

The problem is that the warnings about the growth of the military-industrial complex have been forgotten with the US now having an out of control military.  The establishment of a full time, professional army is far more of a violation of what the Second Amendment was intended to protect than the banning of private arms ever will be.

For the Founders, the militia arose from the posse comitatus, constituting the people as a whole and embodying the Anglo-American idea that the citizenry is the best enforcer of the law. "A militia when properly formed," wrote Richard Henry Lee in his Letters From the Federal Farmer, "are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms." From its origins in Britain, the posse comitatus (meaning to be able to be an attendant) was generally understood to constitute the constabulary of the "shire." When order was threatened, the "shire-reeve," or sheriff, would raise the "hue and cry," and all citizens who heard it were bound to render assistance in apprehending a criminal or maintaining order. The Framers transferred the power of calling out the militia from local authorities to the Congress.


The Anti-Federalists were not pleased. They wanted the militia to remain under state control as a check on the national government. Many feared that an institution intended for local defense could be dispatched far from home. As Luther Martin objected:

As it now stands, the Congress will have the power, if they please, to march the whole militia of Maryland to the remotest part of the union, and keep them in service as long as they think proper, without being in any respect dependent upon the government of Maryland for this unlimited exercise of power over its citizens. "Genuine Information," 1788.

In the "Calling Forth" Act of 1792, Congress exercised its powers under the Militia Clause and delegated to the President the authority to call out the militia and issue it orders when invasion appeared imminent or to suppress insurrections. While the act gave the President a relatively free hand in case of invasion, it constrained his authority in the case of insurrections by requiring that a federal judge certify that the civil authority and the posse comitatus were powerless to meet the exigency. The President had also to order the insurgents to disband before he could mobilize the militia. This was the procedure that President George Washington followed during the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.

The Second Amendment was intended to make sure that the federal government never totally used its powers to the detriment of that institution. The real killer was not federal neglect or abuse, but apathy by the general populace:

The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered,as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised,that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see.There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.

Times change and ideas become obsolete, which is something the Constitution provides a mechanism for addressing, which is the amendment process.  The Constitution itself was amended immediately upon adoption by the Bill of Rights. In fact, the Heller decision by choosing to say the stated reason for the Second Amendment was unimportant to an analysis of the text have made it clear that the Second Amendment is obsolete.

Why should society be ruled by an anachronistic section of the US Constitution, which has been judicially amended to change its original intent?  Even worse, this is a section of the US Constitution which has long died from neglect.

The only reason to treat this as sacrosanct is if people like bloodletting of a different sort.

Cutting to the Chase

Circumcision is not exclusively a religious medical procedure; some people are in favor of it for hygiene preferences.  

Foreskins from circumcisions, as a medical procedure byproduct, are used as one of the primary sources for growing skin used in skin graft procedures, particularly for burn victims.  Each foreskin can produce up to 4 ACRES of grafting tissue.  

Opponents of the procedure believe it amounts to the sexual mutilation of male infants.  I found this site to be very informative, and persuasive, especially the first item on this list from the site:

No national or international medical association recommends routine circumcision.

Only the USA circumcises the majority of newborn boys without medical or religious reason.

Medicalized circumcision began during the 1800s to prevent masturbation, which was believed to cause disease.

Today's parents are learning that the foreskin is a normal, protective, functioning organ.

Today's parents realize circumcision harms and has unnecessary risks.

Circumcision denies a male's right to genital integrity and choice for his own body.

and this, from the MN chapter of the organization that circumcision is extraordinarily painful, and that it is commonly performed without anesthesia, despite anesthesia being strongly recommended.

I doubt that most adult males would choose to have the procedure performed as a consenting adult, even with the religious requirements for it.

Yes? No? Should it be up to the parents, or should it be a procedure that is delayed until the child can express an opinion for themself?  Does public health policy have a role to play in THIS decision?

Or.........is this an exclusively religious decision? Is a ban on circumcision anti-Semitic?  Is a similar ban on female circumcision - religiously intolerant? Or does it not equate?

From Reuters and Yahoo.com: 

California prevents ban on male circumcision

By Mary Slosson | Reuters – 3 hrs ago

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown announced on Sunday that he signed a bill preventing local authorities from banning the practice of male circumcision.

The bill, which takes effect immediately, comes in the wake of an effort by a San Francisco group opposed to male circumcision to enforce a city-wide ban of the practice in a November ballot measure.

That effort was struck down in late July by a California judge who said it would infringe on religious freedom. The measure was removed from the November ballot.

The measure, which garnered 12,000 signatures of support, would have made it a misdemeanor crime to circumcise a boy before he is 18 years old in San Francisco, regardless of the parents' religious beliefs.

A dozen petitioners sued to block the initiative at the time. A similar effort in Santa Monica, west of Los Angeles, was withdrawn.

Circumcision is a ritual obligation for infant Jewish boys and also a common rite among Muslims, who account for the largest share of circumcised men worldwide.

The move to outlaw circumcision in San Francisco raised alarm bells for Jewish groups.

In June, the Anti-Defamation League condemned a comic book created by supporters of the anti-circumcision movement that it said contained grotesque anti-Semitic imagery. The comic featured a character named "Monster Mohel" as an evil villain.

A mohel is a Jewish individual specifically trained to perform the ritual circumcision of infant boys.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst)

The Impossible Is Getting Closer to a Reality

 Cross posted from Zetetos:

This is an idea that most of us would find more probable between the covers of science fiction than science fact.

From Yahoo.com news and the UC Berkeley News Center: BERKELEY —

Imagine tapping into the mind of a coma patient, or watching one’s own dream on YouTube. With a cutting-edge blend of brain imaging and computer simulation, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are bringing these futuristic scenarios within reach. Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models, UC Berkeley researchers have succeeded in decoding and reconstructing people’s dynamic visual experiences – in this case, watching Hollywood movie trailers. As yet, the technology can only reconstruct movie clips people have already viewed. However, the breakthrough paves the way for reproducing the movies inside our heads that no one else sees, such as dreams and memories, according to researchers. “This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery,” said Professor Jack Gallant, a UC Berkeley neuroscientist and coauthor of the study published online today (Sept. 22) in the journal Current Biology. “We are opening a window into the movies in our minds.” Eventually, practical applications of the technology could include a better understanding of what goes on in the minds of people who cannot communicate verbally, such as stroke victims, coma patients and people with neurodegenerative diseases. It may also lay the groundwork for brain-machine interface so that people with cerebral palsy or paralysis, for example, can guide computers with their minds. However, researchers point out that the technology is decades from allowing users to read others’ thoughts and intentions, as portrayed in such sci-fi classics as “Brainstorm,” in which scientists recorded a person’s sensations so that others could experience them.

Mind-reading through brain imaging technology is a common sci-fi theme

Previously, Gallant and fellow researchers recorded brain activity in the visual cortex while a subject viewed black-and-white photographs. They then built a computational model that enabled them to predict with overwhelming accuracy which picture the subject was looking at. In their latest experiment, researchers say they have solved a much more difficult problem by actually decoding brain signals generated by moving pictures. “Our natural visual experience is like watching a movie,” said Shinji Nishimoto, lead author of the study and a post-doctoral researcher in Gallant’s lab. “In order for this technology to have wide applicability, we must understand how the brain processes these dynamic visual experiences.”   Nishimoto and two other research team members served as subjects for the experiment, because the procedure requires volunteers to remain still inside the MRI scanner for hours at a time. They watched two separate sets of Hollywood movie trailers, while fMRI was used to measure blood flow through the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes visual information. On the computer, the brain was divided into small, three-dimensional cubes known as volumetric pixels, or “voxels.” “We built a model for each voxel that describes how shape and motion information in the movie is mapped into brain activity,” Nishimoto said. The brain activity recorded while subjects viewed the first set of clips was fed into a computer program that learned, second by second, to associate visual patterns in the movie with the corresponding brain activity. Brain activity evoked by the second set of clips was used to test the movie reconstruction algorithm. This was done by feeding 18 million seconds of random YouTube videos into the computer program so that it could predict the brain activity that each film clip would most likely evoke in each subject. Finally, the 100 clips that the computer program decided were most similar to the clip that the subject had probably seen were merged to produce a blurry yet continuous reconstruction of the original movie. Reconstructing movies using brain scans has been challenging because the blood flow signals measured using fMRI change much more slowly than the neural signals that encode dynamic information in movies, researchers said. For this reason, most previous attempts to decode brain activity have focused on static images. “We addressed this problem by developing a two-stage model that separately describes the underlying neural population and blood flow signals,” Nishimoto said. Ultimately, Nishimoto said, scientists need to understand how the brain processes dynamic visual events that we experience in everyday life. “We need to know how the brain works in naturalistic conditions,” he said. “For that, we need to first understand how the brain works while we are watching movies.” Other coauthors of the study are Thomas Naselaris with UC Berkeley’s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute; An T. Vu with UC Berkeley’s Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering; and Yuval Benjamini and Professor Bin Yu with the UC Berkeley Department of Statistics. and from Mashable:

Scientists Turn Brain’s Visual Memories into a Mind-Blowing Video

about 12 hours ago by Stan Schroeder

Ever dreamed of recording your dreams and turning them into a video clip? The technology that enables you to do that is near: UC Berkeley scientists figured out a way to turn the way our brains interpret visual stimuli into a video, and the result is amazing.

To be able to do this, the researches used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to measure the blood flow through brain's visual cortex. Then, different parts of the brain were divided into volumetric pixels or voxels (the term might be familiar to those who remember early 3D games which were based on voxels instead of polygons which are more commonly used today). Finally, the scientists built a computational model which describes how visual information is mapped into brain activity.

In practice, test subjects viewed some video clips, and their brain activity was recorded by a computer program, which learned how to associate the visual patterns in the movie with the corresponding brain activity.

Then, test subjects viewed a second set of clips. The movie reconstruction algorithm was fed 18 million seconds of random YouTube videos, which were used to teach the program how to predict the brain activity evoked by film clips. Finally, the program chose 100 clips which were most similar to the movie the subject had seen, which were merged to create a reconstruction of the original movie.

The result is a video that shows how our brain sees things, and at moments it's eerily similar to the original imagery.

“This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery. We are opening a window into the movies in our minds.”, said Professor Jack Gallant, a UC Berkeley neuroscientist and coauthor of the study published in the journal Current Biology.

Recording our dreams and "reading" the minds of coma patients requires a lot of work still, as current technology only enables scientists to interpret brain activity while the test subject is watching a movie. Ultimately, it could be used to decode how our brain processes visual events in everyday life or, perhaps, our dreams.

Check out another video, which shows the movie reconstruction algorithm at work, below. More details about the study can be found here. 

Asbestos - a Hazard in the News

 A warm welcome to Matt Phillips,
our newest contributing author. 

Please afford him the same courtesy and consideration
that we enjoy from all our readers.

I hope Matt doesn't mind my grangerizing his post
by adding photos (grangerize, to add illustrations,
is the word of the day from dictionary.com and
their hot word blog, from our blog roll; I couldn't resist.)
____________________________________

Most people in the U.S. are at least somewhat aware of the dangers of asbestos, but not many consider it a pressing issue anymore. However, asbestos and asbestos-related diseases appear in the news with some frequency. The most serious of these diseases is mesothelioma, a rare and deadly cancer of the lining of the chest and abdomen. Asbestos use in the U.S. peaked in the mid-20th century, though the dangers of exposure to the substance had been known for many years. Many employers withheld this information from their workers and failed to provide proper protective gear for those who came into contact with asbestos on a regular basis. Since symptoms of mesothelioma can take between 20 and 50 years to manifest, many workers whose health was compromised are only now beginning to show signs of illness and seek restitution.


photo of the then-vacant
Deutsche Bank
at Ground Zero,
one year after the
attack on 9/11/'01
courtesy of
http://gonyc.about.com/od/
photogalleries/l/bl_wtc01.htm

One very prominent source of asbestos news has been the wreckage caused by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. A number of toxins were released into the air upon the destruction of the Twin Towers and surrounding buildings, posing a danger to workers, residents, and rescue personnel. The danger did not completely pass with the settling of the dust, either. The Deutsche Bank building, which is only now being completely disassembled, routinely tested positive for the presence of asbestos, among other pollutants. Tragically, we may have yet to understand the full scope of the toll 9/11 took on public health.

It's All in Your Head: can neuroscience explain Conservative's resistance to facts which counter their views?

"The brain struggling to understand the brain is society trying to explain itself."
Colin Blakemore (from Mechanics of the Mind, 1977)


“People who don't Think probably don't have Brains; rather, they have grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake.”
Winnie the Pooh


"Whatever any man does he first must do in his mind, whose machinery is the brain. The mind can do only what the brain is equipped to do, and so man must find out what kind of brain he has before he can understand his own behavior."
Gay Gaer Luce and Julius Segal (from Sleep, 1966)

Besides blogging about politics and current events, I'm something of a biosciences geek. Reading articles and studies, or listening to science podcasts, is some of what I do purely for fun. Rarely do I have an occasion as entertaining for me as the one presented by a recent study in the UK, which connects these different interests.

Regular Penigma readers know that I include quotes at the beginning of posts as a sort of focus for the subsequent writing. The Winnie the Pooh quote here is to add a touch of humor, and a tip of the hat to the UK for providing source material, because I'm an ardent anglophile; not to insult anyone. But it is worth noting that despite allegations that so-called socialized medicine restricts innovation and research, the UK seems to be producing some amazing studies relating to our bodies and our minds.

A brain scan study started out as a joke, a whim, initiated and funded by actor Colin Firth. The study, as reported by the Daily Mail, involved the MRI scanning of some 90 students at the University College London (UCL). It uncovered an apparent correlation between the thickness of a section of the brain, the amygdala, and political views. The study was lead by Professor Geraint Rees, who summed up the study results,

"The anterior cingulate is a part of the brain that is on the middle surface of the brain at the front and we found that the thickness of the grey matter, where the nerve cells of neurons are, was thicker the more people described themselves as liberal or left wing and thinner the more they described themselves as conservative or right wing,

The amygdala is a part of the brain which is very old and very ancient and thought to be very primitive and to do with the detection of emotions. The right amygdala was larger in those people who described themselves as conservative.

'It is very significant because it does suggest there is something about political attitudes that are either encoded in our brain structure through our experience or that our brain structure in some way determines or results in our political attitudes.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1342239/Brain-study-reveals-right-wing-conservatives-larger-primitive-amygdala.html#ixzz1ABcgmlN8 This photo is from the daily mail website article linked above:



The right amygdala - an ancient part of the brain - was larger in those people who described themselves as conservative. It's located where the yellow area meets the red in the centre of the picture.

 This intrigued me because it raises the question, are these differences in the amygdala we are born with - are conservatives born, not 'made'? Or is this a case where the changes to this part of our brain that develops as a result of our thoughts and emotions? I suspect in further studies, it will turn out to be the latter, that our brain changes because of what we do, think, and feel; and that conservatives and liberals will turn out to be made the way they are, not that they are born that way.

Celebrate World AIDS Day Today, December 1, 2010 - Part I

Obviously we do not exactly celebrate the existence of this terrible viral disease.  What we celebrate is an awareness of this pandemic, a pandemic that is our closest modern equivalent to the black death, the bubonic plague of the 14th century in Europe.  Following the premise that when we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it, I would like to share with you a brief overview of other pandemics, (as distinct from epidemics) before focusing on ours. The purpose of the historic overview is to establish common patterns in the past as a foundation, a frame, a focus for looking at our approach to AIDS, in the hope of finding greater insight and understanding for our response to it.

Eggzactly!

free range (uncaged) large poultry operation

Minnesota is a 'fly-over' state, one which is active in producing the food supplies for the entire nation and beyond.  In this context, I contacted the office of one of our Minnesota senators, junior Senator Al Franken.  My response to that contact was extraordinarily prompt, and as has been my experience when contacting his office on other matters, his response was also substantive and to the point - not some 'blow-off' generic / one-size-fits-all reply.  I found the content of that response sufficiently interesting in view of the current egg-recall  and  related large number of illness, and the subsequent findings of sanitation-related problems with the mega-factory farming operation in our adjoining state of Iowa to be worth sharing here,

Tort reform - a counter proposal

Recently, Dr. Michael Kirsch wrote a thoughtful argument for supporting Tort reform. While he didn't specify the nature of reform he supports, the general convention for such reform is to limit damages in such cases, typically to $250,000.00.

As I said to Dr. Kirsch then, while I support the general idea of reform of our court system, I do not support this solution. I'll explain below, but more importantly, I feel most of the time if we want to oppose a solution to a recognized problem, we have to offer a different solution, and so I will try to.

First, I see as fundamental to any solution the following goals must be achieved:

1. The conduct of irresponsible doctors must be policed - this country pays for the malpractice mistakes of poor practitioners, through maimed bodies, ruined lives AND financially because the cost of that malpractice insurance (both the premiums and the payouts) are passed along to the consumer.

2. Indigent or poor litigants must not be barred from bringing suit by the threat of the cost, or actual cost of entry. If we set penalties, or threaten them with paying the legal costs - defendants simply will load up their counsel team to make the risk of loss too prohibitive to even allow for real suits to be heard.

3. The number of ludicrous claims must be effectively reduced. While I list this third, it is probably the second most important thing to #1.

4. Malpractice insurance must not be subject to the vagaries and losses of malpractice financial managers investing in the markets, bonds, currency trading, whatever.

I want to spend a paragraph on why I oppose the $250k cap. First and foremost, it doesn't work. In states where such caps exist, rates of inflation in medicine are NO lower than elsewhere. It also fails to prevent frivolous cases. Payments in low-grade (to coin a phrase) malpractice cases are far below $250k, so there is little to no reduction in preventing malicious and meaningless filings. In truth, the only people who would benefit in such a system, would be the insurers, because the cost of answering scurrilous claims, of being deposed for frivolous cases, is not avoided by the physician. Their malpractice cost MIGHT be lower IF their carrier actually passed along such savings, but when was the last time you heard of an entire industry passing along reduced costs realized by what they'd term 'greater efficiency'? Typically, such efficiencies are instead realized as profits. The proof is in the pudding either way, malpractice costs whether lower or higher in states with the $250k cap, have not changed the path of overall costs, health care costs overall are just as high and growing just as quickly in those states, as in states without such caps.


So, with those things being said: I have a counter set of proposals, ones which I hope would NOT prevent legitimate cases from moving forward, NOT prevent poor and middle class victims of malpractice from filing claims, and still hold practitioners accountable only for things which they should be held accountable for.

1. Establish an independent medical review board in each state. The board would consist of both doctors, nurses, and patient rights advocates. This board would hear cases requesting the removal of incompetent doctors. Currently, doctors effectively police themselves, and there is no, read zero, chance to strip a doctor of his/her license without repeated cases of grossly negligent (often in fact criminal) conduct.

2. Establish a separate, but equally independent board in each county which would hear cases of alleged malpractice. Each case would get 2-3 hours (at most) to present it's position at hearing - such hearing would judge based on the merits of reasonableness, not just standards of care, but reasonableness of care, whether the practitioner had acted reasonably - this is a standard used in insurance pretty often, and frankly, it works pretty well. In such a case, have 5 jurists decide the outcome, if the case gets at least 2 votes to proceed, then it can proceed to a normal legal trial. To make it legal (contractually enforceable) as anyone could sue to another court saying their case was being legally squelched - make it binding that any claimant who doesn't agree to this sort of arbitration, as well as any doctor, no longer is eligible for Medicare or Medicaid payments. Anyone who signed up for Medicare as a practitioner would be bound by contract, and you can easily pass a stipulation of benefits that any citizen agrees to such arbitration as a matter of benefit.

3. If a case got only 1 (or zero) votes regarding validity, make the lawyer filing the case pay $500 for wasting the court's time(such fine not to be passed on to the claimant to pay). Make the claimant pay $250 as a penalty. Also, create a tracking system such that any lawyer who achieves 10 such findings against him/her, has their license suspended for a year.

The points are: establish the meritability of the case on reasonableness of health care, not potential provability grounds, nor on 'what the law says.' If it wasn't unreasonable care, then create a small fine for the lawyer, and finally, make it so that someone who engages in such malicious cases routinely gets an applicable punishment. On the doctor/practitioner side, make it quick - showing up for such a hearing shouldn't take all day, shouldn't take hours of deposition, and should be resolved on the grounds of whether the caregiver a good job, not even necessarily the best job they knew how.

The other point is, malpractice protection should NOT be for the insurance carrier, but rather the practitioner who provides decent, adequate, and professional care. If malpractice carriers decide to invest their funds in the stock market and lose, the rest of the country should not have to pay for those losses. Many financial services entities are required (for example, by ERISA) to treat certain funds with 'fiduciary responsibility' as such, they are generally prohibited from risky investment practices. This should be true for malpractice premiums as well.

And then there's this, litigation in this country (and elsewhere) can be abused - heavily abused, of that there is no question, but it is also why we have airbags, and seat belts, and warning labels, and black-lung disease payments, and a whole host of other things which corporations have been made to account for when they acted grossly negligently. Without giving the ordinary citizen the right to hold the powerful accountable, many necessary changes we've made in the country would not exist, and more importantly, the little guy WILL wind up powerless - which is precisely against what we have said all along this country stands for, namely, the tyranny of the majority (or the powerful) cannot (and should not be allowed to) usurp the rights of the less powerful.

Soul Searching

"A blow to the head will confuse a man's thinking, a blow to the foot has no such effect, this cannot be the result of an immaterial soul. "
- Heraclitus of Ephesus
pre-Socratic Greek philosopher
535 - 475 BCE

"Whatever that be, which thinks, which understands, which wills, which acts, it is something celestial and divine; and, upon that account, must necessarily be eternal. "
- Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer and orator, politicl theorist & constitutionalist, linguist & translator,
106 BC - 43 BC

"For it is unknown what is the real nature of the soul, whether it be born with the bodily frame or be infused at the moment of birth, whether it perishes along with us, when death separates the soul and body, or whether it visits the shades of Pluto and bottomless pits, or enters by divine appointment into other animals."
De Rerum Natura (I, 113)
- Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus),
Roman poet and philosopher
99 BC - 55 BC

"The soul, which is spirit, can not dwell in dust; it is carried along to dwell in the blood." [Lat., Anima certe, quia spiritus, in sicco habitare non potest; ideo in sanguine fertur habitare.]Decretum (IX, 32, 2)
- Saint Aurelius Augustine (Augustine of Hippo),
philosopher and theologian, early latin church founder and saint
354 -430

"Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum. "
"I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am."
- Rene Des Cartes
French philosopher, mathmetician, and physicist
1596 - 1650

"But whither went his soul, let such relate
Who search the secrets of the future state:
Divines can say but what themselves believe;
Strong proofs they have, but not demonstrative:
For, were all plain, then all sides must agree,
And faith itself be lost in certainty.
To live uprightly then is sure the best,
To save ourselves, and not to damn the rest."
- John Dryden
Poet Laureate, play write, literary critic, translator,
member of the Royal Society of London for the Improvement
of Natural Knowledge (aka 'the Royal Society')
1631 - 1700

"One certainly has a soul; but how it came to allow itself to be enclosed in a body is more than I can imagine. I only know if once mine gets out, I'll have a bit of a tussle before I let it get in again to that of any other. "
~Lord Byron, poet and member of the Royal Society
1788 - 1824

e·pis·te·mol·o·gy (ĭ-pĭs'tə-mŏl'ə-jē)n. The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity.
[Greek epistēmē, knowledge (from epistasthai, epistē-, to understand : epi-, epi- + histasthai, middle voice of histanai, to place, determine; see stā- in Indo-European roots) + -logy.]e·pis'te·mo·log'i·cal (-mə-lŏj'ĭ-kəl) adj., e·pis'te·mo·log'i·cal·ly adv., e·pis'te·mol'o·gist n.The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

In the great debates over health care reform specifically, and more widely on the subject of abortion, the argument returns to the premise that abortion is wrong because of the belief independent individual life begins at conception, including the presence of a soul. Representative of that is the greater than usual number of quotations, including the definition and origins of 'epistemology', because of its relevance to my examination of the topic. I had many more, including Plato and Aristotle, Einstein and Jung, and a variety of theologians, which I pruned to the current several here.

I have read widely on the subject of our human soul and spirituality, and listened to many different voices pontificating ther dogma on the subject in the course of satisfying my own curiosity. The identification of a special essence, a special quality, that we generally term a soul exists across a wide range of cultures, around the world and across the span of our history. The identification of what we call 'soul' exists in the religious beliefs of the most primitive of cultures across the spectrum to the most sophisticated societies, as we define them by technology and science, literacy, political development, affluence, and a plethora of other criteria (take your pick).
All of which strongly suggests the existence of something we as humanity define, more or less, as our souls. This breadth of recognition might suggest some sort of consensus, some unanimity of understanding, a clarity and agreement on definition, right?

Not even close; as always, there are details rampant with devils, lots and lots of little devils.

There is no consensus across history or across the geography of our planet on any single specific aspect of that essence we name souls. We don't agree on what it is; we don't agree on when it is inside of us; we don't agree on the origins. We don't even fully agree on whether or not the soul is immortal or eternal; some believe that the soul can die, others that it grows as the body grows, with experience. We don't agree on how, where, and from whom our souls derive. We don't agree on who or what possesses a soul.

The Christian tradition is contradictory. The roots of early Judaism posited that animals, at least some animals, had souls, as do other religious and spiritual traditions. In Islam, the belief is that the soul enters the body of a fetus in utero after 40 days. Not 90 or 180 days, not 30 minutes, and not at conception; they are quite definite on the 40 day figure. But then, in the Islamic faith, not only humans have souls either. Djinn and angels also have souls in that faith's traditions. In the Druidic tradition, and in many other traditions (the many irreverent verses of "Give me that old time religion" are playing in my head) so do some trees and other inanimate objects.

Ethnocentrically, most of the people I know (but not all by any stretch) would argue for accepting only the more conventional and recent Judeo-Christian notions of souls. So.....that simplifies the concept entirely right? Hardly. Not only is there no consensus, if you ask the question not when is the soul first present, but rather when was the soul first present in the earliest human body, it presents an entirely different range of questions to be answered.

Recently I re-read a book I found very influential, "Guns Germs and Steel" by Jarod Diamond, a book about the comparative development of different societies, the how and why some developed greater technology and sophistication and others did not. Diamond covers the migrations of populations from Africa into the other continents on our planet, and briefly addresses the progression of what we know about Australopithecus Africans, through homo erectus, homo habilus, and homo sapiens. He addresses the development of and competition between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon "man". So........who had souls? Did the Australopithecus, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon? If you reject the science of evolution in favor of creationism, were the individuals whose remains we have discovered not at the very least been created by God as well, and therefore have souls too? Were they human enough?

I remember I was in elementary school the first time I saw the images of the Lascaux cave paintings; I thought they were beautiful. There are theories which equate the earliest origins of cave paintings and figural art, like the Willendorf 'venus' and the Hohle Fels 'venus', and the various cave paintings around the world, as indicative that our progenitors had developed the beginnings of religion and abstract concepts. The artistic figures were contemporaneous with the earliest formal burial customs (that we know of) which suggest belief in an after life, the beginnings of faith in something greater than ourselves. While there is not complete agreement in the significance of these paintings and sculptures, the overwhelming majority of the sculptures are female, and appear pregnant (although all of the figures, male, female, child, and animal from this period are included in the term 'venus'). There is a large segment of the experts who believe that the figures are indicative of a belief in one or more deites, especially some sort of fecund earth godess from whom life originates, and in belief that we are in the same general form as our deities.

In analyzing the progress of our species, who won, and who lost disappearing into history, Diamond further pursues the pressures and influences which resulted in our cultural and technological differences. He compares factors such as the difference in spacing the birth of children between nomadic peoples and settled/ sedentary societies, including the practices of contraception and abstinence, abortion and infanticide, and even castration of a percentage of male infants, as necessary to their survival as individuals, and as a group, because their way of life could not support or move more than limited numbers of people.

Someone, on another blog not so long ago accused me of "loving baby killing". The truth about me is far from that, and yet it was posited to me that the individual who made that statement was 'highly principled', the implication I took from that was that if I disagreed I must be less principled. I do not assume from the actions taken out of necessity for survival these earlier groups of people, who some would no doubt dismissively term 'dirt worshipping heathen', were enthusiastic about their options - that they loved killing babies, or that they were immoral or unprincipled.

Understanding and taking control of our reproduction is an important part of what differentiates human society from animals. The use of abortifacients is common to the earliest human medical knowledge, everywhere on the planet, at every time in human history. The ideology that abstinence will be practiced sufficiently that no other form of controlling reproduction is needed, is folly; it denies our history, it denies who we are, it denies the importance of the urge to reproduce that is inherent t0 human survival. I have pursued a certain interest in these materia medica used in humans and other species, as part of a larger interest in the area of reproductive science. They are found on every continent except Antarctica.

But it is not only a study of theology, history, literature, philosophy, art, archeology, anthropology, the history of medicines (primarily but not exclusively botanicals) that informed my thoughts on this subject. Besides the time spent in performing castrations and semen collection, and various efforts helping other species bring new life into the world, I've spent a good few hours in front of microscopes. I find semen fascinating; I have counted sperm in samples and evaluated it for the three "M"s - morphology, motility, and morbidity. I have differentiated mature sperm from immature (the immature have larger heads in relation to the tails). It never fails to inspire in me a sense of awe at the vigor and vitality of the stuff.

When I first had the opportunity to examine healthy semen under a microscope, observing the extent of the almost vibrating movement, I made the inadvertant comment that it was surprising that with all that motion observable under the microscope, it should tickle when you touch it. The response of the supervising professor was coffee expelled nasally; and another student observing that it did tend to explain why men seemed to scratch certain parts of their anatomy so often. (We were an all female group, otherwise we might have been more prudent in our observations, out of concern for making any male colleague uncomfortable.)

Nature is wasteful and redundant; it exists and thrives through excess. For every ova fertilized by a single spermatazoa, many millions fail. (I will skip expounding on capacitation and activation, on the presumption that not everyone shares my fascinaion.) An unknown and unknowable number of gametes - fertilised ova - fail to implant or otherwise fail to thrive. No count is kept of the women who only discover they were probably pregnant at some point only when their doctors happen to note the change to their cervix. No one can know how many more women are similarly affected by failures to implant or spontaneous abortion who do not have regular medical care that includes pelvic examination. That every failed embryo has a soul is to me incomprehensible; that every possible embryo equates to a fully developed human is even more unreasonable.

Beyond those failures of conception developing to term in vivo are those in vitro. Not only have we mastered the art and science of test tube babies, but we have cloned human embryos from human skin cells, and grown skin cells from foreskin. Those efforts are in pursute of creating pluripotent stem cells for research and therapeutic treatments. If we need more skin for skin grafts, we grow that from the circumcised foreskins of infants; about 4 acres of skin can be grown from a single foreskin (and like embryos, they can be frozen for storage).

The one constant for the development of any embryo to maturity, regardless of origin, is the requirement for it to be implanted in a woman in order to gestate. That fact suggests to me that women have a significance, an importance, that is greater in the consideration of reproduction than the value of any embryo, up until a sufficient cellular differentiation to survive independently. Further, I would argue that in the undifferentiated cellular state, as reflected in the first quotation from Heraclitus, that there is a lack of individuality as evidenced by a lack of neurological tissue - the lack of a brain, which seems an essential quality of being a human individual.

No embryos, of any species, have ever grown entirely in vitro. Do those embryos, those clumps of relatively few cells, largely undifferentiated, which are not implanted, which instead are frozen or discarded, all have fully equal souls to the rest of us, regardless of how the conception occurred? Some would say yes, many would say no. The reality is that people believe what they choose to believe; no one has proof, no one definitively KNOWS. The soul is the subject of belief, but it is not demonstrable, tangible, provable; it is at most a theoretical construct in which we decide to believe - myself included.

There are those in our society who would impose their beliefs on others. People who believe they know better than everyone else what is correct, who feel they need to enforce their beliefs on people who cannot be trusted to think for themselves, who cannot be allowed to believe differently. They demonize anyone who disagrees with them. They are willing to penalize them, sometimes to a draconian degree. They are willing to interfere with and disrupt the direction of people's entire lives, all the while congratulating themselves on their supposed moral superiority. Many of those same people are willing to enforce their views on all aspects of human sexuality on others, no matter how ignorant and uninformed by fact those views might be, or how fraught with unsupported assumptions.

They do not and cannot admit that someone could hold a different point of view that is valid or legitimate or moral based on different information or on different beliefs. This is the height of intolerance and hubris, and antithetical to the concept of separation of church and state, imposing a view that is both fundamentally religious and spiritual in nature, and specific to one or more religions at the expense of equal respect for other religious or moral beliefs, or the views of those who choose not to embrace any religion.

My friend and colleague here, ToE, wrote a while back in the comment section to something else I'd written, a sentiment I've heard expressed by many others:" when a woman makes a choice to engage in sexual relations, she bears equal responsibility for making sure that she does not become pregnant, and if she does, then she became pregnant because she chose to become pregnant or chose to not take suitable precautions against it." With the greatest respect and friendship for my friend and colleague, and for those others who share the view expressed in his statement, this is an oversimplification for the many and various circumstances under which women have sex. Some of those circumstances are less voluntary than others; some pressures are powerfully subtle and insidious, and women often are not always in control of those decisions because of disparities between men and women.

I cherish, respect and value those men I have known who care deeply and protectively about women and about children, including those not yet born. That protective concern is one of those qualities most essential (imho) in differentiating men from those who are merely male. Likewise, I believe a concern for nurturing others is similarly an important quality in women. So clearly, while I may differ in my point of view, unlike those who are vehemently judgemental of those who differ, I do value those who are in disagreement with me.

But in conscience, I cannot disagree with them any less intensely, or agree to the disruption and alteration of peope's lives they would so blythely impose. It is a matter of integrity, and of the most profound morality, to acknowledge the difference between what we know and what we believe, and to respect that each and every one of us deserves to act according to our respective conscience. It is one of the most profound principles in the founding of this country.