05Jun 2020 by Post

Suicide by Zoom — Technology and Dehumanization

abortion, assisted suicide, California, coronavirus, Culture & Ethics, dehumanization, Humanize, Medicine, Meera Shah, New York State, oncologists, Oregon, oxymoron, pandemic, patients, Philadelphia Inquirer, Planned Parenthood, silver lining, suicide, Technology, telehealth, telemedicine, Wesley Smith, Zoom
Some have seen a silver lining in the pandemic and welcomed its encouragement of medicine practiced online, potentially freeing doctors to work across state borders, and widening access to care (or virtual care) generally. I’m not sure that’s to be celebrated in its entirety. The trend toward “telehealth” undercuts the crucial personal relationship between doctor and patient, which had already been in retreat before the virus came along. There are other downsides, too, including lethal ones. As the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, “The pandemic is helping U.S. abortion-rights advocates achieve a long-standing goal: Make it easier for women to use pills to end pregnancies up to 10 weeks.” Get your abortion pills online — what could be more convenient? NPR approves, quoting New York physician Meera Shah with Planned Parenthood: “I…
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08May 2020 by Post

Why Building Animals Is Hard

cats, Center for Science & Culture, comments, development, Discovery Institute, evo-devo, Evolution, Intelligent Design, lectures, memories, Summer Seminars, Zoom
While out lecturing around the country — in May 2020, just a fond memory; only my cats hear me lecture in person now, everyone else tunes in on Zoom — I’m often asked, “So what are the Discovery Institute Summer Seminars like, anyway?” You can see for yourself by going here. This lecture represents material I have presented for the past few years, under the heading of “evo-devo,” or “evolution and development.” I am revamping my evo-devo lectures from top to bottom, so making this talk available to anyone interested will take nothing away from future Summer Seminar students. Comments welcome — please send them to cscinfo@discovery.org, and I will take them seriously. Photo credit: Wolfgang Hasselmann via Unsplash. The post Why Building Animals Is Hard appeared first on Evolution News.
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13Apr 2020 by Post

Zoom Webinar with Wells, Sternberg on Whale Evolution; Join Us on April 23!

bears, Binghamton University, biologists, Center for Science & Culture, Charles Darwin, Darwinism, Discovery Institute, Evolution, Florida International University, Intelligent Design, Is Homology Evidence for Evolution?, Jonathan Wells, Richard Sternberg, scientists, The Origin of Species, U.C. Berkeley, webinar, Whale of an Evolution Tale, whales, Yale University, Zoom
Darwinists often point to the whale fossil record as one of the best examples of an evolutionary transition. But is it? Charles Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species: “I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale.” Bears turning into whales? Scientists today disagree, instead claiming that other land animals were the real precursors to today’s whales. “Just think of all the parameters that would have to be modified,” says biologist and Center for Science & Culture Senior Fellow Richard Sternberg, “and then multiply that by, I don’t know — a thousandfold, or more than that. That’s the scale of…
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