It's very weird that Bush, who presumably sees abstinence as an ethical/religious discipline central to his family values package, would now align himself with this Keroack guy, who seems (at least on the oxytocin issue) the crudest sort of physical reductionist. Opportunism? Failure to connect the dots?
Kerry,
It is neither, it is simple backfilling. You are being far too generous in attributing a philosophical foundation to the view. The conclusion comes first and any argument that can be used as a club is good enough, presuppositions be damned. It doesn't have to be true, just has to be good enough to rhetorically neutralize the other side's advantage. Wishful retroduction -- if it were true, then it would explain what I want to be the case, therefore it is true.
I think the baloney about oxytocin was generated for a specific purpose. The people who oppose abstinence-only programs often do so on the grounds that it is not scientifically-based.
By tossing out terms that nobody understands, he makes his position sound scientific...unless you happen to know the terms, in which case you can see it is pseudoscientific claptrap.
A PERSON'S A PERSON NO MATTER HOW SMALL!!!!!
GOD WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU, AND IN HELL YOU WILL BE ABORTED OVER AND OVER, LEGS AND ARMS TORN FROM YOU FOR ALL ETERNITY IN A CIRCLE OF FOREVER. THIS IS WHAT HELL IS, IS THE ETERNAL LIVING OF THE EVILS YOU PETUATED ON OTHERS. WHEN YOU ARE IN HELL WITH YOUR EYES SUCKED OUT AND SCREAMING BUT NO VOICE COMING FROM YOUR NECK, MAYBE YOU WILL REMEMBER WHAT YOU DID TO YOUR BABY!
Aww, all my antiabortion trolls spout stuff that sounds like it came from that odious thing that ends with "Last night my mommy killed me."
I don't find there's a logical disconnect here at all. Right-wingers love scientistic bullshit. Everyone, from the Discovery Institute to "Doctors" James Dobson and Laura, uses it.
Actually, I *think* she's quoting from "Horton Hears a Who." Now there's good argumentation. Probably the most recent thing she's read.
It's also the case that a tautology is a big, fat question-begging tautology. But that's actually treating it like an argument instead of a semi-psychotic rant.
You were expecting, maybe, someone who was actually qualified?
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