 | Holsinger Would Establish Ideological Medicine |
In the wake of outgoing Surgeon General Richard Carmona’s revelations about the way that the Bush White House has pushed to make medical decisions subject to Republican political ideology, the Senate is considering George W. Bush’s new nominee for Surgeon General, James Holsinger. The trouble is, Holsinger looks set to repeat the very same problems that Carmona has just identified.
The defining paper of James Holsinger’s career is entitled “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality”. The paper deals with a medical subject - the physical impact of male homosexual sex. But, is it a genuine medical paper? Yes and no.
The paper uses medical terminology and formatting. However, the paper is ideological, not scientific, in its orientation. The paper was written for a church that commissioned Holsinger to produce a document that would justify a religious belief that discrimination against gays is justified.
Holsinger didn’t enter into his work with an open mind. He was hired to come up with medical reasons to justify discrimination against men who have sex with other men, and he set about to accomplish that mission.
James Holsinger has made his name by twisting science in order to serve ideology. The right wingers in government seem to think that’s just what America needs from its Surgeon General. We need to elect a progressive President in 2008 so that the next time America needs a new Surgeon General, we get a professional not a political hack.
(Source: Wired, July 12, 2007)
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Friend nothing against you but homosexuality is wrong and it IS a sin. i personally am glad that there are people up on cpital hill who stand up for what is right and wrong.
Comment by A friend — 7/14/2007 @ 4:14 pm
Friend, nothing against you, but asparagus is wrong and it IS a sin. I personally am glad that there are people like up on Capitol Hill who stand up against asparagus.
It’s just such a beautiful thing to have medical doctors treating people according to the religious teachings of a book that’s two thousand years old. Goodness knows, it worked soooo well back in Medieval times.
Comment by J. Clifford — 7/14/2007 @ 5:03 pm
God created homosexuality.
Heaven only knows why, because it’s pretty weird.
Does God create junk?
Comment by Iroquois — 7/14/2007 @ 5:41 pm
Er… God created homosexuality? Aside from the fact that I don’t believe in God, homosexuality has occurred naturally in a wide variety of species, so it’s not that weird that it happens in humans too. Sadly, James Holsinger is probably going to become the next Surgeon General, and there’s not really anything any of us can do about it.
Comment by Tierillo — 7/15/2007 @ 2:10 pm
God did not create sin. God created everything perfect. He created man and gave man the choice to do right or do wrong. Man chose wrong. God did not cause Adam and eve to sin (james 1:13). By there own will did adam and eve sin and rebel against god.(romans 5:12). God simply allowed the condition to exist where sin was possible.
An analogy can be found in the relationship between a parent and a child. A parent can create the condition that makes disobedience possible yet the parent remains innocent if the child sins. For example, if a parent tells his child to clean up his room and the child does not, he has rebelled. But, the parent is not responsible for the child’s sin, nor did he cause the child to sin. The child had a choice to obey or not to obey.
Likewise, God has created the condition in the world where the ability to rebel against Him was possible. Yet, he is not responsible for that rebellion once it has been committed. Therefore, sin originated with Lucifer who was the first to rebel and entered the world through Adam who likewise chose disobedience.
Comment by A friend — 7/15/2007 @ 2:30 pm
Just look around you Tierillo, can you explain how the chemistry of the human body is absolutly perfect. I mean the evidence is all around you. God loves us so much. Can you explain the beauty of this earth. The flowers, the trees, the birds , the animals and how eerything thing seems to be perfect.
Look at it this way: a piano. You and I both know that you cant take the parts of a piano and put them in a bucket, shake the parts up, toss them on the ground and expect there to be a perfectly constucted, in tune piano right in front of you. There had to of been a piano maker assemble all the delecate parts of a piano, and then fine tune it into perfect tuning.
The same way with the earth, and everything on it, everything fits together to perfectly and is to perfectly in tune. He created everything perfect for us, but we (humanity) screwed it up.
BUT….. the glorious part is, is that there is hope. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only beggotten son that whosoever believes in him should not parish but have everlasting light.” (john 3:16)Alls you have to do is believe and have a personal relationship with him. Your reward is everlasting life in heaven.
I don want your money and i am not asking you to go to church but consider what i have said. It will be the most important decision you will ever make. I love you and i am praying for you Tierillo.
Comment by A friend — 7/15/2007 @ 2:59 pm
Tierillo, I don’t care what God thinks, I still think homosexuality is weird. Why God wants to create that, yes in every known culture, is way beyond me. But there it is. God created some people homosexual and all you can wonder is whatever was God thinking. But there you have it. That’s what God wants. But when I’m sitting in church and the guy in front of me has his slip showing under his skirt by about two inches, I have to wonder first about his sartorial judgment, and second, whatever was God thinking.
‘A friend’, since when is a dirty room sinful? A little dust is good for you. Life is short; don’t be so judgmental. Stop and smell the flowers.
Comment by Iroquois — 7/15/2007 @ 3:45 pm
I think this “A friend” person is a little off his/her rocker… Trying to proselytize by posting some strange little messages on a progressive news website?
Just so you know, A friend, I’ve studied the Bible quite carefully. I’ve read the entire thing several times, which is probably more than you can say for yourself. I used to think a bit like you, but logic won out in the end. What on earth could a small Bronze Age tribe know about how best to live one’s life? Think about it. They knew nothing more than they could see around them, and their primitive, limited view of the world is a foolish thing to live by. As for the New Testament apostles, they were no wiser. They would be totally perplexed by the world today. A friend, I’m afraid you’re a bit of an amateur at Christian apologetics. Simply regurgitating the bits of information you’ve been fed in an attempt to feel like you’re part of the elect few who will be ’saved’ is a little pathetic.
By the way, you misquoted John 3:16. It’s ‘perish,’ not ‘parish.’ Lol. XD
Comment by Tierillo — 7/15/2007 @ 11:56 pm
Say, couldn’t “God speaking” be interpreted as a sign of schizophrenia?
Comment by The Animist — 7/16/2007 @ 1:01 am
Yeah Tierillo, and it’s also everlasting life, not light, but also consider the words or Jesus, and I’m sure it’s in there somewhere if you look hard enough, that unless you have the faith of a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
Scoff at bronze age tribes if you will (overlaid with Greek decapolis sophistication), but this region of the world has produced three major religions that are still going strong, must be something in the water….no, it’s not a world you can enter through apologetics, this world of everlasting, uh, light.
Comment by Iroquois — 7/16/2007 @ 1:14 am
Congratulations, The Animist, you’ve correctly diagnosed A Friend.
Comment by Tierillo — 7/16/2007 @ 3:33 am
And Iroquois, if I wanted to “have the faith of a little child,” then I would start believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and Zeus and Thor and Jehovah. All religions are fallacies, and the fact that Islam and Christianity are still “going strong” is no evidence in favor of them possessing any innate truth. Someone believing something doesn’t make it true.
Comment by Tierillo — 7/16/2007 @ 3:39 am
Thanks.
Comment by The Animist — 7/16/2007 @ 4:20 am
Has anyone noticed that most of what religions claim isn’t scientifically testable?
I challenge any religious person to give me a set of at least ten articles by any university or government institution asserting the existence of a deity or the absence of evolution.
Stumped? That’s because every credible institution knows that religious assertions are nonscientific and, thus, cannot be tested and taken as true.
Comment by Anonymous — 7/16/2007 @ 1:52 pm
That’s part of the reason religions are still around… Who knew that personal opinion based on one’s religious beliefs, the likes of which eschew reasoned analysis of the natural state of the world in favor of one-sided interpretations of Biblical passages was synonymous with truth?
Comment by Tierillo — 7/16/2007 @ 2:41 pm
Oh, Tierillo, I didn’t think you had the faith of a child. Jesus also said, (oh drat, where did I put my concordance)”where I am going you cannot follow.” ‘A friend’ is a hard act to follow, but God works in mysterious ways.
Don’t forget to put Puff the Magic Dragon on your list, and Harry Potter too.
If you are talking about religion in terms of “fallacies” and “evidence”, you clearly don’t understand religion. Then again neither do a whole lot of right wing religious wackos. Do you judge love in terms of fallacies and evidence? Do you judge music in terms of fallacies and evidence. What about baseball? Do you go to the bleachers and start telling the fans to go home because of fallacies and evidence? Then why should you judge religion by fallacies and evidence? You have to approach it for what it is.
Why does the spellcheck not like “whackos” but likes “wackos”. Is this the correct spelling now? Since when do spellcheckers concern themselves with how to spell words like whacko? Computers weren’t snitty like this when I was a kid.
Comment by Iroquois — 7/16/2007 @ 2:43 pm
Who’s this guy with the conspiracy theories and the purloined name?
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=23355
Comment by Chancy Gardener — 7/16/2007 @ 4:13 pm
No purloined name. If you have a last name like “Cook,” you’re going to have a whole lot of people with your first and last names, especially if you have a first name like “Jonathan.” When I lived in Tucson, there was even another “James Matthew Cook” who lived in the city at the same time as me. Them’s the shakes.
Comment by Jim — 7/16/2007 @ 4:32 pm
The Minneapolis phone directory has twelve pages of people with my actual surname.
When I was in college there was someone with the same name where I had a bank account. You guessed it, I got the checks but not the deposits.
I just thought jclifford would have fun seeing that.
Comment by Chancy Gardener — 7/16/2007 @ 5:46 pm
I leave you with this when the whole world turns against you, God is always there to listen. Talk to God and have a relationship with him. He loves you and me enough to send his son to die for us. Be certain of your eternal destination. (def)Friend: Somebody who cares about you and loves you and will do anything for you, who you can trust everything with. Let Jesus be your friend you’ll never regret it. In Jesus,
A Friend
Comment by A friend — 7/17/2007 @ 9:59 pm
Oh, poor little A Friend… Your imaginary friend has been talking to you again. It’s all very well if you want to talk to him, but when he starts talking back you might want to get some kind of help.
Comment by Tierillo — 7/18/2007 @ 3:17 pm
Oh, man, you already worked over A Friend before I could get here.
But comment #14 applies equally to political ideologies as it does to religious ones.
Honestly, can anyone prove scientifically that their political POV is correct?
I know I can’t, and I’m smarter than all you Progressives combined.
Comment by SpankyTuTone — 7/18/2007 @ 7:13 pm
Correct, like, “accurately describes the origin of the universe?” No, but political theories aren’t ambitious like that.
Works? Sure, that sort of thing can be assessed, regarding some sorts of claims, if you’re careful. Like, for instance, in research by Mathematica, which found that in controlled experiments in four locations, those children who were randomly assigned to receive abstinence-only sex education were no more likely to actually abstain from sexual activity, had no fewer sex partners, had the same age of a first sexual experience and had no difference in the use of contraception than those children who were randomly assigned to not receive abstinence-only sex education. The claims about abstinence-only education can be assessed, and the assessment is relevant for policy prescriptions.
Comment by Jim — 7/18/2007 @ 7:19 pm
True, Jim, but does nothing to influence those who want it no matter what. For example, how could anyone in their right mind believe homosexuality should be legislated against, when there is not a shred of biological or sociological data that supports the need?
Obviously one’s philosophical beliefs manifest themselves into political choices. Heck, politics is 30% philosophy (70% dick-wagging).
Has anyone been able to do either of these two things:
1. Accurately predict from some kind of scientific assesment what political views a person will hold? There’s certainly a lot of association involved, but I don’t know of a documented direct causal link.
2. Put together the outline of a true “technocracy” with computers executing formulas to determine how to run the government.
***
“No, but political theories aren’t ambitious like that.”
You so funny.
Comment by SpankyTuTone — 7/18/2007 @ 8:26 pm
There’s the difference. I don’t think any social scientist worth their salt would assert true knowledge of that sort of causal relationship without room for doubt. Religionists assert that kind of confidence all the time.
Comment by Jim — 7/19/2007 @ 9:07 am
Yes, there is quite a bit of research that can indicate how to run the government. Some is hard to make conclusions about becasue of the large number of possible variables, but some is pretty intuitive. For instance, tax revenue based on property is more stable than tax revenue based on sales, for obvious reasons. When small fluctuations occur in the economy people are more likely to postpone purchases than to sell their house. So sales tax will vary with the economy more than property tax. Most stable of all are cigarette and tobacco taxes, which makes “sin tax” a perennial favorite with politicians.
Comment by Iroquois — 7/19/2007 @ 4:24 pm
Tell me, isn’t six the number of the devil (6 as in 666)?
Comment by The Animist — 7/21/2007 @ 4:50 am