Monthly Archives: April 2017

Littleproud: program is ‘political correctness gone too far’ – Warwick Daily News

Posted: April 7, 2017 at 9:03 pm

ONCE upon a time, fairy tales were a staple of children's reading material, but the traditional tales have come under fire in Victoria for promoting traditional gender roles.

A teaching aid in the Respectful Relationship program wants state school students to examine the roles of characters in classic stories like Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and Cinderella and compare them to modern stories challenging gender norms.

Preschool books and toys could also be audited to determine whether they promote gender stereotypes, under the Victorian government plan to address family violence.

Member for Maranoa David Littleproud has weighed in on the debate and urged parents and teachers not to let political correctness get in the way of a good story. I

"Domestic violence is a scourge in our community but I don't think asking very young children to pick apart a fairy tale to find the sexist elements is the answer - it's simply political correctness gone too far and I don't want to see it in Queensland," Mr Littleproud said.

"Fable legends Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen's traditional fairy tales are about life lessons and convey morals but remember these were written more than 100 years ago and should be read as they are, not through an adult-enforced magnifying glass.

"Contemporary story-tellers - like Disney-Pixar's Inside Out and Disney's Frozen - are great as they explore views on mental health and shifting gender roles but they're movies and don't offer the same enrichment as reading a book.

"Reading, writing and arithmetic should be a school's foundation and domestic violence education and positive role models are key to breaking the cycle.

"Science backs up the importance of reading so please don't stop reading to your kids."

The Respectful Relationships program, which claims children as young as four can exhibit sexist behaviour, was recommended by the family violence royal commission.

Critics of the the program however claim it exposes children to gender theory and notions of gender-based violence too early.

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Editorial: freedom of speech in an era of political-correctness, part two – Daily Sundial

Posted: at 9:03 pm

Though there should always be legal and moral standards to how we go about exercising our freedom of speech, press, assembly and petition, political correctness does not actually infringe on anyones freedom of speech.

However, political correctness (PC) culture can contribute to social division or polarization. The contemporary philosopher, Slavoj Zizek, argues that political correctness doesnt really allow you to overcome racism. Its just oppressed controlled racism. As any culture that becomes dominant in a given area, a number of sub-cultures are bound to form in response and sometimes for the mere sake of opposition. When speakers like Milo Yiannopoulos openly state I just want to burn it down, theyre making intentional provocations that stem from the sheer desire to oppose majority thought.

On one hand, we have the ability to cultivate a space around ourselves where we dont have to hear or expose ourselves to different opinions. We can un-friend people on social media, walk away from a politically charged family dinner, and ignore reading or listening to particular media sources that do not share the same value system as ours. However, this mentality just further polarizes people, undermines inter-community relations and severely limits our own ability to grow as individuals.

To exercise our freedom, the kind that is not necessarily governed by any nation or piece of paper but that is governed by our own critical, reasoning, minds, we must question how genuine our thoughts truly are. Since context plays such a crucial role in the formation and expression of ones thoughts, whether it be in the context of PC or anti-PC culture, reasoning and introspection are necessary. As the 18th century philosopher, Immanuel Kant, said in Critique of Pure Reason, there is nothing higher than reason.

When individuals feel that their freedom of speech is being violated, they feel they cannot speak for fear of retaliation or some social form of excommunication. Jon Ronson explores the consequences and nature of our modern democratization of justice via online shaming in his novel, So Youve Been Publicly Shamed. He writes, we are defining the boundaries of normality by tearing apart the people outside it. In this vicious cycle, weve reached a level of polarization where the minds power to reason begins to stale. It becomes easier to stew in anger than to deconstruct and answer whats so righteous about that righteous indignation.

If an opinion is held solely because it dwells in an echo-chamber of whispers or because its written in stone, then the holder of such an opinion is not using their natural privilege as a human being to use critical thinking before expressing the truth, or their truth, as they believe and reason it to be. Freedom of speech is arduously protected in America and exercised in many ways, but its nothing without the freedom to reason.

Kant goes on to state, thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. Therefore, sincerity in words and reasoning behind those words helps illuminate the point of solidarity, that steady point on a precarious path. To teeter from thoughts and words that are subjective truths and that hold reason far beyond intuition is where one risks falling into the trap of a narrow-minded perspective. In addition, processing words solely by their context of communication can also lead someone to succumb to that frame of mind.

Freedom of speech, as its protected by our government, allows for us, our peers, colleagues, friends, neighbors, the disenfranchised, the silent, the underrepresented, the overlooked, to have a voice. No one should be pressured or forced into quietude, not when we have both the constitutional freedom of speech and the natural freedom to reason. Every time we pick up a microphone to speak, sit behind a computer to type, or march behind a picket sign, its not just what we say, but why we say it that matters.

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Marvel V.P. Admits Political Correctness Killed Comic Sales … – FrontPage Magazine

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How to Understand the Resurgence of Eugenics – JSTOR Daily

Posted: at 9:02 pm

In 1883, the English statistician and social scientist Francis Galton coined the word eugenics (well-born, from Greek). The term referred to his idea of selectively breeding people to enhance desirable and eliminate undesirable properties. Seen as following Darwins theory of evolution, in the 1920s and 30s eugenics gained important backing in England and the United States. Scientists and physicians spoke and wrote in its support. It influenced U.S. immigration policy, and states like Virginia used it to justify the forcible sterilization of the intellectually disabled.

Todays growing anti-immigrant and white nationalist movements are raising concerns about a return of this long discredited dogma. For instance, U.S. Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) recently tweeted about a far-right movement in Europe, calling Western culture superior and saying, We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies. King hoped for an America thats just so homogenous that we look a lot the same.

At the same time, we are seeing an advance in methods of manipulating human DNA that, though they present many benefits, could also be used to advance eugenic goals. This combination of a dubious political agenda and the tools to implement it could take us in uncharted directions.

We can find guidance in two classic works about the dangers of modifying people and labeling them as superior or inferiorthe novel Brave New World (1932) and the film Gattaca (1997). Their publication anniversaries in 2017 are sharp reminders of the costs of embracing any kind of twenty-first-century eugenics.

Could gene-editing be pushing us toward a neo-eugenic world?

Eugenics straddles the line between repellent Nazi ideas of racial purity and real knowledge of genetics. Scientists eventually dismissed it as pseudo-scientific racism, but it has never completely faded away. In 1994, the book The Bell Curve generated great controversy when its authors Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrnstein argued that test scores showed black people to be less intelligent than white people. In early 2017, Murrays public appearance at Middlebury College elicited protests, showing that eugenic ideas still have power and can evoke strong reactions.

But now, these disreputable ideas could be supported by new methods of manipulating human DNA. The revolutionary CRISPR genome-editing technique, called the scientific breakthrough of 2015, makes it relatively simple to alter the genetic code. And 2016 saw the announcement of the Human Genome Projectwrite, an effort to design and build an entire artificial human genome in the lab.

These advances led to calls for a complete moratorium on human genetic experimentation until it has been more fully examined. The moratorium took effect in 2015. In early 2017, however, a report by the National Academies of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine, Human Genome Editing: Science, Ethics, and Governance, modified this absolute ban. The report called for further study, but also proposed that clinical trials of embryo editing could be allowed if both parents have a serious disease that could be passed on to the child. Some critics condemned even this first step as vastly premature.

Nevertheless, gene editing potentially provides great benefits in combatting disease and improving human lives and longevity. But could this technology also be pushing us toward a neo-eugenic world?

As ever, science fiction can suggest answers. The year 2017 is the 85th anniversary of Brave New World, Aldous Huxleys vision of a eugenics-based society and one of the great twentieth-century novels. Likewise, 2017 will bring the 20th anniversary of the release of the sci-fi film Gattaca, written and directed by Andrew Niccol, about a future society based on genetic destiny. NASA has called Gattaca the most plausible science fiction film ever made.

In 1932, Huxleys novel, written when the eugenics movement still flourished, imagined an advanced biological science. Huxley knew about heredity and eugenics through his own distinguished family: His grandfather Thomas Huxley was the Victorian biologist who defended Darwins theory of evolution, and his evolutionary biologist brother Julian was a leading proponent of eugenics.

Brave New World takes place in the year 2540. People are bred to order through artificial fertilization and put into higher or lower classes in order to maintain the dominant World State. The highest castes, the physically and intellectually superior Alphas and Betas, direct and control everything. The lower Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons, many of them clones, are limited in mind and body and exist only to perform necessary menial tasks. To maintain this system, the World State chemically processes human embryos and fetuses to create people with either enlarged or diminished capacities. The latter are kept docile by large doses of propaganda and a powerful pleasure drug, soma.

Like George Orwells 1984, reviewers continue to find Huxleys novel deeply unsettling. To Bob Barr, writing in the Michigan Law Review, it is a chilling vision and R. S. Deese, in We Are Amphibians, calls its premise the mass production of human beings.

The discovery in 1953 of the structure of DNA led to the advent of real genetic science that could change people. DNA editing appears in several films analyzed by the film historians David A. Kirby and Laura A. Gaither in Genetic Coming of Age: Genomics, Enhancement, and Identity in Film. The authors single out Gattaca as showing a society that has so much confidence in the predictive power of genomics that their culture revolves around these expectations. The film provides a lesson in the eugenic effects of editing human DNA. Its title combines the first letters of guanine,adenine,thymine, andcytosine, the base pair compounds essential to how DNA transmits genetic information.

The In-valid Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke) tries to blend in as the genetically perfected Jerome Morrow in Gattaca (Columbia Pictures 1997).

The social order in Gattaca, set in the not-too-distant future, is far looser than in Brave New World. It is much like todays world with one crucial change: Genetic science has advanced so that a persons genetic makeup can be easily tested, and it is routine to alter the DNA of an embryo to produce a baby with specified characteristics. The result is a society dominated by genetic destiny.

Genetic augmentation is not available to everyone in this society. Only those with means can pay geneticists to implant assets like good looks or musical ability in the DNA of their children-to-be. Although it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of a persons genetic profile, in practice Valids, those with superior genetic credentials, have every advantage and live desirable lives, whereas the less genetically favored In-valids or De-gene-rates are the Epsilons of this society, who push brooms and clean toilets.

In the story, young Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke) is a non-augmented In-valid who is projected to develop serious medical conditions. Through sheer grit and refusal to quit, he physically outperforms his enhanced Valid brother, determined to realize his ambition of becoming an astronaut. The closest he can come, however, is to work as a janitor at the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation, which launches space missions.

Vincent games the system by acquiring the superb DNA profile of Jerome Morrow (Jude Law), a former Olympics swimmer now in a wheelchair because of an accident. After surgery to make himself resemble Jerome (and with Jeromes help), Vincent can pass as a Valid. His passion affects the disabled Jerome, who famously declares: I only lent you my body. You lent me your dream. Now apparently genetically qualified, Vincent is selected for astronaut training. In the final scene, we see him blast off on a mission to Titan, one of Saturns moons.

In a U.S. where medical care is not equally available to all, genetic enhancement will likely be too costly for all but the wealthy.

Any science that professes to predictably change humanity should be carefully weighedor its results may come to haunt us and the new humans we make. Brave New World shows an extremely repressive society whose eugenic system keeps a select group in control. Although such a goal might appeal to the far right, in the near term, at least, it is hard to imagine such a movement gaining the political power to impose a Nazi-like program of gene editing.

Gattaca, however, presents a believable model for the future. It reflects and extends current attitudes toward race and the disabled, and with Americas growing gap between haves and have-nots, its speculations ring true. Buying genetic advantage to give ones child an edge in life would be just a step beyond what parents now dosending a very young child to an expensive private school, for instanceto gain that edge.

In a U.S. where medical care is not equally available to all, genetic enhancement will likely be too costly for all but the wealthy. As in Gattaca, buying enhancement will not be illegal, nor seen as unethical. But it would widen existing health and social inequalities, as expressed in the reactions to the Human Genome Editing report. Those who can afford it would choose mental and physical advantages for their offspring, perhaps including traits such as selfishness or win at all costs personalities that might benefit them but harm society. This would enhance a special group that would not need Francis Galtons selective breeding to make itself superior over time, leaving everyone else as the In-valids.

This approach could also erode Americas racial and ethnic diversity, fulfilling Rep. Kings fantasies. Homogeneity is exactly what would result if a favored group genetically replicates and enhances itself to produce future generations with the same appearance and attitudes, only more so.

In the final analysis, Brave New World portrays a hard eugenics created by a government to suppress human rights, diversity, and opportunities for its citizens. But like the world in Gattaca, our own society could instead display a eugenic element not imposed from above, but arising from our societys dynamics. Unless our society balances the undoubted benefits of gene editing against its equally undoubted risks, the greater danger may come not from authoritarian government but from this soft eugenics.

By: WILLIAM G. LENNOX

The American Scholar, Vol. 7, No. 4 (AUTUMN 1938), pp. 454-466

The Phi Beta Kappa Society

By: Bob Barr

Michigan Law Review, Vol. 108, No. 6, 2010 SURVEY OF BOOKS RELATED TO THE LAW (April 2010), pp. 847-857

The Michigan Law Review Association

By: David A. Kirby and Laura A. Gaither

New Literary History, Vol. 36, No. 2, Essays Probing the Boundaries of the Human in Science (Spring, 2005), pp. 263-282

The Johns Hopkins University Press

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Hair Cloning is Happening – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Posted: at 9:02 pm

By the time theyre 50, 85 percent of American men will have significant hair loss, according to the American Hair Loss Association.

Now, an international team of hair restoration doctors is turning to cutting-edge science to grow more hair through cloning.

Ric Ortega has dealt with hair loss for a while. For him, it's a health concern.

Im outside a lot because I work in the construction industry, and I worry about skin cancer on the top of my head, explained Ortega.

Ortega is considering a hair cloning clinical trial with Kenneth Williams, Jr. D.O, a hair restoration surgeon with Orange County Hair Restoration in Irvine, California.

Williams is working with Hair Clone, a British company that believes it will perfect the science of cloning hair.

The typical candidate would be someone who has had multiple surgeries and cant have any more hair transplantations, but they do have lots of areas of balding, Williams said.

Doctors would harvest 50 hair follicles and send them to a cryopreservation tank in England. Surgeons there would remove the hair shaft from the bulb, which holds cells that control growth. Then, the cells are multiplied in a special cell culture.

Then, when the patient is ready, they have the actual transplantation," Williams explained. "They would let us know and wed go through the process of replication, and shortly, those 50 cells will now turn into 1,500 cells.

The trial would cost Ortega between $4,000 and $10,000, plus airfare to England, where hed get his cloned hair. England is the only western country that allows this type of treatment.

Williams said hair cloning is the next biggest frontier in hair science.

Hair Clone hopes to start a small trial in England later this year.

The good news is, companies around the world are racing to start hair cloning trials as soon as they can.

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Evolution (2001 film) – Wikipedia

Posted: at 9:02 pm

Evolution is a 2001 American comic science fiction monster film, directed by Ivan Reitman and starring David Duchovny, Orlando Jones, Seann William Scott, Julianne Moore and Ted Levine. It was released by DreamWorks in the United States and by Columbia Pictures internationally.

The plot of the film follows college professor Ira Kane (David Duchovny) and geologist Harry Block (Orlando Jones), who investigate a meteor crash in Arizona. They discover that the meteor is harboring extraterrestrial life, which is evolving very quickly into large, diverse and outlandish creatures.

Evolution was based on a story by Don Jakoby, who turned it into a screenplay along with David Diamond and David Weissman. The movie was originally written as a serious horror science fiction film, until director Reitman re-wrote much of the script. Shooting took place in California with an $80million budget, and the film was released in the United States on June 8, 2001. The movie grossed $98,376,292 internationally. Reviews for the film were mixed, as the movie review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 42% positive rating.

A short-lived animated series, Alienators: Evolution Continues, loosely based on the film, was broadcast months after the movie was released.

Wayne Grey (Seann William Scott), a fireman trainee practicing in a shack in the desert near Glen Canyon, Arizona, sees a meteor strike his car and land in an underground cavern. College professor Ira Kane (David Duchovny) and his colleague, geology professor Harry Block (Orlando Jones), investigate, taking a sample of strange blue liquid that oozes from it. Ira discovers that it harbors extraterrestrial single-celled nitrogen-based organisms multiplying exponentially, condensing millions of years of evolution within a matter of hours. The next day, they take the science class to survey the meteor site and find it already surrounded by evolved oxygen-converting fungi and alien flatworms. Ira and Harry discover that the cells and organisms reproduce rapidly through mitosis after seeing one of the flatworms they collected in a jar split into another.

Soon, the site is sealed off by the Army, who set up a base. Ira and Harry take General Russell Woodman (Ted Levine) and the clumsy Dr. Allison Reed (Julianne Moore) to court for the right to be part of the research of their discovery, but their efforts fail when it's revealed Ira was discharged from the army after creating an anthrax vaccine that led to terribly debilitating side effects, which the soldiers dubbed "The Kane Madness". Woodman steals Ira and Harry's research, forcing them to infiltrate the base to get another sample; they find an alien rainforest teeming with life. They are caught by Allison as a mosquito-like alien gets inside Harry's body; they are forced to rectally remove the mosquito, which then dies.

Wayne arrives at the college and shows the two the dead body of an amphibian alien which killed a country club owner, much to his delight; they later investigate an animal attack, finding a dead dog-like alien in a woman's home and more dead flatworms. They find a valley behind the home filled with dead flying dinosaur-like aliens; Ira and Harry theorize the aliens are spreading through the caves connected to the main cavern, but can't breathe oxygen. One of the dying creatures spits out a pod containing a newborn, which then hatches into an oxygen-tolerant alien. The alien attacks a mall, where it nearly takes a shoplifter for a meal before Ira, Harry, and Wayne shoot it down.

Unfortunately, other alien encounters have made the news; this forces the Governor of Arizona (Dan Aykroyd) to demand answers. Allison explains the aliens will engulf the United States in two months. Woodman attempts to blame Ira, when he, Harry and Wayne arrive. However, the governor demands a solution; Woodman suggests evacuating the area and burn the aliens with napalm. At that moment, primate-like aliens attack them, but are fought off. The shaken governor approves Woodman's plan against protests from Ira and Allison that they don't know how the aliens will react. Allison quits the CDC and leaves the site, procuring Ira's original research and samples for him.

At the college, Harry accidentally tosses a match into a petri dish of alien liquid, causing a mass of flesh to rapidly grow from it. Ira realizes heat causes the aliens to evolve, and the meteor crashing to earth activated the alien DNA. Alison attempts to warn Woodman that napalm will only make the aliens stronger, but he ignores her call. Looking at the positions of nitrogen and carbon on the periodic table, Ira theorizes selenium might be poisonous to the aliens, since they are nitrogen-based, as arsenic is poisonous to Earth's carbon life. Much to Ira's surprise, his dumbest students Deke and Danny (Ethan Suplee and Michael Ray Bower) recall selenium sulfide is the active ingredient in Head & Shoulders. This makes Ira award the Donald brothers with an A, much to their excitement. So Wayne procures a firetruck and the team fills it with the shampoo, with help from the Donald Brothers, who tag along with them.

Just as the team arrives at the cave and prepare to fire the shampoo, Woodman's napalm strike causes the aliens to merge into an enormous amoeba-like creature, which reabsorbs the aliens in the cave. As it prepares to divide, the team drives under the organism, finds what looks like its rectal hole, and Harry (intending to settle a score for the insect incident) pumps a firehose of shampoo into the beast, causing it to explode. Governor Lewis declares Ira, Harry, Wayne and Allison heroes, making Wayne a fully credentialed firefighter while Ira and Allison skip the festivities for romance in the fire truck. Later, Harry, Ira and Wayne are shown chasing the flying alien from earlier and promoting Head & Shoulders for both hair care and fighting aliens.

Kyle Gass, Sarah Silverman, Richard Moll, Tom Davis, Jerry Trainor, Miriam Flynn, Caroline Reitman, Steven Gilborn and John Cho have smaller roles.

The film's music score was composed by John Powell, conducted by Gavin Greenaway, and performed by the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra. The soundtrack to Evolution was released on June 12, 2001 and is available on Varse Sarabande.

Soundtrack references:[2][3]

Evolution received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 43%, based on 134 reviews, with an average rating of 4.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Director Reitman tries to remake Ghostbusters, but his efforts are largely unsuccessful because the movie has too many comedic misfires."[4] On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 40 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[5]

Evolution was made into an animated series called Alienators: Evolution Continues, which ran on Fox Kids from 2001 to 2002.

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Trump’s evolution on Syria didn’t happen overnight – CNN

Posted: at 9:02 pm

But while the decision to strike Syrian government targets marked a sharp reversal in the President's stance on Syria -- one that called for a laser-like focus on ISIS and largely ignoring Assad -- the sharp, 180-degree turn didn't happen over a matter of days.

Months earlier, during an off-the-record holiday gathering with reporters at his opulent Mar-a-Lago estate a week before Christmas, Trump spoke at length about the carnage of the Syrian civil war, revealing that the issue was weighing on him as he prepared to take office. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks authorized CNN on Friday to report the contents of his remarks on the topic at the gathering, which CNN attended.

He described the slaughter of civilians in Syria as a "holocaust," and remarked on the "high pain threshold" of the population there.

Trump also described in detail a video he had seen of an elderly woman being shot multiple times in Syria, struggling as she tried to continue to walk.

And then, he acknowledged that the US had a "responsibility" over the devastating Syrian conflict -- the same word he would use months later before approving the launch of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles to target a Syrian Air Force base.

"I now have responsibility. And I will have that responsibility and carry it very proudly, I will tell you that. It is now my responsibility," Trump said Wednesday during a White House news conference one day before approving the airstrike.

Trump said that the chemical weapons attack "crossed a lot of lines for me," a telling comment that signaled his shifting willingness to strike the Syrian regime.

But even as he spoke broadly during the December cocktail gathering about a US responsibility over the horrors taking place in Syria, he was clearly undergoing a shift in his approach to the conflict there as his moral responsibility as the US President and "leader of the free world" began to sink in.

It was clear Trump was giving more thought to the Syrian conflict that he would soon inherit as president, and he indicated he would be weighing different ways the US could act to stop the atrocities that continued to unfold in Syria.

He declined to say if he would take military action, parroting his oft-repeated line that the US should act first and talk later, rather than telegraph military actions in advance.

Trump spoke at length about the "tragedy" unfolding in Syria and the atrocities the world had grown all too accustomed to seeing and his demeanor and thoughtfulness as he addressed the topic struck reporters who had covered Trump's campaign since its early days as a crucial piece of insight into how Trump was becoming more clearly aware of the real world implications of his startling election victory.

With his strikes against a Syrian government target on Thursday night, Trump made clear that his Middle East policy won't just be driven by a single-minded focus on terrorist groups like ISIS or core national security threats -- but could be expanded to address the United States' moral responsibility in the world.

That's not something Trump spoke about during his campaign for president. Rather, Trump touted an "America First" philosophy that he said would drive his domestic and foreign policy. He decried the Iraq War as a "stupid" decision that had led to needlessly spilled blood and treasure in the Middle East.

Trump called for keeping US military action in the Middle East singularly focused on eliminating ISIS and argued that the US had "bigger problems" than Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"We cannot be the world's policeman," Trump said at his first presidential debate against former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, whom Trump called out for her role in some of the very foreign interventions Trump railed against on the stump.

Trump's internal shift didn't translate into US policy until this week after the latest images of the Assad regime's horrific violence against civilians were broadcast around the world.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson insisted that the decision to strike was not triggered by an "emotional reaction," but made clear the decision was driven by Trump's refusal to "turn a blind eye" to the Syrian violence.

The chemical weapons attacks that prompted Trump to strike had happened "on his watch," Tillerson said of Trump.

As recently as last week, the administration's top officials continued to articulate Trump's realpolitik view of the Syrian civil war as he articulated it on the campaign.

"With respect to Assad, there is a political reality that we have to accept," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said last week. "The United States has profound priorities in Syria and Iraq, and we've made it clear that counterterrorism -- particularly the defeat of ISIS -- is foremost among those priorities."

Thursday night's strike sent a clear message that Trump was willing to act beyond those counterterrorism priorities, but US officials made clear that the strike was meant to send a message -- not fundamentally alter US policy in the region.

"I would not in any way attempt to extrapolate that to a change in our policy or posture relative to our military activities in Syria today. There has been no change in that status," Tillerson told reporters after the cruise missiles had struck their targets.

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the president's national security adviser, said the strike "should" shift Assad's calculus on chemical weapons.

Still, he acknowledged that the strike did not eliminate Assad's capacity to conduct the ghastly attacks.

CNN's Noah Gray contributed to this report.

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Syria strikes: The story behind Trump’s ’72-hour evolution’ – Fox News

Posted: at 9:02 pm

As President Trump was wrapping up his dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago a hearty menu that included pan-seared Dover sole and dry-aged New York strip steak, paired with California wines he delivered the news: The U.S. had launched strikes on Syria.

By this point, the first of 59 missiles already had started to rain down on the Assad airbase alleged to have been used to carry out this weeks deadly chemical attack. Planning for a U.S. response had been underway since Tuesday but the final decision to order missile strikes, and the militarys execution of that directive, took place over the course of just a few hours Thursday evening.

The timeline of the presidents decision-making and the mission itself was detailed late Friday by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and other U.S. officials. The presidents top spokesman described the course of events as a 72-hour evolution that involved updates and options and refinements before a final decision.

OBAMA OFFICIALS UNDER FIRE FOR CHEMICAL WEAPONS CLAIMS

Hes not going to telegraph his next move, Spicer cautioned, but described Thursdays actions as carefully planned, decisive and justified.

According to Spicer and other officials, the timeline played out as follows:

Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. ET: Trump was informed during his daily briefing about the suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria. Trump asked his team for more information. The team developed initial options.

Tuesday at 8 p.m.: Preliminary options were presented and refined.

Wednesday morning: Another restricted principals meeting was held where options were further reviewed and refined.

Wednesday at 3 p.m.: Trump was briefed on updated options at a national security meeting. He reviewed them, asked questions, and requested more information including options for strikes on Syria.

Thursday at 1:30 p.m.: En route to Florida, Trump convened his national security team aboard Air Force One.

Thursday at 4 p.m.: Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and others met in a secure room in Palm Beach. The president gave the okay to move ahead. This decision was made at about 4:30 p.m.

Thursday at 7:40 p.m.: Navy destroyers in the Mediterranean launched Tomahawk missiles into Syria.

Thursday at 8:30 p.m.: Foreign leaders and congressional leaders started to be notified. Around that time, the first missiles were hitting. Trump informed President Xi as their dinner was ending. According to Spicer, all 59 missiles hit their target. After dinner, Trump held a secure call with the Joint Chiefs.

He asked about reaction from the world community as well as congressional leaders and was informed that there was fairly unanimous praise for the decision and the actions the president took, Spicer said.

Trump mostly has won bipartisan praise on Capitol Hill for the response, though some have warned that he must seek congressional authorization going forward. The strikes also fueled a fiery U.N. Security Council session on Friday, where Syrias allies condemned the action.

The strikes took some by surprise, considering Trumps past criticism of intervention in Syria. Spicer, and the president himself, say he was moved by the horrific images of victims of this weeks chemical attack.

It was very disturbing and tragic and moving to him, Spicer said.

Fox News Judson Berger, Lucas Tomlinson and Lesa Jansen contributed to this report.

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Dissent with Modification: Soothing EvolutionReligion Tensions in … – Scientific American

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On topics ranging from astrophysics to public health, rejections of scientific consensus can prove quite inflexible when bolstered by religious doctrine. Buta new approach to teaching evolutionary biology appears to ease such tensions. It involves airing perceived conflicts between religion and evolution in the classroom rather than simply presenting a mountain of evidence for evolution. Such a curriculum could help biologists (most of whom claim to hold no religious beliefs) more effectively prepare students (most of whom profess belief in God) to meet the nations growing need for scientists and technologists.

During a two-week module on evolution that was part of an introductory biology course at Arizona State University, the instructor explored a variety of viewpoints about the relation between some religious beliefs and the development and diversification of life, ranging from evolution without the involvement of a deity to various types of creationismincluding theistic evolution. Students were encouraged to express their opinions and concerns.

Surveys filled out by 60 students before and after the module revealed that the number of students who perceived a sense of a conflict between religion and evolution at the start was cut in half by the end. An analysis of the results is detailed in the February issue of the American Biology Teacher.

In response to instructors concerns about limited classroom time, a follow-up project compressed the two-week module to six minutes. Remarkably, unpublished results suggest this brief exposure also proved effective at reducing students perception of a conflict. If we encourage national policy documents that promote these teaching practices, says study co-author Elizabeth Barnes of Arizona State, perhaps we can increase acceptance of evolution among our students, future teachers and future political leaders.

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Dissent with Modification: Soothing EvolutionReligion Tensions in ... - Scientific American

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Meteorologist applies biological evolution to forecasting – Science Daily

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Science Daily
Meteorologist applies biological evolution to forecasting
Science Daily
So Roebber applied a mathematical equivalent of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to the problem. He devised a method in which one computer program sorts 10,000 other ones, improving itself over time using strategies, such as heredity, mutation and ...

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Meteorologist applies biological evolution to forecasting - Science Daily

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