Monthly Archives: April 2017

New computers could delete thoughts without your knowledge … – The Independent

Posted: April 27, 2017 at 2:18 am

Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind, wrote the playwright John Milton in 1634.

But, nearly 400 years later, technological advances in machines that can read our thoughts mean the privacy of our brain is under threat.

Now two biomedical ethicists are calling for the creation of new human rights laws to ensure people are protected, including the right to cognitive liberty and the right to mental integrity.

Scientists have already developed devices capable of telling whether people are politically right-wing or left-wing. In one experiment, researchers were able to read peoples minds to tell with 70 per cent accuracy whether they planned to add or subtract two numbers.

Facebook alsorecently revealed it had been secretly working on technology to read peoples minds so they could type by just thinking.

And medical researchers have managed to connect part of a paralysed mans brain to a computer to allow him to stimulate muscles in his arm so he could move it and feed himself.

The ethicists, writing in a paper in the journal Life Sciences, Society and Policy, stressed the unprecedented opportunities that would result from the ubiquitous distribution of cheaper, scalable and easy-to-use neuro-applications that would make neurotechnology intricately embedded in our everyday life.

However, such devices are open to abuseon a frightening degree, as the academics made clear.

They warned that malicious brain-hacking and hazardous uses of medical neurotechnology could require a redefinition of the idea of mental integrity.

We suggest that in response to emerging neurotechnology possibilities, the right to mental integrity should not exclusively guarantee protection from mental illness or traumatic injury but also from unauthorised intrusions into a persons mental wellbeing performed through the use of neurotechnology, especially if such intrusions result in physical or mental harm to the neurotechnology user, the ethicists wrote.

The right to mental privacy is a neuro-specific privacy right which protects private or sensitive information in a persons mind from unauthorised collection, storage, use, or even deletion in digital form or otherwise.

And they warned that the techniques were so sophisticated that peoples minds might be being read or interfered with without their knowledge.

Illicit intrusions into a persons mental privacy may not necessarily involve coercion, as they could be performed under the threshold of a persons conscious experience, they wrote in the paper.

The same goes for actions involving harm to a persons mental life or unauthorised modifications of a persons psychological continuity, which are also facilitated by the ability of emerging neurotechnologies to intervene into a persons neural processing in absence of the persons awareness.

They proposed four new human rights laws: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity and the right to psychological continuity.

Professor Roberto Andorno, an academic at Zurich Universitys law school and a co-author of the paper, said: Brain imaging technology has already reached a point where there is discussion over its legitimacy in criminal court, for example as a tool for assessing criminal responsibility or even the risk of re-offending.

Consumer companies are using brain imaging for 'neuromarketing' to understand consumer behaviour and elicit desired responses from customers.

There are also tools such as 'brain decoders' which can turn brain imaging data into images, text or sound.

All of these could pose a threat to personal freedom which we sought to address with the development of four new human rights laws.

And his colleague Marcello Ienca, of the Institute for Biomedical Ethics at Basel University, said: The mind is considered to be the last refuge of personal freedom and self-determination, but advances in neural engineering, brain imaging and neurotechnology put the freedom of the mind at risk.

Our proposed laws would give people the right to refuse coercive and invasive neurotechnology, protect the privacy of data collected by neurotechnology, and protect the physical and psychological aspects of the mind from damage by the misuse of neurotechnology.

He admitted such advances might sound like something out of the world of science fiction.

But he added: Neurotechnology featured in famous stories has in some cases already become a reality, while others are inching ever closer, or exist as military and commercial prototypes.

We need to be prepared to deal with the impact these technologies will have on our personal freedom.

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New computers could delete thoughts without your knowledge ... - The Independent

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In a neuro-techno future, human rights laws will need to be revisited – Science Daily

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Daily Mail
In a neuro-techno future, human rights laws will need to be revisited
Science Daily
Advances in neurotechnology, such as sophisticated brain imaging and the development of brain-computer interfaces, have led to these technologies moving away from a clinical setting and into the consumer domain. While these advances may be beneficial ...
Mind hacking: Scientists want new laws to stop our thoughts from being stolenRT
Times of Malta Advanced computers may be able to delete your ...Times of Malta

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In a neuro-techno future, human rights laws will need to be revisited - Science Daily

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A new category of human rights: neurorights – BMC Blogs Network (blog)

Posted: at 2:18 am

Neuroscience provides us with an insight into the mental processes underpinning human behavior: thanks to rapid advances in neurotechnology it is possible to record, monitor, decode and modulate the neural correlates of mental processes with ever more accuracy. In this rapidly evolving technological scenario, a new paper, published in Life Sciences, Society and Policy, advocates for reconceptualizing and even creating new human rights: the right to cognitive liberty, mental privacy, mental integrity, and psychological continuity.

Marcello Ienca & Roberto Andorno 26 Apr 2017

In the play Comus, written by John Milton in 1634, a young noblewoman is abducted by a sorcerer named Comus and bounded to an enchanted chair. Despite being restrained against her will, the woman repeatedly refuses Comus advances and claims Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind, confident of her capacity to protect her mental freedom from any external manipulation. This idea of the human mind as the ultimate domain of absolute protection from external intrusion has been increasingly outdated by advances in neuroscience and neurotechnology.

The idea of the human mind as the ultimate domain of absolute protection from external intrusion has been increasingly outdated by advances in neuroscience and neurotechnology.

Cutting-edge neurodevices such as neuroimaging technologies, neurostimulators and brain-computer interfaces enable to record, monitor, decode and modulate the neural correlates of mental processes with an increasing degree of accuracy and resolution. While these advances have a huge potential for clinical and research applications, they pose a fundamental ethical legal and social challenge: determining whether, or under what conditions, it is legitimate to gain access to or to interfere with another persons neural activity.

This question is particularly relevant in the context of non-clinical applications of neurotechnology. For example, in 2008, a woman in India was convicted of murder on the basis of a brain-based lie detection. The judge explicitly cited a brain scan as a proof that the woman held experiential knowledge about the crime that only the killer could possess, and sentenced her to life imprisonment.

Attempts to access correlates of mental information are also made in the context of neuromarketing, where neuroimaging techniques are routinely applied to study, analyze and predict consumer behavior and personal preferences. Today, several multinational companies including Google and Disney use neuromarketing research services to measure consumer preferences and impressions on their advertisements or products. Moreover, the proliferation of low-cost, portable and non-invasive neurodevices for various purposes is increasingly incentivizing individuals to share their brain data similarly to what has been observed among users of other technological gadgets such as wearable activity trackers. According to a recent review, there are over 8000 active neurotech patents, representing a cumulative value of $2 billion USD.

Several multinational companies use neuromarketing research services to measure consumer preferences and impressions on their advertisements or products. There are over 8000 active neurotech patents, representing a cumulative value of $2 billion USD (Pic from Pixabay, CC0 public domain)

While neurotechnology becomes more pervasive, the data decoded by neurodevices are exposed to the same risks and levels of insecurity of other sectors of the digital ecosystem, cybercrime included. For example, computer scientists have demonstrated the feasibility of using neurodevices to extract private information from the users brain activity including their bank information and home address without their awareness. Finally, national defense and security agencies from various countries are developing military neurotechnologies which may selectively modify mental contents in combatants, enhance their cognitive and physical performance, or enable new opportunities for direct brain control of military vehicles or weapons.

In this rapidly evolving technological scenario, we argue that it is critical to determine which rights individuals are entitled to exercise in relation to their mental dimension. In particular, we advocate for the reconceptualization of existing human rights and even the creation of new human rights that we call neurorights: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity.

The right to cognitive liberty protects the right of individuals to make free and competent decisions regarding their use of neurotechnology. In its negative connotation, it guarantees the protection of individuals from the coercive and unconsented use of such technologies. We believe this negative component is particularly important to prevent future scenarios in which the State, large corporations or malevolent actors could forcibly manipulate the mental states of individual citizens.

With new discoveries of neural correlates of anti-social behavior, the creation of Pre-Crime police departments as in in Philip Dicks novels and Steven Spielbergs movie Minority Report is not a remote scenario (Pic by Chris Drumm on Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

The right to mental privacy aims to protect individuals against the unconsented intrusion by third parties into their brain data as well as against the unauthorized collection of those data. This right allows people to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent their neural information can be accessed by others.

We argue that breaches of privacy at the neural level are more dangerous than conventional ones because they may bypass the level of conscious reasoning and affect inherent components of a persons identity. In the near future, with the growing availability of publicly shared brain data repositories and parallel advancements in the discovery of neural correlates of anti-social behavior, the creation of Pre-Crime police departments as in in Philip Dicks novels and Steven Spielbergs movie Minority Report is a real risk especially in countries with established records of civil liberty violation for national security purposes.

The right to mental integrity, which is already recognized by international law (Article 3 of the EUs Charter of Fundamental Rights) with regard to the promotion of mental health, should be broadened to protect also against illicit and harmful manipulations of peoples mental activity enabled by neurotechnologies. New forms of neurotechnology-enabled threats to mental integrity may include unwanted neurostimulation, malicious neurohacking and potentially harmful memory manipulation. This right is particularly relevant in the context of national security, where potentially harmful interventions into a persons neurocomputation might be justified in light of greater strategic goals.

The right to psychological continuity intends to preserve peoples personal identity and the continuity of their mental life from unconsented external alteration by third parties, purposively designed to bypass a persons rational defenses and alter their preferences or behavior.

Finally, the right to psychological continuity intends to preserve peoples personal identity and the continuity of their mental life from unconsented external alteration by third parties. Unlike the right to mental integrity, this right applies also to unconsented personality-changing interventions that do not involve direct physical or psychological harm to the victim. Besides illicit interventions, the right to psychological continuity is particularly relevant also in relation to invasive marketing strategies such as those in which advertising is purposively designed to bypass a persons rational defenses and alter their preferences or behavior.

In sum, we argue that protecting the mental dimension of individuals from new forms of exploitation is a major societal challenge that needs to be addressed at various levels, including at the level of fundamental rights. We suggest that coordinate amendments to the human right framework are required to maximize the benefits of neurotechnology for society at large while protecting fundamental rights and liberties.

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Institute for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Basel in this study.

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A new category of human rights: neurorights - BMC Blogs Network (blog)

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Canyon Ultimate CF SLX 8.0 – VeloNews (blog)

Posted: at 2:17 am

A sub-15-pound race bike with lightweightwheels and all the exceptional handling and pedaling response you expect from a brands top of the line offering should run you, what, eight grand? Ten?

How about $3,600?

The Ultimate CF SLX is the second Canyon bicycle we have tested in the last year, and the other bike the Aeroad CF SLX walked away with the VeloNews 2016 Road Bike of the Year honors.As it turns out, the featherweight Ultimate CF SLX 8.0 is equally excellent, especially given its sub-$4,000 price tag, though this particular build kit can use some tweaks.

The Ultimates geometry and handling instantly felt familiar: Its aggressiveand ultra-responsive. Thethe 27.2mm seatpost flexes when it encounters rough chatter, the single concession to comfort on this thoroughbred. The seatposts movement was noticeable over rough stuff, but less so on slight chatter. That means the bike maintains a connected road feel until you really need the compliance.

Its no comfort bike, though. The seatpost flex was all I wanted on dirt roads, but the tradeoff is a fairly harsh front end. This is a purpose-drivenracer, with a steep 73.25-degree head tube angle and a 155-millimeter head tube (size M) that allows you to get low and aggressive. The front-end stiffness only seemed fitting. (Dropping my tire pressure was enough to keep extended dirt road stretches from shattering me.)

The 988-centimeter wheelbase makes for some lithe handling, so quick steering and maneuvering is a given. It was a joy diving into tight corners. If youve ridden Specializeds super-responsive S-Works Tarmac, youll know what to expect with the Ultimate CF SLX.

The only nitpicks we had about the bike concerned the build. First, wed swap out the 100-millimeter stem for something longer. (Sizes Large and above come with a 110-millimeter stem, which would be a good addition to our size Medium.) This is an aggressive bike, and the short stem felt out of place. A longer stem would allow for an even lower, longer riding position.

Second, the Mavic Ksyrium Pro Exalith SL WTS wheels buck the wider-is-better trend thats taken over in the U.S. road scene. While braking is exceptional on the Ksyriums, after one or two rides we found ourselves craving something wider than the Ksyriums 15-millimeter inner width that doesnt capitalize on the 25-millimeter tires theyre specd with. So we swapped them out with Enves SES 3.4 wheels that have a 21mm inner rim width. This improved the already exceptional handling, especially in tight corners and during quick, high-speed maneuvering.

Still, the Ultegra mechanical group is reliable, if unglamorous. The Fizik Antares R5 is another safe bet, and the bike is specd with Canyon-branded aluminum components in the cockpit. This might be a good place to upgrade if youre a carbon devotee, but the handlebar was plenty comfortable, so its not an urgent upgrade by any means. The Ultimate CF SLX 8.0 is also already exceptionally light in general not just for a bike at this price range tipping the scales at 14.81pounds. If you upgrade, it wont be because you need to shave grams. Sleek lines and understated graphics make this one a visual winner, too.

Frankly, this is a stunning bike. You can get a fancier build that will only improve this exceptional ride, but the Ultimate CF SLX 8.0 is ready to race out of the box at an attractive price tag.

And the answer to the big question: The Ultimate CF SLX will begin shipping to consumers in August. The wait is nearly over.

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2020 CF/2B Hallie Wacaser Commits To FSU – FloSoftball

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2020 CF/2B Hallie Wacaser Commits To FSU

When they asked me to share my story I was super excited! This journey has been such a crazy ride and I am so blessed to say that I will be a Florida State Seminole in 4 years!

Florida State was always my dream school. I remember watching games with my dad on TV and dressing up as a Florida State cheerleader for Halloween.When I was 12, I begged my parents to let me go to a Florida State softball camp, which is the #1 rated camp in the country. It was the summer of my 7th grade year, and when I stepped onto campus I was amazed. It was so pretty and the weather was amazing. The camp was GREAT and the family atmosphere Coach Alameda, Coach Snider, Coach Wilson and the players create is truly one of a kind. They welcome everyone with a smile and work with you to make you the best player you can be. One thing about me that really stood out to the FSU coaches was my bat speed and how violent my swing is. They loved my arm in the outfield and how I had speed around the bases. After the camp, Coach Snider asked me to come down to their winter camp, and from there, my FSU dream began to skyrocket.

Even though FSU was my dream school, I did make a few additional stops along the recruiting journey. During this time, I was blessed with several opportunities with top programs and got to meet amazing coaches along the way. Each school and coach was special in their own way, but deep down I knew that FSU was my home. Not only was it my dream school but I have family in the area, and I cannot forget the fact that I am a warm weather girl.

I have been playing softball since I was 5, and started playing travel ball at 9. Arkansas has some awesome softball players, and I played for a great regional organization for many years. During that time, I met my best friend Alex McManus, who is an amazing pitcher. Both Alex and I aspired to play D1 softball and she later committed to play for Notre Dame. We love to compete and we wanted to play the best competition possible, so when we were asked to join the Beverly Bandits out of Chicago, we both jumped in. I must say, it has been one of the best decisions I have made. I love the accountability and drive, and my teammates inspire me to work hard every day so I can play to the best of my potential. Since Alex and I live in Arkansas we practice together at home. The competitive spirit is alive in each practice, and we push each other to be the best we can be. I admired Alex when she committed to Notre Dame last year, and it motivated me even more to fulfill my dream. In March, I committed to Florida State and now we will get to play against each other in the ACC.

There are many coaches who have believed in me along the way, and I can't thank them enough -- From Jason Wildeman and the NWA Knockouts organization, my pitching coach Kris Munson, as well as Ramsey Harkness with the Beverly Bandits. Additionally, I take a lot of pride in my hitting and would like to give a special shout out to Coy Akins, Randi Wilson and George McManus for molding me into the offensive player I am today. But one person I can never thank enough is my dad. Being my #1 fan and friend through all the ups and downs is beyond compare. Now that I have started my high school journey, I am super excited that I have an AWESOME high school coach, Anthony Cantrell. He brings energy, knowledge, and experience coaching at a high level, leading several D1 athletes!

Overall, this journey has been a blast and I can't thank the man upstairs enough for blessing me with this opportunity! Anyway, GOOOOOOOO NOLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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2020 CF/2B Hallie Wacaser Commits To FSU - FloSoftball

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Why Investors remained confident on CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (CF), Whirlpool Corporation (WHR)? – StockNewsJournal

Posted: at 2:17 am


StockNewsJournal
Why Investors remained confident on CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (CF), Whirlpool Corporation (WHR)?
StockNewsJournal
Investors who are keeping close eye on the stock of CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF) established that the company was able to keep return on investment at -1.41 in the trailing twelve month while Reuters data showed that industry's average stands ...

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Why Investors remained confident on CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (CF), Whirlpool Corporation (WHR)? - StockNewsJournal

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U-CF superintendent John Sanville addresses later school start times – Chester County Press

Posted: at 2:17 am

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U-CF superintendent John Sanville addresses later school start times - Chester County Press

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Bill Nye The Eugenics Guy: Maybe We Should Penalize People With "Extra Kids" – Townhall

Posted: at 2:16 am

Katie wrote yesterday about Bill Nye's rather, um, abrupt departure from his "The Science Guy" persona from the 90s. Nye, the star of a new Netflix show called "Bill Nye Saves The World," also has some rather interesting thoughts on human population. Namely, he mused over the idea that people in the developed world should be "penalized" for having "extra kids" who will then potentially contribute to climate change.

Nye dedicated the 13th and final episode of the first season of Bill Nye Saves The World to discussing overpopulation and how the world's population has grown rapidly since he was a child. After almost gleefully endorsing family planning and contraception services, Nye and a panel of experts sat down to discuss possible solutions to the issue. After it was pointed out that in Niger people tend to have large families but relatively low carbon footprints, it was agreed that this was permissible. Then, Nye dropped this rather curious zinger: "So should we have policies that penalize people for having extra kids in the developed world?"

While one panelist said that he was slightly in favor of the idea, others took issue with the idea of telling a person how many or how few children they were allowed to have. One pointed out (likely correctly) that poorer women and/or minority women would likely be the ones penalized for this "crime."

Nye doesn't explain what he would consider to be an "extra kid." The replacement level fertility rate is 2.1 children per woman--something that most of the developed world hasn't seen in years. It's downright spooky and chilling to say that parents should be "penalized" for daring to expand their families. If anything, one would think that parents should be encouraged to have more children, lest the rest of the world end up like Japan.

It's also rather upsetting to see being a mother and housewife discussed as if it's a negative. Many women find immense joy and fulfillment in being a mom and homemaker. A woman shouldn't be derided or thought of as lesser-than if she chooses this option instead of pursuing a career. It's not a bad thing, nor should it be looked down upon--yet throughout the episode, it was only discussed in a negative light.

It's sad to see someone who was once a childhood hero of mine (let's be honest, "Bill Nye The Science Guy" days at school were always the best days), fall into this disgusting, quasi-nihilist rhetoric. Bill Nye used to be funny and informative. Now he's just cringe-worthy.

And for good measure, here's a list of "extra kids" who I'm pretty happy were born:

1. Celine Dion (youngest of 14 children)

2. Dolly Parton (fourth out of 12 children)

3. Stephen Colbert (youngest of 11 children)

4. Ben Franklin (his father's 15th child and his mother's eighth)

5. Jim Gaffigan (youngest of 6 children)

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Bill Nye The Eugenics Guy: Maybe We Should Penalize People With "Extra Kids" - Townhall

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Refusing To Believe Early Progressives Loved Eugenics Will Not … – The Federalist

Posted: at 2:16 am

Most people close their eyes to unpleasantness in their past. Political movements do the same thing on a grander scale. Nowhere is this truer than in the willful blindness of twenty-first-century progressives to their early twentieth-century counterparts embrace of eugenics.

If you have spent any time in the conservative or pro-life movements, it is not news to you that the leading lights of progressive opinion a century ago openly embraced eugenics. Eugenics, the theory that social policies must be enacted to cull the bad genes from society, was popular among progressives across the developed world, including the United States. What constituted bad genes was, according to its proponents, a matter of scientific consensus. Today we would call it racism and classism.

After seeing the end result of such ideas in the Holocaust, progressives naturally sought to bury their connection to this genocidal concept, and succeeded in doing so, at least when they can discredit conservatives who persist in mentioning it. That problem bubbled to the surface last week when Bloombergs economist and writer Noah Smith tweeted, Apparently some people believe that eugenics was the scientific consensus 100 years ago. Sounds like a total myth to me.

That historical denialism did not go unnoticed. The editors of The New Atlantis, among others, pointed out the dangerous historical ignorance at work in that statement. Indeed, they went further than Smith and cracked a book or two to back up their points (see the thread here).

The New Atlantis is a journal about technology and society, and its writers demonstrated the horrible interaction between the two in eugenics. Citing from Edwin Blacks 2003 book, War Against the Weak, they described the scientific consensus on eugenics, with eugenicists firmly entrenched in the biology, zoology, social science, psychology and anthropology departments of the nations leading institutions of higher learning. The belief trickled down to high schools. A 1914 biology textbook, A Civic Biology, written by George William Hunter and issued by the nations largest book publisher, held that:

When people marry, there are certain things that the individual as well as the race should demand. The most important of these is freedom from germ diseases which might be handed down to the offspring. [] epilepsy and feeble-mindedness are handicaps which it is not only unfair but criminal to hand down to posterity. The science of being well born is called eugenics.

In case it is not clear what the author means, he goes on to describe what should be done about families that are not practitioners of the science of being well born.

Hundreds of families such as those described above exist to-day, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country. The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.

If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe, and are now meeting with success in this country.

Eugenics grew only more popular from there. In 1921, Science magazine published the remarks of Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and a leading proponent of eugenics. His slant on the topic was as much political as scientific, bemoaning the influx of immigrants to the United States who are unfit to share the duties and responsibilities of our well-founded government.

He called for eugenics supporters to enlighten government in the prevention of the spread and multiplication of worthless members of society, the spread of feeblemindedness, of idiocy, and of all moral and intellectual as well as physical diseases. Again, this was a prominent scientist who ran a museum in Americas largest city.

It is easy to see why a progressive would be ashamed to have this as a part of his intellectual heritage, but it is harder to understand why progressives have been permitted to sweep it under the rug so completely that even their own adherents have forgotten it. This was not a fringe theory. It was taught without controversy in colleges and high schools across the country, and a consensus of scientists attested to its validity. This was the received wisdom among social scientists, and it soon became the law of the land in many American states.

When something is a widely recognized scientific fact, any good progressive knows it must be made mandatory. Indiana passed the first eugenic sterilization law in 1907, and by the late 1920s a majority of states passed some form of sterilization law to cull the bad genes from society. The most famous of these was Virginias law allowing the sterilization of state asylum inmates without their consent. The law was challenged on equal protection and due process grounds, eventually reaching the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Buck v. Bell in 1927.

Before the appeal was heard, legal opinion followed scientific opinion in judging the law to be just and proper. In a Virginia Law Review note the year before the high court hearing, the author found no objection in the law, suggesting that even if the legitimacy of the science was uncertain, the state should be given the benefit of the doubt. Is there a grave social danger to the transmission of feeble-mindedness to posterity; and is sterilization an effective means of meeting that danger? These questions cannot at this stage of medical progress be answered be answered with any certainty. But simple doubt of the wisdom or policy of a statute is not decisive against its constitutionality.

The author also noted that the procedure could not be considered cruel and unusual punishment because it was not penal but purely eugenical and therapeutic. It was, in other words, for their own good.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmess opinion in Buck v. Bell the following year lacked any of the law review authors humility. Citing the lower court judgment on the facts of the case, Holmes wrote, Carrie Buck is the probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring, likewise afflicted, that she may be sexually sterilized without detriment to her general health and that her welfare and that of society will be promoted by her sterilization.

His reasoning in the decision mirrored progressive opinion across the country. It is betterif instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. Noting that Bucks mother was a resident of the same asylum, Holmes wrote the famous damning statement, Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

The decision made forced sterilization legal, as far as the federal government was concerned. That would be evil enough, but modern research shows that the entire case was based on lies. Author Paul Lombardos Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell lays out the shocking, but ultimately unsurprising, truth that the state had exaggerated the degeneracy of Bucks conditions to make her sterilization easier to perform with legal sanction. Bucks feeble-mindedness was based on the testimony of people who barely knew her. Having a baby out of wedlock made her promiscuous in the eyes of state officials, although the circumstances of her pregnancy would, in modern law, have been called rape.

Bucks daughter, also judged by the state to be of subpar intelligence, was eight months old when that assessment was made. Lombardo interviewed Carrie Buck shortly before her death in 1983, and found her to be of normal intelligence. She was no danger to society; what she was, was poor and fertile. The progressive state could not accept that.

The widespread certainty in the justice and necessity of eugenics among scholars and legislators in the early twentieth century is beyond dispute. Concealing that historical truth is almost a requirement for the modern version of the progressive movement, however, because of the undeniable parallels between the eugenics movement and the current pseudo-science of the Left.

Declaring a scientific consensus to have been achieved and insisting on an end to discussion might seem familiar.

Declaring a scientific consensus to have been achieved and insisting on an end to discussion might seem familiar because it is identical to the way the Left talks about man-made global warming and treatments for transgender people. The thread of eugenics, also, is uninterrupted between the progressives of then and the abortion movement of today.

Planned Parenthoods founder, Margaret Sanger, was a leading eugenicist. In 1921, she wrote that the unbalance between the birth rate of the unfit and the fit [is] admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization and that the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective. Time magazine sought to put this fact in context in a 2016 article, noting that in the 1920s and 1930s, eugenics enjoyed widespread support from mainstream doctors, scientists and the general public. Yes, yes it did.

Everything about 1910s and 20s progressives echoes in their modern intellectual descendants a century later. Absolute trust in government to do what is right. Certitude in their own scientific correctness, despite having seen settled science become unsettled with each generation. Knowing what is best for their fellow citizens, and the willingness to use force to overrule doubt and dissent. Even Hunters statement that all the Europeans are already doing it, so it must be good. But most of all, there is the repeated theme, the fervent belief that some people are not people, not really, not in any way that would make them deserve rights and liberty.

The progressive cause is helped by silence on this point, a silence so vast that even educated men like Noah Smith are ignorant of the movements past. Progressivism is relentless in its pursuit of an ideal future full of perfected humans. They can only achieve that by concealing the crimes of the past.

Kyle Sammin is a lawyer and writer from Pennsylvania. Read some of his other writing at kylesammin.com, or follow him on Twitter @KyleSammin.

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A&M cloning seeks to improve human life – Texas A&M The Battalion

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Fifteen years ago a group of Texas A&M researchers and their students welcomed CC into the world the first cloned cat.

CCs birth marked an important milestone in cloning, and now A&M researchers are exploring new areas of cloning, looking to improve animal and human life. A&M is working to make animals that are more productive on less land by genetically engineering animals with enhanced characteristics.

Mark Westhusin, professor of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences, said his teams research uses living bioreactors, an apparatus that supports chemical processes within a living organism.

We have genetically modified goats that produce malaria vaccine in their milk, Westhusin said. One goat is estimated to be able to produce 8 million doses of the vaccine in a lactation period, or year.

Veterinary physiology and pharmacology professor Charles Long played a key role in CCs cloning and currently researches early embryonic development and strategies to feed a growing world population.

The genetic engineering part comes about because clones are genetically identical to the donor animal, Long said. They dont have any kind of improvement over the original. So, when we start thinking about genetic engineering in terms of what we do in our lab we are trying to take what characteristics nature gives us in this breed of cattle and apply them to this breed of cattle, for example.

A more direct result of cloning research takes place in the departments embryonic development research.

[Clones] had all kinds of little things that werent unusual, but they were more common in clones than what we would see in normal births, Long said. The cloning really led to us investigating those interactions of the sperm and egg and how the embryo is altered by its environment. That all stemmed from trying to understand why clones arent always normal.

Understanding how environments affect embryos is a growing concern for the human population, according to Long, as assisted reproduction practices grow more popular among people.

Approximately 1 to 2 percent of all babies born in the United States now are born through assisted reproductive technologies, Long said. Because of the prevalence of those kinds of offspring being born it is important for us to really understand how the embryo reacts to its environment when its outside the mother.

Long hopes this research will reveal whether or not embryonic environment exposures have long term effects on diseases in offspring.

Duane Kraemer, the researcher who conducted CCs embryo transfer and now acts as CCs caretaker, said CC spends her time in the Kraemers backyard with her 11-year-old offspring. For Kraemer, research after producing CC has included developing an oral contraceptive for wild hogs.

The wild pigs do a lot of damage, Kraemer said. Being a reproductive physiologist, and wild pigs being a big problem I decided that would be something we ought to work on.

The contraceptive would be placed in feeders that only pigs can eat from to make sure no other animals get into the feed. Kraemer said the oral contraceptive his research team and other departments at Texas A&M are working on is a more humane alternative to the blood thinner recently approved by the Texas Secretary of Agriculture for killing wild pigs.

Its not a pretty sight the death that they experience with that, Kraemer said. So a lot of people are objecting to it.

Research conducted by Texas A&M has certainly changed since CC came into the world, and the researchers who worked to produce her say these changes have been an improvement.

Our research has always been driven by trying to improve the lives of animals and humans, Westhusin said.

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