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Men in Zoos: London Gone Loony

One more manifestation of cosmic war being waged over question: “What is Man?”

Commentary
By John J. Jalsevac

The final and strangely beautiful song from the most recent album of the popular rock group Nine Inch Nails asks an interesting question. “See the animal in his cage that you built,” it begins, “are you sure what side you're on?... / Are you sure what side of the glass you are?”

On a certain level this is actually a question worth pondering in some depth. For instance, in our highly regulated, leisureless modern lives, how much like caged beasts have we allowed ourselves to become? Or perhaps, in our search for fulfillment in pleasure have we denied our human nature and become instinct-enslaved brutes? This is thought provoking stuff, at least much more so than song-writer Trent Reznor’s typically crude and profanity laden lyrics.

But strangely enough, even if the question were asked in its most strictly literal sense, there are a select few who would have a very different answer than most of us. For in one enclosure of the London England zoo, as was widely reported in the news last week, there is a new collection of  sumptuous specimens of what the curators have called a “plague species”. This is a harsh label for any species, but in this case especially so because the species on display is Man.

In this very embarrassing zoological charade three brawny men and five shapely women have volunteered to strut around for a few days in their underwear and strategically placed fig leaves in an enclosure that was once the home of one or another species of bears. In the immortal words of the Zoo spokeswoman, the purpose of the exercise is that "Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals ... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate.”

Evolution Controversy and Abortion, Euthanasia, Etc

Anyway, it is a curious feature of LifeSiteNews that every so often we weigh in on the debate over Darwinian evolution in what is probably mistakenly thought to be motivated by an opposition to any explanation of life but strict fundamentalist creationism. Some have expressed puzzlement about our interest in evolution and wondered what on earth it has to do with the much more central and vital cultural issues of abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, etc.

The answer, it is as good a time as any to point out, is everything. It has everything to do with it.

In fact, all the many, many articles we print about the science of the unborn child, of whether it cries or doesn’t cry in the womb, or the gruesome details of embryonic stem cell research, etc., are comparatively mere quibbles. Vital quibbles mind you, quibbles that can sometimes save and often have saved valuable lives, but quibbles nonetheless.

The truth is that while we give our energy to these skirmishes over abortion and euthanasia and everything else, what is actually being waged is a cosmic war over a fundamental question of metaphysics and anthropology. It is a war over the question: “What is Man?”

Until this question is answered and answered well, men like Princeton professor Peter Singer will continue to insist on such apparently heinous propositions as the right of a mother or father to kill their child up until the arbitrary number of thirty days after birth. And no matter how much we insist that Terri Schiavo ought to have been allowed to live, if she is just another primate, a monkey whose only distinction is an affinity for clothing, then what’s to stop us “putting her out of her misery?”

Well, nothing really, just as there isn't anything to stop anybody putting Peter Singer out of his misery if he too were "just another primate". As the intellectual and agnostic Ivan Karamazov rightly points out in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, “without God, all things are permitted.” The same very much holds true if evolution alone—as its proponents obviously believe—explains existence.

In fact, under the monstrous gaze of what Darwinian evolutionary anthropology has become it is difficult to explain why Peter Singer has so far held himself to a mere thirty days after birth. Really, if parents ever don’t want their child, they should be able to drop the hatchet at will. And the same, of course, goes for the child. It’s called survival of the fittest silly.

G.K. Chesterton's Everlasting Man

But the unfortunate fact is that “evolution really is mistaken for explanation”, which G.K. Chesterton points in Everlasting Man, which is by far one of the best books on the question of Man, and which everybody ought to read immediately if they haven’t already. “It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that they do understand it and everything else; just as many of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read Origin of Species.”

Much like the Big Bang theory, the theory of Darwinian evolution creates the dangerous aura of The Answer, when it isn’t anything of the sort. It’s exactly the same monstrous fallacy so many made of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, making the ludicrous leap from the relativity of space and time to the relativity of morality, all to the absolute horror of Einstein.

However, contrary to mainstream reporting, being a “close-minded creationist”is not seen by many honest thinkers and believers as the only credible option to Darwinism. That Man may, in some mysterious, miraculous fashion, have resulted from a physical evolution of primates over a period of many, many thousands or millions of years, that led him to the point of coming into the full possession of his sublime and spiritual humanity is by all accounts possible. Remote, but possible, and all the more miraculous for its remoteness.

It seems quite reasonable that no matter how slow a miracle may happen, it still remains a miracle. Says Chesterton: “The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with a stroke of the wand. But to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little more like a pig every day, till he ended with four trotters and a curly tail, would not be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and uncanny.”

Mindless Responses From Viewers of London Exhibit

The New Zealand Herald reports the response of one particularly vapid visitor to the London zoo’s human exhibit. "It's actually quite a powerful message,” she said. And if only she had stopped right there. But apparently she felt the urge to open her trap again, saying, “What if we are so successful in destroying our environment that one day the only place you could see human beings is in a zoo?"

Ha-ha! Knee-slapping fun. Well then—the question literally cries out to heaven—who…or what, on this blessed earth, other than another human being, is going to be putting humans on display in a zoo as an endangered species? After this “plague species”, Man, destroys his natural habitat, is it possible that the dolphins and other sea-creatures are going to construct subaqueous, ventilated cages and capture and display the endangered terrestrial species to the pitying aquatic world? Is this what this curious example of the environmentalist species was saying? It seems to be, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she really believed it. So many strange things are believed today.

Chesterton was fond of pointing out that we currently live, not in the age of common sense, but the age of “uncommon nonsense”. The man of uncommon nonsense—only too often a scholar of great acclaim—puts men and women into a cage and believes that he has proved something sublime. While the man of common sense visiting the zoo in the hope of glimpsing an exotic animal blushes on seeing an exotic dancer instead and promptly goes home to soothe away the distressing feeling that the world has gone completely loony with a drink and a Sinatra record.

"A lot of people think humans are above other animals. When they see humans as animals, here, it kind of reminds us that we're not that special,” said another visitor to the zoo, who was evidently suffering from temporary amnesia that caused him to forget the pyramids, the Panama canal, and the complete poetical works of Pope.

One opponent of mine, in response to a previous LifeSite article on DDT, concurred. “The problem isn't with Nature, but with the human ego,” he said in what was unfortunately dead seriousness, “either that of individuals who claim that Nature can be managed and ultimately subordianted [sic] to man's will through advances in technology, or that of  Fundamentalist [expletive] like you who suggest that man is ultimately  superior, stands alone outside of the rest of Nature and has some bizarre right of dominion over other living things.”

This is strangely discordant with Chesterton’s (and every man of common sense’s) belief that man is something truly extraordinary, that he is some mysterious way, “the measure of all things.”

Oh, but where to begin…where to begin.

I know. Go, right now, and buy, borrow or otherwise obtain a copy of Everlasting Man. And then read it. I guarantee you will be much the better for it.

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Intelligent Design to be Taught in Australian Schools - Opponents Furious

SYDNEY, August 29, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After decades of teaching the theory of Darwinian evolution as though it were established fact, school boards in Australia may rethink their approach. The Intelligent Design (ID) theory is making inroads with formerly skeptical members of the scientific community now that the mathematical improbability of the random and spontaneous generation of life has been more thoroughly analyzed.

Australian Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson told reporters earlier this month that ID would have a place with Darwinism should parents or schools be interested. This announcement coincides with an attempt by researchers at Harvard University to debunk the Intelligent Design theory, which is seen by many committed anti-religious secularists as a threat to their hold on the scientific community.

Some secularists are furious at the threat to their religious dogma that God could not have created the universe. Those scientists who have dared publicly to examine the case on its merits have faced severe professional sanctions, in some cases amounting to witch hunts.

A US-produced video used in Australia features Dr. Dean Kenyon, a Stanford trained biophysicist, who was censured by his departmental colleagues at San Francisco State University for allegedly teaching religion in his introductory biology course. Kenyon, no naïf in the academic world with postgraduate work at UC Berkeley, Oxford, and NASA, said that he lost his job for the mere mention that there were other theories than pure Darwinian random evolution. He fought the decision and has been reinstated.

Kenyon, co-author of the book, Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, speaks of how his own research on the chemical origins of life and his examination of the fossil record caused him to question the naturalistic assumptions that allow most evolutionary scientists to ignore and reject all evidence of intelligent design in the universe.

Kenyon says on the video, “We have not the slightest chance of a chemical evolutionary origin for even the simplest of cells, so the concept of the intelligent design of life was immensely attractive to me and made a great deal of sense.”

But the possibility of any religious influence has enraged the secularist scientific establishment and is seen as enough to condemn a researcher to the crank gallery. A senior lecturer in evolutionary biology at the University of New South Wales, Rob Brook, said that the presence of religious ideas automatically discredits a researcher.

About Kenyon, he said, “I don't really know what is it that's motivating him, and I don't think that we're told publicly what it is that's motivating him, but a lot of the prime people in the intelligent design movement appear to have had religious conversions of some type or another.”

”They all seem to be people of deep religious faith,” said Brook in an interview on Australian Public Radio, “so one has to argue, is it their religious faith that's driving the agenda, or is it their science and the scientific process? And I'd say it's the former.”

Read coverage from Australian Public Radio:
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1447202.htm

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Loony London - Men on Display in Zoo “Just Another Primate”

Evolution controversy has everything to do with abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, etc.

August 29, 2005, (LifeSiteNews.com) - In one enclosure of the London England zoo, as was widely reported in the news last week, there is a new collection of  sumptuous specimens of what the curators have called a “plague species”. This is a harsh label for any species, but in this case especially so because the species on display is Man.

In this very embarrassing zoological charade three brawny men and five shapely women have volunteered to strut around for a few days in their underwear and strategically placed fig leaves in an enclosure that was once the home of one or another species of bears. In the immortal words of the Zoo spokeswoman, the purpose of the exercise is that "Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals ... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate.”

Which is strange, because I could have sworn that it was to teach members of the public that the London zoo spokeswomen is an idiot (Sorry, but ad homonym attacks sometimes seem so strangely appropriate.).

Anyway, it is a curious feature of LifeSiteNews that every so often we weigh in on the debate over Darwinian evolution in what is probably mistakenly thought to be motivated by an opposition to any explanation of life but strict fundamentalist creationism. Some have expressed puzzlement about our interest in evolution and wondered what on earth it has to do with the much more central and vital cultural issues of abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, etc.

The answer, it is as good a time as any to point out, is everything. It has everything to do with it.

** See the complete LifeSiteNews.com COMMENTARY by John Jalsevac at
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/aug/050829a.html

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Abortion Fraud Scandal no Bar to Senate Post According to Prime Minister Martin

OTTAWA, August 29, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) -  Prime Minister Paul Martin announced today the appointment of Liberal insider Francis Fox to the Canadian Senate.  The patronage appointment for the Trudeau-era cabinet member comes as little surprise to Canadians despite Fox's scandal-plagued background.  (See the appointment notice: http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news.asp?id=567 )

Fox's former political career ended in disgrace in January 1978 when he resigned as solicitor general. At the time, Fox confessed to the House of  Commons that he had committed fraud.  He signed someone else's name on a hospital document in order to procure an abortion for a woman with whom he was having an adulterous affair.  The name he signed was that of the woman's husband.

Fox has been intimately involved in Martin's leadership campaigns, and Martin has been looking to reward him for some time.  According to political observers, his name surfaced as a possibility to head the CBC until the Gomery report led to questions about Fox's involvement in the adscam scandal. 

Proudly right-wing blogger Brent Colbert who has amassed a dossier on the many players in the adscam scandal has this to say about Fox:  http://www.brentcolbert.com/blog/index.php/2005/04/07/francis_fox

But the goods on Fox come not only from conservatives.  To wit, the CBC's roundup of the top ten political scandals in Canadian history lists Fox as entry no. 4.

See the CBC top ten scandals in Canadian political history list:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/groupaction/scandals.html

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Judge Rules Phoenix Sherrif Cannot Refuse to Transport Inmates for Elective Abortion

PHOENIX, Arizona, August 29, 2005, (LifeSiteNews.com) - Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Barry Schneider rejected arguments by County Sheriff Joe Arpaio defending his office’s refusal to transport women inmates to a medical facility for an elective abortion unless they first get a court order.

Court documents indicate that the Sheriff’s arguments were based on: “(1) security of the inmates and others; (2) limiting liability exposure, i.e., liability to third persons who may have an interest in the unborn fetus or for complications related to the abortion; and (3) ensuring that Defendants do not violate the law prohibiting the use of public funds for an abortion.”

The ruling also states that the plaintiffs, namely the Reproductive Freedom Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that “There is the undue burden test articulated in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). Applying this test, the State may not adopt a regulation that places a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion.”
 
Regarding the third defense the ruling indicated that “As to the third purpose, the avoidance of Defendants violating the law prohibiting expenditure of funds for an abortion, this concern loses its validity as long as the inmate arranges to pay for the procedures, as occurred in this case. Also, the law prohibits public funds being “expended for payment to any person or entity for the performance of an abortion.” A.R.S. §35-196.02. Providing transportation is not paying for the performance of an abortion.”

In comments to Howard Fischer of Capital Media Services, Sheriff Arpaio disagreed with the Judges comments saying "You lose a lot of rights when you're in jail, whether it's trying to get an abortion or watching R-rated movies or sex movies or smoking or coffee," all of which are denied inmates in his jails.

Arizona Daily Star
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/news/90209.php

Superior Court of Maricopa County, Public Information
http://www.superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/publicInfo/rulings/rulingsReaditem.asp?aut...

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British Favour Tightening Abortion Restrictions

LONDON, England, August 29, 2005, (LifeSiteNews.com) -The BBC and the Daily Telegraph are both reporting that attitudes about abortion are changing. Britain’s 40 year old abortion law currently permits the procedure up to the 24th week of pregnancy. In a Daily Telegraph survey only 27 percent supported the restrictions as is. 58% favored a 20 week restriction and 33% of women favored a limit of 12 weeks or less.

The BBC reports that “according to the latest available data, more than 180,000 women in England and Wales had terminations in 2003, and a further 9,100 were carried out on non-residents. Less than 2% of those were performed between 20 and 24 weeks.”

On the other end of the spectrum 87% of those surveyed favoured the legalization of assisted suicide. 67% thought people should be allowed to assist the suicides of close relatives without fear of prosecution.

The survey also found:
•  48% said abortion should not be free on demand on the NHS.
•  79% said it was acceptable to use stem cells to treat life-threatening or serious conditions such as cancer, heart disease and arthritis.
•  30% said they would be happy to allow cloning to help infertile couples but 60% were opposed to cloning human beings.
•  43% said doctors should only be allowed to modify babies' genetic make-up to prevent the child suffering from serious genetic disorders.
•  77% said parents should not be allowed to select the sex of their own children.
•  68% said it was acceptable to use 'spare' embryos left over from fertility treatment for medical research.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/4194034.stm

Story from Daily Telegraph
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/29/nabor29.xml

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FDA Delays Decision on Abortifacient Morning-After Pill Approval

WASHINGTON, August 29, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The US Food and Drug Administration announced Friday that it will delay a decision on allowing sales of the abortifacient morning-after pill without a prescription.

After a failed bid last year by the drug’s manufacturer, Barr Pharmaceuticals, to have its Plan B approved for over-the counter (OTC) use, the company re-submitted its application with the provision that sales of the abortifacient would only be OTC for girls older than 15 years of age.

An FDA release stated that the application from Barr presented the agency “with many difficult and novel policy and regulatory issues.” Some issues the FDA called “unprecedented,” such as whether age can be “used as a criterion on which we decide whether a drug should be prescription or over-the-counter.” Additionally, the FDA wondered how pharmacies would enforce age restrictions when it came to sales of the abortifacient.

“We believe these novel regulatory issues should be considered in an open, public process,” stated FDA Commissioner Lester M. Crawford. “These regulatory and policy questions are too profound and cut across too many different products to be made behind closed doors.”

“FDA used to prohibit products from being both over the counter and prescription at the same time,” Crawford explained. “They had to be one or the other. The idea was that if an active ingredient was safe and effective without a practitioner’s supervision it had to be over-the-counter. If it needed a prescription for one group of people, then it needed a prescription for all people.” Since the 1980s, a few products were made available both as prescription and over the counter, because they were used for different purposes. Plan B is unique in that it would be sold OTC and by prescription for the same use and in the same package.

Bruce Downey, CEO for Barr commented that awaiting the FDA decision is “like being in purgatory,” according to an AP report.

The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPOG) expressed its concern over a heightened incidence of sexually transmitted disease. “Chlamydia, a STD already seen in epidemic proportions among teens and college age women, would go undiagnosed and untreated, scarring fallopian tubes, and resulting in future infertility for many,” the group stated, according to a release. “Human Papilloma Virus, a widespread and very communicable STD, is associated with the development of cervical cancer, and untreated HPV would put many women at future risk for this deadly cancer.”

“However you look at it, Over-The-Counter ‘Emergency Contraception’ is bad medicine for women,” the AAPOG concluded. “The FDA has asked for input. We strongly urge parents and doctors alike to express their feelings to the FDA.”

Concerned Women for America’s Wendy Wright said, “Making the morning-after pill over-the-counter would only benefit those that profit from its increased sale, but the real price will be paid by women and girls who would suffer the health consequences.”

See the FDA statement:
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2005/NEW01223.html

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Messianic Jewish, Moslem and Christian Leaders Join to Promote Life Chain in Canada

August 29, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Messianic Jewish, Moslem, and Christian leaders are joining forces to promote participation in this year’s Life Chain event to protest legal abortion in Canada.

Messianic Jewish Rabbi Jack Farber from Congregation Melech Israel; Imam Abdul Hai Patel from the Islamic Council of Imams-Canada; and Roman Catholic leaders Aloysius Cardinal Ambrosic, Archbishop of Toronto, Most Reverend Marcel Gervais, Archbishop of Ottawa, and Most Reverend Nicola De Angelis, Bishop of Peterborough Diocese all support the Life Chain event.

This year’s Life Chain will take place on Sunday October 2nd from 2:00 to 3:00 pm. “Join the life chain and help save moms and babies from the horrors of abortion,” encourages national organizer, Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), in its brochure. Each year thousands of Canadians from St. John’s to Vancouver line the sidewalks of their communities to peacefully protest the crime of abortion. 

“The first life chain was launched in 1987 by a Yuba City, California pro-life group,” CLC explained. “With the help of local churches, press and public officials, the life chain was a success. Abortions in Yuba City fell by 60 percent.”

In recent years participants in many communities have encountered dramatically increasing support from those driving by the various Life Chains. As well, the silent, respectful demos have been saving lives as evidenced by a few letters received by organizers from women who wrote that the Life Chain caused them to cancel abortion plans. Those few letters indicate that likely many more women were similarly affected by the impressive witness for life along their community's streets.

“Together we can change lives by reminding people of the injustices done both to the child in the womb and the expecting mother,” emphasized CLC. “Canadians have a deep concern for the rights of the unborn child and the rights of the expecting mother to have her child in safety. Life chain, as a result, has become a great success in Canada. Life chain Canada has been held annually since 1990.”

For more information about Life Chain in your area, contact Campaign Life Coalition, at 416-204-9749 or 1-800-730-5358.

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Second Indian State Drops Coercive Two-Child Norms

New Delhi, Aug. 29 (CWNews.com/LifeSiteNews.com) - Another state in India-- the central state of Chattisgarh-- has announced that it will not enforce the controversial two-children-per-family norm designed to curb the nation's population growth.

Chattisgarh is the second state-- after neighbouring Madhya Pradesh-- to declare that it will no longer require adherence to the 2-child norm for candidates in local elections. Raman Singh, chief minister of Chattisgarh, gave this assurance on Sunday to Mani Shankar Iyyer, the federal minister in charge of village and municipal council matters.

The change of heart by state leaders is a response to sharp criticism of the 2-child norm by federal government leaders, who have objected to policies that use coercion or quotas to curb population growth. Several Indian states have enacted laws that bar families with more than 2 children from receiving housing loans, holding government jobs, or gaining admission to public schools.

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