Abortion: Nature or Nurture?

The Numbers

 Here are some approximate numbers related to human reproduction.

Women

• 1 million - The number of eggs a woman is born with.
• 400,000 - The number of eggs left by the time she reaches puberty.
• 400 - The number of eggs released for ovulation over her lifetime.
• 6 - The average number of eggs that get fertilized.
• 3 - The average number of eggs that become a person.

Nature vs. Women

• 99.9% of unfertilized eggs are discarded or reabsorbed (from the time of puberty).
• 50% of fertilized eggs (embryos) are lost (most before the woman knows she's pregnant).
• 10-20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage.

Men

• Over 500 billion - The number of sperm each man produces in his lifetime.
• 8,700 - Number of ejaculations in his lifetime (Link).
• 80 - 300 million - The number of sperm per ejaculation.
• 6 billion - The approximate number of sperm it takes to make a baby (78 ejaculations).
• 3 - The average number of a man's sperm that become a person.

Nature vs. Man

• 99.99999998% of sperm that are sent on a life-making mission end up dead.

Women vs. Nature

• 360 - The number of eggs not fertilized due to birth control.
• 20% of pregnancies are aborted by the woman's choice (1-3% due to advice from a doctor).

Man vs. Nature

• 99% of sperm are wasted, not making a baby (due to birth control or masturbation)
• Man friendly calculation. Only 8,622 sperm are wasted since only one sperm would is prevented from doing it's job, the rest would have been wasted anyways. That's only 0.0000017% wasted.

Conclusion

• Nature wastes more eggs than women do by a ratio of 1,000-to-1 (I'll admit that this is a lame statistic since so many of these eggs never had a chance).
• Nature aborts more embryos than women do by a ratio of 2.5-to-1.
• Man wastes more sperm than nature by a ratio of 25-to-1
• Calculation: Only 3 sperm are needed to make his 3 babies, so nature wastes 3 x 6 = 18 billion. The rest of his 500 billion sperm, or 500 - 18 = 482 billion, are wasted by the man.

Bonus Material

Other parties that try to have a say in the nature vs nurture battle.

• 1-3% of abortions were recommended by doctors for the woman's health.
• 12 states have total abortion bans.
• Female legislators are significantly underrepresented (~22%) in states with total abortion bans.
• 21 states protect abortion.
• Women make up about 40% of the legislature in states with abortion protection.
• Abortion Opinions
• 8-13% of Americans are against abortion in any circumstance.
• 36% of Americans are against abortion in most circumstances.
• Most opposition to abortion is due to religious beliefs.
• Birth Control Opinions
• 9-11% of Americans are opposed to birth control.
• Most opposition to birth control is due to religious beliefs.
• Wasted sperm is a sin like abortion, according to the Catholic and other conservative Christian churches.
• Bloggers write about abortion when they don't have the expertise (hey, that hurt!).

Intellectual Vision: Four Truths and Eightfold Path

I’m trying to develop an idea like Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths and The Eightfold Path, which applies to human understanding of reality. 

The Four Truths

1) There is an absolute, objective reality 

2) Humans (as individuals or collectively) are incapable of knowing reality completely 

3) Humans need to understand reality as much as possible for our well-being and survival

4) Humans can best do this by following an Eightfold Path

An Eightfold Path

1. Intellectual Humility – Recognize the limits of your understanding and be open to new insights, even if you consider yourself an expert. Recognize your own biases. Embrace the mysteries of the past and uncertainties of the future.
2. Intellectual Curiosity – Cultivate a deep desire to seek knowledge and explore reality.
3. Intellectual Honesty – Pursue and accept truth with honesty and integrity, even when it may be disadvantageous to yourself, your group, or your cause.
4. Intellectual Access - Make collective understanding available to all people. Share critical knowledge openly and ensure access for everyone. Practice transparency.
5. Intellectual Prudence - 
1. Avoid sensationalism or oversimplification. 
2. Critically evaluate information, verifying facts before accepting them or spreading them.
3. Avoid jumping to conclusions or being swayed by misinformation. 
4. Thoughtfully apply knowledge and consider how it affects others or society. 
5. Practice responsible environmental stewardship by reducing waste, conserving resources, and supporting sustainable practices.
6. Intellectual Tolerance - Accept diversity and differences, understanding that everyone has a unique life experience and perspective.
7. Avoid Persuasion, Seek Understanding – Engage in dialogue to understand and establish a shared pool of understanding rather than to persuade, manipulate, or win an argument.
8. Promote Empathy and Compassion - we are all human and make mistakes. We should not treat others harshly. It takes enormous energy to be informed on many subjects, and some truths are difficult to accept. “I’m striving to follow the eightfold path to truth. If I stray from the path, I appreciate earnest reminders from others. I recognize that not everyone shares my same conviction.

Example: Raising the minimum wage 

The Left and Right will make claims about what will happen if the minimum wage is raised. The Left claims it will give money to the people. The Right claims it will put companies out of business and may make it harder for teenagers or others to enter the job market, among many other unintended consequences. But no one knows the consequences for sure.  Let's look at this more openly.

If the minimum wage is raised, some businesses will comply, and others will not. Those who don’t comply may get away with it or face consequences.

Those that comply with it will pay for it out of profits or by raising prices. If they raise prices, they may gain or lose some of a particular customer's business.

If business decreases, the owners can cut costs by reducing their employees' hours, reducing the number of employees, or replacing employees with robots or other sources of automation. They could also find other cost-cutting measures like using cheaper materials, reducing energy use, or finding cheaper suppliers.

If employees leave (forced or voluntarily), they may find a better opportunity, the same, or worse. Some employees may stay enticed by the higher wages and miss out on other opportunities.

When replacing employees who leave, the employer may have an easier or more challenging time finding new employees. The employer may be more or less picky in their selection of future employees. If they are more picky, this could result in someone less qualified not getting the opportunity to get work experience.

If the minimum wage only affects a portion of businesses, it may be more or less challenging for other companies to find qualified workers (after the $20/hour minimum wage for fast food restaurants, my neighbor's company lost employees and ended up moving their manufacturing over the border).

Lower profits from any cause could end an ailing business, resulting in loss of employment for the people generously granted a higher wage. Some of these businesses may have ended regardless of the increased minimum wage, and there is no way of knowing at this point.

How each of the owners, employees, and customers responds is individual and based on that person's life experience and circumstances, and it can greatly differ by location (city, state, country).

The truth isn't necessarily black and white.

Resources

This post was inspired by Thomas Sowell's book Knowledge and Decisions. Specifically, the idea behind using the phrase "Intellectual vision" is from the book.

Intellectual Vision - a central set of premises from which particular positions can be deduced as corollaries . What makes them a coherent vision is the high degree of correlation among the particular conclusions reached among highly disparate subjects. An ideological vision is more than a belief in a principle. It is the belief that that that principle is crucial or overriding, so that other principles or even empirical facts must give way when in conflict with it.

You might call this post an "Intellectual Vision" to improve how ideas and beliefs can be formulated.

The Story of the Math Cult

 "But they're just pants!"

Sara was frustrated. All of her friends had the new jeans, and they looked cute. For some reason, she thought her mom might understand this time and just see that new pants might make her daughter happy. But no, somehow, it turned into a math lesson.

"You already have pants, dear. These new pants are just trendy. They didn't even exist last year. In a few months, they'll be out of style. Not like math. I can solve a math problem and get the same answer today as someone else got a hundred years ago or a hundred years from now. Even better, the answer is the same for me as for someone in China, India, or Africa. Math is true. Math is eternal."

Sara was sick of math. What was the equation for giggling? or hanging out? or even worse, making your daughter's life miserable? Just once, she would like to stay home on Mathday and watch T.V. (Mathday was the name her parents and other members of their math collective called Sunday. "It only makes sense to set aside one day a weak for the proper observance of the purity of mathematics.")

---

"What's this?" said her mom with a look of disgust on her face.

"That's my art project," said Sara. Her parents only agreed to let her take art if she kept to geometric shapes. Geometry always made her mom feel uneasy since there weren't any numbers or mathematical symbols involved, but Sara's dad showed the equations for various geometric shapes and how to calculate perspective, easing Mom's anxiety.

"It's not geometric. It's all curved and irregular," complained her mom with a strong emphasis on 'irregular'.

"It's a strange attractor from Chaos theory, which is a branch of mathematics," said Sara. She had done her homework. A simple internet search for What's the branch of mathematics that is the least like math? Her mom shuddered at the mention of Chaos theory. No one in her math group accepted that Chaos theory was actually math. Where was the certainty or the truth in Chaos?

Sara didn't dare bring home her other art projects. They were purely abstract, emotional expressions of how she felt inside. There was zero math. Oh, wait. Zero is a number in math. It was a math void. Damn it! Void is a math term. It was a nada math. Yes. A piece of nada math art.

---

"What pie do you want me to make for Pi Day?" asked her mom. March 14, or 3.14, was the holy holiday for the Math collective. Sara really wanted to celebrate the other holidays, like Halloween and Christmas, but her parents were purists. Those are just commercialized days for companies to sell more stuff. Sara thought about what her friend at school said about Pi Day. Pi Day was just invented by geeks to sell more math. Sara chuckled.

"Why are you laughing?" asked her mom.

"Oh, nothing. Just thinking about something. You know my favorite pie is apple," said Sara. 

Pi Day celebration at least had yummy pie. Most of the other math collective gatherings were nothing but math - theory, applications of math, and math self-righteousness. The adults gathered together, and from a distance, it seemed that they were talking about something interesting, like a new movie they saw. But when you got close enough to hear them, they were just geeking out on math. The kids all stood around eating their pie and rolling their eyes. Under their breaths, they talked about how boring their parents were and how much they hated math.

"I'm going to be a lawyer," said one boy.

"Do your parents know?"

"Yes. They said that I'd have to pay for college myself. 'Law is so ephemeral,' they said. 'We'll only pay for a true education. One that uses math.'"

Sara wanted to be an artist but never told anyone. Her art teacher said that she was good enough.

To be continued...

Ethical Thinking

 In "The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking", by Richard Paul and Linda Elder, the idea of ethical thinking was presented. I like to create models to help me understand the ideas, so here's my model.

Imagine groups of people with common thinking patterns, beliefs, biases, etc. You find yourself in one of the groups, most likely due to your upbringing, where you grew up and who you associated with. 

As you've developed critical thinking skills, you managed to make some sense of the complicated world we live in. You learn that these skills apply as much to yourself as others, even when inconvenient. You have developed...

Intellectual Integrity or, consistent standards for thinking that you apply to yourself and others.

Soon you start finding problems with the way your group thinks.  You feel an obligation to be true to your new understandings and not shy away, in spite of any negative consequences.  What you need is...

Intellectual Courage or, the ability to face difficult ideas that go against your previously held ideas.

Next you find that the framework for thinking of your group is not working anymore. Also, members of your group keep pushing back on your courageous thinking. What you need is...

Intellectual Autonomy or, having control of your own beliefs and values. But it feels lonely going it alone. What you need is... 

Intellectual Perseverance or, the ability to endure hardships and stick to your principles. Even then, you still need to live in this world and interact with others that don't use critical thinking. What you need is...

Intellectual Empathy or, an understanding of the forces and conditions that have lead to others thinking and believing how they do. It also helps us remember when we ourselves had similar ways of thinking. This often leads to...

Intellectual Humility or, an awareness of the limitations in our own understanding, biases and egocentrism.  You realize that you don't know as much as you think you know.

Scarcity of Thought: Transitioning from Tribalism to Community

In the book "Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much", by Sendhi Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir, there's the example of two people packing for a trip. One has a tiny suitcase and the other has a large suitcase. The person with the tiny suitcase needs to spend more time optimizing their decisions on what to bring, not bring and how to pack.  The person with the large suitcase can quickly pack. This person thinks to themselves "I might want to go running", so they throw in their running shoes without further thought.

What if we apply this principle to thought: ideas, beliefs, opinions? Maybe your tiny "suitcase", or scarcity, is due to your religion, political party, education, or cultural upbringing. As a result, when you get new information, you struggle to fit it into existing narratives. This is why we have political attacks. This is where apologetics comes from. This is the root cause of cognitive biases. For example, confirmation bias, where we tend to find and remember information that confirms our perceptions (and ignoring information that doesn't fit). Our suitcases are just too small for anything else.

It can be very liberating upgrading your tiny cognitive suitcase for a larger mental space. This can happen through a sudden or gradual awakening.  This happened for me politically during the Bush/Gore election. When something benign like dangling chads became a divisive political issue, I realized that the political parties were more concerned about obtaining and keeping power than they were about truth and justice.  I become an independent.

I grew up in a time when it seemed that the villains in many movies where from Russia (or the former Soviet Union).  When my group hired 2 Russians, I had to check my reactions. I was able to learn their stories and turned suspicion into respect.

I have a coworker from Iran. The media tells me that they are one of our new enemies. He ended up inviting me to his wedding. It was one of the most beautiful, inclusive experiences I have ever had. The Persian culture is rich and I would be proud if I was Persian.

I got to know another coworker from Iraq. I've heard insensitive people say while we were at war with Iraq that we should just drop a nuclear bomb on them and be done with it. My coworker told his story. He lived in a village where all of the names were biblical. The towns, hills, mountains all had names from the bible. He lived near where they thought Noah's Ark landed. How he came to America was that he was a Christian refuge fleeing earlier wars. The government sent a notice "We are going to be bombing your city. Either leave or be bombed" 

Still "my" group was morally superior, right? As I got to truly know people outside of "my" group, I was surprised to find that they had qualities that I valued. Often, their qualities were more polished, refined and authentic than found in my group

Tribalism vs Community

In this post, Alan Weiss writes

Tribes are homogenous, communities are heterogeneous.

Tribes are exclusionary. They recognize their own members’ similarities and common background...tribes tend to be insecure, mistrustful of non-tribal relationships, and highly threatened by perceived attacks on their beliefs and behaviors.

Communities are much more elastic, since it’s almost impossible to insult everyone at once due to the eclectic nature of the community. They will embrace outsiders and interact with other communities readily.

Communities are inclusionary. They are characterized by common attitudes, interests, and goals. Religion, beliefs, kinship, and opinions can differ starkly in communities and, in fact, give them vibrancy and dynamism, allowing for continued experimentation and growth. They do not hold long-term animosities against other communities, and those within them shift in opinion and allegiance as time goes by and learning occurs.

I love this!

Scarcity found in tribes is not necessary. It's possible to make space for a larger community. As I travel through life, I'm grateful for a "larger suitcase" that allows me to make room for an expanded understanding of the world while on my journey through life. 

Until I met one

I looked down on Black people.  Until I met one.
I made fun of Mexicans.  Until I met one.
I was afraid of Russians.  Until I met one.
I laughed at the Polish.  Until I met one.
I thought Iranians were crazy.  Until I met one.
I thought Jews were weird.  Until I met one.
I thought Muslims were scary.  Until I met one.
I really hate your kind of people...
You know what to do.

Mother Teresa: Terrorist?

Of course I believe that Mother Teresa was a true model of charity, but the following shows how one can edit anything to look bad.

Her organization was a cult[1].  Her works of charity were just a front for recruiting people to her ideology. [2]  And what was her ideology?  She refused funding offers from U.S. President Ronald Reagan [3] yet she accepted funding from criminals [4].  These funds were assuredly stolen money.  

She was a very dark soul.  In her own words:

"...Even deep down ... there is nothing but emptiness and darkness ... If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul ... How painful is this unknown pain—I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, ... What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true." [5]

Did I convince you that Mother Teresa could have been a terrorist?  Maybe?  Just a tiny bit?

Of course I'm neglecting quotes like this (and about 1,000 others like them):

• Peace begins with a smile. 
• If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
• The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread
• If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
• If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

My point is, first "see the good".  If all you hear, read or learn about something is negative, yet is still has an abundance of supporters, it deserves a fair investigation.  Politics and religion come to mind.  So do neighbors, coworkers, family members, and anyone not like us.

Light, Truth and Gravity

Once I was asked how I could believe in God and science.  It's true that religion and science have a history of conflict.  I think one of the problems is that religions extrapolate dogmas too far, then new scientific discoveries invalidate unfounded beliefs, and the battle begins.  Usually science wins as the theories are proven out.  When religion rationalizes outdated beliefs, it is discredited and the temptation for the "scientifically minded" is to "throw out the baby with the bathwater".

I've managed to see and experience the value in both systems of understanding, and in many instances I am satisfied to see science and religion in agreement.  This happened tonight as I was reading an article on some of the latest thinking in Physics.  The theories start by trying to explain what happens to "information" in the Universe with results of a quantum mechanical explanation for gravity (and dark energy, which no other theory accounts for).   Here's a quote from the article:

Some physicists are convinced that the properties of information do not come from the behaviour of information carriers such as photons and electrons but the other way round. They think that information itself is the ghostly bedrock on which our universe is built.[1]

There seems to be an interesting relationship between "information", "light" and "laws by which all things are governed".

Here are some religious verses:

D&C 88:11-13
11 And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings;

12 Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space—

13The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things.

I would equate the bold items as such:

• "light" with "photos and electrons"
• "information" with "knowledge" or "enlightenment"  
• "gravity" with "the law by which all things are governed"
  

So what does this mean to me?

1. Scientific understanding is finite.  
2. Religion provides a hope of infinite understanding.
3. Religion overreaches
4. Science corrects religion with new understanding.
5. Go to step 1.

The Wow Event

I just finished reading "13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time" by Michael Brooks.  I enjoyed the book and found it thought provoking.  Here are a couple of thoughts.

The Wow! Event

The Wow! event or Wow! Signal was a radio signal detected by SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) in 1977.  There is no scientific explanation for the signal and it excited researchers who considered it as possible evidence of intelligent beings outside of our Solar System.  The signal lasted 72 seconds and has not been detected since. The signal provided no information other than a location in the sky.

Scientists have also been probing Mars for life and searching the cosmos for the existence of inhabitable planets.  The idea is that someday, we may want or need to find somewhere to live besides earth.  Mars is significantly less habitable than the more inhabitable location on earth.  The nearest star with habitable planets would take about 60,000 years to reach with our fastest space craft [1]

I find it ironic that many scientists are critical of religion's:

1. Belief in an intelligent being that does not live on this earth.
• Trying to communicate with this being through prayer.
• For many, a great source of comfort when they "claim" to have communicated with this being.
2. Belief that after this life, there is a place we will go to live.
• There is no way experience this place in this lifetime.

How is SETI and the search for habitable planets any less acceptable than some of the religious beliefs and practices of today?

Placebo and Homeopathy
Another interesting subject in the book is the placebo effect and homeopathy.  The placebo effect is getting health benefits from something like a sugar pill just because we are told it will help.  A couple of interesting points:

A morphine drip will help with pain.  At some point, the morphine can be substituted by saline solution with the same effect.  This is placebo in action.  Now the tricky part.  There is a medicine that, when administered, will block the effects of morphine.  It will also block the placebo effects of the saline solution. 


Another tricky fact: it is harder for drug companies to get approval for new medications, since they have to perform better than placebos.  The problem is that placebos are getting better!  The explanation is that people have more faith in medicine, so that are more responsive to even placebos.

Homeopathy is the practice of diluting a harmful substance to provide a cure.  I guess that it is so diluted, than none of the original substance exists.  I'm still on the fence with Homeopathy, but apparently it has an effect better than a placebo.  There is something unexplainable yet real there.  I think the current problem with Homeopathy is that it is "diluted" with a lot of quackery, so you can never know if you are getting something that actually works.

Free Will
I guess there are scientists who believe that free will is not real.  They claim our behaviors are just a result of complex chemical and biological reactions.  I acknowledge that our behavior is strongly influenced by nature.  People with brain injuries and other diseases have been known to change their personalities and behavioral patterns.  But to say that all that man has created: music, art, architecture, automobiles, airplanes, man walking on the moon, the computer and the internet are just a result of chemical compulsion seems silly.  I think our lives and our world is a product of will vs. nature.  I would like to think will is winning.  As Robert Frost wrote

...
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.". 

Hope and Faith

Which is better, hope or faith? I read an article recently that actually tried to answer that question (I don't have the reference). They argued that hope is better since it usually means actually doing something (implying that faith involves no action).

I've thought about this a little since and here's my view on hope and faith. I'll use a story to illustrate. The characters are Bob Hope and Faith Hill (No relation to famous people, just convenient names). Bob is most interested in results and the actual outcome. How he gets this isn't as important. Faith is more likely to conform to the rules. She spends a lot more time worrying how she does things than she does worrying about the results.

Bob Hope and Faith Hill are enrolled in the same class and are taking a test today.

Bob: "I sure hope I pass the test".
Faith: "I have faith that I will pass the test".
Bob: "How can you know that you'll pass the test? You and your blind faith! I heard this test is hard!"
Faith: "I didn't say I 'know' I'll pass the test, just that I have faith that I will. I took the prerequisites for this class, I go to class everyday, I've taken good notes, and I followed the study guide. In our study group, we had copies of last semesters test and we were able to go through it. Mike helped explain a couple of ideas I didn't quite understand from Chapter 1. We were able to help Steve and Karen with Chapter 2. Mike was sick when we covered Chapter 3, so we helped him and now he's up to speed.".
Bob: (sigh) "I sure hope I pass the test."
Faith: "I sure hope you pass the test too, Bob."

This little story is of course lopsided. All hope isn't this empty and true hope can be a great motivator. When it comes to long shots (making the Olympic team), hope is the way to go.

Faith is still good, but sometimes faith can be blind. When it comes to religion, faith is based on many things that can't even be seen (Heaven, God) and so religious faith is considered by many to be "blind faith". However, religious faith is also similar to preparing for a test. Religion provides proven traditions, a system of moral guidelines, and the support of a group that share common goals and values. This is all good as long as the goals are along the lines of "build and strengthen" and not "conquer and destroy". Religion can be powerful, so if you pick one, be sure to pick a good one.

I have hope that you'll understand what I've written; but not faith (faith requires a little more effort :-)