Saturday, January 05, 2008

We Differ More Than We Thought

The last thirty to forty years of social science has brought an overbearing censorship to the way we are allowed to think and talk about the diversity of people on Earth. People of Siberian descent, New Guinean Highlanders, those from the Indian sub-continent, Caucasians, Australian aborigines, Polynesians, Africans - we are, officially, all the same: there are no races.

Flawed as the old ideas about race are, modern genomic studies reveal a surprising, compelling and different picture of human genetic diversity. We are on average about 99.5% similar to each other genetically. This is a new figure, down from the previous estimate of 99.9%. To put what may seem like miniscule differences in perspective, we are somewhere around 98.5% similar, maybe more, to chimpanzees, our nearest evolutionary relatives.

The new figure for us, then, is significant. It derives from among other things, many small genetic differences that have emerged from studies that compare human populations. Some confer the ability among adults to digest milk, others to withstand equatorial sun, others yet confer differences in body shape or size, resistance to particular diseases, tolerance to hot or cold, how many offspring a female might eventually produce, and even the production of endorphins - those internal opiate-like compounds.

We also differ by surprising amounts in the numbers of copies of some genes we have. Modern humans spread out of Africa only within the last 60-70,000 years, little more than the blink of an eye when stacked against the 6 million or so years that separate us from our Great Ape ancestors. The genetic differences amongst us reveal a species with a propensity to form small and relatively isolated groups on which natural selection has often acted strongly to promote genetic adaptations to particular environments.

We differ genetically more than we thought, but we should have expected this: how else but through isolation can we explain a single species that speaks at least 7,000 mutually unintelligible languages around the World?

What this all means is that, like it or not, there may be many genetic differences among human populations - including differences that may even correspond to old categories of 'race' - that are real differences in the sense of making one group better than another at responding to some particular environmental problem. This in no way says one group is in general 'superior' to another, or that one group should be preferred over another. But it warns us that we must be prepared to discuss genetic differences among human populations.

Source



Toronto Catholic Magazine Faced with Human Rights Complaint by Homosexual

Another Canadian publication has come under attack for its opinions through the agency of the government-funded Canadian Human Rights Commissions (HRC). Closely following an uproar in the media against government-sponsored censorship via HRC against Maclean's magazine and columnist Mark Steyn and an Alberta HRC judgment ordering Alberta news media to not publish any comments on homosexuality by a Christian pastor, Toronto's Catholic Insight magazine has reported they stand accused in an HRC complaint of "targeting homosexuals".

Catholic Insight is a Catholic political and cultural general interest magazine that regularly and accurately expounds orthodox Catholic teaching, based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, on homosexuality as well as harmful consequences to individual persons and society of the active homosexual "lifestyle".

The magazine now reveals that Rob Wells, a homosexual activist associated with the Pride Centre of Edmonton, in February this year filed a nine-point complaint against Catholic Insight. Wells alleges that the magazine made "negative generalizations" about homosexuals; portrayed them as preying upon children, as dangerous and "devoid of any redeeming qualities and...innately evil".

Catholic Insight (CI), however, bases its editorial policy very strictly on Catholic Church teaching which is at pains to separate what it says is the deviant behaviour and disordered inclination of homosexuality from the person.

Wells' complaint cites articles from Catholic Insight dating back to 1994 but Catholic Insight counters that the citations are "without context" and do not give an accurate picture of what the magazine has actually published. "In fact," the magazine said in an editorial, "most of them are even out of context from the sentences from which they were taken."

The magazine considers the complaints unfounded and "made with the intent to harass" and will "defend itself vigorously should the CHRC proceed". CI continues to emphasize with the Catholic Church, however, that "homosexual acts are ones of grave depravity and intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law, close the sexual act to the gift of life, do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity and cannot be approved under any circumstances."

The Human Rights Commissions have become a powerful tool available to homosexual activists to silence critics of their lifestyle and opponents of their political agenda. With a complainant's expenses fully paid by tax payers and no requirement to follow normal judicial rules for evidence or due process, there is little to lose and in nearly every case, the HRC Tribunals have found in favour of the complaints when it has been homosexuals against Christianity.

In only one case amongst many, in November this year the Alberta HRC ruled against a Christian pastor, Stephen Boissoin, executive director of the Concerned Christian Coalition, who had published an article in the Red Deer Advocate in 2002 saying that the homosexual political movement's goals were "wicked" and harmful to young people. Boissoin wrote as a Christian minister against a political movement that he feared was corrupting young people and Canadian society, not against particular persons.

The Human Rights Commission compliant, made by Dr. Darren E. Lund a long time homosexual political activist, claimed, however, that the article had incited "hatred against homosexuals" as individuals. He told the Commission panel that he was "fearful that the writings of Mr. Boissoin are likely to expose people to hatred and contempt as well as the potential for physical danger" and "foster an atmosphere of violence and intimidation for people, based on their sexual orientation". He said he viewed Boissoin's letter as a "call to arms letter."

The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal ruled in favour of Lund who demanded that Boissoin "apologize for submitting the article and for his views on homosexuality." If he did not, the Commission panel has the power to "provide an Order disallowing the publication of Mr. Boissoin's views on homosexuality in any of the major print media in Alberta,"

The ruling listed the media outlets subject to its order as the Red Deer Advocate, Red Deer Express, Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun and Lethbridge Herald.

Source



Australia: More murderous Muslim madness

No doubt the girl was threatening the a*hole's "honour" by showing a normal interest in boys

A TEENAGER was last night strangled by her father before he took his own life. Neighbours were alerted to the tragedy by the "howling screams" of the 14-year-old girl's mother, who made the gruesome discovery shortly after 6pm. Police and ambulance crews rushed to the Stevens St, Pennant Hills townhouse in Sydney's northwest, arriving to find the girl unconscious and her father dead.

Distraught neighbours last night said the evening calm was shattered by the mother's distraught screams. "The scream was heard down the street. It was horrible," one neighbour said. It is understood the family were originally from Iran and had signed a two-year lease on the property three months ago.

Paramedics desperately tried to revive the teenager but she was pronounced dead a short time later. Police said the girl had been strangled but did not reveal the father's age or cause of death. A police spokesman last night confirmed the deaths of the teen and her father were being investigated as a murder-suicide. "Investigators don't believe a third party is involved. The exact cause and nature of the deaths will be established in a post mortem," the spokesman said.

The officer-in charge of the investigation, Inspector Michael Begg last night declined to talk about the incident when contacted by The Daily Telegraph.

Source



Your government will look after you (NOT)

Australia: Despite nine calls, no one came for dying man

THE family of a man bashed to death during a Christmas Day game of beach cricket called triple-0 six times but still had to drive the dying man to hospital themselves because neither the police nor ambulances arrived in time. Combined with three other direct calls to Geraldton police station, north of Perth, which raised concerns about the escalating violence at Sunset Beach that night, the family of William Rowe made a total of nine calls asking for police or medical assistance.

It is understood the quality of information in some of the calls may have been affected because the callers were under duress. But in the end no police or ambulance vehicles arrived at the beach, forcing the frantic family to drive an unconscious Mr Rowe to hospital with another family member who had been struck in the face with a bottle during an attack in the beach car park.

A man, 21, and a group of [black] teenagers have been charged over the attacks, which began while Mr Rowe, 49, a farmer, and his family were enjoying the game of beach cricket. In a written response to questions on the handling of the tragedy, the acting police commissioner Chris Dawson defended the inability of the police force to respond fast enough to calls for help.

He said that one of the four high-priority incidents that prevented officers from going to the beach was a home burglary. The others were a violent domestic argument and an incident involving a man armed with a knife. Mr Dawson continued to refuse to give specific times for those incidents.

Detailing the calls from Sunset Beach, he said police arrived about 21 minutes after the first of the calls, by which time the Rowe family was on its way to hospital and most of their alleged attackers had left. "On the information available to them at the time, I am satisfied Geraldton police made the right decisions," he said. He told The West Australian that of the six triple-0 calls made, five were made for ambulance and hospital assistance and one was to police, who had arrived at the empty beach car park by that stage. Mr Dawson said that he would wait for the State Coroner's findings into Mr Rowe's death. The findings could take more than two years to be handed down.

Source

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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