Gary Should Read the Best on His Side Before Attacking Ours [Scott]

I'm tied up with a writing assignment (a book project), so I won't contribute much to this discussion with Gary. However, one thing struck me about his scattered replies to Bob Perry.

Put simply, Gary claims to be knowledgable of “the other side,” but he sure isn’t tuned in to his own side, at least on the abortion issue. Indeed, anyone who spends even an hour surveying the relevant literature knows that David Boonin’s A Defense of Abortion is the most sophisticated case against the pro-life position to date. Admittedly, I do not think Boonin succeeds, but one thing he doesn’t do is claim, as Gary does, that he’s not identical to the fetus he once was. Instead, Boonin would argue that although Gary is identical to the embryo he once was—meaning he is the same being now as he was then—it does not follow Gary had the same right to life then as he does now. Being human is nothing special, meaning Gary’s right to life is strictly accidental. He has it because of some acquired characteristic he has now (organized cortical function) that he lacked then. To make sure we get the point, Boonin includes this chilling passage:

On my desk in my office where most of this book was written and revised, there are several pictures of my son, Eli. In one, he is gleefully dancing on the sand along the Gulf of Mexico, the cool ocean breeze wreaking havoc with his wispy hair. In a second, he is tentatively seated in the grass in his grandparents’ backyard, still working to master the feat of sitting up on his own. In a third, he is only a few weeks old, clinging firmly to the arms that are holding him and still wearing the tiny hat for preserving body heat that he wore home from the hospital. Though all of the remarkable changes that these pictures preserve, he remains unmistakably the same little boy. In the top drawer of my desk, I keep another picture of Eli. This picture was taken…24 weeks before he was born. The sonogram image is murky, but it reveals clearly enough a small head titled back slightly, and an arm raised up and bent, with the hand pointing back toward the face and the thumb extended out toward the mouth. There is no doubt in my mind that this picture, too, shows the same little boy at a very early stage in his physical development. And there is no question that the position I defend in this book entails that it would have been morally permissible to end his life at this point. (Emphasis added.)

Again, I think Boonin’s case is flawed and I've written on that elsewhere (for example, how does he account for human equality if our value is based on accidental properties that may come and go within the course of our lifetimes?), but at least he avoids the elementary error of claiming he began as one kind of thing only to become something else as he matured.

If Gary has not even interacted with the best case on his side of the abortion issue, why should we think he's done his homework understanding ours? Indeed, the shallow claims he makes against our side (for example, confusing parts with wholes, as Bob points out) suggests he hasn't.

Critiquing a Deadly View of the World [Bob]

[In the response toMr. Gary Whittenberger's (GW) "critical essay" in the previous post, I offer the following with Scott Klusendorf's (SK's) permission. I will try to simplify the issues GW addresses and do my best to clarify what I see as the nature of their disagreement ... Bob]

____________________

The limits of the medium

First, GW seems to want to hold SK accountable for too much. At various points in his rebuttal, GW chastises SK for: “[not] naming or quoting even one person who holds this position [of scientific materialism (SM)];” for not offering a detailed, point-by-point review of all the assertions and implications of SM; and for“[appearing] to assign human rights to single-celled zygotes because they have received souls [but providing] no evidence for souls, no evidence that souls are inserted at conception, and no consideration of consequences of this view for actual persons in the zygotes’ environment.” And, most egregiously, GW claims at one point that SK "does not deal with the tough questions" when in fact, he has not only written a book on the subject ("The Case for Life"), but one fourth of that book is specifically focused on the tough questions GW wants answered.

Each of these points is irrelevant to the case GW makes, but he needs to remember the title of SK’s article, the audience to whom it is targeted, and the space limits of the editorial process that come to bear with publishing such a magazine article. SK does not pretend to claim that this 2500 word article is an exhaustive critique of SM or, for that matter, an exhaustive defense of the pro-life view. Its simple purpose is to point out the lessons a typical lay pro-lifer can glean from comments made by a doctor in a popular TV show, and to show how being aware of Dr. Jenner’s views can be applicable to a reasoned defense of the pro-life position.

That’s it.

That said, GW’s case could not offer a better example of the inability of SM to assess a complete picture of reality in general, or the moral emptiness one ends up with in the attempt to use SM to defend abortion specifically. Within those two general categories, there are several deficiencies in GW’s essay that come to light.

An Incomplete Picture of Reality

GW attempts to classify his own version of SM through a series of statements about what SK “would say” (as opposed to what SK did say) if he were describing SM “correctly.” This series of statements proves to be very useful in showing the gaping holes in SM.

Klusendorf, the author, claims that the character Dr. Jenner is not “doing science” but is “doing philosophy,” but might he be doing both?

The simple answer to GW’s question is, “No.” There is not single a scientifically verifiable conclusion in Jenner’s or Crick’s statements. Both are drawing philosophical conclusions that are only possible if one accepts their common philosophical pre-commitment to materialism. Yes, there may be correlation between electrical impulses in the brain and memory, personality etc., but correlation does not equal causation. In fact, if SM is true, we have no reason to accept the truthfulness of any statement that Jenner (or Crick, or GW) makes … but more on that later.

If he were accurately reflecting the view of many scientists and philosophers, he would not say that in SM everything in the universe “must” be explained in physical terms; rather he would say that in SM the use of physical terms had proven more useful than the use of any other terms in explaining the universe.

More useful? I am interested in hearing about SM’s “usefulness” in accounting for the laws of logic and mathematics, the reality of numbers (or any other kind of concept), the reality of personal identity and self-knowledge, or the physical nature and location of thoughts or imaginings. These are just a few of the things we know most certainly. Indeed, each of these is a real, non-physical thing on which science itself depends at its most basic level, but that has absolutely no hope of being explained by SM even in principle.

He would say that nonmaterial things like souls, gods, and ghosts are still hypothetical and have not been established to exist by the evidence. He would not say that in SM matter alone constitutes ultimate reality, but that matter-energy and space-time constitute important parts of reality and yet much remains to be learned about reality.

Evidence for non-material things? First, this is a thread of argumentation that appears repeatedly in GW’s essay (he keeps asking for evidence of the soul). In response, one would first have to ask what he would accept as “evidence?” Given his adherence to SM, we can only assume that he means physical evidence.

Here, the gross, blind deficiency in the logic of SM proponents, who insist on physical evidence for non-physical things, never ceases to amaze. I am reminded of Time magazine’s proclamation in July of 1995 as recounted by Greg Koukl:

Time Magazine made a stunning announcement.  In an extensive article on the mind they wrote, “Despite our every instinct to the contrary, there is one thing that consciousness is not: some entity deep inside the brain that corresponds to the ‘self,’ some kernel of awareness that runs the show.” (July 17, 1995, p. 52).  In other words, there is no soul. 

How do they know this?  “After more than a century of looking for it, brain researchers have long since concluded that there is no conceivable place for such a self to be located in the physical brain, and that it simply doesn’t exist.”

Like GW, these folks apparently believe that if we search really, really hard we should be able to locate and surgically remove someone’s soul.

Seriously? Is it really that difficult to comprehend that science (the study of the physical universe) is the wrong tool for assessing metaphysical or non-physical reality? This is the silliness that comes with the demand that, as Koukl puts it, we “weigh a chicken with a yardstick.” It makes no sense. Yet, materialists make this demand all the time.

Second, SM completely and continually ignores or dismisses the overwhelming implication we have for the existence of a timeless, immaterial, powerful cause for the beginning of the entire physical universe as an exercise in wishful, baseless speculation. In its place they offer their own wishful speculation about an infinite number of other universes for which the total accumulated physical evidence amounts to exactly – zero. In other words, when it comes to matters of “evidence,” SM’s proclivity for hypocrisy literally knows no bounds.

He would not say that in SM the universe looks designed; he would merely say that the universe has some orderliness which can be comprehended.

Here GW fails to appreciate the unbridgeable materialistic chasm between orderliness and design. For the record, it is not just theists who recognize the design inherent in the universe (especially in the information content and capacity of DNA). Everybody does that. The difference is in the ridiculous lengths to which SM proponents will go to explain it away. Though it is beyond the scope of this discussion to delve into this issue, let me just say that we find orderliness in the structure of snowflakes and ice cubes. We find design in the features carved into the face of an elaborate snowman. SM is sufficient in explaining the order of the former. It has no hope of explaining the specified complexity and information content of the latter.

He would not say that in SM that science alone tells us truth, but he would say that so far science has proven to be the best method for investigating the natural world or the workings of reality. Unfortunately, Klusendorf distorts scientific materialism, as commonly held, and makes it out to be more dogmatic and exclusive than it actually is.

While I agree with GW that science is the best method of investigating the natural world, the flaw in his thinking rests in the assumption that the natural world constitutes all reality. He assumes this; he doesn’t prove it. Indeed, the simple examples(above) demonstrate pretty unequivocally that SM fails miserably in that attempt. As for distorting the dogmatism of SM, I will let one of SM’s great proponents speak about that for himself:

“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against commonsense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs ...  in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated ‘just-so’ stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism … Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

Richard Lewontin

January 4, 1997

New York Review of Books

The simple truth is that GW defends SM in the same ways that any member of a religious priesthood defends their dogma. I will spare the reader that discussion but those who maybe interested can read a short essay on the issue (here: Defrocking The Priests of Scientism)

Finally, and most satisfyingly, in his discussion of paragraphs 8 and 9, GW addresses the topics of determinism and rational thought and therein offers us philosophical gold –which he unwittingly uses to completely sabotage his own argument.

It is fascinating to observe the tortured logic inherent in an argument that recognizes the reality of free will (as we all do), but is forced by the implications of SM to defend determinism.

GW tells us that the humans can have beliefs that are “determined by [their] genetic and environmental history up to [a] point [in time]” (emphasis mine), but then suddenly become “more rational” in the face of new information. So, in which state do we find GW? Is the argument he is offering the result of his own deterministic past (in which case we have no reason to accept it as containing any “truth”), or from his rational present(in which case his SM is proven false)? Pick one.

Here GW makes a valid point in questioning SK’s description of the “irrational forces of nature.” I would agree that nature is non-rational, not irrational. But the minor point of SK’s word choice is soon overwhelmed by GW’s more telling statement that “nature doesn’t think.”

Exactly!

GW insists that nature is the “whole show,” admits that “nature doesn’t think,” but then offers no explanation for how all those non-rational molecules have produced rational thoughts and ideas in a subset of nature, namely his own materialistic head. The particles clashing in GW’s gray matter can’t say anything “rational” without blowing up his own pre-determined adherence to SM.

In summary, the pre-suppositions demanded by SM leave its adherents incapable of even considering how limited and closed-minded their view is. They are so trapped within the materialist paradigm they simply can’t see reality for all the molecules.

A Gross Misunderstanding of the Pro-Life Position

As expected, his blind adherence to SM transfers nicely into GW’s failed critique of SK’s pro-life arguments.

He dismisses substance dualism because he is still trying to weigh a chicken with a yardstick, and because Paul of Tarsus was not a neuroscientist – as if only a neuroscientist could possibly comment on such a thing. (This begs the question: “Is GW a neuroscientist?” Not that it matters, of course, but I’m curious … as I digress).

Where SK argues for the continuity-in-kind of a developing fetus, GW wants to talk about Darwinian speciation.

Where SK uses continuity-of-personhood as a valid justification of punishment for moral culpability, GW insists that “altering the environment of an offending person, in some cases administering punishment, lowers the probability that the offender or others will engage in similar criminal behavior in the future.” While this may be true, it says precisely nothing about the notion that behavior is simply descriptive while altering behavior does nothing to explain why a behavior is wrong or what constitutes “proper” behavior –both of which are prescriptive.

But most troubling is the chilling vacuity in moral reasoning displayed in GW’s attempt to dismiss SK’s defense of the unborn. Before I go there, and since GW is apparently unfamiliar with it, I offer a simple summary of the pro-life position as defended by SK and the LTI staff:

1. Human beings are valuable simply for what they are. Though Christian theists ground this notion in our being made in God’s image, it is not an unreasonable position and it does not depend on Christianity to be true. Even the most vehement materialist (Peter Singer excluded) seems to understand this simple fact.
2. Scientifically, it is indisputable that a distinct, whole, living human being comes into existence at the moment of conception. Those who doubt this scientific fact don’t need to read a Bible, just an embryology textbook.
3. Philosophically, the only differences between the unborn zygote/embryo/fetus each of us once were and the bornchild/adult we are today are matters of Size, Level of Development, Environment, and Degree of Dependency. None of these is morally significant nor would they justify killing any of us at an earlier stage in our development.

Taking these together, we argue that abortion is the unjustified taking of innocent human life. This is not a preference statement –we aren’t saying we don’t like abortion – it is a statement of objective moral truth. Taking innocent human life is morally wrong in and of itself.

Because he is apparently not familiar with this argument, GW’s reasoning does absolutely nothing to challenge any of its premises or the conclusion itself. This leaves him to ask questions and make assertions that range from irrelevant to downright bone-chilling in their moral bankruptcy.

He misunderstands some basic biological facts and this ignorance leads him to draw false moral conclusions. For instance, at one point he offers this hypothetical scenario:

If Jenner engineered human sperm, not fetuses, to eventually become adults who had ‘minimally firing synapse’ and who were trained to blow themselves up in the presence of walkers, would this be wrong? 

Though the moral point he is trying to make is unclear, one wonders if GW understands that a human sperm only contains half the DNA required to “eventually become an adult.” In order for someone to “engineer the sperm” toward that end, one would first have to combine the sperm with the DNA from an egg to create a human embryo that would develop into ... a fetus. A fetus is nothing more than a stage in the development of a human being toward adulthood. But this is a concept GW repeatedly misses.

Inreferring to the “unborn” Klusendorf misuses language, which is typical of anti-abortion-rights’ activists. It is proper to call early stage living human organisms by their proper names, like “zygotes, embryos, or fetuses …”

GW accuses SK of “misusing language,” and lectures us about how we should “properly” refer to early stage living organisms, all the while demonstrating that he has no apparent concept of what the language means. Zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are not different things. They are different stages in the development of the same thing – namely a whole, complete, living human being. Does GW not realize that he was once a zygote, embryo, and fetus? Does the fact that he developed from conception, through each of these stages (while unborn), until he was born mean that he was a different kind of thing at each stage along the way?

GW repeats this false assertion in several places by insisting that there is a difference in kind between an unborn human being and one who is born. This confusion about basic biological terms leads him to some rather bizarre assertions.

Contrary to the author, the “adult you” is not identical to the “fetal you”; it is similar, but not identical … in talking about the “unborn” the author is inappropriately trying to refer to fetuses as though they are babies.

Similar? True, the unborn is different in its level of development, but that does not change the kind of thing it is. What is the species and identity of “fetal you?” Is it different from “adult you?” GW seems to think so. Was GW not once “unborn?” Did his changing location 20 cm from inside his mother to outside his mother suddenly render him a "baby" that was a different kind of being or a different person than the one he is now?

It is twice as likely that a human zygote will die or be miscarried than that it will be born

It is also 100% likely that GW will die at some point. But this is hardly an argument we should accept to justify killing him earlier in his life. 

Is a one-celled human zygote really as valuable as an 18-year-old human person?

Yes. There is no difference in kind between the two. If GW has evidence that there is an intrinsic difference – a difference in kind, not an instrumental difference– between them, I encourage him to share it with us.

Here the author fails to acknowledge that unlike the person who has suffered a stroke and the loss of some cognitive functions, before a certain point in development a fetus has not manifested any cognitive functions. He is trying to compare apples to oranges.

No, GW is trying to turn apples into oranges. A person who suffers a stroke – or a pre-cognitive fetus – is still a human being and therefore valuable in virtue of the kind of thing it is. On a related note, his insistence on sentience, self-awareness, cognitive ability etc., as a measure of human value fails to take into account the fact that babies do not demonstrate these traits until weeks or months after they are born. GW’s criteria for assessing human value are arbitrary and irrelevant.

[SK] asks “Could doctors have justifiably killed you during your extended sleep...” Yes, they could, if you had previously stipulated in writing that you wished to be killed while in the coma when your chances of recovery were judged to be below a certain threshold, as determined by expert opinion.

Despite the fact that this is a completely different subject from the one being discussed, I would simply point out that I am unaware of any aborted human beings who have been afforded this luxury.

Each of these empty arguments fails miserably for the same reason – because each of them assumes that the unborn is not a human being. GW gives us no explanation for why the unborn may not be a human being and thereby avoids the moral question about why he thinks we should be allowed to kill it. In this propensity, he fancies himself clever and insightful, while the arguments he advances are the same old, tired ones that SK has been proving false for years.

GW’s confusion about the reality and continuity of human nature is bothersome. But what is most disturbing are the moral conclusions he draws based on this confusion. For that reason (and because this has already gone on too long), I will conclude with the most disturbing part of his view that is revealed in this question:

Why is a human organism always more valuable than a chicken organism? Might the latter be more valuable if a person is hungry?

Apparently, GW is serious in asking these questions – which is what led me to use the term “bone-chilling.” Since we’re asking questions here, does GW tell his wife (assuming he is married) that he wonders at times(especially when he is hungry) if she is more valuable than a chicken?

That is bad enough – but it is not the worst implication of the view he is putting forward. On GW’s SM, both his wife and a chicken are simply different forms of living “organisms” – bags of bones and flesh and protein – that would be perfectly acceptable in satisfying his appetite. Getting one’s genes into the next generation is all that counts. SM can’t say otherwise.

If he wants “scientific proof” of the value of human life he will get none. This is not the result of a deficiency in the pro-life argument; it is further evidence that SM is an incomplete philosophical position that cannot even begin to answer the most fundamental, and most important, questions about the world as we know it. The fact that a human “organism” is more valuable than a chicken organism is self-evident. But there is a name we give to the kind of person who requires an explanation for such a thing: psychopath.

Let me be crystal clear in stating that I am in no way suggesting that GW is a psychopath. I say this because I do not believe GW actually believes what he is implying with his question. I am simply pointing out that this is the kind of moral reasoning one is required to use to defend SM. So-called “skeptics” and sophists spout this kind of nonsense all the time, but none of them really adheres to it when they live out their lives in the real world.

SM is an empty, false, morally reprehensible way to understand the world. For this reason, applying it to the issue of abortion leads to empty, false, morally reprehensible justifications. I would like to thank GW for demonstrating this for us so clearly in his “critical essay.” It provides us with a powerful, real world example of the bankruptcy – both logically and morally – in the ideas he attempts to defend.

Challenging Scott on "The Walking Dead"

[Recently, LTI received a "critical essay" in response to Scott's recent article in the Christian Research Journal, "What The Walking Dead Can Teach Pro-Lifers." The author, a self-described atheist, humanist, skeptic, takes exception with Scott's points and asked us for an opportunity to challenge them. Though this is not a practice we have entertained in the past, we decided to allow Scott's critic a forum. Bob will be preparing the LTI response in a separate post. We invite our readers to join the discussion with their comments ...]

_______________________

Explaining “The Walking Dead”

By Gary Whittenberger

“What the ‘Walking Dead’ can tell Pro-lifers” by Scott Klusendorf appeared in the Christian Research Journal, and I intend to present a critique of this article.  Even though I am a humanist, atheist, and skeptic, I subscribe to this journal because I like to read the best arguments of “the other side” and I believe that most of the articles in it are well articulated by well-educated theologians, philosophers, apologists, and pastors. 

The thrust of the CRJ is summarized by this paragraph presented in every issue: “As an organ of the Christian Research Institute (CRI), the Christian Research Journal’s primary commitment is to ‘contend earnestly for the truth which was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3).  In keeping with this commitment, the Journal’s mission is both evangelistic and pastoral; evangelistic in that it is dedicated to furthering the proclamation and defense of the historic gospel of Jesus Christ; pastoral in that it is dedicated to helping His followers identify and distinguish between essential Christian doctrine and doctrine that is peripheral, aberrant, or heretical.”  Of course, for an atheist, humanist, and skeptic like myself, there are many problems with this statement, but I’ll not get into them at this time because my focus in on the presented article.

My comments will refer to each paragraph in succession in the article, as numbered.

¶1:

I have not yet watched AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” but intend to look at a few episodes later.  However, I do not think that this is necessary for evaluating the philosophical and religious claims of the author made in the current article.

¶2:

Zombies have been a favorite topic of horror films and even of philosophers for quite some time.   In AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” apparently when human persons are bitten by the zombies, they “die a violent death” but soon come back to life as zombies, compelled to bite and kill other human persons.  In real life when you’re dead, you’re dead and you don’t walk, but the TV program requires us to temporarily suspend our disbelief.  It is ironic that Christianity requires us to permanently suspend our disbelief and instead to think that Jesus came back to life, walked, talked, ate and drank, and levitated into the sky.

¶3:

I agree with the author that the ideas in the story are worth considering from the Christian perspective, but they are also worth considering from a general philosophical perspective.

¶4 & 5:

The statement of the character Dr. Jenner here and the author’s summary of it are similar in many ways to a quote from Dr. Francis Crick made in his 1994 book The Astonishing Hypothesis: “...’You,’ your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”  (P. 3)

¶6:

Klusendorf, the author, claims that the character Dr. Jenner is not “doing science” but is “doing philosophy,” but might he be doing both?  It seems that Jenner is merely summarizing a large body of research which demonstrates the dependency of experience, memory, personality, and behavior on the brain, i.e. when the brain changes, the “mind” changes in reliable ways.  Klusendorf presents his version of “scientific materialism” (SM) without naming or quoting even one person who holds this position, and his version largely appears to be a straw man.  If he were accurately reflecting the view of many scientists and philosophers, he would not say that in SM everything in the universe “must” be explained in physical terms; rather he would say that in SM the use of physical terms had proven more useful than the use of any other terms in explaining the universe.  He would say that nonmaterial things like souls, gods, and ghosts are still hypothetical and have not been established to exist by the evidence.  He would not say that in SM matter alone constitutes ultimate reality, but that matter-energy and space-time constitute important parts of reality and yet much remains to be learned about reality.  He would not say that in SM the universe looks designed; he would merely say that the universe has some orderliness which can be comprehended.  He would not say that in SM that science alone tells us truth, but he would say that so far science has proven to be the best method for investigating the natural world or the workings of reality.  Unfortunately, Klusendorf distorts scientific materialism, as commonly held, and makes it out to be more dogmatic and exclusive than it actually is.

¶7:

The author chastises Jenner for not saying how nonmaterial minds emerge from physical processes or how consciousness emerges from nonconscious brain matter, as though this fictional character should fully defend scientific materialism or present conclusions not yet even drawn by modern science or philosophy.  Klusendorf simply expects too much.  He even goes on to say “The interaction between nonmaterial minds and physical bodies is difficult to explain, given materialism.”  It is also difficult to explain, given dualism or any other of the commonly held positions.  The current lack of a good explanation does not constitute support for soul theory, as the author appears to assume later in the article.

¶8:

Klusendorf asks why Jenner is even trying to persuade the humans under his protection of his view.  Well, it could be that he thinks they have a different view of the situation, possibly the view espoused by Klusendorf in the article, and that it would be helpful for them to adopt a more accurate view.  The author seems to confuse two different ideas, i.e. the specific dependency of mind processes on brain processes and general determinism where a set of causes invariably leads in sequence to some effect.  Even if the mind is perfectly dependent on the brain, it still might be possible for human mental events and behavior to be either free or determined.  And also, if the mind is not perfectly dependent on the brain, either alternative is still possible.  Even if determinism is true, this does not mean that the humans lectured by Jenner are impervious to persuasion.  It just means that their belief has been determined by their genetic and environmental history up to the point that they meet Jenner.  His speech becomes a new factor in their histories, a factor which might overwhelm the other factors to which they have been exposed in the past.  Jenner’s thoughts can be more rational than those of his listeners.  This is the case whether determinism is true or not, since the category of rational v. irrational refers to the content of behavior, not to its cause.

¶9:

Here the author talks about the “irrational forces” of nature, but he is making a category error.  Nature doesn’t think, and so it can be neither rational nor irrational; it is merely nonrational.  Darwin may have had the position attributed to him by the author here, but so what?  Darwin is not the last word, and science and philosophy have built upon Darwin and advanced beyond him since 1859 when he first published On the Origin of Species.  

Klusendorf just can’t figure out how evolution could support the ascertaining of or valuing of truth in humans.  He bluntly asks “If our cognitive faculties only tell us what we need to survive, not what is true, why trust them about anything at all?”  The answer is that organisms who have brain mechanisms which lead them to seek and value truth may be more likely to survive and reproduce than those who do not.  By knowing truth about the workings of reality, organisms are better equipped to make predictions and control events around them; this has survival value.

¶10:

The author touts substance dualism, but he doesn’t provide any evidence for a nonphysical soul.  Physical substance can be detected and measured, but how can nonphysical substance (soul) be identified?  The identity of the body is preserved over time because the general structure or pattern of the body’s components remains the same, even though the underlying substance of those components may have changed.

¶11:

Substance dualism is an interesting idea and even though it has been around for a long time, evidence to support it is lacking.  Some parts of the Bible merely assert the theory but do not provide evidence for it.  Other parts of the Bible (more so in the Old Testament) seem to advance physical monism.  Just because St. Paul assumes an identity beyond his physical self doesn’t mean that his assumption is correct.  Paul was not a neuroscientist and he was not even a good philosopher.

¶12:

There are many problems with the dualist views of Moreland, Rae, and Beckwith, but among the greatest is that they are unable to provide a way to detect or identify an immaterial nature or soul.  In his discussion here Klusendorf uses the concepts of substance and organism in odd ways, e.g. he says “substances are living organisms” when a more accurate description is that living organisms are composed of substances.  He says “As a substance grows, it does not become more of its kind” when it is more accurate to say that “as an organism grows its kind is still determined by its DNA”.  The author claims that properties don’t make the kind of thing something is, but he considers only simple cases where one property might be missing.  A difficult question which he must ultimately address is “What percentage of change in properties constitutes a change in kind?”  This question is relevant to determining when a new species has been identified in biology.

¶13:

Klusendorf’s discussion seems to suffer from equivocation on the use of the word “property”.  At times he uses it to refer to an attribute of something but at other times he uses it to refer to something belonging to a human person, something owned or controlled.  And he doesn’t seem to be aware of this equivocation.

¶14:

The author repeats a question he has already asked “If we are nothing more than physical beings, how can we account for personal identity through time and change?”  The answer I gave earlier still seems valid – the overall structure or pattern of physical components can account for personal identity through time.  

¶15:

No, the notions of moral responsibility and criminal justice are not based on a substance-dualist view of a person.  These notions do not depend on either a monist or dualist view.  They only depend on the assumption that altering the environment of an offending person, in some cases administering punishment, lowers the probability that the offender or others will engage in similar criminal behavior in the future.

¶16:

The author thinks that Jenner implies that personhood begins at birth, but where does he get this?  It is surely not from the presented quotes.  The author talks about “the substance view,” and he must mean “the nonmaterial substance view,” but if this is the case he should say so explicitly since even from his perspective there are two types of substance.  Contrary to the author, the “adult you” is not identical to the “fetal you”; it is similar, but not identical.  Klusendorf seems to confuse the ideas of “identical” and “identity” (“numerical identity”).  Once again the author asserts that human beings possess a nonmaterial human nature, but he provides no evidence of this.  The author provides no explanation or justification that human organisms are “intrinsically valuable” throughout the life span from conception to death; he merely asserts that this is the case and expects the reader to accept it.  Ultimately, the author must deal with the questions “How is value determined or assigned?” and “Valuable to whom?”

¶17:

The concept of “human equality” describes how different persons should be treated, but says nothing about when human organisms become persons or about when equal rights should be assigned to developing human organisms.  It appears that Klusendorf would like to assign human rights to single-celled zygotes because they have received souls, but he provides no evidence for souls, no evidence that souls are inserted at conception, and no consideration of consequences of this view for actual persons in the zygotes’ environment.  Why is a human organism always more valuable than a chicken organism?  Might the latter be more valuable if a person is hungry?  Is a one-celled human zygote really as valuable as an 18-year-old human person?  The author does not deal with the tough questions.

¶18:

Here the author fails to acknowledge that unlike the person who has suffered a stroke and the loss of some cognitive functions, before a certain point in development a fetus has not manifested any cognitive functions.  He is trying to compare apples to oranges.

¶19:

In the Beckwith example the victim who recovered from a motorcycle accident and coma is not like the early stage living human organism in the womb.  Even though the victim lacks memories of the past, he has consciousness, self-awareness, emotions, thoughts, and new memories.  Before some point the fetus has never manifested any of these things.  The author asks “Could doctors have justifiably killed you during your extended sleep...”  Yes, they could, if you had previously stipulated in writing that you wished to be killed while in the coma when your chances of recovery were judged to be below a certain threshold, as determined by expert opinion.  Klusendorf seems to believe that human rights should be immediately assigned when an organism comes into possession of a soul (or when it is determined to have human DNA), but this is only one of many options and he fails to provide a justification for his position.  The greatest flaws in his position are that a soul cannot be detected or identified and that drawing the line at conception fails to consider the general negative consequences of this to human adults.

¶20:

Klensendorf’s question about the clone scenario near the end of his article is challenging and deserves more time and space than can be given to it here.  However, it seems clear to a secular humanist when the proposed actions would not be ethically permissible.  It would be wrong if the cloned fetus had crossed the boundary of consciousness or sentience.  It would be wrong even before then, if the persons providing the sperm and egg to produce the cloned fetus had not given their prior informed consent for the planned procedures.  The author should address these scenarios similar to his own: “If Jenner engineered human sperm, not fetuses, to eventually become adults who had ‘minimally firing synapses’ and who were trained to blow themselves up in the presence of walkers, would this be wrong?  Or “Would it be wrong if Jenner engineered chimpanzee fetuses (or early stage cockroaches) to eventually blow themselves up in the presence of walkers?”    

¶21:

The author asserts that there is a Creator of human souls or organisms and that humans bear the image of such a Creator, but these are merely hypotheses which have little or no evidential support.  Klusendorf is not justified in using these speculations to develop a theory of human value, equality, or rights.  He boldly states “Humans have value simply because they are human.”  And yet he does not deal with the issues of “Value to whom?”  “Value under what conditions?”  “Why does value depend on type of living thing or potential?” “Do organisms of other species have no value because they are not human?”

In referring to the “unborn” Klusendorf misuses language, which is typical of anti-abortion-rights’ activists.  It is proper to call early stage living human organisms by their proper names, like “zygotes, embryos, or fetuses.”  It is twice as likely that a human zygote will die or be miscarried than that it will be born, so in talking about the “unborn” the author is inappropriately trying to refer to fetuses as though they are babies.

If the author is wrong in his position and Jenner is right, the author’s view of human equality is a myth, but there are other versions of human equality which would not be made into myths.  For example, if human rights are assigned to conscious or sentient fetuses, then they are equal under the law after that point.  Contrary to the author’s view, secularists don’t justify their assignment of human rights to fetuses on the basis of quantity of brain activity, but usually on the basis of brain function, e.g. the presence of consciousness, sentience, perceived pain, or rudimentary decision making.

In conclusion, Klusendorf fails to adequately flesh out his Christian dualist view in the article, and the position itself is poorly supported by evidence.

Reasoned Pro-Life Apologetics Meets Raving Atheist [Bob]

Beyond the obvious obligation we have as thinking human beings to clarify the status, and defend the value, of innocent, unborn human life, engaging in the pro-life project is also a way to make the case for the truth of Christianity in general. It stands to reason that if the scientific, philosophical, and moral arguments we offer in defense of the humanity of the unborn also happen to align exactly with the biblical notion of what it means to be a human being made "in the image of God," then the Bible might also have something to say about other things of importance.

This is a point Scott makes repeatedly but it was recently driven home in a very concrete way by, of all people, a hard core atheist in the most recent issue of Salvo magazine. A secular skeptic, law school professor, renowned blogger, and mocker of deluded "Godiots," the "Raving Atheist" attended a blogger party where he serendipitously sat next to a Catholic blogger named Benjamin. As the "Raving Atheist" explains:

At one point the conversation turned to abortion, and I asked Benjamin's opinion of the practice. I was stunned. Here was a kind, affable, and cogently reasonable human being who nonetheless believed that abortion was murder. To the limited extent I had previously considered the issue, I believed abortion to be completely acceptable, the mere disposal of a lump of cells, perhaps akin to clipping fingernails.

This unsettling exchange spurred me to further investigate the issue on Benjamin's blog. I noticed that pro-choice Christians did not employ scientific or rational arguments but relied on a confused set of "spiritual" platitudes. More significantly, the pro-choice atheistic blogosphere also fell short in its analysis of abortion. The supposedly "reality-based" community either dismissed abortion as a "religious issue" or paradoxically claimed that pro-life principles were contrary to religious doctrine. Having formerly equated atheism with reason, I was slowly growing uncertain of the value of godlessness in the search for truth.

Though the "Raving Atheist" continued to rave, there was now a stone in his God-rejecting shoe, placed there by a reasoned defense of the pro-life view. He couldn't disconnect himself from it and later admitted that the "selfless dedication [of pro-life advocates] to their cause moved [him] deeply." Later, he met a woman named Ashli whose work in pregnancy care drew him to further consider the pro-life position. Soon thereafter, the "Raving Atheist" became, in part, a pro-life blogsite ...

[This] stirred an angry mutiny among my readers. But I had become convinced that the secular world had it wrong on the very foundational issue of life ... The tangible expression of pro-life work was life itself. It was becoming clear to me that people who lived out their Christian faith were happier and better people as a result ... In June 2006 I saw [a] woman's sonogram ripen into a baby. In honor of Ashli's efforts, I vowed that the birth of the child would be the death of atheism on my blog. Late that month I announced that I would no longer mock God on my site.

And the rest, as they say, is history. The hard-core atheist became open to considering theism because of his encounters with reasoned pro-life thought. Today he is a Christian theist.

To be sure, there were other factors that contributed to the "Raving Atheist's" conversion but the simple fact remains that it was the cogency of the Case For Life and the concrete reality of the injustice of abortion that led him to doubt his atheism and consider a worldview that offered a better explanation for the world as we know and experience it.


--------------------------
For those who are interested in an eclectic approach to a defense of the Christian worldview that is far from the usual dry, stodgy material most people associate with topics like philosophy and Christian apologetics, I would highly recommend at least checking out an issue of Salvo -- a magazine produced by The Fellowship of St. James, which also publishes Touchstone. For what it's worth, I subscribe to both magazines and read every issue cover-to-cover. Salvo is targeted for a younger, more culturally connected audience. It is very well-written and often very, very clever.

Worldview training and MTV [Jay]

While reading this story at Slate on what they call “advocacy” programming at MTV, specifically where shows called 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom follow actual pregnant teens and teens with babies chronicling their various struggles and challenges, I noticed a couple of things I thought worth sharing.

The writer claims that watching these reality shows increases condom use and thereby reduces teen pregnancy, but to support this claim they bizarrely link to an article about how fictional narrative shows impact teen behavior on contraception more than public service statements. There is anecdotal evidence that the $60K per year that MTV pays the girls combined with the all important mass exposure on MTV and even in tabloids(?!!) has resulted in some young girls getting pregnant for the express purpose of auditioning for the show. There will be no links to support that claim because it would require me to connect our blog to the most painfully stupid realm of media on earth, but if you are interested in looking it up on your own it took me all of 20 seconds to find.

Another claim in the article has better support. Here it is:

"research shows that viewing these MTV shows is positively correlated with support for abortion rights"

This links to an article that actually supports the claim made. In a Public Religion Research Institute study entitled What the Millennial Generation Tells Us about the Future of the Abortion Debate and the Culture Wars there is the following:

*The study identified and tested a number of hypotheses about independent influences on attitudes about the legality of abortion. The following factors are independent predictors of support for the legality of abortion, even when controlling for other demographic characteristics:

Having a situationalist rather than a principle-based approach to morality has a positive impact on support for the legality of abortion.

Knowing someone who has had an abortion has a positive impact on support for the legality of abortion.

Having seen MTV’s reality shows about unmarried pregnant teenagers has a positive impact on support for the legality of abortion.

Recently seeing an ultrasound image of a fetus has a negative impact on support for the legality of abortion. (Emphasis theirs)*

This supports claims consistently made here at LTI. Notice the first item. If you make your moral decisions situationally you are more likely to support legal abortion. This means that those who foster a greater understanding of their worldview and see their life as impacted by objective moral laws are less inclined to support legal abortion than people who decide what is right or wrong based on the immediate consequences. Christians need worldview training and my work with both students and adult classes in this area over the last year has only strengthened my resolve that this is critical to changing attitudes about abortion.

The other important point is that when the focus is on the woman, as it is when millenials are thinking of a friend that has had an abortion or are watching MTV programs highlighting the struggling teens, the result is an attitude supportive of legal abortion. What happens when they see an unltrasound of a fetal human being, though? Apparently confronting the humanity of the unborn has a negative impact on their support for legal abortion. Imagine that! Seeing the unborn human life moving and, in the case of my own children, rolling around and stretching and being rather like every other human being makes it harder to believe that it is morally acceptable to rip the life to pieces. Who knew?

So we see even more evidence that having a consistent principled worldview and then keeping the argument on the identity of the unborn changes attitudes toward abortion. And you see even more clearly why we are so passionate about what we do here at LTI.

Thoughts on Campus Crusade [Scott]

I deleted my Facebook post on campus Crusade last night after it generated a slew of comments in less than two hours. I did so for two reasons. First, my strongly worded post was over the top. It is one thing to express concern over the group’s name change and the apparent motivation behind it (more about that below). It is quite another to say Christians should no longer support the group. Second, Facebook is not the place to launch a discussion where background concerns cannot be adequately expressed. In short, I was wrong on both counts. Thus, the following Blog post continues what began on FB. Your thoughts are welcome.

Most of the FB comments supported my view, but thoughtful critics asked the following question: What’s in a name? After all, many Christian groups leave out the name Christ, so what is the big deal?

They’re right about one thing. There is nothing wrong about leaving “Christ” out of the organization’s name. After all, my own organization doesn’t use the name in its title.

However, as Jay Watts pointed out, the problem here is not leaving “Christ” out; it’s taking him out—and for reasons that are questionable. The FOX story quoted a CC official as follows:

"We felt like our name was getting in the way of accomplishing our mission,” said Steve Sellers, the vice president for Campus Crusade, noting that the ministry will still be committed to “proclaiming Christ around the world.” Sellers said researchers found that 9 percent of Christians and 20 percent of non-Christians were alienated by the name Campus Crusade for Christ.

Sellers indicated several factors contributed to the name change, including overseas sensibilities. “Our name was becoming more and more of a hindrance,” he told Fox News Radio. He specifically mentioned the word crusade. “It’s reverted back to some of its meaning related to the Middle Ages – forcing Christianity on different parts of the world,” he said.

As for specifically removing “Christ” from their name, the Campus Crusade for Christ website states:

“We were not trying to eliminate the word Christ from our name. We were looking for a name that would most effectively serve our mission and help us take the gospel to the world. Our mission has not changed. Cru enables us to have discussions about Christ with people who might initially be turned off by a more overtly Christian name. We believe that our interaction and our communication with the world will be what ultimately honors and glorifies Christ.”

Well, if you are not trying to eliminate Christ from your name, but merely want to distance yourself from “crusade,” why not ditch the latter and keep the former? I gather from the article that CC thinks a name with Christ in it is a turn-off and smacks of intolerance. At the same time, if the big issue involves overseas sensibilities, why not change the name for foreign outreaches but leave it for U.S. ones? After all, the name Campus Crusade for Christ accurately describes the mission of the organization: 1) “Campus”—tells us your target audience. 2) “Crusade”—tells us your mission, evangelize the lost. 3) “for Christ”—tells us the main thing is Jesus and doing what honors him.

So what's to fear, that people will know what we truly stand for? Must we
accept the premises of the tolerance crowd to keep our witness?

For me, these are not good reasons to take Christ out of the organization’s name. As Gregg Cunningham once observed, have we become so seeker sensitive that we are believer worthless? My fear is that instead of engaging the culture, many campus ministries are quietly absorbing it’s premises. Is this a good witness of Christ?

To cite a related example (and this provides the background I bring to the name change issue), if you talk to any pro-life group reaching out to students, you'll soon learn that with rare exception, campus fellowship groups want little to do with the pro-life movement. Generally speaking, they're afraid they might turn people off if they get involved.

Well, at Cal Poly SLO in May of 2008, the response of Christians to the abortion controversy did in fact turn-off at least one non-Christian, but not for reasons campus fellowship groups might expect. The ASB student leader responsible for organizing an abortion debate at that campus expressed her dismay that Campus Crusade would not attend the event or get behind promoting it with its members.

She asked me directly why I thought that was so. She thought for sure the Christians would show up and she was puzzled that they didn't. Their refusal to get involved turned her off.

I didn't know what to tell her. Perhaps CC had good reasons for not attending and I hold out hope it did, though it's hard for me to imagine what those reasons might be. I suspect she is not the only secular student puzzled by CC’s non-involvment.

Indeed, according to a 2005 TIME Magazine piece, the overall trend is not encouraging. Instead of equipping students to confront the thought structures that determine culture in the first place, many of these groups help students nurture a very private and personal faith, a faith separate from the intellectual climate of the university. The TIME article states:

"But all the groups tend to go about their business quietly. "They kind of operate under the surface," McKaig says. Josh Sanburn, editor in chief of the Indiana Daily Student, notes that the number of students in the fellowships is roughly the same as the school's African-American student population, but unlike the Christians, "the black students on this campus are very good about making sure they're heard." Evangelical students, however, see their spiritual mission differently. Says sophomore CSF member Emily Hoefling: "We usually believe what affects people more than a newspaper article is to see people living Christian lives."

Question: Since when does "living Christian lives" mean checking out of the real action on campus?

I fear that the message to Christian students and the campus at large couldn't be clearer: Christianity is not relevant to the most pressing issues of our day. It's fine as a personal life enhancement, but irrelevant to the real world of ideas, politics, morality, and law where the rest of the world lives.

Again, is that a good witness for Christ? As Charles Malik pointed out half a century ago, “If you win the whole world [for Christ] and lose the mind of the world, you will soon discover that you have not won the world.”

As I've said before, Christian leaders have it all wrong. My own experience suggests that far from turning people off, a persuasive pro-life case, graciously communicated, suggests to non-believers that maybe, just maybe, the Christian worldview has something relevant to say to the key issues of our day. But when we fail to even put in an appearance at key debates, the message to non-Christians is that we simply don't care about the big stuff.

Including the biggest issue of all, "Christ?"

Abortion and Evasive Thinking [Jay]

The other night I took a break from subject specific study to peruse Open Letters – Selected Writings of Vaclav Havel. Havel was an outspoken young playwright that would become the voice of dissidence in Czechoslovakia and ultimately the president of his country. The second essay in the book is entitled “On Evasive Thinking” and I thought it was worth a quick discussion.

It was originally given as a speech to the Union of Czechoslovak Writers in 1965 at a conference marking the 20th anniversary of Czechoslovakia's freedom at the end of World War II. Havel criticizes an article written after a woman was killed when window ledge fell off of a dilapidated building and landed on her in the street below. The writer of the article acknowledged the window ledge should not have fallen from disrepair but quickly turned the subject matter to how great it was that they were allowed to protest at all. How wonderful it is to have that freedom and how great it is that Czechoslovakia had advanced and modernized in women's fashions. Ultimately, the writer warned that, instead of protesting municipal matters, literature ought to be focused on the hope for the future of mankind.

This is what Havel calls evasive thinking. There is an issue at hand that has raised protest. Buildings were falling into disrepair in socialist Czechoslovakia and as a result of necessary work not being done a ledge fell off and killed a woman. What does that have to do with the freedom to protest or the fashion choices of Czechoslovakian women? Nothing at all is the answer. So why is the object of Havel's criticism going on about that stuff?

Here is Havel in his own words:

This way of thinking, in my opinion, is causing immense damage. The essence of it is that certain established dialectical patterns are deformed and fetishized and thus become an immobile system of intellectual and phraseological schemata which, when applied to different kinds of reality, seem at first to have achieved, admirably, a heightened ideological view of that reality, whereas in fact they have, without our noticing it, separated thought from its immediate contact with reality and thus crippled its capacity to intervene in that reality effectively.

He says that our words become more important than the subject we are talking about such that:

It's enough to call a fallen window ledge a “local matter,” and criticism of the way buildings are maintained as “municipal criticism.” and we immediately feel that nothing so terrible has happened... And finally, when you need to save money by leaving the upkeep of buildings not to a superintendent, but to a voluntary brigade of doctors, lawyers, and office clerks working on weekends, you need only to call it “socialist maintenance by tenants” and a doctor chipping away at a rotting window ledge on his building is warmed by the feeling that in doing so, he is helping to fulfill some higher phase in the development of socialism.

What has any of this to do with LTI or the pro-life position? I think quite a lot when you look at what Havel was saying. He criticized thought that vacillated between “on the one hand – but on the other hand” and “in a certain sense, yes – but in another sense, no” saying that when we lose touch with reality, we inevitably lose the ability to influence reality effectively. Criticism must be direct and on point and must be met in the same manner. When window ledges fall and kill people from disrepair, it does no good to pontificate about the nature of comparative freedom and the hope of the future and the destiny of man because, as happened shortly after the first incident, another window ledge is likely to fall and kill someone else (this time a man). So the advice to consider broader visions of humanity rings toothless in the ears of people worried that it is not safe to walk the streets.

So what is abortion about? What is the point in contention? Simply stated, it is now legal in the United States to kill unborn human beings and because of that legality we do kill unborn human beings at the pace of about 1.2 million per year in our country. The unborn are unquestionably human and unquestionably alive and pro-lifers contend that the unjust taking of human life is a moral offense that ought to be prevented and not a legal right that ought to be granted. Human beings matter and killing them without extreme justification is wrong.

There are ways to respond to this claim, but all legitimate responses must answer the question at hand. What are the unborn and why are we permitted to do what we are doing to them? The Supreme Court rulings are an embarrassment in this regard as they continually abdicate their responsibility to successfully identify the unborn while simultaneously legalizing the massive destruction of the unborn. They are not alone.

Reading Havel's examples of evasive phrasings reminded me of some of the conversations I have with defenders of abortion rights. “The unborn may be fully human in a certain sense – but then again they may not in another sense. There may possibly be such a thing as human non-persons. Since that is possible, are you going force your unproven beliefs on others?” Or “on the one hand they are human – but on the other hand is simple genetic identification enough to make us human? How do we identify morally valuable humans really? Isn't it obvious that some human beings are not valuable? Isn't it obvious that some animals share more in common with some humans than other humans do?”

It doesn't stop there. We just keep rolling on down the hill. “I understand that the unborn may be fully human, but what about the right to economic and vocational equality for women? Don't you believe that women should be equal to men? Don't you think women should be liberated from their reproductive systems?”

Ultimately, we arrive at the sea of absolute uncertainty where we cannot know if anything is truly right and wrong so we must assume that all rights are granted and that the identity of humanity as a category is absolutely in question. They would never phrase it like this but we have moved to where the substance of their arguments is something like, “On the one hand I like laws against murder and laws that protect me and my interest, but on the other hand I cannot see why people have rights beyond what we grant them and struggle to understand what you mean by people at all.”

It looks to me like the very definition of evasive thinking with all the tell tale signs of separating thought from its immediate contact with reality. Once you have become so intelligent that you can no longer recognize and identify a human being you have become far too smart for me. I remember a Stand to Reason Blog comment thread where a clever fellow waxed on about the question of genetic variations acceptable within the category of humanity and disingenuously pleading with someone to help him understand how we can accurately identify human beings. A fellow commenter very simply replied, “They have human parents for a start.”

G.K. Chesterton wrote in his book Eugenics and Other Evils how captivated and hypnotized people can become with complicated thought and how startled they can be when we use blunt terms to simplify matters. That is one of our goals here at LTI. The pro-life argument begins with a very basic observation that must be addressed. A particular class of human life is actively and legally being killed every day. Why is it OK to treat this class of humanity in a manner that we reject as inarguably immoral for most every other category of human being?

If the evasive language mentioned above is embraced then aborting human beings may be nothing because the unborn possibly do not matter. In fact, by killing unborn human beings you may be participating in the liberation of women and leveling the economic playing field. Isn't that lovely? Besides, it is questionable whether we have any real objective human rights and human life is difficult to define so there might not be such a thing as humanity at all. This is all so complicated that whatever you think we simply cannot take any actual action in the real world based this sea of differing opinions. So kill as many as you like.

That line of thinking won't do. There is an urgency to this argument. Life is being destroyed every day, moment by moment, even as I write this long blog post and as you later read it. It is not an academic exercise, it is a direct question far more harrowing than the fact that people were being killed by falling window ledges in Czechoslovakia in 1965. Human beings are being killed by the millions. Why is this OK? Havel's point on evasive thinking should be a reminder that we need to watch out for clever arguments that ultimately take us so far adrift that we are disconnected from the real question at hand and how we can influence the real world.

We know what we are doing to them, so what is it about the unborn that makes this acceptable? It is a question about the identity of the unborn, and the answer must address the unborn directly.