{"id":2364,"date":"2009-07-26T09:37:59","date_gmt":"2009-07-26T17:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=2364"},"modified":"2009-07-26T09:49:43","modified_gmt":"2009-07-26T17:49:43","slug":"here-be-dragons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/here-be-dragons\/","title":{"rendered":"Here be Dragons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Creationist Sam Brownback (for the senator’s own deeply disingenuous explanation of where he stands on evolution check here<\/a>) is once again taking up the cudgels for junk science, this time with the introduction of a strange unnatural thing known as the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2009 (co-sponsored by Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu in, I assume, a cheerfully cynical attempt to shore up her standing with some sections of her socially conservative state\u2019s electorate). While I, for one, would not welcome the return of either Doctor Moreau or the Minotaur to this planet, this silly piece of legislation is, as Reason\u2019s<\/em> Ron Bailey shows here<\/a>, not only based on some questionable science, but could, if passed, prove to be damaging to existing lines of research that are about as far removed from the monstrous as it is possible to be.<\/p>\n

Politically however, proposing this bill has, sadly, some logic to it\u2013at least if you see these matters through Brownback\u2019s eyes. By not so subtly playing the Frankenstein card, this law is designed to exploit public fears of where genetic science could lead, and to use those fears to drum up support for Brownback\u2019s own highly sacralized notions of what it means to be human. The penalties contained in the legislation (according to Ron Bailey, up to ten years in jail and\/or a million dollar fine) are also striking, particularly as Brownback is (to his credit) something of a prison reformer, and is thus well aware of what incarceration in today\u2019s America entails. Penalties on this scale are designed not only to shut down the lines of research that would be prohibited by the legislation, but also any research that risks coming anywhere close to anything that could be caught by Brownback\u2019s law. That\u2019s an old legislative trick, but it doesn\u2019t make it any less dishonest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Creationist Sam Brownback (for the senator’s own deeply disingenuous explanation of where he stands on evolution check here) is once again taking up the cudgels for junk science, this time with the introduction of a strange unnatural thing known as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2364"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2366,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364\/revisions\/2366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}