12-19-2018, 10:07 AM
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/crashing-boards-neuroscientist-maureen-condic-brings-different-voice-nsf-oversight-body
"Appearing before the House Judiciary Committee’s civil justice panel, Condic asserted that an 8-week-old fetus can experience pain, a claim many fetal development experts dispute. But Condic appeared to deliver a contradictory message in the course of her testimony.
“There is universal agreement that pain is detected by the fetus in the first trimester,” she told lawmakers midway through her opening statement. “The debate concerns how pain is experienced, that is, whether a fetus has the same pain experience a newborn or an adult would have.” In her closing comments, however, she asserted, “It is entirely uncontested that a fetus experiences pain in some capacity from as early as 8 weeks.”
Many neuroscientists would draw a distinction between how spinal cord cells react to a pain stimulus in an 8-week-old fetus, as Condic initially described, and the point at which there’s a cognitive reaction to pain (which was the rationale for the legislation). Asked about the difference, Condic says she was a last-minute substitute for another witness and 'maybe I wrote [her testimony] wrong.'"
Her views are interesting. She seems to think most scientists are pretentious and try to insert themselves too much in politics, believing they need to be limited to their research and not try to influence policy just because they're expert on the science itself. The non-experts needs to decide how to use it. Describes herself as apolitical but has been happy to lend her opinions to political debates to promote her own ideology.
"Appearing before the House Judiciary Committee’s civil justice panel, Condic asserted that an 8-week-old fetus can experience pain, a claim many fetal development experts dispute. But Condic appeared to deliver a contradictory message in the course of her testimony.
“There is universal agreement that pain is detected by the fetus in the first trimester,” she told lawmakers midway through her opening statement. “The debate concerns how pain is experienced, that is, whether a fetus has the same pain experience a newborn or an adult would have.” In her closing comments, however, she asserted, “It is entirely uncontested that a fetus experiences pain in some capacity from as early as 8 weeks.”
Many neuroscientists would draw a distinction between how spinal cord cells react to a pain stimulus in an 8-week-old fetus, as Condic initially described, and the point at which there’s a cognitive reaction to pain (which was the rationale for the legislation). Asked about the difference, Condic says she was a last-minute substitute for another witness and 'maybe I wrote [her testimony] wrong.'"
Her views are interesting. She seems to think most scientists are pretentious and try to insert themselves too much in politics, believing they need to be limited to their research and not try to influence policy just because they're expert on the science itself. The non-experts needs to decide how to use it. Describes herself as apolitical but has been happy to lend her opinions to political debates to promote her own ideology.
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