Rock Bottom?

 Medically assisted deaths could save millions in health care spending: Report

CBC news 

New research suggests medically assisted dying could result in substantial savings across Canada's health-care system.

Doctor-assisted death could reduce annual health-care spending across the country by between $34.7 million and $136.8 million, according to a report published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal on Monday.

The savings exceedingly outweigh the estimated $1.5 to $14.8 million in direct costs associated with implementing medically assisted dying.

"The take-away point is that there may be some upfront costs associated with offering medical assisted dying to Canadians, but there may also be a reduction in spending elsewhere in the system and therefore offering medical assistance in dying to Canadians will not cost the health care system anything extra," said Aaron Trachtenberg, an author of the report and a resident in internal medicine at the University of Calgary.

Cost has to be a part of the discussion

The researchers used numbers from the Netherlands and Belgium, where medically assisted death is legal, combined with Canadian spending data from Ontario. Trachtenberg stressed that means the work is theoretical and needs to be readdressed when Canada starts collecting large scale data at home.

After June 17, 2016 when Bill C-14 became law, provinces began rolling out their plans to deal with requests for doctor-assisted death.

Manitoba has set up a Medical Assistance in Dying team (MAID). More than 100 patients have contacted MAID, with 24 receiving medically assisted deaths as of Jan. 6.

"In a resource-limited health care system, anytime we roll out a large intervention there has to be a certain amount of planning and preparation and cost has to be a part of that discussion," Trachtenberg said, adding the provinces' differing plans could impact the cost structure of implementation.

"It's just the reality of working in a system of finite resources."

The report estimated that about one to four per cent of Canadians will die using physician-assisted death. Of those, 50 per cent will be between the ages of 60 and 80.

The report estimates a 50-50 split between men and women. 

About 80 per cent of patients will have cancer and 60 per cent will have their lives shortened by one month while 40 per cent will have their lives shortened by one week.

End-of-life care has high costs in Canada

Health-care costs increase substantially among patients nearing the end of their life, Trachtenberg said.

"Canadians die in hospitals more often than, say, our counterparts in America or Europe and … we have a lack of palliative care services even though we are trying to improve that. And therefore people end up spending their final days in the hospital," he said.

"Hospital-based care costs the health care system more than a comprehensive palliative care system where we could help people achieve their goal of dying at home."

The report used Manitoba as an example, where 20 per cent of health care costs are attributable to patients within the six months before they die, despite their representing only one per cent of the population. Patients who choose medical assistance in dying may forego this resource-intensive period, the report said.

"Whenever we roll out a large-scale intervention there has to be a discussion around costs. But we do not suggest that costs should ever be considered at an individual level," Trachtenberg said.

"We are not suggesting that patients or providers consider costs when making this very personal and intimate decision to request or provide medical assistance in dying."

The report also emphasized that it is only a cost analysis and doesn't include the clinical effects on patients. Patient-level research will need to be done before true economic evaluation of medical assistance in dying in terms of cost-effectiveness and utility can be done, the report said.

Ps. I think it merits repeating that the kinds of hyper-political,lawfare type responses favoured by many can merely manage the symptoms they can never cure the disease.

"Professor"Dave =most clueless of all Q.E.D?

 Hello, Professor Dave: James Tour’s Criticisms of OOL Research Echo Those of Other Experts

Brian Miller 

In several articles we have already deconstructed the debate between Professor James Tour and “Professor” Dave Farina on the state of research about the origin of life (OOL). For example, see my latest, on Farina’s habit of citation bluffing, here. Today, I will address one of the few honest questions Farina and other critics have asked: If Tour’s critique of the field is accurate, why has he not published his arguments in peer-reviewed literature? The answer is simple: Tour’s criticisms and concerns have already been recognized by experts in origins research and published in technical journals. Tour has simply compiled and explained the challenges to the public to expose the disconnect between what the public has been told and the true state of the field. 

Steven Benner

One of the most comprehensive and insightful critiques of origins research is by Steven Benner (2009), a synthetic chemist praised by Farina. Benner’s article “Paradoxes in the Origin of Life” lists five seemingly insurmountable hurdles facing origin-of-life scenarios. I will explain only two. 

The first is termed the Asphalt Paradox. It refers to the tendency of systems of organic molecules to degrade into mixtures of molecules that are useless for life. Benner states:

An enormous amount of empirical data have established, as a rule, that organic systems, given energy and left to themselves, devolve to give uselessly complex mixtures, “asphalts”… Further, chemical theories, including the second law of thermodynamics, bonding theory that describes the “space” accessible to sets of atoms, and structure theory requiring that replication systems occupy only tiny fractions of that space, suggest that it is impossible for any non-living chemical system to escape devolution to enter into the Darwinian world of the “living.”

Benner goes on to explain why this tendency undermines all potentially viable approaches to explaining even the simplest and earliest steps toward life’s origin:

Such statements of impossibility apply even to macromolecules not assumed to be necessary for RIRI [replication involving replicable imperfections] evolution. Again richly supported by empirical observation, material escapes from known metabolic cycles that might be viewed as models for a “metabolism first” origin of life, making such cycles short-lived. Lipids that provide tidy compartments under the close supervision of a graduate student (supporting a protocell-first model for origins) are quite non-robust with respect to small environmental perturbations, such as a change in the salt concentration, the introduction of organic solvents, or a change in temperature….

Benner labels a second challenge the Information-Need Paradox. It refers to the implausibility of an RNA molecule forming with the information required for it to self-replicate. The central problem is that the probability is miniscule for a random sequence of nucleotides (the building blocks of RNA) to contain the required information for an RNA molecule to perform self-replication or any other complex function required for a minimally complex cell. Benner states:

If a biopolymer is assumed to be necessary for RIRI evolution, we must resolve the paradox arising because implausibly high concentrations of building blocks generate biopolymers having inadequate amounts of information. These propositions from theory and observation also force the conclusion that the emergence of (in this case, biopolymer-based) life is impossible.

At the end of the article, Benner exchanges the hat of an objective scientist for that of a high priest of the secular faith. He encourages his readers not to lose hope that the paradoxes will one day be solved. Yet no discovery since the article’s publication has suggested that the barriers to life’s genesis identified by Benner could ever be overcome.     

Tour’s critique appears far more charitable than Benner’s assessment. Tour simply stated that researchers do not yet have any understanding of how life could have originated. In contrast, Benner stated that the most fundamental theories of science and all experimental evidence point to the origin of life through natural processes being “impossible.”

Elbert Branscomb and Michael Russell

A second key paper is “Frankenstein or a Submarine Alkaline Vent: Who Is Responsible for Abiogenesis?” This two-part article (Part 1, Part 2) was authored by Elbert Branscomb and Michael Russell (2018), who are leaders in the alkaline-vent hypothesis for the origin of life. The article explains why all theories on life’s origin relying solely on natural processes must fail. The authors detail how nearly every reaction in cells requires molecular machines to drive it at the correct rate:

But even those of life’s molecular transformations that do run downhill have to be taken out of chemistry’s hands and “managed” by a dedicated macromolecular machine — in order to impose conditionally manipulable control over reaction rates and to exclude undesirable reactions, both as to reactants and products. On its own, chemistry is far too indiscriminate and uncontrollable.

The authors also state that the operations of a cell must conform to “an elaborate organizational design.” 

Life does not represent an emergent property of matter, but a system of processes directed by advanced nanotechnology to operate in conformity with a blueprint or design architecture. One could no more explain the organization of a cell through the chemistry and physics of its constituent molecules than one could explain the organization of a car through the chemistry and physics of metal, glass, rubber, and gasoline. 

Remarkably, the authors even recognize that the need for molecular machines eliminates any possibility of Life emerging through natural processes:

We claim in particular that it is untenable to hold that life-relevant biochemistry could have emerged in the chemical chaos produced by mass-action chemistry and chemically nonspecific “energy” inputs, and only later have evolved its dauntingly specific mechanisms (as a part of evolving all the rest of life’s features).

They respond to this challenge by appealing to natural selection. Yet nothing is reproducing, so their only hope for explaining life is a delusion. Here again, the authors present a bleak picture of the field by concluding that life’s origin appears “untenable.”

Assembling the Cellular Components

Ironically, explaining the synthesis of life’s building blocks (e.g., proteins, RNA, membranes, sugars) is far easier than explaining how they could assemble into a functional cell. What would happen if aliens deposited millions of tons of randomly sequenced proteins and RNA, cell membranes, molecular machines, and every other cellular component on the early Earth? Everything would simply decompose into “uselessly complex mixtures.” Even if decomposition were somehow prevented, forming a minimally complex cell would still require three steps: 

Selecting the correct proteins, RNA, and other structures out of an unfathomably large pool of molecules. 

Localizing the building blocks in a microscopic environment. 

Properly assembling the molecules and structures into a fantastically rare arrangement.

Tour explained the complete implausibility of these steps through known natural processes in a video, which I summarized in a previous Article. 

Irrelevant Research on Life’s Origin

Examining the assembly problem reveals the irrelevance of current origin-of-life research. Origins experiments and hypotheses represent mere nibbling around the edges of the real challenge, for reasons that can best be understood with an analogy. Imagine a group of scientists claiming that the laws of aerodynamics guarantee that a tornado plowing through an auto parts store will often assemble the parts into a functional car. To prove their point, they attempt to demonstrate that high winds under the right conditions can push nuts and bolts closer together. Even if successful, this one step is inconsequential in relation to the entire task of car assembly. 

Similarly, simply forming a few biologically relevant molecules or linking them together is inconsequential when compared to fabricating a cell, which represents a nanotechnology vessel capable of such feats as energy production, information processing, and error correction. Any honest assessment of the evidence must conclude that life did not originate through natural processes, but instead is the product of a mind.

The ancients weren't as dumb as we were told?

 Film Festival 2023 — “Three Big Myths”

Evolution News 

Proverbs ch.8 Rotherham's Emphasised Bible.

 8 .1 Doth not wisdom cry aloud? And understanding send forth her voice?

2 At the top of the high places above the way, At the place where paths meet she taketh her stand:

3 Beside the gates at the entrance of the city,—At the going in of the openings she shouteth:—

4 Unto you O men I call, And my voice is unto the sons of men;

5 Understand, ye simple ones, shrewdness, And ye dullards understand sense;

6 Hear for princely things will I speak, And the opening of my lips shall be of equity;

7 For faithfulness shall my mouth softly utter, But the abomination of my lips shall be lawlessness;

8 In righteousness shall be all the sayings of my mouth, Nothing therein shall be crafty or perverse;

9 All of them shall be plain to them who would understand, And just to such as would gain knowledge.

10 Receive my correction and not silver, And knowledge rather than choicest gold.

11 For better is wisdom than ornaments of coral, And no delightful things can equal her.

12 I wisdom inhabit shrewdness,—And the knowledge of sagacious things I gain.

13 The reverence of Yahweh is to hate wickedness: Pride, arrogance and the way of wickedness; And a mouth ofRiches and honour are with me, Lordly wealth, and righteousness;

14 Mine are counsel and effective working, I am understanding, mine is valour:

15 By me kings reign, And dignitaries decree righteousness;

16 By me rulers govern, And nobles—all the righteous judges:

17 I love them who love me, And they who diligently seek me find me:

18 Riches and honour are with me, Lordly wealth, and righteousness;

19 Better is my fruit than gold—yea fine gold, And mine increase than choice silver;

20 In the way of righteousness I march along, In the middle of the paths of justice:

21 That I may cause them who love me to inherit substance, And their treasuries I may fill.

22 Yahweh had constituted me the beginning of his way, Before his works At the commencement of that time;

23 At the outset of the ages had I been established, In advance of the antiquities of the earth;

 24When there was no resounding deep I had been brought forth, When there were no fountains abounding with water;

25 Ere yet the mountains had been settled, Before the hills had I been brought forth;

26 Or ever he had made the land and the wastes, Or the top of the dry parts of the world:

27 When he prepared the heavens there was I! When he decreed a vault upon the face of the resounding deep;

28 When he made firm the skies above, When the fountains of the resounding deep waxed strong;

29 When he fixed for the sea its bound That the waters should not go beyond his bidding, When he decreed the foundations of the earth:—

30 Then became I beside him a firm and sure worker, Then became I filled with delight day by day, Exulting before him on every occasion;

31 Exulting in the fruitful land of his earth, Yea my fulness of delight was with the sons of men. perverse things do I hate.

32 Now therefore ye sons hearken to me, For how happy are they who to my ways pay regard!

33 Hear ye correction and be wise, And do not neglect.

34 How happy the man that doth hearken to me,—Keeping guard at my doors day by day, Watching at the posts of my gates;

35 For he that findeth me findeth life, And hath obtained favour from Yahweh;

36 But he that misseth me wrongeth his own soul, All who hate me love death.

You're welcome.

 In the United States, numerous cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses are now landmark decisions of First Amendment law. In all, Jehovah's Witnesses brought 23 separate First Amendment actions before the U.S. Supreme Court between 1938 and 1946. Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone once quipped, "I think the Jehovah's Witnesses ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal problems of civil liberties."[29] 

Dave Farina: team atheism's LVP? VI

 Professor Dave — Conspiracy Theorist

David Klinghoffer 

 The Tour-Farina Debate on the origin of life has provided more fun than I was expecting. We’ve posted a number of YouTube reviews of the event held at Rice University — not from ID folks but from self-identified atheists and agnostics who were disappointed, even “disgusted,” to see Dave’s lousy performance. Professor Dave, aka Dave Farina, thinks it’s a conspiracy of Discovery Institute “plants” writing these reviews. He told a commenter on his YouTube channel:

Yeah, those are DI plants pretending to be atheists so they can write loser damage control blog posts on Evolution News. Be harder to trick, champ.

I see. In saying “No, of course they’re not,” I don’t expect Farina to believe me. It’s tough to track down the identities of random YouTube commenters. But when I went back and looked at comments on the debate, almost the first one I saw was new to me and it’s from a self-identified “not religious” biochemist who calls Farina an “embarrassment for science.” Another Discovery Institute plant? Hardly. This scientist — Professor Javier Campos-Gomez at the University of Alabama at Birmingham — was easy to find and I emailed him for permission to identify him and to confirm that he is who he says he is. 

Not an ID Proponent

Yep, it’s him, and he added that he’s not a proponent of intelligent design, in case that was in doubt. Dr. Campos-Gomez wrote to me, “what I call nature you call God and what you call intelligent design I call a natural process.” Fair enough. Here’s what he Wrote (unedited) on the YouTube page for the debate. His words are eloquent and speak for themselves:

Dear Dr. Tour, you are not alone in this battle. I am not religious but I am totally with you. I am a biochemist myself very interested and informed about the origin of life and have always thought that the origin of life theories available are all fairy tales. Anyone that understand the complexity of life knows this. The prebiotic synthesis of biological relevant molecules, although a huge problem itself, is the less of the problem. Give Dave every single molecule needed to make life already synthesized in the correct chirality and ask him to make a soup that create life in the lab. Another huge problem you can add to your battle is that of the biological membranes. The available theories always bring the membranes as an act of magic. How can you maintain life required compartmentalization, even if you bring the membrane through magic, if the genetic traits required for the synthesis of the membrane are not present? How this magically added membrane was able to get genetically encoded in the DNA? And this holds true for almost every process in the cell. 

Regarding Dave, as always, ignorants are unable to recognized how ignorant they are, which makes them so sure of themselves as to act as total blatant arrogants. They usually use personal attacks instead of logical arguments. Dave is an embarrassment for science and made me cringe during the whole debate. He was the one that acted religiously and as a dogmatic believer in the “scientific” orthodoxy, while you acted very scientifically. You have all my respect. He seems to me the kind of scientist that will do anything, ANYTHING, to justify the grant money he gets over the scientific truth. Unfortunately, we have many of those.

A Citation-Bluffing Huckster

There you have it. Currently available origin-of-life theories are “fairy tales.” Farina’s performance was “cringe”-worthy. Indeed it was. Even if you spoke no English, you could tell from the body language and the respective manners of speaking on the part of Farina and Tour that, once deprived of his YouTube channel and his precious script, Farina was dominated by his opponent.

One correction might be that Farina isn’t a “scientist,” but a mere citation-bluffing huckster. (See Brian Miller’s Post for confirmation on that.) But Professor Campos-Gomez is a scientist with relevant expertise, qualified to spot a fairy tale when he sees one. Also a gentleman, unlike Dave Farina.