https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/62030/archive/files/1b50bdff06640db35a8d93d989adba8c.pdf?Expires=1780531200&Signature=RA7VqqF0I9lqceXECz8RdvGs1pACS9XLjRR79SDuUxc9uk%7EaS2Oe3n3kHN7q-8uJnBORSr7zUtDoBKrHfz7qfI-6huOJmEykQpjtnHFpPKdvbsDDe1G58cYOOmCSYw0teGprbK2CzawKGinJ0g6mSxn2-sxuSYQaFJ9GQl484foBJeIhpmcZI-hlrhA3XNiQQQpXnlePOiHsJ4LEK6cfZ2IDJLLBWFtEzDsQWgH6vtAAW7eex8xGiWROvG0iz9L9CCsiVRMMbCsvDjUVXq02hbOmRF3Aji%7EjOIH%7EKrVhN1ArV24ke%7EprQS6Kvt0x2Zv%7E%7EpSBWg2SPw%7EazkpdIFJZpA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 61c1e79e6e1f178167ae509281bd5bda PDF Text Text Science+Technology The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009 10 Controversy clouds opinion Why it’s impossible to have a reasoned debate about abortion The Split Brain Daniel Lametti A couple of weeks ago, Natalie Fohl, the president of Choose Life McGill, stood up in front of a small crowd in Leacock 232 to introduce her club and the guest speaker she had invited to give a talk that night, anti-abortion activist Jose Ruba. “Our goal is to promote respect for human life,” she began, before adding that she hoped the event would “encourage discussion and thoughtful consideration of abortion.” It was a reasoned introduction, but 30 seconds after Ruba took the stage, he was suddenly interrupted by a group of protesters. Shouts of “Please go” echoed through the room in sync with the pounding of fists on desks. Ruba’s supporters began to get upset; a man in the audience compared the disrupters to the Hitler Youth. Campus security was called first, followed by the police. In the end, the talk was cancelled, two protestors were arrested, and McGill came off looking like a black hole for free speech. What the hell happened? Admittedly, the title of Ruba’s talk – “Echoes of the Holocaust” – sounded a little crazy, if not offensive. But even if Ruba had been giving a less controversial anti-abortion talk, does debating such a controversial topic in an environment of opinionated students actually lead to “thoughtful consideration” as Fohl and others had hoped? In 1978, Mark Lepper, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, ran an experiment to see if he could change the opinions that Stanford students held on the death penalty. Lepper surveyed a random sample of undergraduates and chose 24 that were strongly in favour of capital punishment and 24 that were strongly opposed to it. He then presented each of the 48 students with two written statements. The first detailed a study showing that murder rates were lower in states that had the death penalty; the second detailed a different study showing that murder rates were actually higher in states that had the death penalty. Given such conflicting information, one might predict that the students’ extreme views on the death penalty would be moderated, but this is not what Lepper found. After reading the statements, those that favoured the death penalty before were now more in favour of it, and those that opposed the death penalty before were now even more opposed to it: views had become more extreme, not less. Lepper concluded that the students simply believed information that confirmed what they already thought and ignored everything else. A 2004 study used brain imaging to examine Lepper’s finding, dubbed “motivated reasoning,” in more detail. Scientists at Emory University in Georgia put committed Republicans and Democrats in a brain scanner and presented them with information that showed then-Republican president George W. Bush and Democratic senator John Kerry committing acts of hypocrisy – a Bush quote, for instance, extolling America’s troops, followed by the revelation that on the same day he cut health benefits to thousands of war veterans. While still running the brain scanner, the scientists then asked each subject what they thought about the two politicians. Surprise, surprise – the Democrats labelled George Bush a hypocrite while excusing John Kerry’s actions, and the Republicans labelled John Kerry a hypocrite while excusing George Bush’s actions. What the brain scanner found, though, was more interesting. When the subjects were calling the politician they disliked a hypocrite, brain regions associated with normal reasoning lit up. But when they were excusing the hypocritical actions of the politician they favoured, brain regions associated with both reasoning and strong emotions lit up. The scanner had caught them in the act: when it came time to thoughtfully consider information that went against what they believed in, the subjects simply couldn’t – their reasoning was coloured by emotion. Daniel Lametti’s column will be back again in two weeks. In the meantime, send extremely emotionally-invested opinions only to thesplitbrain@mcgilldaily.com. Sustainable species only Motion aims to limit types of seafood sold on campus Stephanie Law Sci+Tech Writer W ill salmon and tuna sandwiches be banned from McGill cafeterias and vendors indefinitely? This is a question students have been asking themselves since the SSMU motion regarding seafood on campus was brought to General Assembly on October 21. Before the motion could be discussed, however, the GA lost quorum. Voting will now take place in SSMU Council on November 12. If the motion passes, it will call upon SSMU to “put their best effort into working with campus groups to pressure McGill administration to replace all of the ‘Red List’ fish species from the menus of all cafeterias and food vendors on the McGill Campus, as well as in McGill Residences.” Compiled by SeaChoice, a seafood markets program that supports sustainable fisheries in Canada and abroad, the Red List details which aquatic species are unsustainably fished and whose consumption should therefore be avoided. Specific fish on the Red List include, but are not limited to: haddock, lobster, scallops, albacore tuna, bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna, Atlantic salmon, orange roughy, rockfish, Chilean sea bass, clams (arctic surf and quahog), Atlantic cod, king crab, sole, Greenland halibut, shark, tropical shrimp, swordfish, and tilapia. According to Sariné WillisO’Connor, organization coordinator and co-founder of Greenpeace McGill, unsustainable fishing has consequences that are often overlooked. “A lot of people don’t know about overfishing in general, and also how important fish are to the ecosystem and how it affects us. There are better ways to catch fish,” Willis-O’Connor said. “Most of the species listed on the Red List are either endangered, overfished, rapidly depleting, or are fished using unsustainable methods [like] bottom trawling and ghost fishing. “Bottom trawling essentially scrapes across the ocean floor, causing permanent damage to the seabed and catching many other species that the fishers were not targeting. These untargeted fish become by-catch and are thrown back into the ocean, dead.” Willis-O’Connor explained that ghost fishing occurs when fishermen lose or abandon their gill nets, entangling netting and other passive traps in the ocean. These leftbehind nets and traps continue to swallow up fish and other sea creatures. Willis-O’Connor argued that McGill can make a difference if SSMU passes this motion. “We are a very large community at McGill. Once we evict all the seafood products that are on the Red List from our community, our total consumption of these unsustainable products will dramatically decrease – we will have a huge influence. We will know exactly where our fish is coming from, and whether they are sustainable,” she said. When asked whether this would have a large financial impact on SSMU and McGill students, Jose Diaz, SSMU VP Finance and Operations, answered no, saying they would definitely be able to work out the details with the various vendors like Cultures and Café Suprême. Diaz is confident that if the motion passes, SSMU will be very efficient and successful in ousting unsustainable fish from campus. “If it passes, we will definitely be very proactive – you can see that happening with our water bottles. I can see this as being just like that,” Diaz said. “I cannot foresee whether there would be any opposition or not from our tenants. For Café Suprême, we usually review their menu prior to each school year. And with Cultures, I don’t think there’ll be any problems.” As to whether or not salmon and tuna sandwiches will be removed from all McGill menus, WillisO’Connor’s short answer was “No,” pointing out that there are still some species of salmon and tuna that are not on the list. “We will definitely be able to find sustainable alternatives and replacements for the products that are on the Red List,” she said. Miranda Whist / The McGill Daily Fish like salmon are sold in large quantities all over Montreal. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Coverage from The McGill Daily Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data PDF Volume 99 Issue 16 Page Number(s) 10 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Controversy clouds opinion Description An account of the resource Discussion of how emotions impact debates around abortion. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Daniel Larretti Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The McGill Daily Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009/11/02 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Antisemitism Choose Life events reproductive health reproductive justice