When I was a kid I dreamed of aliens landing on our planet and making contact. I also believed that it would change humanity. Then I realised that bills, mortgage, career and women sprang to mind. Now I've got used to those things being more or less a neccesity in life I ponder yet again about life on another planet. So do scientists. Amusingly I watched a documentary justifying the need to send people to Mars. Mars. Once the confident source of the home world of an alien race hell bent on the destruction of earth...that is until a little bit of tin landed on the surface of the red planet and concluded that it was nothing more than a very cold and barren planet with little atmosphere.
The evidence is clear. There is no life on Mars. But scientists want to prove that life did exist once upon a time. Why bother? If there was any then it has long since gone. Whilst we consume huge amounts of natural resource not to mention the economical dent on tax payers money on pursuing something that will reveal or not reveal themselves to us, shouldn't we be taking care of our home? Have we forgotten that our planet needs looking after like a child does?
Just reading today about the amount of sun lotion spent on in a month should be better used to help reduce our carbon output and to help developing countries do the same too. Why do we persist in chasing something that is nothing more than a remote possibility. Even if we were to find life on another planet. What would it do for us? Would it cure pandemics? Solve world poverty? No. Of course not. We are destined by our very nature to suffer these things due to over population, artificialising medication and manufacture with products not naturally synthesised to help humankind. Just as with any dominant and enlarged entity, humanity will implode and simply disappear for another emerging species to do just the same. Again and again and again. I'm sure this cycle of self destruction will never end. Its just a pattern of life on this planet. Should we fear the end of humankind? I don't think so as I believe we are just a part of a repetitive cycle of a produce of this planet.
Another interesting point make in this documentary was the assumption that carbon and water and amino acids are building blocks for like. Says who? As we may not detect other comibination of chemicals to be catalysts for life, where there are possibly chemicals in existence not on this planet that may interact with traditionally benign earthly chemicals that could create a different kind of life and perhaps on different path of time not familiar to our own.
We really do make too many assumptions to think that we believe what the basic building blocks of life really could be somewhere else.
A rock to us could be a form of life on another planet. But not as we would know it.
TwoDarts, having a tiring day, signing off.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Monday, December 03, 2007
How's your Father?
Has this country gone mad??? Sperm donor pays for child.
A spokesman for Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said: "The law says that men donating sperm through licensed fertility clinics are not the legal father of any child born through that donation.
....yet the consequence of a civil marriage breaking down is that the male donor has to pay for the children. Am I missing something here? Isn't that the best excuse ever to get divorced and still have your kids looked after ? By someone who legally isn't entitled to anything other than the payment of the child. How emotionally barren is that ?
My reaction is purely emotional and devoid of the legal authority that exists. Sometimes I wonder where the respect for basic human rights have gone? If the father is emotionally detached from his paternal instincts to donate a "child", why should he be penalised for a marriage breakdown not of his own making ?
Or maybe the very idea of donorship is wrong if this is what the law of the land demands in such a case. Would the consequences be the same for an adopted child? Who would be responsible for the child's well being financially if a same sex partnership fail? or indeed a hetrosexual partnership?
The mechanism for sperm donor's should promote an emotional detachment from a very natural process of giving life for the donor and in this respect the detachment should also apply financially and morally.
My question then is, what has this case done to the numerous donors; out of the sheer selfless act of donating their sperm or egg affected a childless couple some hope of having a family of their own?
Everyone who wishes to have a child of their own but cannot may wish to pursue this avenue, but because the law wishes to make the accountable not accountable and vice versa at times, where is the acceptable middle ground?
The problem is with what marriage means to people these days. Lets not make children an excuse or a reason for our own failures.
Marriage in any sense is a commitment for life just like a child. Why do we persist these days to make it a convience when we find it convinient? and a legal "get out clause" when things get a little rough?
Bring up a child when your ready to bring up a child and not because its a fashionable statement.
Note: By no means do I suggest that this is biased to a gender partner preference. Grow up and remember what it was like to be a child first before you realise how much love you can give them.
A spokesman for Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said: "The law says that men donating sperm through licensed fertility clinics are not the legal father of any child born through that donation.
....yet the consequence of a civil marriage breaking down is that the male donor has to pay for the children. Am I missing something here? Isn't that the best excuse ever to get divorced and still have your kids looked after ? By someone who legally isn't entitled to anything other than the payment of the child. How emotionally barren is that ?
My reaction is purely emotional and devoid of the legal authority that exists. Sometimes I wonder where the respect for basic human rights have gone? If the father is emotionally detached from his paternal instincts to donate a "child", why should he be penalised for a marriage breakdown not of his own making ?
Or maybe the very idea of donorship is wrong if this is what the law of the land demands in such a case. Would the consequences be the same for an adopted child? Who would be responsible for the child's well being financially if a same sex partnership fail? or indeed a hetrosexual partnership?
The mechanism for sperm donor's should promote an emotional detachment from a very natural process of giving life for the donor and in this respect the detachment should also apply financially and morally.
My question then is, what has this case done to the numerous donors; out of the sheer selfless act of donating their sperm or egg affected a childless couple some hope of having a family of their own?
Everyone who wishes to have a child of their own but cannot may wish to pursue this avenue, but because the law wishes to make the accountable not accountable and vice versa at times, where is the acceptable middle ground?
The problem is with what marriage means to people these days. Lets not make children an excuse or a reason for our own failures.
Marriage in any sense is a commitment for life just like a child. Why do we persist these days to make it a convience when we find it convinient? and a legal "get out clause" when things get a little rough?
Bring up a child when your ready to bring up a child and not because its a fashionable statement.
Note: By no means do I suggest that this is biased to a gender partner preference. Grow up and remember what it was like to be a child first before you realise how much love you can give them.
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