Carl Sagan (1980). COSMOS.

Carl Sagan (1934-1996) was Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies, physicist and world-famous author. His best-known book, COSMOS about the universe we live in also was the 20th century's best-selling science book in the English language. COSMOS summarized the whole history and the future perspectives of mankind. James Prescott is the only living scientist whose work is presented in the final Thirteenth Chapter: "Who Speaks for Earth?" (pp. 316-345).

Sagan: "The neuropsychologist James W. Prescott has performed a startling cross-cultural statistical analysis of 400 preindustrial societies and found that lavish physical affection on infants tend to be disinclined to violence - Infants hunger for physical affection; adolescents are strongly driven to sexual activity. The percent likelihood of a society becoming physically violent if physically affectionate toward its infants and tolerant of premarital sexual behavior is 2 percent .., If Prescott is right, in an age of nuclear weapons and effective contraceptives, child abuse and severe sexual repression are crimes against humanity." (pp. 330-332)

Note: Subsequent to original publication of this material in The Futurist in April 1975, cultural anthropologists informed Prescott of errors in some of the original codings in the reference work on which the comparison was based. When these errors were corrected, no exceptions remained. The Pleasure/Violence Reciprocity Theory, applied to the cultures listed in that reference work, has a predictive validity of 100%. For details see the note to Table 3 here:
http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html#TABLE_3

During an interview with Ann Druyan by Arnell Dowret on Equal Time for Freethought, WBAI-FM, NYC, May 15, 2005, Ann Druyan answered a question about James W. Prescott's work, which was mentioned in Carl Sagan's Cosmos:
http://www.violence.de/etff/etff_druyan.html

View Excerpt From Carl Sagan's "Cosmos"

James Lovelock (2006). The Revenge of GAIA. Earth's Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity. Basic Books. Persus Book Group. New York.

"We have driven the Earth to a crisis state from which it may never, on a human time scale, return to the lush and comfortable world we love and in which we grew up. (p.xiii).

Judith Hooper & Dick Teresi. (1986). The 3-Pound Universe. The Brain. Macmillan. New York.

The Secrets of the Cerebellum. A story of how the cerebellum was proposed as a control and regulating system for peaceful and violent behaviors, which are formed in the mother-infant relationship. Findings of brain pathology in violent monkeys deprived of maternal bonding by Dr. Heath confirmed the theory of Dr. Prescott, which lead to his dismissal from the NICHD. (pp.173-180).

Lloyd deMause (1982). Foundations of Psychohistory, Creative Roots, Inc. New York.

An extraordinary review of the psychohistorical roots of human pathology from the perspective of psychoanalytic thinking. The Child is, indeed, the father of man, the mother of culture and the future of humanity. This writer, however, disagrees with his sweeping statement that "all contemporary hunter-gatherers, is in the infanticidal mode, p.273). Click HERE for additional commentary.

James DeMeo (1998). SAHARASIA. The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence in The Deserts of the Old World. Oregon Biophysical Research Lab, Greensprings, Oregon.

An extraordinary review of the historical evidence that supports the author's thesis that desertification: "climate change eventually spread to create the vast Sahara Desert and the interrelated deserts of the Middle East and Central Asia: Saharasia" as the principal cause of patriarchal, authoritarian and violent, warlike societies. The desertification thesis does not explain the violence against children, women and men that is prevalent among the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans, who live in lush jungles; or the peaceful behaviors of the Eskimos who live in icy, cold climates. How geography translates into brain mechanisms is not explained. The psychobiology of somatosensory affectional deprivation advanced by this writer is a more universal explanation of peaceful and violent cultures. Changing deserts to jungles will not eliminate violence and authoritarian domination by the male (patriarchy).

John Bowlby (1969/1973/1981). Attachment and Loss. Vol 1, Attachment. Basic Books. New York

The cover photograph of this book reveals what attachment is all about. The systematic quantitative statistical studies of baby-carrying cultures conducted by this writer revealed that the peaceful or violent nature in 80% of the 49 cultures studied could be accurately predicted from the single measure of baby-carrying throughout the first year of life. These findings affirm the wisdom of John Bowlby -- the father of attachment parenting.

"Intimate attachments to other human beings are the hub around which a person's life revolves, not only when the is an infant or a toddler or a schoolchild but throughout his adolescence and his years of maturity as well, and on into old age. From these intimate attachments a person draws his strength and enjoyment of life and, through what he contributes, he gives strength and enjoyment to others These are matters about which current science and traditional wisdom are at one." (Bowlby, 1981. Attachment and Loss. Vol III: Loss, sadness and depression, p. 442)

David G. Gil (1979). Child Abuse and Violence. AMS Press. New York

This edited volume is a standard reference by leading authorities on child abuse and violence that should not be permitted "to go out of print". Published by the American Orthopsychiatric Association. Included in this volume is a 72 page essay by this writer, titled: "Deprivation of Physical Affection as a Primary Process in the Development of Physical Violence: A Comparative and Cross-Cultural Perspective" that contains unique statistical analysis of the 50 states, which links infant mortality (a measure of neglect, and indifference--psychosocial deprivation) to future adult homicides of the state. Infant Mortality rates are unrelated to suicide rates.

R.E. Helfer and C.H. Kempe (1974). The Battered Child. 2nd Ed. University of Chicago Press. First Edition ,1968.

The first interdisciplinary description of child physical abuse.

Deborah Blum (2002). Love at Goon Park. Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection. Perseus Publishing. Cambridge, MA.

The remarkable observation about this important scientific story of an extraordinary man -- Harry Harlow -- Is what was not said. Although, Blum reviewed the Mason-Berkson moving mother surrogate study she failed to recognize that it was the most important study in the history of infrahuman primate studies on mother-infant separation. Inexplicably she failed to cite the Time-Life documentary film "Rock a Bye Baby" (1970) that reviewed these studies, the damage inflicted upon the cerebellum and other brain structures that were supported by the NICHD. A letter of protest and request for corrective actions was sent to Discovery Magazine, which went unacknowledged and is attached HERE .

Wade Rowland (2003). Galileo's Mistake. A New Look at the Epic Confrontation between Galileo and the Church. Arcade Publishing. New York.

A story of the subjugation of science to theology. The Church has taken some 400 years to acknowledge its theological error and that science triumphs over theological faith. A greater theological error has been visited upon the world by the proclamation of Pius IX in 1869 that human personhood begins at conception (immediate hominization) that replaced the doctrine of delayed hominization that was taught for centuries by the Church. What new information did Pius IX have in 1869 that was not available to prior Pontiffs, which supported his declaration of immediate hominization? The doctrine of delayed hominization led St Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas to affirm "Abortion, if early, is not homicide". Simply stated: "An acorn is not an oak tree". Additional commentary HERE

Joseph Chilton Pearce. (1992). Evolution's End." Changing the Potential of Our Intelligence. HarperSanFrancisco New York.

This book dedicated to David Bohm, charts how modern homo sapiens has "thwarted evolution's plan and locked ourselves into the lowest level of the brain-mind structure - -a level that has led us into a cultural state bordering on futility and despair. Human beings are now in grave biological jeopardy due to five common practices that have given rise to rampant violence, child suicide, and deteriorating family and social structures", namely Hospital Childbirth, Daycare, Television, Premature Attempts at Formal Education and Synthetic Growth Hormones. As of this writing (2007), the escalating world conflicts of religious/civil violence propel humanity to self-destruction.

Alice Miller (1980/2002). For Your Own Good. Farrar * Straus * Giroux (2002). New York.

The pioneering and groundbreaking study that exposed the roots of violence in the "poisonous pedagogy" of child-rearing practices. Life long experiences that shape culture and society and which drives the psychopathology of violence are illuminated. Additional commentary HERE .

Stanley Milgram (1974). Obedience to Authority. Harper & Row Publishers. New York.

"The dilemma posed by the conflict between conscience and authority inheres in the very nature of society and would be with us even if Nazi Germany had never existed. To deal with the problem only as if it were a matter of history is to give it an illusory distance. " (p.179). Additional commentary HERE

Peter Cook (1996). Early Child Care: Infants & Nations At Risk: New Weekly Books. Melbourne

"The fact remains that for children under three years of age non-familial child care involves a massive-experiment in raising infants and young children in day care centres in the absence of any adults who are related or have a continuing commitment to them. This occurs in the years when infants are learning more rapidly than in any other period of their lives, and important foundation of emotional life are being laid" p. 18. "On the basis of this developmental and social ecology of daycare in America, I conclude that we have a nation at risk" (Belsky, 1992. p. 90. Italics inserted). p. 19.

"Bowlby described how it was found that if a child between the ages of about twelve months and three years is removed from his mother-figure to whom his is attached and placed with strangers in a strange place, "his initial response...is one of protest and of urgent effort to recover his lost mother."...Sooner or later, however despair sets in. The longing for mother does not diminish, but the hope of its being realised fades. Ultimately the restless noisy demands cease: he becomes apathetic and withdrawn, as despair broken only perhaps by an intermittent and monotonous wail. He is in a state of unutterable misery." (Bowlby 1981, p. 9)...This longing for the mother "is often suffused with intense, generalised hostility" (Ibid p. 13). (Attachment and Loss. Vol 3. Loss, Sadness and Depression--Cook, 1996. p. 36).

(Modern psychiatry has failed to recognize this history and that the epidemics of depression, rage, suicide and homicide in our children and youth have yet to be connected to these early child separations and failed attachments with mother--jwp).

Jean Liedloff (1975). The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost. Addison-Wesley. New York

A story of living for two and a half years in a Brazilian jungle with the Yequana matrilocal culture. Liedloff describes the benefits of continuous baby-carrying: :"They were the happiest people I had seen anywhere, but I hardly noticed it then"; "I failed to notice that much of the unreal quality of its people was accounted for by an absence of unhappiness"; and the lack of aggression and violence: "In the years I spent with them, I never saw a child argue with another, much less fight"; Although I have seen many a party at which every Yequana, man, woman, and child , was drunk, I have never seen even the beginnings of an altercation". This study was published in the same year that "Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" was published that predicted peaceful and violent behaviors in 49 cultures from a single measure of baby-carrying during the first year of life.

Emmy E. Werner, Jessie M. Bierman, and Fern E. French (1971). The Children of Kauai. University of Hawaii Press. Honolulu.

"A perspective on the magnitude of fetal and perinatal casualties in this community and documented the cumulative effects of perinatal stress, poverty, and disordered caretaking environment on the development of children from birth to age 10." This study has made it abundantly clear that the "environmental casualties" among our children need our help as urgently and as early as the "reproductive casualties." (p.141).

Emmy E. Werner and Ruth s. Smith (1977). Kauai's Children Come of Age. The University Press of Hawaii. Honolulu

A unique multidisciplinary longitudinal study that has lasted from the prenatal period to age 18. "The unique aspect of this study was the opportunity to follow all pregnancies and births in an entire island community in Hawaii for nearly two decades: On the one hand, there is greater awareness of the increasing risks of biological and psychosocial stress among the children of the poor. On the other hand, there is the persistent inability of public agencies to reach those among the poor who are the most at risk." "The most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child's spirit"--Erik Erikson. (p. 227)

Emmy E. Werner and Ruth S. Smith (1982). Vulnerable But Invincible.: A Longitudinal study of Resilient Children and Youth. Adams*Bannister*Cox. New York.

"Dr. Werner and Ms. Smith have permitted us to see the two sides of a coin, one marked "resilience" and the other "maladaptation. "Their work serves the cause of scientific investigation and its potential application to society's betterment"--Norman Garmezy. Minneapolis, MN. "In many situations, it may make better sense to strengthen available in formal ties to kin and community than to introduce additional layers of bureaucracy into the delivery of social services, and it might be less costly as well." (p.162).

Emmy E. Werner and Ruth S. Smith (1992). Overcoming the Odds: High Risk Children from Birth to Adulthood Cornell University Press. Ithaca and London.

"We need to keep in mind that our research on individual resilience and protective factors has focused on children and youths who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, with informal support from kith and kin, not children who were recipients of intervention services" (p207)

Derek Freeman 1983).Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. Harvard University Press. Cambridge. MA.

The definitive work on the Samoan culture which refuted the claim of Margaret Mead that Samoa, "was easy and casual, and adolescence was the easiest and most pleasant time of life." .Professor Derek dispels the myth of the nature-nurture controversy that pits biology against culture when, in fact, biology and culture are always interactive where biology influences culture and culture influences biology. Additional commentary HERE

Edward Gibbon.(1737-1794;1995). The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire Vol 1,11, 111) Modern Library Edition. Random House. New York.

Edward Gibbon, in The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, has always been my Cynosure...Gibbon's mind was surely the most powerful and most lucid one that has appeared so far in the whole distinguished company of Western Historians - Gibbon [produced] a masterpiece of historical research, construction and writing which had no superior in its own Genre in any literature. - Arnold Toynbee

Gibbon (1737-1794) in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire noted that religious warfare was unknown among the polytheistic cultures of antiquity but appeared with the rise of the monotheistic religions.

It is the belief of this writer that Embodied Human Love that has been sacrificed to Divine Disembodied Love (Spirit) for Eternal Salvation by the monotheistic religions is the principal cause of violence against the human body with its many consequences that threatens the survival of Homo sapiens.

Christianity, the most violent of the monotheistic religions, captured this ethic in The Crucifixion, where an agonizing death on the cross was offered as the ultimate expression of Christian Love:

God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, that everyone who has faith in him may not die but have eternal life. It was not to judge the world that God sent his Son into the world, but that through him the world might be saved (JOHN 2:16-17)

God, the Father is wholly responsible for the agonizing death of His Son on the Cross: "So the Word became flesh; he came to dwell among us, and we saw his glory, such glory as befits the Father�s only Son, full of grace and truth": for one purpose - The Crucifixion (John 1: 1-14).

Christian Love represented in The Crucifixion equates Pain, Suffering and Death with Love, as the gateway to Eternal Salvation and has condemned Humanity to the loss of EMBODIED HUMAN LOVE, the gateway to PEACE ON EARTH.

GOD, THE FATHER ATTEMPTED TO CORRECT HIS BOTCHED CREATION BY COMMITTING THE ULTIMATE CRIME OF DIVINE FILICIDE.

Recent advances in developmental neuropsychology have confirmed that somatosensory affectional deprivation during the formative periods of brain-behavioral development induces brain-behavioral abnormalities that mediate the depression, homicidal and suicidal behaviors commonly observed in the failure of maternal-infant/child affectional bonding and that of youth sexual affectional bonding�the neurodissociative brain vs the neurointegrative brain. See Tbl 1 in PDF.

http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html http://ttfuture.org/violence http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/barack.html

Additional commentary HERE.

John Nance (1975). The Gentile Tasaday. A Stone Age People In the Philippine Rain Forest. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. New York. NONPARELL BOOKS. David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. Horticultural Hall Boston, MA. 1988. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasaday

"The question about the Tasaday has become whether they are the "persistent hoax" some claim or what this book says they were when first encountered by modern men in 1971--a gentle people, a small group of cave dwellers in a remote Mindanao rain forest, stone tool makers and food gatherers, in fact, with no weapons and no words for enemy or war. John Nance's afterword, "After Eden," based on renewed investigation in the Philippines in 1986 and 1987, makes plain the current status and problematic future of the Tasaday" From: Back Cover. . Additional commentary HERE

Marshall H. Klaus and John H. Kennell. (1976/1982). Parent-Infant Bonding. Second Edition. The C.V. Mosby Company. St. Louis * Toronto * London

The biomedical perspectives on bonding. "It might be argued that the length of breastfeeding is not a valid assessment of the strength of bond between mother and infant, since it is culture bound"; and "Too many variables influence a woman's desire to continue breastfeeding to make it a valid assessment of bonding. A woman who discontinues breastfeeding to return to work for weeks after delivery to support her family can be just as bonded as a breastfeeding Swedish mother who has a nine-month, government-paid maternity leave" (p.49)."Could 5 minutes be long enough to affect the mother's later behavior with her infant? (p. 51). Additional commentary HERE

Benjamin Spock, M.D. and Michael B. Rothenberg, M.D. (1946/1992). Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care, 6th Edition. Fully Revised and Updated For The 1990s. Dutton Publishers. New York.

The bible for child rearing first published in 1946. Translated into thirty-nine languages and has sold forty million copies worldwide since its first publication. Additional commentary HERE

William H. Crocker (1990). The Canela (Eastern Timbira), I. An Ethnographic Introduction. Smithsonian Contributions To Anthropology. Number 33. Smithsonian Institutional Press, Washington, D.C. http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/canela/

"With the publication of this monograph, the Canela become one of the best known aboriginal societies of lowland South America. If Crocker does provide us with the additional monographs in his planned series, the Canela will become one of the best known cultures of the so-called primitive world. " (p xiv, Charles Wagley). The additional commentary focuses on infant-child care, sexual customs and the peaceful, nonviolent character of the matrilocal Canela culture Click HERE

Ashley Montagu (1952). The Natural Superiority of Women. Macmillian New York

"Dr. Montagu's The Natural Superiority of Women was a pioneer statement on sexism, first published some years before the emergence of the Women's Liberation movement. Even with the rise in Women's Consciousness today, the book remains a revolutionary volume, since it show the that superiority of women is a biological fact." From Back Cover. Additional commentary HERE

NICHD/NIH/DHEW (1968). Perspectives on Human Deprivation: Biological, Psychological, and Sociological. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Superintendent of Documents, Washington, DC

The 1968 Conference of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) on Perspectives On Human Deprivation: Biological, Psychological, and Sociological that established the mission of the NICHD on the effects of maternal-social deprivation (mother-infant separation) upon infants, children and society. Click HERE for additional commentary.

Theresa L. Crenshaw. M.D. (1996). The Alchemy of Love and Lust. How Our Sex Hormones Influence Our Relationships. Pocket Books. Simon & Schuster Inc. New York. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York

An excellent review of how our emotional-social-sexual relationships are influenced by our hormones and brain neurotransmitters. The missing link in this important work is how our early life experiences shape our hormonal and brain neurotransmitter systems and behavior, particularly how the essential amino acids present in human breast milk (and deficient in infant commercialformula) are critical precursors for the formation of normal brain neurotransmitter development and function. A revised edition is urgently needed.

Candace B. Pert, Ph.D (1997). Molecules of Emotion. Why You Feel the Way You Feel. Scribner. New York.

"The first component of the molecules of emotion is a molecule found on the surface of cells in body and brain called the opiate receptor. It was my discovery of the opiate receptor that launched my career as a bench scientist in the early 1970s, when I found a way to measure it and thereby prove its existence." (p.21). "Darwin speculated that the emotions must be key to the survival of the fittest" (p.131). "Neuropetides and their receptors thus join the brain, glands, and immune system in a network of communication between brain and body, probably representing the biochemical substrate of emotion" (p.179).

"For me, science has been a quest to understand nature--both human and Mother. As I have known it in it purest, most exalted form, science is the search for truth. It was this belief that drew me to science, and thorough my naivete and despite all my many false turns, it's what has kept me on the journey.

The heart of science is feminine. In its essence, science has very little to do with competition, control, separation--all qualities that have come to be associated with science in the male-dominated, twentieth-century form. The science I have come to know and love is unifying, spontaneous, intuitive, caring--a process more akin to surrender than to domination".

The rational, masculine, materialistic world we live in places too much value on competition and aggression. Science at its most exalted is a truth-seeking endeavor, which encompasses the values of cooperation and communication, based on trust--trust in ourselves and in one another". (p315).

Frans De Waal: Primates and Philosophers; How Morality Evolved. Princeton University Press. Princeton. New Jersey (2006).

"Seeking the origin of human morality not in evolution but in human culture, science insists that we are moral by choice, not by nature." (Inside cover). Morality has been caught in the old Nature v Nurture battles that have been discredited a long time ago. Evolution and human culture cannot be disentangled from one another. Biology shapes culture and culture shape biology. It is always and everywhere an interactive process. A necessary read. For additional commentary click HERE.

Suzanne Arms (1975). Immaculate Deception. A New Look at Women and Childbirth in America. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston.

The pioneering childbirth book of the century that drew attention to all that was wrong in the world of gynecological medicine and helped create the revolution of childbirth reforms in America. For additional commentary click HERE.

Iris Chang (1997). The Rape of Nanking. The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. Penguin Books. New York

In December 1937, the Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking. Within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were systematically, raped, tortured and murdered - a death toll exceeding that of the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Using extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents, Iris Chang has written the definitive history of this horrifying episode. For additional commentary click HERE.

Richard M Nixon
President
The White House


Dear Mr. President,

On December 5, 1969, when you appointed me as National Chairman of the White House Conference on Children and Youth, you stated:

Never has this White House Conference come at a time of greater national questioning. Long held attitudes on such subjects as family planning, pornography, health services, school curricula, sex education, family structure, drug abuse, moral standards, governance of higher education, responsiveness of government - all are now openly challenged and debated.

The White House Conference can and will define problems, seek new knowledge, evaluate past success and failures, and outline alternative courses of action.

Stephen Hess
National Chairman
December 5,1969

Masaru Ibuka (1977). Kindergarten Is Too Late! . Simon and Schuster, NY.

A prescient book written by the co-founder of SONY is a Book of Our Times and is relevant today as it was in 1977. In his Introduction, Masaru Ibuka states: "In contrast, a newborn baby brought up in an environment essentially hostile to his or her needs has no chance later in life of developing fully"; and "It Is Environment That Counts, Not Genes" (p.47); and "Holding the Baby Should Be Encouraged" (p.68) For additional commentary click HERE.

Stan Gooch (1980). The Double Helix of The Mind: the secrets of mental evolution and advance. Wildwood House, Ltd. London.

This book published in 1980 provides a different perspective on Mind and Consciousness and notes "the bilateral structure of organisms (both of plants and animals)"-"Our two main brains, the cerebellum and the cerebrum, are also each divided into two symmetrical hemispheres." as the foundational structure of mental evolution. (p.19), Stan Gooch has dedicated this book to James W. Prescott, a "fellow explorer of the cerebellum".

"My own deep convictions is that an acceptance of the universal position which my book describes-or -rather, which the events of the universe describe-offers an end once and for all to the tragic differences and struggles of our past. All of these seem to have been fatal attempts to explain the whole in terms of the parts, instead of the parts in terms of the whole. This second perspective is what this book hopes to show you." (Introduction).
For additional commentary click HERE.

"Vietnam Veterans Against the War (1972). The Winter Soldier Investigation: An Inquiry into American War Crimes. Beacon Press. Unitarian Universalist Association. Boston

"Most "war crimes" are committed by people who feel they have some kind of permission for what they do-even to the point of feeling righteous-and who commonly regard their victims as less than human. Dehumanization provides the means of tolerating mass destruction or genocide. The psychic restrictions against the taking of human life that become a part of civilized man, cannot be called into play when those who are to be destroyed have been divested of their humanness." Crimes are committed by people. "Reflect, see what WE'VE become, Amerika" From Preface. Al Hubbard, Executive Secretary, VVAW'

For additional commentary click HERE.

"Panel Meetings in June and September 1993. National Institutes of Heath. Bethesda, MD
(Participant Dr J. W. Prescott, BioBehavioral Systems, San Diego, CA. He presented this testimony.)"

For additional commentary click HERE.

The published proceedings of a conference jointly sponsored by the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development, NiH and the U.S, - Japan Cooperative Medical Science Program. Leading authorities in nutrition, brain development and quantitative electrophysiology describe improved methods for assessing neurological development by noninvasive electrophysiological techniques including EEG and cortical evoked potentials. The mathematics of signal processing technologies developed in the physical sciences intelligence community were demonstrated utilizing the brain as a signal generator to generate useful diagnostic quantitative criteria of brain impairment and quantitative measurements of normal brain development.

Additional commentary HERE.

The proceedings of this Conference reviewed the biological, neurobiological, cultural anthropological, sociological, legal and religious-biblical evidence on the question of "Personhood" of the fetus. Principal findings include:

1) The Bible is silent on the issue of the morality of elective abortion. God the Father, Son, Holy Ghost and St. Paul all were silent on this question. No punishments were specified for the act of elective abortion.

2) Roman, British and American Constitutional Law has never recognized the fetus as a Person". The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution explicitly defines "All persons born"-- not the unborn-- as "citizens of the United States."

3) Neuromaturation of fetal brain: No neocortical synapses are seen earlier than 19 weeks of gestation. Beginning at perhaps 21 to 23 weeks of gestation there is a transition to a neocortex potentially in receipt of sensory input. The maturity of this interconnection is not realized until about 34-36 weeks of gestation, at which time the emergence of "Personhood" can be expected. See Figure 1 and http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/MJFlower.pdf
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2811%2900885-2

4) Cross-cultural and psychometric studies: "In summary, "anti-choice" persons and cultures are characterized by: (a) an intolerance for the dignity, integrity, and life of the human body; (b) a high tolerance for and/or indifference toward human pain and suffering; (c) a lower value on nurturance of children and families; and (d) an anti-sexual pleasure ethic."
http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/JWP-1989a.pdf

An extended summary of this book can be found at: Fetal Personhood: Is An Acorn An Oak Tree? http://www.violence.de/prescott/truthseeker/acorn.html

The law does not provide that the act (abortion) pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation when it is not formed in flesh and is not endowed with sense - St Augustine. (In. Jane Hurst (1983).The History of Abortion In the Catholic Church" The Untold Story. Catholics For a Free Choice. Washington, DC.

Additional commentary HERE.

Sexual mutilation is a global problem that affects 15.3 million children and young adults annually. In terms of gender, 13.3 million boys and 2 million boys and 2 million girls are involuntarily subjected to sexual mutilation every year. While it is tempting to quantify and compare the amount of tissue removed from either gender, no ethical justification can be made for removing any amount of flesh from the body of another person. The violation of human rights, implicit in sexual mutilation is identical for any gender. The violation occurs with the first cut into another person�s body.

Additional commentary HERE.

An extraordinary detective story of the discovery of Lucretius (c. 50 BCE) The Nature of Things by Poggio Bracciolini, Papal Secretary and the greatest book hunter of the Renaissance. Professor Greenblatt has written the Book of the Century and has restored Epicurean and Lucretius moral philosophy to the contemporary world.

A necessary history of the misinterpretation of Epicurean philosophy by his earlier followers and restoration of the philosophers claim that "life�s ultimate goal is pleasure." Pleasures of the Mind and Pleasures of the Body are the ruling principles of this moral philosophy where the latter, unfortunately, was permitted to dominate the principle of Pleasure and discredit Epicurean philosophy. --jwp

Thomas Jefferson wrote to a correspondent concerning his philosophy of life, "I am an Epicurean."

Additional commentary HERE.

The law does not provide that the act (abortion) pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in s body that lacks sensation when it is not formed in flesh and so is not endowed with sense.St. Augustine, On Exodus, 21, 80. (p. i)

HYLOMORHISM

AT LEAST one modern theologian Joseph Donceel, S.j. writes that delayed hominization is �the most widely accepted theory of human nature among Catholic philosophers and theologians, the one also which the magisterium (teaching office) clearly preferred and continues to prefer�27 (p.13).

Doncell, then, holds that delayed hominization is implicit in the church�s current hylomorphic conception of human nature. Later theories of immediate hominization, he says, contradict this nondualistic concept and advance an unacceptable dualistic view of human beings (p. 13).

The concept of protecting the embryo, from the moment of conception, is new. (p.21).