Sunday, August 19, 2012

And this guy sits on the House Science Committee.

Today Congressman Todd Akin from Missouri, also the Republican nominee for the US Senate seat currently held by Sen. Claire McCaskill, said that women have a biological mechanism that makes it very difficult for them to get pregnant in the case of "legitimate rape" (whatever that is).  Specifically, he said "If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."  Yes, he said that, and there's video.  Regardless of your politics or your views on abortion, isn't it incredibly embarrassing that a member of the House Science Committee would say something so staggeringly ignorant?   

Update:  Once again, The Onion gets it right.

6 comments:

DanM said...

Embarrassing is the wrong word. Try a different one.

Anonymous said...

The idea of a "secretion" to prevent unwanted pregnancy has been around for a while: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/20/rep-todd-akin-is-wrong-about-rape-and-pregnancy-but-hes-not-alone/

While we're on the topic of bizarre science, may I suggest that Todd Akin is, in fact, a living reptilian fossil?

Atf said...

It is very sad that he is in science committee, I didn't know that...

Well, the term "legitimate rape" is sounds more like a joke. So I would consider that the starting hypothesis is imaginary, and therefore he is telling fairy tails more than report on reality.
I am just wondering what sort of drug leads somebody to such statements on public...(believe drug? or maybe real drug?)

DanM said...

I think "dumb as dog shit" pretty much explains it all without the need to postulate the use of narcotics. Thank you to The Onion. Occam's razor works.

MB's Blog said...

Hi sir , am reading your blog since long and currently I have a basic question on electronics. I have a thought expt . I have a 2V battery and I have a micro ohm resistance . I connect and measure the current across it. According to ohms law , I will be in mega A but is this feasible even for a microsecond ?

Douglas Natelson said...

MB's blog: not in any real circuit, because the internal resistance of the battery will be much larger than micro-ohms. If you are imagining a truly "ideal" voltage source (maintains its voltage regardless of load across it; has zero internal resistance), then yes, you would get mega-amp currents, but that's not realistic for the situation you describe.