[general_re]

....he pretended eggs and embryos were the same thing.

:^)

Consensuses are nice collections of various scientists' ideas. The "true" or "factual" or "real" answer may be located somewhere in a consensus. But a consensus is not the "true" answer.

Well, to be fair, the consensus view may actually be the true answer. Unfortunately, we aren't privy to Truth-with-a-capital-T in this life, so all we can do is use what limited tools we have in order to try and approximate the truth - reasoned discourse and consensus being two of those tools.

The opposite seems true among pro-choice scientists, who keep snuffling around for excuses to kill embryos or fetuses.

All I can say is to reiterate that, while people may do things that are objectively evil, nobody has ever set out to do evil for its own sake - everyone believes that they are serving some good in what they do. If you have had a chance to follow the discussion that MHG and I have been having, I hope that it is at least clear that the notion that parthenogenetic organisms, for example, are in fact embryos in the truest sense is at least open for discussion among reasonable people - along with thinking that they're doing good, everyone on any side of any issue tends to think that the truth of what they believe is very nearly self-evident. Would that it were so - there'd be no disagreement at all that way ;)

[MHGinTN]

Trefil had already decided that the functioning brain would be the threshold of personhood, of the 'beginning of ondividual life in humans. The very same science of Embryology that he speciously cited holds the conception of the individual to be the beginning of individual life, and they have devised ingenius tests on that embryonic individual to determine whether that individual is a Downs Syndrome being, etc.

[syriacus]

the consensus view may actually be the true answer

Yes.
Like I wrote, too... the consensus may contain the truth. But unless a consensus is completely unanimous it is usually has some (at least subtle) variations, not all of which are true.

All I can say is to reiterate that, while people may do things that are objectively evil, nobody has ever set out to do evil for its own sake - everyone believes that they are serving some good in what they do

In reality...

• Some people do things they know are wrong in order to help themselves get a promotion or an award or some other good.
• Some people have an ability to delude themselves into thinking that the wrong they are doing is not wrong.

Just think of the corrupt business big shots who have been in the news the last few years...the politicians on the take...the people who have murdered their spouses, children or lovers... the athletes who deliberately hurt opponents...the hospital nurses who serially kill patients, etc, etc, etc.