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The danger of inbreeding comes from the fact that it increases the likelihood of the pairing of recessive genes for harmful traits. I'll give you an example. There are two types of Poly-cystic kidney disease. Both are eventually fatal. One, which is carried by a dominant gene doesn't manifest itself until well into adulthood. If you get the gene from either parent, you will get the disease. But since this doesn't occur until you have likely already had offspring, it doesn't get culled from the gene pool. The other type is carried by a recessive gene, and you need to get it from both parents. This version is fatal within a few months of birth. If it is only passed on by one parent, you are just a carrier and you aren't born with the disease. This genetic disorder, while it does prevent the person born with it from furthering the genetic line, remains in the gene pool because it is recessive and can be passed on from generation to generation with the disease itself ever manifesting. This is true of a good many genetic diseases, they hang around because they are recessive traits. Now let's say that thae chance of any given person in the general populace is a carrier of a particular one of these recessive diseases is 1/100,000. Then is is pretty slim odds that two mated people will both have it and low odds that any of their offspring will suffer from the disease. But what if you have a lot of inbreeding within a given family. If that recessive trait exists and is being passed on from generation to generation, the odds of these any two people in this family having the gene is higher than for the general populace and there are higher odds of offspring from a mating between family members of exhibiting the disease. It is not just the paring of identical chromosomes, its the increased likelihood of the pairing of the wrong identical chromosones.3 points
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This question is at the heart of my opener for this topic. No one should be required to comply with an NDA on a settlement related to a criminal act. Some will likely make a innocent until proven guilty argument, but I think there is a difference between publicly accusing person X of criminal behavior and stating a fact that Person X paid me $Y based on my accusation of criminal behavior. With regard to the victims of Harvey Weinstein who have accepted settlements for his criminal acts, I have several thoughts. First, at least they punished Harvey Weinstein in some way, and I'm sure they hopped that in so doing Harvey Weinstein would change his future behavior towards women. Since he did not, obviously the amounts involved were chump change to Harvey. Second, shame on them for keeping his behavior secret thereby allowing his behavior to continue. In my opinion they are culpable of the harassment and rape of other women. Third, I think all of them should now make there accusations public, and their settlement amounts public and then dare Harvey Weinstein and The Weinstein Company to sue them in public court to have the settlements returned. What jury would find in the favor of the Harvey or The Weinstein Company in this case? This in my opinion would in part redeem these women of their culpability in the crimes committed against other women following their own.1 point
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I’m not an expert in this space, but wonder if you would have better success searching for other terms. A few ideas: - Office politics / organizational politics - Tribalism (in corporations, at work, in influencing group decisions, etc.) - Groupthink You might also get some new insights and direction from articles like this: https://hbr.org/2017/04/the-4-types-of-organizational-politics Good luck!1 point
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I'm sorry if this confuses you further but... "the deeper in the gravity well you are, the slower YOUR clock is running" is incorrect. Your clock never runs slower ( or faster ). It is only in comparison to another clock ( or an observer ) at a different height in the potential well, that a difference is noted. The timing signal ( or frequency of light ) will decrease as it expends energy to climb to a higher position, or increase as it gains energy falling to a lower one. ( and I apologize if this is actually what you meant )1 point
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The word genus is a human invention. We use it to help us understand the relationships between species because we have a brain that insists on categorizing things. Once one species evolves into two species the two species will rarely interact or interbreed. This reduces their relevance to one another and so we call them separate "species" so we can understand the "relationship" between them. When species diverge in such a way that they look to be too different from each other (to our eyes) we might say they are members of different genera (plural of genus) but there is no such concrete thing in nature. Specifying a form of evolution (macroevolution) for such a "stage" is meaningless because a genus is not real. All it means as a word is that mere mortal humans see these two groups of organisms as very different indeed. What happens to one species or set of species does not necessarily affect the other. They no longer have a relationship in the real world. Each evolves in a micro way with respect to the other individuals with which they do have actual relationships - there own species mates and perhaps occasionally a closely related species. Microevolution is real. Macroevolution is all in our heads.1 point
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Well, it is true that there were no words in your post that cannotbe found in a dictionary, the combination of some of those words is unusual in physics. Consider, as an example, your phrase " convergent counter-spatial centripetal charge". If this were a common, or even occassional physics phrase, then we might expect to find some examples on Google Scholar. But there are none. What about dropping one word: "counter-spatial centripetal charge"? No luck. Finally, when we get down to "centripetal charge" Google scholar returns three hits. That's 3 hits. In contrast, if we choose a phrase like centripetal acceleration we get 18,500 hits. That's eighteen thousand five hundred. If physicists are not using such phrases and you are discussing physics, perhaps you should try a change of terminology. If you think it is sufficient to let other terms "speak for themselves" then you haven't been paying attention to the way science has been reported for the last century or two. I thought I might try and throw you a life-line, so I looked for your phrase on DuckDuckGo. Success! Four, that's 4, hits! The trouble is they were all made by you. You might want to take the advice of swansont, a practicing physicist - use the language of the science correctly.1 point
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Quite simply: why should we care what is or isn't a "value"? We have a perfectly serviceable definition of "real number", or "integer number", or "whole number", or "natural number". And all of them include 0, and the corresponding definitions have a clear reason why division by 0 doesn't work. The reason we can't divide by 0 is quite simple: multiplication by 0 isn't bijective. 0/0 doesn't make sense because 0 is the output of multiplication by 0 for multiple input values. 1/0 doesn't make sense because 1 is not the output of multiplication by 0 for any input value.1 point
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I think you have misunderstood what Halls of Ivy said. Putting words he did not say into the quote does not help either. He said that 0/0 is not a specific number. He did not say that either infinity or zero are not numbers or values. I will leave the issue of infinity aside since it is the more complicated of the two and off topic here. Zero on the other hand is most decidedly a perfectly respectable number. Failure to recognise this held back Mathematics for several thousand years. Let us examine the situation more closely. For most of its history mathematics was developed by practical persons needing figures to carry out their daily life. Also throughout history these processes were isolated from the praticality and formalised into the discipline we know call Mathematics. So we start where the ancients started. With arithmetic. They identified four processes as forming a vital basis for arithmetic, long before algebra was invented. These are addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and I am going to use the modern description for these. I will come back and finish this.1 point
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Are you implying all ideas are either 'truth' or 'lies', Swansont ? Most ideas or 'radical speech' consists of opinions. And, Ten oz, if part of an intelligent discussion at a Catholic University consists of the merits/detriments of Satanism, I, for one, don't see a problem with it. But again, that's my opinion. I'll give a typical example... Say I wanted to discuss, on this forum, the POSSIBILITY of the welfare state contribution to the 'absent father' problem with Black-Americans. How long do you think that discussion ( no matter how intelligently conducted ) would last before descending into accusations of 'racism' and 'political correctness' run amok. It seems like some topics CANNOT be discussed, either because we are too quick to take offense, or too insensitive to the plight of others. Is that the way it should be ?1 point
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Freedom of speech in the US means the government can't censor you. It does not obligate anyone to buy you the megaphone and soapbox.1 point
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Value of freedom of speech depends on point of view, however, I think its safe to assume that for vast majority such value rests in their own protection in sense that freedom of speech and expression was curbed by every totalitarian regime in lets say modern history. In other words, those (societies) valuing freedom of speech and expression highly by protecting it and practicing it, are less successible to falling of the democratic wagon. This is not ethical but pragmatic argument.1 point
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Don't be afraid. You seem to understand the meaninglessness of setting conception as an arbitrary point for the beginning of life. Why is it so hard to see why professional biologists might not find meaning in a similar distinction with regard to evolution? Where does the micro/macro distinction help if we're talking about the same process?1 point
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Look, just get over it, he was cleverer than you.1 point
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I, personally, am well aware that Psychic phenomena exists and that there are, in fact, real psychics out there. If you do not believe then there is no need to participate in this discussion as it would be an impasse. Here is my questionnaire to see if you're qualified to be a part of this conversation. Do you believe that the mind is physical? (Are you a materialist?) If so, do you believe that the mind works just as the brain appears? (Neural networks, connections, etc.) If so, do you believe that information is reducible to changes in our environment? If so, do you believe that these changes in our environment are what determines the structure of the brain (barring the genome)? If so, do you believe that our knowledge is a subcomponent of the structure of the brain? If so, do you believe that knowledge is small, maybe even particulate? If so, do you believe that knowledge can exist outside of your, and others, heads? If so, do you believe in quantum mechanics? I believe that this is a nice qualifying questionnaire for the discussion that may be to come...-1 points
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You could just say "No i can't answer this, i don't understand your terminology" and then ask for clarification of any terms. I'm happy to provide that and I can assure you there are all terms you can find in a physics dictionary and ones that aren't really speak for themselves and couldn't mean anything other than what they sound. Question 1 is a little complex and unorthodox, i get that, why don't you give it a skip and try questions 2 and 3. =)-1 points
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You mistake what I mean, I normally do not, means in most cases I won't. Your's my friend, is not that exception. But hey, no one knows.-1 points