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Showing content with the highest reputation on 02/17/21 in all areas

  1. ! Moderator Note We've been down this road before, and you have nothing new to show us, it seems, so you use these shitty, fallacious, bad-faith tactics to discredit your detractors, rather than analyzing the science they're bringing to the discussion to refute your racist agenda. Staff has decided we're going to treat this genetic superiority subject the same way we treat discussions about creationism. We just don't bother with such lunacy. If it looked like you had ANY interest in overcoming your current genetic ignorance, we'd be happy to discuss the topic with you. This type of post just shows us you've predetermined your stance, which makes you a preacher and a soapboxer, and discussion isn't the place for you. Thread closed, don't bring it up again.
    2 points
  2. I agree. It’s been amazing watching all those republicans who voted to impeach Trump get censured by their local state governments, and Trump attack McConnell saying it was critical to end his political career because he made a speech which failed to show sufficient submission and fealty, or who have abandoned Fox News for having the audacity to call the state of Arizona for Biden during the election, or fleeing Facebook for Parlor for having the audacity to fact check posts claiming to be news, or boycotting Nike for presenting an advertisement featuring Colin Kapernick, or any of the countless other times the right has pushed to cancel people for not agreeing with them 100%. It’s getting out of hand.
    2 points
  3. When Betelgeuse goes supernova, it will simply spew its enriched guts of elements into space. It will in all likelyhood leave a BH in its place, and in the course of time, gravity may condense the enriched guts from the original star, to ignite another generation star. This is nothing like the BB, which was the evolution of space and time. There was no matter at the BB. This is an important point. The only center one can logically speak of with regarding an expanding universe, is the center of one's observable universe as String Junky says, emanating out in all directions from a particular point. This follows from the fact that the BB occurred in all of spacetime, as all of spacetime was confined to within the size of an atomic nucleus. Best analogy is claiming any center on the surface of an inflating balloon...the 2 dimensional surface, representing 4 dimensional spacetime.
    1 point
  4. Yeah. Huh? What are you talking about? My point was a belief or faith is different than a theory that is supported by observation and experimentation.
    1 point
  5. The amount of polutant entering the first lake per second is constant. So the concentration of the pollutant gradually rises in the lake. So the amount of pollutant leaving the first lake lake gradually rises with time. So the amount of pollutant entering the second lake also rises with time. So the equations of concentration are not the same for both lakes.
    1 point
  6. I remember a documentary where the claim was injecting you with window cleaner cause the brain to die last, and it could be preserved in a vat.
    1 point
  7. The facts are that over smaller scales, the strong nuclear, weak nuclear, and gravity, overcome the expansion rate. Is the expansion uniform? Best observational evidence so far tells us yes, it is, and that the universe is isotropic and homogenous in all directions. However there maybe reason to believe this may not be the case..... https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/universe-s-expansion-may-not-be-the-same-in-all-directions.html extracts: "Based on our cluster observations we may have found differences in how fast the universe is expanding depending on which way we looked,” said co-author Gerrit Schellenberger of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “This would contradict one of the most basic underlying assumptions we use in cosmology today.” The authors of this new study came up with two possible explanations for their results that involve cosmology. One of these explanations is that large groups of galaxy clusters might be moving together, but not because of cosmic expansion. For example, it is possible some nearby clusters are being pulled in the same direction by the gravity of groups of other galaxy clusters. If the motion is rapid enough it could lead to errors in estimating the luminosities of the clusters. These sorts of correlated motions would give the appearance of different expansion rates in different directions. Astronomers have seen similar effects with relatively nearby galaxies, at distances typically less than 850 million light years, where mutual gravitational attraction is known to control the motion of objects. However, scientists expected the expansion of the universe to dominate the motion of clusters across larger distances, up to the 5 billion light years probed in this new study. A second possible explanation is that the universe is not actually the same in all directions. One intriguing reason could be that dark energy – the mysterious force that seems to be driving acceleration of the expansion of the universe – is itself not uniform. In other words, the X-rays may reveal that dark energy is stronger in some parts of the universe than others, causing different expansion rates. “This would be like if the yeast in the bread isn’t evenly mixed, causing it to expand faster in some places than in others,” said co-author Thomas Reiprich, also of the University of Bonn. "It would be remarkable if dark energy were found to have different strengths in different parts of the universe. However, much more evidence would be needed to rule out other explanations and make a convincing case." Either of these two cosmological explanations would have significant consequences. Many studies in cosmology, including X-ray studies of galaxy clusters, assume that the universe is isotropic and that correlated motions are negligible compared to the cosmic expansion at the distances probed here. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: At present I would say the principle of isotropy and homogeneity still appear to hold overall...but obviously the science of cosmology is an ever changing discipline, based on new and further observational and experimental data.
    1 point
  8. Good post, DrmDoc, and you take it back to the OP which/who has slipped away from the OP's initial presentation to one more based in sociology (as the more recent postings would suggest). Which, IMHO, is more pertinent the thread's title anyway. Because I've seen little but bias involved in any evidence correlating intelligence capacities with race. But the sociological evidence is overwhelming I would like to add that, with respect to brain size, the development of the number of neurons in the neocortex is far more important than brain size. If it wasn't for that, I would be pulling termites out of a hole with a stick with my Chimpanzee and Bonobo cousins.
    1 point
  9. If I understand correctly, you're presenting a position that correlates genetically based racial distinctions with variations in brain size that confer variations in intelligence. Let's start with the genetics, which does not confer intelligence unless their expression result in malformations that inhibit normal or average brain development or function. Homo sapiens, as a species, share a commonality of brain development, structure, and function that may only be altered invitro or after birth as a result of nutritional, environmental, or social influences and effects. What I'm stating here is that genetics do not influence our capacity to learn and innovate unless those genetics in someway effects brains developments that are inconsistent with average, atypical developments among the human species--which brings us to brain size. Indeed, genetics can affect brain size as evident by the brain cases of humans from extinct to modern emergences. However, brain size empirically does not confer "exceptional cognitive abilities". If brain size were an empirical measure of intelligence, we'd be a planet of Neanderthals whose brain size were larger than modern humans. Or, perhaps, we'd be ruled by species of whale or elephant whose brain volumes can measure as much as 9 kg and 7 kg respectively. Indeed, the idea that brain size confer intelligence is a ludicrous assertion. Lastly, race vs. ethnicity are not synonymous from how I understand and has used those terms. Race describes a purely physical distinction between humans primarily characterized by skin pigmentation, eye color, and hair texture. While ethnicity describes a social distinction rooted in tribalism and traditions relative to origins of religious and/or geographic significance. Race and ethnicity are not empirical scientific measures of intelligence because they do not constrict the basic cognitive capacity of humans. The basic cognitive capacity of humans may only be constricted by the prejudices we impose overtly and subvertly on our species--as suggested by the argument you have posed in this discussion.
    1 point
  10. There is a real sociological danger when one pursues equating race to some degree of perceived Human imperfection. Personally, I'll have no truck with such concepts. So....done here.
    1 point
  11. A fisherman needs to fish, in order, to eat and a corpation needs fisherman, in order to thrive. What we need to thrive is a radically new economy, that can meet both needs without impinging on either. We can't blame the fisherman for his lazy attitude and we can't blame the businessman for getting angry at the apparent laziness; what we can, must, do is design an apparatus where both are satisfied. The third mouse, becomes vitally important in our moral horizon.
    1 point
  12. Have you considered that cynicism about the way the 'free' market operates is sufficient a reason to not support a tax that will most likely deliver a healthy profit and not provide the desired environmental outcome? There's not really much point if the user pays the full cost and businesses exploit countries, who are not part of the 'system', and pocket the difference.
    1 point
  13. Most? Do you have data on that? Why would we not believe what neanderthals believed? We could try to understand what they did in the context of the world they lived in, but does that mean we should share their beliefs? I lot of the beliefs of a religion have a god as their core. If ancient people ate raw pigs and got sick, but they didn't know why, they may explain it as "God does not want us to eat raw pork!" Now we understand why you would get sick, and don't need the concept of a god to explain it. It's not like atheists say "I don't believe in god, so I won't believe there's anything wrong with eating raw pork!" Atheists and religious people and neanderthals share a lot of the same beliefs. However, if you believe in something, and can't separate the concept of god from it, but are an atheist, I think that means there's a contradiction in your beliefs. As it is, there is nothing in reality that is inconsistent with the belief that no supernatural god exists.
    1 point
  14. Programming books have sadly been vanishing over the past 10 years. My local bookstore used to have a "computer" section that took up an entire corner of the store. Now it's down to a few meagerly populated shelves. Everyone seems to recommend "The Pragmatic Programmer" and "Code Complete," but I actually haven't read either one of them, at least not yet. A 20th anniversary edition of "The Pragmatic Programmer" appeared late last year. The publication dates on these books keep pushing them to the bottom of my reading list. I've read numerous great programming books on C#, JavaScript, Angular, SQL Server, Java, etc., but they become obsolete so fast these days. Most of my new learning comes from sites like Pluralsite or Udemy now, though I enjoyed learning from books much more.
    1 point
  15. 1) Humans are not a race, the ideal classification is species 2)who appears to have not read anything is you, just one of the ones reviewed above, from the way you started, it seemed to be treating IQ as something arbitrary, which is clearly not the case.
    -1 points
  16. first that it is not "Spanish" but Portuguese, the "estudiot" here seems to be very wise. Second is that I didn’t write in Portuguese, my topic and my answers are in English, the quotes that are in Portuguese, but it’s not my fault that I have a fucking mechanism that always translates into Portuguese, but I solved that, I guarantee you won't bother you anymore. Er ......... don't you see any evidence? speaks seriously? I placed more than 30 sources following my argument.Lol 1166 / 5000 yes, your doctor is super sure to ask your ethnicity, such passages are standard. some races and / or ethnic groups are biologically predisposed (or genetically predisposed, the same thing) to inherit specific diseases or to be more susceptible to certain types of infectious diseases . This applies even to mental illness. These types of genetic predispositions are not unique to humanity and can be found in all living organisms; consider inherited diseases of certain dog breeds, for example. Not only in these cases, but also when it comes to organ transplant surgery, you cannot mix and match body parts of different races. If you put a white organ in a black body, it is almost certain to be rejected, and vice versa. In order to successfully transplant an organ to another person, the donor must be genetically compatible - that is, be of the same race or, ideally, ethnic group. As a result, mixed race people have an incredible difficulty finding suitable donors for transplantation. Don't just take my word for it, listen to medical professionals: about not knowing a biologist, I already know that, you did not present me with a scientific argument and you still made a mistake about Spanish / Portuguese, but let's analyze this question, did you know that, in order to look for variations, one searches within the species and not outside it? for if a species has a larger body than another, a larger brain may be needed to manage that body equally well. This is important because many of the animals with larger brains than humans, like certain types of whales, are also huge. Like whales, secondly: the brains of different species are organized differently than human brains. This difference in the organization is what makes them less intelligent. But for comfort, whales, dolphins and elephants are generally considered to be some of the most intelligent non-human animals. Lol about IQ, I already said above, I won't repeat what I said before just because an idiot didn't understand.
    -1 points
  17. 1)IQ makes perfect sense 2) race makes perfect biological sense 3) brain size is super relevant did not present any refutation to the topic in question, totally ignores the idea developed in the text and in the answers below, that is, nothing new under the horizon
    -1 points
  18. I don't think, racial inequalities are probably a permanent feature of society that we will have to learn to deal with and are not anyone's fault. If society can internalize this truth, we will have made real progress towards understanding ourselves as a species.
    -1 points
  19. In this Topic, I will argue that research on race, brain size and IQ constitutes a significant line of evidence that supports a genetic model of racial differences in IQ. But before we turn to that topic directly, we need to differentiate phrenology research from brain size research. Phrenology was largely concerned with predicting people's psychological traits using the bumps and curves of their skulls. Empirically, this has been shown to be invalid (1). In contrast, meta-analyzes consistently show that brain size is positively correlated with IQ. In addition, a 0.19 correlation between brain volume and fluid intelligence was found in a pre-recorded analysis of 13,608 Britons (7). The fact that this study was pre-registered implies that the publication bias cannot explain the finding. Other evidence: 1) Several studies have shown a genetic correlation between IQ and brain size (including what I will still cover in the second part of my text). This means that the same genes that explain the variation in IQ also explain the variation in brain size (7, 8 and 9) The simplest explanation for this finding is that some genes influence IQ by influencing brain size. 2) The size of people's brains changes throughout life. Studies looking at the same people over several years show that changes in brain size predict changes in IQ (10). In addition, brain size and IQ follow the same pattern of life expectancy (11), increasing until the age of 20 and decreasing markedly in old age (12). The simplest explanation for these findings is that changes in brain size over time cause changes in IQ over time. 3) Breeding experiments that create animal populations to be more intelligent also end up creating animals with larger brains. For example, one study created mice for 12 generations to be better at finding their way through mazes and said that mice ended up with brains 2.5 standard deviations greater than those of the first generation (13). and where does the breed come in ?: In 1994, the first study was carried out (14) comparing the brain size of different racial groups using MRI technology to measure the size of the brain. They confirmed previous findings: blacks have smaller brains than whites. the case of genes: The most plausible explanations for this situation are 1) Environmental pressures: people who lived in freezing climates had to have a greater coginitive demand to prepare for severe winters. Brains in a cold climate can lead to a substantial increase in the brain because, in such conditions, a larger brain would be better at maintaining a constant temperature in its core. I believe that cooked meat is also related to a certain degree, but that is a topic for another topic 2) Genetics: currently more than 500 specific alleles linked to intelligence have been discovered, the majority of which are related to the size of the brain, more specifically the CASC5 Gene was found in Asian peoples and the MCHP1 or "microcephaline" in Europeans. A detail is that sub-Saharan African peoples do not have these genes mentioned above, which corroborates the low black IQ. Recent advances in genetics are consistent with this point of view. For example (15) analyzed racial differences in 9 IQ-related gene variants and found that whites were more likely than blacks to have the high IQ-related variants of all 9 genes. East Asians were also more likely than whites to have the high IQ-related gene variant in most cases. In (16) provided more direct genetic evidence when analyzing data in 101 countries and found that the more genetically different two populations, the greater the IQ difference between them. Another variable that predicts regional cognitive ability is the average degree of mixing of White in a population or, in other words, the degree to which the average person is genetically European. (17) found that this is the case in data sets in American nations, states within Latin American nations, such as Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, and in states in the USA. Research has also repeatedly shown that mixed race individuals have IQ scores between their parents' average race scores (18) and (19) a study also found this to be true for mixed race blacks who mistakenly believed they were all black (20) obvious environmental causes. will be? at this point, surely you must be asking, and the environmental causes, such as socioeconomic status, education, racism? These questions will be answered here, first of all, I must point out that yes, some things like a poor diet in childhood, or growing up in a dirty environment can indeed influence your IQ making you not use all your genetic potential, but the disparity it's not that big, being -7 points, in the end it doesn't change much. That said, here are the answers to those questions. 1) poverty: Poverty correlates with IQ, but the control of socioeconomic status, whether measured by parental income, education, neighborhood, wealth or otherwise, does not close the IQ gap between blacks and whites. This has been demonstrated in more than 60 studies over the past 100 years (21) In fact, poor whites do better on standardized tests than rich blacks. 2)"What about single motherhood?" Even when just looking at people from two parents' homes, the Black-White IQ gap persists (22) (23) Furthermore, research has shown that the IQ gap between blacks and whites and between whites and East Asians still it exists even when looking only at people raised (through adoption) in white homes (24), that is, two birds in one stone. 3)"What about education?": Another possibility is that differences in access to education cause the IQ gap between blacks and whites. This is not possible because the IQ gap between blacks and whites exists at the age of 3, which is prior to the beginning of formal education (25) In addition, the IQ gap between black and white remains after controlling parental education ( 26) (27) In addition, blacks with graduate degrees score worse than whites without a four-year diploma in cognitive ability tests (28) So clearly education is not the cause of racial cognitive differences. "4) "What about racism?": Finally, let's look at racism. To affect intelligence, racism must affect blacks through some concrete mechanism. As we have seen, the racism that makes blacks poorer, less educated or more likely to live in homes with only one parent cannot explain the difference in IQ. Another possibility is that racism has led blacks to internalize negative stereotypes about their intellect, which in turn impacts their performance on the tests. This hypothesis is refuted by the fact that blacks have higher scores than whites on measures of general self-esteem and are more likely than whites to describe themselves as more intelligent than the average (29) Final considerations: Finally, we can point to the IQ B / W gap as being a genetic and / or partially genetic cause.
    -1 points
  20. in my view, sir "DrmDoc" you only read the announcement of the topic, and look at it still, as it seems like even that you have read, let's see the first pointless question. Lol, it is quite obvious that a gene that carries cogenite malformation of the cephalic mass, will come out with a defective brain, however, the genetic link that I claim to exist in the topic (which you have not read) are responsible for the exponential increase of the brain and are also linked to general intelligence. If you are still not satisfied, let's go to some more empirical evidence about genes and intelligence. There is evidence that also points to a genetic explanation. Consider that the fact scores on the IQ test questions vary in their heritability. Some cognitive skills are more hereditary than others and it turns out that the more hereditary a cognitive skill is, the greater the racial gap in that skill tends to be (1) (2) This discovery is easy to explain in the hereditary view, but very difficult to explain otherwise. Many alleles of specific genes have been associated with superior intelligence and, in all cases, these alleles occur more frequently in whites than in blacks. This research comes mainly from 4 articles that analyzed how 14 alleles (variants of the gene) that were previously associated with intelligence, or a proxy for intelligence, vary by race (3) (4) and (5) m a sample of 101,069, 10 of these 14 alleles were found to each predict a higher than average educational achievement (6) The predictive ability of each allele was then tested again on 12 samples, totaling 25,290 people. All 10 alleles were associated with intelligence in several samples, although the associations were not always statistically significant. It is important to note that the samples consisted only of white people, which means that no genes arbitrarily associated with race will be falsely considered to be associated with education just because race does. Here is a brief summary of these studies (because I am sure that no one here will make a point of reading, as only what suits your egalitarian ideology is appropriate, even so, for those who want to see the sources, they are in listed hyperlinks) The studies basically they say that four alleles come from more varied sources. The first is a version of the NPTN gene, which is involved in how the brain changes itself (neural growth and synaptic plasticity). A particular allele of this gene has previously been found to predict lower IQ scores and less cortical thickness. The second allele comes from the FNB1L gene and has been associated with high intelligence in several studies. The third allele is a version of the CHRM2 gene and has been linked to high intelligence in 4 separate studies. Finally, in a meta-analysis of 77 previous studies, it was found that a version of the APOE4 gene predicts better memory, speed of perception and overall cognitive functioning. Each of the studies involving these four genes used different sets of controls and statistical adjustments. nevertheless, you still make the unfortunate statement of: get here, i'll tell you a secret, did you know that big bodies need big brains to manage them? Another curiosity, did you know that you are not looking for variations outside the species but within it? And finally, one last curiosity, did you happen to know that brains of different species are organized differently? I found it curious to mention the Neanderthals, did you know that they were considered in the past as the most evolved and intelligent Hominide than other species of hominids that roamed the world? it is not for nothing that they are known as "the Hellenists of the Paleolithic". In any case, Neanderthals represent the last significant divergence from the main stem of hominid evolution. Both the sapiens and Neanderthal lineages should continue to develop their brains, but the Neanderthal brains developed in a very different direction. Both the sapiens and the Neanderthal lineages developed in order to become more effective hunters. However, Neanderthals emphasized greater development in sensory and motor centers mainly in the posterior half of the brain, while sapiens emphasized an increase in upper centers, that is, speech, imagination and, above all, ethical centers, in the frontal half of the brain, particularly the frontal lobes, which were twice the size of Neanderthals, one of the palpable explanations of why modern humans are more intelligent than Neadertals, it would be that, in the process of evolution, the brains neadertals, they were made for activities such as hunting (planning), and remote skills, depacial and dynamic, that is, in activities that involve movement. But the fact that the modern man is more intelligent in this regard, is due to the fact that the first hominids to develop proto-agriculture, were the large-brain Neanderthals, that is, without them in our evolutionary chain we would never have the capacity to mainly create tools and agriculture. Lol, there is no single variant of this definition of "ethnicity", some authors speak of ethnicity as the assumption of a biological basis, which can be defined by a race, a culture or both; the term is avoided by current anthropology, as it has not received a precise conceptualization, but it is commonly used in non-terminological language don't be so my dear, white brains are 7% bigger (1438 cc versus 1343 cc) which indicates that they also have 600 million more neurons (each one carries about 600 billion synapses, each one carries a bit of information cortical) in the last analysis, bigger brains can carry a bigger amount of neurons, you don’t think such a costly thing, when a big brain would be in vain right? It needs to be of some use. Lol one more curiosity about IQ. IQ is strongly related, probably more than any other measurable trait, to many important educational, occupational, economic and social variables. IQ is also correlated with a number of brain variables, including its size, electrical potentials and glucose metabolism rate during cognitive activity.
    -3 points
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