JillSwift

Keep in mind news loves scary stories - they sell more ads that way. Causation hasn't been established in that death, only correlation.

Always keep an eye on anyone who is feeling off colour. Though it's far more likely she's feeling off because of a simple environmental/plant allergy or minor bout of a few too many bacteria on something she ate and is so nothing much to worry about, it's so little effort to keep an eye that it's worth it for those very rare times when it turns out to be something more serious.

In the end, don't sweat the HPV jab itself. Statistically the odds are vastly in her favor.

I would like to know why you see it that way. Is it something from your previous experience?

 

Jill, I'm an Aussie. (We already have a Universal system and personally I'm in favour of the US finally getting a civilised system.) Consequently we miss some of the nuances of the arguments over there. Let's face it, we only get the Headlines from the US. So it's nice to find out why someone holds the opinion they do.

No, I don't.

However people who believe that they are doing "good" work sometimes (often) let standards lapse. As they prioritise tasks, doing the good work moves higher and paperwork moves lower in the list. Even governments have this problem.

 

It's a case of "Let's get the job done and worry about the paperwork later." This occurs in all industries and quite frankly, unless there is a legal requirement, often the paperwork never gets done. There is always something that "crops up" and prevents it.

 

So while they are not absolved of responsibility, it is difficult to chastise them for not diverting time, effort and money to meet accountings standards they were not required to meet. (If you get what I mean.)

 

I dare say that there are administrators of those programs who would love to be able to say "But we have to do it, it's the law", and gain some measure of control over financial movements.

I cant' argue that it happens - I was usually the one everyone hated because I'd prod them about their paperwork, so I'm familiar with the phenomenon.

But, given the fact that being required to keep books in a proper, functional way would vastly improve their ability to do "the good work", I still boggle at the resistance to actually having such rules imposed. More so that the organizations regularly fail to impose those rules on themselves.

Where is the resistence? All I saw in the article was that people in these programs were worried about how changes to the laws would effect them.

 

This is not resistence, just sensible enquiry.

 

They have a program that works and just want to make sure that they don't get left out under the new system. I cannot see anything that even hints that they are resisting in any way whatsoever.

As to bookkeeping. Sorry, but if the laws don't require adequate accounting methods from these groups, that is not the fault of the group.

Do you really think that they are absolved of responsibility for their crummy bookkeeping and the effect that had on folks just because there was no law about it?

It would not appear that the scheme is new. If there is no legal recourse, that is not the fault of the program. Look to your legislators for missing the boat. If it can be easily abused (and it almost certainly can) again that is not the fault of the program, make the politicians get off the pot.

This is why I find the resistance to "ObamaCare" in favor of these "faith based" programs to be facepalm worthy.

It's not the faith... well, it might be, but not directly.

One of the facets of my old career put me in direct contact with these sorts of programs. So far as i could tell, none were being abused, but they were run horribly enough that they may as well have been.

Promises were made and then reneged on because the books were a mess. Folks were persued for bills the program was supposed to handle, but made some error in the paperwork. Accidental over-payments made a mess of every following case.

Icky.

What kills me is how well these programs could adapt to become a really fabulous addition to the proposed national system. Community "cafeteria fund" style resource with far simpler bookkeeping and pay grants that would cover all the little things that can pile up on folks dealing with illness and injury.

Why anyone would resist a positive move in favor of such a mess, I can only guess.

*facepalm*

We will see one of these through a telescope on 2012:

Phfft.

AfqDVP_0O0c

Many of us realise that people are more important than, and take precedence over, cars.

Just to illustrate a point germane to politics in general and this topic in particular...

Assume: We all agree that people are more important than cars.

Possible conclusion 1: People can cross the street at will, people in cars yielding to them. Drivers failing to yield will be consequenced for failing to follow the rules.

Possible conclusion 2: Crossing the street at random points puts people in danger from passing cars, whose drivers may not be paying sufficient attention. Solution: Provide specific places and conditions when a pedestrian may cross the street. A jaywalker will be concequenced for failing to follow the rules.

Funny how the same intent to make people more important than cars can lead to such dramatically different conclusions.

Ferreting out the optimal method for achieving a goal ain't easy.

There have been a few studies about this question.

Here's one that I find especially intriguing: Study: calm people are liberal, skittish are conservative

I bet the Mayans never predicted a silly squabble over sports coverage.

The water was put there by NASA when they were faking the moon landings.

After installing Windows you will need to re-install the Linux boot loader.

Supergrub is great for this.

<snip>

Oh, I see;

You're pulling in ideas the study isn't concerned with. What was being revealed by the study was children's ability to think about what others were thinking about. The moral issues were the catalyst and weren't being tested.

The twist in the story where the sandwich is replaced by accident is "known" only to the child and not to the first "pirate". This is what brings out whether or not the child could "put him/herself in the shoes of the pirate".

What the study showed was that the younger children made their moral judgment based on what they knew. As the children grew older, their moral judgment started to include the idea that the person being judged wasn't aware of the same facts - in short, the child could better think about what the first pirate was thinking.

This same effect was shown in the magnetic disruption tests of adults. When that part of the brain was disrupted, it was more difficult to think about what another was thinking, and so the judgments were more often being made from thier own knowlege of the situation - i.e. they couldn't consider that the other person was unaware of their mistake because they didn't have the information the judging adult did.

I think we’re in a cycle of semantics.

 

When you say pressure from the environment, I’m saying “it’s there for us organisms to survive in”.

 

I’m just trying to point out that straining you neck isn’t going to effect your DNA.

I know on some level, such as fish for example, will be more sensitive to it’s immediate chemical environment and will evolve accordingly.

 

But for mammals I don’t think they work like that - like they say dinosaurs grew so big because of the amount of excess oxygen in the air. I don’t think because of that extra o2 it chemically altered the DNA.

 

Is what I’m trying to point out.

 

But there has to be a gray area since we did evolve from fish and I’m sure we all can agree that fish were and are susceptible to their chemical environment...

 

So I guess were back to where we started again - this raises an interesting issue, no?

Not really. From where I stand, you appear not to know what evolution is.

Here's a nice little primer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vss1VKN2rf8

Thank you for the questions, though.

So what does it say about me if I accidentally deleted my Window recovery partition while installing Linux?

Um... That your subconscious "has your back"?

For an example. In the "religion hijacks" thread I had watched a clip of the researcher telling the pirate and the sandwich story. She says "and the wind blows the sandwich off the chest", while she knocks the sandwich off with her hand. Now to me, the story just got complicated, an invisible agent, the authority figure story teller, has pushed off the sandwich and fibbed to the child, assigning the action to the wind.

Huh? Everybody who uses props as part of their storytelling is a "fibber"?

Now the story is completely in the hands of the researcher, as far as the child is concerned, and what is true or not true about the story, is completely up to the imagination of the researcher. She can tell the child anything. The child doesn't know the point of the story, just that the researcher is telling one, and pirate sandwiches are being knocked off of chests.

Which is actually the point - to isolate the knowledge of the events in the story so the children would be less likely to insert prior knowledge/expectation.

Granted, many tests as these have been constructed and performed in enough different settings with enough different children that much about childhood development can be learned, and accepted as fact.

 

But in the pirate and the sandwich story, the dynamics of story telling are involved.

In what way?

What previous lessons has the child learned from story tellers?

None. The published study says these are all "fresh" kids - meeting the research team for the first time.

What level of authority has been assigned to the reseacher, by the child? (Now Chester, listen to the nice lady, and do what she says, and you will make mommy happy.)

Can you suggest a way that the authority of the storyteller would have affected the answers to her questions? Would they assign a different meaning to the outcome has the researcher had little authority over having much? If so, why?

What level of intelligence does the child have, on how many levels is the child listening to the story?

This is why we have to have a large sample size.

When the child assigns thoughts or feelings to one or the other of the pirates, are they the child's thoughts, the pirate's thoughts, the researcher thoughts, the child's parent's thoughts, the child's teacher's thoughts, or is the child's answer what the child thinks the researcher, or the child's parent or the child's teacher, would want the child to answer based on lessons learned through previous stories? (or some combination of the above.)

Again, these questions are negated by a large sample size, and the fact there were more than just the project lead doing the stories and interviews. The result of a single child's answers are meaningless, the video showed only examples of the methodology. Get into about a thousand samples, and you have a meaningful pattern going there.

Then you add the corroborating evidence:

The FMRI studies of children.

The magnetic pulse interference tests of the adults.

The results of the study seem very solid to me because she followed a very rigorous methodology, and found corroborating evidence through other studies that also has rigorous methodologies. Most importantly, her findings were peer reviewed, and some of her studies have already been repeated.

Ignoring my apparent "argument from authority" there, if you think you've found a real hole in her methodology, I'd love to see it actually explored - that is, give us a mechanism or phenomenon can be tested that would bias the findings. "What if" style questions are interesting but don't actually provide much to go on.

You mean the tar pit between the chain saw guy and the axe lady? I saw that from a mile away.

Yeh sure, rub your experience with peer review in muh face

That would have gotten me, I thought it was just shiny pavement.

Shouldn't someone have asked "common indicator of what?" Red cabbage could also be an indicator of diner...

 

Learning how to ask question precisely is also a valuable skill.

Hehe. Here I thought, what with answers being given, there was some other meaning for "indicator" that I wasn't aware of.

Ok, I'll ask: Indicator of what? Gimmeh sum contekst!

So, are there any questions or comments regarding any of the articles I've shared?

Sort of.

I wasn't aware of a lot of these studies. I'm impressed with how far along we actually are in figuring out the "parts of our sum". Not to say we don't have a very long way to go yet.

Some things notably missing from the puzzle that intrigue me:

The development of specific dogmas among religions. For instance, why is hell a "lake of fire" rather than a "chamber of torture devices"?

The nature of the change from animistic to theistic, where applicable.

The mechanism behind polytheism to monotheism. (Always struck me as weird, why give up the big family for the single father?)

Naturally, CharonY. It's what you don't see that should worry you.

I am unaware of any evidence to support the rather extraordinary claims they are making about what amounts to listening to their bad synthesized music. What they are selling has been around a long, long time. One would think if there was anything to it, there would be something in the journals about it.

I say, get some nice techno/electronica from iTunes and enjoy the "binaural beats" they provide. It may or may not improve your brain, but it will at least sound good.

Reply: There is a tremondous energy cost to the amoebas. The massive amount of DNA required of them not only to carry around with them but more importantly the replication of such massive amounts of DNA and the energy and time required for this task plus an additional task of maintaining exact copies of all this information would seem to create a serious natural selection downside.

As I said, nature is under no obligation to make sense.

The bottom line is, the situation works. It does not have to be optimal, it just has to work.

Was it really necessary for you to start your reply to me with :"That statement is the core of your problem understanding this stuff". What statement are you refering to ? Why is it you find it necessary to begin this new thread by once again belittling me ? It is not me who gets this stuff started. Try refraining and I will do the same. ...Dr.Syntax

Yes, it was necessary. You aren't grasping some concepts and I was pointing out a possible reason why.

It was an attempt to help.

The statement was the one I quoted - that statement assumed that your logic was being ignored by nature. Which is a problematic viewpoint.

It was not an attempt to belittle you. It was not personal in nature. Stop assuming you are under attack, it's really gettin' annoyin'.

I have to agree with your 1st post. Sad but true. Evolution cannot precede as long as we are reproducing with things that should have died off to develope a stronger and more evolved race. I know.. there is a chance that any of us would not be here now without medicine. The way we are as a people now....evolution does not have a chance. The world has been changing for billions of years and life has been changing to meet the needs of survival... We have stopped out nature process of staying in sync with the world, air and climate changes. One bad apple in the bunch ... is what they say. Instead of letting the host expire and mating with stronger genes for procreation... we allow the viruses to stay around and mutate into something it was never meant to become. It may sound heartless, but science is not for the timid.... we have fairytale and magic shows for them.

Im in no way saying we should stop medicines and allow the weak to die so we can become a strong race. If we do that.... we will lose alot of people to start of with but in time the strong will mate with the strong and strength will provail, but we will lose a lot in humanity.

It is not a problem that will solved in our lifetime and I pray they do not even try in children's time.

I'm sure if the time comes that they need to do something....it will already be too late.

 

Sorry for all typos

You are making a value judgment about "strength". Evolution makes no value judgments - what survives does so because it can, and for no other reason.

Humans have developed a set of phenotypes we label "intelligence" and "social behavior". This is a potent combination that has allowed our species to adapt to new environments without waiting on the right set of mutations to come along.

To claim that this somehow "impedes" evolution is to assume that evolution has some sort of purpose or direction to it. Unless someone can show evidence of this, the only conclusion that fits the observed facts is that is it impossible to impede evolution.

A rasberry has 12% of the DNA of a human wich seems logical.

That statement is the core of your problem understanding this stuff.

Nature is under no requirement to meet our ideas of what is logical. All life is doing is existing within the parameters that allow it to exist. (That is, the only reason life does not exist outside those parameters is because it's impossible.)

One of the most fascinating aspects of the cosmos as a whole, and DNA in particular, is emergence. The "information" in a strand of DNA is not simply the pattern of nucleotides, but how each part interacts with the other parts. In this way an allele can be lost, and a phenotype gained. Also, if you look at DNA more as a "recipie" for an organism, you can see how environment plays a more direct role on individual organisms. For instance, height is a trait that sees an 85% inheritance in groups with constant good nutrition and health care, while seeing only 60% in groups with variable access to nutrition and health care.

Hope this helps.

I was told that a giraffes neck got long only because (at random) an offspring was born with a longer neck hence making it easier to reach more food therefore (in the long run) striving in the environment more productively, being more attractive to the females, hence, sharing his offspring with that propensity to have a long neck.

 

The need to have a longer neck to reach higher for leaves is not influenced by the environment. It’s just there for us organisms to survive in.

 

Living in the sun (from what I understand) does not physically effect the DNA to make the skin black (like people from Africa). Rather over the millions of years people who at random exhibited the darker pigment were more popular, more successful, more happier, so that in the long run reproduced more. No?

No.

Making it pure sexual selection would require ignoring all the species that also adapt to environment but reproduce by mitosis or other asexual/non-sexual reproduction.

The proto-equine ancestors of the giraffes moved into an area where trees were more common than the grasses and bushes they originally fed on. Those proto-equines who could not reach the leaves could not get enough food from the harder grasses of the area, and so either did not survive to mate, or were too weak to successfully mate. Whether or not the females of this species were allowing only the stronger males to mate with them or not, there would have still been a selection pressure for taller proto-equines, and proto-equines with longer necks.

Melanin (a skin pigmentation) is functional as part of the cellular mechanism that produces vitamin D. If you look at a chart of melanin predominance over the world, you will find a pretty clear connection between overall exposure to direct sunlight and the presence of melanin in the skin of long-term populations. Again, whether or not skin color was considered "attractive" or not, there is still selection pressure from the environment.

Sexual selection itself is just another factor in the environment in which a set of phenotypes is operating.