CharonY

That is not quite correct. Catabolism simply refers to break down more complex to simpler molecules. Energy is released in the process, but does not necessarily generate biologically usable energy (e.g. simply released as heat). Only certain chemical steps (e.g. substrate level phosphorylation) recover energy, rest has to go through additional processes such as respiration. The metabolites are not just simply fuel, they are also building blocks for other molecules. In my mind this is overcomplicating things a bit. Metabolism is in the simplest form conversion of one biomolecule (metabolite) into another. Depending on the individual reactions it can require or release energy and the energy might be lost (as heat) or recovered biochemically. The sum of all processes (or metabolic activities) at rest is referred to as basal metabolism, which sometimes is conflated with the energy expenditure for said metabolic activities. Technically it would be more correct to refer to the energy portion as basal energy expenditure (BEE). Importantly, BEE is the largest energy expenditure (something in the order of 70-80% of total energy expenditure). I.e. doing exercise does only requires a fairly limited amount of extra energy relative to the basal metabolism. The interesting but well-known bit is that basal metabolism is dependent on a lot of factors, including age, activity, but also body weight. For example, maintaining a highly active lifestyle is associated with an increase in basal metabolism (and hence, BEE). But sometimes burst of high activities (and higher associated energy expenditure) can partially be compensated by a reduction of BEE, so that the total expenditure does not change proportionately to the activity. Folks with less body weight, or after losing body weight also have a reduced BEE(which might contribute to the yo-yo effect). Also, I think the attempt to link overall energy expenditure to specific metabolic processes is flawed. There are many, sometimes competing activities going on at the same time involving different cell types, tissues and so on. There is no way way to measure them in vivo and unfortunately quite a few folks start to speculate about them without really having the data to support it on that level of detail. This has resulted in a lot of proposed diets, supplements, exercises and whatnot which for the most part simply not evidence-based. I.e. we cannot gain a deeper understanding of processes by speculating harder. At some point we first have to think about a) what data do we need and b) how can we get them (or is it possible to get them in the first place).

Have you considered the fact that a photo is a frozen moment in time and that depending on conditions and effort, the outcome can differ vastly? In contrast, in a mirror you can pose until you like what you see?

My pleasure.

Added two reviews in the post above. What I heard as student was, I believe, from a textbook related to bioenergetics, but I cannot recall the title (too long ago, likely in German). I only remember because it was fairly counter-intuitive, considering what was taught in high school. But considering what I learned about cellular efficiency since then, it makes a lot of sense. Here are the abstracts from the links above:

Not really a plant person, but I think it is a bit of a misconception that plants do not use green light effectively. It is just utilized slightly differently. One important finding is that green light penetrates deeper into tissue, providing energy for CO2 fixation in deeper within leaves. Studies also suggest that because of that (and because of the rather steep absorption profile, this deeper penetration is more effective rather than trying to absorb more blue/red light closer to the surface. I think there are quite a few studies out there regarding the overall quantum efficiency at different wavelengths and different intensities in relation to plant architecture and distribution of chloroplasts, but I think the the idea that the rather simplistic idea of low absorptance of green light and associated low levels of CO2 assimilation that is sometimes still taught is school is a fair bit outdated (and goes back to studies in the 70s, I believe). But again, not my field of expertise but there is a rather large body of literature on this topic. Edit: found two reviews on the topic (only skimmed the abstract, but rings a bell to what I heard as student): https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erx098 https://doi.org/10.1093/pcp/pcp034

This is an extremely poor argument, especially in the context of racism. Are you arguing that if folks respected racist opinion more, folks would somehow be less racist? We see how well that works under Trump and other reactionaries. Also it seems that you have no idea what happened in the 2000s. The issue around that time was a massive effort by evangelists to influence science teaching in the US by trying to put creationist view next to evolutionary science. At that point folks atheists, including Dawkins became fairly vocal to resist such influence to diminish science teachings and putting belief over facts. Still no idea how the various thoughts on Dawkins, cancel culture, racism and whatever has been brought up by OP connect, though.

There is one thing that always strikes me as odd and where the cancer analogy might fail a bit (though it depends on the level of detail). Often, in the discourse anything in the autism spectrum is set apart from the "normal" population, in part using quantitative measures. This of course requires to set a normative standard and to complicated things, the measures within the spectrum categorization are notoriously hetereogenous. There are attempts to better characterize individuals to better understand population heterogeneity without pre-assumption of what is normal, which, in my mind, would be a better approach to try to identify categories. There of course challenges to this approach and in the area of medicine it has been sought after for so long that in the academic community folks have rebranded it multiple times to keep it relevant (and I have been long enough around to recognize the same argument, even if the newer generation think that they discovered it for the first time). Many of these terms (personalized medicine, precision medicine, normative modeling) fundamentally recognize the heterogeneity within a population and seeks to find the level of detail to provide better diagnoses or treatment, if necessary. It also tries not to predefine categories by being more data-driven. Obviously, it is also way more challenging and the current flavour of research is to add machine learning or AI to it.

Darn physicists, what have they ever done for us?

You have failed to provide any evidence for that. You are just asserting it. The main criticism I could agree on is that his books on religion are not based on expertise in areas of religion or philosophy. But then he is not necessarily a thought leader on that topic, either (as atheism is not really a organized system like religion). And again, this suggests you have not been paying attention regarding the level of open racism 15 or 20 or 30 years ago. The major difference are phases where things were more or less overt but I see politicians, rise of populism, concerted efforts by right-wing groups to push identity politics and other effects on the forefront. More importantly, the undercurrent never went away. As mentioned, what see is mostly just how overt things are. I have no idea what Dawkins has to do with any of it. We might as well discuss the impact of Hawking on the current state of donuts.

This is just silly. Flat Earthers who have conducted experiments have (repeatedly) shown that the Earth is, in fact, not flat. They just don't like the outcome, which is the main difference to scientific methodologies, where you are not just doing random experiments, but rather have to consolidate data with your model. The fact that you do not seem to understand this distinction makes any discussion rather moot. In case you have forgotten, you were talking about the last 15 years.

If you think that antisemitism and racism is a recent thing, boy do I have news for you...

I do not see a reason to react to something just because you disagree with them. I also do not see a reason for a philosophical rationale, which seems like an odd request. Disagreement is a simple fact of life.

That is actually the gist of my argument. If there are for example different schools of thought, you invite folks who have been dealing with that question in a serious manner. Evidence for that includes publishing scholarly articles and reputation among other scholars, you know, the same way we do it in hard science. Then, if there are competing viewpoints, folks outline their arguments based on their research and expertise and highlight why they disagree with other models, for example. This includes highlighting what supporting evidence exists as well as educate the audience regarding gaps and challenges. This level of engagement requires significant knowledge on the subject matter. Again, not unlike in hard sciences. So the point you are missing is that not only the folks in the panel should be vetted professionally, but also the subject matter. As I tried to outline the role of Universities should be to identify areas where discussions can be held on that level. This won't be the case for random free-for all topics. In your example, the issue is one of psychoanalysis, a field that has been hotly debated in the field for a variety of reason. So the discussion could be around the validity of psychoanalysis the issue of memory and so on. And this is the part where I see universities fail- they do not rely sufficiently on experts to develop such discussions. And this again is my point. A discussion has to properly contextualized. Otherwise you are just throwing soundbites (incidentally, like OP) and then complain that the outcome is garbage. GIGO, I say. Or perhaps in attempt to make it clearer, what I am trying to say is that universities should be the place for curated content. And yes, one could argue what level of curation is acceptable for a given discussion, but the basic idea is to maintain intellectual rigour, which after all should be one of the missions of universities.

You seem to agree with me that discussions require to be filtered by expertise rather than opinion. Though you also seem to think that I am arguing the opposite? Your claim however was to question who is going to decide who are supposed to be experts who are able to establish factuality and connections. And again I posit that these are not just opinions, but can be underpinned by analyses and data. There are areas where it will be more difficult. E.g. trying to have a plenary discussion on the way forward for peace in the middle East. None of the arguments are going to be trivial, but my point is that folks need some level of relevant expertise in order to propose arguments that are worthy of further discussion. Just giving everyone a platform does not achieve that (as per OP).

There are different venues where expertise does not matter (such as facebook). The value in academic, and I thought that is what you were arguing about is that there exist a methodology to evaluate "facts". The methodology is certainly not infallible, but it has some modicum of self-correction, which is based on academic discourse. If that is not feasible to evaluate, then you are basically saying that facts are meaningless as we cannot evaluate them. Facts without critical evaluation are, for the most part, meaningless by itself. The synthesis of facts is what provides insights. And this requires at least some level of expertise in the subject matter. I understand that the rise of social media and the democratization of opinion has resulted in a radical decline in trust in expertise. And while it is partially justified, it created a situation where fact-free arguments are mainstream. I interpret the quote as some sort of conviction without evidence, not necessarily faith in the religious sense. Folks might be be utterly convinced that vaccination make folks magnetic, for example. I think you are missing the point though. The idea here is that universities should take a step further and think about what a the discussion is really about, not what folks want to make of it. If say the discussion is about vaccinations, one should invite folks who are able to educate and discuss in good faith (again, not in the religious sense). And that can include folks who have data on adverse reactions of vaccines, but should not include folks who insist that they vaccines are made from dead babies.

I think the quotes from Dawkins are missing the mark and certain folks are weaponizing that kind of arguments. There is an issue in universities, but it is not what OP describes and it is more related to a deeper change in society. First, there is a fundamental misunderstanding how discussions should be done and specifically how it should be conducted in universities. Universities are (were) a space for critical discussions, which should involve aspects of critical thinking and expertise. I.e. it was never supposed to be a platform where e.g. conspiracy theories of microchips in vaccines should be discussed at the same level as the benefits of immunization. The former would suck the entire oxygen from anything meaningful and there would be no learning or development of thoughts, which would be the purpose of universities. Rather, discussions should be vetted and led by folks with actual expertise. There is a difference if e.g. economists with different viewpoints and arguments relating to fiscal policies explain their thoughts vs. talking heads who argue that somehow any fiscal policy is a dictatorship (as a mild example). Where the university leadership is failing is basically that they are becoming more corporate and try to appease everyone, especially students (which they increasingly treat as customers rather than, well, students). What that means is that discussions have become more superficial, folks who are popular are getting more space than folks who actually know things (Peterson is one of the persons who managed to grift on that, for example). It is obvious why students are drawn to these superficial but emotional spectacles and why they pick and choose sides just as everyone nowadays in the population. They are still untrained when it comes to critical analysis (and I am afraid, the quality is dropping), they are more outspoken as they have been trained by social media algorithms that every thought has equal weight, no matter how ludicrous. As such, discussions on any topic are now more about picking sides rather than a critical analysis of the situation and, even more importantly, proposing solutions. University leadership tries (badly) to be corporate neutral on these issues in order not to get on the bad side of folks and thereby gives the power to the louder voices. This is especially disappointing as they do have in theory access to the best experts but they lack the courage to show actual leadership, which involves taking some modicum of risk. One could argue that then the faculty themselves should do something, but in the current environment they are overworked (as students are more and more demanding, which is encouraged by leadership) and only those with the loudest voices (often in social media) get all the attention. But those are not necessarily the subject experts. So yes, universities are failing in their purpose, but it is not because of free speech issues, but rather because Universities are transforming into a service industry in which critical thinking and analysis is not at the forefront anymore. All the discussions about cancel culture are therefore in my mind missing the mark entirely. Edit: perhaps even worse than missing the mark, it contributes to the erosion of intellectualism and is yet another tool in dismantling trust in expertise.

AI Conoclast has been banned as sockpuppet of AIkonoklazt.

This is true for all organisms, down to the cellular level. "Balance" is to vague. The processes are still balanced as the mechanisms remain unchanged. However, the circumstances (genetic, behavioral and environmental) promote fat accumulation. Just because it is considered non-beneficial in certain situations (e.g. when food is plenty) it does not mean it is unbalanced. That would be a judgement call. This again is trivial. Straining of organs and tissues triggers mechanisms that among other things can result in hypertrophy. I am not sure what the rest of the argument tries to say here in this context. It has little to do with balance. I think you have an "ideal" of sorts in mind and consider anything different as out of balance. But that is really a judgement call as biology just is. If you train a particular muscle in one arm, it will enlarge. Whether you consider that out of balance (e.g. relative to the other arm) is your call, but changes nothing regarding the underlying biology. It does not really care about that- the mechanisms are independent of such assumptions.

Indeed. From a quick skim it seems that the type of calories matter, as not all are similarly bioavailable (e.g. 100 kcal in cellulose provides no energy to humans as we cannot process it). The difference in energy conversion has been mentioned, but there is also evidence of genetic difference in various aspects in transport and storage of nutrients (especially fat deposition has been studied). The way we are able to take up various nutrients and process them also changes throughout life, due to changes in our hormonal status (which in turn can change depending what we eat and are otherwise exposed to). Also activity has an impact, but not necessarily only the simplistic sense that more calories are burned (it often is not that much) but the way it changes how our body uses directs nutrient flow (and also effectiveness). In short, the biology is complicated and the physics of it (i.e. the calorie count) really only represents boundary conditions. I.e. the maximum theoretically a body can utilize from a given food source. How effective and in what form it processed is dependent on an immense number of factors. it is often not helpful to see catabolism and anabolism as competing activities. They are mostly cycles as well as reversible. For example, sugars can be catabolized to pyruvate and then acetyl-coA, the latter being the building blocks for fatty acids. We all have to synthesize proteins all the time and create the building block from catabolic pathways. The balance of these activities are therefore regulated on the molecular, rather than on the macro level. Specifically in this example, intense activity requires significant maintenance of muscle mass, which requires a metabolism that sustains anabolic reactions for significant amount of structural (muscle) protein synthesis.

The only context I have heard possibility of fluorocarbons for biological activities is in the context of fluorine rich environments, which would not be compatible with life as we know it. At least in theory fluorocarbon molecules could avoid denaturation in such an environment, but as already noted, it does not challenge the universality of carbon as building block of life in the least.

Not entirely. They have been different factions and while the peace camp was arguably less influential, it is not a clear split between emperor and military leadership. Yes indeed, but my point is that diplomatic solutions were considered before the bomb, including an uncharacteristic overture by the emperor himself. In fact, the official position since 44 was that they were willing to negotiate conditional surrender. The hope of Japanese leadership was always hat they could retain some of their occupied territories (from the onset of the war) while suing for peace after a series of conquests. By 44 they were ready to broaden negotiations, with te exception of the position of the emperor. This was of course counter the Casablanca declaration.

Something like an adblocker (e.g. ublock origin) on firefox should work on Linux?

! Moderator Note It looks like that the thread has run its course and if desired, the spin-offs could be discussed in a new thread. Locked.

A I believe the timing is off a bit. The Japanese emperor sent a private message to Stalin before the Potsdam conference (in July) asking him to act as intermediary. I.e. these attempts pre-dated the bomb, which is one of the arguments of historians who argue against the traditional narrative regarding the bomb.

Leadership was split on surrendering and there was an attempt to sue for peace via the soviets, which were dashed after they invaded Manchuria. Well and obviously the British empire had some experience with starving folks, though to be fair it was mostly in colonies...