CharonY

! Moderator Note It seems obvious that OP keeps ignoring the explanation provided to them. As such there is no apparent way forward for a proper discussion. Thread locked.

How is that related to Assuming that it actually happened as described, are you saying that because members of a given community behaved badly one should be free to discriminate against them? Or what is the argument here?

Come on, why make things up now. IIRC there were two examples. One from the USA, but it did not involve job loss, just a reprimand, and the person was sueing (and seemingly winning) to have the reprimand stricken. The second example was because the person violated a court order to not openly discuss a case involving a minor and medical records. Again, not prosecution because of pronouns. This, btw was exactly the point of many folks here that people cannot find actual examples of what they fear is happening. Just repeating it does not make it reality. And I fear that is why the discussion will go nowhere.

To add perhaps a final thought as the same objections keep getting rehashed without any actual evidence for the key assumptions (such as legal repercussions). It seems to me that folks do not actually have an issue with being courteous to each other but for some reasons have to build up the non-existent legal threat to bolster their argument. This is often indicative of an attempt of justifying their respective worldview, even if it requires reconstructing facts. I suspect one underlying factor is the assumption that the issues of especially transgender folks are not real or merely delusions. Thus, by engaging in inclusive social norms, one is somehow validating something that one is deeply convinced to be fake. The issue here is that this is basically an ideological stance and as Arete and others have shown, it runs counter our current knowledge in biology and psychology. As the objection is ideological in nature, and therefore not amenable to facts or scientific understanding, the key argument against using simple preferred pronouns or names (and let’s focus on he/she; I find that novel pronouns are too frequently used as a distraction and may be part of a different discussion) basically boil down to “I don’t want to”, but also “I do not want to suffer any consequences to my behaviour, because I am actually doing the right thing”. This is quite a tricky stance, as society has always penalized non-conforming behaviour. In the past, for example taking a hard stance against mixed marriage was seen as good thing (virtue signaling?) whereas engaging in that behaviour was ostracized (and in the US, there were actual, not imaginary laws against that). Moving away from this thought model took a long time, and many are still not over it. I suspect something similar is going on with regard to our understanding of gender and sex. With more information it will become more normalized, but at the same time there will be a hard push to prevent that from happening.

Except there is no legal basis for that. The test is evidence of discrimination, of which pronoun use could be supporting evidence but in isolation has no standing. Of course if you can provide a shred of evidence that this is the case, please let me know. All the articles from legal scholars clearly indicate that it is not the case. Here is the other thing, though. If Netflix thinks that Chappelle has become too controversial and therefore do not order a new special do you think Netflix is violating his right to become rich(er)? Conversely if Chappelle is a office manager and starts his days with rants regarding transgender folks, and there are complaints at the HR, what would be the correct action in your case? I.e. what would be the balance between the need to create non-toxic work environment vs the right to express yourself whenever you want? Or do you think you should have the right to insult customers or the CEO without repercussions? If not, It appears that we are back to the non-existent legal challenge which gets a bit boring by now (well a couple of pages back).

Some folks seem to want that, yet I do not see his special being pulled. This, again is not a new thing. A lot of folks wanted to have movies pulled or censored due to violence, blasphemy, sex or whatever folks did not like at that point. It depends a lot on the outlet whether folks are successful in doing so. TV tends to self-censor a fair bit and the rating systems of movies are a similar mechanism. That all being said as many others I am in favour of having that available and, as you suggested to have discussions about it. While I think Dave's message was way clumsier than his usual and a bit overshadowed by somewhat excessive complaining, it is in itself not just an outright tirade of insults as others have made. I think it would have played better if his jokes were, well, better. To paraphrase Seinfeld: you can make very offensive jokes and get away with it. The important bit is that your jokes (the craft) has to be so much better to pull it off. And here, I think he fell a bit short. That being said, I get some of Dave's complaints although he kind of brushed over issues of intersectionality (in my memory his bit with trans black folks were rather clumsy additions and could have been so much better) it is interesting to see some folks are (from his perspective) more willing to accommodate non-binary folks (implicitly white trans folks) than (straight, non-binary) black folks. I think his view is a bit skewed, but considering how poorly black folks are treated, one can kind of get it. But of course looking at history, there is also the observation that black men were allowed to vote before women. And during the civil rights movement there were quite a bit of clashes between those fighting for equal rights for black men and those for women, whereas especially black women were getting all the short ends of various sticks. In all honesty I think Chappelle really only caused a controversy because, a) he is considered one of the greats in comedy and b) his bits have been very vocal about issues of black experiences (where some folks accuse him of race-baiting, which is missing the point entirely).

! Moderator Note The topic does not seem to follow mainstream biology and has been moved to speculations. Please take some time to familiarize with associated rules. Specifically you are requested to back up claims, and frame your hypotheses in way that is at least accessible to science (i.e. one needs to be able to test those claims).

Well, the question is a typical exam/assignment question you would be asked in class. But that being said, thinking about distant effects of gene mutations in terms of signalling is a good start. You could also think in developmental terms (though often related to signalling).

We are not providing answers to homework questions, rather we would like to see how much effort you have made in these questions. What have you learned in class that you might be able to apply to this question.

I see we have been going through yet another turn of the same false claims. The big issue I see is that folks need to make up the threat of legal pressure in order to place themselves in the position of a victim rather than a perpetrator. Otherwise the argument is simply I want to express myself any way I want but I do not want to be on the receiving end of social pressure. But rather obviously you cannot forbid anyone thinking you might be an arse if you break social rules. (How about queuing up in the UK compared to, say, Italy?). In the end the demand is about repercussion-free behaviour, but in order to make it reasonable it needs to be expressed in a way that appears that one is the one being oppressed. This is funny as most minorities can tell you that many keep their heads down and do not express themselves too much as it would result in said pressure from the majority for the longest time. Now that they now claim the same right it feels like a threat on the majority (there is even a term for that). Thus for the argument of free expression to actually make sense, folks need to wobble between the argument of legal and social pressures (which they seemingly feel the first time). I.e. non-existent legal threats must be presented as a kind of governmental policing of behaviour and then at the same time the claim must be made that social pressures directed at them are uniquely new threat and entirely reasonable. All it takes is to ignore the actual consequences of laws as well as ignoring all the normal social dynamics. The one thing that I will claim is different is the rise of social media, but strangely that is not the point being brought up at all. Honestly, I understand that. Any threat that even theoretically could be raised against oneself is always seen as a much bigger issue than issues that mostly affect other folks. That is why certain drug laws are so draconian and had huge support (until a much broader swath of the population was affected). Or why men are much more worried about false rape allegations or women are far more worried about abortion laws. That all being said, we still should try to look at real data to contextualize these fears. E.g. are there actually folks being arrested for pronoun usage? What is the impact of anti-discrimination laws? Does it make our society better or are there indeed far-reaching unfair loss of jobs? These are things that folks are studying and it would be a good practice to look into those and other data rather than extrapolating from gut feeling (as folks like Peterson keep doing in order to keep the outrage-to-fact-ratio high).

It already does. Unfortunately it means that psychopaths have increasingly being in charge in the GOP. Moreover, according to an article https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/ GOP lawmakers were coordinating with Jan. 6th protestors to coordinate efforts to contest the elections.

This is entirely nonsense. I have done actual research in these areas and the device, as presented, could not work without major breakthroughs in technologies that did not exist yet. I do not have all the details in my head anymore but the fundamental issue is that the device should work on a very limited volume of blood, have several types of analytics on the the platform and be in a specific compact format. Each of these issues is solvable, but together the problems your run into include dilution effects, which could be countered by using just a bit more blood, temperature issues, which could solved with a bigger platform to separate the reactions more and a couple of other things that I do not recall anymore. There are many, many articles at this point and I find it curious that you claim that you have a hard time finding those. Heck, there is even a book out there called Bad Blood. I have linked one more or less random article that you could have found by consulting google for a minute or two: https://www.vox.com/2015/10/20/9576501/theranos-elizabeth-holmes https://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-has-struggled-with-blood-tests-1444881901#pq=Jd8MoW Both outline how the company made misleading claims and failed to adhere to standards that would have revealed that their tests just did not work. Some of the analyses that they made in order to pretend that their system worked were actually used on a different instrument from Siemens, which they hacked to run their cartridges. However, as the blood volume was too low, even those results were at best questionable. In other words, there is no conspiracy to be found here. The one thing that is odd is that for once someone is actually getting held accountable. This could be because in contrast e.g. tech startups, there are actually standards against which performance can be measured. You can easily oversell silly things like time-share offices, for example if you just hype it enough. But a blood tests actually needs to provide precise results in order to be useful. That being said, the only kind of conspiracy there is to talk about is the claim that Holmes is taken accountable because she is a woman. That, at least at first look hard to accept, considering the level of fraudulence being reported. However, some articles claimed that other, male CEOs in similar positions which were involved in at least similar ethical questionable behavior mostly escaped unscathed. However, I think the comparisons made in the article were mostly related to tech companies, which I think have different standers than med and biomed companies. So in the absence of actual statistics I am not sure how true it could be (would be interesting to take a look at least). There is the phenomenon of glass cliffs which has been investigated in studies such as by Ryan and Haslam (https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2005.00433.x) https://www.vox.com/2018/10/31/17960156/what-is-the-glass-cliff-women-ceos But I don't think that really applies here. Overlooked that argument. This is of course silly. A proper test requires to reproducibly perform with a given level of accuracy and precision. There are gold standards in place, basically the best performance we can do (with whatever method) and if a test performs worse, they should have other benefits (price, speed) but still be good enough to allow clinical diagnosis. If we accept random errors without qualifiers we might as well just do dowsing.

An issue with just being brutally honest is that many actually do not like to be on the receiving end. This is especially true if a power imbalance is in play (and I suspect that some of the issues arising from anti-discrimination laws and similar measures is that it gives power to folks who, according to conventional wisdom, should be powerless which might be upsetting or at least confusing to some). That being said, there is also a cultural aspect. I found it that in North America folks tend to be a bit more polite of sorts and have on average more trouble to criticize things directly (I am talking in person, not the internet). Compared to that, Germans often appear brutally blunt. However, it is not uncommon in Germany that superiors bully their employees while not being particular receptive to criticism themselves. There is a bit of a change in society insofar that folks now talk more openly about discrimination and bullying.

So technically that is not considered fermentation as the larvae actively digested. While in common usage it may not appear very different, biologically they are distinct processes. Most specifically, fermentative pathways are used to recover reducing equivalents (which otherwise could be recovered by respiration). I do see some confusion of the term in the literature sometimes, though. Typically organisms with very effective anaerobic metabolic pathways are used for fermentation (so practically fungi and bacteria). While in other organisms there are residual pathways (say, lactic acid fermentation in muscles) but it is obviously difficult to utilize that to make yoghurt.

Viruses are typically not an issue, assuming that bottles are not shared. But it is fairly certain that after some time bacterial biofilms will form in bottles. The only way to get it out is the use of things like detergents or perhaps vinegar, soaking and vigorous scrubbing (or heating).

Oops. Corrected. Thanks for the catch!

Ken Fabian has addressed the major differences between yeasts and bacteria and as MigL mentioned, you can use different types of yeasts. Beside potentially different metabolites, which could affect flavour, they also have different alchohol tolerance and can result in different alcohol contents. Many bacteria in dairy products are used for lactic acid, but also acetic acid fermentation and different cultures can result in different products (there are whole books dedicated to that). There are many species including various Streptococcus, Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus species in use. But there are also products which uses yeast and bacteria, such as kefir. Here, the yeast species (e.g. Kluvyeromyces) are also fermenting lactose together with the bacterial consortium. That being said, historically these consortia were not specifically added individually. Rather, these bacteria and yeasts were found naturally in the product that were used for fermentation. Sourdough is something that many of us have been doing over the last year and is basically a mix of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts and most of these are already present in flour. Interestingly, some of those bacteria are also more specific to our hands, which indicates that the sourdough culture is a mix of predominantly bacterial contamination of flour plus additional bacteria we carry over on our skin.

The general point that iNow made stands, the racial groups you mentioned were developed during the enlightenment period (Blumenbach, I believe) and arose from the Linnaean idea of classifying, well, everything. The problem of course was that these ideas were not entirely scientific (as biological knowledge was limited) and perhaps worse, were heavily influenced by existing ideas on human populations, which were heavily influenced (or developed) into an imperialistic view of humankind. We now know that populations below the species level are mostly defined by the geospatial grouping (i.e. whatever can mix in a given area, tends to do so) as well as the fact that these 19th century ideas of grouping folks does not really fit what we know about human diversity. Many genetic studies have now shown, for example that African populations have the highest genetic diversity, which is basically expected from the out of Africa model. Fundamentally we find higher divergence between African population than, say between European and African population. As such the old 19th century classification you refer to does not make sense. So if we wanted to create subpopulations of the human species and have roughly equal distance between groups, it would not make sense to put all Africans in one group. Rather, they would be several groups and Europeans as well Asians would only be one of the subgroups. However, as Swansont already pointed out, classifications below the species levels are mostly arbitrary various degrees. Often they are used to create certain groups rather than a means to track actual genetic diversity. Especially in humans that would be difficult as there is a lot mixing and the way we use "race" in common usage rarely follows biology. Terms like black and white for example are more historic than anything else. Which is why folks like Barrack Obama are often considered black (which is a legacy of the one drop way of thinking about race).

Maybe you are thinking of "I have no mouth and I must scream"? IIRC the protagonist was made unable to kill himself by transforming him into a kind of immortal blob (hence having no mouth). Of course as all stories there are even older ones, Prometheus being perpetually eaten by an eagle comes to mind. Zapatos' story sounds maddingly familiar but I cannot recall the title of the story nor whether I actually read it...

And that in turn just demonstrates that his opposition to C-16 was just to gain attention. After all the bill itself (as well as the existing provisions on the provincial level) failed to manifest in actual compelled speech by law. I.e. he is just making a bit thing out of nothing and it seems to have seen more traction than proponents of alternative pronouns. I.e. I have seen more folks claiming that there is a law regarding pronoun use vs folks demanding the use of "ze".

I can't as a) I have not seen it happening and so far it looks like a suggestion. If it transforms into the real world I may have more thoughts about it. Who forces though in your mind? Society? And if the balance is forcing minorities to conform or forcing part of the majority to conform, where should the balance be? Because clearly social pressures are happening whether you like or not, because actions (and in case of certain minorities the mere existence) has consequences.

It is also everyone's right to criticize views as part of their freedom of expression. Not doing it is also a courtesy. The question for each individual is really who we want to accommodate. Folks based on their gender identity, because that is who they are, or folks that decide to be against accommodations. In the past, the majority decision was usually that minorities have to accommodate majority opinions. E.g. if folks decide that being gay in unnatural, well you just have to deal with it. Now, we do have a societal shift in trying to be accommodate more (even if it is sometimes only in a performative way) but it is also supported by science which some (but certainly not all) give it more weight than just opinions. So at least some of the demands have shifted from affected minorities to the majority and this is where much of the pushback comes from. In the past one does not have to accommodate much as part of majority. Most decision by the majority group was considered the norm and deviations suffered pushback. While it seems to be a reversal, it is important to note that it really only affects a rather limited area (i.e. the area where discrimination can be demonstrated). I will also invite folks who seem to treat gender identity as an opinion or fake to investigate their own sense gender. I assume it is the same for almost everyone else, but I do not recall ever to make a conscious decision regarding how I feel about my gender or sexual orientation. I certainly never had to karyotype myself or double-check my reproductive organs. As such I find it easy to understand how others might feel about their gender but having a mismatched body. We are only starting to understand how biology causes a certain gender identity, but dismissing it outright is certainly not something that follows our current understanding.

OK, so as someone on the other side I can tell you that while we do all that, it is a burden on us and one that many of us feel unnecessary. Why should we be required to do the extra work just to earn the same level of respect that others get for free? I mean, of course it is a waste of time since every time you resolved an issue, another pops up. And if you address it too frequently, your are considered the one being disruptive. So we keep our heads down, don't complain too much if folks keep misspelling our name just to remain in folks' good graces. That being said, as it turns out that this attitude can hurt you in positions with higher visibility. For example, I did not mind too much about misspelling my name or that folks for some reasons keep forgetting to put my PhD to my name (but interestingly remembered for everyone else). However it resulted in folks thinking that a fresh postdoc was the project lead, for example or that my name ended up not appearing in press releases in time. I mean, especially in hindsight it is very clear why that happened, but in the past, who would dare to voice it? The way folks reacted when asking folks to do simple things like check spelling before sending things out (or give me a copy so that I could check) was almost asking them for a kidney or two. It was a bit refreshing that in countries USA or Canada folks actually apologized for misspelling your name, so I actually liked that blast of PC (which, again to me is just a basic level of mutual respect). Sure, you can characterize that as whining, if you want, but to me it is not having yet to deal with another thing on my plate. There is now a growing body of literature showing that the cumulation of this small things are adding to measurable levels of stress on the molecular level, so it is not just performance, it is something with an actual health impact. Now going back to sexual minorities, that effect has been found to be rather profound and one good summary can be found here: https://www.apa.org/pi/aids/resources/exchange/2012/04/minority-stress

I would not be too hopeful about that. Even before the pandemic the most common specific question you get is "will it be part of the exam". During the pandemic, it has become awfully clear that not only cheating is rampant. Even worse, often you can find copy/pasted answers where the first sentence kind of make sense, but the rest is just nonsense. I.e. folks do not read past the first couple of lines. And unfortunately that is also often the case when they are given reading materials. The generation of especially premeds I have seen makes me afraid for the future of the medical system.

Simple answer is probably psychoactive drugs. Sci-Fi answer could be activating the reward centres in the brain without drugs. It is not really that sci-fi as it has been done in animal models (there is even a wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_stimulation_reward). I think the range of potential issues are well described, starting from addiction, withdrawal from reality, lack of motivation and so on).