CharonY

Not really, evolution is the change in the total genetic composition (i.e. gene pool) over time. Even if no traits are changed, the gene pool can. However, selection happens on heritable traits, which is what you are thinking about. But this is only one aspect of evolution and not the only one. And what parents transmit to the next generation are not identical traits, it is the genetic material. This is an important distinction as depending on the mix the next generation(s) receive, the traits might be quite different from those of the parents.

Well, the way it is going, college-aged people will sound like chat GPT, because all the writing comes from there (or will be soon). Probably a bit off-topic, but we will likely see fewer folks writing more complex texts with their own voice. Mostly, because they never learn to do so.

I think a fundamental challenge is building trust between the groups. And from what I see, these happen mostly on the ground with local association and between activists. But Oct. 7 put a heavy strain on these initiatives. And the political entities in this conflict are very apt in leveraging the distrust.

I think the seminal undergrad text book on evolution is still Futuyma. The 1-2% with chimpanzees is a different type of count, and was really base on looking at genes (i.e. excluding large non-coding areas) and even then it was based on a subset of genes. In addition, I believe they were based on substitutions. For example, let's say humans have a stretch of DNA being GCTTA and chimpanzees at the same locus it would be GGTTA then there would be one substitution (C->G). But there are also regions with deletions and insertions. E.g. GCTTA becomes GCAAGCGCTTA, the question is how you quantify the additional AAGCGC (or the missing part, depending on perspective). The original 1-2% differences simply ignored them. I believe lining up the genomes and matching the bases would still yield something like 80% match, but not entirely, memory gets a bit hazy.

Yeah, I used that paper to tell my wife that she is more Neanderthal than me. Did not go over well at all. Typical Neanderthal!

I saw another depressing poll (somewhere) showing that folks believe that Trump would be better to handle the Gaza conflict (well actually handling anything would be stretch). Here is a tracker on the litigations, though most likely it all hinges on SCOTUS. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/current-projects/the-trump-trials/section-3-litigation-tracker

That goes towards the main thrust of my argument. The first point is that using proximate events (i.e. attacks) will result innocent life lost (on either side, and we can ignore the relative scale to avoid complications). The second is that the status quo inevitably will lead to attacks. From this it follows that the current situation is a morally untenable one, as it require the acceptance of regular innocent deaths. The point I was therefore trying to make is that anything other than a large-scale redesign of the relationship is necessary, and so far a two-state solution as the endpoint has been the only theoretically viable option. This also means that groups actively eroding this or other peaceful paths, are culpable in the ensuing death cycle. So yes, Hamas clearly are the proximate perpetrators, but the existing system is the overarching framework resulting in them (or eventually other groups) to attack Israeli civilians. And as it stands, actors on both sides have been torpedoing peace efforts, with civilians bearing the outcomes. That is not to say that there are any clear paths ahead, but I do think that it is necessary to focus and elevate voices that work toward that goal, rather than allowing populists and terrorists to frame the condition and direct the outcome. Building peace is so much harder than waging war and requires a disproportionate effort. But it is the only way out of it. In other words, the gist of the argument is that we should not focus on proximate conflicts as those will obscure any paths out of violence. Somewhat unrelated to this point, but touching on many aspects presented in this thread, there is an excellent assay on the New Yorker by Gessen that is worth a read. It starts with a Jewish perspective on anti-Semitism but also links that to the situation in Gaza. It is well worth the time to read: https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust

I think the Hamas part is very much implied, but perhaps too implied. That being said, the rest mostly referred to the otherwise hard to understand situation why Hamas has come to power in the first place. I think it is pretty obvious that Hamas has no intention to make lives better for Gazans (though potentially at the beginning some might have thought that). As mentioned, the issue is the ongoing campaign, and basically as some analysts and also Barak have mentioned, the issue is that the the suffering heaped on civilians (not Hamas) is depleting the goodwill that Israel had from suffering the violent attack by Hamas. They were therefore saying that Israel needs a targeted and timed action, but so far it is no unclear where things are going to end up. It does not help that some officials have floated the permanent displacement of Gazans and I think the original 24h deadline for Gazans to leave the North Gaza, without any assurance of a safe path (that came later, but the damage was done). That is a fair assessment . I think the issue I had with some justifications is the lack of a scope (I have mentioned commando-style actions as suggested by the US for example). But lack of announcements in that regard and again and in some cases pushing the likelihood of permanent displacement (with others contradicting those statements) does not really inspire confidence. As I said, I have simple thoughts and the thoughts said that at least we should spare the children (and then perhaps move up the morality ladder a bit if we hadn't failed that step already. And again, it does not matter whose child it was). I know you are trying to find policies that contradict this particular moral stance but as we have discussed in threads on abortion, it depends on the developmental stage of the fetus and its likelihood of survival, but also the risk to the mother. And in this context, late term abortion is a conservative talking point that misses its mark entirely. Medically, late term refers to pregnancies past 41 week gestation. I.e. if birth happens later than expected (40 weeks). Of course there is no abortion in that time frame. Moreover, fewer than 1% of abortions happen after the 21st week and I am not sure whether any of those are without some medical indication. But I suspect that it was more a jab at my simple moralism rather than a serious argument.

And the discussion started that there were no good guys in the conflict (except the innocent civilians). I have no idea how the arguments made in this thread could be interpreted this way. Moreover, with one possible exception no one even tried to justify Hamas' action, so I am not sure why you try to argue that point. I see a distinct mismatch in what you are arguing against and what has been written in this thread.

Except, if you remember, my premise that any policy resulting in innocent deaths (esp children) is a bad one. I.e. it was specifically a critique to the cycle of violence and their use to justify the next one.

I think blaming Netanyahu is justified, just read through some international Israeli articles on that matter. He torpedoed paths to peace (regardless how strenuous they might have been ) and allowed money to flow to Hamas with the stated intention to weaken proponents of a two state solution. So at least factually there is some culpability, if folk co-developed a situation where terorists can thrive. So it does not seem one-sided, as I don't think anyone here is justifying Hamas. One could argue whether ge should be No1 or 2 or wherever, but faultless he and hardliners are not. The one-sided argument seems to me that it is all the Palestinians fault, without formulating what their alternatives were (beside thriving through blockades). If someone blamed all the Israeli as you did with Palestinians, you might have point, but I might have missed those, if they existed. And if you really want to narrow culpability to the direct actions only, then non combatant Palestinians should be equally excluded. Yet those are still dying. Finally, you seem to attribute intentions to posters. I am critiquing your arguments and extrapolated to what seemed to me the conclusions. I have made no assignment of guilt to posters, as that would be silly. Unless Netanyahu posted here or followers of Hamas. Palestinians and Israeli civilians are victims and it is hard for either group to take up responsibility either way. Both are not dying at the same rate historically, though. That is the issue with these actions and the seeming conclusion if executed unchecked. The US wars were a lesson I that regard.

I think you might overthink it. What folks basically do is look at a locus I.e. a given stretch of DNA and check what variability is there in a population. These variations are not entirely random and by having sufficiently distant members of a species, we can infer or estimate what their ancestors might had. Of course there is always the chance that we miss variations that somehow have vanished from extant populations or misjudge the gene flow. But you are correct that limited data might impact interpretation and an lead to false assumptions.

I think I might have addressed it here somewhere (or potentially elsewhere, I cannot really recall) but the 1-4% were based on earlier studies and hinges on comparison with sequences obtained from Neanderthal samples. Also, these are not genes (generally speaking, we all have the same genes, but what is relevant are Neanderthal specific variants, or alleles). These numbers, however are not exact calculations but rather rely on identification of matches with the Altai Neanderthal genome and then using existing modern human sequences to estimate the rate of introgression (i.e. how much genetic material was introduced). The 1-4% therefore represent the level of ancestry calculated by these comparative analyses. This is an interesting point and indeed having insufficient Neanderthal reference can lead to wrong calls in the process. I.e. sequences might be tagged as likely Neanderthal, while they actually aren't or vice versa. This is actually what some folks think what happened. Based on a fairly recent paper the assumption is now that the Altai Neanderthal might have picked up DNA form modern humans based on a failed migration from Africa to the middle yeast and this might have led to a misattribution of signals as Neanderthal, although they were actually from modern humans. This would explain the mystery that East Asian population were showing a higher Neanderthal signal, despite the fact that no fossils were found there. However, if those signals were actually modern human to begin with, that would perfectly explain the distribution.

So what purpose then does blaming Palestinians for their own situation serve in this particular context? Does it not mean that because Israel is justified in their actions and Palestinian carry (whatever level of) guilt, their deaths are, if not acceptable, then at least justified? Now, MigL has amended that his post were mostly meant as a pushback for some of the earlier posts, but I do think that the (repeated) claims of making use of their beaches and oil are at the minimum misleading and worst case an attempt to highlight Palestinian culpability. And at in the context of large scale military actions with a tremendous death count among non-combatants and children, and an ongoing humanitarian crisis with risks of disease outbreaks, it is hard not to read it a as a justification. That being said, the big issue is basically what another poster mentioned before: no one in this conflict is really on the side of the Palestinians. Certainly not Hamas, and the other Arab nations are clearly more motivated to use them as bargaining chips. Israel has also shown little interest in cultivating allies among Palestinians and hardliners have done their most to destroy chancers for a two-state solution. So what remains is bickering about how many civilian deaths we are comfortable with. With increasing brutality of Hamas the number goes up. Really, I do not understand the strange dichotomic view of some of the posts suggesting that if Israel is not extra-brutal now, genocide is their only option left. Israeli politics have closed as many peaceful solutions as they can and as many (also Jewish) analysts have mentioned, these cycles of violence are a consequence of it. I read somewhere that Palestinians and Israelis are at a point where they are unable to recognize each other's pain.

I think it is an issue of perspective and it is tricky to figure theinterface between Biology, inner perception, outward presentation (both of which are heavilyinfluend by culture and learning) and what psychological measures we use. As mentioned, most things are gradual, rather than categorical. That is zaoatos' mentioning of averages is exactly. In a given context we can find differences in the means, but some measures overlap more than others. So you could say men are more likely more aggressive than women, but if you could not state with certainty that the woman in front of you is certainly going to be more aggressive (right now) than her male counterparts, if that makes sense. Even social attraction is not 100% sexually coded (as homo- bi- an asexuality exists, but most are heterosexual).

No, absorbing limited attacks was Netanyahu's tactic to keep the Palestinian's down. And this the mindset that leads to more suffering. Again, how does an extended campaign now once for all end Hamas? How well did it go in the past? What about the next generation of Palestinians? It does seem that this strategy is replaying the same stuff over and over again. I am not saying a ceasefire will solve the problem, it is only a band aid to lessen the ongoing suffering. But saying that death now has to continue to stop a future Gazan genocide is odd at the very least. I will also add that I do not recall having called for ceasefire, just that a) there are no good guys here and b) that something must be done to stop the humanitarian catastrophe. Again, the focus on a singular action (ceasefire) evokes in my mind a sports team level thinking that calls to be entirely binary and I reject the notion. As before, my very basic level of reasoning is that actions resulting in the loss of innocent lives, regardless whether they are murders carried out by Hamas or unintended (but expected) casualties by military actions. One could (and maybe should) assign different levels of moral weight to them, but I feel uncomfortable trying the apply such judgements to innocent deaths as it feels to much like trying to justify them. Also, I think it is rather easily established why the onus of action (or inaction) is on the Israeli side, they have the power and there is little expectation of Hamas to do the right thing, they are a terror organization that hold their own (and other) people hostage. One could of course also put the onus on the Gazan people (as you seem to do) and ignore the system they live and grew up in. That is of course unrealistic as the system makes it very hard not to be funnel them into the arms of Hamas. I cannot say what the action should be, but in my mind it should be as limited as possible and at minimum connected with actions that save civilian's lives. That does not seem to be the case (and again, even the US, not famous for their restraint themselves, are calling for more limited actions). More importantly, the actions need to be accompanied by a long-term strategy for the day after, but apparently we have learned nothing form the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, did we? If all we say that we should give carte blanche, because self-defence, what is the end point of the military action? Indefinite presence of the IDF? Displacement of Gazans into a even more confined area? As I mentioned before, self-defence is not an excuse to cause unlimited suffering especially with no clear endpoint. Not to mention that it is not an either/or situation. Also the situation has shown that the current strategy (see also the interview with the ex-IDF soldier) clearly has not worked. And continuing the cycle of violence will end nowhere (except perhaps when the Palestinians are eradicated). Each time folks will claim self-defence and what good does it bring except moral justification for violence? Hamas will certainly claim the same, and why we might not buy it, the kids whose family got killed, will certainly at least consider it. The way forward is something else, though no one can really say what it might be. Again, the only thing we know is the current situation is not the right thing. Well, as you know, we only have an UN because everyone wants it to be ball-less. The major powers would never have agreed to an organization that might decide against their interests . One could always blame (rightfully in some cases) the "bad actors". But depending on the situation and area in the world, everyone was a bad actor at some point. The US was instrumental in reducing the UN actions during the Rwandian genocide, for example. That being said, not having a platform for diplomacy would be worse, but it certainly is frustrating.

MigL whole point was that a) Palestinians put Hamas in power and failed to develop themselves out of the mess. In fact, he claims that they had many exit points but failed to utilize them (such as building resorts and get oil rich). How else should I interpret the overall point as, the situation is entirely their fault, they put Hamas in power so whatever suffering comes there way is no one else's fault. In other words, because Palestinians had these moral failures, they do not deserve a ceasefire in order to reduce the deaths that are currently accumulating. I.e. because Hamas did not adhere to agreements, therefore it is morally correct to have Palestinian (non-combatants) die. Note that I have nothing against decapitating Hamas, in fact, I do think that this is a necessary step. But I do not think that one can make the moral argument that this can be done at the cost of unchecked (or minimally checked) deaths of civilians. It was wrong during the Iraq war, and it is wrong now. Don't get me wrong, Hamas is in the wrong here. But even the fact that Hamas is so powerful is not entirely the Palestinian's fault as outlined above and I am fairly sure that especially children had little say in that matter. As I mentioned in the beginning: can we agree that any outcome resulting in children dying should be considered morally wrong? And the answer it seems is no, we are able to justify it just fine. Sure, the actions happen in the context of self-defense, but still children and non-combatants die. And at least morally I am unable to make myself feel better about human suffering by identifying moral failures (real or perceived). I fail to see how such an attitude does anything but to make it easier to allow suffering to happen to other folks I should add that a ceasefire should not be seen (as many appear to in the internet ) as a taking sides moment (politics has become so stupid that I feel the need to express this). Rather, all reports indicate a humanitarian catastrophe with little resources, a massive death toll and worsening health situations. I don't care whether there is a ceasefire or other way to implement humanitarian help. This is not a team sport, folks are suffering and at least in the short term there is only one party that controls the situation. And even from an utilitarian view (also outlined above) it is not clear whether the large-scale war effort will have long-term positive effects. This is likely why the US has tried (perhaps with some irony) tried to rein the offensive in a bit. And I should also add that in the face of human suffering the glib statement that they should have used their beaches better just a tad on the a callous side (not to mention unrealistic). And I also acknowledge that my attitude is inherently hypocritical. Obviously I only care about this particular conflict because I happen to discuss it on this forum and because of the news article I read. I know that I am not really doing anything against it, nor do I spend a similar amount of time to think about all the other ongoing conflicts. It is part of the human condition, we are unable to even mentally deal with the breadth and depth of suffering in the world. After I write my little diatribe I am going to make a coffee and go back to work. But at minimum I want not to feel good about it.

So the argument is that the Palestinians have screwed up and now everyone there deserves to be bombed? I will also address some of your arguments, but again, these are not solutions but just an effort to place blame somewhere. As I note, you do not mention the West Bank, which shows that even without presence of Hamas oppressive activities happened. Now to your specific claims: They did not drill for oil and gas, because they were in dispute with the Israeli government. While I believe the Oslo Accords place it under Palestinian jurisdiction Israeli forces have prevented access. Building resorts, yes an isolated enclave with in a shaky political situation is clearly where tourist want to flock to. It is disingenuous to compare the Israeli blockade to a passport issue. They effectively restrict natural commerce and instead drove an active black market via the tunnels controlled by, you guessed it, Hamas. I.e. Hamas is not only a terrorist organization but eventually became the main source of economic power in the region once they pushed out the PA and the blockade devastated the local economy. I mean, it is clear to say that Hamas wields dictatorial powers and yes, perhaps the Palestinians, which fed up with the corrupt PA should have not chosen the radical alternative (though again, as we can see this is not a Palestine-specific tendency). But once they did Hamas established themselves, and inadvertently (or eventually intentionally) together with Israel, they created a system that makes them hard to dislodge them. So again, blame them if you want, but what do you think are their realistic options? Edit: there have been past analyses by UNCTAD on the blockade and here is a recent re-iteration: https://unctad.org/press-material/prior-current-crisis-decades-long-blockade-hollowed-gazas-economy-leaving-80 And now touching again on what to do: similar to the war on drugs, whatever the Israeli restrictions intended, the result was clearly not an ousting of Hamas, but instead resulted in solidifying their position by effectively making Gazans dependent to them (and again, with the help of the current Israeli government). So again, what are the options for Gazans?

The idea of the longshots is to look at potential scenarios because the only other ones I have seen in this thread is basically Israel commits genocide or the Palestinians submit fully to Israeli rulership in a rather nebulous but forever peaceful way. Saying that killing any number of Gazans of any age is alright because Hamas does nothing except to make folks feel better about the ensuing suffering. The US is currently urging Israel to switch to more targeted "commando-style" attacks (similar to what some of the folks in the above link suggested.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. What onus do you want to put on them? Yes Palestinians are worried that they may get wiped out. So why should they think that throwing themselves at the mercy of those with the power to wipe them out will work out? And why is the discussion focused on Israel? Well you just argued that one party is in the position to wipe the other one out.

And which party is able to present themselves as viable alternative if they are not supported or otherwise seen to be able to talk to Israel as equals? What should they do in response of getting displaced by Israeli settlers, for example? Yet Netanyahu was not the only one responsible for propping up Hamas. Some excerpt from the opinion series linked above that focus on potential solutions and way forward, rather than playing the blame game. Peter Beinart Ehud Olmert: Limor Yehuda, Omar Dajani, John McGarry:

Also, some thoughts from folks who have thought more deeply about it: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/12/opinion/gaza-israel-palestinians-plans.html

The answer is simple: proteins are complicated. The gold standard is crystallography, which involves purifying proteins and create protein crystals of high quality and to use powerful X-ray lasers to explore their structure. This has many, many challenges, including the fact that many proteins do not like to form ordered crystals (especially membrane proteins). While there are approaches to address it, it remains slow and time consuming. There are hopes that in silico approaches using machine-learning can accelerate the process, and according to some publications, the quality of predictions is getting close to being useful. How well that works with novel structures is in my mind still unclear but might prove itself eventually. In addition, in many cases having a static structure is not enough. So you want actually see how things bind (once you got the structure you can use models to simulate things, but they might be off, if the binding has unexpected properties), or interact under a given condition (say, within membranes). That increases the complexity even more. Forgot to add, the reason why they are important specific for drug development is because they are targets of drugs. If you want to inhibit a certain receptor protein, for example, your drug must be able to bind that receptor under native conditions and thereby block their activity. Without knowing the structure of the receptor you are basically designing blind. With some docking data, you will have a better idea what might theoretically work (whether there are useful in practice is a different matter).

There are numerous publications investigating the decline of terrorism. While there is not necessary broad agreement on how to fight terrorism and how unique each case might be, there is evidence that repressive military force has little evidence for being a solution. Most effects were found to temporary, counterproductive or export the issue to other countries. Targeted elimination of leadership will (hopefully) reduce Hamas' capabilities in the short term. In the long-term only a lasting peace agreement can end the conflict. And this has to include violence in the West Bank (again, where Hamas is not a major player). How do you remove Hamas? Present the Palestinian people a viable alternative. Something that promises peace and self-determination. Netanyahu understood that, which is why he bolstered Hamas. And who comes after him? If folks are sufficiently afraid the idea of suppression is likely to continue. And where does it leave the option for peace?

OK, this result is really weird, as it might suggest that ROX is dependent on your sample, rather than the MM. Not sure if it is related, but I do wonder whether the position plays a role. Your Positivkontrolle is on top and your NTC is on the bottom of the plate (and the increase affects all samples in the middle). Perhaps a silly question, but in your method, ROX is selected as the reference dye, rather than target? Generally speaking an increase in the reference tends to be indicative of evaporation and concentrating the MM. Quenching could affect ROX, too, in theory, but in your case I fail to see how that would work. I am especially unclear sure why you see all three effects in the same run in a seemingly well or template-dependent way. One thing to check is whether the ROX traces are similar in all your runs. Also ROX seems a bit on the low end (close to 0) though I don't know if your software normalizes the values somewhat. At this point I would check your reference runs/SOP to see what your expectation of the raw fluorescence levels are and/or discuss the issue with the manufacturer (after checking that the software settings are correct, of course).