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Strangely enough, at least in North America, we've planted more trees than we've cut down

What we care about is not forested area, although it's relevant to weather patterns, but forest mass. Older trees put on mass faster than young trees, and most of a plant's non-water mass is carbon from the air. Strangely enough, this simple fact seems to go mostly ignored in discussions about global climate and carbon, and I have to bring it up in literally every discussion on this subject here on Slashdot. I can use the karma, but I'd prefer that more of you land-rape apologists would wake up and smell the burning.

The size of the brain is much less important than the brain to body mass ratio. Several animals have larger brains than humans (elephants being one), but they all have large bodies as well: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/b...

In the realm of comparative anatomy, "intelligence" is thought to be increased with both mass (to body ratio) and by area of the neocortex, called lissencephaly. The area of the neocortex is increased by brain folding,much like the surface area of the small bowel is increased by folds and vili and micro vili.

Genes are only one part of the development process - mutations in genes can add or delete function. Promoters in DNA control how those genes are expressed. A "good" gene can be present, but under expressed by a weak promoter. What they did was essential weaken the promoter of the gene Trnp1 which allowed the mouse brain to form more gyri and become more human like.

In neo-classical scientific tradition, actually testing the intelligence will, likely, be done in a second experiment so that they can get another paper out of this finding.

Because idiots are much more resourceful than ordinary people.

Behold!

That's right, Bryn Mawr has a good biology program.

But what is it, $55,000 a year? http://www.brynmawr.edu/sfs/cost/cost_index.html That's more than my relative is paying at her big expensive school. They'd have to be very generous to make it affordable.

She has a lot of good science courses in their standard concentration, including biology and chemistry. The tragedy is that I saw a list of unemployment rates of college graduates with different majors, and biology majors weren't doing too well. There was a time when a biology major would be welcome to teach in high school or even elementary school, and those who wanted to could go into health care, agriculture, etc. or even research. The economy is failing. We're in the middle of a biotechnology revolution, we're finding new drugs to treat major diseases, we need to understand science just to be functioning citizens, and biology majors can't get jobs.

Do you know that tuition in Quebec is $2,200? http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2012/09/20/its-official-quebec-tuition-hikes-are-history/ I wonder how much it is for foreign (American) students. As a bonus, you learn French. The French-speaking students killed a tuition hike because they demonstrated against it. The English-speaking students got a tuition hike. I heard a Canadian say that the English-speaking students pay high tuition, and say, "Compared to the US, this is pretty good." The French-speaking speaking students pay high tuition, and say, "Compared to France, this sucks." I wish our students were demonstrating in the streets, although I have to give them credit for Occupy Wall Street. Which the Canadians helped us organize.

My daughter is majoring in biology at Bryn Mawr, and the College has been quite generous to us. That seems true for many private institutions with reasonably-sized endowments. I'm surprised that [big expensive school] wasn't more generous. Is it all women? Single-sex womens' colleges are always on the lookout for talented young ladies.

All those things we perceive as flaws today may be the "mutation" that allows the human race to survive after something cataclysmic happens. And they might not. They may just be flaws. Sometimes something that appears bad is bad.

So the summary mentions cystic fibrosis. This is a perfect example. If you get 2 copies of the gene, you get a terrible condition and would (without modern treatment) probably die in you 20's. However, a single copy of the gene offers advantages over not having it at all.

The problem is that humans actually have very little understanding of how the body works and should not meddle in genetics on a large scale. Even in a case where we know a specific condition (2 copies of the CFTR gene) is bad, we should not try to eliminate that gene from the gene pool. I would agree that not producing babies with 2 copies is *probably* a good thing, but people have a tendency to generalize and go too far. Evolution - if left to function - would probably find a way to convey the benefits of this gene without the downside eventually.

There have also been recent drug trials where the substance in question had the opposite effect from what was intended. The immediate effect was correct, but the expected response in the body was wrong. We have a long way to go both scientifically and socially before such things may be considered a good idea.

I've read that in 20 years or less, we will be able to download all of a person's brain onto a computer hard drive. All of their memories, accumulated knowledge and yes, any crimes they may have comitted. Trying to find citation. Click this link, and scroll down to see a pic of "the headset of the future!" http://m.io9.com/5495712/six-ways-science-can-see-into-your-brain This article on the ethics of brain imaging http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/7324 and http://m.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/feb/09/neuroscience.ethicsofscience?cat=science&type=article

The environment is constantly changing. What is a threat today might be an ally tomorrow. This plant obviously had some characteristics that Jane found useful, those characteristics become the fitness criteria. If the plant had not appealed to Jane, it would not have been the one that survived. Now, just like the plant that got blown to a new island, this plant faces a different environment, one dominated by the whims of Jane rather than climate and predation. Evolution still happens. The plants that appeal more to Jane will be selected for.

And then the environment changes again, now the whims of Jane do not matter and the environment does again. First: so what? If the plant was adaptable enough to change genetically in the course of one environmentalist's lifetime, it obviously has a whole host of unexpressed genes just waiting for the right opportunity, and it will have an easy time shifting back as well.

Second, these random mutations combine and recombine in different ways. Even something that is a disadvantage can be an advantage when combined in novel ways with other mutations. Say a species develops a protein pathway that synthesizes a weak poison, which damages the individuals survival rate. Unless it is a guaranteed killer, it won't be selected out entirely, it will remain in a small percentage of the species.

Now, we have another mutation. This one strengthens another protein pathway, making the poison virulent. Guaranteed death for any individual that inherits both. But finally, we add in another mutation, one that protects from the poison. If an individual gets these three mutations, they are now in possession of a very nice defense.

So, even 'bad' mutations, when combined in all the trillions and trillions of combinations possible in each generation, may form something good. You can not even say what is good and bad until you see the results. By removing one set of selective pressures, all you are doing is letting another set of criteria come to the fore. It is simply not possible to remove all selection pressures.

You see, your "Jane" story happens all the time in the real world. Environments change, fitness criteria change, things adapt, and then have to adapt again as the environment shifts back. There is nothing wrong with that. It is entirely natural.

Again, all you have demonstrated here is how little you understand about evolution. Unfortunately, you are just repeating hoary old arguments that were debunked hundreds of years ago. It makes responding to you like shooting fish in a barrel. So... did you read that site yet? Here, just in case you missed it before, and to make sure no one reading this becomes confused by your fantasy of evolution: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/evolit/s05/web1/mheeney.html

Here it is again, in case you missed it: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/evolit/s05/web1/mheeney.html

What you forget in your analysis is local scarcity and surplus. Pure competition is only the optimal strategy when resources are universally scarce or universally abundant. When you may face localized scarcity or surplus of resources, then cooperation becomes the dominant strategy.

This has been shown in games theory experiments. You may want to look up the results of such experiments as the dictator game, the public goods game, the prisoner's dilemma game, and, well, any of the games described in games theory. The fact is, human beings are more motivated by notions of fairness and reciprocity than self interest. People will harm themselves in order to punish unfairness. We are not rational, self interested actors. Cooperation is what evolution lead to in humans, because that strategy is more efficient.

There are many reasons for individuals to cooperate, and not all of them benefit the individual, because evolution does not just work on the individual level. If you can help three or four close relatives succeed and breed, then you have passed on your genes (statistically speaking) to the next generation, even if you don't breed. Also, there is cooperation of the form, "I scratch your back, you scratch mine," or mutual benefit. Then there is the handicap principle: giving away resources proves your fitness to potential mates. It works like the peacock's tail, a decided handicap to survival, but a useful marker for fitness. Obviously, if a peacock can survive and thrive with such a gaudy tail, he must be pretty fit.

Fortunately for us as a species, we are not wired the way you think we are.

I do believe the sense I am spouting. Your definition of the theory of evolution is incorrect. You assume that the less fortunate are less fit, but part of our fitness as a species is our ability to cooperate. By helping the less fortunate, we put them in a position to help us.

There is no such thing as "de-evolution." The only information that gets erased is that which is no longer relevant to survival. The fitness criteria have changed, and what was fit is no longer, what wasn't fit, now is. In fct, for any trait you care to name as being 'fit' I can give you a counter example where it isn't.

But, as I said, you are espousing a theory that has been debunked time and time again. In fact, I'll give you the top page on google for 'social darwinism debunked' http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/evolit/s05/web1/mheeney.html

Feeding them is letting nature take its course. We are not separate from nature. If we start feeding bears, then we have not stopped evolution. We have just changed the fitness criteria. Bears that are better at getting food from humans will survive and reproduce more. Probably leading to a whole species of adorably cute polar bears with huge anime eyes.

I realized I hadn't backup up my positions with citations, so here's a reading list for you that might help clear up your obvious misconceptions about the theory of evolution.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/evolit/s05/web1/mheeney.html

http://www.allaboutscience.org/what-is-social-darwinism-faq.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_implications_of_the_theory_of_evolution

Don't just parrot back disproven theories without checking to see if you even understand what you are saying. See if you can understand what scientists are actually saying, rather than what you imagine they are saying.

I'm sorry but saying "You have no clue what the theory of evolution actually says" is not an ad hominem. You actually don't understand, that is a fact you have demonstrated, even in the above post. You are still talking as if evolution had a direction, as if there were a 'better or worse' from and evolutionary/survival stand point. You have a very basic misunderstanding of the theory which pervades everything you say about it. And this false theory you hold is also demonstrably the same theory that fascists have used to justify their sick policies. That is not an ad hominem, it is a simple fact.

Different areas of the brain handle different tasks - the back of the brain is where the visual center is, while the sides are where the audio recognition/speech centers are (as determined from individuals who have lost parts of their brains from surgery, accidents or diseases).

The insular cortex seems to have been the most recent part of the brain to have evolved.

It isn't so much brain size alone, as the ratio of brain size to body size that seems to be a measure of intelligence. There seems to be a minimum amount of brain volume required to manage the metabolism and immune system of body of a certain mass, so any excess about that amount has some other purpose like cognitive thinking, memory, recognition.

These can be placed in a graph:

Graph #1
Graph #2

if the high incidence of Asperger/Autism in Silicon Valley is strictly due to it being a more affluent neighborhood, then wouldn't similar increases in Autism be observed in other more affluent neighborhoods? and why Asperger/Autism in particular, and not other mental disorders like ADHD, bipolarism, anxiety disorders, etc.? Asperger Syndrome isn't called the "Geek Syndrome" for nothing.

and i think it should be noted that observational evidence is different from anecdotal evidence. any kind of hard science is going to rely on observational data, which, unlike anecdotal evidence, isn't skewed by subjective bias or small sample size.

i would encourage you to do some research into autism/Asperger and bipolar/manic-depression/suicide yourself. if you check on PubMed you can find a lot of relevant studies on this topic. this article may also be of interest.

While I think it is rather silly, one should not discount the use of smell. Marketing professionals have known for a long time that smell is the sense most correlated with memory http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro00/web2/Ito.html

Been there, Done that.

Browse around the site. Not only does it fill in uniform background color (easy), but also more complicated pattern (lines going through the blind spot), and even autocompletes repeating pattern (field of red circles).

This is very cool, and I wonder how similar it is to what the brain does with respect to blind spots?

For those who don't know: each eye has a surprisingly large blind spot at the place where the optic nerve enters the eye. At reading distance, in the right eye, it's about four or five inches to the right of the spot at which you are gaving, and many textbooks and "fun with optical illusions"-type books will have a diagram... like the one on this web page... and directions for finding it. The blind spot is much larger than the dot on that web page, incidentally. If you explore, you'll find that... at the distance at which the dot disappears... the blind spot is nearly an inch wide and an inch-and-a-half high.

Even allowing for the fact that each eye has the blind spot in a different place so they fill in for each other, once you discover how big the blind spot is... and how relatively close to your position of gaze it is... you'll be astonished that almost nobody notices it until it is pointed out.

The brain does something more or less like filling in the blind spot. I say "more or less like" because it is very hard to answer the question "what do you see in the blind spot." For example, if you hold a computer keyboard at the right distance so that you're looking at the "G" key and the "K" key is in your blind spot, what do you see? Certainly not a black spot, certainly not a white spot, certainly not a "hole" or emptiness. Probably you have an impression of computer keys. Do you see a letter K? Certainly not, yet somehow you don't see a blank key, either.

Incidentally, I used to suffer from migraine headaches, and one of the symptoms for some people is the formation of blind spots which can be even larger than the "normal" blind spot, and can appear in central vision. One one memorable occasion, I was looking at the cover of a hardbound book, and I can tell you that when I looked at the title, my perception was the stamped, printed title disappeared, yet I would have sworn in a court of law that I still saw the cloth texture extending across the blind spot.

Although he does not specifically refer to it as a migraine illusion, I believe Lewis Carroll was known to be a migraineur, and in Chapter V of Through the Looking-Glass, "Wool and Water," Alice notices that "The shop seemed to be full of all manner of curious things -- but the oddest part of it all was that, whenever she looked hard at any shelf, to make out exactly what it had on it, that particular shelf was always quite, empty, though the others round it were crowded as full as they could hold." Any migraineur who experiences central blind spots will recognize this description.

Hays and Efros' system--relatively-simple algorithm operating on a large database of previously-seen images--seems to me to be the sorta-kinda way in which one could imagine the brain working.

I wonder if there's any way to test this?

> unless an object ends up right at that point in your field of view, at which point it will 'magically' disappear.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindspot1.html another reason why the object could "disappear".

This is a moot point in my household; both the seat and lid stay closed. Even when my girlfriend is out of town. That's because if you don't shut the toilet before you flush, a massive cloud of tiny invisible particles of fecal matter and other nastoids comes shooting out of the toilet in all directions, coating you, the bathroom, and anything else in its path (like say, your toothbrush, if you don't leave it in the medicine cabinet or somewhere sheltered).

This was documented in a mildly famous study by Charles Gerba. It has been amusingly dubbed the F3: the Fecal Fountain Factor.

Now, tiny droplets of shit and piss water won't kill you--if you are healthy, you could likely french kiss your toilet seat and not get sick, but that doesn't mean you wanna. I find the mere knowlege that, if I don't shut the toilet first, I will be bathed an a microscopic shit shower to be sufficiently unappealing that I always do so. And, this way is equitable to all parties involved--no matter if you are a stander, or a sitter, you still have to lift the lid to use the toilet.

Luckily, the ages-old controversy is being brought back by the Japanese. New toilets there have infrared sensors that detect your approach and lift the lid and/or seat for you. Sounds ridiculous, but once you get used to it (that is, use it once), you come around to liking it. And happily, this technology reignites the debate with your female counterpart: you can argue about whether Mr. Smarty Toilet should be programmed to lift the lid, or both lid and seat. That is, until they come up with the next generation of toilets than can differentiate between individual people...

"No. Coriolis force exists."

More accurately: No coriolis force exists

The coriolis force is a fiction which describes the deflection of objects relative to the surface of the earth. In that regard, it's much like centrifical force.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-cen1.htm

In any event, I'm reasonably certain that you haven't flown north of the tree line with a pilot sufficiently experienced to point out the bump. When it is pointed out to them, most people do notice it. The next thing will be that you try to tell us that you can't hear the aurora borealis.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f00/web3 /gallagher3.html

Anyway, the grandfather post is just as accurate as the article to which it was posted.

I think Pyro and this MS project are related now:

http://emergent.brynmawr.edu/pipermail/pyro-users/ 2006-July/000371.html

It's also worth pointing out that even if this did have something to do with brain size, elephants have larger brains than humans. Sure, you can make lots of good arguments about how 20% of your metabolism (or something like that) is devoted to powering your supercooled cpus, but the point is that brain size is an imperfect indicator of intelligence. Also, men have larger brains than women - but smaller brains proportional to mass. And if you find these arguments unconvincing, then I'll just ask you to trust me - I'm an elephant and I've got a larger brain than you do.

Anyone else getting tired off all this Web 2.0 (tm) terminology?... "Compute cloud", "Grid computing service", etc. Every time I see this, I think Gay-Related Immune Deficiency computing service. Guess I'm showing my age. Anyone else remember the diet candy called Ayds?... wow, bet the marketing guys at that company had coronaries after the CDC press release. It's not good when a government agency names a fatal syndrome after your product.

It will be interesting to see a study on the brain plasticity of amputees fitted with these new prosthetics, similar to those done on the adult auditory map of hearing impaired patients (e.g. after sudden unilateral hearing loss).

Do the phantom sensations, usually experienced by amputees, disappear after these C-legs have been fitted?

Our brains are designed to fill in what we don't see or understand. Our blind spot, where the sheath of nerves carry visual signals to the brain, is a classic example: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindspot1.html. Logic is no exception. Witness religion. We like to fill in the holes. We don't like it when our rules collapse. It's more likely we're inferior beings than the universe is of inferior quality.

Then again, maybe you're Neo. What the fuck do I know? Keep eating shrooms and help me find a way out.

One of the advantages children have may also be the weakness in this study is that they show extreme plasticity. That is, their neurons are already growing and filling in gaps. Cases such as the "Boy with half a brain" demonstrate such extreme plasticity.

So, I'm somewhat hesitant that this procedure may be of great value to the population they picked. Instead, it may be issues like scarring that cause the most problems. Perhaps doing things like adding nerve growth factor (NGF), reducing inflammation, and keeping trauma victims cold would help more.

discussion here.

Why not just forget about time zones, day light savings and create a new universal global time.

Because that would be incredibly dumb.

First, the vast majority of people the world during daylight hours (only 20% work during night in industrialized countries, and no one works at night in pre-industrial nations.), so your "outgrowing" observation is wrong.

Second, you're talking about arbitrarily making half the world's population nocturnal. In case you haven't noticed, but humans are not nocturnal creatures. Human circadian rhythms are linked to the length of daylight. Humans become depressed when not exposed to sunlight. Humans require sunlight to manufacture vitamin D in the skin. Humans like to be able to see, and we can't see too well at night. (That's why we have a primeval fear of the dark.)

There are no doubt many other biological reasons. These are just the ones off the top of my head.

so in other words, just as I said, as long as you define things like genocide and torture using things like emotions, we can't apply them to animals, right? its a circular definition, the problem I said it would be. If you define these things in such a way that only humans could fit your definition, then guess what, only humans will fit your definition.

but I must disagree on a few point, humans, as you have said, do the same thing as wolves. we try to convert as much raw food as possible into edible food. as our food supplies are no where near infinite as you suggest, we do suffer from the same population limitations the wolf would. It just happens to be that we haven't reached that limit yet. Just like over-hunting the elk would cause food shortages that would modulate the wolf population, when humans in areas push the natural reasources too far with too many people, usually severe famine persists until some type of balance is restored. We can also over-farm land to make it unusable and over-hunt our own animal food sources to extinction. what you really mean is that unlike anyone else in the animal kingdom, we can eat anything and can effectively produce our own food if we want.

and of course, animals playing with their prey can easily shown to be different than playing with others of the same species, if for no other reason than the fact that one is their prey. unless you mean to suggest the animal doesn't understand the difference between the two? of course, that wouldn't make sense because the animal doesn't kill its friend that it is playing with, only its prey.

an interesting set of occurances would be the dolphin.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro04/web1 /eberdan.html

a college paper but the sources at the bottom point to more athoritative people who have shown dolphin males grouping together in order to force mating on a female(also known as gang rape by male dolphins). of course, if you always separate humans from animals saying we are the only ones capable of reasoning, then this would just be following instincts, yet it is almost unheard of in any other species( I have never read of another case).

so like I said before, the evidence is before you but like all good trump cards, as long as you believe there isn't the mental capacity for animals to do these things with the same intent as humans (or if you believe humans do them for different, only-human reasons) then no, noone can show you an instance of it happening in nature. but then again, your definition forbids it so you shouldn't be surprised that no good examples can be given to you.

Of course IQ tests don't predict anything in the real world. In fact, if they do, it might actually be a negative prediction.

From http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web3 /DawsonAndoh.html:

Another criticism of I.Q. tests is that their predictive capacity of the tests declines when they are used to forecast outcomes in later life, such as job performance, or salary. Moreover, I.Q. prediction becomes less effective once populations, situations or tasks change. One study found that I.Q. positively predicts leadership success in low stress conditions. But in high-stress situations, the tests actually negatively predict success (1).

Researchers at the University of Konstanz report "overlap or smearing of the homuncular organization of the representation of the digits in the primary somatosensory cortex" (3). Given that functions such as motor control cross over from the right side of the body to be represented in the left hemisphere, they found that the distance between the representations of individual fingers was smaller in the somatosensory cortex side corresponding to the hand that had undergone continued repetitious training (the left hand in case of violin players for example).

What does all this mean in terms of the brain? Looking at the central nervous system as an input-output system, in very simple terms we can observe that a specific input is presented over and over again - in this case the stimulation of the fingers that play the violin - and as a result the organization within the box changes. More specifically, there is a one-to-one correspondence between input and internal representations of this input: all fingers are individually represented on the somatosensory cortex. But somehow, as these regions of representation begin to smear or overlap, the one-to-one correspondence is blurred.

And the result? The problem turns into one of perception and motor control. Subjects with dystonia of the hand consistently are unable to localize light pressure stimuli applied to the tips of the fingers on the correct finger(4). Further, fingers in question cannot be moved individually, and specific movements or movement sequences cannot be controlled any longer (5). We get similar effects in blind people who read Braille with several fingers at once: they develop a single representation of all these fingers on the somatosensory cortex, but are not able to determine which part of the information received in the brain comes from which finger (6). Psychologist Thomas Elbert further points out a parallel of this in all of us: our toes are generally stimulated only simultaneously as we walk, and most of us have trouble telling which of the middle toes has been touched upon application of a light pressure stimulus. Indeed, our toes are not individually represented on the somatosensory cortex as our fingers are (6).

I can't speak to other cells, but the neurons in your brain and the nerve cells in your spinal column are all you've got. They do not regenerate. I suspect that there are other cell complexes in other organs that are probably one-timers as well (ova for instance).

That was the common consensus ten years ago but the last few years has seen that turned upside down.

For example with neurons:

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro00/web1 /Wall.html

and ova:

http://pharyngula.org/comments/484_0_1_0_C/

Nor age. Age matters.

My concern is that if they do set up BMI for women, how I would rate. I lift weights for exercise, and I'm not talking about the wussy 1 kg things that a lot of women use, but the big heavy ones. I can lift more than some guys. So I'm damn heavy due to all that muscle mass, even though I don't look heavy. Interestingly enough, I have started doing some extra cardio (running 5 km for each cardio session) in order to lose some weight. The result? Weight gain. And all my clothes are getting too big.

Are they going to create a women's BMI for someone like me, who exercises hard, or will the BMI be adjusted for the women who are afraid to build some muscle because they think it will make them big and bulky like bodybuilder men? My fear is that a BMI for women would be for women with little-to-no significant muscle mass, due to all the old stereotypes about women and training, putting me in some kind of obese range. Even when I have a waist-hip ratio of around 0.7, which is supposedly the "most healthy and attractive."

I just got back from a workshop on this very subject, but nobody uses the term "baby bootstrap". It is now called "Developmental Robotics", and encompasses embodied agents, machine learning, and other biologically-inspired metaphors.

There is now a website dedicated to the idea. See http://DevelopmentalRobotics.org/ and http://cs.brynmawr.edu/DevRob05/ for a collection of papers on the subject.

It's called proprioception. Links:

The brain fills in more than you may suspect.

I wonder how this technology accounts for the blind spot in each eye.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindspot1.html

From here -- In psychological addition, the individual may or may not be physically addicted to a substance, but craves the "source," which may be a substance or behavior, in order to decrease severe anxiety and stress. Psychological addiction includes sexual addiction, gambling, internet, addiction to computer games, and/or substances such as alcohol or drugs. Despite the impact on work and relationships, individuals will go to great lengths to calm the severe stress and anxiety that occurs with the absence of the substance or behavior to which they are addicted, regardless of the consequences.

Or is it better to post about Everquest widows?

What about this definition of addiction? Addiction has been defined as "A primary, chronic disease, characterized by impaired control over the use of a psychoactive substance and/or behavior. Clinically, the manifestations occur along biological, psychological, sociological and spiritual dimensions (2)." (source: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web2 /mschlimme.html

I have a little bit of firsthand experience... roommate #2 in college played computer games (no, I don't remember which one) 'til 6 or 7 in the morning. Roommate #4 was an Everquest fanatic. My point is that like gambling, drug, and alcohol addictions, which are pretty much well established as being legitimate addictions, gaming addiction has the exact same effects on the people addicted, society (to a lesser scale, because less people are addicted), and to the addict's circle of family and friends.

Telling people to put the damn controller down doesn't do any good when they're physically (or physiologically) unable to. Treat it like the disease that it is.

You are wrong. Caffeine causes physical symptoms of withdrawal. It also changes your brain chemistry. (of course so do a fuckton of other things, I just like being as dramatic about caffeine as most people are about weed)
Here's a well-written student paper which explores both sides of this controversial issue. However mild, caffeine does indeed form a physical dependance.
Here.

Many things are classified as 'addictive' that I don't think should be; shopping, jogging, chocolate, gambling, just to name a few. However, caffeine actually does fit the requirements of an addictive substance.

It's currently too balanced. It's like a symetrically perfect face - it looks weird and awkward.

WTF are you talking about? It's pretty much that Symmetry and Beauty are interconnected

A more symmetrical face is percieved as a more beautiful face. Symmetry is indicative of a person without obvious genetic defects, and hence a good prospect for mating and reproduction.

I realize that I'm probably feeding a troll, but I'll take the risk.

LK

Sounds like a variation on the Prisoners' Dilemma.

I wonder if the alleged Microsoft managers actually understood the strategy.

"We don't need to play well with others, others need to play well with us."

Bzzzt - wrong answer! I'd suggest you take a look at the Prisoner's Dilemma and Tit for Tat strategies which show that cooperative players outperform.

The rest of the world would like to play nice, because in a cooperative venture all do better, but to suggest that the US doesn't need to play well with others, and that others need to play well with the US would be an invitation to disaster, if actually carried out.

The US relies on others in large degree for its oil, minerals, and manufacturing. Don't think for a second that the US is self-reliant. While the US can win a conventional war hands down, the more likely scenario of a guerilla war, irrespective of US power and might, would be a losing cause if it had the popular suppport of the civilian base. Even Bush agrees that the US needs to play well with others. His administration went hat in hand to beg for support from Britain, Spain, Poland and Australia for the war in Iraq.

The US you propose would be isolationist, which would mean being in the same league as ohhh .... North Korea?!

Although the praying mantis is known for its cannibalistic mating process in actuality it only occurs 5-31% of the time. Especially in laboratory conditions of bright lights and confinement, the female is more likely to eat the male as means of survival. "In nature, mating usually takes place under cover, so rather than leaning over the tank studying their every move, we left them alone and videotaped what happened. We were amazed at what we saw. Out of thirty matings, we didn't record one instance of cannibalism, and instead we saw an elaborate courtship display, with both sexes performing a ritual dance, stroking each other with their antennae before finally mating. It really was a lovely display". (7) There is one species, however, the Mantis religiosa, in which it is necessary that the head be removed for the mating to take effect properly. (5) Sexual cannibalism occurs most often if the female is hungry. But eating the head does causes the body to ejaculate faster. (3)

Pseudoscience? While a biological basis for homosexuality is certainly not an established fact, there are several studies which strongly indicate that possibility. Read this summary, for instance. Please don't bother replying if all you have to offer is a proof by assertion. As for the Catholic church's position on homosexuals, I quote from the Catholic encyclopaedia:

"Homosexuality: Sexual activity between persons of the same sex. It is not a normal condition, the acts being against nature are objectively wrong." The Catholic Encyclopedia.

And this is the position of the APA

"The research on homosexuality is very clear. Homosexuality is neither mental illness nor moral depravity. It is simply the way a minority of our population expresses human love and sexuality. Study after study documents the mental health of gay men and lesbians. Studies of judgment, stability, reliability, and social and vocational adaptiveness all show that gay men and lesbians function every bit as well as heterosexuals." The American Psychological Association's Statement on Homosexuality, 1994-JUL.

Oh, and what do you have to say about the Bible's (often contradictory) position on women, which is largely the position of the Church today? I quote from Timothy:

12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be quiet.

You claim that you are An intelligent person who understands that perpetuating genetic defects is a bad idea.

Are you kidding me? Where you do you think creativity, intelligence, and other good "abnormalities" come from? It's all the same genes. One base pair flipped and something changes...the good, the bad, and all. You know the association between certain types of mental illness and 'genius' of various types, right? e.g., bipolar That's not to claim that all negative genetic issues have a positive side to them -- but you'd be rediculously shortsighted to think that you can just add a little chlorine to the genetic pool by not having kids if there's some kind of genetic defect in your line. It's not that simple. If you want to get rid of genetic defects, and if you know anything about evolution at all, you probably know how freakin' good variation is for the general improvement (evolution) of a species is...and how freakin' bad normalcy/nonvariance is. People with blindness develop special abilities above and beyond what seeing people can do. This is an advantageous trait in itself. See how it works? I don't claim to glorify genetic disorders, but to use blindness as an example of people who shouldn't have kids is just a bad example.

I don't advocate killing anyone nor do I think superficial traits like hair and eye color are the basis for determining "superiority."

And what would you call blindness? Profound? Incapacitating? Hardly. You're walking a slippery slope with that argument...

Any basis of judging the "goodness" of one person over another cannot be justified unless it is based on such a reduced quality of life that no life would be better than any life at all (potential examples: down syndrom, twins conjoined at the heart, etc). ANd I would hardly file "blindness" under that category. If you think that people with those types of defects ought not breed, that's ultimately the same problem as thinking you can kill them.

If parents decide they don't want to have kids for that reason, that's their decision. I am pro-choice and pro-euthanasia for those reasons. But to have some ultimate idea that the general quality of our society can be improved by "sound scientific reasoning" about what is a good contribution and bad contribution to man-kind's general gene pool -- that is one of the most absurd ideas I've ever heard.

I recognize that I'm not everyone, but I kicked Coffee last week and only had mild headaches that were easily managed by hydration and NSAIDS (aspirin, acetominophin). I was a fairly heavy coffee drinker, but probably not as bad as many here, consuming 4-6 strong cups a day.

I gave it up because I thought it was contributing to my IBS after reading an article on self-care for IBS. Stopping the coffee has helped a lot. I still get some caffeine in sodas, but I typically choose non-caffeinated drinks now, and the problems have greatly alleviated.

Look, I know how condescending it can seem to be told that "it's all in your head", but if you admit the possibility that it just might be and apply a positive attitude you might find you'll have an easy time of giving up coffee. Just have some aspirin handy, get plenty of water to drink and try to increase your exercise level and you should do fine.

The condition of being male or female... that actually implies conditional relevance dosn't it?

I'll review your article in reverse order...
d) Oh GAWD!!! It's a first year Biology paper! Your drawing conclusions from a freshman undergraduate work which doesn't even cite biological or neuropsycholical journals... the author evens goes so far to say at one point: the inconsistencies that plague this area of research should be regarded as evidence for the complexity of the underlying question involved and the variation intrinsic in the answer.

Yes Brain structure differences exist and specific areas of control have differnt trends depending on species. The fact is that these are trends, and that individual differnces vary far more than any sex related gender trend. This articles author fails to grasp that. Pop Psyc like this is anoying, it's like saying "I'm a left brained person... therefore i'm more logial" It's nonsense, there are hymespheric asymertrys in all functions, appart from purposes of identification of areas of possible damage there is no relevance to personality or cognition (there is a link to a myths page about popular notions of left/right brain pop crap on the same page... no less). How does the fact that I note a trend in sex linked difference in brain structure imply a relation to how we understand the world anymore than the differences your brain structure or my brain structure are most likely quite physically differnt.
Hormones effect development, however there is little evidence related to the direct effect of hormones on actual perception/cognition. I will concede that hormones may act as regulators of certain neurological functions, but making that causal leap is too large for this skeptic to accept.

Article, c) Ok, i've known about this for a while, there is even a marker gene for homosexuality. This article typifys alot of hardcore biological sentiment, the problem is that they are still confusing what gender is, by operating on an outmoded psychological framework, (Biological sciences work to mostly a framework of Behaviourism and Evolutionary psychology), This is a very interesting and provocative area at the moment. The fact you bring it up demonstrates the power of genetics to define categorys which instantly offer a basis for discrimination. This is closest to the argument of the original thread. And offer a good insight into how simple categorys create conflict(Called minimal group paradigm in psychology). It also demonstrates the power of authoritvie sources. However it offer no insight into our argument about sex differences because it is merely confirming the obvious that genetic markers influence expression of physical traits. There introductory speil is misleading because the evidence presented offers little insight into the heading topic. Similarily they go onto to talk about ambigious genitalia differences and doctors gender labeling at birth. If you actually research transgender issues some more you will find that, even using genetic markers to identify TRUE SEX, many transgenders make choices against these genetics both knowinly and unknowingly. This only demonstrates that any confusion relating to gender with these individuals cannot truelly be a matter of genes....

b) It's just a newspaper report... common, your can't understand these types of concepts through popular media, they spin it. Trust me i've seen plenty of studies that i've had privy to, end up in the newspaper and not be anything near what the study was finding...Anyway.. this story is a rehash of the same studies, I gurantee the researchers were taken out of context on both counts. I agree if we were to research the areas of growth which these genes have, and then control over

note Gender as the word not SEX.

Gender:
The condition of being female or male; sex.
(American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Yea, good job there.

As for the thinking differently That's bollocks, that's tied into the constructed social roles argument.

Hopefully this will cure your "non-difference" stance:

Read me
Me too
Don't forget me
I'll end with this one

Such ballocks.... indeed... (be sure to read the WHOLE article in each case...)

Physical characteristics aside... men and women think differently. End of story.

The philosophical and logical attack you have when presenting your arguments is entirely unscientific. You state statistics, probibilities, and analise human behavior on a purely social and artificial standpoint... much in the same effect as politicians actually choosing the most rational course of action for the government - that method is horrible at actually getting the job done.

The only way to fully understand a problem is to figure out what is going on below the surface. Your approach of analyzing social behavior and performance in the work place based on how they were brought up is like trying to understand a computer by measuing how hot the insides get and what kinds of noises it makes.... you can't.

I'm done with this argument.

The free market is a very successful system. However, it is imperfect: it assumes that everyone acting selfishly will accomplish the common good, which sets up prisoner's dilemma problems.

In this case, nobody likes banner ads, and everyone selfishly wants to block them. If everyone did this, content on the web would be diminished, because fewer people could afford to produce web content full-time, and more content would go to subscriber-pay sites. (Or worse, the advertising will become more embedded and harder to filter out, even visually. For example, this sentence is brought to you by the good people at State Farm. Or every web comic would suddenly have a character named Cisco.) Yet if everyone co-operated by not blocking banner ads, free web content is made available to everyone.

And don't give me a lot of crap about "someone will figure out a better business model", unless you can actually point to a particular website with that model, that is succeeding.

All I'm saying is, think about the unintended consequences before you act selfishly, or praise others for doing so.

Which leads me to another point: there's an appalling lack of ethical behavior on the internet. Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean it's a good idea to do so.

[end rant]

I think the arguments have been that the US drug policy was born out of the prevailent racism and paranoia at the begining of the last century.

But you can't consider this lightly or you'll never really understand American drug policy. The scary thing about the moral police is that they are trying to do what they honestly believe is right and that makes them fairly complicated.

Besides, drugs are not benign and their effects on society (and more importantly your family and friends) can be disastrous.

I mean there is still addication, amphetamine induced psychosis, neurotoxicity and long term personallity changes we have to deal with. And anyone who thinks this couldn't happen to them or someone they care about is just holding their head in the sand.