How many kids still eat actual food? Pizza, fries, sodas and fried mars bars are NOT food!
I have to point out that it is rather a big deal at my house that we make our own pizza from scratch (ie. flour and water etc.) on Sunday evenings. The kids help by choosing what they want on top. We sometimes bake them on a stone so they are especially yummy. I don't think pizza is inherently bad. Fried mars bars, an obscure and I assume little eaten oddity, are certainly bad. However, we recently used melted Mars bars in a fondue pot.
The point I am trying to make is that it's wrong to just list a bunch of foods and call them evil. The problem isn't with specific foods, it's with diet overall. And exercise.
Maybe it's with "lifestyle"? Involving (your) children in their own lives is pretty crucial to helping them become healthy adults who lead happy productive lives. Whenever you're in doubt imagine how your children would have been living (if they survived) in millennia past. They would probably be at your side, mimicking the things you do as they learn how to get through the day. Obviously we don't live in the past and we have to adjust for present circumstances. Sorry I don't have a bold conclusion to make beyond that.
Beyond all of that there are certainly some mental illnesses. People with these can sometimes benefit from treatment. Some beneficial treatments involve special chemicals. I am not remotely an expert on that though (or any of this really).
I know you're being sardonic and I agree with you. Unfortunately, my cousin was hit in the head by a truck while riding his birthday present moments after receiving it. There is no guarantee that a helmet would have prevented his permanent brain damage but one has to wonder if it is so terribly onerous a requirement to put on children. I think it is probably a useful lesson. One can have fun but one should have a regard for one's self. Doesn't seem so terrible really.
I too discovered Star Blazers by accident as a young lad sometime in the very early eighties. It sure seemed amazing to me then but I suspect that adult eyes would view it differently.
Have you read the Foundation series as an adult? It's not really very good. There are certainly some good ideas but the writing is trapped in the 1950s. It seems really awkward in places and overall (in my opinion) it hasn't aged well. It's nice to have classics in whatever genre but don't live in the past. There is a lot of fine writing now.
The movie and TV business is risky and they want to minimise their losses so they rehash what has worked in the past.
In most schools getting good grades is utterly unacceptable to the peer social group. So the child can be an outcast with no friends or not - easy to choose, isn't it?
Well said. The bonehead bit that is. Kids are amazing creatures. The previous poster needs to do some serious self reflection. I have older kids (18--she is off to university in engineering! and 15--he seems pretty determined to grow roots in front of the XBox but things are changing slowly) and it has been a privilege participating in their public school education. They did have to endure some poor teachers and some boring material but they got access to so much that I couldn't have given them. Finally, I think that immersion in the social turmoil of school is useful as it is the world encapsulated (and safed). Learning to put up with annoying teachers is important. How does one negotiate this social terrain?
Note that I said that I participated in their public school education. That's an important part of being a parent and, it seems, often neglected by necessity or thoughtlessness or ignorance I suppose. I think that the public school system is pretty good (I'm in Canada) and made better by actually being engaged in your child's life.
You don't have to be one of those cling-on parents either. Let them live their life, give them what they need and not always what they want, help them when they ask, push them gently to achieve, let them make mistakes (that can be a tough one) etc. (all the usual malarky).
By way of actually saying something about the fine summary that we are supposed to be discussing my opinion of educational gadgets for infants and toddlers is extremely negative. I don't think there is much evidence that anything except devoted parents and a safe environment helps much.
One problem is that the lights often need to be embedded in shades or shields to prevent glare from the sun from obscuring the light and to prevent drivers approaching from other directions (perhaps less than 90 degrees) from being confused. These shades provide a wonderful place for snow to accumulate.
The selection pressure is what it is. There is no goal, only response to the pressure. I agree that the algorithm used to generate the music matters and will, I'm guessing, create some bounds for the music outside of which it cannot stray. I assume this is analagous to biological evolution where things like embroyology limit what can change while providing a sort of tool set for the growth of an organism (as I understand it). If the tone generation scheme is rich enough this should create something interesting to a large enough fraction of the listeners.
To model any input signal you need an infinite series of sine waves of different frequencies. Some input signals are better approximated by the first n terms in the series. Some signals (like the square wave) are difficult and you need more terms.
The climate we observe is the result of physics. Physics combines observation, speculation and experimentation. All of the necessary ingredients are being used right now to study climate. It's a big, difficult problem but it is not merely observation. The new ice age thing has repeatedly been shown to be of no significance.
The journal, Science? (Nature?-- it's one of them) declared several years ago, after global warming was only a few years old and before many of the initial predictions failed, that the global warming debate was over and it was time for political action. Does that sound like the scientific method to you?
This is a political statement or a statement of a need for political will. It's editorial commentary. That's not a problem.
It's bit silly to compare theft and especially murder to adblocking. It does nothing to support your case.
You are arguing that people are stealing your content if they don't view or click on your ads. However, you are exploiting them by selling their views to advertisers. They are a resource to you. Trees to be harvested, sheep to be fleeced. When some refuse to fall prey to this scheme you are upset because you lose income. Well, block them or charge them a fee. I'm pretty sure that most people will stop viewing your content but you won't be exploiting the dullards and the clever ones will get the content without the ads.
You must mean marketing ecology not information ecology. I think the information ecology is working exactly as it must.
If a non-trivial number of people start blocking ads, those who truly have something of value will have to charge for it. What's wrong with that? It's presumably the way things are supposed to work.
The only good thing that I can see in this internet advertising game is that for the first time in history it is easy to tell how few people actually care about ads. I would guess that the fraction of people who respond to ads is tiny for any given site. Maybe the problem is really with the advertising model. Why annoy so many to benefit so few?
Greenland has been mostly covered with ice for a long time. Much longer than the history of human occupation. All there ever was for humans was a few small valleys that were green enough in summer to grow some crops (poorly) and feed some livestock (poorly). There is no evidence that humans ever did well in Greenland. Also Greenland has been occupied since the Vikings. There were never very many people there.
Volcanoes release some CO2 and aerosols and dust. One has to take all of these things into account. Something has caused the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere to rise from 280 ppm in 1750 to 380 ppm now. Observations show that previous to 1750 (thousands of years) the concentration was steady. What made it rise? Is it a coincidence that we are now putting something like 6 Pg of carbon into the atmosphere every year? The natural land/atmosphere cycle is about 120 Pg/a and the atmosphere/ocean cycle is about 90 Pg/a volcanoes are a tiny fraction of this annually. When we look at where carbon is being released and absorbed in the natural part of the cycle what do we find? More is being absorbed than released (by non human sources and sinks) so that ultimately the concentration increases annually by about 3 Pg. The great thing about the carbon cycle is that the observations are all explainable. There is no great mystery. Burning fossil fuels (and making cement and land use changes) are increasing the atmospheric concentration of CO2. It is not natural. It is anthropogenic. It doesn't really matter how small the human contribution is relative to the natural part. Ultimately we are tipping the balance and the reservoir of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing.
I don't think hiding data sets is that uncommon among some scientists. I'm pretty sure you'd find it to be common practice in some fields where acquiring some interesting observation means writing a paper that could further your career and sharing the observation might mean someone else could beat you to the results. That's not to say that anyone should hide their data. We are all human though and we have personal goals that may not have much to do with our work. I personally think the data should all be made available as soon as possible, especially now that it is so easy to disseminate.
This normal cycles thing is one the denialists' straw men. Of course there are normal cycles. Every climate scientist knows all about the normal cycles (what do you think they study in graduate school? The big secret is that grad school is all about what to write on grant proposals). No one has ever denied there are normal cycles. Some of the normal cycles (they occur at different frequencies and even irregularly) have been quite dramatic in the past. The point is that normal cycles don't explain all of the changes in the observational record. What else could explain it? Well one likely culprit is the work of humans. What contribution to the observational record comes from the things people do? It's a perfectly obvious question to ask given the overwhelming evidence that billions of humans can cause dramatic changes, easily observed, to the "natural" (non-human) system.
Sadly, single or small numbers of events like this don't prove anything. We need to accumulate more evidence of many such events. We need longer time series to be more confident (statistically confident) in the trends. Even then, without some physically based models, interpreting trends is always subject to not knowing the future. Models help because they give you a way to extrapolate from the data into the future.
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How many kids still eat actual food? Pizza, fries, sodas and fried mars bars are NOT food!
I have to point out that it is rather a big deal at my house that we make our own pizza from scratch (ie. flour and water etc.) on Sunday evenings. The kids help by choosing what they want on top. We sometimes bake them on a stone so they are especially yummy. I don't think pizza is inherently bad. Fried mars bars, an obscure and I assume little eaten oddity, are certainly bad. However, we recently used melted Mars bars in a fondue pot.
The point I am trying to make is that it's wrong to just list a bunch of foods and call them evil. The problem isn't with specific foods, it's with diet overall. And exercise.
Maybe it's with "lifestyle"? Involving (your) children in their own lives is pretty crucial to helping them become healthy adults who lead happy productive lives. Whenever you're in doubt imagine how your children would have been living (if they survived) in millennia past. They would probably be at your side, mimicking the things you do as they learn how to get through the day. Obviously we don't live in the past and we have to adjust for present circumstances. Sorry I don't have a bold conclusion to make beyond that.
Beyond all of that there are certainly some mental illnesses. People with these can sometimes benefit from treatment. Some beneficial treatments involve special chemicals. I am not remotely an expert on that though (or any of this really).
I know you're being sardonic and I agree with you. Unfortunately, my cousin was hit in the head by a truck while riding his birthday present moments after receiving it. There is no guarantee that a helmet would have prevented his permanent brain damage but one has to wonder if it is so terribly onerous a requirement to put on children. I think it is probably a useful lesson. One can have fun but one should have a regard for one's self. Doesn't seem so terrible really.
I too discovered Star Blazers by accident as a young lad sometime in the very early eighties. It sure seemed amazing to me then but I suspect that adult eyes would view it differently.
Have you read the Foundation series as an adult? It's not really very good. There are certainly some good ideas but the writing is trapped in the 1950s. It seems really awkward in places and overall (in my opinion) it hasn't aged well. It's nice to have classics in whatever genre but don't live in the past. There is a lot of fine writing now.
The movie and TV business is risky and they want to minimise their losses so they rehash what has worked in the past.
I agree. Forget replaying the old. Let's see some new stories.
In most schools getting good grades is utterly unacceptable to the peer social group. So the child can be an outcast with no friends or not - easy to choose, isn't it?
This, sadly, is completely true.
Thank you for expressing this so well. I completely agree.
Well said. The bonehead bit that is. Kids are amazing creatures. The previous poster needs to do some serious self reflection. I have older kids (18--she is off to university in engineering! and 15--he seems pretty determined to grow roots in front of the XBox but things are changing slowly) and it has been a privilege participating in their public school education. They did have to endure some poor teachers and some boring material but they got access to so much that I couldn't have given them. Finally, I think that immersion in the social turmoil of school is useful as it is the world encapsulated (and safed). Learning to put up with annoying teachers is important. How does one negotiate this social terrain?
Note that I said that I participated in their public school education. That's an important part of being a parent and, it seems, often neglected by necessity or thoughtlessness or ignorance I suppose. I think that the public school system is pretty good (I'm in Canada) and made better by actually being engaged in your child's life.
You don't have to be one of those cling-on parents either. Let them live their life, give them what they need and not always what they want, help them when they ask, push them gently to achieve, let them make mistakes (that can be a tough one) etc. (all the usual malarky).
By way of actually saying something about the fine summary that we are supposed to be discussing my opinion of educational gadgets for infants and toddlers is extremely negative. I don't think there is much evidence that anything except devoted parents and a safe environment helps much.
I submit that it is the parent that needs the son to have his fix.
One problem is that the lights often need to be embedded in shades or shields to prevent glare from the sun from obscuring the light and to prevent drivers approaching from other directions (perhaps less than 90 degrees) from being confused. These shades provide a wonderful place for snow to accumulate.
Isn't selective breeding evolution with people controlling (most of) the selection pressure?
The selection pressure is what it is. There is no goal, only response to the pressure. I agree that the algorithm used to generate the music matters and will, I'm guessing, create some bounds for the music outside of which it cannot stray. I assume this is analagous to biological evolution where things like embroyology limit what can change while providing a sort of tool set for the growth of an organism (as I understand it). If the tone generation scheme is rich enough this should create something interesting to a large enough fraction of the listeners.
To model any input signal you need an infinite series of sine waves of different frequencies. Some input signals are better approximated by the first n terms in the series. Some signals (like the square wave) are difficult and you need more terms.
There's a lot of interesting physics that isn't particle whacking.
The climate we observe is the result of physics. Physics combines observation, speculation and experimentation. All of the necessary ingredients are being used right now to study climate. It's a big, difficult problem but it is not merely observation. The new ice age thing has repeatedly been shown to be of no significance.
The journal, Science? (Nature?-- it's one of them) declared several years ago, after global warming was only a few years old and before many of the initial predictions failed, that the global warming debate was over and it was time for political action. Does that sound like the scientific method to you?
This is a political statement or a statement of a need for political will. It's editorial commentary. That's not a problem.
It's bit silly to compare theft and especially murder to adblocking. It does nothing to support your case.
You are arguing that people are stealing your content if they don't view or click on your ads. However, you are exploiting them by selling their views to advertisers. They are a resource to you. Trees to be harvested, sheep to be fleeced. When some refuse to fall prey to this scheme you are upset because you lose income. Well, block them or charge them a fee. I'm pretty sure that most people will stop viewing your content but you won't be exploiting the dullards and the clever ones will get the content without the ads.
You must mean marketing ecology not information ecology. I think the information ecology is working exactly as it must.
If a non-trivial number of people start blocking ads, those who truly have something of value will have to charge for it. What's wrong with that? It's presumably the way things are supposed to work.
The only good thing that I can see in this internet advertising game is that for the first time in history it is easy to tell how few people actually care about ads. I would guess that the fraction of people who respond to ads is tiny for any given site. Maybe the problem is really with the advertising model. Why annoy so many to benefit so few?
Greenland has been mostly covered with ice for a long time. Much longer than the history of human occupation. All there ever was for humans was a few small valleys that were green enough in summer to grow some crops (poorly) and feed some livestock (poorly). There is no evidence that humans ever did well in Greenland. Also Greenland has been occupied since the Vikings. There were never very many people there.
Volcanoes release some CO2 and aerosols and dust. One has to take all of these things into account. Something has caused the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere to rise from 280 ppm in 1750 to 380 ppm now. Observations show that previous to 1750 (thousands of years) the concentration was steady. What made it rise? Is it a coincidence that we are now putting something like 6 Pg of carbon into the atmosphere every year? The natural land/atmosphere cycle is about 120 Pg/a and the atmosphere/ocean cycle is about 90 Pg/a volcanoes are a tiny fraction of this annually. When we look at where carbon is being released and absorbed in the natural part of the cycle what do we find? More is being absorbed than released (by non human sources and sinks) so that ultimately the concentration increases annually by about 3 Pg. The great thing about the carbon cycle is that the observations are all explainable. There is no great mystery. Burning fossil fuels (and making cement and land use changes) are increasing the atmospheric concentration of CO2. It is not natural. It is anthropogenic. It doesn't really matter how small the human contribution is relative to the natural part. Ultimately we are tipping the balance and the reservoir of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing.
I think you should come out of the closet. What arguments can you bring to the table?
I don't think hiding data sets is that uncommon among some scientists. I'm pretty sure you'd find it to be common practice in some fields where acquiring some interesting observation means writing a paper that could further your career and sharing the observation might mean someone else could beat you to the results. That's not to say that anyone should hide their data. We are all human though and we have personal goals that may not have much to do with our work. I personally think the data should all be made available as soon as possible, especially now that it is so easy to disseminate.
This normal cycles thing is one the denialists' straw men. Of course there are normal cycles. Every climate scientist knows all about the normal cycles (what do you think they study in graduate school? The big secret is that grad school is all about what to write on grant proposals). No one has ever denied there are normal cycles. Some of the normal cycles (they occur at different frequencies and even irregularly) have been quite dramatic in the past. The point is that normal cycles don't explain all of the changes in the observational record. What else could explain it? Well one likely culprit is the work of humans. What contribution to the observational record comes from the things people do? It's a perfectly obvious question to ask given the overwhelming evidence that billions of humans can cause dramatic changes, easily observed, to the "natural" (non-human) system.
Sadly, single or small numbers of events like this don't prove anything. We need to accumulate more evidence of many such events. We need longer time series to be more confident (statistically confident) in the trends. Even then, without some physically based models, interpreting trends is always subject to not knowing the future. Models help because they give you a way to extrapolate from the data into the future.
Dawkins has never asked anyone to believe him. He simply presents you with evidence and then laughs at you when you pretend not to see it.