And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. -- Isaiah 2: 2-4 (KJV)
It's alright. No apology necessary. I forgive you. When I was much younger I was actually a real hothead, sometimes, especially where debates were concerned. =)
The possibility and speculation that genetics may be involved is something we have, and why ignore that?
Well, recall the arguments about free will and the final judgement. If the final judgement is destined to occur, then ask whether the LORD would have even bothered giving us this life, if we were determined to live it in a mathematically predetermined way, and he intended to judge us for the mistakes we made (after this life is over). Truly, if He knew for certain what we would choose, then I must ask why on earth He would have given us the choice in the first place. I say that Man _must_ have free will.
I would not say it's not possible that God can intervene as he likes. Does that really subvert Christianity?
That's not a bad argument, IMO.
Well, if you said MAN can intervene, or has enough free will to pray and ask the LORD to intervene for him, (enough to counteract his genetic programming) then I might almost say "problem solved". In fact, from that standpoint, perhaps you could say that the genes ARE the original sin, but with divine intervention (&/or human free will?), that the genes do not turn people into complete robots.
But once we're making such a major concession, I must make the observation that the article made the claim that moral behavior was based on the genes, and that works specifically against any of those possibilities.
And if we were to throw in genetics then we could surmise that that maybe God allowed or made people to have certain genetic codes so that they would become certain ways? People say it all the time - "God made me that way."
Again, a nice argument, but I think there are other ways to account for human tendency and human personality than giving the whole show to the genes. When a person says "God made me that way," I think it's best to say the LORD can do things any way he wants. He could also "just make us that way" with the souls with which humans are born. I have no problem with that.
It is quite unfortunate, anecdotal, and IMHO arrogant that you wish to turn your mind off to and not consider other peoples' ideas.
I don't understand why you're saying that. I did consider your ideas. I even gave constructive criticism. In fact, where you brought up the statistics from the psychology textbook, I even lauded your example! Then I gave a pertinent response.
As for "turning off my mind", it isn't what I'm doing; not by a long shot. However, you're the one who was advocating "turning the mind off", or subscribing to groupthink, when you were talking about Hitler.
You are going to be left in the dark as new things are discovered.
That is quite a condemnation. However, Jesus taught that we should not condemn one another, and he specifically said "Don't condemn, and you won't BE condemned."
Hmmm... I guess that means I must have condemned somebody, since you're condemning me. But, for your own sake, you're better off not condemning me, or anyone else, due to Jesus' teachings.
Most of your article is off topic. Let's tighten it up by focusing on the original topic of discussion: Genetic's relationship to human belief and human behavior. The rest of it I already addressed in the other reply. Just to remind you, though, Einstein used his own mind; his own teachers flunked him out of school, but he made a comeback.
Are identical twins, being gentic clones of one another, behaviorally more similar than fraternal twins? Studies of nearly 13,000 pairs of Swedish twins, or 7000, Finnish twin pairs, and 3810 Australian twin pairs provide a consistent answer: On both extraversion (outogingness) and neuroticism (emotional instability), identical twins are much more similar than fraternal twins. In explaning individual differences, genes matter.
And how about mentally handicapped individuals (e.g. people with down syndrome)? Their genetics certainly do not affect their behavior...
Yes, I've studied psychology. I have seen those references before. And bravo, that's a very nice argument about what has been "found" in the PHENOMENAL world.
Jesus could heal a person with downs syndrome without speaking a single word. He healed the blind, healed lepers, raised the dead, walked on water, healed the lame, etc, etc. Prayer is answered. Faith can move mountains. Those studies do not account for spirit, for miracles, or for the LORD's intervention on our behalf. They don't explain the LORD's power, and they don't explain why my PRAYERS are answered.
Most of your argument is either off target, or ad homein, or strawman. Focus on the phenomenal/noumenal. It is at the heart of my statement, and remember, Jesus taught "love your neighbor as yourself."...
* Using this method of understanding Christianity becomes weakened.
That, as opposed to denying that humans have any free will, whatsoever, which completely subverts Christianity, lock stock and barrel, by means of asserting that humans are unable to do anything of their own free will?
Anyhow, the epistemic divide does not weaken Christianity, and considering how many times you've asked me for quotes and sources, you should at least provide a good argument for the assertion that it would.
* This nullifies Biblical accounts of God's/Jesus' miracles and the Bible's prophecies as basis for obtaining faith. It implicitly asserts that they are unimportant, pointless, and useless.
I'm not saying that the epistemic divide PROVES there is no world; I'm SAYING that it CASTS ENOUGH DOUBT about the world's EXISTENCE that it is made clear that EVEN SCIENTISTS must place their FAITH in SOMETHING. AND that argument remains unrefuted.
* Subscribing to Kant's theory you also subscribe to Unqualified Absolutism which says that all moral conflicts are only apparent and are not real. The problem is, there are moral conflicts, and something like Graded Absolutism, IMHO, offers a better solution. Unqualified Absolutism has fatal qualities, and it "punts to providence." See Dr. Norman Geisler's "Christian Ethics".
Yes, I subscribe to some elements of Kant's theory. No, I don't subscribe to unqualified absolutism. Nor do I subscribe to the unsubstantiated assumption that there's a link between the one belief and the other.
Are these not mere theoretical ideas and assumptions? Where is the evidence that these things are true?
As I already stated, there is no evidence one way or the other. There doesn't have to be evidence. It is the study of philosophical origins of knowledge, and it leaves something to be answered. You can't just walk around it; you can assume your way around it, but then you must admit that you've made a leap of faith, and in-so-doing, that science has been reduced to the same level as matters of spirit.
Before we go any further we should try to find common ground. (In light of what I rote in the previous paragraph) please define the term "free will."
Here is what I mean when I say "free will":
Free will: Behavior chosen of one's own volition, motivation, or inclination; behavior that is not forced or coerced or in any way externally determined; behavior that is not deterministic [i.e. it could not be predicted by means of rule or formula, unless, of course, the "behaver" willingly CHOSE to live in accord with that rule or formula]; behavior that is freely chosen.
That definition should serve for the scope of this discussion; if it proves to be lacking, however, we could revise it.
So are you saying that a person who becomes so enraged due to hideous life circumstances and harms others is 100% at fault for their actions?
I am certainly NOT saying that; For starters, Jesus said "judge not, that ye not be judged."
But what I was really saying was that if a person doesn't have free will then there's no sense in SAYING they are morally reprehensible for their actions. (unless, perhaps, they gave up their free will for the express purpose of making it easier to do morally reprehenisble things, or some other such strange exception)
(Christian) ethics class today). Are they to blame?
Ok, I hate to use bold, but please remember this: Jesus said "judge not, that ye not be judged." AND "condemn not, that ye not be condemned."
But what I'm saying is that there is a final judgement for mankind, and it makes no sense to say the LORD would preside over mankind with a final judgement if mankind has no free will, since the LORD is kind, and just. I don't believe he would judge people for taking actions for which they had no choice. Genetic explanations of human behavior preclude free will. Therefore, the genetic explanations are false.
Or, was their behavior a result of external influences?
See the other post I made; it responded to that question.
And are Germans more likely to be aggressive because of genetic descent?
See above; external influences are outside the scope of discussion; we're talking about genetics. People have tried to use genetics to explain how humans react to verious influences; how, and which circumstances, etc... What WOULD they have done here or there.. WHY did they do this or that? I really don't know.
I don't need to quote anybody just to use my own mind. My mind works plenty well, and where I've come up with original arguments, I certainly don't need to pay intellectual homage, unless it's to the LORD, for giving me the mind to reason and debate.
A well reasoned argument does not get any stronger simply because the word "Socrates" is written afterwards; Nor does a completely foolish statement become any smarter if you sign it "Einstein".
And again, I did not say that behavior is due exclusively to those two influences. I was advocating that those things are at least part of what is involved.
The argument that genetics only accounts for PART of human behavior is even worse than the argument that it accounts for ALL human behavior. To make the assumption that it accounts for any behavior, any morality, any faith, AT ALL, already assumes that the human mind, soul, spirit, will, etc., is subject to obeying a genetic code, a material program. Once you've conceded that point, there really is no such thing as pick and choose. It's all or nothing. Either the "human robot" is "obeying" its genes or it isn't.
Yes, I know that it's theoretically possible, but, practically speaking, it isn't, and if you're willing to traverse the "unromantic" path of believing humans are genetic robots, all the way down to whether they behave morally, or believe in God, I'm not about to grant you the romantic assumption that there's still a holdout of even 1% free will... not unless you come up with some really good reasons to delineate between deterministic, and free-willed behavior.
Now can you describe a single hypothetical situation where a person would make a choice that actually is "free of self determination and action independent of external causes" - based on absolutely no external influence (i.e. environmental influences, genetics, a person's needs/well-being)?
That question expands the scope of the discussion beyond its original boundaries. We were discussing the role of genetics in morality, faith and free will. Whether "environmental influences" or "a person's needs / well-being" pertain to free will is totally outside the scope. The topic is genetics. If you believe genetics play ANY role in free will, then there are few, if any, arguments that justify saying it doesn't play an absolute role. And, in THAT case, if genetics played any role at all [in human behavior] then the genes would be telling the person how to react to the "environment, the needs and the well-being," etc.
If you really want an example, though, of environment not having any effect on human behavior, consider the case of Daniel, Shadrak, Mishak and Abednigo, who walked around in the hottest furnace in Babylon, and went unscorched because they were faithful to the LORD.
Where you put your willingness to find THE truth above and beyond your DESIRE to confirm WHAT YOU HOPE is the truth, the rigour of your effort survives, in spite of new discoveries, new perspectives, unbiased intellectual integrity shines untarnished.
On the other hand, if you make the conclusions you WISH to find more important than being diligant about finding them, I believe it is highly unlikely that your arguments will stand the test of time and honest reasoning.
The error in the way you have approached the question is here: you have made the assumption that matter precedes, and dictates, human behavior, human free will, and that human spirit is its subject. However, if you'll read some philosophy books, Kant or Descartes, for instance, you'll soon recognize that psychology got scooped by philosophy. The epistemic divide, as professor Johanna Seibt (of U.T. Austin) used to call it, is a well established breach in the capacity of any of the scientific / empirical fields of study to claim descriptive dominion over anything except a portion of the "phenomenal world".
What does that mean? The "phenomenal world"? Emanuel Kant broke existence down into these fundamental categories: (1) What-precedes-the-senses (the noumenal), i.e. the presumed real-world-objects that are never directly experienced, but whose existence is strongly suggested by merit of our sensing them. (2) Our sensory capacities, which gather stimui (presumably from what-precedes-the-senses). (3) "Filters" that take raw, unfiltered sensory experience / input and strip it down, and present it to consciousness in meaningful, discernable, ostensified pieces. (4) The assimilation of all everything in (3). (The result of that assimilation is what people experience. The "phenomenal" world. Post-filtered reality. You don't ever SEE a rock; you CAN'T ever see a rock; what you CAN see is the image of the rock "in your mind's eye". Whether there IS a rock can never be proven, since your human mind cannot detect a rock, it can only know about the image of the rock that the filters provided.) (5) Reflection and processing of what is in (4).
Now, follow carefully. What looks like it might be a trivial hurdle, or an intellectual trick is actually something that has stymied the entire field of philosophy ever since the time of the ancient greeks, where Plato described his famous cave with light and shadows.
The conscious experience you know as daily life is, in fact, not EXPERIENCE OF THE WORLD, it is EXPERIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. The world is not a thing that CAN be directly experienced. Smells, sights, sounds, senses, etc... ALL of it must be PRESENTED to the mind, which is then able to churn on the sum on them, assimilating them into a unified thing called consciousness, experience, awareness, what have you.
Since the physical world (the noumenal world) exists as nothing more than a persistant hypothesis, any field which makes reference to that world [as if it were real] AUTOMATICALLY makes a built-in assumption about what precedes the senses. Therefore, you see, there is a LEAP of FAITH built right into material empirical sciences.
Personally, I DO believe there is a physical ("noumenal") world, but an honest agnostic cannot ever get past the fact that the noumenal world can ONLY be assumed; it is not a certain fact.
So you see, now, starting from that position: Science [which postulates a material world that it presumes to test, study, hypothesize about, theorize about, measure, predict, analyze, etc] IS a faith, and BELIEF in science requires JUST AS MUCH FAITH as belief in GOD.
You cannot with certainty say that either evolution or ID (which I assume is what you are aluding to) are true or false - there is evidence on both sides. No one - including these scientists - are 100% or anywhere near 100% certain on either side.
Actually I can say it with certainty, and the faith of those scientists is not a delimiting benchmark of my own.
You cannot rule out evolution entirely when explaining behavior. Behavior *is* partially due to environmental influences, but it *is* also due to genetics (hence evolution). The question is to what degree each of these processes are involved.
Actually, I can rule it out. I'm surprised to hear you say it's a matter of "what degree you think each of the influences is involved", since you really can't grant any genetic explanation of human behavior without granting all genetic explanation of human behavior, and that means you don't believe in free will. But if you don't believe in free will, then you have no moral justification for anything at all, since morality itself has no meaning in a world bereft of free will.
If someone were to go around killing your friends and family, then, you couldn't even tell them why they should stop doing it. You couldn't even tell them they could stop doing it.
I am sorry, but I and many others feel there is just not enough evidence to rationally say this.
I've met many Phd's that I've disagreed with, and I've held my own against them. I don't need to scavenge their works for explanations as to why I don't have free will. On the other hand, I recommend that you try prayer. Start by asking for free will. You will not be disappointed.
But you give no reasons for this being an irrational assumption.
In the grand world of debate, there is a thing called presumption. Presumption does not go to a view that should have to be first proven and well-established.
For example, Sigmund Freud allegedly tried to explain some of human behavior in terms of people having a suppresed sexual attraction for their parents. That was an irrational explanation for human behavior. Presumption should never have been granted to Freud's hypothesis. If someone followed you around all day, trying to tell you that you were a MotherF*cker, or saying that you wished you were, but that you suppressed it all day long, I think you'd start to understand just how wrong, and how irrational, Freud's argument really was.
Yet here we have a bunch of geneticists who are basically trying to do the same exact thing, under a different brand name. This time, they're apparently presuming to explain all of human behavior, humans, God's own creation, in strictly genetic and evolutionary terms. The logical conclusions of their positions are just as irrational, just as wrong, and just as offensive, as Freud's own.
One of the 10 Commandments states that we are not to worship any God other than the LORD. I don't worship genetic codes, and, with God's help, they do not, and will not dictate my thoughts, my faith, my actions... I have God-given free will.
It is a reference to a philosophical argument / debate surrounding the relationship between body and soul.
Long ago, philosophers began asking how it could be that body and soul are linked, and how could it be that consciousness rises out of matter, or how it could be that something immaterial ("soul") could dictate, or drive, the actions of a material body.
If memory serves, I've heard that debate framed as the "ghost in the machine", since there's a seeming disjunction between a 100% immaterial spirit and a 100% physical body.
If I understand his reference correctly, then, the "divine being in the machine" alludes to the possibility that the "spirit"/"soul" is built into the matter, rather than being apart from it, thereby accounting for such things as free will by saying "built into the matter [i.e. the DNA of our bodies] is the determining essense [the human spirit, (calling it divine is blasphemous, though)] of the matter.
If, however, there is anything spiritual about matter, then it must be examined from a new perspective entirely. Spirit is not to be dominated by humans, and those who say they can dominate living human behavior with Genetics are saying they can dominate the human spirit, if the above assumption is granted.
There are philosophical problems with the assumption, as well. Specifically, there is a philosophical hypothesis called "epiphenominalism", which stipulates that consciousness arises out of matter (in much the same way a movie is projected onto a screen), and a locus of awareness is generated by something in matter itself. It's a clever solution, but I challenge any person to explain how that would actually happen.
Indeed, if it were ever discovered, they would have at least part of a genuine solution for building artificial life (ai computers, etc). I say part of a solution, since the locus of awareness does not mean that the creature would have free will, or that it would DO or THINK anything. Those would also have to be made for the artificial creature.
Would artificial life, then, have a soul, though? Would that locus of awareness be enough to call the entity "alive, spirited and soulful"? I think it would take more.
I agree with you that there are some things in the Bible that defy explanation. The way I understand those verses is that the people who were being conquered were wicked people. I don't know why the LORD would have instructed the Israelites to spare, and keep, the virgins as captives. It really does smack of humans meddling with the instruction, but I'm prepared to say "perhaps there was something about the circumstances that I don't know about; perhaps the facts would vindicate the instruction to do such a seemingly ruthless thing."
What you don't seen to "grok" is that I've already been where you're talking about. (behavioral human genetics as a substitute for faith, soul and free will) It's a dead end.
I mean you no harm, but if you keep following the faith that "man is an evoloved ape", I'm afraid that the most likely fate for you, as it was for me, is that one day Satan will visit you, as he did me, and he'll offer you something, as he did me, and the next day you'll wake up with a bunch of demons for neighbors, and where your Holy Bible should have been, you'll just have a shelf full of high brow books that tell you you're a monkey, as it happened for me.
Just remember that prayer is heard and answered, even then.
You are arguing from incredulity, not very satisfying or convincing.
Actually I provided specific examples of cases where a strictly evolutionary mode of explaing things failed to account for a wealth of everyday human actions, behaviors, emotions, inclinations, sensations, etc.
If there is altruism, or exhileration, or love, or any such thing found in animals that would further undermine the hypothesis of human evolution, insofar as there is no "evolutionary" place for capriciously doing something risky just for the thrill. To impress the females? They won't just see a soon-to-be-dead male daredevil? And their potential kids with his soon-to-be-dead "daredevil genes"?
There's more to it, though. For instance, my prayers are answered. Are you going to explain that with genes, as well? Whose genes cause that to happen? Mine? God's? Of the thousands of times I've prayed, and most of those prayers having been answered affirmatively, pure genetics AND pure probability are both poorly equipped to get a handle on that.
Too bad faith doesn't come from intellectual analysis. If only I could show you what I've seen, it might save you from suffering the way I have.
Don't let them steal your soul with such a narrow system of looking at the world.
Maybe we're being a bit anecdotal here and jumping to a hasty conclusion, hmmm?
"We" ?
Well, let's see, there's a group of "scientists" who have been consistently working under the [irrational] assumption that all human behavior can and must be explained in evolutionary terms.
Looking at the world fully convinced of their worldview, their lense, comes at the expense of faith in God, human love and compassion, altruism, faith in your fellow man, brotherhood and genuine goodwill.
What it gives in return is a smug, cynical and bitter sense of understanding, and that made even colder by the absense of faith in God, in genuine love and in human goodwill, etc.
Whose conclusion is hasty? I've seen it with my own eyes, and with my own mind. I once believed in it all: Evolution, genetic explanations for all human behavior, etc.
It is only demons, and then ultimately the LORD, that managed to break me away from the hubris of placing [almost] absolute faith into human behavioral genetics.
Faith must be given to the LORD; the other stuff is just a sideshow, and sometimes it is there for little reason other than to distract people from the truth.
I certainly don't blame you for not knowing, or for not being sure ["judge not, that ye not be judged"], but I am telling you that, without a doubt, the geneticists belief is dead wrong, and that it comes at a high price.
Jesus Christ said "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."
That means any person who wants to do the right thing, and asks the LORD for help, will be given alternatives, or strengthened in their resolve, or in some way allowed to choose a righteous path.
Jesus Christ said that to love the LORD with all your mind, all your strength, and all your will, is the most important thing you can do. Next to that is to love your neighbor as yourself. If you love your neighbor as yourself, then you would tell them both of those things.
The geneticists have been deceived, and, in being deceived, they have been saying things that would deceive others into adopting cold, calloused and deceitful worldviews. They have been publishing things that, if taken seriously, could result in someone following the primrose path to hell.
I wonder when the geneticists will take responsibility for that.
Even if they aren't directly responsible for people looking at themselves as evolved monkies, and even if they don't succeed in deceiving people into choosing paths that lead them to hell, they are still telling people things that, if taken to heart, could lead to a really crappy world.
That's a world that they must share with those they've deceived into believing themselves to be "genetically programmed robot-monkies without souls, or any afterlife / final judgement to justify moral behavior, believing such things to be false superstitions; a world of people living each day in persuit of food, shelter and sex, with no care of, or love for God, unless it can be explained in the shallowest of evolutionary terms."
In case there are any human behavioral geneticists reading, step back and some the perspective on that. Is that your ideal world?
Remember your own mother's love, as you were growing up. Could you honestly stand and look her in the face, telling her that it was nothing more than an genetically programmed behavior, the result of millions of years of biological evolution? If you have kids, are you satisfied to call them an extension of the same process? Think of your love for your wives and husbands. Can you honestly say that you believe evolution would lead to that?
Evolution might lead to aggressiveness among males to get access to the women, for reproduction, but they sure as hell wouldn't need to love them afterwards, or take the time to make a traditional home. It wouldn't explain why a person would miss their ex wife or ex girlfriend years after the fact.
Evolution might lead to a superstrain of women who choose their men only based on the car they drive, their money, their circumstances and their genes, but that wouldn't explain why they miss their husbands while they are off on business trips, and it wouldn't explain why poor women don't spend all their time looking for a replacement for their husbands, prepared to abandon their kids at a moment's notice, in order to raise a new crop with a better mate.
Evolution wouldn't explain why, of their own goodwill, one person would help another person, who's drowning, out of a well. It wouldn't explain why one person would dive into rough seas to rescue a total stranger at the risk of their own life. It wouldn't explain why a person would give to charity, to help complete strangers.
Evolution doesn't explain the thrill and exhileration of riding a motorcycle, or of the wind in your hair, or the enjoyment of warm sunlight on a cool day. It doesn't explain the sense of enjoyment from writing software, or horseback riding, or flying in an airplane. It doesn't explain the sense of satisfaction that comes from solving a riddle, or a puzzle.
Come to think of it, evolution doesn't explain much of anything, really, in terms of human behavior.
Don't let them steal your soul with such a narrow system of looking at the world. There is so much more to life, when you're not looking at the world as if it were a tribe of evolved apes, bashing each other over the heads with futuristic clubs.
There is a flaw in their logic. According to the blurb, they compared the rate of survival between the GM and the wild mosquitos. They did NOT compare the rate of survival of wild mosquitos in the same environment in the absence of GM mosquitos. NOR did they prove that the artificial environment was in any way like that of nature, which could potentially reveal other evolutionary weaknesses (or strengths) in the GM breed.
The only way they could claim an advantage would be if they could prove that the non malarial mosquitos actually displaced the malarial ones. But they didn't prove that. All they proved was that the GM mosquitos were better survivors under identical (and pseudocompetetive) lab conditions.
To prove what they set out to prove they would have to compare the "malarial mosquitos" on their own, compared with that of "malarial mosquitos" in the presence of the "non malarial" ones. Moreover, they would have to conduct the experiment without any artificial constraints, such as limited water pools or only one mouse per million mosquitoes, since those are NOT the quite the same as the constraints nature would give them.
A good experiment would involve making 2 seperate indoor labratory ponds with plenty of frogs, snakes, turtles, (malarial)rats, (malarial)mice, pidgeons, etc. Release wild "malarial" mosquitos into one of them, and release BOTH wild and GM mosquitos into the second one. THEN compare the number of wild moquito survivors [after a prudent amount of time], and see whether the presence of the GM mosquitos in any way changed the rate of survival and reproduction of the wild "malarial" mosquitos.
THAT is what it would take, and nothing short of it.
EVEN IF they proved that the GM mosquitos displaced the wild "malarial" mosquitos, it would still be unclear that they should be released into the wild, considering that mosquitos are a pest, and doing something to make a pest more robust is potentially making it more difficult to control. In particular, some strains of mosquito can purportedly carry west nile or other disease, which could mean there would be a tradeoff, rather than a clear victory in the war against mosquito-born pestilence.
All that being said, without further testing, it would be a really foolish mistake to release those GM mosquitos into the wild.
running 12 miles a day is very bad for most people under the age of 15 or so
I don't know if that's true for running, but I've heard the same with regard to heavy weight lifting. I've heard the claim that it changes the way their bones develop.
On the other hand, ask yourself, if there was no sports program available to you when you were running 12 miles a day, would you have been a couch potato, or would you have found some other activity to do?
Good question. I guess there's no telling what I would have done, only what I did. I can say this for sure: passive peer pressure from other runners really dogged me to try keeping pace. At that age, I don't think I would have had the same level of motivation without the team's peer pressure.
Second point, The implication of the study is not that all kids get the same amount of exercise, but that for every kid who is getting a lot of exercise in school sports, there is another who is getting a lot of exercise doing other stuff.
Well, that's not exactly how I interpreted their claims. I understood them to say that regardless of whether the kid was involved in a school sports program, or doing their own thing, they were getting the same amount of exercise, due to a [supposedly genetic] tendency of the kids to do the same amount of exercise on their own as they would in an organized sport.
That's really not the same thing as what you described.
While this may not apply to high schools, what about elementary school?
While I was in junior high school, our coach pushed us really hard. We got muscles, we could run quite far, and nobody complained, since complaining meant the complainer made everyone have to do even more hard exercise.
It reminded me of boot camp, and I was miserable, running in 100 degree heat, but I was 13 years old, and I was in such good shape. I ran track for a year in junior high, as well, but I really wasn't that good at it. My dad went to track meets and watched me lose races!
Perhaps that's neither here nor there. Elementary school might be different. I really don't know much about that age group. I'm not used to thinking of young children as building muscle tone or cardiovascular conditioning. I just think of them as healthy and energetic, but not as trained athletes. If that's what the article is saying, perhaps it is right. I really don't know.
You didn't RTFA. The study in no way contradicts your experience. What it contradicts is the assumption that kids who engage in school sports get more exercise.
I was eating twice the normal amount of food and running 12 miles a day. In other words, I did get more exercise. I could have run a marathon. You're telling me that the person next door was in the same shape as I was? Well, no, they weren't. Nobody in the entire school was, really, except the other runners. Back then, I would run a couple miles without even breaking a sweat.
If they aren't working their kids hard enough to get anything extra from the school's sports programs, that might be due to creampuff sports programs, but there is such a thing as exceeding the statistical norm, and most people are capable of doing it if they're given proper encouragement. [and the first step in that process is NOT to tell the class that they're going to be in the same shape, regardless of whether they do the prescribed exercises.]
That is why I make the bold assertion that their conclusion is pure bunk. Perhaps it was stated more accurately in the actual report, but the description of the conclusion in TA is negated by my own life's experience.
I'm appalled that they would even venture to call that a study; they should have looked much more carefully at specific sports. Baseball, for instance, is mainly about sprinting, weight training, pitching, catching, bat swinging. That's a sport that might not require that the players be in very good shape, but if cross country runners, triathaletes, long distance swimmers, etc, were seperated from linebackers, sumo wrestlers, volleyball players, baseball players and ping pong..etc.. [no insult intended; it's all about the activity, here] you would find that some sports build up solid cardiovascular conditioning, and those sports make a real difference, the likes of which the "study" in TA seems to have overlooked.
From TFA: "A government brief filed simultaneously backed AT&T's claims and said a lower court judge had exceeded his authority by not dismissing the suit outright."
My Question: Did that government official guy who filed the joint brief ever go to law school? Or study U.S. government? Or study the U.S. constitution?
Amendment IV, U.S. Bill of Rights The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
My diet doubled, and I never gained a single pound, except for 10 lbs muscle gained during track season's weight-training, and which I would burn off during the next cross country season. Everyone in the sport was skinny as a rail, and had ultra-lean, and extraordinarily enduring muscles.
It is also true that I don't normally gain weight outside of that sport, but as I said, while I was running my caloric intake doubled.
It is with that observation that I declare their study was pure bunk.
It would not only interfere with the children's rights. The bill would abridge everyone's the right to free speach, insofar as it would require everyone to identify themselves before using social networking websites.
Slashdot Mirror
Details Here:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/42363
On the other hand, although the motive seems greedy, at least they _are_ giving.
Who among _us_ gave to anyone from those areas?
Here are some statistics that might bring Microsoft's "charitable marketing" into perspective:
African GDP/capita (Currency): $671
African Population livingon under $1 per day: 36.2%
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Africa
Geographical Distributions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GDP_PPP_Per_Capita_Worldmap_2008_CIA_Factbook.svg
They could play some computer games to get their minds off of the relentless isolation of empty space in an eerie, cramped space station.
System Shock, perhaps.
And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
-- Isaiah 2: 2-4 (KJV)
Well, recall the arguments about free will and the final judgement. If the final judgement is destined to occur, then ask whether the LORD would have even bothered giving us this life, if we were determined to live it in a mathematically predetermined way, and he intended to judge us for the mistakes we made (after this life is over). Truly, if He knew for certain what we would choose, then I must ask why on earth He would have given us the choice in the first place. I say that Man _must_ have free will.
That's not a bad argument, IMO.
Well, if you said MAN can intervene, or has enough free will to pray and ask the LORD to intervene for him, (enough to counteract his genetic programming) then I might almost say "problem solved". In fact, from that standpoint, perhaps you could say that the genes ARE the original sin, but with divine intervention (&/or human free will?), that the genes do not turn people into complete robots.
But once we're making such a major concession, I must make the observation that the article made the claim that moral behavior was based on the genes, and that works specifically against any of those possibilities.
Again, a nice argument, but I think there are other ways to account for human tendency and human personality than giving the whole show to the genes. When a person says "God made me that way," I think it's best to say the LORD can do things any way he wants. He could also "just make us that way" with the souls with which humans are born. I have no problem with that.
BTW, I just found this online, and it looks like a fun and informative read, with some very handy summaries:
http://www.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=1
I don't understand why you're saying that. I did consider your ideas. I even gave constructive criticism. In fact, where you brought up the statistics from the psychology textbook, I even lauded your example! Then I gave a pertinent response.
As for "turning off my mind", it isn't what I'm doing; not by a long shot. However, you're the one who was advocating "turning the mind off", or subscribing to groupthink, when you were talking about Hitler.
That is quite a condemnation. However, Jesus taught that we should not condemn one another, and he specifically said "Don't condemn, and you won't BE condemned."
Hmmm... I guess that means I must have condemned somebody, since you're condemning me. But, for your own sake, you're better off not condemning me, or anyone else, due to Jesus' teachings.
"Condemn not, that ye not be condemned."
Yes, I've studied psychology. I have seen those references before. And bravo, that's a very nice argument about what has been "found" in the PHENOMENAL world.
Jesus could heal a person with downs syndrome without speaking a single word. He healed the blind, healed lepers, raised the dead, walked on water, healed the lame, etc, etc. Prayer is answered. Faith can move mountains. Those studies do not account for spirit, for miracles, or for the LORD's intervention on our behalf. They don't explain the LORD's power, and they don't explain why my PRAYERS are answered.
Perhaps they should study THAT, instead.
That, as opposed to denying that humans have any free will, whatsoever, which completely subverts Christianity, lock stock and barrel, by means of asserting that humans are unable to do anything of their own free will?
Anyhow, the epistemic divide does not weaken Christianity, and considering how many times you've asked me for quotes and sources, you should at least provide a good argument for the assertion that it would.
I'm not saying that the epistemic divide PROVES there is no world; I'm SAYING that it CASTS ENOUGH DOUBT about the world's EXISTENCE that it is made clear that EVEN SCIENTISTS must place their FAITH in SOMETHING. AND that argument remains unrefuted.
Yes, I subscribe to some elements of Kant's theory. No, I don't subscribe to unqualified absolutism. Nor do I subscribe to the unsubstantiated assumption that there's a link between the one belief and the other.
As I already stated, there is no evidence one way or the other. There doesn't have to be evidence. It is the study of philosophical origins of knowledge, and it leaves something to be answered. You can't just walk around it; you can assume your way around it, but then you must admit that you've made a leap of faith, and in-so-doing, that science has been reduced to the same level as matters of spirit.
Here is what I mean when I say "free will":
Free will: Behavior chosen of one's own volition, motivation, or inclination; behavior that is not forced or coerced or in any way externally determined; behavior that is not deterministic [i.e. it could not be predicted by means of rule or formula, unless, of course, the "behaver" willingly CHOSE to live in accord with that rule or formula]; behavior that is freely chosen.
That definition should serve for the scope of this discussion; if it proves to be lacking, however, we could revise it.
I am certainly NOT saying that; For starters, Jesus said "judge not, that ye not be judged."
But what I was really saying was that if a person doesn't have free will then there's no sense in SAYING they are morally reprehensible for their actions. (unless, perhaps, they gave up their free will for the express purpose of making it easier to do morally reprehenisble things, or some other such strange exception)
Ok, I hate to use bold, but please remember this: Jesus said "judge not, that ye not be judged." AND "condemn not, that ye not be condemned."
But what I'm saying is that there is a final judgement for mankind, and it makes no sense to say the LORD would preside over mankind with a final judgement if mankind has no free will, since the LORD is kind, and just. I don't believe he would judge people for taking actions for which they had no choice. Genetic explanations of human behavior preclude free will. Therefore, the genetic explanations are false.
See the other post I made; it responded to that question.
See above; external influences are outside the scope of discussion; we're talking about genetics. People have tried to use genetics to explain how humans react to verious influences; how, and which circumstances, etc... What WOULD they have done here or there.. WHY did they do this or that? I really don't know.
A well reasoned argument does not get any stronger simply because the word "Socrates" is written afterwards; Nor does a completely foolish statement become any smarter if you sign it "Einstein".
The argument that genetics only accounts for PART of human behavior is even worse than the argument that it accounts for ALL human behavior. To make the assumption that it accounts for any behavior, any morality, any faith, AT ALL, already assumes that the human mind, soul, spirit, will, etc., is subject to obeying a genetic code, a material program. Once you've conceded that point, there really is no such thing as pick and choose. It's all or nothing. Either the "human robot" is "obeying" its genes or it isn't.
Yes, I know that it's theoretically possible, but, practically speaking, it isn't, and if you're willing to traverse the "unromantic" path of believing humans are genetic robots, all the way down to whether they behave morally, or believe in God, I'm not about to grant you the romantic assumption that there's still a holdout of even 1% free will... not unless you come up with some really good reasons to delineate between deterministic, and free-willed behavior.
That question expands the scope of the discussion beyond its original boundaries. We were discussing the role of genetics in morality, faith and free will. Whether "environmental influences" or "a person's needs / well-being" pertain to free will is totally outside the scope. The topic is genetics. If you believe genetics play ANY role in free will, then there are few, if any, arguments that justify saying it doesn't play an absolute role. And, in THAT case, if genetics played any role at all [in human behavior] then the genes would be telling the person how to react to the "environment, the needs and the well-being," etc.
If you really want an example, though, of environment not having any effect on human behavior, consider the case of Daniel, Shadrak, Mishak and Abednigo, who walked around in the hottest furnace in Babylon, and went unscorched because they were faithful to the LORD.
Where you put your willingness to find THE truth above and beyond your DESIRE to confirm WHAT YOU HOPE is the truth, the rigour of your effort survives, in spite of new discoveries, new perspectives, unbiased intellectual integrity shines untarnished.
On the other hand, if you make the conclusions you WISH to find more important than being diligant about finding them, I believe it is highly unlikely that your arguments will stand the test of time and honest reasoning.
The error in the way you have approached the question is here: you have made the assumption that matter precedes, and dictates, human behavior, human free will, and that human spirit is its subject. However, if you'll read some philosophy books, Kant or Descartes, for instance, you'll soon recognize that psychology got scooped by philosophy. The epistemic divide, as professor Johanna Seibt (of U.T. Austin) used to call it, is a well established breach in the capacity of any of the scientific / empirical fields of study to claim descriptive dominion over anything except a portion of the "phenomenal world".
What does that mean? The "phenomenal world"? Emanuel Kant broke existence down into these fundamental categories:
(1) What-precedes-the-senses (the noumenal), i.e. the presumed real-world-objects that are never directly experienced, but whose existence is strongly suggested by merit of our sensing them.
(2) Our sensory capacities, which gather stimui (presumably from what-precedes-the-senses).
(3) "Filters" that take raw, unfiltered sensory experience / input and strip it down, and present it to consciousness in meaningful, discernable, ostensified pieces.
(4) The assimilation of all everything in (3). (The result of that assimilation is what people experience. The "phenomenal" world. Post-filtered reality. You don't ever SEE a rock; you CAN'T ever see a rock; what you CAN see is the image of the rock "in your mind's eye". Whether there IS a rock can never be proven, since your human mind cannot detect a rock, it can only know about the image of the rock that the filters provided.)
(5) Reflection and processing of what is in (4).
Now, follow carefully. What looks like it might be a trivial hurdle, or an intellectual trick is actually something that has stymied the entire field of philosophy ever since the time of the ancient greeks, where Plato described his famous cave with light and shadows.
The conscious experience you know as daily life is, in fact, not EXPERIENCE OF THE WORLD, it is EXPERIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. The world is not a thing that CAN be directly experienced. Smells, sights, sounds, senses, etc... ALL of it must be PRESENTED to the mind, which is then able to churn on the sum on them, assimilating them into a unified thing called consciousness, experience, awareness, what have you.
Since the physical world (the noumenal world) exists as nothing more than a persistant hypothesis, any field which makes reference to that world [as if it were real] AUTOMATICALLY makes a built-in assumption about what precedes the senses. Therefore, you see, there is a LEAP of FAITH built right into material empirical sciences.
Personally, I DO believe there is a physical ("noumenal") world, but an honest agnostic cannot ever get past the fact that the noumenal world can ONLY be assumed; it is not a certain fact.
So you see, now, starting from that position: Science [which postulates a material world that it presumes to test, study, hypothesize about, theorize about, measure, predict, analyze, etc] IS a faith, and BELIEF in science requires JUST AS MUCH FAITH as belief in GOD.
Actually I can say it with certainty, and the faith of those scientists is not a delimiting benchmark of my own.
Actually, I can rule it out. I'm surprised to hear you say it's a matter of "what degree you think each of the influences is involved", since you really can't grant any genetic explanation of human behavior without granting all genetic explanation of human behavior, and that means you don't believe in free will. But if you don't believe in free will, then you have no moral justification for anything at all, since morality itself has no meaning in a world bereft of free will.
If someone were to go around killing your friends and family, then, you couldn't even tell them why they should stop doing it. You couldn't even tell them they could stop doing it.
Here, I just wrote this for the other guy, but it applies to you as well:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=227549&cid=18
I've met many Phd's that I've disagreed with, and I've held my own against them. I don't need to scavenge their works for explanations as to why I don't have free will. On the other hand, I recommend that you try prayer. Start by asking for free will. You will not be disappointed.
In the grand world of debate, there is a thing called presumption. Presumption does not go to a view that should have to be first proven and well-established.
For example, Sigmund Freud allegedly tried to explain some of human behavior in terms of people having a suppresed sexual attraction for their parents. That was an irrational explanation for human behavior. Presumption should never have been granted to Freud's hypothesis. If someone followed you around all day, trying to tell you that you were a MotherF*cker, or saying that you wished you were, but that you suppressed it all day long, I think you'd start to understand just how wrong, and how irrational, Freud's argument really was.
Yet here we have a bunch of geneticists who are basically trying to do the same exact thing, under a different brand name. This time, they're apparently presuming to explain all of human behavior, humans, God's own creation, in strictly genetic and evolutionary terms. The logical conclusions of their positions are just as irrational, just as wrong, and just as offensive, as Freud's own.
One of the 10 Commandments states that we are not to worship any God other than the LORD. I don't worship genetic codes, and, with God's help, they do not, and will not dictate my thoughts, my faith, my actions... I have God-given free will.
"Ask, and ye shall receive."
It is a reference to a philosophical argument / debate surrounding the relationship between body and soul.
Long ago, philosophers began asking how it could be that body and soul are linked, and how could it be that consciousness rises out of matter, or how it could be that something immaterial ("soul") could dictate, or drive, the actions of a material body.
If memory serves, I've heard that debate framed as the "ghost in the machine", since there's a seeming disjunction between a 100% immaterial spirit and a 100% physical body.
If I understand his reference correctly, then, the "divine being in the machine" alludes to the possibility that the "spirit"/"soul" is built into the matter, rather than being apart from it, thereby accounting for such things as free will by saying "built into the matter [i.e. the DNA of our bodies] is the determining essense [the human spirit, (calling it divine is blasphemous, though)] of the matter.
If, however, there is anything spiritual about matter, then it must be examined from a new perspective entirely. Spirit is not to be dominated by humans, and those who say they can dominate living human behavior with Genetics are saying they can dominate the human spirit, if the above assumption is granted.
There are philosophical problems with the assumption, as well. Specifically, there is a philosophical hypothesis called "epiphenominalism", which stipulates that consciousness arises out of matter (in much the same way a movie is projected onto a screen), and a locus of awareness is generated by something in matter itself. It's a clever solution, but I challenge any person to explain how that would actually happen.
Indeed, if it were ever discovered, they would have at least part of a genuine solution for building artificial life (ai computers, etc). I say part of a solution, since the locus of awareness does not mean that the creature would have free will, or that it would DO or THINK anything. Those would also have to be made for the artificial creature.
Would artificial life, then, have a soul, though? Would that locus of awareness be enough to call the entity "alive, spirited and soulful"? I think it would take more.
What you don't seen to "grok" is that I've already been where you're talking about. (behavioral human genetics as a substitute for faith, soul and free will) It's a dead end.
I mean you no harm, but if you keep following the faith that "man is an evoloved ape", I'm afraid that the most likely fate for you, as it was for me, is that one day Satan will visit you, as he did me, and he'll offer you something, as he did me, and the next day you'll wake up with a bunch of demons for neighbors, and where your Holy Bible should have been, you'll just have a shelf full of high brow books that tell you you're a monkey, as it happened for me.
Just remember that prayer is heard and answered, even then.
Actually I provided specific examples of cases where a strictly evolutionary mode of explaing things failed to account for a wealth of everyday human actions, behaviors, emotions, inclinations, sensations, etc.
If there is altruism, or exhileration, or love, or any such thing found in animals that would further undermine the hypothesis of human evolution, insofar as there is no "evolutionary" place for capriciously doing something risky just for the thrill. To impress the females? They won't just see a soon-to-be-dead male daredevil? And their potential kids with his soon-to-be-dead "daredevil genes"?
There's more to it, though. For instance, my prayers are answered. Are you going to explain that with genes, as well? Whose genes cause that to happen? Mine? God's? Of the thousands of times I've prayed, and most of those prayers having been answered affirmatively, pure genetics AND pure probability are both poorly equipped to get a handle on that.
Too bad faith doesn't come from intellectual analysis. If only I could show you what I've seen, it might save you from suffering the way I have.
"We" ?
Well, let's see, there's a group of "scientists" who have been consistently working under the [irrational] assumption that all human behavior can and must be explained in evolutionary terms.
Looking at the world fully convinced of their worldview, their lense, comes at the expense of faith in God, human love and compassion, altruism, faith in your fellow man, brotherhood and genuine goodwill.
What it gives in return is a smug, cynical and bitter sense of understanding, and that made even colder by the absense of faith in God, in genuine love and in human goodwill, etc.
Whose conclusion is hasty? I've seen it with my own eyes, and with my own mind. I once believed in it all: Evolution, genetic explanations for all human behavior, etc.
It is only demons, and then ultimately the LORD, that managed to break me away from the hubris of placing [almost] absolute faith into human behavioral genetics.
Faith must be given to the LORD; the other stuff is just a sideshow, and sometimes it is there for little reason other than to distract people from the truth.
I certainly don't blame you for not knowing, or for not being sure ["judge not, that ye not be judged"], but I am telling you that, without a doubt, the geneticists belief is dead wrong, and that it comes at a high price.
Jesus Christ said "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."
That means any person who wants to do the right thing, and asks the LORD for help, will be given alternatives, or strengthened in their resolve, or in some way allowed to choose a righteous path.
Jesus Christ said that to love the LORD with all your mind, all your strength, and all your will, is the most important thing you can do. Next to that is to love your neighbor as yourself. If you love your neighbor as yourself, then you would tell them both of those things.
The geneticists have been deceived, and, in being deceived, they have been saying things that would deceive others into adopting cold, calloused and deceitful worldviews. They have been publishing things that, if taken seriously, could result in someone following the primrose path to hell.
I wonder when the geneticists will take responsibility for that.
Even if they aren't directly responsible for people looking at themselves as evolved monkies, and even if they don't succeed in deceiving people into choosing paths that lead them to hell, they are still telling people things that, if taken to heart, could lead to a really crappy world.
That's a world that they must share with those they've deceived into believing themselves to be "genetically programmed robot-monkies without souls, or any afterlife / final judgement to justify moral behavior, believing such things to be false superstitions; a world of people living each day in persuit of food, shelter and sex, with no care of, or love for God, unless it can be explained in the shallowest of evolutionary terms."
In case there are any human behavioral geneticists reading, step back and some the perspective on that. Is that your ideal world?
Remember your own mother's love, as you were growing up. Could you honestly stand and look her in the face, telling her that it was nothing more than an genetically programmed behavior, the result of millions of years of biological evolution? If you have kids, are you satisfied to call them an extension of the same process? Think of your love for your wives and husbands. Can you honestly say that you believe evolution would lead to that?
Evolution might lead to aggressiveness among males to get access to the women, for reproduction, but they sure as hell wouldn't need to love them afterwards, or take the time to make a traditional home. It wouldn't explain why a person would miss their ex wife or ex girlfriend years after the fact.
Evolution might lead to a superstrain of women who choose their men only based on the car they drive, their money, their circumstances and their genes, but that wouldn't explain why they miss their husbands while they are off on business trips, and it wouldn't explain why poor women don't spend all their time looking for a replacement for their husbands, prepared to abandon their kids at a moment's notice, in order to raise a new crop with a better mate.
Evolution wouldn't explain why, of their own goodwill, one person would help another person, who's drowning, out of a well. It wouldn't explain why one person would dive into rough seas to rescue a total stranger at the risk of their own life. It wouldn't explain why a person would give to charity, to help complete strangers.
Evolution doesn't explain the thrill and exhileration of riding a motorcycle, or of the wind in your hair, or the enjoyment of warm sunlight on a cool day. It doesn't explain the sense of enjoyment from writing software, or horseback riding, or flying in an airplane. It doesn't explain the sense of satisfaction that comes from solving a riddle, or a puzzle.
Come to think of it, evolution doesn't explain much of anything, really, in terms of human behavior.
Don't let them steal your soul with such a narrow system of looking at the world. There is so much more to life, when you're not looking at the world as if it were a tribe of evolved apes, bashing each other over the heads with futuristic clubs.
The LORD gave you your very own soul. Keep it.
Your argument is a nonsequitor.
There is a flaw in their logic. According to the blurb, they compared the rate of survival between the GM and the wild mosquitos. They did NOT compare the rate of survival of wild mosquitos in the same environment in the absence of GM mosquitos. NOR did they prove that the artificial environment was in any way like that of nature, which could potentially reveal other evolutionary weaknesses (or strengths) in the GM breed.
The only way they could claim an advantage would be if they could prove that the non malarial mosquitos actually displaced the malarial ones. But they didn't prove that. All they proved was that the GM mosquitos were better survivors under identical (and pseudocompetetive) lab conditions.
To prove what they set out to prove they would have to compare the "malarial mosquitos" on their own, compared with that of "malarial mosquitos" in the presence of the "non malarial" ones. Moreover, they would have to conduct the experiment without any artificial constraints, such as limited water pools or only one mouse per million mosquitoes, since those are NOT the quite the same as the constraints nature would give them.
A good experiment would involve making 2 seperate indoor labratory ponds with plenty of frogs, snakes, turtles, (malarial)rats, (malarial)mice, pidgeons, etc. Release wild "malarial" mosquitos into one of them, and release BOTH wild and GM mosquitos into the second one. THEN compare the number of wild moquito survivors [after a prudent amount of time], and see whether the presence of the GM mosquitos in any way changed the rate of survival and reproduction of the wild "malarial" mosquitos.
THAT is what it would take, and nothing short of it.
EVEN IF they proved that the GM mosquitos displaced the wild "malarial" mosquitos, it would still be unclear that they should be released into the wild, considering that mosquitos are a pest, and doing something to make a pest more robust is potentially making it more difficult to control. In particular, some strains of mosquito can purportedly carry west nile or other disease, which could mean there would be a tradeoff, rather than a clear victory in the war against mosquito-born pestilence.
All that being said, without further testing, it would be a really foolish mistake to release those GM mosquitos into the wild.
I don't know if that's true for running, but I've heard the same with regard to heavy weight lifting. I've heard the claim that it changes the way their bones develop.
Good question. I guess there's no telling what I would have done, only what I did. I can say this for sure: passive peer pressure from other runners really dogged me to try keeping pace. At that age, I don't think I would have had the same level of motivation without the team's peer pressure.
Well, that's not exactly how I interpreted their claims. I understood them to say that regardless of whether the kid was involved in a school sports program, or doing their own thing, they were getting the same amount of exercise, due to a [supposedly genetic] tendency of the kids to do the same amount of exercise on their own as they would in an organized sport.
That's really not the same thing as what you described.
While I was in junior high school, our coach pushed us really hard. We got muscles, we could run quite far, and nobody complained, since complaining meant the complainer made everyone have to do even more hard exercise.
It reminded me of boot camp, and I was miserable, running in 100 degree heat, but I was 13 years old, and I was in such good shape. I ran track for a year in junior high, as well, but I really wasn't that good at it. My dad went to track meets and watched me lose races!
Perhaps that's neither here nor there. Elementary school might be different. I really don't know much about that age group. I'm not used to thinking of young children as building muscle tone or cardiovascular conditioning. I just think of them as healthy and energetic, but not as trained athletes. If that's what the article is saying, perhaps it is right. I really don't know.
I was eating twice the normal amount of food and running 12 miles a day. In other words, I did get more exercise. I could have run a marathon. You're telling me that the person next door was in the same shape as I was? Well, no, they weren't. Nobody in the entire school was, really, except the other runners. Back then, I would run a couple miles without even breaking a sweat.
If they aren't working their kids hard enough to get anything extra from the school's sports programs, that might be due to creampuff sports programs, but there is such a thing as exceeding the statistical norm, and most people are capable of doing it if they're given proper encouragement. [and the first step in that process is NOT to tell the class that they're going to be in the same shape, regardless of whether they do the prescribed exercises.]
That is why I make the bold assertion that their conclusion is pure bunk. Perhaps it was stated more accurately in the actual report, but the description of the conclusion in TA is negated by my own life's experience.
I'm appalled that they would even venture to call that a study; they should have looked much more carefully at specific sports. Baseball, for instance, is mainly about sprinting, weight training, pitching, catching, bat swinging. That's a sport that might not require that the players be in very good shape, but if cross country runners, triathaletes, long distance swimmers, etc, were seperated from linebackers, sumo wrestlers, volleyball players, baseball players and ping pong
From TFA:
"A government brief filed simultaneously backed AT&T's claims and said a lower court judge had exceeded his authority by not dismissing the suit outright."
My Question:
Did that government official guy who filed the joint brief ever go to law school? Or study U.S. government? Or study the U.S. constitution?
Amendment IV, U.S. Bill of Rights
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I ran track and cross country for 2 years.
My diet doubled, and I never gained a single pound, except for 10 lbs muscle gained during track season's weight-training, and which I would burn off during the next cross country season. Everyone in the sport was skinny as a rail, and had ultra-lean, and extraordinarily enduring muscles.
It is also true that I don't normally gain weight outside of that sport, but as I said, while I was running my caloric intake doubled.
It is with that observation that I declare their study was pure bunk.
It would not only interfere with the children's rights. The bill would abridge everyone's the right to free speach, insofar as it would require everyone to identify themselves before using social networking websites.