The public pays the salary of public servants, like policemen. You don't get privacy from your boss checking up on your work, especially when interacting with a client. Furthermore, anyone entrusted with the use of lethal force should be held to the highest standards. Personally, I trust the police (in general), but I'd like to constantly verify that they're worthy of that trust, and eliminate the ones that are not.
No, Miranda rights exist because most people aren't familiar with the law. Miranda was arrested and never told that he had the right to legal counsel, that what he said would be used against him, or that he didn't need to sign a confession to the crime. The police didn't abuse him. They (arguably) exploited his ignorance, which was legal at the time.
The main science question is : what the hell do we need humans on Mars for ?
I don't think that's a scientific question. I'm sure there's scientific benefit to doing that, maybe more, probably less than making a large number of probes. Personally, I don't think the motivations are that different than people colonizing random islands and going on voyages around the world.
"We" on Earth probably have little need for the resources on Mars right now. OTOH, it'd be a good first step into colonizing and mining the solar system. Titan apparently has more oil than the Earth. So, in 50 years, when we're starting to run out, I imagine someone will be getting rich off of that. Or we'll have switched to a new power and hydrocarbon source, but who's optimistic enough to say that with absolute certainty? Plus there are countless other potential resources.
Since I was curious, here's some math on Titan's oil. Crude oil has an energy density of 46.3 MJ/kg. Titan's escape velocity is 2.65 Km/sec. So, it'll take more than 3.5 MJ/kg to get the oil off of Titan, which seems quite practical if it were transported in bulk (even 10% efficiency would work). You could also gain 62.7 MJ/kg if you could somehow capture the energy involved in landing it on Earth (space elevator counterweight perhaps?).
Mars has an escape velocity of 5.0 Km/sec, so it'd take 12.5 MJ/kg to get something into space. That's an 80% reduction in energy needs if you build the necessary orbital infrastructure using Martian minerals compared to using Terran minerals. Nobody owns them yet, so there are no middle men driving up costs, and pulling rocks out of the ground will be easier in lower gravity. Environmentalists will love the fact that there's no ecosystem to destroy, and people tend to be a little better about working around aesthetically pleasing natural formations.
Heck, the physics of mining the solar system don't seem bad at all. When technology enables it to be done in an economic manner I'd imagine it's all but inevitable for the world to move to a space based economy. Personally, I live in America, so I'd prefer if we were the ones that got rich (or richer, realistically speaking) from that investment. But if we chill out and keep probing the outer planets (pun averted), our geographic knowledge of the solar system will be spectacular, but people on Earth will suffer and die while competing for limited resources.
Manned space exploration is also the groundwork for tourism, and I'd like to visit space sometime in my life, preferably another celestial body. Besides that, it's a lot more effective for generating interest in the sciences, so I think that's a good enough societal boon.
I was about to laugh before I realized that I don't doubt they'll do that in the not-so-distant future. Beware if your expense spreadsheet has an ad for bankruptcy lawyers...
I think the problem is that app store developers don't quite realize that Apple's app store doesn't exist to be profitable for developers. They feel almost entitled to making money on their idea, so when that idea doesn't work (i.e. Apple pulls the plug), they feel wronged. The app store exists to make the iP* a more desirable device, and subsequently generate higher profits for Apple. If someone else is clever they can make money off of it for a while. There is no guarantee though, and Apple may well decide to snatch their idea if it works too well.
They should switch to android if they aren't willing to accept the risk and adapt to a covertly chaotic environment. If they're not skilled enough to cut it there ("boo hoo, it's hard to make something that works on more than just my machine"), then they probably shouldn't try to be a career programmer at their current skill level. One can't expect an easy way to make money to last for very long. I just wish they wouldn't complain about that seemingly obvious fact...
Trait group selection is a mathematical corollary of natural selection, so it's not really a separate scientific theory. You'd have to refute the math, or disprove the mathematical model of natural selection. Its detractors mostly say it's not a big player, not that it can't work. I believe it it fairly strongly since I did a computer model of it back in undergraduate, and it worked fine with me tweaking the variables in all sorts of crazy ways (group size, cost-to-benefit ratio, all-or-none benefits, etc.).
Altruism in biology scales down to bacteria even. Some will secrete an enzyme that degrades an antibiotic, thus protecting themselves and those around them. They could save costs and down-regulate the enzyme so it becomes a personal protection, but they don't. Reciprocity and kin selection can't explain it. The whole story isn't know, and this is an active area of research at my institution. I think that's why they focused on trait group selection, since it's the only model that really works for this situation.
If you use the philosophic definition of altruism, you can always rationalize it away. Science, OTOH, requires something to be disprovable. Altruism is a tricky thing, like free-will. IMHO, after you leave the objective definition, it's all semantics and it's impossible to disprove anyone's personal observation and opinion. Personally, I think it exists, since otherwise you would be unable to act against your own self interest, but I'm not well versed in philosophy.
As for life, I don't think it really serves any interests, self-interest included. The currently extant species happened to consistently act in a way that didn't lead to extinction. It's like trying to create a vacuum. Air molecules move randomly, and it's almost impossible to stop them from leaking in at some point. Similarly, life hasn't died out despite repeated insults. I consider desire to simply be an emotion present in a handful of lifeforms. IMHO a bacteria doesn't have a will to live so much as it simply wasn't born with the tendency to do things that result in its death. Such tendencies resemble being self-serving, but that's not really it's goal, not that a goal even exists. Evolution doesn't plan for the future.
I'm wondering whether it'd be white hat or black hat to write an MBR nuker in this day and age. Sure, you deny someone the use of their computer, but if it caught your worm/virus then it almost certainly has others. A nuked MBR is easy enough to fix by a knowledgeable person, said person will clean out the malware and secure the PC, no data loss occurs, and the owner gets a lesson in not being stupid. It's Machiavellian, but just a couple of these viruses would probably eliminate the botnets that don't secure their hosts. And you prevent someone's credit card from getting stolen by the rootkit that their computer was already infected with.
OTOH, nowadays you could probably overwrite the firmware in most portable devices, routers, harddrives, optical drives, network cards, motherboards, and probably a few other components. Now that would be mean!
"Apparent altruism" doesn't explain the concept very well. Reciprocity doesn't look like the philosophic definition of altruism. Applying that definition to animals, plants, and bacteria is personifying them at best. Most don't even have any motivation unless you refer to the biochemical mechanisms. Altruism has multiple meanings for that reason.
They cannot be reinforced, because wherever habitual altruism arises, it will increase the frequency of genes for exploiting the altruism until the altruist genes are suppressed.
That's the first premise of trait-group selection. But the second premise ensures that altruism is reinforced. It's a bit counterintuitive, but it's a way to win the war while losing every single battle.
Also, there's some debate as to whether evolution acts more at the level of the gene or the organism. The truth is that both (and everything in between) apply at different times. Selection at levels higher than the organism is doubted by a lot of evolutionary biologists, though it's not clear whether it's absolutely impossible. Selection at levels lower than the gene starts getting into abiogenesis. OTOH, for anything lower than the level of organism, the evolutionary term "gene" is an abstraction that can break down, so you're in very murky territory.
This type of experiment needs a very good control. First of all, cell phones tend to carry a lot of microbes, so you don't want to kill off the colony simply by introducing a pathogen that wasn't present on the control. Second, did the phones do anything detectable by bees when they were activated? Noise (ringing or just electrical), lights, etc.? Because I would suspect that if the bees think they need to fend off an intruder deep in the hive twice a day they'll likely be more stressed and less productive. Third, did the phones emit more heat than the control?
IMHO, a better study would have a group of hives in range of a single tower that can be turned on and off at will. Let them get established, turn it on, see if the numbers change, turn it off, see if the numbers change, turn it on again, etc. (Crossover study.)
Well, if Google Maps pointed out the trail she'd probably try to drive on it next time...
This incident reminds me of the time my GPS instructed me to turn left onto 5 lanes of one-way oncoming traffic. There are times that natural selection reminds us that it's still in effect... (Too bad intelligence on the part of the one being tested isn't the only way to survive.)
Reciprocal altruism is a concept, introduced into evolutionary biology by Robert Trivers, which explains the evolution of cooperation as instances of mutually altruistic acts. The concept is close to the one of Tit for Tat known in game theory.
(Source, check the citations at the end for more authoritative sources.)
Kin selection, trait group selection, and reciprocity are all explanations for altruism in animals. Each theory has its limitations, so there are several of them to cover the wide variety of altruism seen in nature.
I think the problem lies in that I've basically only used the biological definition of altruism and not the philosophical one. Since the topic is about behavior (self-serving behavior no less), I underestimated the need to clarify that I wasn't discussing motivations.
Here is a decent primer into evolutionary altruism if you're interested. It doesn't go into trait group selection though.
That's kin selection. Trait group selection is a relatively recent theory that replaced the discredited group selection to explain altruism among non-relatives. There are also a few game theory strategies that apply to altruism among non-relatives (e.g. tit-for-tat reciprocity).
"The Selfish Gene" was published in 1976 and fell between the fall of group selection (1960s) and the rise of trait group selection (late 1990s). The latter gained popularity since it's a mathematical derivative of the model of natural selection, and because kin selection cannot explain all instances of altruism seen in nature.
"Altruism" is a technical term in the context of evolution. The phenomenon is seen in mathematical models and nature, and that's the term that was picked to describe it. Evolution deals with genes, which lack any kind of "self-interest".
When applying the concept to human behavior, I was using a concise word to refer to a specific set of behaviors, not the underlying motivations. Is there another word that would better encapsulate that meaning?
It really so bad of America to not impose such laws on other countries? If BP's offshore drilling causes a country's inhabitants to suffer, why would they allow it to happen in the first place? Chances are that the country's inhabitants will much prefer to be paid by BP for their 'suffering'. Perhaps it's imposing our values and views to even call it suffering at all...
I know, I know, impoverished people with a corrupt government that's willing to sacrifice the environment. It's really just apathy. The citizens don't overthrow the government that doesn't represent their will because they're happy enough as-is. The local environment gets destroyed because the locals don't care enough to protect it. Etc., etc., although notice that it's not our apathy that's the cause of any of that.
Are we not to allow international corporations to exploit other countries, but do so in a manner that doesn't infringe on that nation's autonomy? Must the king die?
Altruism exists in nature, so it can be a successful strategy. From evolution, the concept of trait group selection is probably applicable. In nature, lots of animals form transient groups, and I think you could apply that model to businesses as well.
Trait group selection has two rules.
Groups with a higher portion of altruists are more successful
Within a group, altruists are out-competed by selfish individuals
From an evolutionary perspective, this translates to a group with 7 altruists and 3 cheaters increasing in size to 10 altruists and 5 cheaters. The portion of altruists in the group decreases, the total number of altruists increases, the large group fragments into smaller groups with varying portions of altruists, and the process is repeated.
Applying that to humans, in a small company altruism ensures the company's growth and everyone's paycheck (theoretically) increases. In a large company there are far too many selfish individuals for an altruist to really get ahead. OTOH, humans are skilled at detecting and excluding selfish individuals, and the selfish individuals are skilled at evading detection. So it's definitely more complicated than simple natural selection, though with reduced interpersonal interaction this confounding effect would be minimized.
It wouldn't surprise me if you could easily afford a ten to twenty fold increase in your electric bill. But, what about the lower income families living in poorly insulated homes, likely in less temperate climates? For someone whose electric bill is $300+ a month that only earns a little over $1,000 a month, even a small increase wouldn't be affordable (KY's low power rates, temperate climate, and low cost of living being used here). Just for kicks, let's say it's the middle of the winter for an elderly old couple on aspirin and a fixed income that still live in their hundred year old home.
OTOH, I certainly don't think the current state of affairs is optimal. I'd prefer if the price did triple, but the increase was completely reinvested in reducing the energy costs in older homes.
At 85% mortality, the chance of all five monkeys surviving due to random chance would only be 15% ^ 5 = 0.0076%, which is well below the traditional alpha level of 5%. It'd take a mortality rate of 45% before you could say that, so for deadly diseases you don't need huge sample sizes to show effectiveness, though you would need a larger sample size to measure the size of the effect. The researchers have a very good claim that the treatment lowers the mortality rate of the tested strain of Ebola in monkeys. Of course, adapting this treatment to humans probably isn't going to be trivial. (You do have a point about "cure", though I think we all realize the overall quality level of science news reports in the popular media.)
Viruses don't really have a lifespan. Ebola is short-lived because it's so deadly. While resistance generally does make a virus/bacteria/parasite less effective overall (resistance comes at a cost), random mutations will do the same a lot more quickly. Apparently that's not a successful strategy for the virus.
That said, if we manage to keep people from dying but not keep them from spreading the virus then that would be bad. Obviously, to get these antivirals, you're already in the quarantine. Unlike your typical bacterial infection, Ebola is serious enough that you're going to be isolated and gladly take every single dose of your medicine until you (and your doctors) are sure that you are no longer infected.
The trend lately seems to be to build hardware that runs existing software faster. Designing hardware without legacy support would make for faster, more power efficient hardware. Futhermore, hardware is expensive to modify, whereas software is relatively cheap to update.
OTOH, since the world relies on commercial software distributed in binary form, hardware makers have to support it. Today, the hardware is built so the software doesn't need to be changed, despite the fact that computers would perform at a much higher level if it were the other way around. I suppose one could point out that we have so much software today that porting all of it would isn't practical. Of course, the current state of affairs is solely due to the Windows on x86 near-monoculture. People seem to love sticking with what works, rather than go through a bit of pain to achieve higher levels. I suppose people expect that computers aren't ever going to move past the general design standardized in the 1990s.
IMHO, what we need is a clean break, a complete redesign, every decade or so. At that point, most decade-old software should be emulatable, and we get the benefits of the ever-advancing state of computer science. Plus the periodic chaos should prevent complacency and increase competition, while the decade long stability would allow for optimization and provide a common build target. Fat chance that Microsoft or big business would ever go along with that idea though.
Ok, I just did a literature search on saturated fat and I am quite surprised. A couple months ago a large meta-analysis came out with the following results:
The pooled relative risk estimates that compared extreme quantiles of saturated fat intake were 1.07 (95% CI: 0.96, 1.19; P = 0.22) for CHD, 0.81 (95% CI: 0.62, 1.05; P = 0.11) for stroke, and 1.00 (95% CI: 0.89, 1.11; P = 0.95) for CVD. Consideration of age, sex, and study quality did not change the results.
So, apparently the animal studies don't apply to humans. I do have to wonder whether the nature of PUFAs and MUFAs (unsaturated fats) to breakdown into artificial trans fats during cooking might be a confounding factor, since it wasn't mentioned and I don't closely follow nutritional research. Another study in the same journal showed that low carbohydrate diets that are high in saturated fats cause an increase in total LDL, but a large decrease in the small LDLs, which are the worse for atherosclerosis. It seems like there is a lot more to the story about fat than I was taught, or is even known. The only certainties seem to be that (reasonable) exercise is essential, and consistently eating more calories than you need is bad.
As for the political issue, I don't doubt it. I've often scratched my head over corn subsidies. It's like modern-day pyramid building, why do we need that much, and why corn?
I suspect you know that by "American" he meant the "United States of America". There are only two large political unions in the world, and we refer to both by the continents they're on. Just like "European" might or might not include the Ukraine, depending on context. English nomenclature just doesn't work well for the EU or US, so that's why we say "European" or "American" rather than "EUian" or "United States of American". Would you prefer if we referred to them by the largest state in the union, as was done for the USSR?
Well, there was an old lady that smoked for over 100 years...
High cholesterol and such alter your risk of disease. You can always get lucky. OTOH, my personal opinion is that the dietary recommendations are somewhat biased against animal products.
Saturated fat is bad*, so nutritionists suggested margarine. Then we find out that the trans fats in older types of margarine are a lot worse. So people were told to cut back on meat since it also has trans fats. Later studies, though, have shown that the naturally occurring trans fats aren't anywhere near as bad as their artificial cousins. Recent studies now indicate that you can eat mostly meat, or all vegetables, and so long as you get your vitamins and minerals and a reasonable number of calories, you're fine. Or at least for the short term. For the long term, the recommendation is still a "balanced" (mostly plants) diet since we know that works. There really isn't much data for the long term effects of protein-based diets, though I anecdotally know dozens of old farmers that ate exactly like you described and far exceeded their life expectancy.
* I recently saw a study that questioned this, in regards to the naturally occurring animal fats. It kinda makes sense, although it wouldn't apply to using lard for everything. OTOH, it was from a lab affiliated with a meat producer, so I'm withholding judgment until it's confirmed by independent studies.
Might I suggest honey as the organic/natural version of HFCS-55? With the exception of protein impurities, you have to do an analysis of the radioactive isotopes to tell the difference.
Psychologically, sure. Physiologically, children can taste a lot better than an adult. Four times better, in fact, since you lose taste buds as you get older, plus I'm sure taste-bud density drops as your mouth gets bigger. (People also vary by ~50% IIRC.) We don't appreciate stronger flavors as we get older, we tolerate them since we can't taste them as well as we used to. Personally, I couldn't stand spicy food as a child, but today I rarely notice it, so I pay more attention to the other flavors in the food (e.g. most hot sauces taste like vinegar now).
Children are also known for being picky about vegetables. That makes sense, since many (probably most) plants are poisonous, and a child has no business trying to discern which are and which aren't. So, evolutionarily, it's better to just avoid them entirely. If your parents force feed you vegetables, you'll probably learn to like them, psychologically. Or you'll be defiant and never like them, although that could just as easily be individual preference manifesting itself in childhood.
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The public pays the salary of public servants, like policemen. You don't get privacy from your boss checking up on your work, especially when interacting with a client. Furthermore, anyone entrusted with the use of lethal force should be held to the highest standards. Personally, I trust the police (in general), but I'd like to constantly verify that they're worthy of that trust, and eliminate the ones that are not.
No, Miranda rights exist because most people aren't familiar with the law. Miranda was arrested and never told that he had the right to legal counsel, that what he said would be used against him, or that he didn't need to sign a confession to the crime. The police didn't abuse him. They (arguably) exploited his ignorance, which was legal at the time.
The main science question is : what the hell do we need humans on Mars for ?
I don't think that's a scientific question. I'm sure there's scientific benefit to doing that, maybe more, probably less than making a large number of probes. Personally, I don't think the motivations are that different than people colonizing random islands and going on voyages around the world.
"We" on Earth probably have little need for the resources on Mars right now. OTOH, it'd be a good first step into colonizing and mining the solar system. Titan apparently has more oil than the Earth. So, in 50 years, when we're starting to run out, I imagine someone will be getting rich off of that. Or we'll have switched to a new power and hydrocarbon source, but who's optimistic enough to say that with absolute certainty? Plus there are countless other potential resources.
Since I was curious, here's some math on Titan's oil. Crude oil has an energy density of 46.3 MJ/kg. Titan's escape velocity is 2.65 Km/sec. So, it'll take more than 3.5 MJ/kg to get the oil off of Titan, which seems quite practical if it were transported in bulk (even 10% efficiency would work). You could also gain 62.7 MJ/kg if you could somehow capture the energy involved in landing it on Earth (space elevator counterweight perhaps?).
Mars has an escape velocity of 5.0 Km/sec, so it'd take 12.5 MJ/kg to get something into space. That's an 80% reduction in energy needs if you build the necessary orbital infrastructure using Martian minerals compared to using Terran minerals. Nobody owns them yet, so there are no middle men driving up costs, and pulling rocks out of the ground will be easier in lower gravity. Environmentalists will love the fact that there's no ecosystem to destroy, and people tend to be a little better about working around aesthetically pleasing natural formations.
Heck, the physics of mining the solar system don't seem bad at all. When technology enables it to be done in an economic manner I'd imagine it's all but inevitable for the world to move to a space based economy. Personally, I live in America, so I'd prefer if we were the ones that got rich (or richer, realistically speaking) from that investment. But if we chill out and keep probing the outer planets (pun averted), our geographic knowledge of the solar system will be spectacular, but people on Earth will suffer and die while competing for limited resources.
Manned space exploration is also the groundwork for tourism, and I'd like to visit space sometime in my life, preferably another celestial body. Besides that, it's a lot more effective for generating interest in the sciences, so I think that's a good enough societal boon.
I was about to laugh before I realized that I don't doubt they'll do that in the not-so-distant future. Beware if your expense spreadsheet has an ad for bankruptcy lawyers...
I think the problem is that app store developers don't quite realize that Apple's app store doesn't exist to be profitable for developers. They feel almost entitled to making money on their idea, so when that idea doesn't work (i.e. Apple pulls the plug), they feel wronged. The app store exists to make the iP* a more desirable device, and subsequently generate higher profits for Apple. If someone else is clever they can make money off of it for a while. There is no guarantee though, and Apple may well decide to snatch their idea if it works too well.
They should switch to android if they aren't willing to accept the risk and adapt to a covertly chaotic environment. If they're not skilled enough to cut it there ("boo hoo, it's hard to make something that works on more than just my machine"), then they probably shouldn't try to be a career programmer at their current skill level. One can't expect an easy way to make money to last for very long. I just wish they wouldn't complain about that seemingly obvious fact...
Trait group selection is a mathematical corollary of natural selection, so it's not really a separate scientific theory. You'd have to refute the math, or disprove the mathematical model of natural selection. Its detractors mostly say it's not a big player, not that it can't work. I believe it it fairly strongly since I did a computer model of it back in undergraduate, and it worked fine with me tweaking the variables in all sorts of crazy ways (group size, cost-to-benefit ratio, all-or-none benefits, etc.).
Altruism in biology scales down to bacteria even. Some will secrete an enzyme that degrades an antibiotic, thus protecting themselves and those around them. They could save costs and down-regulate the enzyme so it becomes a personal protection, but they don't. Reciprocity and kin selection can't explain it. The whole story isn't know, and this is an active area of research at my institution. I think that's why they focused on trait group selection, since it's the only model that really works for this situation.
If you use the philosophic definition of altruism, you can always rationalize it away. Science, OTOH, requires something to be disprovable. Altruism is a tricky thing, like free-will. IMHO, after you leave the objective definition, it's all semantics and it's impossible to disprove anyone's personal observation and opinion. Personally, I think it exists, since otherwise you would be unable to act against your own self interest, but I'm not well versed in philosophy.
As for life, I don't think it really serves any interests, self-interest included. The currently extant species happened to consistently act in a way that didn't lead to extinction. It's like trying to create a vacuum. Air molecules move randomly, and it's almost impossible to stop them from leaking in at some point. Similarly, life hasn't died out despite repeated insults. I consider desire to simply be an emotion present in a handful of lifeforms. IMHO a bacteria doesn't have a will to live so much as it simply wasn't born with the tendency to do things that result in its death. Such tendencies resemble being self-serving, but that's not really it's goal, not that a goal even exists. Evolution doesn't plan for the future.
I'm wondering whether it'd be white hat or black hat to write an MBR nuker in this day and age. Sure, you deny someone the use of their computer, but if it caught your worm/virus then it almost certainly has others. A nuked MBR is easy enough to fix by a knowledgeable person, said person will clean out the malware and secure the PC, no data loss occurs, and the owner gets a lesson in not being stupid. It's Machiavellian, but just a couple of these viruses would probably eliminate the botnets that don't secure their hosts. And you prevent someone's credit card from getting stolen by the rootkit that their computer was already infected with.
OTOH, nowadays you could probably overwrite the firmware in most portable devices, routers, harddrives, optical drives, network cards, motherboards, and probably a few other components. Now that would be mean!
They cannot be reinforced, because wherever habitual altruism arises, it will increase the frequency of genes for exploiting the altruism until the altruist genes are suppressed.
That's the first premise of trait-group selection. But the second premise ensures that altruism is reinforced. It's a bit counterintuitive, but it's a way to win the war while losing every single battle.
Also, there's some debate as to whether evolution acts more at the level of the gene or the organism. The truth is that both (and everything in between) apply at different times. Selection at levels higher than the organism is doubted by a lot of evolutionary biologists, though it's not clear whether it's absolutely impossible. Selection at levels lower than the gene starts getting into abiogenesis. OTOH, for anything lower than the level of organism, the evolutionary term "gene" is an abstraction that can break down, so you're in very murky territory.
Why is that? Which of my assumptions are invalid?
This type of experiment needs a very good control. First of all, cell phones tend to carry a lot of microbes, so you don't want to kill off the colony simply by introducing a pathogen that wasn't present on the control. Second, did the phones do anything detectable by bees when they were activated? Noise (ringing or just electrical), lights, etc.? Because I would suspect that if the bees think they need to fend off an intruder deep in the hive twice a day they'll likely be more stressed and less productive. Third, did the phones emit more heat than the control?
IMHO, a better study would have a group of hives in range of a single tower that can be turned on and off at will. Let them get established, turn it on, see if the numbers change, turn it off, see if the numbers change, turn it on again, etc. (Crossover study.)
Well, if Google Maps pointed out the trail she'd probably try to drive on it next time...
This incident reminds me of the time my GPS instructed me to turn left onto 5 lanes of one-way oncoming traffic. There are times that natural selection reminds us that it's still in effect... (Too bad intelligence on the part of the one being tested isn't the only way to survive.)
Reciprocal altruism is a concept, introduced into evolutionary biology by Robert Trivers, which explains the evolution of cooperation as instances of mutually altruistic acts. The concept is close to the one of Tit for Tat known in game theory.
(Source, check the citations at the end for more authoritative sources.)
Kin selection, trait group selection, and reciprocity are all explanations for altruism in animals. Each theory has its limitations, so there are several of them to cover the wide variety of altruism seen in nature.
I think the problem lies in that I've basically only used the biological definition of altruism and not the philosophical one. Since the topic is about behavior (self-serving behavior no less), I underestimated the need to clarify that I wasn't discussing motivations.
Here is a decent primer into evolutionary altruism if you're interested. It doesn't go into trait group selection though.
That's kin selection. Trait group selection is a relatively recent theory that replaced the discredited group selection to explain altruism among non-relatives. There are also a few game theory strategies that apply to altruism among non-relatives (e.g. tit-for-tat reciprocity).
"The Selfish Gene" was published in 1976 and fell between the fall of group selection (1960s) and the rise of trait group selection (late 1990s). The latter gained popularity since it's a mathematical derivative of the model of natural selection, and because kin selection cannot explain all instances of altruism seen in nature.
"Altruism" is a technical term in the context of evolution. The phenomenon is seen in mathematical models and nature, and that's the term that was picked to describe it. Evolution deals with genes, which lack any kind of "self-interest".
When applying the concept to human behavior, I was using a concise word to refer to a specific set of behaviors, not the underlying motivations. Is there another word that would better encapsulate that meaning?
It really so bad of America to not impose such laws on other countries? If BP's offshore drilling causes a country's inhabitants to suffer, why would they allow it to happen in the first place? Chances are that the country's inhabitants will much prefer to be paid by BP for their 'suffering'. Perhaps it's imposing our values and views to even call it suffering at all...
I know, I know, impoverished people with a corrupt government that's willing to sacrifice the environment. It's really just apathy. The citizens don't overthrow the government that doesn't represent their will because they're happy enough as-is. The local environment gets destroyed because the locals don't care enough to protect it. Etc., etc., although notice that it's not our apathy that's the cause of any of that.
Are we not to allow international corporations to exploit other countries, but do so in a manner that doesn't infringe on that nation's autonomy? Must the king die?
Trait group selection has two rules.
From an evolutionary perspective, this translates to a group with 7 altruists and 3 cheaters increasing in size to 10 altruists and 5 cheaters. The portion of altruists in the group decreases, the total number of altruists increases, the large group fragments into smaller groups with varying portions of altruists, and the process is repeated.
Applying that to humans, in a small company altruism ensures the company's growth and everyone's paycheck (theoretically) increases. In a large company there are far too many selfish individuals for an altruist to really get ahead. OTOH, humans are skilled at detecting and excluding selfish individuals, and the selfish individuals are skilled at evading detection. So it's definitely more complicated than simple natural selection, though with reduced interpersonal interaction this confounding effect would be minimized.
It wouldn't surprise me if you could easily afford a ten to twenty fold increase in your electric bill. But, what about the lower income families living in poorly insulated homes, likely in less temperate climates? For someone whose electric bill is $300+ a month that only earns a little over $1,000 a month, even a small increase wouldn't be affordable (KY's low power rates, temperate climate, and low cost of living being used here). Just for kicks, let's say it's the middle of the winter for an elderly old couple on aspirin and a fixed income that still live in their hundred year old home.
OTOH, I certainly don't think the current state of affairs is optimal. I'd prefer if the price did triple, but the increase was completely reinvested in reducing the energy costs in older homes.
At 85% mortality, the chance of all five monkeys surviving due to random chance would only be 15% ^ 5 = 0.0076%, which is well below the traditional alpha level of 5%. It'd take a mortality rate of 45% before you could say that, so for deadly diseases you don't need huge sample sizes to show effectiveness, though you would need a larger sample size to measure the size of the effect. The researchers have a very good claim that the treatment lowers the mortality rate of the tested strain of Ebola in monkeys. Of course, adapting this treatment to humans probably isn't going to be trivial. (You do have a point about "cure", though I think we all realize the overall quality level of science news reports in the popular media.)
Viruses don't really have a lifespan. Ebola is short-lived because it's so deadly. While resistance generally does make a virus/bacteria/parasite less effective overall (resistance comes at a cost), random mutations will do the same a lot more quickly. Apparently that's not a successful strategy for the virus.
That said, if we manage to keep people from dying but not keep them from spreading the virus then that would be bad. Obviously, to get these antivirals, you're already in the quarantine. Unlike your typical bacterial infection, Ebola is serious enough that you're going to be isolated and gladly take every single dose of your medicine until you (and your doctors) are sure that you are no longer infected.
The trend lately seems to be to build hardware that runs existing software faster. Designing hardware without legacy support would make for faster, more power efficient hardware. Futhermore, hardware is expensive to modify, whereas software is relatively cheap to update.
OTOH, since the world relies on commercial software distributed in binary form, hardware makers have to support it. Today, the hardware is built so the software doesn't need to be changed, despite the fact that computers would perform at a much higher level if it were the other way around. I suppose one could point out that we have so much software today that porting all of it would isn't practical. Of course, the current state of affairs is solely due to the Windows on x86 near-monoculture. People seem to love sticking with what works, rather than go through a bit of pain to achieve higher levels. I suppose people expect that computers aren't ever going to move past the general design standardized in the 1990s.
IMHO, what we need is a clean break, a complete redesign, every decade or so. At that point, most decade-old software should be emulatable, and we get the benefits of the ever-advancing state of computer science. Plus the periodic chaos should prevent complacency and increase competition, while the decade long stability would allow for optimization and provide a common build target. Fat chance that Microsoft or big business would ever go along with that idea though.
The pooled relative risk estimates that compared extreme quantiles of saturated fat intake were 1.07 (95% CI: 0.96, 1.19; P = 0.22) for CHD, 0.81 (95% CI: 0.62, 1.05; P = 0.11) for stroke, and 1.00 (95% CI: 0.89, 1.11; P = 0.95) for CVD. Consideration of age, sex, and study quality did not change the results.
So, apparently the animal studies don't apply to humans. I do have to wonder whether the nature of PUFAs and MUFAs (unsaturated fats) to breakdown into artificial trans fats during cooking might be a confounding factor, since it wasn't mentioned and I don't closely follow nutritional research. Another study in the same journal showed that low carbohydrate diets that are high in saturated fats cause an increase in total LDL, but a large decrease in the small LDLs, which are the worse for atherosclerosis. It seems like there is a lot more to the story about fat than I was taught, or is even known. The only certainties seem to be that (reasonable) exercise is essential, and consistently eating more calories than you need is bad.
As for the political issue, I don't doubt it. I've often scratched my head over corn subsidies. It's like modern-day pyramid building, why do we need that much, and why corn?
I suspect you know that by "American" he meant the "United States of America". There are only two large political unions in the world, and we refer to both by the continents they're on. Just like "European" might or might not include the Ukraine, depending on context. English nomenclature just doesn't work well for the EU or US, so that's why we say "European" or "American" rather than "EUian" or "United States of American". Would you prefer if we referred to them by the largest state in the union, as was done for the USSR?
Well, there was an old lady that smoked for over 100 years...
High cholesterol and such alter your risk of disease. You can always get lucky. OTOH, my personal opinion is that the dietary recommendations are somewhat biased against animal products.
Saturated fat is bad*, so nutritionists suggested margarine. Then we find out that the trans fats in older types of margarine are a lot worse. So people were told to cut back on meat since it also has trans fats. Later studies, though, have shown that the naturally occurring trans fats aren't anywhere near as bad as their artificial cousins. Recent studies now indicate that you can eat mostly meat, or all vegetables, and so long as you get your vitamins and minerals and a reasonable number of calories, you're fine. Or at least for the short term. For the long term, the recommendation is still a "balanced" (mostly plants) diet since we know that works. There really isn't much data for the long term effects of protein-based diets, though I anecdotally know dozens of old farmers that ate exactly like you described and far exceeded their life expectancy.
* I recently saw a study that questioned this, in regards to the naturally occurring animal fats. It kinda makes sense, although it wouldn't apply to using lard for everything. OTOH, it was from a lab affiliated with a meat producer, so I'm withholding judgment until it's confirmed by independent studies.
Might I suggest honey as the organic/natural version of HFCS-55? With the exception of protein impurities, you have to do an analysis of the radioactive isotopes to tell the difference.
Psychologically, sure. Physiologically, children can taste a lot better than an adult. Four times better, in fact, since you lose taste buds as you get older, plus I'm sure taste-bud density drops as your mouth gets bigger. (People also vary by ~50% IIRC.) We don't appreciate stronger flavors as we get older, we tolerate them since we can't taste them as well as we used to. Personally, I couldn't stand spicy food as a child, but today I rarely notice it, so I pay more attention to the other flavors in the food (e.g. most hot sauces taste like vinegar now).
Children are also known for being picky about vegetables. That makes sense, since many (probably most) plants are poisonous, and a child has no business trying to discern which are and which aren't. So, evolutionarily, it's better to just avoid them entirely. If your parents force feed you vegetables, you'll probably learn to like them, psychologically. Or you'll be defiant and never like them, although that could just as easily be individual preference manifesting itself in childhood.