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User: Jim_Callahan

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Comments · 1,114

  1. Re:What do you expect? on USA to Pass Science Crown to China · · Score: 1

    No subpopulation of humans has been isolated from the rest for a sufficient number of generations for any physical adaptations to manifest themselves, at least in terms of modern applications. Plenty of social adaptations arise, of course, but those alter to the point of disappearing when an individual is brought into contact with differing cultures, as most people are eventually these days. Thus it becomes again a matter of individual personality rather than 'subpopulations'.

    The problem with attempting to apply evolutionary ideas to human behavior and aptitude is that behaviors do not (a) breed true or (b) remain constant through an individual's life. They can be passed on to offspring through other means, and this occurs fairly regularly, but it is famously unreliable.

    It was a nice try, but ultimately your little exercise in amateur eugenics doesn't hold up from a practical standpoint. Individual aptitudes just vary more than base cultural ones in a multiculture environment.

  2. Re:What do you expect? on USA to Pass Science Crown to China · · Score: 1

    The most popular groups in high school are the ones that win. My high school had a state champion band, debate team, and UIL academic competitors. Those were probably the most popular groups. The football team couldn't collectively launch a football into the broadside of a barn successfully, and as a result football games were just a place to go to get cheap beer (and watch the band march). Similarly, cheerleaders faded to insignificance because, without the association of a well-liked football team, they just annoyed the hell out of everyone. Basically what I'm saying here is that your average young adult will attach themselves emotionally to whatever seems to be the greatest competition available. That said, high school sports are a complete waste of money unless the games actually bring revenue to the school in some fashion.

  3. Re:What do you expect? on USA to Pass Science Crown to China · · Score: 1

    And, meanwhile, the rest of us accomplished roughly the same feat by bugging the hell out of our teachers in public schools and reading ahead in the textbooks. Math is easy to learn with or without a competent teacher. Now if your neice can properly format and write a publication-acceptible literary analysis paper without having interacted with an actual living teacher, I might be impressed.

  4. Re:What do you expect? on USA to Pass Science Crown to China · · Score: 1

    You're assuming a lot about the competence of parents regarding the evaluation of their children's education. You have obviously never met a parent. Were you raised by wolves in the wilds of Alaska, by any chance?

  5. Re:Bill Gates on US Education on USA to Pass Science Crown to China · · Score: 1

    However, our universities are the best because we don't shirk at hiring the best foreign academics right out of their mother countries. This is especially true of the research universities.

  6. Re:Bill Gates on US Education on USA to Pass Science Crown to China · · Score: 1

    "how do you explain that the human body is so poorly "designed"?"

    Hey, now. I think we've turned out quite well. And our design has brought us to a point where (if we really wanted to) we could easily start modifying ourselves to remove anything we don't like, so your point here is rather moot, as such a capacity for self-correction must also be regarded as part of the design.

  7. Re:Bill Gates on US Education on USA to Pass Science Crown to China · · Score: 1

    In all fairness, a lot of the persecution inflicted my Christianity was at the local level, and at that level people would persecute each other over what kind of pie they had for breakfast if there was nothing else to be xenophobic about. It was generally an excuse and not a cause.

  8. Re:I call BS. on USA to Pass Science Crown to China · · Score: 1

    Just two points I'm going to disagree with here: bilingual education is usually a temporary measure that allows education in english as a practical language and mainstream subjects to be taught in parallel until the student can be moved to english-speaking classes. It tends to work fairly well, actually. And all history is revisionist. The only difference between the revisionism now and a century to a millenium ago is that there are several groups with different revised versions at the same time... which may actually be helpful in preventing people from accepting such things on blind faith.

  9. Re:Bill Gates on US Education on USA to Pass Science Crown to China · · Score: 1

    And warren buffet is worth 10-100 times what Gates is, and could access the cash more readily. Just thought I'd footnote that in to keep the computer people with delusions similar to those of the football jocks you mention from getting overconfident.

  10. Re:Bill Gates on US Education on USA to Pass Science Crown to China · · Score: 1

    Nah, I think the "actions following the words 'hey, watch this!' invariably result in injury or death" theory is the most throughly tested theory in science. Anyone who has seen an 80-year old physics professor with a pacemaker play with the static generator in front of a phys 1 class knows what I mean.

  11. Re:Bill Gates on US Education on USA to Pass Science Crown to China · · Score: 1

    Uh, the final lesson of science is that most of what we know is, at best, a working approximation. Some of us can handle this truth, and thus accept reasonable deductions and pattern-following as good enough. You either haven't figured this out, haven't come to terms with it, or it just seems to piss you off for no apparent reason.

    I'm having a bit of trouble tracking your religion. My best guess at the moment is that you're a follower of the cult of Loki, since he's the only hammer-wielding god (well, battle hammer, which is what you're referring to) that would be 'rising again' from anywhere, in this case the roots of Yggdrasil. Also, you can't own a god, man. They belong to everyone.

    Cheers. Enjoy the Raganrok, dude.

  12. Re:Bill Gates on US Education on USA to Pass Science Crown to China · · Score: 1

    Uh, the chinese seem to regularly execute large numbers of university students, but according to the article, here, they're doing just fine. Do you really think that a little political opposition from acknowledged idiots is going to stop a population segment that is able to work around a policies that often endangers their lives?

    Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. But to be fair, so are you.

  13. Re:Logic on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 1

    1) Bats aren't blind.

    2) the eye evolved so that we could see things.

    Merry christmas.

  14. Re:Logic on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 1

    Yeah, entropy is often an organizing force on a local level. More to do with irreversibility and statistical density than disorder in the sense of 'oh, no, the undead are tearing down the buildings and the four horsemen are coming after me with chiansaws! Anarchy! Doom!'

  15. Re:Creationists attacks on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 1

    Eh, the Catholic bible has been about the same since... 500 AD or so? That was the last round of editing before the final version was affirmed by the church, or something. Of course, can't swear by the rest of the bibles floating around.

  16. Re:I'm a born-again evangelical christian on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 1

    In the poster's defense, bees ARE pretty devout...

  17. Re:Dogs on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hey, it's still evolution. The pressure is now just in the direction we put it. The fact that the natural force driving the evolution of dogs is the design of humans doesn't make it any less of a natural force. Last I checked, i was a biological organism.

  18. Re:Observation alone proves nothing on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 1

    No, they don't. Falling speed is a function of net force over mass. A feather has a larger surface area than a rock of similar volume (simplification) and thus air resistance (friciton) exerts a larger upward force, reducing the net downward force on the feather with respect to the rock. A rock falls much faster than a feather.

    Also, you are an idiot. Accelleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s^2 in the absence of external forces, meaning your speed starts at 0 and grows. No law anywhere says anything about objects falling at 9.8 m/s. If objects immediately fell that fast, you would have died the first time your bicycle tipped over when you were riding it.

  19. Re:Mark the passing of another word on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 1

    According to the archeology nuts at Berkeley, it actually is pretty regular. There's a 20-million year-odd cycle of booms in the total number of species followed by weeding periods where the excess species die out. I couldn't find a link, but if oyu play around with the university website, you may be able to find the paper.

  20. Re:OK... on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 1

    And rich and poor families cycle back and forth in their fortunes too often for Wells' theory to work out, either.

  21. Re:On the subject on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 1

    Logic. We don't know. No, it doesn't. Neither. Because I am and probably somewhere. Logical absolutes and moral arbitrary definitions. No. And stream of consciousness babble is annoying, as well as, in this case, being mostly wrong.

  22. Re:Big deal on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 1

    My understanding is that the difference is genetic incompatibility resulting in inability to reproduce, and the color changes are indicators to let each other know that they can't reproduce. As people of different colors can clearly reproduce, it's obviously not the same thing.

  23. Re:Cue creationist trolls on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 1

    Actually, most of the arguement against global warming is closer to objections to a religion than to a science. Very few people actually argue that there is compelling evidence against it, it's just that a lot of the important support for the whole 'man is microwaving the planet' theory is a lot of political bullshit, and this throws doubt on the validity of some of the hard(er) evidence. Also, people are supposed to attack science. That's how it improves.

  24. Re:?? WTF ?? on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 1

    Yeah, you realize that working out the details is pretty much the point of being a research scientist, right? And learning how critters eventually learn not to try to reproduce with things that are jsut barely incompatible is not exactly unuseful.

  25. Re:And racism? on Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret · · Score: 1

    Meh, living in the land of a bajillion and five races, I can tell you why these lines of inquiry have been quashed: Individual variation in humans far outweighs the miniscule differences in ability associated with racial averages. Our attempts at racial analysis in the past have discovered relatively insignificant differences, but the applicaiton of those results has caused the formation of actual socially imposed differences, which we found rather troublesome and overall not worth the bother.