Arete

I don't see how these sweeping generalizations are any less erroneous, offensive and useless than sweeping characterizations about any other group, e.g. "Jews are generally stingy", "Muslims tend to be violent", "your average Christian is a bigot" etc.

As pointed out, peer review is usually anonymous for the reviewer, and an increasing number of journals are implementing double blind reviews. However, in terms of this board: A) It's already anonymous. You, I and the majority of other users here are using pseudonyms, which to some extent obscure our real world identities. Ultimately no one can tell if you are a Nobel Laureate or an elementary school student - you are being judged on what you post and not who you are. B) An anonymous internet forum is the wrong place to both look for and disseminate novel research - that place is the scientific literature, conferences and to some extent for really cutting edge stuff at least in my field, forms of social media like twitter and researchgate. You generally don't see and wouldn't expect to see brand new research here, and people presenting their brand new theses/hypotheses here are generally outside of and unfamiliar with the scientific community and its minimum standards for the presentation of research, and thus rarely, if ever, meet them. While on occasion the more seasoned scientists on the forum may seem harsh in its critique of a presented idea, It is nothing compared to the rigor of the actual scientific community. I don't think I've ever seen a new idea posted here that wouldn't have been rejected summarily by even the most lenient legitimate scientific journal. The standards for background research, replication and controlling one's observations, statistical verification and drawing appropriate conclusions are high - much higher than many laypeople expect. I think the scientific community as a whole is pretty unapologetic for that. Aside from moderators and resident experts, ranks are simply an automated indicator of post number. Most fora have a similar system.

You've been shown, conclusively to be incorrect. CharonY has shown that the degree has lower unemployment than engineering, I and others have shown the degree has clear, easy to follow industry pathways. It's a very applied, career focused certification. It's very confusing has to how you and the OP could consider it a "useless" degree.

This post shows a very high level of naïveté about the outcomes and purpose of college degrees. Or they are interested in a specific career which requires specific tertiary training. Believe it or not, there are many people out there whose career aspirations are motivated by something other than monetary greed. Try your friend doing outdoor education. As I demonstrated previously, this degree has very straightforward and obvious applied career outcomes. If you had of asked your friend "What do you want to do after college?" my guess is you would have got a very specific answer - he/she may have a much better of why they are at university than you do. Sorry to hear that you got given such terrible career advice, and took it to heart. 1) It may come as a surprise, but there are many jobs other than engineer or doctor, and some of these are highly lucrative. 2) There has been a push for more STEM graduates over the last ~15 years, with little forethought as to what industries they will be employed by after they graduate. This has led to an oversupply of job seekers in a number of STEM industries - for e.g. biotech and pharma. 3) If monetary gain is your primary motivator to go to university, an MD is a TERRIBLE idea. By the time you're done with residency, you'll have been a full time college student for around a decade, accruing an average of $170,000 in debt, adding up to half a million dollars behind your average college graduate in realized and potential financial loss. On the other hand, it usually tops the list in terms of prestige and public respect. This is not my experience of college students at all. The decision to attend college is generally far more nuanced than simple greed. The decision to go to university is usually professional, but you'll find students want a more fulfilling, impactful and, yes, generally better paying job at the end. They also want to learn about things that interest them, expand their social and intellectual circles and broaden their experiences. It might be all about the $$$ for you, but you'd be in the minority. This is factually incorrect and logically fallacious. A) Salaries for professors are not 6 figures. Average salary for a faculty professor in the US is $73,207. For adjunct faculty it's $31,316. Safe to say most professors aren't really in it for the money. B) Your statement is begging the question regarding the motivations for correcting your really bad advice on college degrees. Ultimately, the idea that people ONLY go to college to become an engineer or an MD specifically because they will earn more money is ludicrously myopic. A college education can train a person for a variety of careers - many people find fulfilling and lucrative careers with their English Lit majors.

The confusing thing about the OP is I would generally think of a BA in outdoor recreation as a pretty (very) vocational degree with rather obvious and direct industry outcomes i.e. http://www.academicinvest.com/arts-careers/outdoor-recreation-careers Simply to add to the chorus of already extensive and good posts outlining the value of a liberal education, one of the most important things I try to teach students in my courses is how to think. Critical thinking is a skill that can be developed on and applied to a vast array of subjects. It doesn't matter if one learns critical evaluation and communication skills whilst studying microbiology, industrial design, Renaissance art, or the hokey pokey. The skills acquired, if taught well are applicable to virtually any field. I see many jobs requiring a college degree with no specification as to what major is needed as a result.

I'm also wondering when "Your religion is pretty silly" became more offensive than "You'll suffer immeasurably for eternity for disagreeing with me on religion".

Francisco Ayala wrote a paper attempting to clarify the distinction between gene genealogies and individual genealogies. http://search.proquest.com/openview/c15b7d5d1acb413604acf45778264c9a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar When discussing mtDNA Eve, we are focusing on one component of "her" genome - the mtDNA. The genealogy of this genomic segment can be different from that of an individual, and this gene can be shared by multiple individuals in a population. Thus as the above cited paper demonstrates, we can wind up with a discrepancy between the coalescence of differing genomic components. To repeat and simplify, mtDNA Eve is not an individual, but a specific allele within a population, which could be carried by multiple individuals.

As some here may know I recently started as a faculty member at UC Merced. The tragedy has hit hard, as we are a small, closely connected campus. Most of our community knows someone directly affected by the incident. Today is our first day back on campus, so it's all still very raw and surreal. However, a few points: 1) I have nothing but praise for the way that the University has handled the situation. UCM police were on the scene 2 minutes after the incident started - and really acted above and beyond the call of duty. I am very sad that one of the officers was put in the position of having to take a young man's life. The entire community had an alert about the situation well within ten minutes of the start of the incident. We had continuous updates throughout the day to let us know promptly how the situation unfolded. I felt informed and secure as events unfolded, and the UCM community has really rallied together to support each other in the wake of this event. 2) This really is a tragedy for everyone. Faisal Mohammad had only just turned 18 and was a high achieving student. The area where the incident occurred is in the center of campus and the bridge where he was shot by police I cross every day. There is concern about how this will affect the education and college experience of current students, as well as the reputation of the school and the potential impact of future enrollments. There is a strong desire to not let this event define the community or the university, and to move forward in a positive light. 3) I think both locally and nationally there needs to be conversation about why this is happening and how we can prevent it. Why did Faisal Mohammad fail to connect with his peers? Why did he feel the desire to kill his classmates? What do we need to do to recognize the warning signs that someone like this needs help? More broadly, why does this keep happening across the country, what are the factors that lead to these events and how do we prevent them from affecting our young, promising citizens in the future? These are not easy questions to answer and go much deeper than the gun debate. I hope the national dialogue about college/school attacks can rise above that particular facet of the debate to address the systemic problem in a meaningful way. 4) I feel very deep anger towards the element of society that has taken it upon itself to use our tragedy to dishonestly push its xenophobic anti Islamic agenda. We have a troubled young man from Santa Clara, who, feeling socially outcast by his peers expressed his anger and frustration violently and tragically. This was not terrorism, this was not committed in the name of any religion and to suggest so is dishonest. We have a strong Islamic student community on campus who have been hit doubly hard by both the tragedy in our midst and the appalling use of their own tragedy to demonize them. A couple of good articles have emerged following the incident which I think are worth the time to read: https://ryanmfranco.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/uc-merced-what-you-wont-hear-in-the-news/ http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article43332432.html

"Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions." http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey/ Would you like to re-evaluate your position in light of the evidence?

The church that Trump claims to be a member of issued a statement stating that he is not an active member. Trump seems to me to be completely delusional - listening to him I keep waiting for the punch line, but he seems to actually believe the absurdities that come out of his mouth. At first I thought his campaign might be just an elaborate troll of the republican party, but a substantial minority of people seem to be buying into his crazy.

No more than "people who aren't terribly interested in trainspotting" are a definable group. Go re-read post #67, you seem to have lost the context in which the word "club" was used. Atheists are not a collective. Expecting collective ideals and philosophies is not sensible. I don't believe I'm alone in not wanting to be preached at about what "we atheists" should and shouldn't value, care about and behave like. I have my own morality and ethics and they suit me fine. I need someone else's ideologies preached at me about as much as I need someone to tell me how to not watch trains. Feeding into other posters questioning your integrity, this argument is a red herring. The point is that whether you are an atheist or not should have zero bearing on whether or not you should "not to be violent, bigoted, fanatical" . Nobody should. Whether or not you shouldn't fly a plane into a building full of people has nothing to do with whether you're a Muslim or not either. What particular religion you subscribe to or don't is irrelevant. Sure:

You repeatedly define atheists as a group, and call for collective action - e.g.: The point is I don't care if people believe in a God or not. I don't even think of it as a useful distinction. Why should personal religious belief or lack thereof have anything to do with not generally being a jerk to other people? It still doesn't explain your strawman equation of doesn't care about religion = doesn't care about morality.

You are interpreting what I said incorrectly. I don't care what religious beliefs others hold (provided they don't affect others negatively) - how you equated that to me not caring if people behave in a criminally antisocial manner seems to defy any logical explanation.

So, my lab works on viral and bacterial evolution. I'm always a little confused by people who claim not to believe in evolution, as we actually watch it happen every day. I'm also disappointed, but not overly surprised that an MD would express an anti-evolution viewpoint. Generally speaking, despite how core evolution is to the practice of medicine, most MD programs don't actually teach any evolutionary biology. One can potentially become a doctor without having studied evolution beyond a high school level - which I personally think deeply flawed. I am currently teaching evolutionary medicine to pre-med students to try and make sure that at least some of our future medical professionals understand how evolution affects medical practice and vice versa.

So personally, I'd say I was an apathetic, agnostic atheist. I don't find any religious ideology particularly compelling, so subscribe to none of them, and so long as the belief systems of others don't impact me or others negatively, I really don't care very much what other people believe or do as a part of their beliefs. I'd be willing to reconsider my position in light of new evidence like, for instance Thor or God appearing in my office with a lifetime supply of fresh coffee and rye whisky on offer for becoming a disciple, but given the status quo I really don't care about religious doctrine and it really isn't a part of my every day thinking or lifestyle. I feel absolutely no desire to group together with other atheists - any more than I feel like grouping together with others simply because they don't play golf, or watch Seinfeld. Beseeching me and others of similar mindsets to do or not do something in the name of collective atheism is unlikely to yield significant results. Just because we happen to not believe the same thing doesn't mean I want to be in a club with you - in fact that's exactly the type of club I'm trying to avoid having anything to do with in the first place.

Lightning used to be considered evidence of the wrath of Thor, Zeus, etc. We now believe it to be evidence of electrostatic discharges. Much like creation and evolutionary theory, the evidence for the competing explanations of lightning are not equal. Sure, further evidence may come to light that lightning is something other than electrostatic discharge or that the diversity of life on earth arose by a process other than biological evolution, but they are the best explanations we have given the current preponderance of evidence. Neither is equatable to supernatural explanations of the observations at hand, and neither is the method used to refine and adapt said theories in light of new evidence. This is argumentum ad ignorantiam - the fact that you personally are unable to determine actual science from pseudoscience does not mean that it can't be done. There is a universally accepted standard for the dissemination of science, which is via the process of peer review. I will agree that a) Vanity journals, predatory publishers and unaccredited institutions masquerading as genuine scientific outlets and authorities muddy the waters and can make it difficult for the layperson to distinguish the genuine article from deliberately deceptive material aimed to dupe the reader into thinking that the material has been through the rigors of peer review when it hasn't. b) Peer review isn't perfect. Some articles with fatal flaws make it through, many of which are retracted after they are published, and presumably some of which slip through the net altogether. On other occasions, groundbreaking work can be rejected by peer review. However, if a study is published in a legitimate scientific journal that conducts rigorous peer review, by an accredited author who is subject to an ethics board (e.g. at my institution, if I was found guilty of deliberately deceptive behavior or gross negligence in the papers I published, I could be fired, sued or even prosecuted and sent to jail by my institution) chances are pretty good that the study was conducted using current best practices in science.

This seems like just a rewording of Pascal's Wager. It's been thoroughly considered by philosophers and game theorists e.g. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/ Pascal's wager, in its time was a solid leap forward in philosophical and statistical theory and got a very fair and in depth examination by scientific thinkers when it was put forward. As a result, I would say that in this particular case, the concept was definitely not ignored by scientists, but thoroughly considered, helped advance science at the time, but was ultimately found to be flawed. If, as it would seem, Lennox is putting forth a 400 year old idea that has been thoroughly examined and discarded long ago, then complaining that science doesn't still find it as compelling as he does and subsequently condemning science as dismissive of religion, I would personally say that his argument has little to no merit and in of itself, is trivially dismissable.

Ok, so there's at least a couple of fatal internal contradictions in your proposal. 1. Invoking a creator does not resolve the issue of first cause, in fact it worsens it. Instead of "What created the universe?" you're stuck with "What created God?". As the creator of the universe is axiomatically more complex that the universe it created, you're actually left trying to explain the existence of a more complex entity, with no physical evidence it even exists. If we're sticking with the scientific method, Occam's Razor would compel one to stick with the simplest explanation - which in this case is the one that does not invoke the supernatural in the inception of the universe. 2. Similar to point 1. Strict adherence to the scientific method (whether not it's useful to do so for spiritual matters is another conversation, but since it's part of the manifest for this "prefect" religion, lets roll with it) requires statistically significant, controlled observations to support the existence of an entity or phenomenon, before it can be accepted. In the absence of such evidence, the scientific method compels one to accept the null hypothesis of non-existence until further evidence is forthcoming. In the case of a "God", such evidence has not been found strict adherence to science would demand that the null hypothesis of no deity be upheld. As such, you'd need to ether accept that your religion needs a deity more than it needs scientific reasoning, compartmentalize your thinking (i.e. science doesn't apply to "God") or jettison the requirement of a deity altogether.

Given that previous studies have shown us that: a) there are zero fixed mutations associated with sexual preference, and b) any contributing mutations influence it so little that a GWAS including over 23,000 people were unable to identify them how would you expect to separate false positives from any genuine hits? It genuinely doesn't sound like a useful endeavor given your intended result.

Given the above, what do you hope to achieve by having your genome sequenced?

In order to identify novel genes associated with a trait one needs to conduct a genome wide association study (a GWAS). A GWAS is very sensitive to samples size - often a huge number of samples are needed to generate significant results for traits which have many underlying small effect alleles. As such, a single genome will tell you nothing about previously unrecognized genes associated with a given trait, so for your purposes, sequencing your genome will be absolutely useless. Fortunately, 23 and me have done such a study for you and "We did not find evidence of SNPs associated with sexual identity in men or women". So in answer to the original question, given your aim in sequencing your genome, I would say it is of no value to you.

It's a common misconception that "mitochondrial eve" and "y-chromosome adam" were actual people. The terms are more concepts rather than references to actual individuals as they are references to the time point at which the particular genetic components (i.e. the mtDNA and the Y chromosome) coalesce back to a single allele. More than one individual could carry this allele, in fact, there are extant species which exhibit homogeneous MtDNA and thus are in a "state of mitochondrial eve" despite there being thousands of individuals of the species simultaneously alive. The success of a given mtDNA lineage in a bottlenecked population is very likely to be stochastic (i.e. down to chance and probability) rather than due to any form of selection. Research shows us that in populations with limited genetic diversity, genetic drift can actually overwhelm selection, and selectively advantageous alleles can drop out of a population in favor of one which is neutral, or even detrimental. It's quite possible there was nothing special about the human "miochondrial eve" genotype, and it's success was probably down to chance.

Rather than viewing the Speculations section as a "dunce-cap" section, I would view it as a clearing house. New ideas are posted there because the sub-section has a specific set of rules which compel the poster to validate that their idea falls under the purview of science, and is thus relevant to the forum at large. Threads/ideas which don't pass muster or are off topic are generally locked, with only the most egregiously off topic or unsupported threads sent to the "trash can" as to not clutter the forums with off topic, unintelligible and unequivocally wrong threads - thus allowing the archives of the forum to serve as a useful reference database. It should also be noted that threads from any subsection of the forum can be moved to the trash, not just threads from Speculations. Unfortunately very few threads from Speculations turn out to be of scientific merit. There are several reasons for this including but not limited to: 1) Discussion of new concepts in the scientific community generally plays out at conferences and in the peer reviewed literature, rather than on anonymous internet fora. Therefore most of the new ideas presented in internet fora are from outsiders without formal training, and tend to contain flaws which a more seasoned scientist might not generally make. 2) Also, most badly flawed ideas in the scientific community tend to end up discarded during discussion with colleagues/background research/talking with one's mentors - or at worst are gunned down during peer review. Most scientists would agree with me in that I come up with a number of bad ideas for every one worth pursuing. A significant part of (at least my) scientific training was learning how to be wrong. Many of the speculative posters here react badly to criticism and assume that everyone else is too stupid to get their idea, or that they are being unfairly persecuted, and react antagonistically, rather than revising or abandoning their flawed ideas. 3) Internet science forums tend to attract a number of crackpots circulating the interwebs posting nonsensical gibberish. Many have been rejected by legitimate scientific publishing sources, so this is their equivalent of a street corner, sandwich board and a megaphone. I for one don't want the forum to become an internet equivalent of Speaker's corner, so agree with the deletion of such threads.

Actually this is very untrue. The vast majority of research conducted at universities is done using federal grants (e.g. NSF, NIH, USDA, DOD, etc). Universities themselves fund very little, if any of the research conducted on their campuses.