CharonY

Fair enough.

In that context I would like to add that the civil rights protests were at that time, considered unlawful. Moreover, there were also peaceful protests, but also many violent clashes. For example after a police officer shot an African American Soldier on leave during WWII, outraged African American groups protested and it resulted in significant property damage and altercations. During the 60s (i.e. during the civil right movements) there were many waves of violent and non-violent protests. The common denominator is basically the protests were in response to injustice (e.g. not being allowed to enter certain stores, murder of black folks by police and so on). There is a big difference between those clashes instigate by either white or black folks, though and I would be careful to draw an equality here. The race riots in the Jim Crow era were dominantly instigated by white mobs and were often accompanied by lynchings and violent overthrow of governance. Some of the most famous once are the Tulsa race riots of 1921 (or massacre) where white folks, many of which deputized attacked and destroyed a whole district where more affluent African Americans lived. Death tolls are not known but estimates range into the hundreds. During the Wilmington insurrection in 1898 we saw a case where we saw insurrectionists overthrowing the biracial city government again with estimated hundreds of deaths. So the riots incited by the white groups were aimed at destroying affluence and influence gained by black folks and basically crippling their ability to participated in the democratic system. The recent capitol insurrection was less lethal but followed a similar pattern. In fact the violence was not a byproduct of protests, it was the very means to reach their goals. In contrast, the riots occurring during the civil rights period in the 60s were borne from protests (both violent and nonviolent) were borne out of protests against oppression and/or unequal treatment and the violence itself was not the endgame (for the most part). One specific tactic employed by Dr. King in Selma was to incite violence against them in order to create public support that could be used by the White House to pass the bill, which was politically problematic to pass otherwise. However, in modern times the violence against peaceful protesters and journalists(!) have been quickly dismissed by showing the damages caused by certain subgroups of the movement. As such, it does appear that civil-rights type of protests might actually not be terribly effective anymore.

Moreover, sites that keep a high quality of information could get a better reputation (for most, the conspiracy theorists will obviously demonize it). That alone could curb spread of misinformation. Moreover presence of certain content together with the algorithms these platforms use to keep users engaged have shown to present users with increasingly extreme misinformation which could be a path toward radicalization. So if the social media sites kept that content off (or changed their algorithms) it could benefit the situation without government control.

In Germany officers are trained in less lethal gun use (e.g. shooting in the leg) which is against policy in NA. Not sure whether it would have been feasible in this situation.

As a counterpoint, there is the illusory truth effect where folks have the tendency to believe false information after repetitive exposure. Recent studies have looked into the effect of facebook (and other social media) to strengthen misconceptions and it seems that they have a great effect in spreading and strengthening belief in false information. Only the most implausible info ("the Earth is a perfect square" was an example) seem to be unaffected. In other words, uncontrolled spread is not only likely to strengthen the resolve of those who believe it, but is also an entry point for folks to be sucked into these alternative realities. We have seen how spread of those lies not only created some of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories, they also pushed it into a bigger platform resulting in unprecedented spread. I have sincere doubt that allowing them to spread will change anything on the persecution complex of the conspiracy theorists (it seems to be part of the their identity).

Of course, and there are also comparisons between vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts that come to similar conclusions https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.11.21253275v1 Additional positive information is the reduction of shedding. There was also a paper from Israel showing reduction of viral load after vaccination which further supports the notion of reduced or prevention of transmission.

And of course you are missing the point again. All evidence indicates that the available COVID-19 vaccines protect against both, disease as well as infection. I.e. it is not leaky. And of course you missed entirely the point that in case of potential of high circulation as with SARS-CoV-2 the point is moot as we are already selecting for higher spread as you can see with the variant B.1.1.7 which is becoming dominant in many areas. Since the only examples you can come up with being a scenario that clearly does not apply to the current pandemic seems to be a very good case to urge folks to get vaccinated.

The fact that you linked that article shows the limited understanding on the subject and/or highly selective reading without making an effort to understand the concepts. First of all, the subject of the paper are highly deadly viruses. I.e. those that have a limited spread due to high lethality. Here, the risk is that vaccines can suppress symptoms but may still allow spread, which otherwise would not happened as the host would die beforehand. However, neither is true for SARS-CoV-2. This virus is highly capable of spreading and its lethality is not high enough to kill the host before they are able to infect more people. This is why we ultimately have so many more deaths compared to SARS or MERS outbreaks (and also while the 2009 swine flu pandemic also killed more than either of those more lethal diseases). In addition emerging data, especially in Israel has shown that a national vaccination plan not only reduces hospitalizations (i.e. severe symptoms) but apparently also reduces spread among the unvaccinated population. As MigL pointed out, this indicates that the titer is reduced sufficiently to also reduce the risk of spread. In other words, none of the requirements for the effects indicated in the articles are met SARS-CoV-2 and vaccination is the best way forward to keep folks alive (as apparently we are largely uncapable of restricting spread via behavioural measures). Your continuous spread of misinformation, on the other hand, could cost live. And as we have seen in broader context, such insistent spread of inane falsehoods regarding this pandemic actually has cost us at least hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. Edit: cross-posted with iNow and Sensei.

Historically, media were always biased on way or another. It is almost a certainty as people are writing the articles. However, with the rise of social media (but to some extent also before on specific platforms) the trend is not just being biased. Rather, it is a systematic creation of alternative realities. In the past there were legal battles regarding whether e.g. facts such as evolution are to be taught. So there was at least a common platform of sorts in which competing views are pitted against each other. Now facts hardly matter at all anymore. As such, even the obvious ridiculous conspiracy theories and opinions are getting a foothold in the legislature, for example, which is more than a little worrying. However, anything related to rights is well addressed in Swansonst's post.

Just read an interesting article by Krugman which calls the rapid pace of automation in question: I suspect that there sectors more or less heavily impacted but at least as a whole at least that data seems to run counter to the overall assumption of break-neck speed of automation and job displacement. It is perhaps important to note that folks look at this from different angles and many journal articles look at risk of job loss in automation. Krugman's approach is a bit more empirical, looking at historic evidence of automation.

! Moderator Note Moved to Politics

Eh, if we want to go into details here, the warrant was not wanted for the robbery charges: Now this was a minor point, but social media have been blowing characterizing him as violent robber fleeing from the law, which is a bit of an exaggeration. It is also unclear why he did not appear in court we do not know whether he intention was to actually evade arrest. As iNow mentioned, this is also something regularly happens especially when black men are killed is to find culpability in the subject. The big issue here is that certain sources, such as Fox seemingly are not beyond putting out conjecture as facts (or even pure lies) in order to justify their fate. This is of course on the heels of now released video where a black army officer was pepper-sprayed whilst facing overly aggressive police officers and so on. The issue is that taken together these individual incidences paint an overall picture that is not really pretty.

In addition to what iNow said, I think much of it is also couched in a, I want to say North American way of thinking which I found very different from the view and actions of police in most parts of Western Europe. With that I mean is that non-compliance with police commands has to inevitably result in an escalation of events. But again, that is not the case elsewhere. German law for example does not count fleeing from the police as violent form of resistance against the police. In one case a fleeing driver winged a police officer and it was ruled as an accident rather than a violent action (the reasoning was that the deed had to be aimed directly at the victim rather than an incidental injury). As such, a German police officer would not at any point during traffic control aim their weapons (of whatever kind) at a driver during a regular stop. To provide some more context, in Germany in 2016 weapons were drawn 52 times against people, resulting in a total of 11 deaths and 28 injuries. This is for a police force of at that time 270k officers. In Canada, by contrast has roughly a police force of 70k officers and had a similar number of shooting incidences per year (roughly 60). However, they tend to be far deadlier, the last number for Canada I saw was that 34 out of 55 police shootings resulted in death. In the US, the numbers are, as we all know, far worse. It starts with training which tends to be much longer in Europe and the attitude toward encounters. But perhaps also relevant is a kind of warrior mentality at play in which officers are trained to spot danger in every moment of their interaction and basically flip a switch from casual to deadly encounter. This causes a very stressful situation with the risk of the switch being flipped while not necessary. To me that sounds very different to what I have heard from German police officers, where they are trained to evaluate a situation and then only escalate if the situation becomes life threatening. I.e. proportionality of the response is a key element, where not having a license or number plate would likely lead to violence or even death. There is also a huge emphasis on de-escalation. Another important difference is that there is no qualified immunity or similar mechanism in Germany (not sure about Canada) despite having a strong police union. Though I should, there is a discussion in Germany regarding police violence and racism but most involve non-lethal events. As a whole it seems to me that in the NA system (and especially USA) there is a big onus on the civilian to do make not mistakes to minimize the risk of a potential harmful police encounter, whereas in Germany it is more seen as the responsibility of the police to keep things peacefully. There also seems to be also a cultural gap in that regard. Most Canadian and US-American colleagues kind of understand or even assume that non-compliance is likely to lead to harm and/or death whereas (Western) Europeans tend to focus on the initial event (e.g. non-violent vs violent transgressions).

That is exactly it. Of course many folks see a degree as an entry ticket to a job, but fundamentally that is not their purpose. And before everyone dunks on social sciences, it should be noted that according to 2016 census data from Statistics Canada, men with Bachelor's in Biology make less than their peers in Social sciences (in women it is reversed). The highest paid categories are in Nursing, Engineering Mathematics and Computer sciences. It is perhaps not surprising that more vocational disciplines are associated with higher earnings (with mathematics being an exception, I suspect it may be part of the big data boom), but it is also shows that the there are other indicators that one needs to recognize. Especially research in natural and other sciences is often a parallel stream to higher-paying industrial jobs.

Who got predictions right for this pandemic and then acted accordingly?

There are a couple of papers that describe the theoretical biophysical limitations. See here and most likely follow-ups can illuminate on further details.

I think it would help if you get a basic textbook on viral genetics. But to answer your question, no generally it does not involve looking at them using EM.

You seem to believe that language does not change but anyone talking to someone from a different generation will tell you that it is not the case. One of my favourite (and somewhat outdated) examples is Nimrod, which often refers to an inept person. However, originally it referred to a skillful (biblical) hunter. The change happened because Bugs Bunny (hello Zapatos) referred to Elmer Fudd as a Nimrod in an sarcastic way, but obviously folks did not realize that. Another example meat in old English referred to all kind of foods (hence sweetmeat) but changed to refer specifically to animal flesh along the way. There are tons of more common examples of course, but the main point is that language is very much alive and subject to change.

Check where papers you are citing are published. Also ask your supervisor.

Then universities are an uncivilized way to keep nerds contained and busy.

I think the term "nerd" is very broad which makes such statements really difficult. While the stereotypical nerd tend to be more knowledge-oriented, it does not mean that they are free from the biases that influence how the knowledge is interpreted. Quite a bit of it is simply a matter of competence, i.e. nerds that like to expound on areas that they are limited knowledge in. Gender roles is one of the things where I have met an astonishing number of nerdy folks who like to explain why precisely men are superior in science (granted, the number have reduced over the last few decades, but it still left a lasting impression on me). I think the danger is if you are used to be the smartest person in a room, you might assume that you are it in every room and every topic. I think other underlying personality traits, such as empathy and the ability to view things from a different perspective are important to inclusivity whereas being data-focussed alone could go either way.

Also with type I diabetes, it is not like a disease specifically caused by a virus per se (e.g. a virus that infects and destroys pancreatic cells). Rather, type I diabetes is an autoimmune disorder in which your own bodies starts destroying these cells. The issue is that causes of autoimmune dysfunctions are complex (and the immune system is a highly complicated system) where it is difficult to find simple cause and effect relationships. In addition to genetic factors, epidemiological studies have found a variety of environmental triggers that can cause autoimmune dysfunction, which e.g. includes pollutants (though not generally associated with type I diabetes) or diet. Viruses are just another potential trigger and there are a number of hypotheses how they could trigger autoimmune dysfunction. In some cases, simply early-life exposure (e.g. rubella) seems to somehow overstimulate the immune system with increased risk of type I diabetes later in life. Another hypothesis is that certain body antigens might get confused with viral ones. One example is the Coxsackie B4 virus which has one protein which resembles in part a human enzyme. Once an infection occurs, the immune system may then get primed against the human antigen and then starts turning on itself. In short, while the causes are not fully understood, there is a wealth of information and studies out there that look at various elements with varying levels of support. As most of the research in this area is independently funded, I have a hard time figuring out how those industries are covering things up. In fact, the hypothesis that infant consumption of cow milk might be a risk factor has been around for quite a while and believed to be related to insulin in milk and other proteins which might confuse the immune system. So if there was a cover-up it certainly is not on the research side.

To give a more general take: I always found the concept of sociobiology fascinating, but similar to social sciences (as opposed to biological sciences) the ability to make testable predictions is fairly limited. The controversy and discussion around Wilson and others are less about the whole theoretical framework (I think) as it is well thought-out and in many cases quite a compelling narrative. Where I struggle is ultimately how and whether individual evidence actually fits the biology. It has been quite a while (in fact decades- I was reading most of it during my student days) but I recall vaguely that the argument for existence of sterile castes was fundamentally a kin-selection argument. I.e. that the sterile individuals help their genes survive by supporting relatives (and basically that was extended to the argument of altruistic behaviour- one of the topics I was really interested in). However, over time data showed that insects do show altruistic behaviour without being related (e.g. not all bees in a hive are necessarily related, I believe, memory is a bit fuzzy) and also other cases where high degrees of relationship were not predictive or associated with altruistic behaviour. I think eventually Wilson gave up on that idea (maybe around 2010ish?), which caused a bit of an uproar and I recommend seeking that paper out. The result was a much tighter, narrower framework that shed the inclusive fitness aspects and was closer in line to what we actually observe in social insects. I have not read his later books where he might have speculated about human societies, but it is again important to highlight that the data is almost entirely based on insect studies. As such, they remain extrapolations and speculations and it is not clear whether they have actual scientific value at this juncture.

Fundamentally we do not know how accurate China's current numbers are. That being said, there are at least two reasons to believe that they are doing at least reasonably well. 1) They did a hard lockdown and we know by its very mechanisms that it is an effective way to contain infectious diseases. In addition they did massive testing initiatives whenever they suspected a flare-up. Last year they tested the entirety of Wuhan (11 million folks) and detected 200-300 asymptomatic cases. Again, a measure known to identify and contain spread. 2) They have eased lockdown since then. Even with their propaganda machinery, they would not be able to hide the number of excess deaths if the virus was still spreading. They might be prettyfing numbers, but especially in the larger cities free circulation would result in all hospital beds filled up rapidly (as we see in the US and other parts of the world) that is not something that one can easily hide, dictatorship or not.

Any animal companion is great, IMO, as at minimum the way we interact with them often tells something about us. But on the reverse side, we are also finding out interesting bits about how our companions work. The work from Chijiiwa et al (Animal Behaviour 2015 106:123-127) have shown that dogs are doing so-called social eavesdropping. In short, that is the ability to draw social clues by looking at interactions between others. And what they found is that if dogs see that someone refused to help their owners, they avoid taking food from those non-helpers. So they change their behaviour in reaction to negative interactions towards their owners. So how about cats? Well, they do not care as the same group found out (Chijiiwa et al. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 2021, 8:1 23-25). Either they do not have the ability to read those social clues, or they just don't care so much about their owners.