CharonY

What exactly is an atheist product and what are the quantities? Besides that I mentioned, that irreligiosity increased over time but flattened out in the 90s. I.e. higher in the nineties but not increasing much until way into the 2000s. It is mostly a rebuttal to the claim that there was an exponential trend since the second half of the 20th century.

There are different reasons for different countries. It is interesting that you mentioned US as religion is still fairly high. Also it depends whether you are strictly use the term "atheist" or take into account everyone without a specific religious affiliation. If we only look at self-declared atheists pew data from 2014 only show 3% being atheists, 4% agnostic. That is hardly an explosion of any sort. Taking all unaffiliated we get around 23%. Looking at historic Gallup data we see that up to the 60s the percentage of folks claiming not adherent to any religion to be quite stably around 2% and increasing slowly throughout the 70s and 80s. Interestingly, in the 90s we see it plateauing out (even slightly decline) before increasing again around 2007 until now. So in other words, not only is the increase not exponential, it is also not steady and quite not an explosion. In other countries the influence of authoritarian socialist governments who basically banned religion had a big influence. But as it stand, being religious is still seen as a default in many countries though the relevance is weakening. However, if we disregard authoritarian countries the data I can see indicates that she sharpest increase in non-religious affiliation occurred sometime in the last 10-20 years (and not so much in the 20th century; gosh I feel old) . Specifically self-declared atheism is still fairly low, but I suspect part of it is due to how folks interpret the various terms. I am not sure that these elements are necessary related. Especially as many minority groups are quite religious and religion played an important role in the civil rights movement. However, the first wave started in the 70s so there are some cultural shifts relevant to it. Edit: I just realized that movements have started in the late 60s to advocate for rights of non-religious folks in the US, so while perhaps somewhat independent from the "big" civil rights movements, it is one of the things that were also happening as part of the overall cultural change. There is a whole can of worms with the term "enlightenment" which I try not to touch (at least not without having two disposable historians and a flame retardant philosopher at hand).

"Ignore existing knowledge that has experimental and/or mathematical foundations and only listen to what I say without supporting evidence". How is that no soap boxing? "You will only be healed from disease if you forget all medical research and biological knowledge and instead listen to my words (plus a a small contribution to my recently funded church of perpetual healthiness)."

Assuming the link is a fair representation of the article I would take bets that the author might be a physicist or engineer. From experience many tend to focus on narrow mechanisms and kind of neglect the rest of the biology (unless they have extensive interdisciplinary experience, which usually renders them somewhat even more cynical).

So that is an interesting claim that I have not hear before. I am aware that chimpanzees are predators of other animals and that they are also prey to some large predators (there quite a few studies out there describing e.g. defensive strategies against leopards). . There are also observational studies that, as you implied, deadly intergroup violence has been reported, often the actions of small groups of male chimpanzees. However, while persistent, the occurrence is very low , even when their territories are very small due to human actions and in cases of limited resources. I am not sure whether leopard predation rates are higher (considering that they are also getting extinct). However, considering the overall rarity it does not make it terribly likely that it is a significant selective pressure. Considering the constraints on chimpanzee habitats, it is not unlikely that their population density was lower than early hominids and probably also hominins. I stand corrected. However, considering the lack of usage in our cousins it does seem to imply that weapon use may have developed relatively late in hominid evolution, though. So if we move away from innerspecies violence, there is apparent evidence for predation ca. 1.9 million years ago. That, IIRC has been associated with access to more proteins and improved brain development (or at least it has been speculated as such). Bipedalism on the other hand most likely evolved ca. 6-7 million years ago. Predating the increase in skull size by a fair bit. I do not believe we do have tools older than ~4 million years ago, so these various developments (bipedalism, tool use for feeding, tool use for hunting, skull size increase) seem to have occured in waves. Though certain aspects are likely to have affected subsequent developments. I.e. bipedalism could have freed up hands for tool use.

That is an interesting hypothesis, however to my knowledge there is not a lot of evidence of weapon use. The oldest identified tools were pounding tools, mostly associated with food acquisition and preparation. I doubt that there is sufficient evidence to properly assess selective pressure due to predation or competition for that time frame. The oldest artifact that could be considered a weapon of sorts was found ca. 280,000 years ago, a spear tip which was presumed to be used for hunting. But this is of course way later than when bipedalism occured. That at least make a direct co-evolution of these factors not very likely (or at least there is little evidence for it),

And yet I think that just assuming things to be right, even if they are not, is what prevents us from getting anywhere. Most projections assume that the population is likely going to stabilize beteen 9,6- 12.5 billion. Meanwhile you are assuming impossible numbers, use conspiracy theories to support your point. That, however, is not helpful in developing strategies. If you plan for a population that may never arrive, you are not planning for the right thing. Also, since you do not understand the connection between fertility and education (especially women's education), it means that you are missing out that in high-fertility countries increasing the standard of living and increasing women's education may be stabilize the world population at the lower end of the prediction. In other words, if one wants to make a proper risk assessment and develop appropriate strategies, the most important bit is getting familiar with the actual situation and look at mechanisms that are relevant to them. Bold assumptions without any evidence is helping no one.

That is because you do not understand the relationship between standard of living and children choice. First, try observation. Look at family sizes in industrialized countries. Then look at families with high educational standards. What is more common there. a family with 9 children or family with 2? Then take a look at less developed countries and look at family size there. This is a well-known phenomenon because in areas where children are important as labour and to secure generational stability (e.g. as labour and to care for parents) and with high infant mortality a higher birth rate is expected. Once other opportunities arises (social welfare system, broader job market etc.), and medicine improves (reduced infant mortality, availability of contraceptives) , folks start making decisions whether they want offspring or not. Especially when women become more educated and want to have careers, they decide to have fewer or no children. In other words, your model of population growth is too simplistic and takes only survival into account, but does not reflect reality.

That does not make sense. How do you harvest more than you should? Do you mean it would be beneficial to leave crop out? If you mention that intensive agriculture could make problems with water and other resource use, that would more sense. Sell by dates are arbitrary to some degree and have no bearing whatsoever with the rest. And give it a rest with the UN, they are not involved in that.

It is not suspicious at all, if you understand population dynamics a little bit. Roughly speaking, higher standard of living, health (especially reduction of infant mortality) and education reduces fertility rates. This is most visible in industrialized nations many of which are close to zero growth (and in some cases below). Likewise, countries who moved out of poverty have seen drastic reduction in growth rates and a trend to (much) smaller families. It is an observation that you yourself can easily make.

So in other words you think the UN and virtually everyone working on population growth is wrong and you are right, despite it being biologically impossible? You do know that humans do not replicate via budding, right? Just for to illustrate the silliness (assuming this is not obvious), currently we are at 7.7 billion. Roughly, there are 2 billion women of child-bearing age. Even if every woman in the world gets one child per year, every year, it will increase the population by 10 billion, which is still insufficient to reach your number. So to re-iterate, please operate on facts not on conspiracy theories.

I do agree that the WTA system is problematic for a number of reasons. However, from what I understand the system actually favours smaller states disproportionately. The reason being that the number of votes in each state is equal to the number of senators and representatives. As a consequence, each state has at least three votes regardless of size. Therefore very small states receive a higher weight relative to their population.

I am not even certain that he will lose. Some folks really like to have a soap opera running the government, it seems.

I have not seen the the full paper but based on the article in the link it seems somewhat far fetched. The article describes various elements such as long-term memory consolidation and short term time perception. The memory effect is real, but not necessarily due to processing speed, but there are again several mechanisms. One is that once memories are formed, they are harder to discard. New memories tend to be matched against those and are not processed in the same depth and stability, IIRC. Processing speed could affect immediate time perception, but this would not create the feeling that time flies. In the short term, mental focusing seems to have a stronger effect. I.e. if you concentrate deeply in a task, it can alter your perception of time to some degree. Likewise, rewards, repetition and expectation have been shown to alter subjective time perception. There are reviews out there outlining the current knowledge of time perception mechanisms (again this relates to subjective timing not to long-term memory perception as mentioned in the article from OP) which also indicate that perception from all senses, consolidation of these signals, attention, memory, disease etc. all influence time perception. Thus, while there is no real consensus on the model itself, it is widely accepted to be a diverse and complex problem, which makes the article a bit too simplified as an explanation. Purely from the linked article it seems to me that they use computer timing as an analogy to explain a biological phenomenon that on first sight does not seem plausible to me. But then again it is not really my specialty but at least based on the article, I am not certain that it is the author's, either.

Also, mate preference is also highly dependent on personal experience, which makes objective measures pretty much useless. If you are talking about arranged marriages, it counters the point in OP, no? As in those cases practicability is the defining feature rather than some of the available traits.

Actually thinking back in my twenties, I would have mocked myself mercilessly for spending so much money on wardrobe. I could have bought a computer with it! Perhaps even a laptop the size of a small desk. I think I just did not grasp the concept of it at that time.

! Moderator Note This forum is not intended for fiction based on bad understanding of science. Locked pending review.

So. at some point in my life I had to go out and buy a few suits (not designer or custom-made, but not entirely cheap, either). It can be a confidence booster in formal situations, if only because you are not the worst dressed guy in the room (that spot usually is reserved to mathematicians ;)). But spinning it around, I do not have a tux and use that as much as I can as an excuse not to go events where those are requested. I think it would have affected my life insofar that I might have had a bit more money in my twenties, since I would have most likely kept it hidden somewhere and forgot about it eventually. I do have an ill-fitting jacket from my PhD times and I sometimes wonder why I spent money on it at all...

There is a fair bit more than just water and fertilizers to growing plants, I imagine. And there are probably better places than deserts available to do so. Optimistic estimates have stipulated that massive tree-planting programmes might sequester as much as one third of the required CO2 reduction to hit the proposed limits of the Paris accord. However, other researchers have found additional factors that paint a much more complex picture. Some forests, may for instance promote the emission of methane and nitrous oxide. Others argued that large-scale reforestation may actually have an overall mixed effect with uncertainty about net benefits. Still most would think that reforestation has a net benefit, but the magnitude is very much unclear.

A bit pricey yet intriguing. Hmm and there is one for coffee too. God, I am going to die fat and with heart palpitations. But then I have rather bad experience with mail (managed to lose clinical samples long enough for them to thaw....). Also, why am I hungry?

... Fair enough. I should not complain. My fault that I did not fully checked out the cheese situation before committing to the appointment. On that note i was rather confused when I was offered pretzels, since I was not aware that the "Bretzel" you get in Germany is actually called a soft pretzel.

So back to the original question. Do you know that your data is released and if so, how? Or are you just thinking that it may be the case? After all you made a very specific claim indicating not only that you have an open connection that somehow also actively transmits data in a presumably unintended manner.

I agree entirely. However, in Germany I was able to go into a random discounter and get at least a range of really good cheeses. Granted not a dizzying selection as elsewhere, but pretty much for half the price as across the pond. An advantage of the EU and the relatively short distances, I figure.

Ah, that makes sense. Now that I look at the logo it I think I had a Cabot branded cheese and not a Tillamook. Gosh, I remember when I was in a specialty Cheese shop in France, and tasted my way through delicious things (and a few, which probably are biohazards). I doubt I can pronounce half of them but I still kind of fondly remember that afternoon.

Well, here is the thing, chimpanzees are also hominids and they also have developed tool use with rudimentary development of culture. And the split between our ancestors are as close as 4 million years ago, due to ongoing hybridization. While the current outcome in humans seems to be fairly unique for humans, it is not quite clear how much of a biological difference it really took . And with respect to uniqueness, I could argue that the development of photosynthesis is something that took evolution to a completely new level on Earth. Or perhaps the development of organelles as a means to partition cellular function. Or perhaps the rise of multicellularity as that opened quite a few doors. Perhaps the difference viewpoint we have is outcome vs mechanism? To OP, however, it is clear that tool use has developed independently from bipedal movement. So there is no obvious connection between those two developments. The focus of research in that area (to my limited knowledge) tend to focus on changing environmental conditions (including transition from arboeral lifestyle to ground-based) and the question that is more commonly asked is whether foot evolution shaped our tool use (rather than vice versa). There is interesting evidence out there highlighting that bipedal development could have coincided with adaptation to rough terrain as a transitional phase (i believe Winder et al. called it the topography hypothesis in their papers).