CharonY

Ethiopia? You mean the country that was the third-poorest in the world with more than half of the people living in poverty about 10 years ago? The country that has seen one of the highest growth rates in GDP averaging 10% in the last decade? The one that managed to reduce the proportion of people living in poverty to 30% by 2011 despite huge regional conflicts? The country where birth rates almost halved (which is a strong indicator of child health)? You mean the country making huge advances despite the vast challenges it faces? Pretty well, it seems.

The straight answer is that the example is faulty as it does not tell us what the baseline tax is. However, if we assume 2) is the baseline, then 1 and 3 are both subsidies as per my above examples. Edit: messed up what the baseline is.

Actually I could think of a scenario where such an effect may be seen and misunderstood. I would assume that most children have more interaction with their mothers. Thus, it is possible that the type of interaction can affect things like IQ scores. Under these circumstances it is possible to see a higher correlation of children IQ (or other measures) with their mother than with that of the father. However, this is entirely speculative and may well be wrong.

You may have missed it, since other commented on it. It depends on the taxation system. Obviously, in any given system equivalent entities are taxed the same (say, based on income). I.e. using the example on an isolated individual makes no sense whatsoever. Thus, if everyone pays $5 and someone only pays $4, that person gets subsidized, in this case via tax reduction. If everyone pays $5 and someone gets $1 it is also a subsidy, this time in form of a cash payment. I hope that makes it clearer to you.

In addition there is a lack of actionable responses. The issue is not entirely the ability to track gun owning homes (though a point could be made to have a central database for gun owners as well as stricter laws for safe weapon storage). The issue is what you are supposed to do once you know it. Do you want to treat those kids differently? If so, how? Put an armed escort close to them when you think there may be situation that may upset them? Make their class mates wear kevlar vests, just in case? Frisk them every day just in case? You may feel better if you knew who has easier access to arms, but unless you have a plan that utilizes that knowledge in a way that is not to the detriment of the kids, there is no real value to it. On top of it, I suspect that gun ownership can be concentrated in certain areas. In which case a much higher proportion of the student body will live in homes with guns (say, rural areas where hunting is more prevalent). And on top of it, a number of school shooters did not use guns from their homes (not sure whether they had any) but acquired them for the explicit purpose of the shootings (the Columbine shooters and the most recent one, for example). To make a point regarding false positives, it is like trying to solve cancer by telling everyone that they have it. You will catch all cancer cases that way. But unless you have means to selectively treat the real cases it is utterly useless at best and harmful at worst.

Obviously I did not proofread. Hope it was somewhat understandable regardless.

Do you mean classification of viruses? The most conservative view is to look at them as mobile genetic elements. I.e. from the list you quoted earlier it would be consistent with point 1 and 3, the main difference there is that of timing. With the detection of giant viruses the regression hypothesis makes it harder to dismiss 2 outright. However, evidence is mostly indirect by nature and to me at least it is still very speculative. If you mean the definition of living organism, I do agree that it is fuzzy. However functionally the inclusion of metabolism has been crucial to understand physiological properties. As such I would still view viruses in the same context as transposons, integrons, plasmids etc. If you come from the purely bioinformatic side or are a virus specialist, the view may be slightly different.

You are confusing it with metabolic parasitism, which is an important part of "normal" parasitism between living orgnaisms. However, here, we talk about genetic parasitism. I.e. viruses do not have a metabolism but hijack host mechanisms for replication of genetic material. However, the utter lack of metabolism as well as the fact that they are unable to replicate independently from a host (not due to nutritional constraints but by the lack protein producing faculties) makes most people consider them mobile genetic elements (simlar to transposons) rather than living organisms. One way to circumvent the problem is that they originally were living, independent organisms and only lost it over time (regression hypothesis).

That reminds me of Philando Castile, a black school worker who got shot in his own car while informing the police that he had a licensed gun in his car.

Cannot agree more. If politicians float this idea I can only imagine it being either a distraction or simple capitulation. They have given up on the good in people and really believe that violence is the only solution. I trust that most are not that far gone yet.

It is a sad state of affairs that folks feel that they need to buy ballistic backpacks for their kids (their sales increase after every mass shooting). Heartbreaking, really.

I think the issue here is that it is increasingly unspecific what is defined here as functionally relevant. As already said, presence of guns is associated with increased gun-related morbidity. Mitigating factors include access, storage (e.g. having ammo and gun store separately and not easily accessible), training, etc.. But rather obviously having dangerous items anywhere increases risk relative to not having them. That much is trivial and that is what typically is described as risk factor (such as smoking increasing risk of cancer). Essentially a risk factor is something that is associated with a given outcome. The issue with this proposal is that it conflates the term risk factor with a predictor. Because here, we do not look at what is associated with gun death but actually predictive of a shooter. Later on it is clarified that it is used as one of the factors, but considering the prevalence of guns in the US it will have little impact. Even if we put characteristics together such as gender and gun ownership, the predictive power is incredibly low as many men own guns and very few go on a rampage. It is unlikely that one can piece together a decent model that actually is predictive to a useful degree. Essentially just tracking all boys is probably as useful as tracking firearms in the home. What I would agree though is to have stronger regulation for gun safety when kids are in the house. That is a different proposal, though.

I agree with the observation that there are no aberrations. However, extant bacteria are no different from other current (extant) species.

I would take a step back and first try to establish whether the findings from Caetano-Anolles' group are a good representation of the evolutionary history. While interesting, their study was still speculative in nature (they fall under the broader area of the regression hypothesis that was rekindled by the findings of large protist viruses). Harish et al. have criticized some of the weaknesses of that particular study. However, the whole hypothesis is not firmly established. The more canonical view is still that of mobile genetic elements.

Yeah, the data is more correlated with self-injury risk (i.e. having a gun increases the likelihood of completed suicides) or accidental injury for example. But there is no quantifiable relationship between number of guns and shooting risk (as only a very small subset actually become active shooters).

Not related to the dreamers per se, but it really seems that the administration is increasingly try to redefine the US and how it sees the immigration. And this is the new version: Though it should be a small wonder considering that Trump and some of the closest confidants of Trump are clearly exhibiting ethon-nationalist views.

I think only part of it does. But at the same time they overlook that the idea of having militias is also connected to the fact that many of the founding fathers were suspicious of a standing army. Madison famously said : I am no constitutional scholar, but I kind of doubt that the 2nd amendment was created with also having the largest military power in mind. Rather, militias could have risen in response and/or to prevent the creation of a large military force that could be used to suppress the populace. But that ship has clearly sailed (or taken out by a laser guided missile).

There are a lot of issues with the good guy with a gun narrative (one of the many articles about it here). But also, since school shootings are rare in any given school, having a lot of firearms around is likely to increase the overall injury/death rate. I do think that it will difficult if our relationship with guns is framed exclusively in the framework of mass shootings. They are the most horrible manifestation of an issue. But they are actually only a tiny aspect, even if we only focus on kids. In the US ca. 1300 children die from gunshot wounds. Among high income countries 91% of all firearm deaths of children under 14 are in the USA. In all metrices related to firearm related deaths and in pretty much all groups the US is leading. And that is clearly an issue. Other countries, even those with high firearm prevalence do not put armed guards into schools, afaik many do not even have drills or specific warning mechanisms for school shooters. And yet they do not have that issue. Suggesting to arm teachers (i.e. have more folks with guns around) is, aside from the obvious lobbying from the NRA, shows a mentality devoid of ideas and stuck in an alternative movie-reality where violence is the only solution.

Not really. They would just make sure that they are stuck in there until term. Complications are not necessarily covered.

Not to mention the enormous stress on the teacher. Also, there would likely be an attitude change. I mean teachers are supposed to take care of kids and educate them for ffs and not look out for potential dangers (among the same kids no less). Yeah, more guns is not going to be a solution and luckily it is not going to fly despite some endorsements.

Not sure what that means. What do you consider an aberration in the tree of life? Branches? If so, why are microorganisms exempt?

Well, obvious areas would be evolution and population genetics. There are text books around with which one could start.

Indeed. The above distinction does not make a lot of sense.

Nope. There are many definitions used in biological or sociological and common use terms, which have very different aspects. Such a generic definition as provided here would e.g. mean that smaller people form a race vs taller ones. Especially in humans the biological concept is problematic due to large gene flows between human populations. In common use it is an extremely mixed concepts that diverges vastly from how other subspecies are described. So no, it is not trivial at all.

I think you are missing the point. The issue is not only that it is biased, but rather that they straight up make up stories. And that there are concerted efforts by Russia, and I imagine other state actors that use it for propaganda purposes. Just a few examples: Check out social media coverage of the Syrian volunteer organization White Helmets. Check out the youtube videos and the comments beneath it (really youtube comments are cesspool in general). Have you formed in your mind what they are and have and idea regarding the controversy? Now check this out. For more blatant examples, take a look at videos regarding Muslims in Europe. What we see there is not bias, but vile conspiracy theories ranging from "no-go zones" to "white genocide". If that was in mainstream media there would be some kind backlash. Here, we get likes. The recent indictments have shown the influence of Russia on US elections via social media. You want to confirm your (insert group you belong to)-related fears? There is a channel for that. Do you want to get told that mainstream is bad, just listen to us because we validate you? Just click on subscribe. Make no mistake, it is not isolated individuals, if you check out the networks that have formed to create bubbles based on their own identity and worldview. It is a haven for those feeling underrepresented in society (justified or not) and is a breeding ground for radicalization. Terror organizations but also e.g. Russia have seized on that and have used it to radicalize, sow dissent and influence politics. The difference to mainstream is that the platforms are now individualized. You can pick and create your own bubble entirely independent from the person next to you. This makes you much more vulnerable to specific influence as you reinforce the misinformation by yourself. If you go through several newspapers, you are exposed to different views. Go to social media, they conveniently filter out everything that may upset you. Control of the userbase does not work either. As it has been shown, the groups consolidate around reaffirming ideologies. It is possible that we will get a handle on things. But I increasingly believe that unchecked it will become a bigger issue. I further believe that there are several, if somewhat related issues. Among my students I found that youtube fake news and trolling was rather quickly spotted and ignored (with exceptions). What is more attractive to them, however, are social media personalities that reflect their respective viewpoints. What they offer are not insights, but soundbites. But for reasons that I do not understand, they seem to be incredibly popular. Associated with that there seems to be a breakdown in communication between students with even slightly different viewpoints. They get so used to their own respective bubble that it is harder for them to accept or discuss even moderately diverging views. What I have also found is that if there is a discussion folks start throwing eerily similar soundbites at each other, which I assume are taken directly from these personalities (they all have in common that they sound clever, but are in fact incredibly stupid). While it does not happen that often, I do see an increase which makes creating discussion rounds, especially on the undergrad level, increasingly difficult. So far, the majority still form original thoughts which help me lead the discussion. But I definitely have seen a shift in the last decade or so. Originally I was big fan of possibilities of borderless communication. And I still do see the vast possibilities. However, I now also see increasingly issues with it. The good news is that increasingly it is seen by society and there have been calls to teach kids critical media consumption (though I do think that it should also be extended to the older generations).