CharonY

What if the problem turns out that we are just too dumb?

I wonder what the consequences would be. In a reasonable world, the courts should block much of these effects, but given the current situation I would not be too certain (but also have no real insights).

I can sympathize. Fundamentally, a proper court procedure is not bad in principle. After all, there is quite some time dedicated to establish definitions and facts. Given the nature of public discourse, courts may be one of the few places where at least mechanistically facts still matter. I remember the lawsuits involving Behe, and while I am still bristling at the involvement of courts to establish scientific facts, it was actually helpful for public discourse to have put claims to the test.

I hope so. Generally speaking, I found that parts of the Europe are doing better than the US on the university level, though there is a slide, for many reasons, but one of them is social media. The interesting bit is that surveys are showing that about half of GenZ do think that social media are detrimental for them, at the same time they have a hard time giving them up. In that regard your son is clearly far more insightful than a big segment of his peers. And somewhat incidentally, I found that students who had strict limitations on electronics and social media use, significantly outperform their peers. I suppose we'll see where things go eventually.

We already had some discussions on this topic, but now the White House has decided to put their own definition of sex (they basically abolished gender- no, really). This is a feeble attempt to provide themselves with some pseudo-scientific credentials. The definition are as follows: Now, there is a biological definition that defines the different sexes as producing large or small gametes in anisogamous species. However (and as discussed earlier), that in various species the assignment can change. I.e. some fish start off by producing large gametes and produce small ones later in life. In other cases individuals do not produce either at some point in their life. There are also rare instances where individuals can produce both, despite the fact that vast majority of the species doesn't. I thin the authors are at least somewhat cognizant of the issue and decided to put the "at conception" part in to arrive at the desired binary classification. Yet, that itself leads to a circular argument as at conception obviously there is no production of gametes and only later in life can you see what actually is being produced (if at all). I will also just quickly touch on an argument that folks have made in previous discussions (and I hope my memory is not too off). The argument is essentially based on a distinction between normal and abnormal. I.e. the assumption that there is a rule in biology resulting always in two sexes and therefore any exception to this are abnormal. The issue here is of course that nature has not concept of normalcy, what exists exist. They may or may not contribute to the next generation, but it does not erase their existence and their biological activities. Also it simply classifies the majority as the norm, which is a very democratic way of thinking about things, but not one rooted in natural concepts or laws. After all, nature has a lot of different reproductive strategies and when new ones arose they were "abnormal" for a time. Such is the nature of mutations. So to sum up a bit the biological side: you can make a binary definition based on gamete size, which ultimately would result in a small-ish group falling in these categories. Which is fine for a definition, but not in a policy that is supposed to include the whole population and highlights the difference of biological classification schemes on the species level, vs fine classification of the whole population. That all being said, while it seems like a bit superfluous, the executive order forces all agencies to use their definition, which would likely include the NIH. If one would take it literally, it could result in an impossible task (i.e. figuring gamete size at conception). And would certainly make policy unworkable. In the most precise way we would all be sexless as we produce no gametes at conception, for example. My guess is that this is likely going to be challenged in court, but considering the state of the American judiciary, it is utterly unclear what the ramification could be. One the one hand it looks a bit like a culture war thing that is a distraction. At the same time, I can imagine that the actual consequences could be rather dire for individuals. Any thoughts on that matter?

I am not sure. I deal with a lot of young, theoretically well-educated people. Of course there is a mix, but overall the trend I am seeing doesn't make me feel very optimistic. I suspect there will be an equilibrium of sorts at some point and we might have a better idea about what is going on. But right now things are not moving where I thought (and would have liked) them to. I think, I am getting somewhat disillusioned about the powers of education, as we clearly see mechanisms diminishing them. Ultimately, it will be responsibility of parents to control the media diet of their kids and foster things like curiosity and build a foundation for critical thinking that we can fortify and expand in university. But again, right now it seems were are implementing all the mechanisms to prevent just that.

There is a win-win-win for the techbros here. They essentially make money from all the outrage and radicalization, they make folks dependent on a service that is not actually critical, but now people cannot live without them and they get to use their tools to manipulate the masses. That is why I am very skeptical of narratives painting social media as a tool of progress. The idea that Americans are a bit ignorant even of their own history (and with no recognition of countries beyond those they invaded) is a bit of a narrative that has been circulating in Europe for quite a while. But I think it was not seen as some malicious but more of a mix of arrogance and lack of certain types of education (you know, the "uncultured" American trope). However, I think technology has facilitated revisionism on a grand scale. The AfD is such an example in Germany, in the US they are actively dismantling progress made over the last decades and are trying to push and mandate alternative realities. It is a bit like techbro version of 1984 meets consumerism of brave new world, met with lethargy of Wall-E (just without the empathy).

There is no space for satire in this world anymore. https://www.reuters.com/technology/trumps-new-crypto-token-jumps-ahead-his-inauguration-2025-01-20/

I don't think so. From what I have read, it is more likely that folks did not like an dopamine echo chamber that is not somehow under US control (or at least under control from allies). Meta, Twitter etc. doing pretty much the same things is mighty fine. Plus TFG has proposed to reverse the ban. There is also the same rabbithole of radicalization within TikTok, perhaps even faster due to nature of the platform. Unlearning the past, perhaps?

Why do you come here to spread misinformation? Do yo think we'll forget what we see with our own eyes just because enough dum dums are repeating that? Next you are going to say that leaving the WHO is great because that way no one ever died in the US during the COVID-19 as well as all future pandemics.

My point is that kids are being educated how Nazis came to power, the dangers of fascism and highlighting that safeguards are necessary. Plus Germany had demonstrated that otherwise reasonable people (or at least not less reasonable than folks elsewhere), can communally cause something like the holocaust. And despite all that, the lessons have been erased in big swaths of the population as if these lessons never existed. It wasn't a huge concerted effort required to erase multiple generations of learning. And all they needed was twitter and some stupid memes.

Honestly, I thought that the US was always a bit vulnerable in that regard. There is a sense of always being on the right side of history (despite potential evidence to the contrary) and talking to folks on the topic I frequently got the sense that many consider Nazis and fascism a bit of moral failure of folks with little consideration why they got into power. But since they fought it, they are automatically immune. Contrast that with what school kids in Germany learned about the grandparents and great-grandparents. It tells a much more nuanced story about about the dangers of fascism and that it can literally rise everywhere. As such, I am much more disturbed by the fact that a Nazi-allied party is on the rise in Germany, which suggests that contrary to what I believed for a long while, education is insufficient protection.

A newer problem is that technology has evolved to be better affect our minds. Similar to a pathogen getting a better foothold on the host. That in part will likely feed into our base proclivities and in turn be a path towards extremism.

I also believe the "surge"was not particular different to most past seasons, with some exceptions.

Originally I skipped over the title of the thread. It is interesting to see that OP defines American culture and traditions as things that are associated with racism and colonialism. I mean, they are not wrong, but I am not sure that is what they were thinking.

I think it is a great sign that folks are offended by that. It suggests that their life is going so well that they have time to actually be upset about that.

In addition I would say that religion is obsessed with answers (or what folks assume to be answers). Scientists are obsessed with questions. In fact, I think we tend to be more focused on looking for the right question, rather than the right answers. Research projects and grant proposals are often set up like this, for example. Yes, the answer you get should be useful and advance science/technology/health yadda yadda. But typically, projects with really good questions are those that are getting funded. Science is largely driven by our curiosity and the need to figure out things. Religion is driven by our desire to be pacified by certainty and answers. We want to be able to communally obsess over questions. And for that, we need to remove bias as much as possible, other than that we would just keep bickering about interpretation without being able to make any objective progress.

No, science is a methodology that a) is focused on the physical world and b) acknowledges that is a journey. A scientist seeks new knowledge which implicitly assumes that there is no fixed end. If everything is understood, the job of a scientist is done and ends. And while I have heard many confident answers about the world from religious folks, I have not yet met a scientist who is confident that one day we will know everything there is to know. There is a type of humility in science (though not to be confused with personality of certain scientists...) which folks don't see due to limited interactions with it. Almost all scientists I know and talk to (excluding hotshot youngsters who still believe that they alone will change the world), know that we know little of the world and that each of us will only contribute a tiny bit throughout our career. Thinking that at one point we know everything is akin to the infinite monkey theorem. Yes, theoretically if it goes on forever, there is the possibility that we will have explored everything (at which point the world might be a very boring place) but it a very theoretical consideration. The key element in your sentence is "seek". It is a journey we do not expect to end.

That is not how it works, though. The papers will outline the statistical method in the methods section. That will tell you (if you know how to read) a fair bit about things like how strong the observed effects are, the cohort size and composition can be used to evaluate how specific or universal the data set might be and so on. For example, a paper doing calculations with only three patients is not going to have the statistical power of a study with a cohort of a few thousand participants.You just don't look at numbers without context. This, for example in isolation is entirely worthless. One would need to read the paper and look at how they arrived at that number. Especially the use of percentages without showing base value is not telling much.

Well, fair enough. I probably had a more myopic idea of what constitutes research in my mind, mea culpa. Though there are also many such channels with "hacks" in their titles, which seemingly are good ways to ruin things (especially food). But I think my main point still is that you have to be capable of sorting through a lot of nonsense, depending on topic, I think that DIY in general is not quite as infested as a myriad of other topics.

I think there are mostly slight variations in mammals (IIRC horses, rodents and rabbits, perhaps others are obligate nose breathers as the epiglottis basically seals off the other passage). But I think only mammals actually have it. Birds and reptiles certainly don't. And well, animals without lungs are unlikely to have those, either.

That, unfortunately is a huge can of worms. Mis and Disinformation is rampant on social media and we have seen plenty of cases of high-threat situation where those ultimately cost lives. I am honestly not sure what the topic here is as the issue goes well beyond individuals, even if if folks like Musk clearly are powerful amplifiers.

I think using youtube to do research on any topic is a horrible waste of time. If you wanted t look into Musk's lies, there are court filings regarding his businesses or the long history of overselling capabilities of the products of his companies. Getting outraged over videos is only benefits advertisers.

I think a basic wrong assumption many folks are making is science claims to explain everything (like religions does). Rather, science is a methodology that aims to improve our understanding. After all, the job of scientists is predominantly working on the cutting edge of current knowledge, rather than blithely perpetuate existing knowledge (outside of teaching that is).

Not sure whether that is a factor. It would suggest that food of various consistency would create equal issue. The inflammatory responses are mostly assumed to happen due to the the way the various sugars (which make up many stabilizers) interact with the gut and gut microbiome. But as TheVat mentioned, the effects are not quite clear. The EU has also a generally more cautious approach. I.e. the threshold for banning is lower requiring less evidence. But obviously politics also plays a role.