CharonY
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Indeed. It is not coincidence that religious terror attacks are all attached to political conflicts. There is a general issue when a subset of populations is disenfrenchised because they do not feel part of the main population (for various reasons, including being) which makes them susceptible to recruitment to these political conflicts under a common ideological banner (Marxism used to be the rage, now Islam). I suspect psychologically there also may be similar things going on in mass shooters, except the danger is that using ideology or religion as an outlet it makes it easier to make people follow through (as they will be actively encouraged). For the leaders, they are just disposable tools and as usual I have my doubts whether they are actually in for the ideology or for their own benefit.
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I have not seen confirmation yet, but it appears to be likely. I just hope people will realize that fear is discord is precisely what those terrorists want and deny them their victory.
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Should colleges discontinue "career-less" majors?
CharonY replied to Elite Engineer's topic in The Lounge
So what? A lot of people do not finish their degrees. The failure rate is often higher in certain degrees than in others. Also, more and more people get into universities and since long there has been a pressure to increase graduation rates. But why would that in any way pertain to justifying or denying he existence of other degrees? How would you know if a degree is over saturated? Looking at employment? And again, have you actually bothered to look at data? You do know that gut feeling and extrapolation thereof does not qualify as critical thinking? You do remember your original claims? The one about that joke career that apparently has a lower or equal unemployment rate as engineering students? Would that not make you stop and try to revisit your claims? Let me summarize a few things for you, in case you forget what you wrote. as I already find it quite hard to follow the arguments. A) College is for careers. As others have noted that was not the mission of colleges (if you like it or not) nor is the structure set up for that. That it has become an important element for having a career and that many people choose to take it as part of career building does not change the fact why and how a college is set up. An institution of higher education, not a school for vocational training. B) Non-BS degrees do not add to career building or much less than STEM bachelors Even if you exclusively look at college from a career perspective, data does not line up with your claims. And luckily we do have data on that. Regardless on discipline (and even country), BA and BS holders (or their equivalent) have lower unemployment rate than the average population. Now you can be even more narrow-minded than that and claim that only those with the highest employment rate should exist. But then you will see a number of social sciences outperforming certain STEM areas. And in many cases where the STEM outperform other degrees it is by only a few percentages. If these differences should define what degrees should be available, Engineering and Sciences would lose out to Health and Education, for example. Also the examples you provided indicate that you actually have not researched the market. As I mentioned, two of your examples, Architecture as a "good" career (together with STEM) and Recreation as a joke career do have high and low unemployment rates, respectively. Except, in 2013 the Architecture has some of the highest unemployment rates (12.8/9.3 using the same metrics as above) whereas Recreation some of the lowest. Both are somewhat related to actual jobs, so it is clear that this alone does not define what makes a degree marketable. C) A bachelors degree alone should be sufficient to get a gaduate [sic] a decent job in the market. The market has decided otherwise. Unemployment rate in the USA was around 7.5% in 2013. The unemployment rate of young Engineering graduates was barely better. 7.4. The trend improves markedly when looking at college students with experience (i.e. age 30 and up). So either way a bachelor alone is not the job provider. Period. D) How can you argue that a BA/BS in outdoor recreation, sports studies, creative writing, art history and eventually history, pyschology, and even english can lead to a sustainable, professional career for a college grad. Easy. Look at data. If you have a graduate in, say social sciences, and you ask them that question, that is what they would do. Look at historic unemployment rates, conduct surveys etc. You know, apply critical thinking skills. Take history, the difference between engineering and history graduates is 2-1.8%. Do you really want to argue that this difference is highly significant? If you do, then you have to throw out electrical engineering as well, as they have identical unemployment rates (with experience). So yeah, to me it is a very easy argument if we just look at the career side. Actually, this whole argument is a great argument for a broad education. See, the argument from OP are basically derived from a narrow perspective gained from personal experience. Just because in an engineering degree the broader impact of higher education on society (and also employment prospects) is not discussed in a wider context, it appears that anything deviating from that presumed norm would be less desirable or effective. However, data shows that it is not the case. If one interacts more with people in a variety of businesses and senior graduates from other disciplines you would see easily the breadth of applicable job opportunities. Look at consultants, which is a job with a broad range of required skills but often little specialization (with exceptions) they do take everything from creative writing to psychology to sciences to cover as long as the candidate has a good fit. A broader education would (ideally) help in developing general/transferable hard and soft skills. Just because the path is less obvious, it does not mean it exists. And even in STEM, now more than ever, you will have to take the same perspectives as job opportunities are in flux. What it means is that STEM graduates now have to learn what other disciplines (with exception) where forced to realize a long time ago. It is the transferable skills that count in today's job market. -
Should colleges discontinue "career-less" majors?
CharonY replied to Elite Engineer's topic in The Lounge
Sooo. What are your assumptions based on? Aside the fact that in some colleges the lines between BA and BS are not that clear, are you implying that e.g. architects have better job opportunities than those studying foreign languages, for example? -
In addition, only a tiny amount of water is stored in the atmosphere (less than 0.05%). Thus the atmosphere cannot act as a significant reservoir to hold fresh water. One critical point is that large downpours can actually reduce the amount of fresh water that is available as the ability to retain it is lower and much is lost due to movement to the ocean.
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In many cases the precise mechanisms and efficiency is a bit obscure, so I doubt that you can develop a simple model in which you can derive the precise efficiency. What is typically done is to focus on plants that grow well in a region, test for tolerance of the contaminant in question and then empirically determine efficiency. Specifically for BPA there has been a studies on Dracaena, Rumex.
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Should colleges discontinue "career-less" majors?
CharonY replied to Elite Engineer's topic in The Lounge
Well, if it any consolation, it is no different already in academia. It used to be that the pre-meds were the worst offenders but I feel it getting more prevalent (or I am just getting older....). Pretty much sounds like PhD programs. Including the hair bit. One thing that is often overlooked is motivation. If people are not interested in a given topic they may get passing or even good grades, but they will never excel in what they do. People switching degrees are not solely doing it because it is hard. It is mostly because they are not interested enough to actually make a serious effort. -
Should colleges discontinue "career-less" majors?
CharonY replied to Elite Engineer's topic in The Lounge
You could have looked it up, but I stated it was a study published by the University (or rather, the Center on Education and the Workforce) based on the American Community Survey. A study on a single cohort would not have made sense. Did you actually look at unemployment numbers (you know, critical thinking and all?). Based on that I challenge the 3 points that you made in the post. First, what is an over saturated BA? Looking at various data it appears that everyone should just go and get a business or nursing major. Also note that if everyone takes STEM, by definition STEM would be over saturated. The 3rd point has limited veracity as uni administration likes to sell the career aspect. You will note that most (especially younger) professors are unlikely to sell you that line. And, as others have noted, I reject the idea that colleges should exclusively cater to career advancement vs personal growth especially on the bachelor level. Rather acquisition of personal and transferable skills are the key issue. And, as I mentioned, within STEM unemployment varies a lot with a number of non-STEMs being close or better than some STEM disciplines. If you really think that, I think you should broaden up your education. A degree in history teaches you to contextualize events and evaluate sources for example. That is high-level critical thinking for extremely complex issues. As further evidence that STEM are not the only degrees providing transferable skills: Fresh college graduates unemployment rate/experienced college graduate (i.e. 30 y and older): Life/Physical science: 7.3/4.8 Engineering: 7.4/4.4 Humanities liberal arts: 9.0/6.3 So even using employment as criterion you are arguing massive changes based on a 2% average difference (with large differences in disciplines). To me that looks like a very narrow-minded view with comparatively little data to back arguments up. And again your initial example for comparison: Recreation: 5.2/4.5 -
Should colleges discontinue "career-less" majors?
CharonY replied to Elite Engineer's topic in The Lounge
And of course you will notice that a) all PhD with teaching positions are in STEM (so rendering your argument pretty invalid) and b) unless there is a senior full prf here, they won't get 6-figure salaries. Maybe we got an issue of perspective here (as the ones who have been around longer actually went through job searches...?). I do think that the high cost of education is the problem not the fact that education is broad. I would deplore a situation where people do not even have the chance to follow their passion, however slim their chances may be (hey just look at how many people try to get jobs as scientists). Also note that in a number of countries, secondary degrees are more heavily subsidized so that you actually do not have to pay tuition, which in my mind makes much more sense. Again, if you want a specialized training, a vocational degree and training on site is the way to go. Also if you think that if you get a STEM degree you automatically have a defined career stream, you are woefully wrong. It is true that STEM generally offers better job chances, but many degree holders end up in a non-STEM area (according the US Census Bureau the number was around 70% IIRC). So in that regard, your friend is right, some employers just want a college graduate. With a bachelor in biology or engineering you won't be able to stroll in a company and immediately be useful to them. You still have to have significant training in whatever you are supposed to do. As such, the precise degree often does not matter much, as long as you have got the right tools to apply yourself. Of course, if the job is in production a science degree will help. But if your track more about in marketing or management, it won't matter that much. Even looking at unemployment rates the situation is complex. Looking at 2013 numbers from a study published by the Georgetown University the unemployment for experienced college graduates in engineering is 4.4%. In social sciences it s 4.6 and recreation 4.5. Barely a difference. In fact life and physical sciences is at 4.8%! And yes, the disciplines matter. Electrical engineering is at 5.7%, chemistry at 5.6% and geology at 5.8. To reiterate, recreation (which is a single discipline) has 4.5. So it seems your friend actually made a fiscally sound decision. Finally, I do not understand the general line of argument here. Even if the job chances are lower, what is the reasoning not to offer the degree? You are not interested in it, so no one else should learn something that interests them? I think what college students need to realize is that once out of college, it is not going to be like elective coursework. With degree X you won't be in line for career X. Rather you have to take what you learned and market yourself, and as mentioned, most likely outside of your field. -
Well, if one want to spread optimism one should also mention that tornadoes and earthquake have their positive sides. Including e.g. boom in construction jobs, for example. The general issue with the climate, however, is that the effects are happening on a global level. There may be localized advantages, but the question is the total effects. For example, warmer temperatures could open up Siberia for agriculture. But I would guess the soil quality is not particularly high so I am not sure whether it would be very useful (something that requires a bit more research). Benefits of milder winters vs heat waves would be another example. For certain aspects, rise of sea levels and ocean acidification I cannot see any kind of benefits. Higher CO2 levels could mean increased plant growth, but potentially also increased algae blooms. I do agree that a complete discussion would include as many aspects as possible. But discussing global climate from the only localized viewpoints would be rather limiting.
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Should colleges discontinue "career-less" majors?
CharonY replied to Elite Engineer's topic in The Lounge
As others have noted, OP has the (unfortunately) common misconception that college is a type of vocational training. To be fair, Uni administrations like to push this line of thinking as tuition is important and for many it is an important fiscal decision. The overarching goal of unis, however, is to provide a space for individual development, exploring ones interest (whatever they are) and broaden ones horizon. Even in highly technical fields, degrees (especially at the Bachelor level) are nowhere close to a full technical training. The little bit of stuff you learn is just the basis that helps in understanding the complex bits later on. Rather, it is expected that students gather a selection of intellectual tools that will help them in their life, including (but not exclusive) to their jobs. This includes things like disassembling complex issues and questions, communication skills and a host of other skills. In addition to what others have said I will also emphasize that the environment outside of curricula is really important for individual development, especially in unis with a large amount of foreign students. For many this is the first time to actually get into contact (real contact, not second-hand anecdotal ones) with people from a large variety of backgrounds that actually share similar interests. Learning to communicate with people outside your own bubble (and thereby learning to see that people from other background are every bit as complex as you are) is incredibly important in the modern worlds in many areas. Edit: to answer OP's question: abso-friggin-lutely not. -
Actually these questions are tricky as they are currently discussed with the perspective of hindsight and by applying today's viewpoints. However, if you are talking of the history it is relevant to add that the actors at that time had quite a different perspective. For example the issue of stopping Hitler. Considering what he has done it is easy to construct a narrative of a murderous madman that was ultimately brought down by the forces of good. But why did the allies waged war? Was it do stop the atrocities, or wasn't it rather that they were afraid of a German European supremacy (similar to Japanese ambitions in Asia). What if Hitler had not pursued an aggressive foreign policy but instead "just" decided to eliminate and murder parts of its population. Do you think the allies would have declared war? In other words, is the cause, that we perceive as just now, really the actual cause? If not, is the war justified or just justifiable? No, sorry, that is bordering on revisionism. The early expansions of Japan up until the mid-30s are pretty much the same as other imperialistic powers, which does include the allies. The British, Germans and Americans were all carving pieces of Asia and China. One major issue was that Japan was not seen as an equal power. Especially America's policies towards Japanese immigrants fueled Japanese resentments and thus an increase in nationalism and the desire to become a world player. Together with many other factors this ultimately strengthened militarism in the population and the cabinet. It is not that one single totalitarian (and delusional) ruler suddenly decided to wage war against everyone but rather a process that permeated whole layers of politics and the population. If hey had formed a cooperation with the British (the arguably most powerful player at that time), as was proposed (but never seriously pursued) by a number of politicians at that time, they could have taken part of China and avoided a war with Western powers. But really, their foreign policy was not significantly different to the Western powers. Again, reducing the whole historic context to it was solely the decision of totalitarian leaders does not even begin to touch on the issue. Especially as even in totalitarian systems it is usually leaders (plural) though some (including Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler) created a system where they were (mostly) surrounded by people loyal to them. In Japan the cabinet was quite a bit more complex and you would be hard-pressed to identify the singular entity who masterminded everything (not that I claim to be able to disentangle these complex political networks and factions, mind you). But what should always taken into account is whether we are talking about allies or axis, the context is very different from the countries we know today. Foreign policy was imperialistic and as such was prone to external conflicts, regardless of player. This is not to say that the actions were equivalent (that would also be a form of revisionism) but rather that the thought of military conquest is not born from the delusions of individual leaders, but, especially in Asia a continuation of the accepted foreign policy played out by the major powers. For discussing Europe one has to go back to at least WWI to provide proper context but this post is already too long and still does not even begin to cover ground.
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Sexuality and it's bichemical modification
CharonY replied to Der_Neugierige's topic in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Here you are contradicting yourself. -
And probably neglect that even if we accept the narration as a historic fact, it would have happened almost 1000 years after the Pyramid of Giza was actually built.
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One of the major drivers is most likely economy. If certain food supplies are cheaper (or only possible) to get from elsewhere, they will be imported. If biofuels are more profitable, they will be grown instead of food. If consumers prefer low-efficient foods (such as meat) over more sustainable ones, the former will be produced. To complicate matters, due to globalization quite often raw products (such as meat or wheat) are exported to another country and then processed foods are imported, at a higher cost. Examples that I read recently was export of milk to Germany and importing German yoghurt. This also contributes to a trade deficit, for example. Or to put it into other words, complex situations arise from many factors. Trying to find a single answer (e.g. lack of land) most likely does not hold sufficient explanatory power.
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Eeeeh, let's not draw up that comparison. It is too much of a simplification to state that the respective leaders were delusional and randomly decided to plunge the world into war. There are many more causes and, with the existing ideologies and information present at that given time, for many the war was a rational decision.
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Yes indeed. The disparity in terms of net food production is quite large between Japan and the UK. I think about 70% of its consumed is homep-produced vs 40% in Japan. That both on Islands is only tangential to the whole matter.Some of the reasons include the shift to Western style diets and increased meat consumption(which necessitates the import of non-home-grown produce) but more importantly, the increased urbanization with heavily decline of rural populations (and hence, farmers) as well as the aging of the population (and again, especially the rural population is hit hard). If the availability of land was an issue, food production would have peaked at some point. Instead, it has been steadily declining over the last decades. From NYTimes: Thus, space and population density is not the issue here. Rather it is demographics and economic drivers. To some extent this is also happening in European/Western countries. There is a general decline in farming (especially small farms are dying out), but it is rather independent on whether you happen to be an island or not.
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Well technically I could imagine that a IR-responsive chromophore in the eye could do the trick, assuming there is a mutation that causes them to absorb more efficiently in the IR range.. However, since our brain would perceive it as a different color it would pretty much screw up vision, especially when there are temp differentials, I guess.
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How can I be an enzymologist?
CharonY replied to Elite Engineer's topic in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Targeting companies and, ideally, network with people in the industry is usually the best way to secure a job. That is probably universally true for all competitive jobs (including academic ones), but which is often overlooked. That is, often people focus on degrees and topics rather then the competition bit. -
How does the Facial Nerve actually work.
CharonY replied to BMac's topic in Anatomy, Physiology and Neuroscience
Even before nerves branch out they are a collection of neuronal cells (or more precisely, projections of axons of neural cells). If you stimulate the whole nerve, you will most likely have cramp-like convulsions. You could, using microelectrodes, stimulate individual cells and their respective targets. While possible, it is also very very tricky and if you wanted to stimulate a muscle, it is far more easier to insert electrodes there. -
Wow that article is horrible. They apparently do little to distinguish Holland and Netherlands or UK and England. According to EU numbers 2014 the Density of Netherlands was at 369.9/km2 and Belgium at 352. UK is quite a bit lower with 251 and Germany with 229.9. UN numbers for 2015 indicate UK at 262, Belgium at 366 and Netherlands at 405. Germany at 231. It is among the most densely populated European Nations (Japan is at 335, btw) but not the highest (unless you write for a tabloid, I assume).
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As a general comment, if the report is supposed to be in English I would highly advise to have someone proof-read it for proper grammar and spelling. With regards to the content, within the first or second paragraph you should explicitly state why the study is being conducted. Do not just be descriptive, rather highlight the importance and potential impact within the first or second paragraph. On the same note also state explicitly what elements you are looking at (i.e. the research question). This, again, is crucial to highlight the impact of the study. You are currently just writing that you are conducting interviews and somehow the results will improve decision-making (among other things).Instead you should state what your questionnaires are aimed at and how the resulting answers can provide or lead to he desired results. Specifically for your class I assume that you are supposed to be much more explicit in highlighting what it is you want to find out, the way you want to get this answers and probably also detail the impact (though the letter is sometimes overlooked in basic classes).
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You have to keep in mind that simplifying science in such a way that it is understandable to kids without being horrendously wrong is actually very, very, very difficult. Much more difficult than for example a college-level textbook. Even by being superficial the big question is how superficial can you be and still explain things and (ideally) only be slightly wrong? Mind you, I think if done well that these books are fantastic, but in my mind they are also extremely challenging.
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This question cannot be answered with certainty. It depends mostly on the diet, but also the quality of the enamel. One of the main culprits of dental caries are fermentable sugars, for example. In populations that have less or no access to refined sugar, can have good dental qualities without access to tooth brushes, for example. Vitamin K is another factor under discussion that can be a major factor in maintaining tooth health for example. In short, as usual it depends on a lot of factors, but probably primarily diet and it should be noted that tooth brushing is not the only way to clean teeth (though one could claim that twigs or similar things could be considered tooth brushing for these purposes).
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I think especially 3 and 4 require much more discussion and research than is currently available or done. I am not sure whether we can get the answers we would like to have, but if we only discuss the tangents we certainly won't. On a different note, glad you are safe.