CharonY

It appears that there is a general agreement that pointing to someone's ignorance on a subject matter is not a bad thing, in fact, from an educational standpoint I see it as essential. Often, one has certain preconceptions on a given topic and in many cases the starting point of a discussion is an extrapolation from erroneous premise. Typically this is followed by pointing out the inaccuracies of the premise. At this point there are two options. Either OP revisits the premise by reading up on the subject matter using keywords provided in the comment, or OP insists on the fact that the premise must be correct. The latter is clearly the result of ignorance on the subject and has to be pointed out. Half of the work of introductory courses (arguably more than that) is not to provide basic definitions, but rather to erase misconceptions obtained in high school, which are based on necessary simplifications and narratives. Topics like evolution come to mind where many will have strong sense of understanding, while missing out the intricacies of the subject. Ideally, one would try to clear up all the misconceptions in a post, but considering the time and effort required to teach a subject it is not really feasible. From what I can see, almost any call of ignorance from resident experts or moderators is accompanied by keywords or links for further information. I would be shocked if there are cases were calls to ignorance handled in that way would be moderated.

It has been mentioned here and in other threads a couple of times. Evolution is basically the change in allele frequency in a population over time. Generally, we are talking about long time frames, though, as slight shifts from one generation to the next alone could be only temporary fluctuations. Some, equate evolution with hierarchical changes (populations becoming fitter or otherwise superior) or speciation (which is a special case, happening under distinct circumstances), which are common misconceptions and have to be pointed out to put people back on the right track. As a general, untargeted comment I would also like to point out that lack of knowledge is nothing to be ashamed of. I have an unlimited reservoir of things and topics that I know nothing about (as does everyone). Trying to appear that you know things rather than trying to learn is a waste of everybody's time. Think about the opportunity here on this forum. If, for example you are interested in evolution (or other topics for which we have experts), you could ask questions to professionals like Arete [edit] and chadn737 and learn from them. For free. Contrast that with trying to convince those that actually work in these areas that whatever you say is actually correct, just to prop your ego. Which seems more productive for yourself?

As far as I know (which is not much) intense dreams, i.e. those that you may be able to recall, happen during heightened brain activities, which is during REM sleep. However, there is obviously activity also in other stages and transitions from one phase to another. I assume it is therefore possible that dreams or dream-like states also exist in these phases. However, they are likely less intense. Muscle atonia typically is initiated during REM sleep, which inhibits acting out dreams, whereas in the other phases it is normally not the case. Intense feelings, such as night terrors typically result in awakening rather than continued dreaming. It would also depend on the precise definition of what a dream is, and I am not versed enough in the subject to know how it is used in medical contexts.

With hat and all?

AndresKiani, you have quoted me and not Arete with regards to fitness. And even then I have not provided a proper definition of fitness, just pointed out that your assumption for something like striving for general increase in fitness does not hold. But it does not appear that you understood where the issue lies. The reason why I and others commented on your sweeping posts is because they reflect general misunderstanding of evolutionary processes. You entirely missed the point. If genetic drift results in fixation, how can, for that population, natural selection be the main driver? If you want an example of something that is free of content and not contributing to the discussion try this for size: As it is silly on so many levels. Obviously everything is based on physical laws, except that there is nothing that determines natural selection as the sole or even primary force in all populations as a general rule. Also, are you actually aware what fitness means in a genetic context? Because That does not quite cut it. Fitness can be defined in various ways but is generally a measure of the contribution to the next generation of a given gene pool. If an organism just survives it does not mean that there is any contribution. Rather, your definition fits the concept of physical fitness much better (especially your earlier quip with regards to sexual selection could be interpreted that way), hence my earlier comment. This is what we call a circular argument. You have clearly demonstrated that you do not, in fact have a good grasp on the concepts and when an expert such as Arete point things out it is a good time to read up on them, rather trying to handwave arguments away by stringing key words together. I ask again, do you understand the contribution of non-selective events to evolution? Also somewhat related you should check out the concept of stabilizing selection. In that context, it would be beneficial to read up on the concept of fitness landscapes (originally introduced in the 30s or so). Here, we model the effects of mutations on fitness in a three dimensional graph. If we imagine hills as local maxima of fitness. Depending on how ragged the landscape is, populations can get stuck at these local maxima that may not present the global adaptive peak. Now, fitness is not static either, thus the landscape can change and so what is seen as an increase from any point of the landscape. Thus, the image selection (which, again is in many populations not the main force), towards the maximum is rather incomplete (and does not fit existing data well). I am pretty sure that Arete can provide a more detailed and applied description, though I am not sure whether it is worth the time (leading camel to the water and all that).

What is the convention? You make it sound that innovations are made by people doing things differently, whereas in truth they are heavily based on what is known and expanding it.

Considering that this is an artificial distinction, science certainly has no need to define or categorize it. It could be useful, but if it does not reflect nature, why should we impose our views on it? This is way many have pointed out that it is a rather useless exercise. It is laws that require actionable cut-offs but it would be foolish to think that nature would be so convenient as to provide us with these. Also, as others have mentioned, fertilization does in no way guarantee an independent life (estimates of unsuccessful pregnancies after fertilization are in the 50% range, if memory serves),

I will treat Ophiolite's suggestion as an actual comment as it is a valid argument. The timeline of 100-200 years suggests that we simply have no idea and cannot reliably extrapolate from what we currently can do. In 50 years (or if some pertinent development happens, maybe earlier) we could revise that timeline. But for now, 100 or 1000 or 100,000 years are almost equally likely. With regards to Biosphere, I see it more as an issue of complexity as to my knowledge there was really no new technology involved. But just trying to control seemingly simple fluxes in a sustainable fashion was shown to be unreliable at best. Although, it is possible that in large-scale systems some problems are actually easier to fix. As a side note, penicillin was discovered almost 100 years ago and and antiseptic substances (some based on antibiotics) were along for longer than that. In that particular case, key discoveries were already made (i.e. the presence of antiseptics, whatever their nature would be). The Wright brothers had ample example of flight, too. In all the examples the discoveries were not made in a vacuum but, as swansont pointed out, were enabled by key discoveries. These, as far as I can tell with my limited knowledge on the subject (but evidenced by the fact that we are still unable to control pertinent parameters on Earth), are still missing.

I think a 50 year or so blackout is a good idea. For recent topics there are probably not sufficient scholarly work as a basis, anyway. I would suggest that if we want to start doing it, maybe just start a topic in the politics, religion or speculations section (depending on how speculative the discussions are going to be) but maybe tag them to highlight that the historic aspects are are the main topic of discussion. If there is enough interest there may be a good reason to add another sub-forum. My interest tend to global (mostly rise and fall of empires and the role of economics) and less specific (such as military) so I am not sure I could contribute at all. But then there are already two active posters who have expressed interest in military history of WWII, so there is one starting point. Edit: I should add to my earlier post that the outlook I have is based on discussions with friends of mine, who happen to be historians. As I have some insights into their professional work, i tend to view history as any other kind of scientific/scholarly discussion. And as it is the case with those, I typically feel that high-quality discussions are best with mods/experts presents to weigh in on matters (as a few other science forums tend to be a less than enjoyable cesspool celebrating the spread of ignorance). But then I am likely overthinking the matter and It should be fun just to try it out.

Yah, hard time to find sarcasm there. On terraforming, considering that we have a hard time to influence climate (and other global things) in a way that we want, despite having all our resources right here, I find it hard to imagine that we are going to do it successfully and in a sustainable way off-planet. Heck, we did not even successfully establish a sustainable closed microenvironment on Earth (if the biosphere experiments are any indication).

These are generalizations that have the potential to regress the ongoing discussion(s). As have been pointed out, natural selection is on important force in evolution, but depending on population structure and other factors, others may be dominant. Furthermore, you seem to be conflating various meanings of fitness. There is no striving for fitness, as obviously natural selection is the result of varying fitness associated with various genotypes (in the population genetic meaning, not in terms of physical fitness) Especially the last sentence highlights the importance to be more precise when using these terms. Take elaborate and highly visible plumage in birds for example. In situations where predation is very strong, it may prove to be under negative selection (i.e. associated with low fitness). However sexual selection can offset this decrease in fitness,resulting in a net fitness increase.

The bigger issue is probably skin reactions. Depends a lot on sensitivity of the skin (including allergies) and composition of the product.

The outlook for biochem grads is not that much better than of other STEM grads. There was a biotech boom a few years back, but many jobs are vanishing and some companies are still struggling with not firing people. There is also the issue with degree inflation and while it is not impossible to eventually reach 100k with only a MSc, with the oversaturated market it is certainly getting harder. From what I have heard some pharm/biotech companies have reduced some entry-level salaries to almost postdoc levels (in the range of 40k) and progression (at least in the non-managerial track) has been stunted in several areas. That being said, many of these positions are fairly interchangeable between biochem/molecular bio degrees. Although this is probably more true for MSc and upward, where people have gathered at least some more technical skills.

I have mixed feeling about this (as I have about the religion section). History as a science is typically misunderstood (as the posts in this thread already indicate). It is not so much about definite interpretations of events or even just their enumeration. History provides context to events but does not in itself lead to specific conclusions.More often than not, proper historic context will just tell us that things are more complicated than one has learned, which is in line with lessons in natural sciences, at least when dealing with complex systems. For example, the seemingly simple question whether the use of atomic bombs was necessary is incredibly loaded (even worse, if we work the word "justified" into that sentence) and by adding even a limited number of events (pending invasion from Soviets, Japan's willingness to surrender before the drops, internal strife in the Japanese supreme council, etc) and documents of that time, it is clear that there is no clear answer. The only thing one could state that is that most likely multiple factors lead to the decision, but as long as no specific documents from the decision makers to this event are unearthed, one an only speculate with regards to the relative importance of the respective events. That is why it is actually important that historian disagree on specific views while providing evidence to support it. Other questions such as: are even more speculative. While there may be some more or less realistic assumptions one could make, I do think that they fit well into the speculations part of this forum. In a similar vein one could ask that based on our knowledge of evolution, how the gene pool is going to look in 20,000 years. Do not get me wrong, I do think history is important and especially for political discussions, proper knowledge can help in avoiding silly arguments and drawing up wrong historical analogies. Yet, in many cases the knowledge about history of most people (myself included) is far too limited to be able to lead a proper discussion without reading a lot of source material. History in high school is woefully unequipped to actually teach history.More often than not, it becomes a pure list of events thing and simple narratives and if we base our discussions on that it would be a rather pointless exercise. We would need at least a few experts (such as the case of the other sciences) to properly direct the flow of discussions in my opinion.

Time for an update: in the US a total of four reported cases and a single fatality. Situation is improving in Liberia, and slightly less severe than before in Sierra Leone and Guinea (though still increasing). http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/en/

Well, good luck with that one. I got two in the races and two more to submit *sigh*.

On the undergrad level the university (above a minimum threshold) does not matter much. Learning is and should be much more self-driven. At grad levels, the availability of of faculty and research money could start to limit what type of projects you will be able to do. In pure teaching unis it is possible that you can only do written thesis for a MSc, which is less ideal if you want to have at least some technical expertise. As such, I would make my choices pretty much independent on ratings. For graduate degrees I would start looking at individual faculty or research topics. Ophiolite provides important advice. People look through CVs (business as well as academia, at least on the faculty level) to search for red flags rather than highlights. Do not just put in that you have attended various unis and delayed your degree, but add a bit that explains your choices (and why this experience makes you a better candidate than others with more streamlined CVs). Grades tend to be a bit of a non-issue. As an additional note, typically the struggles of faculty and admins within universities typically does not impact undergrads at all and graduates only slightly (aside from budget issues that typically faculty have to resolve). So as a student I would not let that impact my decision, either.

It is sad that you approach a topic with preconceptions that apparently are based on conviction, but not on data. For example a recent paper demonstrated that the majority of all existing variants in humans arose within the last few thousand years (Fu et al. 2013; Nature 493, 216–220). Using our next kin (chimpanzees) it has been estimated that since the split human evolution of acceleration has increased by about 100-fold.As others have noted, this is tightly connected to the massive increase in population size. Interestingly, this is one aspect that Darwin already acknowledged: There are many factors influencing the speed of population changes and there is a good reason why evolution in humans is likely to be faster than in many other species. First, human environments changed rapidly. If you look at human history you can easily see that changes in lifestyle, diet (milk, anyone?), city life, disease exposure, migration etc. were rather rapid over the last millenia. Second, the connected increase in population size allowed a much faster response to these selective pressures. This is basically what chadn737 explained earlier. This is the beauty of science. Regardless which preconceptions you may have, there are approaches to test them and, as in this case, provide evidence why they may be wrong. There is no need to believe anything, you just have to follow the data. Edit: crossposted, but basically posted similar things.

And again, everyone has some sort of defect or another. And many of the invisible ones have a much higher impact on health or life quality.

Well, typically once identified they are shunned by the community (except for very desperate individuals). I am not sure whether actual laws would do anything, as no one is forced to send things there. Also publishers are free to choose their own editorial policies. The only think I could think of is false advertisement, when they claim to do peer-review, but in fact do not.

As others have noted, this is not a serious condition and it is not even that uncommon (I have seen numbers up to 1:500). Other than that, there are various alleles associated with it. That being said, it follows a dominant autosomal inheritance and, from a quick survey of literature appears to be associated with mutations on chromosome 7. In theses cases the likelihood of inheritance is about 50% (although there are rare forms which do not appear to be that simply regulated, in which inheritance is a bit more complicated). But again, it is not a serious condition and as OP noted, can often be corrected surgically.

PSI-BLAST creates a protein profile of similar proteins (essentially a scoring matrix based on multiple sequence alignments) that are then used for further DB searches. On the nucleotide level this simply does not make much sense, especially for short sequences. For one, there is much less potential variability which is probably worse for non-coding sequences (although for certain sRNAs one could expect the presence of specific anti-codons). Any profile generated from there is likely to yield a massive amount of random hits.

With regards to the panels, typically the panelist are doing the high-level review (as they have dozens of proposals to go through and there is simply not enough time) and they rely on the detailed reviews from chosen experts (though they are free to ignore them to some extent. Diligent as the panelist often are, they typically are only able to provide in-depth insights to a limited number of the proposals (unless there was a call with a very limited and specialized scope). Agree completely with the rest.

As usual there is quite a mixed bag. I know people who take that extremely seriously and sacrifice time and effort to properly judge a proposal. But then I have seen others and read reviews from people who obviously had no clue what they were doing. Some PIs even hand down the proposals they were supposed to review to postdocs and even grad students. Finding the right reviewer is also a problem, especially when the proposal has a new approach or when it interdisciplinary. The main issue is that there are vastly more proposals that can be realistically funded, so that the review process is geared towards eliminating proposals (similar as vetting CVs for high-competition jobs) rather than identifying outstanding ones. After elimination of obvious duds, there will still be a massive amount of proposals which have decent quality and for which it will be very hard to objectively rank them. At this point luck becomes a factor as the proposal may resonate well with certain reviewers, but less so with others. Also, name recognition is relevant as many would assume that an established PI with track record will have a higher likelihood to successfully fulfill the project. Typically the system becomes conservative and proposal that are just ahead of the curve, but not too much, as well a established PIs have much higher chances of getting funded.

Sorry to hear. If it is any consolation, one of mine was recently shot down, too. As a collaborator said, it is basically like gambling. Only at casinos you get better odds.