CharonY

On a slightly related note, I wonder how a debate between Ken Ham and a Catholic scientist such as the Jesuit astronomer George Coyne would have gone.

In a way I do see Plato and Aristotle a bit more critical when it comes to their ideas with regards to form and matter. Specifically the idea that things have an inherent essence of sorts (the often cited tableness, for example). While it is not adhered to nowadays, I still think that this school of thought is still present in the way we learn to perceive and categorize things. One example is e.g. the difference between live and dead matter that we often find on this forum. Or the false dichotomy between humans and animals. Or species concepts in general. But I guess I am only grumbling because it makes my work harder since unlearning concepts is usually harder than learning new ones.

I think you misunderstand something here. Cellulose is a polymer and is used to produce paper. Acetobacter xylinum is able to produce cellulose.

I am not sure whether that fits biological sciences at all, but you're suspicion is well-founded. It appears that the consensus is that it does not work (see e.g. Hajjar, Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 2009. 5:311–45) there are also many news articles in which interrogators make similar points.

That is typical for the perception of science in the public, though. Often scientific ideas are attributed to those researchers that publicize discoveries in a concise/accessible manner. Those that did detailed work on it often do not get the the same credit outside scientific circles.

Both are undergoing selective processes as obviously you will meet certain criteria even if you are an US student. Chinese students were chosen as an extreme example (developing country, language issue etc.) but I could easily exchange them with German students (and I have taught in Germany as well, and there is a noticeable difference of first years).

That may very well be an additional issue and may need to be addressed. However, as outlined they cannot explain the bulk of the performance of the US (as we appear to agree on now). The OECD papers on the 2012 study show that the US has the 6th highest share of immigrant students but according to their calculations they explain roughly 3% of the performance variation (which is closer to an estimate earlier in this thread). It should be noted that since 2000 the US has improved in several areas including comprehension (roughly to OECD average), though mathematics the US is underperforming heavily as has not seen much improvement since the first studies. The main issue is apparently that considering the means of the country, the US is at best mediocre. Many claim that diversity is the main issue (and I acknowledge that it has been clarified that this is not the main argument in this thread). Yet countries with similar percentages of migrants deal better with the situation than others (Germany does not consider itself an immigration country and does not provide accessible assistance as Canada does, for example) but still, it does not explain the bulk of it. The problem is that it is certainly multifactorial and when it comes to policy discussion everyone is going to cherry-pick on their favorite issue and overlook the interconnectivity of the issue. From an uni science perspective I can clearly state that the standards in mathematics and natural sciences at least are too low and too variable. Getting first year US students I cannot be sure whether I can use integrals as not all of them have been taught calculus to that level. With international students (including Chinese) I have not had that problems, for example.

Eh, the link you provided does not highlight the US as something special in this regard, however. It is based on PISA 2000 data and there you find that the average reading (which has potentially biggest impact due to migration) the score for the US is 496. Now the main argument is that this value is low due to the high amount of migrants. Within the study the proportion of students with migration background in the USA were 14.5%. Now for comparison the scores of other countries with similar or higher percentages: AUS: 526.6 (20.4%); CAN: 524.2 (12.2%); NZ: 527.3 (18.2%). The country closest to the US is Germany with 497.7 (14%). At least based on this data it does not appear that migrants alone are the reason for low scoring of the US. It should also be noted that migrant support appears to vary significantly between countries as in the US, UK and Germany the migrants are significantly worse than in other countries. Especially in Germany this can at least partially be attributed to about the worst immigration system that I have seen (though a part will also be because it is not an English-speaking county).

Interest is the most important bit. If you really want to know how certain things work and you have the drive and desire to invest a lot of time figuring that out, it is certainly something to look into. Read text books and see if it really captures your interest. Note that having a science education does not necessarily fall in line with having a science career, though. Memorizing is a non-issue. If you are interested you will build up concepts as you learn. Blind memorizing is only good for exams but not for getting a science education (which I believe is the primary goal here).

In that case one could compare Canada to the USA. Canada has quite a heterogeneous population but manages to stay above OECD average. And the US is pretty much at the bottom when it comes to mathematics among the more advanced nations, which is a serious issue. One explanation that has been put forward is that socioeconomic differences are larger in the US than in the high ranking countries. While systems used in other countries may or may not work in the US, it is clear that the current system does not result in terribly favorable outcomes. China is an outlier and is handled as that. Why these comparisons are always likely to draw attention to national envy and antagonism, I doubt that anyone would confuse Shanghai or Hong Kong with the whole of China. It does provide insights for the Chinese government if used as a test ground for school policies, though.

I would not object it offhand, though I would agree that the reasoning is too specific relative to available data. However, the fact that homosexuality does occur implies in numerous taxa implies that it is not strongly selected against, which could have many reasons, of course (unless that was precisely your point, in which case I would agree). There are a few studies suggesting that female fecundity may be linked to increased in male homosexuality suggesting either co-selection or that genes affecting fecundity are also increasing likelihood of homosexuality.

It could very well be that individual events such as these colored their view. But as you may have noticed that this was conflated with Ottoman-based slaughter, whereas this event was an outright revolt against sultanic power by the janissaries. It also shows how much power these slaves eventually got (i.e. not unknowingly committed slaughter by mislead brain-washed converts). It is a bit ironic that their own people suffered under it (rather than the Ottoman rulers), but it also shows that organized brutality and atrocities are based on power struggles more than anything. And here is a tie-in to the question whether in Islam violence is more prevalent. In a superficial way one could paint that e.g. the murder of the knezes was under Ottoman rule. But looking deeper we find that it was a power struggle between factions. It is almost impossible to quantify violence based on religion. Wars are power struggles and religion can be used as a convenient banner (as it has already been mentioned). However, power structures change over time making it more or less opportune to do so. If we cherry-pick timelines we can easily make the case for about any religion to be more aggressive than others. Hence, I would think that such statements are essentially meaningless.

Just wondering, is this discussion about primary/secondary education or post-secondary? The mission is quite different and hence the criteria with which a teacher may be considered effective.

Yupp, and it is known that some parents even bribed scouts to take their children (mostly a practice in Bosnia, I believe), However the stories of janissaries forgetting and killing their own parents is likely based on propaganda. They were well educated, were in a position of power and certainly knew where they came from. In addition, the children were usually between 6-14 when they were given to new families. The part about anti-Serbian sentiments are more in line with the little I know but (again, AFAIK) not connected to Ottoman rule. It may be interesting enough to open a new thread on it to avoid derailing this thread more, if more info is forthcoming.

In my mind this is more a philosophical question than anything. It stems from the assumption that there is an uniqueness, an essence to entities in a Platonic sense. However, nature has little in ways of firm boundaries. I have to add that my view is heavily influenced by molecular biology and as such for every element that we deem unique (or relatively unique to humans) there are literally thousands that are similar to something else. As such, it is hard for me to declare uniqueness in an absolute sense.

I feel that this post is based on poor understanding of the US system and funding landscape. First of all, I would like to re-iterate that weakest part is perceived to be primary and secondary education. There are many issues that but I would like to discuss post-secondary education in more detail as I am more familiar with these elements. I would like to state for now that a system that only allows 1-2% of the kids to compete with or surpass the abilities of kids from other countries is not terribly efficient. But let us talk about college for a bit. It is true that there is quite a bit of funding to support students, but first of all the majority (roughly by an order of magnitude) is state or federal money and much less from private sources. The majority of the private sources are endowment to universities which then grant scholarships to students. Thus, there it depends quite a bit on the endowments of a given uni whether a student that is admitted may actually be able to pay for it. The vast majority of money provided to students from private sources are student loans, which have to be paid back. As a result, the average debt per student is about 30k, though individual debt vary quite a bit. There is also the disconnect in reasoning by stating that all high-performing students can get scholarships (which is not true) and then stating that high-performing students have rich parents and have no need for scholarships or grants. The vast majority of scholarships are geared towards low-income students are usually merit-based. Following your logic there would be no need for scholarships. Then there is the issue of identifying high-performance students. GPA alone is a relatively poor indicator for academic ability (and here I am talking only about undergrad level skills, not advanced scientific skills), if one does not take the school into account. In many cases the GPA is directly correlated with the high-school, and is not always a good indicator of academic performance. A medium-high GPA student coming from a school with high averages often performs worse than an medium GPA student coming from a much worse school, for example. Another thing to understand in the US system is that college quality varies much more than in many European countries. There are schools with high-level research and extreme support for students (e.g. high tutors/lecturers per student ratios, special support for individual students, career advice for students) to pure teaching unis with limited levels of degrees. Looking at the top universities (top 50 or so) there is virtually no difference in the graduation rate of high-income students and low-income students, implying that support is more important than parent income. Now, let us discuss undergraduate level and graduate level performance in more detail. One thing of note is that the quality of undergraduate teaching is often based on metrics such as grades and graduation rates. As such, students can benefit quite a lot from access to more tutoring, for example. Here, good teaching universities with decent endowments can compete with some ivy leagues. But in the end learning at undergraduate level is much more independent and a good student will learn pretty much the same thing everywhere. Average students will benefit more from the additional support found in better universities. There may be also differences when it comes to practical courses (e.g. lab equipment) but seeing fresh graduate students all over the world has not shown me dramatic differences either way. Where the US really shines is on the graduate level. Here, disparities are more dramatic both within the US as well as between countries. Why is that? At that level students start to join up research group and this makes dramatic differences. If there is no high-tech equipment in an uni, a grad student will have no chance to learn its use. If a Prof has a great research program, there is more to learn than from someone who is underfunded can only do simple things. So the next question is why does the US have great researchers? In short, it is the ability to attract people from all over the world. In almost any school you will find a higher proportion of foreign professors than in almost any European country. One thing is the tenure track system which allows earlier independence. Depending on discipline achieving tenure around the 40s is possible (things are worse now, so it is everywhere). In Germany for example you are usually part of a professor's group until you manage to secure a permanent position in one go. This results in plenty of mid-forties living from contract to contract. This is not to say that it is easy in the US, but in many ways it is easier. Then, there is the effect of synergy. A strong faculty can attract people interested in collaborative research, resulting in better research output, more research money and more prestige. In addition, with English being the primary language, it becomes much less daunting for scientist to immigrate (similar things are true for UK, Canada and Australia). Higher prestige due to better faculty , attracts better student and again, the US can pick from a much larger world-wide pool than any other country. On the undergraduate level you will find that around 80% (or higher) of all students are American. But going to the graduate level it becomes closer to 50%. While the actual system in terms of teaching, research and overall mission etc. is similar everywhere, the US has a good research infrastructure that makes it all possible. But going back to the original point, this has basically no bearing on highschool level education and much less on undergraduate as one might expect.

In general terms the pre-college/uni is considered somewhat lacking or at most mediocre (but with extremely wide variance in quality), undergrad is more or less on par with modern countries, it is really post-graduate level where the US really takes off. I can give pointers (laced with opinion) on some of the reasons, but I need a coffee first.

I agree with the latter part of the post, but with the risk of going off-topic do you have sources for the first paragraph? I am not familiar with that particular region but it sounds a bit surprising as the Ottoman Empire does not have a strong history of forced proselytism, from what little I have read. Quite the opposite at times. They did abduct (or bought) non-Muslim children to integrate them into their janissary system (or more general their devsrime (sp?) system in which these slave kids become part of military or civil servants, often in surprisingly powerful positions, depending on abilities) and in these cases there was force conversion. IIRC it did crush Serbian unity, though, which was brittle to begin with and mostly religious in nature (not too different from islamic powers, in that respect, but then again, I do not remember the respective books well and may be wrong). The strongest action directed at Christian elite (to my knowledge) resulted in the burining of the relics of the founder of the Serbian church in the late 16th century (sometime during the wars between Ottomans and Habsburg Monarchy). The reason was that Serbian church leaders officially encouraged opposition to Ottoman rule. The right of the first night is a popular legend that has been attributed to many societies, including feudal Christian rulers and in most cases are little more than myths. So there may be some intermixing between story and history. But if I am wrong I would be happy to see any sources you may provide as it would add quite a different perspective to what I have read so far.

Eh, if that would be an enforced standard I would not be allowed to post here. For example if I had been paying attention I would have specified that evolutionary strategies often do not translate well into individual behavior (I just put it in kind of vaguely) and that circumstances will strongly affect actual behavior. For example, from a generalized standpoint the female has the advantage of knowing that the children she supports are actually hers. As such the male should have interest in establishing sexual monopoly over his partner to ensure that the children he supports are actually his, while spreading around his genes. This is essentially only possible if the male contributes to child support in a crucial way (or by physical domination in some species). However, in situations in which females have a higher sanction potential the game changes (depending on resource use, cuckolding could be considered one example).. In humans the first case is reflected in many (most?) patriarchal societies which often sanction and judge female promiscuity more than male. The sanctions against or enabling promiscuous behavior are often societal ones. However with empowering of women the outcome can be quite different. The Mosou of China for example are a deeply matriarchal society in which children all belong to the maternal line. Husbands (or equivalents) can be invited by a woman, but technically they still belong to the maternal family. The woman has the right to change partners, but the male remain visitors. The bonds are therefore not fixed but are solely based on mutual affection and have been termed walking marriages. Interestingly the majority of relationships are long-term and monogamous. One of the reasons is that in apes sexuality is not exclusively tied to reproduction but has a strong social context. And with the use of contraception there is even a bigger disconnect. Darn, I am pretty sure this is ranty again.. OK attempt at short version even if there are evolutionary advantages to certain types of behavior over generations and in certain populations, if you cheat on your partner you are still an asshole, and are likely to be subjected to social sanctions (which may in turn affect fitness, if you want to go full circle). Coffee time.

Well, not as a personal insult, but I would be careful to derive personal behavior from these generalized strategies. In many systems (from animal down to bacteria) there is an ongoing battle between "cheater" and "cooperators" and child rearing does fall into these categories somewhat. While absolute monogamy is rare as a species trait, individuals can fall into either category depending on immediate circumstances. These strategies are generally fluid and not fixed. And then there are of course modern societal effects that shake things up a bit.

There is a lot of literature on that topic, but one that I remember off the top of my head is one that discusses models under which seeking additional mates is beneficial (Evolution. 2013 Oct;67(10):2838-48. doi: 10.1111/evo.12163. Epub 2013 Jun 12.). One thing to note is that 3) does not make sense as populations do not evolve towards something in the general sense. There are certain situations such as mate availability and other factors that favor one strategy over another, but this may change as circumstances are different. I would also be careful to extrapolate general strategies to individuals as chadn737 pointed out. And it should also be noted that there is much more going on in relationships on the psychological as well as biochemical level (including with hormones such as oxytocin) as such general evolutionary models can cope.

This topic has come up a number of times and all I can think of is I hate you! I hate you ALLLLLL!!!!! Am I moderator now?

Precisely. Memories are also strengthen when there is an increased focus (e.g. due to emotional involvement of sorts). There was something else, but I forgot.

How about skin off your nose?

I agree with glycerol stocks. One thing to be careful about is that long-growing cultures (i.e. just inoculating from ongoing cultures) tend to accumulate mutations over time which can cause issues in experiments. And obviously plasmids and other mobile elements can get lost under non-selective conditions.