Why do people get vaccines? Don't they research the ingredients?

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Charan wrote:

So if up and out aren't viable options, all we have left is stay in as long as we can. We don't know what's up or out, but we do know that on is tolerable and not without its pleasures and joys. But it's all we've known so that seems a bit Flatlandish to me...but the geometric shapes really might be all there is and the third dimension might be a hopeful myth of spiritual perpetuity, so I see no real allure in trying to leap off the page any time soon.

"

But reality sucks. In the world of idea, everything is compatible. In the world of matter, solid objects collide with and obstruct each other, and certain things just can’t co-exist. Bummer. Life is pain, but we need to be alive to feel anything. This is why reality must occasionally be abolished, through the occasional abolition and interruption of time.

If time is distance, the end of time means everything collapses into one point, and everything is united, which sounds alternately like death, meeting God, ecstatic, or orgiastic, depending on how you interpret it. Every culture recognized this, one of the most iconic recognitions of this being the holiday Saturnalia. During Saturnalia, hierarchy was suspended, slaves went free all January, sometimes masters waited on them, and a ceremonial Lord of the Saturnalia was randomly elected to give ridiculous arbitrary commands to send it over the top.

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Boem wrote:

Favourite science currently, evolutionary biology?

I followed some podcasts on the subject and it's amazing stuff.

I love things that answer the deep "why" questions in a solidified manner and it seems like an honest attempt to that goal.

Favourite planet is obviously earth where else do you find life contemplating life.
Unless you prescribe to the dark forest theory.

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The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds another life—another hunter, angel, or a demon, a delicate infant to tottering old man, a fairy or demigod—there's only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them.
-Liu Cixin

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faerwin wrote:

Unless we develop faster than light travel, it wouldn't be possible to resupply a colony in amount of time, everything would need to be prepared in advance.

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Urologist wrote:

There are probably some risks to vaccinating; however, I believe the benefits of doing so far outweigh the very small chance of something going wrong.

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Urologist wrote:

There are probably some risks to vaccinating; however, I believe the benefits of doing so far outweigh the very small chance of something going wrong.

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erdelyii wrote:

Evolutionary biology. Yes. Care to share something specific you found interesting Boem?

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Boem wrote:

There are a bunch of interesting studies, not at all surprising but fun non-the-less.

I find them hilarious in relation to the whole "culture dictates everything" movement.

"

5. Bafflement. What the hell? Was that abstract supposed to explain something? Why was the average sentence 40 words long? Why were there so many acronyms? Why did the authors use the word “characterize” five times?

6. Distraction. What if there was, like, a smartphone for ducks? How would that work? What would they use it for? And what was that Paul Simon lyric, the one from “You Can Call Me Al,” that’s been in your head all day? How would your life change if you owned a bread maker? You’d have to buy yeast. Is yeast expensive? You could make your own bread every few days, but then it might go stale. It’s not the same as store-bought bread; it’s just not. Oh, right! “Don’t want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.” Is Paul Simon still alive? You should check Wikipedia. Sometimes you confuse him with Paul McCartney or Paul Shaffer. Shame about David Bowie. Can you put coffee in a humidifier?

7. Realization that 15 minutes have gone by and you haven’t progressed to the next sentence.

"

If I’m aiming to just get the main points, I’ll read the abstract, hop to the figures, and scan the discussion for important points. I think the figures are the most important part of the paper, because the abstract and body of the paper can be manipulated and shaped to tell a compelling story. Then anything I’m unclear about, I head to the methodology.

If I want to delve deeper into the paper, I typically read it in its entirety and then also read a few of the previous papers from that group or other articles on the same topic. If there is a reference after a statement that I find particularly interesting or controversial, I also look it up. Should I need more detail, I access any provided data repositories or supplemental information.

Then, if the authors' research is similar to my own, I see if their relevant data match our findings or if there are any inconsistencies. If there are, I think about what could be causing them. Additionally, I think about what would happen in our model if we used the same methods as they did and what we could learn from that. Sometimes, it is also important to pay attention to why the authors decided to conduct an experiment in a certain way. Did the authors use an obscure test instead of a routine assay, and why would they do this?
- Jeremy C. Borniger, doctoral candidate in neuroscience at Ohio State University, Columbus

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There are a bunch of interesting studies, not at all surprising but fun non-the-less.

I find them hilarious in relation to the whole "culture dictates everything" movement.

"

It is important to emphasize, however, that although the gene is the
unit of selection, the Darwinian theory of evolution does not imply that
the development of phenotypic characteristics in individuals is determined by genes, with little scope for environmental input. This mistaken notion that adaptation (i.e., evolution by natural selection) implies
genetic determinism stems from a widespread tendency to confuse evolutionary and developmental processes (Dawkins 1982). Evolutionary
processes depend on differential selection of genes. However, the particular genes selected during evolution are favored within the context of
a particular environment (where "environment" includes everything that
influences development, both inside and outside the organism). The
development of adaptive traits thus depends on particular geneenvironment complexes (Gottlieb 1992), and all phenotypic characteristics are products of complex, gene-environment interaction.
The relationship between evolutionary and developmental processes
may be made clearer by an example of artificial selection described by
Gottlieb (1992). Tryon (1942) created "maze bright" and "maze dull"
strains of rats by systematically breeding, in each generation, the rats
that performed the best and worst on a standard maze test. After seven
generations, the two strains produced scores in the maze test that did
not overlap. Because Tryon had deliberately selected for good and poor
performance, one might be tempted to think that maze performance, in
this example, was "genetically determined." However, experiments performed by Cooper and Zubek (1958) proved that this was not the case.
During Tryon's experiments (i.e., during the process of artificial selec-
4 Human Nature, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1995
tion), all rats were reared under similar, "normal" conditions. Cooper
and Zubek reared members of both "maze bright" and "maze dull"
strains under two new conditions: either an extremely enriched environment that provided abundant stimulation, or an extremely impoverished environment that reduced stimulation to a minimum (the "normal" rearing environment was intermediate between these extremes).
All rats raised under enriched conditions, regardless of their genes, performed about as well as the "maze bright" rats reared "normally." And
all rats raised under impoverished conditions, regardless of their genes,
performed about as poorly as "maze dull" rats reared normally. These
results show that the reliable expression of "traits" favored by selection
depends on the developmental context (i.e., the environment) and not
merely on the presence of particular genes. It also shows that adaptation
(e.g., selection for good maze performance) does not imply genetic
determinism (i.e., good maze performance depended not on genes
alone, but on interaction during development between the favored
genes and a particular rearing environment).
Elimination of the common misconception that adaptive explanations
imply genetic determinism allows one to appreciate that, far from being
"fixed" traits, many adaptations are exquisitely sensitive to environmental variation. Behavioral adaptations, in particular, often represent
flexible responses to variable environments (West-Eberhard 1987).
Humans are especially sensitive to both past experience and the present
environment because natural selection favored the evolution of brains
that specialize in flexible responsiveness to the extremely diverse and
variable conditions in which humans live. - from that paper[/url]

I chose that paper because it's going outside human primates to consider some interesting questions.

And,

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Boem wrote:

I laughed pretty hard when a research study showed that men who had been blind their whole lives also prefered the hour-glass figure in females.

Or that men became more atractive when riding a fancy expensive car to women, but that women riding a fancy car had absolutely no effect on males judgement when it came to atraction.

Or that children show toy-preferences well before they can be taught cultural habbits.(using hand signaling and eye-tracking)

Preferences are not "only's". If males only had sex with women with the .75 or whatever hip/waist ratio there would be a lot less humans on earth. It's just one factor in the complex dance of pheromones, timing, etc etc etc.

I find the primate evolution of the patriarchy article interesting because if we start there, then we could build a case for everything else - from attraction to toy preferences - being in service of that because culture has always existed (and can be seen in primate societies) alongside genetics/evolution.

"

Hypothesis 6. The evolution of the capacity for language allowed males to consolidate and increase their control over females because it enabled the creation
and propagation of ideologies of male dominance~female subordinance and male
supremacy~female inferiority.
Because we do not know when human language evolved, it is not
clear at what point in the chronology outlined above this critical event
occurred. Once the capacity for language evolved, it probably greatly
facilitated further development of male-male alliances, male control of
resources, and the development of hierarchical relationships among men
by making it easier for men to communicate more directly and clearly
about potential alliance formation and the uses to which such alliances
could be put. In addition, once language evolved, humans could begin
to develop and promulgate views of society that supported their own
interests--in other words, ideologies were born. Based on the series of
events hypothesized above, it seems likely that gender ideologies--
views of society that justified male dominance over women--were
among the first ideologies ever invented.
Scholars have provided ample documentation of the ways in which
gender ideologies both reflect and help to sustain male domination over
women (e.g., Abu-Lughod 1986; Daly 1978; Gregor 1990; Lerner 1986;
Murphy and Murphy 1985), and I will simply take this as a given here.
The point I wish to stress is that men's use of language and ideology to
keep women down is not a departure from pre-linguistic forms of male
control but, rather, a natural extension and elaboration of those forms. If
male chimpanzees could talk, they would probably develop rudimentary myths and rituals that increased male political solidarity and control
over females and that decreased female tendencies toward autonomy
and rebellion. Thus, although the capacity to use language to reinforce
their power is unique to human males, the male motivation to use whatever means are available
over females antedates the evolution of the human species by millions of
years. And, in line with hypothesis 5, women sometimes help perpetuate ideologies that support patriarchy (Smuts 1992).

To summarize these hypotheses, six factors influenced the evolution
of human gender inequality:
1. a reduction in female allies
2. elaboration of male-male alliances
3. increased male control over resources
4. increased hierarchy formation among men
5. female strategies that reinforce male control over females
6. the evolution of language and its power to create ideology
This analysis suggests that patriarchy is a product of reproductive
strategies typically shown by male (and, to a lesser extent, female) primates, which in humans have undergone unusually effective elaboration. The roots of patriarchy lie in our prehuman past, but many of the
forms it takes reflect uniquely human behaviors.

"

Boem wrote:

You can get a good laugh watching some anti-patriarch vids and then switching over to a talk about evolutionary biology.

I guess you need dark humor to appreciate going from one to the other though.

The thing that's interesting to me is trying to find things that strengthen your hypothesis from multiple fields and constantly attacking it yourself trying to undermine the claim.

Spoiler

the sexual preference of the hour glass figure for example used
- fertility studies proving that figure is indeed better to carry more healthy children
- looked historically to figurines and body shapes used in art
- used the blind mens studie
- used data from "escort" sites to see how women advertise themselves to men(those sites usually state the measurements, so a 48 country studie was done on these numbers online to calculate the average)
- covers of magazines and beauty symbols

So the evidence starts to pile up making it more and more likely this is a evolutionary constant.

Peace,

-Boem-

One of the big unasked questions with incels (for want of a better term) is what the fuck were their mothers doing in raising that? Are they doing?

Yes, I just called mothers out. I suppose the dads too, but it's kind of shocking that a generation of feminist women have been part of spawning that.

Feminists would say that it's the toxic culture reacting and being exposed, or something. Yet, I can't help but think of boys getting these messages that they are inept, violent, terrible people (possibly on multiple trips to IKEA) doesn't form some kind of self-fulfilling thing in some.

Just speaking off the cuff, if there's a paper on each side on the role of feminism in incel culture, send them my way.

Not really a special interest field of mine, still.

So yes, evolutionary biology. That stuff is powerful. I know how damn powerful biology is, can work in such devious ways to produce the next generation.

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Boem wrote:

As a last note, the "culture dictates everything" was a remark on the blank slate post modernism who think stuff like "we can fix iq differences between races with culture" or "anybody can be anything at any point in time" bringing into existence if nothing else note worthy meme's like "i identify as an attack helicopter"

i'm aware of the interweaving of culture/environment and biology, just not to the extend of absolute madness let's burn the whole foundation of biology down because what is "objective reality" exactly :p

"

For centuries, Viking seafarers ruled the North Atlantic, braving open seas peppered with icebergs to travel thousands of kilometers to their colonies in Iceland and Greenland—all without compasses. How they performed such a feat, especially given the region’s heavy clouds and fog, has long puzzled scientists. Now, one group of researchers has an answer, based on computer simulations—and legendary crystals.

For decades, researchers have suggested that enigmatic “sunstones” mentioned in Viking tales such as “The Saga of King Olaf” were the key to navigating under less-than-sunny skies. The sunstones of legend could identify the sun’s location even if it was occluded by clouds; however, no such stones have been found in the handful of Viking shipwrecks that exist. “This is all speculation, really,” says Stephen Harding, a biochemist at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom who wasn’t involved in the new study. But he notes that possible evidence of sunstones exists—including a rough, whitish crystal found near other navigational aids in a 16th century English shipwreck. It’s not unreasonable, he adds, that English sailors learned navigational tricks from the Vikings, who plied the same waters and raided the British Isles centuries earlier.

Navigating with crystals isn’t necessarily New Age hooey. Several types of minerals—especially ultrapure crystals of calcite, cordierite, and tourmaline—can split a beam of sunlight to form two images, with polarized light taking a slightly different path than the main beam. By looking at the sky through such a crystal and then rotating it so the two images are equally bright, it’s possible to spot the rings of polarized light that surround the sun, even under cloudy skies. Identifying the sun’s location would give mariners a sure point of reference during long sea journeys.

But could such a technique work in practice? Previous studies suggest the answer is yes, says Gábor Horváth, a biophysicist at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Now, he and university colleague Dénes Száz have built on those studies by incorporating the data into computer simulations of voyages between Bergen, Norway, and the Viking settlement of Hvarf, on Greenland’s southeastern coast. Such a voyage is a straight shot westward and would take about 3 weeks of daytime sailing at typical Viking ship speeds (which, for the uninformed, is about 11 kilometers per hour).

The team simulated 3600 voyages taken during the spring equinox, the presumed start of the open seas travel season, and the summer solstice, the longest day of the northern year. Otherwise, the simulations varied only by three factors: The amount of cloud coverage (which varied over the course of the day), the type of crystal used as the sunstone, and how often mariners consulted them. Each time a navigator made reference to a sunstone, the simulated ship adjusted its course if needed.

When navigators took readings every 4 hours, their ships reached Greenland between 32% and 59% of the time. Readings every 5 or 6 hours meant the ship had a dramatically poorer chance of making landfall. But for voyages on which the seafarers took sunstone readings at intervals of 3 hours or less, ships made landfall between 92% and 100% of the time, the researchers report today in Royal Society Open Science. In addition to the frequency of readings, key to a successful journey was using the sunstone for an equal number of morning and afternoon readings, the researchers say. (That’s because morning readings can cause a ship to veer too far northward and afternoon readings can cause it to veer too far southward, sometimes missing Greenland altogether.)

All three types of crystals that the team studied—calcite, a form of calcium carbonate; cordierite, an iron- and magnesium-rich silicate; and tourmaline, a boron-rich silicate—worked well at intervals of 3 hours or less. Cordierite scored a perfect record of successful voyages. But when readings were taken at intervals of 5 and 6 hours, calcite, a mineral well-known to the Vikings as “Icelandic spar,” performed slightly worse than the other two stones.

Nevertheless, in the dangerous seas of the North Atlantic, such a tool would have been invaluable. “The Vikings were fantastic boatbuilders,” Harding says. “But if you got lost, you died.” Ironically, some researchers have suggested that Viking explorers that ended up passing south of Greenland discovered America long before Columbus did.

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erdelyii wrote:

Plenty of evolutionary biology work seems to focus on just humans, and can be myopic as a result.

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erdelyii wrote:

Not gonna touch the iq thing. Paused for five seconds and even shut my eyes. Nope.

Hey, faced with how complex and massive the intersecting fields are, it's not surprising how many liberties people are taking with a few solid findings and a whole lot of "this makes sense to me!".

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Boem wrote:

It's not really though, since it uses darwin evolution theory and things like kin-ship theory etc as base-lines.

For example ...

It looks at humans primarely but it apply's principles founded in biology thus not excluded to humans.

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Boem wrote:

I'm kind of amused that i made your brain fart, cheers.

Well i didn't, you have new-wave feminism and post modernist/multicultural relativism to thank for such flavourfull text's that leave no stones untouched in their pursuit of "fit my narrative damn you reality"

How about this jewel,

The burka is an item that defends females from the evil male gaze
The bikini is a tool to exploit the female and a sign of oppression

The strides humanity has taken since the first-wave feminism that actually had something to stand up for, like actual legit discrimination and under-representation in law.

Or a study in israel by a feminist that concluded the israel military was racist for not raping the women in the neighbouring town.

Yes, you read that right an actual study that couldn't find any rape victims after she assumed there would be and then went on to conclude the absence of those rapes was a sign of latent racism.

The world is a magnificent place with all kinds of people in it :)

"

Cheers for the viking stuff, i saw a documentary recently showing how far those guys went it's amazing stuff really.
You still see the names of towns across europe referencing them, they bassicaly single handedly initiated the first trade routes and first markets.
Obviously they did gruesome stuff, but they also brought a whole economical system in play unlike seen before which maintained their dominance for quite a long time.

They where a bussy bunch. With crystals in the one hand and axe in the other, so it appears.

Peace,

-Boem-

"

erdelyii wrote:

I think you know that.