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Is procreation a violation of Kant's categorical imperative, since parents are treating their children as a means to an ends? | I understand this lies on the admittedly loaded presumption that parents only have children for their own sake and hopes of fulfilment. But this egoist claim would seem to be a more plausible explanation for our drive to procreate than another such intuition which would assert that we only have kids for the sake of kids. | This might help:
> And hence, in the practical relation, it is quite a correct and even a necessary idea to regard the act of generation as a process by which a person is brought without his consent into the world and placed in it by the responsible free will of others. This act, therefore, attaches an obligation to the parents to make their children- as far as their power goes- contented with the condition thus acquired. Hence parents cannot regard their child as, in a manner, a thing of their own making; for a being endowed with freedom cannot be so regarded. Nor, consequently, have they a right to destroy it as if it were their own property, or even to leave it to chance; because they have brought a being into the world who becomes in fact a citizen of the world, and they have placed that being in a state which they cannot be left to treat with indifference, even according to the natural conceptions of right.
*The Science of Right* (1790) | 21 | 16 |
I believe a global government or New World Order would be a great thing. CMV. | Ignoring the conspiracy connotations and totalitarian aspects associated with a "NWO."
A global government, working for the benefit of everyone, not just their own nation. Not necessarily dissolving local and state governments, as they can handle trivial (comparatively) issues, but all major decisions being brought to the global government (something similar to the UN), which has elected officials from every country.
CMV. | What about varying resources, geography, demographics etc? How can any singular government be sure about what is best for everyone on the planet when we're so varied? What if every nation decided it would be ok to take away the oil in Kuwait without permission based on a vote? Little Kuwait wouldn't stand a chance in that type of system. What if a country refused to abide by this government and did whatever it saw fit? How would the NWO be able to control these outsiders? Man, it's starting to sound more and more like the UN in here. | 13 | 21 |
What are the negative things in the academia that a person should be aware of? | Hello everyone,
I want to do a PhD but I keep hearing such negative stuff about the academia environment. To be honest, I am a bit anxious about this. So what things should I be aware of before going into the academia in general? Any advice? | Chances of a permanent job as an academic are relatively low, and, whilst there are things that can improve your chances, much of the process is more about luck/ the stars aligning in your favour than anything you can control directly. This absolutely doesn't mean that you shouldn't pursue a PhD because your ultimate aim is an academic career, but you should do so with your eyes open. | 112 | 149 |
ELI5:Why is it that my brain can spend hours focusing on learning the ins and outs of a video game (ie- League of Legends), but when it comes to calculus, I want to stop after only a few minutes? | Video games are designed specifically to provide constant and immediate positive feedback to the player. All the flashing lights, cool abilities, fun sounds, are all very well received stimuli for your brain.
And on the other side you have calculus. | 58 | 40 |
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When and why did black American names diverge from white American names to the extent they are different today? | I graduated from high school in the early 2000s from a school that was approximately 20% black and 70% white (rest were Asian, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, or mixed race). The school was in the lower midwest, approximately 10 miles from the Mississippi River and 100 miles down river from the closest city, St. Louis. The following is a sampling of some of the names of my black classmates and kids a few years older and younger:
* Benisha and Venisha (sisters)
* Shacairy
* DeAndre
* Lashonda
* Juwan
* LaWonda
* Clatrice
* Patrice
* Iyesha
* LaQuansa
There were kids with typical white names, but they were the exception. Boys tended to have more typically "white" names, but often had what I think to as retro-names . . . Fred, Marvin, Carl, Maurice.
I always figured this was how black American naming had always been until I met their parents who had what would be considered standard white American names (Emma, Michael, Martin, Gary). I have read that the civil rights movement and black nationalism helped to spark this change, but I am interested in knowing more, and want to know exactly why and how this change happened so quickly (within 10 years or so).
Now that I have moved from my hometown to a much more affluent part of the country, I notice much less of a distinction, maybe geography and economics plays a role.
Disclaimer: I know that any question about race is always a difficult one to put forward and to answer. I do not mean any offense. I was able to pull the sampling by looking at my town's facebook page and do not in anyway mean to convey that I think those names are "wrong". | Black Nationalism in the 1950s sought to reconstruct African culture in the African American community. One of the core concepts of the reconstruction was the adoption of Arabic names (many Black Nationalists associated Islam with "being African") to distance themselves from the white population. The educated elites in the Black Nationalist movement tried to spread the ideology among a mostly uneducated population. Thus, the Arabic-root names started having non-standard spelling. Because the movement was mostly grassroots with relatively few educated elites in charge, the ideas spread through word of mouth and you end up with a lot of names that really don't have an Arabic root, but "sound Arabic". There is also an element of French influence in African-American names due to the history of French Creole influence on American Black culture (the La-/Le-. Sha-, and De-). This likewise went through a transformation due to word-of-mouth.
This kind of behavior is common among Nationalist movements. British Nationalism advocated Hebrew and Latin names over Celtic and Germanic names in the 1600s. German Nationalism advocated a strict spelling code on approved German names in the 1800s. French Nationalists did the same as the Germans a century earlier. | 33 | 37 |
ELI5: Why do doctors get to be called Dr. instead of Mr./Ms./Mrs. while other professions don't? | Plenty of highly-skilled professions with extensive educational requirements have something like this. Anyone with a PhD also gets the title of doctor. Lawyers have "esquire", but it's attached to the end. Usually it's to denote that someone has graduated from a specific type of school or attained a specific level of degree. | 63 | 44 |
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ELI5: How do they program traffic lights? How do they coordinate a grid of traffic lights so traffic flows properly? | It used to take a *lot* of exhaustive studying of traffic patterns to keep traffic lights programmed properly to keep jams to a minimum; lights in this system have intervals that are set ahead of time.
These days lights are increasingly controlled by computers. For this, there are induction sensors buried under the road surface that can sense the presence of cars and then a controlling computer that changes the lights based upon road usage rather than at set times.
This method allows dynamic adjustment to traffic conditions, which reduces jams. | 21 | 26 |
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What is the latest and greatest theory of the origins of life on Earth? | I have heard that the 'Primordial Soup' model most of us were taught in grade school is largely regarded as discredited. What is the current thinking? | Some version of the primordial soup is right; there were lots of free organic molecules floating around, some how they got into the right configuration to start self replicattion. Most of the current work has been focused on what order the core aspects of life arose in and where.
Key things you need for life are 1. metabolism 2. heretibility and 3. structure that contains the other pieces.
So we have two main schools of thought; metabolism first theory, and RNA first theory. Both propose that specific component showed up, and the others came later.
Key evidence for the RNA first is that there are RNA molecules that are self-replicating. There are also reasonable precursors to RNA that could fulfill the roll that have more favorable energy characteristics.
The container problem seems to be reasonably easy; phospholipids self organize into spheres and wave energy mixing things up would eventually get the right molecules within the right sphere.
Where it happens; people have proposed life originating in deep space, or chemosynthetically at deep ocean vents as well as the warm little pond. A recent paper supported the warm pond style hypothesis by examining the proteins that all known life has in common, and concluding based on something (not sure what!) that Earth's surface temperature/pressure was optimal in some way.
Hope this helps! | 17 | 31 |
ELI5: Why didn't humans get sunburns constantly before the invention of sunscreen? | They wore more clothing and sun umbrellas, avoided mid day sun, and had melanin levels suitable to their environment (skin pigment).
They also tanned because they spent more time outdoors period. Which darkens the skin and protects it.
All this but they still got sunburns. But it's like bee stings. Unless it killed someone horribly or important not much chance of records. | 41 | 17 |
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What makes some cancers easier to be cured than others? | I understand a bit about the terrible disease that cancer is, but I am curious as to why certain forms are far less likely to be treated effectively. For example, I know lung cancer is very difficult, if not impossible, to cure, but throat cancer on the other hand has a moderate success rate.
Edit: Thank you all so much for responding so carefully and thoroughly; I really appreciate it, especially those of you posting immediately after coming home from your medical profession! | Accessibility is the most important thing. Anything that can be easily reached is easier to treat. Skin cancer, for instance, can usually be cut off. Radiation therapy is more productive when tumors are close to the skin, or else the radiation does a lot of collateral damage to the cells in between.
Another issue is how quickly the cancer spreads. It's easy to treat cancer at one site, but not at several different places throughout the body. Pancreatic cancer is extremely dangerous because it metastasizes very quickly. Chemotherapy is a systemic treatment, so the concerns are more focused on how easily the cancer cells are reached and affected by the drugs. | 274 | 989 |
ELI5: How did the first computer coding get "written" if there wasn't a "language" to write it in beforehand? | I have a basic understanding of coding but I can't understand how the first languages were written without using a preexisting language. | Computers cannot understand programming languages directly. They have to be "compiled" or "interpreted" into the native language of the computer. This "native language" is simply an arrangement of 1 and 0 bits that tell the computer what to do.
For humans, reading a long string of 1's and 0's is tedious and error prone, so we developed a 1-to-1 translation of these mappings to instruction mnemonics. That is, you would write something like
mov al, 0x00
and that tells the computer to move the hexadecimal value 0x00 into the 8-bit register AL. Since all these instructions can be mapped directly onto a bit pattern, it was simply a matter of translating these to the appropriate pattern and loading it into memory to run. | 15 | 30 |
ELI5: why are there so many coding languages? | Why are there so many coding languages (Java, C+, HTML, ect.)? Do they all serve different purposes that simply can't be condensed into one single code? Are we not advanced enough to have an "Official" coding language? For example I understand why we have so many different spoken languages (English, Spanish, ect.), but we seem to be slowly moving toward English as the default. Is this going on at all in the computer world, or is this just an impossible concept?
| Different programming languages are good at different things. For example the first high level programming language from the 50s, Fortran, is great for doing math. It's really easy to make a computer do math really fast with Fortran which makes sense because at the time, the main use for computers was to do simulations for physics and other stuff. That way scientists could make the computer do huge amounts of math without a lot of training in programming.
However there are a lot of other things that we need computers for besides just doing a huge amounts of arithmetic. Computers now need to be able to talk to other computers, fetch different kinds of information, turn that in into graphics... all kinds of stuff.
Different programming languages are good at these different tasks. There is a language called SQL (pronounced sequel) that makes asking databases for information almost as easy as talking.
There is no one official language because no language is the easiest one for all jobs. However there are some that are kind of like a basic underlying language. There are a lot of languages that when people use them the computer turns them into C before actually doing anything. C#, Visual Basic, F# ~~rubyonrails~~ Iron Ruby, and all the other .net languages get turned into a language called CLI which people don't use but the computer uses. Underneath all languages is the computer code that each processor understands (there are only a handful of those still used).
The problem with using those basic languages is that they are not as easy for people to write. C may be able to do just about anything but the trade off for power is difficulty unless you have a lot of training. | 11 | 25 |
CMV: If you believe that transgender deserves protected status and expanded civil rights, then logically, you must support the same rights for otherkin. | I have no problem with anyone doing whatever makes them happy as long as they aren't hurting anyone. But it seems to be like there's a double standard amongst people pushing for transgender rights, insurance paying for ops, etc. but then dismissing otherkin as "made up". It all seems political to me. To draw a parallel, when the gay marriage movement was young and support was only around 30%, arguments that "this is a slippery slope. What's next, polygamy?" were dismissed as stupid and not serious. Now that gay marriage enjoys majority support and legal momentum, a lot of the same people say stuff like "you're right. I support polygamy too, what are you going to do about it?" Right now, otherkin seems too "weird" for people to accept, but there was a time that transgender was completely marginalized as well. From a strategic standpoint, I can understand focusing on gradual progressive changes, but logically, I don't believe you can support transgender and just outright dismiss otherkin.
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | Being transgender has a basis in biology. When the human brain is developing it develops differently based on the sex of the baby, and if it's hit with the wrong bath or hormones and chemicals or of there's some other anomaly occurs during development, you could end up with some mismatched wires that lead to your gender identity being flipped.
There's no such biological mechanism to make a person feel like a wolf or a lizard. | 180 | 80 |
[Star Trek TNG] The tamaraians communicated entirely by allegory, referencing myths-historical people and places from their culture. What did their computer code language look like? | They likely have a more precise and typical language for matters like engineering and computer science. All of the reference based language they use is to convey larger ideas and the more subtle context of communications. | 50 | 88 |
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ELI5: What makes white things turn a dark yellow as they get older? | There are two main groups of things which go through this transformation for different reasons.
The first are things which have had a blue additive. This is commonly done in white paints, clothing, and plastics. It turns out that pure white doesn't actually look white to us when it is outside in the sun. To make things look white you want to make them be a little more blue, so the additive makes them look more white to our eyes. Overtime these additives breakdown and so the items return to true white, but this looks slightly yellow to us.
The other is paper products. Paper products are bleached to make them look white, but if not treated properly there is a major component in paper that breaks down overtime into acid. This acid eats the paper slightly changing its color. | 12 | 15 |
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ELI5: Why did TV and computer screens used to flicker in videos, and now they don't? | I can't use a Handycam to shoot VHS video of an old CRT monitor, but I can use my smartphone to take video of my HDTV. Why? | CRTs work by scanning a electron beam left to right 15 to 100 thousand times a second while scanning top to bottom at 50 to 120 (numbers are approximate) times per second. That fills the screen, but the beam only hits one spot at a time. The phosphors glow brightly at first but start to fade quickly. By the time a spot is scanned again its intensity had faded significantly. If the video camera and the monitor are running at the same frame rate, the result is pretty good, but if they are running at different rates you see flicker.
LCDs can also have flicker, but not as bad as CRTs. Plasmas have very little flicker on camera.
Source: am a broadcast TV engineer who has to deal with flicker. | 77 | 112 |
Lightning produces ozone. Many ionizing air purifiers also produce ozone. Does an electric current exposed to air always produce ozone? | Does this mean that those open coil electric heaters are bad for people with asthma? How do ionizing air purifiers generate ions? | Molecular Oxygen (dioxygen) is broken into two oxygen atoms with enough energy input (either photon or thermal). One of these excited atoms will then encounter an oxygen molecule in a collision, creating ozone.
Your heaters at home aren't likely to produce any ozone at all as they don't produce a corona discharge (occurs with a large potential on a curvy object). This is the mechanism by which so-called air purifying ionizers produce ions.
| 88 | 494 |
ELI5: The sun heats the earth, and it takes 8ish minutes for the sunlight to reach earth. Does any of the light from all the other stars we can see heat up the earth, even the tiniest bit? | I hopes this makes sense. English isn't my first language. I've spent 10 minutes trying to phrase this sentence coherently but it still feels like a weird sentence. Let me know if you don't understand and I'll try and explain my dumb question | Yes, any wave from any part of the EMF spectrum will technically add energy to whatever it comes in contact with. Of course it's going to be extremely neglible since the energy transfer follows an inverse square law, the same as gravity. | 27 | 42 |
ELI5: If Elon Musk actually does build this space Internet, what would the ping be like? | These calculations indicate how much additional time would be added due to extraterrestrial communication, not the total ping (which is a complicated factor, depending on things such as server locations, equipment, etc.)
Lets assume that it is in GEO orbit (because LEO sats would be less efficient because it needs more satellites). That means the sats are 35,786 kilometers (35,786,000 meters) up. Light speed is 299,792,458 meters per second. So the minimum transit time would be 0.22 seconds (time to get there and back), due simply to light speed limitations, which is 220ms, a very high ping.
If you do actually use LEO sats, the attitude would be ~1,000 km, or 1,000,000m. Now the transit time is down to 0.006 seconds, or 6ms.
Real pings are higher due to coding/decoding and the fact that the transmission requires more distance than just to a sat and back.
So now is the question, can you deal with the high ping and more efficient system, or low ping but more complex system (more sats and would have to hand off the communications as they passed into/out of range).
Edit, it is important to note, as pointed out by /u/xavier_505, that ping with respect to IP networks is for a round trip signal, not one way, so double all the above calculations for the additional ping time, as opposed to additional 1 way time. . | 22 | 121 |
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ELI5: What are the different bloodtypes, the differences between them and why are can you not mix them? | It boils down to the fact that different blood types have different proteins expressed on the cell membrane. The reason you can’t mix them is because if you receive a different blood type (with different proteins) your body will see them as foreign invaders and activate your immune system to attack the blood, which can be fatal. | 41 | 72 |
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What’s the difference between a moral norm and an epistemic norm. | One of the core arguments against something like moral error theory is the idea that if you reject moral norms and their existence, you also reject epistemic norms. From what I’ve read, this argument is somewhat fallacious as they are not one in the same.
However, it is never fully explained how they differ, just that they **are different**. Can anyone help me with this? | Epistemic norms relate to knowledge and belief. Something like "you ought to believe things that are true" or "your beliefs should be sensitive to evidence" might be examples of epistemic norms.
The argument you're referring to generally known as the 'companions in guilt' argument. The thought is that if you are going to reject the existence of moral norms because they are metaphysically spooky, then you also have to reject epistemic norms on the same grounds, which seems much harder to do.
Companions in guilt arguments are (unsurprisingly) controversial, but not easily dismissed. | 14 | 25 |
ELI5: Calculus | Hopefully this is for your own curiosity rather than for a class!
Calculus, at the most basic level, deals with rates: how quickly or slowly certain variables (like distance) change when other variables (like time) are changed. For example, people often say that sprinters run at x miles per hour. In reality, that's their average speeds. The speed at which a runner runs varies during a race. He/she starts at rest (0 mph), then accelerates in a finite amount of time, and then reaches their top speed. They may even have a sudden burst of speed right before reaching the finishing line.
If you know how far the runner has traveled at each point in time (which is quite easy to do with modern video cameras), you can use the tools of calculus to figure out the rate of change of his distance (his velocity) at any given time. You can also figure out the rate of change of his velocity (his acceleration) at any given time, too.
Calculus gives you the ability to go back and forth between somebody's speed, acceleration, distance, etc, if you know just one of them.
In reality, calculus is so popular because the fundamental equations governing the universe always deal with the rate at which a quantity changes rather than the quantity itself. In Newton's second law of motion, F = mA, A represents acceleration, which is the rate at which speed is changing. To solve equations that deal with rates, you have to be well read on calculus. | 62 | 35 |
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How much electrical conductance (if any) is lost, when a metal is oxidized? | That depends on the degree of oxidation, the oxidation product and the original material. Most common pure metal oxides are, comparatively speaking, very poor conductors (many are actually excellent insulators)
A thin surface layer of oxide such as you will find on aluminum or stainless steel has little effect on the overall conductivity of the material as a whole. A thicker oxide layer will affect the ability to form a good connection with another material. This latter bit is why aluminum wiring is rarely used anymore. When mated with a dissimilar material like copper without protection, the resulting bond will oxidize, conductivity will drop, the junction heats up and if it heat as up enough, your house burns down.
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What is the theoretical limit to lossless data compression? | Binary (digital) information is represented as 1s and 0s. Obviously with only two potential states, you can't store the information of an entire photograph.
Assuming unlimited processing power, what's the smallest possible compression ratio for any type of lossless compression? | Lossless compression makes use of known patterns in the data to reduce the number of symbols required to describe the data. All lossless compression schemes either *do nothing* or *expand* most of their possible inputs. It's easy to see why: with *n* symbols, each of which can take any of *b* values, you can represent any of *b^n* possible patterns. If you shrink the input to some number *m*, with *m*<*n*, then you can only represent *b^m* possible patterns, leaving *b^n - b^m* patterns unrepresented in the smaller space. If the scheme is lossless, then it has to represent those patterns somehow, and the only way to do it is to use additional symbols (i.e. to expand the input).
The trick in designing a compression scheme is to notice that some patterns are more likely to occur than others. The likeliest ones get the shortest representation and the unlikely ones can get long representations, because they don't turn up very often.
That line of thought leads to *Huffman coding*, which is a scheme that dynamically identifies the most common symbol sequences in a stream, and represents them with short compressed representations, while uncommon ones get longer representations. The term "Huffman coding" is colloquially used to describe anything that carries out that kind of optimization -- for example, many coding environments abbreviate common commands.
There's a whole body of mathematical theory (information and coding theory) that has developed around questions like yours, and it centers on the amount of "entropy" in a block of data. This information-theoretic entropy is closely related to thermodynamic entropy -- it formalizes the concept of ignorance: a system about which you have (or can glean) a lot of knowledge has low or no entropy, while a system about which you have little knowledge has high entropy.
In the very unlikely event that you know *exactly* what you want to represent in advance, then you can perform lossless compression at staggeringly high ratios. For example, if you know that you're about to receive an MP4 video stream of either the Star Wars initial trilogy or the first season of Star Trek, you can compress all 10^13 or so bits of the stream into a single bit (1 for Star Wars, 0 for Star Trek). But if even one bit of either video stream is different than you expect, you will need to add more bits to represent that change.
In less absurd cases you can compress to the entropy limit of the stream. English text coded as ASCII has about 1 bit of entropy per character, so you can compress about 8:1 in most cases. ASCII anime have considerably less entropy and can be compressed losslessly much more than that. Uniform-probability random bitstreams have 8 bits of entropy per byte and you can't actually compress them losslessly at all (on average).
**Edit:** the information-theoretic entropy *is* the message being carried by the data -- it's the good part. This is backwards for people who are used to thermodynamics, but it makes sense. The part of the coded symbol stream that is *predictable* carries no new information, since (after all) you could predict it. The "message" is the new knowledge you glean by examining the symbol stream, that you couldn't predict in advance -- i.e. the entropy. The point of lossless compression, then, is to pile as much entropy onto as few symbols as possible, so that it's very hard to predict the next symbol of a message stream while receiving the message. | 22 | 16 |
Does entire youtube confuse multiple regression and multivariate regression? (Or do I?) | Hi guys,
I've always learned that basically one response & multiple predictor variables is a multiple regression problem (aka multivariable regression, with multiple variables). Next, multiple response variables & one (or more) predictor variables would be a multivariate regression problem.
Funnily enough, every single video I looked at on youtube which is said to discuss multivariate regression is just talking about multiple regression. Suprisingly enough, also video's with tags from different universities. (gotta admit after the first few pages of search results I kinda gave up, so it's probably not all videos)
Is this just too niche to be picked up as an error or something? | I also learned that "multivariate regression" implied needing a multivariate distribution for the error term, not just having more than one explanatory variable.
I think the problem is mostly that so few people DO regressions with more than one response variable estimated simultaneously, that the terms aren't in common use.
Note, in contrast, that "MANOVA" still unambiguously refers to having a multivariate response, because terms like "2-way ANOVA" etc are well known for the more-than-one-predictor case. | 12 | 16 |
Why is Gravity still considered a theory, and will Evolution always be one too? When/How does "theory" get dropped from the title? thanks. | thank you in advance for your answer. | There are really three relevant words here, so I'll provide the definitions of all of them.
A hypothesis is basically an educated guess. When most people say theory, they mean hypothesis. It's something that's gotten into our everyday vocabulary, which is somewhat unfortunate since it can cause people to misinterpret what a theory is.
A theory is a hypothesis or a summary of a group of hypotheses that have been repeatedly supported. Something that is a theory has been supported a large number of times, and there is not solid, peer-reviewed evidence against it.
A law is also something that has been supported repeatedly, but the main difference between it and a theory is that it is a summary of observations, not of hypotheses. It doesn't explain why something happen, it just states that it does. It's a law that the universe seems to follow.
Hopefully these definitions provide an adequate explanation of how these terms get used, and of why evolution is a theory, and why it will continue to be. Saying "It's just a theory" is something that's made it's way into public use, but in science, that's something that's basically nonsense to say. A theory is quite weighty. | 53 | 24 |
ELI5:why do people have allergies? And what in different organisms makes people allergic? | It’s not known why some people have allergies. Allergies are an overreaction of the body’s immune system to a substance that is harmless to most people, a mistake. The substance causing the allergic reaction (the allergen) is treated as an invader by the immune system, like a virus or bacteria. The immune system produces antibodies in response, cells which release chemicals into the bloodstream to defend against the allergen. These chemicals end up causing allergic reactions, which can vary in intensity. Once the immune system has ‘tagged’ this substance as harmful, that is the pattern that remains (any future encounters will cause the same response. | 48 | 165 |
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I think an ideal society would be run by technocrats that heavily fund education, healthcare, and science. CMV | I know there's a lot of moving parts to this, so I'll try to tackle each part individually. Basically a society set up this way would heavily invest in human capital (education and healthcare) and technology (indirectly through scientific advances). I understand there are marginal diminishing returns to just "throwing money" at something, but I think that holds true for any government spending structure.
Please keep in mind that I'm not calling for bigger government or dramatic structural changes. This is just a redeployment of budget and a different focus.
**1) Education:** This would of course mean education in the traditional sense (stronger public schools, stronger affordable state colleges) with higher paid teachers that are held to higher standards (much like doctors in America's society). But not all people are best utilized by going down the "traditional" book smart path. So education spending would also be put towards technical schools. You don't have to be a rocket scientist or an english professor. You can be a plumber or an electrician or a mechanic. But be sure you'll go to an excellent school and learn a useful, real-world skill.
But what about the "crappy" jobs, like garbage man and fast food worker? There will still be those people who do not do well in learning/applying a technical skill. Those lower tier jobs will still be filled. The point is that an individual still has *access* to an advanced education. Whether they can succeed in that skill is still left to a capitalist way of thinking.
**2) Healthcare:** Again, we're investing in human capital. There's no reason why someone who thinks they have diabetes should avoid expensive monitoring and treatments (or not even know they have it), only to waste away within 10 years, racking up hundreds of thousands of hospital bills. Keeping people healthy and having a *preventive* view of healthcare will keep a society's best resource (people) healthy and ready to work.
But what about supply limits? There's only so many kidneys and hearts that can be transplanted. We can't give it to everyone. I agree, but that aspect would still operate as in a capitalist system. If you have the money you can still buy your way to that access. That aspect is exactly like the current american system (few haves, many have-nots), only the key to this is the simple *preventive* measures (oh you have pneumonia here's the treatment free of charge, now continue being productive, instead of, oh crap gotta work through this sickness, and now I wheeze and can't do hard labor anymore cause i never went to the doctor).
**3) Science:** This ties everything together really. Better science = better, cheaper healthcare. Better computers, better resources, better education, better everything. If you have any doubts why this should be a priority, read all the applicable commercial things available due to NASA spending alone (hint: it wasn't just tempurpedic). But also think what else science has done for our modern world. Plastic, vaccines, medical procedures, water treatment, agriculture, computers. All game changers.
**4) But why would we "waste money" on X, or Y, or Z?** Well, there's no such thing as "wasting money", just applying funds to different sectors. When NASA spent $2.5 billion on curiosity, they didn't just take that money and put it in a package and send it to Mars, never to be used again. That money paid the scientists, the engineers, the raw material for the rover, the mechanics to upkeep the machinery, the janitors, security officers, the land owners that own the space used for the project, etc, etc, etc. That money is going back to the public as a reinvestment into human capital. The economy is still a free market as it is now.
**5) What about military? What, we'll just let people invade our precious utopia?** No. Military spending is important. It just shouldn't dominate the budget. Military spending would be substantially less and limited to defending against attacks on our own soil (such as anti-missile defense, coastal defense, local ground troops... and think of how badass it'll be with all the... you guessed it, awesome science and educated and healthy troops we have!). Deterrence programs, such as 24/7 bombers and 24/7 subs with nuclear capability to threaten retaliation in the event of an attack would be fair game.
What about giving foreign aid in the event of another WW2 situation? We can still do that. We have the best science and therefore technology. And we can still deploy money to help allies.
**6) But you mentioned technocrats in your title... how does that come in?** I admit this is probably one that I can budge on, but the theory on this one is that our leaders are experts in their field. Why should we have some out-of-touch politician that got to their position by throwing money at it make policy decision on education when they have zero understanding of it? How about the 60 year old guy who was an amazing teacher for 40 years, understanding the system quite well, and is super educated and healthy and ready to make positive changes based on his real-world experience? Right now we have politicians making decisions based on memos written by staffers backed by a few studies. Why not have the guy reading it be someone who can be critical and truly understand the information?
I know there's a lot I didn't cover but for the most part, for the sake of argument, everything else stays the same. Free markets, capitalism, no bigger government, just a redeployment of budget and better (maybe) politicians. I'd be open to suggestions regarding taxation or wealth distribution. I think current monetary policy is good (not perfect) and that quantitative easing was a positive move. | Your idea is the rationale behind the various administrative agencies.
Congress can't effectively run a space program, so we'll create NASA.
Congress doesn't know how to improve education, so we'll create the DOE.
Congress doesn't know how to regulate workplace safety, so we'll create OSHA.
Congress doesn't know how to protect the environment, so we'll create the EPA.
Each of these agencies is supposed to be subject experts in their area of expertise to be able to effectively administer and manage the subjects they have authority over.
This hasn't solved the problem of politicians, now we fight about who gets to appoint the leaders of these agencies (President) and how to dole out money to each agency (Congress). Sometimes we fight about how much authority each agency should have (Congress + President) or whether the agency's actions are within the scope of authority (Judiciary).
We have a system similar to what you have described, and we're no better off for it. The system doesn't improve efficiency, it creates more avenues for conflict. | 20 | 94 |
ELI5:Is there a specific reason why our forearms and calves have two bones instead of one? | It allows them to rotate axially, for example turning your hands from palm down to palm up. Imagine you had one big bone in your forearm - how the heck would that work? You would have to twist the bone itself, and spiral fractures are no fun. Instead, the two bones just shift around each other. | 22 | 16 |
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Why do we use parsecs instead of 3.26 lightyears? | I just learned this in school so I know near nothing about parsecs, so sorry if the answer is obvious. I just don't see the reason to say parsecs instead of using lightyears everywhere, you know, using one word and not multiple ones would be less confusing. Or are there certain things you can only do with parsecs? | Parsecs are definitely the convenient unit for astronomy. For some reason, light-years have become the standard unit used in communication with the public. Light-years are an easier concept to grasp (i.e. the distance travelled by light in one year), but parsecs really are more convenient to do maths with.
The parsec comes directly from how distances to stars are measured. As the Earth goes around the Sun, we are constantly seeing stars from different angles. This causes stars to move in little ellipses in the sky. This is called "parallax". The size of this effect tells us how far away the star is. You can see a similar effect when driving in the country. The fenceposts by the road appear to be moving really fast while the distant mountains appear to the be totally stationary.
A star is one parsec away if it moves in a little circle with a radius of one arc-second (1/60th of 1/60th of one degree) over a year. If its little circle is half an arc-second, it's two parsecs away. If it's 1/10th of an arc-second, it's 10 parsecs away. So, given that astronomers like using arc-seconds to measure angles in the sky, using parsecs makes the mathematics really simple. It's a geometric unit that we can measure directly. Light-years are less direct, because we can't directly time how long it takes light to reach us from a distant star - we have to calculate it from the speed of light and the distance.
There's also a convenient trick that 1 km/s is extremely close to 1 parsec per million years. Alpha Centauri is a bit over a parsec away. So if you know your speed in km/s, you can very easily calculate how many years it would take to reach Alpha Centauri or whatever.
So the real question is: if we actually use parsecs all the time, and they're more convenient units, why do we teach kids about light-years? It's probably because they're just a little bit easier to teach, but that's very much a social question rather than an astronomy one. | 47 | 17 |
CMV: I think the gender pay gap is consistently overstated. | I strongly and enthusiastically consider myself a progressive and a feminist, and most of my friends do as well. While I agree with them on most issues, I did some research a couple years ago and found several government studies purporting that women make over 90% of what men make when factors like difference in job choice are accounted for, rather than the 78% figure that's thrown around a lot in progressive sources.
A big part of me wants to believe the 78% (for the same job, qualifications, and amount of hours worked) line because it fits in more with the whole narrative, but I can't bring myself to do it in the face of some of the facts I found. I don't really feel comfortable talking with some of my friends about this, either, especially since I mainly see them post stuff about it from Buzzfeed or Huffpost and other sites like that. Can anyone help me change my view?
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And what causes those factors to be different between men and women?
Let me give you an extreme hypothetical. Imagine a world where women are banned from higher education and can only get high school degrees. Suddenly the ban is lifted and strict regulations are put in place to ensure that men and women get identical pay for identical jobs. But all of the women are less qualified than men and therefore work jobs that pay less. There is a wage gap here but its all accounted for by differences in career choices! No problems at all!
Now obviously this is an extreme example. But lots of activists believe that it is a harmful culture that causes women to work jobs that pay less, get promoted less frequently, and take more time off to raise children than men. They believe that even if the pay gap vanishes when accounting for these differences, *the differences are still problems* and that by changing the culture we can create a more equitable society. | 17 | 19 |
are current gas prices the result of price gouging? | I recently saw a comment that points to increased fuel company profits during the current gas/oil crisis to be evidence that these high prices are primarily caused by price gouging and corporate greed.
I've heard that during the pandemic oil companies had to drastically reduce supply as demand plummeted, now that demand has soared as we exit the pandemic we see that companies are not increasing their capacity to supply (or are unable to pehaps). I've seen some argue that they are able to raise supply but simply choose not too as they are making a killing off of the high prices.
Is this a fair analysis or is it misleading? | It’s a combination of the two factors.
Most forms of oil production require fairly substantial investment to get up and running, so you need significant price rises and the prospects of prices staying high for a prolonged period to tempt new supply into the market. It’s also not that quick - if you need to drill a hole in the seabed, that’s not something you can do overnight.
That said, you also have the OPEC (organisation of petroleum exporting countries) cartel, the largest member being Saudi Arabia. These countries coordinate production quotas to maintain oil prices. OPEC’s influence has declined a bit recently, but they still have influence. While Saudi does not disclose much about its maximum potential output, it’s likely that they have significant spare capacity, so could increase output to lower prices, but choose not to. | 16 | 48 |
ELI5: Why is it that we’re able to determine the origin of a sound in all directions despite only having two ears at left and right of our heads? | And similarly, do people with one damaged ear still differentiate between sounds coming from left/right, or is that ability lost? | The fact that we have two ears gives us the ability to determine left and right, based on the time differences between when each ear receives the sound.
The fact that our ears are on the sides of our heads, *and* are shaped differently front versus rear, changes the "shape" of the sound wave our ears receive enough so that our brains can determine whether the source of the sound is in front of us or behind us.
Determining above and below works on the same principle as ahead and behind. | 20 | 24 |
What is Gravitational Wave and why is it so important? | I am curious, not scientist... And my mind tries to conceive the idea of empty space being fabric that ripples like water. Anyhow, what is it? What would it mean if it is proven to exist? | Gravitational waves are a prediction of Einstein's theory of gravitation, called general relativity. In a gravitational waves, space gets distorted in a particular pattern (a circle would deform into an ellipse, alternately elongated horizontally and compressed vertically and then compressed horizontally and elongated vertically).
There have been indirect measurements to confirm their existence, but a direct measurement would be significant for several reasons:
(1) We would get explicit confirmation of a key aspect of general relativity.
(2) The kinds of events that produce sufficiently large gravitational waves are dramatic things -- black holes or neutron stars merging or colliding, for example. We would be able to test general relativity and how it works in these situations.
(3) Probably more important, the ability to detect gravitational waves opens up a new means of observing the universe. For example, how often do black hole mergers occur? Historically, new means of observing the universe have enabled us to find new phenomena that we had not anticipated and to give us new ways to examine previously known phenomena.
Stay tuned -- there is an official announcement at 10:30am EST (15:30GMT) on 11 February, at which point we will all know whether the rumors are true that gravitational waves have been observed and, if so, exactly what has been seen.
| 56 | 114 |
CMV: Moral relativism is a dangerous, unwise, and practically impossible moral philosophy | So whenever I try to discuss morality on reddit, I always wind up with someone trying to persuade me that moral relativism is the best way forward. When I ask them why, they give a vague and generally meaningless answer about how it is the “most reasonable” approach to it, without any defending arguments. That doesn’t seem very intellectually astute, so I figured I’d go here, where intellectualism is at least sort of expected.
So anyways, moral relativism, from what I’ve seen, either says that right and wrong is determined by each respective culture, or that it is determined by the individual. Both of these concepts are not very well thought out, and have the potential to be very dangerous. Now, I’m not saying that SOME relativity in morals is bad, since some things are situational, like photographing someone. I am arguing against the people who say there is ABSOLUTELY no moral right or wrong.
First off, personal moral relativism. So if everyone’s moral compass is only determined by themselves, then there would be no way to justifiably accuse anyone of doing anything immoral, because, according to their moral viewpoint, it was a “good thing” for them. As Socrates said, no one will ever do something that they thought would be without benefit. So if someone were to, say, crash an airplane into the Twin Towers, we could not justifiably say that they were wrong, because according to their moral philosophy, they were in the right. Under this philosophy, anarchy or tyranny be the inevitable conclusion, and the world would devolve into a Hobbesian hellscape.
So if we back up from that, and say that moral relativism should apply on a cultural level, and that each culture gets to decide on what is moral or immoral and other cultures don’t get a say, then you still run into roadblocks. When two cultures that interact regularly are met with clashing moral standpoints that they cannot reconcile with (slavery in America, Hitler oppressing large portions of Europe), then both groups would be forced to live under this constant pressure of pretending they were ok with the other group. This is bad for a society, and will eventually lead to either a lashing out of anger against the other, or an attempt to separate from the other (American Civil War, WWII). It would also mean that the actions of a country would be entirely justified, no matter what they did, because there would be no objective rules to govern them. War crimes, terrorism, and destruction would quickly entail without objective morality on a cultural level, and we would fall into a Machiavellian world of constant bloodshed and a might means right society.
The last thing wrong with moral subjectivism is that it is completely paradoxical. If there was someone who was morally subjective, that would mean he would not want others to enforce their morals upon him. That means he is enforcing HIS morals upon everyone else, by saying that it is wrong for people to force morals upon him. So according to him, it is objectively wrong to say something is objectively wrong, which is entirely paradoxical.
Objective morality is required of our culture to punish evil people and reward good people. When I hear people say that evil and good are just “subjective” and they have no meaning, i have a difficult time sympathizing with their argument because they are essentially affirming a paradoxical and completely incorrect philosophy, which doesn’t seem quite accurate to me. I honestly have an easier time discussing things with a flat earther than someone who is completely morally objective, because it has become so mainstream that people assume it must be right.
I feel like I’m being unnecessarily harsh against these people, but like I’ve said, I have never heard a good argument for it. If you have heard one, or can make a good one that handles all the issues I presented, please, try and change my view. | Moral relativism and cultural relativism are essential to disciplines like anthropology and sociology.
If you want to understand how the morals of other societies and other cultures function, you can’t go in assuming that what they believe is wrong. You want to understand why they think it’s right, from their perspective. To do that, your own perspective will just get in the way.
And if it’s your own culture your studying, you don’t want to go in thinking that the way your culture does things is normal, because “we do it because it’s the right way to do things” isn’t a useful answer.
This isn’t to say that when the sociologist or anthropologist goes home, they have still keep up neutral, amoral viewpoint! Moral relativism is a really difficult way to view the world — people feel strongly about morals! Morals are values, and what’s more valuable to us that values? (We can even go post-structuralist here and ask what sort of values underlie moral relativism...)
So I’m not arguing that moral relativism is the right way to see the world *always*. But sometimes it’s the right way, depending on what you’re doing and what your goal is. | 19 | 21 |
ELI5: How can the weather forcast be wildly different depending on which provider you check it with? | Because it depends on the available data and how they interpret it. Someone who had access to most/all weather stations can give a more accurate prediction than someone with a few. And if most provides only have few stations (compared to the total or in certain areas) and they don't really share their data and they have their own algorithms to predict weather, it can make very different predictions | 10 | 17 |
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ELI5: What do people mean when they say a food isn’t a “complete” protein? I.e. quinoa | ln order for a food to be a “complete” protein it has to have the 9 essential amino acids (lysine, leucine, etc.). Complete proteins are just types of proteins that contain the necessary levels. Quinoa would actually be considered a complete protein. You don’t have to necessarily eat meat to get complete proteins you can consume dairy and/or tofu. | 62 | 92 |
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CMV: It should be a requirement that you hold some form of public office, no matter how small, that you get voted into before being able to run for president. | It's clear that "Not being a politician" doesn't mean you'll make a good leader. Quite the opposite in fact. In order to run for the HIGHEST seat in government, individuals should be required to run for, get voted into, and hold public office. Whether it be state, city, or country government. A fucking school administrator SOMETHING that shows it's not about power, it's about representation for people you feel aren't being represented. It's hold office is a service. And holding the biggest office in the country doesn't change that. | Why does this need to be a requirement? If people don't want someone who advertises themselves as not a politician as president, the solution is for people to just... not vote for them.
If people would vote for such a person even if they didn't hold public office in the past, that is their choice, and people having the freedom to choose and vote for who they want as a leader is the main point of representative democracy. | 21 | 27 |
CMV: Jurors should be given flow charts to help them arrive at verdicts which are correct according to the law | Watching footage of a trial recently, I was struck by how badly information about the law was conveyed to the jurors. Both the prosecution and defense made statements about the applicable laws which were at best confusing, and at worst just wrong. There was disagreement regarding what instructions should be given to the jury, and the eventual instructions were long, verbose, and interrelated.
I understand that laws have to be written very precisely, which often causes them to be verbose. However, there is no reason why the instructions need to be presented to the jury solely in the form of a screed of text.
Laws could be presented to the jury as a flow chart, which would allow them to focus on getting each detail of the charge correct rather than concerning themselves with the "big picture" or how various parts of the law interact with each other. All of the same semantics would be there, just connected with visual diagrams rather than grammatical clauses.
The flow charts wouldn't be just created as needed. There are already offical handbooks of jury instruction "patterns" which judges use as a template. An official set of flowcharts would need to be created in a similar vein.
Frankly, we could go further than this, and actually make flow charts the primary codification of the law. This might help prevent legislators from making laws which have meanings different to what was intended. It might also aid non-layers in their understanding of the law.
Why do I want my view changed:
* It's not a view I hold strongly, but it niggles at me to think that there's a better way and we're not using it. If my view changes I can be more happy with the status quo.
Arguments that won't sway me:
* Too expensive or difficult. I believe consistent justice is worth great expense and effort.
* The judge also reads the instructions to the jury. This suffers from many of the same problems as written text, and maybe some other problems as well.
I might be swayed by:
* Proof that some laws cannot be converted into flow charts AND that this is not some sort of degenerate case which would be better addressed by changing the law itself. | Juries should already be informed of the law and their job is to make judgements according to that law. Why do you think that it specifically needs to be flowcharts? Those aren't great for complicated things, such as laws. | 14 | 21 |
ELI5: why have humans evolved to only be required to consume such a small percentage of their body weight daily relative to some other animals on earth? | We tend to eat relatively high-calorie diets, with our focus on grains and other carbohydrates. We also cook our food, which makes it easier to get at the calories. By comparison, a lot of plant-eaters have to chew, swallow, partially digest, regurgitate, and re-chew their food to get the maximum out of it, nutritionally. Another way of doing the same thing is to just eat a huge amount of food, and process it quickly. | 36 | 84 |
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ELI5: How do sniper rifle scopes work? | What are they made of? How can they magnify so far? | They contain little pieces of glass called lenses. These lenses take the light that enters the front of the scope and stretch it out. In the process of making the image bigger, the lenses flip the image upside down, so more lenses that flip the light right side up again are also inside the scope. Either a piece of thin filament or a laser etching on one of the lenses creates an image of a cross hair that overlays the magnified image. Some of the lenses are attached to swivels that you can adjust to make the crosshair match up with where the bullet will impact. The more precisely the lenses are manufactured (fewer surface errors, better concave and convex shaping) the more magnification will be possible without making the image fuzzy/dark. That's why some scopes are so expensive, the higher quality materials and manufacturing produce a higher quality image. | 10 | 17 |
CMV: Mandatory Unpaid Lunch Breaks Should Be Illegal | I don't know why this seems to bother me much more than anyone else I bring it up to but it does so I'm looking for opposing viewpoints.
My view is basically that mandatory lunch breaks are effectively part of the job description. Therefore, paid is fine, optional is fine. But forcing me to take an unpaid lunch between hours that the *employer* determines as acceptable feels wrong regardless of the fact that during that hour I'm allowed to do as I please. If the employer feels that this hour is so important as to mandate it, whether because they feel that it leads to higher productivity or whether it's some other reason, I fail to see why I shouldn't be compensated.
-ironically posted during my lunch break :)
Change my view?
*Edit: I'm really enjoying these discussions, this is my first time interacting on Reddit (long time lurker) and I'm a fan so far. Thanks!* | Mandatory lunches exist as legally mandated a protection for workers. Without them the employers were actively not allowing workers to eat or take bathroom breaks at all during long shifts so governments set laws requiring them to get breaks. Also the employers do not tend to set the hours as specifically as you think. Generally they are set by Law with some States actually giving the choice of when to set them to the employee. After X number of hours worked you are entitled to X amount of time off and if you have not taken that break time by Y hours worked your employer is suppose to force you to take the break or otherwise face major legal fines. | 25 | 38 |
If someone had been dead pre-zombies, would he come back to life after being bitten? | Consider any universe. World War Z, Dead Island, Walking Dead, etc. I'm basically saying that if someone died of natural causes (or unnatural, whatever) before the "patient zero" of the zombie apocalypse, would he come back to life when bitten? | It depends on the type of zombification (i.e. viral, parasitic, etc) but generally, the process requires piggybacking on some of the victim's metabolism in some way to affect the rapid changes. For example, viruses rely on existing cell replication to replicate themselves, so introducing one to dead cells doesn't do much. It's analogous to turning the steering wheel on a car. It doesn't do much if the car isn't already moving.
That said, it takes a while after death for body functions to cease completely, so some infections could feasibly still take over a *recently* deceased body. | 25 | 25 |
What are some examples of human traits that developed which were key to our survival at the time, but now are hindrances in modern society? | How our body reacts to psychological stress. If you are worried about an upcoming deadline for a project due next week your body reacts the same way it would if a lion jumped into your cubicle and tried to eat you. Increasing your blood pressure and heart rate and shutting down digestion will definitely help you in fight or flight situations, but leads too all kinds of diseases if done chronically in response to psychological stress. | 219 | 185 |
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ELI5: How can companies like Ancestry tell your "exact" ethnicity mix from a DNA sample? | I understand that there are probably some genetic markers that would indicate that one of your ancestors was part African, or Irish or from some region of Asia, or something like that. However, how is my friend able to get results that say he is 8.9% black (or something like that I can't quite remember)? Or are these test all just complete BS? | Exactly how these percents are calculated depends on the model the company uses. Essentially they all boil down to "what percent of your mutations corresponds to that group". So if you have 3 mutations that are seen in populations in populations in the Congo and one mutation that is seen in populations in Japan, you would be 75% Bantu and 25% Japanese.
However, there will often be corrections based on statistical significance. For example, if a mutation is usually seen in Japan but occasionally shows up around the world, it would probably be weighted less than a mutation that has only every been seen in Japan. Similarly a mutation that *all* Japanese people have would probably be weighted more than a mutation that only some Japanese people have. Ancestry has a huge data base of genetic data and performs lots of analysis and data science to build the most accurate model.
As for if they're BS, they're not BS, but they're far from perfect. Genetics is incredibly complex and involves billions of base pairs, but there are only so many people in the world that you can gather data from to build a model with, and Ancestry only has a tiny fraction of that data to work with. The test could easily be off by few percent points. Generally they're very good for a big-picture general idea, but any number less than 5% or so should be taken with a grain of salt. | 23 | 39 |
How did the tongue evolve? | Are you saying what is its evolutionary function (e.g., identifying nutritious foods from poisonous foods)? Or are you arguing how a complex organ developed when its early purposes may have not been worthwhile? Or do you just want like a history of earliest evolutionary ancestor species with proto-tongues?
(Standard disclaimer: Not an expert on biology; just trying to get clarification). | 11 | 27 |
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ELI5 : How come most people who lost their memories but never forget their language vocabulary? | Speech and memory are controlled by different areas of the brain. The hippocampus is located in the brain's temporal lobe and is involved with the formation of memory, while Broca's area in the left hemisphere is involved with language. Depending on what caused the amnesia, the speech region can remain unaffected and allow the amnesiac to still speak. | 50 | 56 |
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[General Science Fiction] If the invisible person eats something, can you see the food get digested or does the food become invisible too? | Some short term ways of granting invisibility only make you and what you are in contact with at the time invisible. But in most cases anything under your skin is invisible otherwise you world constantly be detectable by the foreign substances that are always in your body. | 19 | 18 |
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CMV: Never, under any circumstance, talk to anyone in law enforcement | when they're outside of work or unless absolutely necessary. Even if they're on sick leave, or laying next to you in bed, especially if you don't have a lawyer. They tell you so when they're reading you your rights during an arrest but anything you say ***can and will*** be used against you in a court of law in a justice system that is fundamentally adversarial, but it cannot be used for you because it will be considered hearsay.
No matter what you say to a police officer it cannot help you. On top of that, there are over 10,000 different ways that you can break a law without even knowing it.
All cops are enemies of the citizenry, but only because they took an oath to be and because the system is itself adversarial. When they're on duty, it's their job, when they're off duty they took an oath to uphold the law. They relinquished their right to accept plausible deniability when they finished police academy and took the oath to become officers. If a cop sees something that could be even potentially illegal, they are bound by duty and oath to investigate it. If they don't and someone else catches it, especially today in an age where body cams are everywhere, their ass and way of life will be on the line.
These are people like you and me, people with families, people with dependents, working 9 to 5 jobs and shit like that. The problem is that the system has turned us against each other and those who should have been protecting and serving the community are bound to protect and serve the law. Sadly, in many cases, the law is blind. Blind justice harms more than it helps.
The problem we face today is that the American population is, on average, considered armed and dangerous. So when officers go out into the field, they have to carry a ~35 lb kit that mostly consists of a Kevlar vest, sidearm, and extra magazines for that sidearm on top of their communications / video equipment, and emergency first aid stuff.
When they get a call, they rush to the scene with all haste which puts them in fight or flight and they have to ensure officer safety in every scenario for legal reasons as well as wanting to keep their officers safe.
What that amounts to in practice though is half a dozen barrels pointed at whoever is causing a ruckus and lots of loud verbal warnings, likely over a megaphone. So even in the situation where the other person is not actually armed, the police have no way of knowing that before they search them.
While in the act of a search, an officer is vulnerable because they are paying the majority of their attention in one direction and can be easily caught off guard, that's why when cops search you there are usually multiple cops on the scene. That's also why officers travel in pairs.
Even in a case where the cops are properly doing their job, there is a higher likelihood of getting shot while the cops are around (and yes, even if you are unarmed) than if you had not gotten them involved.
And for those who wish to say that not all cops are adversarial, that some can turn a blind eye when necessary or when it makes sense to do so or even be friendly and helpful to their community I say yes. This is true. There are cops who simply wish to help those around them, to keep everyone safe.
But you have to remember those are outliers. Outliers who would be considered either about as useful as a meter maid, corrupt for allowing illegal activity to pass, or simply bad at their jobs for not seeing potential illegal activities and doing something to stop them.
I am a third party, I have never been a cop though, in order to research them for myself, I have befriended a few (though I would never trust them completely or invite them to a party or anything like that). So I cannot say that I know the statistical average of the internal affairs of police departments across the nation but what I can say is that only a few years ago the LA Police department was found to have arrest quotas.
These were quotas assigned to officers by their management that they were expected to fill with arrests, it didn't matter who it didn't matter what for, they just had to have a certain number of stops and at least, if I recall correctly, a minimum of 2 arrests per month. Now, keep in mind, that if a cop follows you in traffic for more than a few minutes they can stop you anytime because you are bound to commit some minor traffic infraction, without fail. Just on that, it's easy to get detaiments, and if the officer decides that the person is uncooperative whether it's true or not, that officer is within their rights to escalate to an arrest.
Now, your average officer doesn't want to see an innocent person punished but they are duty bound to investigate to the full extent of the law in every case. And remember folks, even our government does not know how many laws are on the books that can be broken now, the last estimate I heard was somewhere over 10,000. Imagine that, 10,000 different ways to screw yourself that you cannot possibly know about and that the officer must investigate to the fullest extent.
Just let that sink in for a moment and check out this video I linked below.
[I believe everyone should watch this video at least once, if you live in America](https://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE)
Please tell me I'm wrong, please tell me that police officers can be people outside of work. Convince me that I should treat them like anyone else. Please tell me that I can treat an officer like a friend without having to fear for my safety or the safety of the people I care about. I wish to restore at least some semblance of faith in the criminal justice system. Please tell me it isn't all just one giant corrupt shit show.
Edit: because I'm looking for real answers I will amend my earlier statements, you should only talk to them in the case that your lawyer is present and you're following their instructions.
2nd edit: added the caveat "when they're outside of work or unless absolutely necessary" and removed a redundant sentence. | If you are subpoenaed by law enforcement as a witness, you should definitely speak with law enforcement within the scope of your rights because your alternative is imprisonment for contempt and obstruction. | 33 | 18 |
I have a question on 0 Kelvin... | So, this is kind of a fail thread because I don't have a link, but I read on r/science that the coldest... system? Something, I don't know, it's irrelevant, but it's only 1 Kelvin. I know there are multiple theories out there on what would happen at 0 Kelvin, but what seems most plausible to men and women of Reddit, and why?
Edit: Just to be more clear, I mean the theories of what happens to an object when it reaches absolute zero since all the atoms stop moving. Would it melt, disappear completely, etc.
Edit 2: My question has been answered, thank you Reddit!
Edit 3: Even though my question has been answered, other people have questions too! | All the particles go into their ground state, which means different things for fermions and bosons.
Most properties of everyday objects are controlled by fermions, and room temperature is already really, really cold for fermions. Thus, not much happens to a normal object, it would just be really cold and have no thermal energy.
If your object is made up of bosons, it would undergo Bose-Einstein condensation, which is a state of matter where every atom/molecule/whatever is in the same state. It has weird properties.
There aren't multiple theories and this isn't an opinion. Zero temperature is not much different than really low temperature. Theoretical physicists usually work at zero temperature because it makes things easier. | 12 | 16 |
ELI5: why I can't use a mechanical pencil on the ACT/SAT. | Also, why can't I just work at my own pace instead of starting and stopping? | The pencils are restricted to make sure that the machine that grades the tests can read it. It's also possible to hide stuff inside a mechanical pencil, which they want to avoid.
The sections are timed so that the exam is standardized between students. Each student spends the same amount of time on each section. It also prevents you from spending too much time on the first parts and running out of time on the others. | 33 | 46 |
I have a random integer generator between 1 and N. To what precision can I deduce N if I generate M numbers? | Basically, if I take 100 numbers in this particular case:
9 10 3 5 2 8 7 6 1 5 1 2 1 4 10 9 6 9 2 3 10 4 2 9 1 6 8 6 5 7 5 1 2 6 4 6 1 8 10 1 1 8 6 7 6 6 5 6 7 7 5 3 3 7 1 7 5 10 2 4 9 1 1 4 10 9 4 2 8 2 6 2 5 8 4 1 6 7 10 7 3 2 8 2 3 1 3 1 2 5 8 5 2 10 10 6 10 5 7 5
I know with reasonable accuracy that the numbers are between 1 and 10.
How do we generalize to N and M?
Edit: Thanks for all the responses! You've given some very interesting food for thought. | It depends on whether you're interested in figuring out N exactly or approximately. If as a result of your experiment your maximum is wrong, do you automatically consider it a failure or does it matter if you were 'close'
In order to get N exactly, at least one of your M values must be N, the probability of which is 1 - (1 - 1/N)^M which, as N increases to infinity, is asymptotically 1 - e^(-M/N). So your probability of making a mistake in your estimate of N is e^(-M/N) or about 0.366 when N=M and decays exponentially.
If you're happy with your estimate being within K of N, your probability of being wrong is 1 - (1-(K+1)/N)^M. By the same logic as above, this as asymptotically 1 - e^(-M(K+1)/N).
Alternatively, you may be interested in a confidence interval: given that you've observed N numbers each less than or equal to X, what's the range of values that M could take such that your observations aren't too unlikely. Select a cutoff probability and call that p. You know that the lower bound of your confidence interval is X (since M can't possibly be smaller than X). The upper bound is the largest U such that (1-(1+U-X)/N)^M >= p since if M was bigger than that number, the probability of observing a maximum number of X or smaller would be less than p.
I may have gotten some signs or Z vs 1-Z messed up since it's really late here ... | 31 | 16 |
ELI5: Why do different animal species have similar anatomical structures? | Similar anatomical structures may be due to homology, which means the structure was inherited from a common ancestor that already had that structure. Humans and sharks both have hearts and two eyes because their last common ancestor did.
Similar anatomical structures may also be due to homoplasy, which means the structures independently evolved in each lineage. Hippos and alligators both have eyes and nostrils on the top of their head, independent adaptations to living mostly submerged in water. | 26 | 21 |
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ELI5: What is a conductor in an orchestra actually doing? How much control does (s)he have? | Conductors have a much larger role to play in rehearsal than at a performance. Conductors tell the musicians how to play in regard to style, speed, and volume. The conductor's interpretation of the piece and how they choose to direct the musicans can drastically change how the piece is played.
However, once a group of musicians has played through a piece +150 times in the exact same style, the conductor could drop dead on stage and the musicians could finish the piece without batting an eye. | 38 | 53 |
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ELI5:Why are Prime Numbers special? | A Prime number is any number only divisible by itself and 1. Why are so many mathematical problems related to this? What is special about Prime Numbers? | They are important because any number is either a prime or can be represented as a product of primes. As such, they become the building blocks for the other numbers.
There was a fundamental theorem of something based on that (sorry, it has been many years) | 29 | 62 |
CMV: I am a tax paying Indian and I feel that is all the charity I need to do. | This argument is coming after a heated argument I had (after a rather long day) with a person who was collecting funds for a charitable organisation outside my office.
My perspective is this :
1. I pay a huge amount of direct and indirect taxes (Income Tax, Surcharge tax, GST, Road Tax, Capital Gain Tax etc..) for which I get almost no benefits, no free good health care, no free education, have to pay additional maintenance in my society, not even free vaccination. Isn't this equivalent to charity?
2. These charitable organisations are putting efforts solving the wrong problem. Instead of asking money from folks who are already paying heavy taxes, they should lobby to get legislation whic prevents tax evasion. Only 1% of Indians pay income tax.
I am a person who generally like to help people in need, have supported my domestic help during Covid crisis, have even sponsored on of their kids college fees, but I feel I have done more than enough of my share and do not feel any guilt in snubbing these charitable organisations.
I have had some priviledge growing up, parents paid for college education, had a decent schooling etc. Would like to hear discordant views. | Improving the lives of others is improving your own life. More people who have access to education and healthcare services will in turn, lead more productive lives and will be more likely to invent new objects or services that further improve your quality of life. | 13 | 30 |
Illustrate examples of how you teach a group of diverse students. | I found this type of interview questions for TT positions are so hard to answer. Do any of you have been asked this type of questions, and how did you answer them? Thank you so much! | First, you need to demonstrate your conceptual understanding of one or more pedagogies that inform your approach to instructing diverse students. Frameworks such as Universal Design for Learning or Culturally Responsive Teaching are examples of pedagogies that might work here. Be fluent in your pedagogy to the extent that you are comfortably able to both summarize the gist of the pedagogy as well as pull out specific tenets to discuss in more detail.
Second, you then need to illustrate how you translate theory into practice by describing real situations from your teaching experience where you implemented your pedagogy. If you can provide evidence that your pedagogical approach was effective then that is even better. | 51 | 42 |
Is the Earth's rotation, and its orbit around the Sun, influenced at all by the Magnus effect? | I was reading up on external ballistics in order to brush up my understanding of how spin-stabilized projectiles fly through the atmosphere, and I noticed there is plenty of mention of the Magnus effect.
After reading a little bit about it, I wondered if our planet experiences similar changes in its spin and trajectory because of the Magnus effect. I eventually arrived at the Wikipedia article describing the Magnus effect, and it briefly mentioned its relation to astronomy. So, it got me thinking;
Is the Magnus effect used at all to calculate, describe, or predict the trajectory of our planet as it rotates, and orbits the Sun? Is it influential enough to have an effect on the planet's axial tilt, or any other peculiarity in motion our planet has relative to the Sun or the stars? Do other concepts relating to external ballistics, such as the Eötvös effect, play significant roles in our planet's motion relative to the Sun or the stars?
For disclosure, I should mention that I have only a basic understanding of the concepts I have mentioned. | The magnus effect requires that an object be in a medium. Since the earth is in space, there is no surrounding fluid for this to happen in. You could think about the sparse gas in the solar system, but there is no way that is dense enough to allow for a magnus effect on the earth. | 44 | 78 |
ELI5: How does a deadly cancer like melanoma actually kill you? | What's going on in your body that actually causes your death? Why are some tumors benign and others malignant? What about a tumor makes it malignant? | A malignant tumor is one that spreads to other tissues. This can either happen directly to nearby areas, or it can happen by metastasis. Metastasis is when distant tissues can be infected by, for example, crossing into the blood stream via the lymph nodes. There they can spread to dangerous area like the liver or the brain. Once they get to these new locations they continue to grow, crowding out the normal cells that should be growing there, and causing organs to fail. | 26 | 90 |
ELI5 if black is all colors and white is no colors what is gray? | important to distinguish between mixing paint and mixing light. Mixing paint, like how a printer works (subtractive colour mixing) if you add all the colours together you get brown, and white would be not using any colour at all. On the other hand Additive colour mixing, as you get with light, white is a mixture of all the colours and black is no colour (no light) at all. grey would be equal amounts of all colours but a bit less of them. | 1,800 | 1,072 |
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ELI5: The difference between AMD and Intel? | Thankyou all so much!! | For the most part, you can think of them like competitors in any other market -- e.g. Honda and Toyota.
Both car manufacturers make cars -- some that are super gas efficient, some that can hold a lot of people, and some that are sporty. One company might develop some cool new technology, and the same with the other. At the end of the day though, they still make cars that travel down the same roads and use the same basic principles (e.g. gas engines, four wheels, etc).
Well AMD and Intel are similar in that regard. At the end of the day, in order to be able to use their chips in a computer, they have to be able to do a certain specified set of things. How they accomplish it can vary as long as at the end of the day they get to the same result. | 32 | 74 |
CMV: “Heritage” is bullshit. | So is pride in achievements that are not your own. National pride/nationalism as well. In the same vein, shame for the actions of people in your nation (past or present) is stupid.
None of these things were things you did. Nationality should have no more impact on your identity as the model of car you drive, or the type of side you prefer. The concept of heritage as a thing that all people of a cultural/ethnic group share is toxic in our society. It leads to tribalism and unnecessary conflict and racial/ethnic/cultural tension.
If you’re proud to be an American, for example, you are equating your own identity with the America to an unhealthy level.
EDIT: RIP inbox. I’ll respond to as many as I can.
EDIT2: A bit of background about my worldview that negates a number of arguments people have been making:
I view the nationstate as a fundamentally flawed obstruction to the betterment and preservation of humanity. If a lack of national heritage led to a postnational global society, that would be wonderful. | The stories we create about ourselves, as well as the things we achieve on our own merit are important. Humans are storytellers and we expect characters in stories to have origins and histories. Having a “heritage” doesn’t do anything more for you than creating a background for your story. It provides a context and starting point to explain the things you will achieve. History is flexible enough that heritage can be bent to suit the whims of those who wish to take pride in it. There’s no necessary ill in this, pride in one history need not connote shame in another.
There’s another way of considering heritage though. While meaningless it is an essentialist characteristic that defines humans like objects. Would you be comfortable wearing the sweater that Hitler died in? (Assuming he’d died wearing a sweater, and it was preserved and dry cleaned.) It would probably make many people less comfortable in the object than a new sweater. Similarly people pay vast sums to own historical artifacts—they have no real “value” but they carry an essential characteristic that humans put value in. Heritage is human essentialism. It is how we imbue ourselves and others with historicity and importance. While false to the individual, it can still give a real personal value, just as an objects presence in history lends it value, despite it still being just an object. | 10 | 82 |
ELI5: Whenever I shoot an infrared thermometer into the clear sky, I get a reading of about -50°F. What is the thermometer actually reading? | Location: East coast, USA | Nothing. Infrared thermometers work by collecting infrared radiation from an object and measuring it. The hotter something is, the more radiation it will emit.
Plugging that into some tables gets you a value for the temperature.
But when you point it out into space at night, there is practically no sources of infrared radiation, and your thermometer doesn't know how to handle that, so it displays that it is extremely cold.
Because IR thermometers are not meant for ambient outdoor temperature measurements, it is useless to try. | 47 | 22 |
[Wicked] How on earth can Fiyero fall in love with Elphaba so quickly and want to lose his life for her when they only knew each other for a semester or 2? | 2 semesters is nearly a year, so that's a reasonable amount of time to know someone.
Elphaba was the first person in his entire life to truly challenge him. Look beyond his looks and actually care who he was. In a sense she was the first person to ever know him.
Also he was a vapid teen up until then, so let's not be so surprised that he was ready to do something so dramatic. | 118 | 134 |
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ELI5: Why is it impossible for a human/animal to breed with another species? | Bit of a weird one, just would like to know the science behind it. | Your genes are basically a recipe for making you, and are created by combining the recipes for making your parents into a new receipe.
When two recipes are close, like German chocolate cake and red velvet cake, when you combine them together, you are skill likely to get some kind of cake, even if it is an unusual one no one has seen before. But if the recipes are too different, like German chocolate cake and chicken cacciatore, all you will get is some inedible mess.
Your genes work the same way, you can only make a new creature if the recipes for the parents are very similar. | 186 | 85 |
If mankind can create AI that is more intelligent than itself, is it possible that mankind's creator is less intelligent than itself? Could it be something we don't even consider to be sentient? | If humans ever create an artificial intelligence that is of greater intelligence than humankind, that would prove that it is possible for a thing to create another thing that is more intelligent than itself.
Would that mean it's possible or even likely that the creator of humankind could be of lesser intelligence than itself?
Could the creator of humankind be something we don't even think of as conscious, sentient or alive? | In 'Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion' David Hume brings up the idea that, if humans work on projects in groups often creating many failures projects, there may be the possibility that a group of creators did the same and we may live in one of the failed universes.
Daniel Dennett likes to bring up IBM's Deep Blue, the first computer that beat a chess grandmaster, as an example of a human creation being 'smarter' (in one area: chess) than any of its creators, none of whom would have been able to beat a chess master. | 94 | 256 |
ELI5: The Green Lumber Fallacy | I ran into it on Wikipedia, and I can't for the life of me understand it. Halp. | It’s basically the idea that what looks like important knowledge about something may not be important to doing it well, and what looks unimportant might actually be really important.
The name comes from a story about a guy who was very successful trading (making investments) in “green lumber”. He was objectively good at it, he makes lots of successful trades over a long period of time. It turns out he thinks that “green lumber” is wood that is literally the color green. It’s actually lumber-speak for “freshly cut” and it’s brown like any other wood. This guy was incredibly ignorant about something as basic as the substance he was actually trading. *But that didn’t matter because it wasn’t important to what he was doing.*
You do not need to be an expert on everything about a subject to be good at it...you only need to be an expert in those things that matter for how good you are. | 36 | 19 |
Is there a limited number of protons, neutrons and electrons or they are created all the time? | If they are limited, can they be destroyed? | Creating a proton, neutron, or electron, requires creating the corresponding antiparticle at the same time. Destroying them requires annihilation with an existing antiparticle.
It is easier to create electrons and positrons, because they are much less massive than protons and neutrons, so much less energy (mc^(2)) is required. It is a common astrophysical process. | 11 | 45 |
(Why) does philosophy tend to focus on key thinkers moreso than topics/concepts, compared to other fields? | This might just be my limited experience, but I've noticed both in this sub and in some of my conversations with others who have dabbled in philosophy that this is a field that puts a relatively heavy emphasis on specific thinkers.
Example 1: I remember talking to a friend (a dabbler in philosophy) about some things I'm curious about, and said I was interested in metaethics and the mind-body problem and identity. She gave me a weird look and said people should start by reading Plato (sidenote: wouldn't Hume or Parfit be a better pick here?). Nobody would say "If you're curious about physics, start by reading Newton" (even though the first thing you learn in physics is usually Newtonian mechanics). They'll just say "start by learning about classical mechanics."
Example 2: For the field I actually studied in undergrad, I can remember the names of maybe 4 or 5 people and their key contributions, whereas even my very limited dabbling in philosophy has brought more than a dozen thinkers to my attention.
Am I imagining this, and if I'm not, why is this? | Philosophers care about precise details of arguments. For instance, there are many skeptics who think we can’t know anything. But they have different precise reasons - Hume worries about induction, Zhuangzi worries about dreams, Descartes worries about the possibility of an evil demon deceiving us, Pyrrho worries about the impossibility of giving a reason for every reason. Even when people say they accept a view for the “same reason”, there are often subtle differences in the details of the argument. Thus, we often recommend people see the actual details of the precise argument, and thus focus on the specific thinker. | 157 | 177 |
Ontological arguments for god | I am new to philosophy (PhD scientist with 0 philosophy training). I recently started reading Yujin Nagasawa's The Existence of God. My question is do many philosophers find the ontological arguments for god convincing? Nagasawa shows his bias (he clearly believes they are convincing) but they fall flat for me for intangible reasons - I guess any a priori argument just feels flimsy to me, like clever wordplay without much substance. But I don't know what is considered good philosophy as, again, it's a new world to me. | I am currently teaching a course on the ontological argument for the existence of God. *Yes*, there are philosophers who find it convincing. *No*, most philosophers (including most theistic philosophers) do not find it convincing.
I think it's a much more defensible argument than it is made out to be, but that is because it is not well understood. And this, of course, misleadingly implies that "it" is *one* argument, that it is intelligible to speak of "the" ontological argument and not a set of related but distinct arguments that are all associated under the common label.
>I guess any a priori argument just feels flimsy to me, like clever wordplay without much substance
I think this is very understandable given how the argument is presented in a post-Cartesian, and especially analytic (e.g. Plantinga) context, but that it is very removed from the historic context of the argument, which in its medieval context was tied to a Platonic-Augustinian metaphysics. The sense in which *that* argument is "a priori" is very different from that in which Plantinga's is. | 44 | 63 |
What exactly does a physicist mean when using the word Information? | I understand that the answer to this question is probably going to be fairly general, so allow me to provide some of the specific instances in which I have heard the term, in order to provide some context.
Information Theory
Is information destroyed when it moves beyond the event horizon of a black hole?
The quantum teleportation of information
Just to make this clear, I'm not looking for an explanation of those three greater concepts. They are there only to give those of you who are much more knowledgeable than I an easier time knowing what in the world I am actually asking.
Thanks in advance! | Information is just the ability to distinguish between two states. Consider an electron which has two possible spin states: spin up and spin down. It's possible to measure the spin of the electron. When you do, you will gain 1 bit of information. There are two possible spin orientations but we've reduced it down to 1. Great.
It turns out that information has some physical properties. Special relativity states the information cannot travel faster than light and the second law of thermodynamics states that we lose more information than we gain in every performed experiment.
Recently, it turns out that these concepts are critically important to studying computers (which are physical systems after all) and black holes.
The black hole information paradox is related to quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics, every system evolves (changes) in a reversible way (information preserving). This is called unitarity. However, it seems like the action of a black hole is fundamentally irreversible. However, people disagreed with this and proposed mechanisms for black holes to store and emit information to resolve the paradox. | 53 | 122 |
ELI5: How Do Doctors Estimate the Time a Terminal Patient Has Left | There is a large body of study including statistics about survival rates of other patients, separated into groups by things like age, general health, and severity of the illness. This is why you will hear things like "stage 4 cancer", the stage is a classification of how severe the cancer is. By looking at the statistics for the group their patient falls into the doctors can predict the chances of survival as well as how quickly they are likely to deteriorate if it is terminal. | 111 | 89 |
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Why did Asians evolve? [LI5] | From what I understand, human skin became lighter as they moved north out of Africa due to lower sunlight, in order to get more vitamin D. This would explain why there are whites and blacks, but why did Asians evolve? Are my initial premises about whites and blacks wrong? | Asians tend to live in coastal regions. China's interior is practically empty compared to the coasts. Fish provide a lot of vitamin D, so the skin doesn't need to get as pale. That's why, for example, Spaniards and Italians tend to be pretty swarthy. | 52 | 29 |
ELI5: Why can schools get rid of your constitutional rights? Such as freedom of speech or expression and how is this lawful? | I searched it and it was answer many times but I feel they weren't answers I was looking for. | Courts have specifically decided that there are times that your rights can be infringed on for the greater benefit. Schools restricting certain rights to benefit the education of the public is one of those times.
There are lots of examples of these, and frankly, none of them are particularly interesting, as for the most part they are common sense stuff and "don't be a moron, moron" type activities, or "don't ruin this for everyone else, asshole" stuff. | 79 | 75 |
ELI5: Why is there a difference in voltage between America and pretty much the rest of the world (240V vs 120V I believe) and what are the impacts of this in terms of energy transport/conservation and usage. | ⚡⚡⚡ Wow, that's a lot of electric knowledge being passed around here. I'm buzzed! ⚡⚡⚡
ITT: Mostly discussions about water kettles.
For some really cool maps, click this link. ~~[Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rvezy/eli5_why_is_there_a_difference_in_voltage_between/cwrs9ns)~~
**Please don't click the [Link](http://powerit.utk.edu/worldmap/) anymore, I'm afraid we are reddit-hugging the world's power grid to death. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)** | Every country developed their basic infrastructures independently with different scientists and during an era that communication between countries took days at best, weeks on average, and sometimes months if conditions were bad. As time progressed infrastructures and communications were improved and those countries that lived next to each other often started to share standards and even interconnect their infrastructures. The US being mostly geographically isolated kept its own standard. Our neighbors match our standards. | 2,347 | 4,151 |
ELI5: Why are countries along the equator mostly low-income countries while countries in colder parts of the world are mostly high income? | Is there a direct correlation between temperature and wealth? | Jated Diamond argues in his book *Guns, Germs and Steel* that Europeans and Asians got an enormous head start because of geography:
* some plants lend themselves to agriculture by producing energy-dense seeds which are easily harvested and which have a long shelf life after drying
* the Mediterranean climate was ideal for growing these plants
* Europe/Asia has a long east/west strip which allowed agriculture to propagate
* the Americas have regions with the same climate, but the dominant axis is north/south so those areas are separated and constrained; agriculture wasn't able to propagate the same way
* the Indigenous Australians could never have invented agriculture because the domesticatable plants simply weren't present, likewise with many other places
* agriculture meant that an individual could generate more food than they required, which enabled specialisation and a division of labour, which in turn enabled innovation
* certain types of animals lend themselves to domestication (especially important is a herding instinct); almost all these animals were present in Europe/Asia, and absent elsewhere
* domesticated livestock added to the food surplus, and added mobility
* living at close quarters with the domesticated livestock led to disease transmission, and after some time a "herd immunity" within the human population; the indigenous peoples who were later invaded had not acquired such immunity and were heavily impacted by diseases brought by colonists/conquerors
On top of that, the alphabet was invented in the Mediterranean region whixh enabled transmission of knowledge, which enabled growth of knowledge, which imparted military abd commercial advantage
With these advantages, the rest of the world didn't have a chance. At least, not for the first 10,000 years. But oil became incredibly important a bit over a century ago, and the existing empires were absolutely smashed by WWI. We're at the beginning of a new chapter. A Chinese diplomat was asked what he thought of the French Revolution and he replied, "It's too early to tell". That's probably pretty true. | 33 | 16 |
ELI5: Why do dogs lick you when they're excited? | Here's a simple way to understand much of dog behavior:
Humans have evolved to walk on only two of their limbs, which frees up the other two for interacting with the world. We examine, explore, greet, embrace, and do just about everything with our hands and arms. So we move through the world on two limbs, and interact with the world with the other two.
Dogs need all four limbs for movement, which means they need something else for the behaviors we perform with our hands. So unlike us, they move through the world on all four limbs, and interact with the world using their mouth.
When we're excited to see someone, we usually shake their hand or give them a hug, performing some manner of physical interaction. Dogs can't do that, since their forelimbs are busy holding them up. So they lick you instead. | 152 | 117 |
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ELI5: Why is it harder and harder to get a full night sleep the older you get? | The cumulative effect of a life-time of alcohol, stimulants, sedentary life-style, overeating, rumination, rejection, heart break, loss, regret, humilation, meaninglessness, sadness, rage and the creeping fear of impending death. | 56 | 45 |
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ELI5: Out of Africa - How does that explain the diverse cultures, body types, eyes, and skin colors present today? | Large amounts of melanin help prevent UV damage to the skin. Wearing more clothes and/or moving to colder/darker areas means loss of melanin makes little difference. Skin gets lighter.
People in colder areas have higher body fat content and fattier diets, in order to insulate themselves against the cold.
Babies lose the lactase protein as they grow older, causing them to become lactose intolerant. People who domesticated cattle were more likely to retain the lactase gene into adulthood.
In all of these situations, you have to take into account that the people that are better attuned to the environment are more likely to have children that survive into adulthood and make up the next generation.
Other factors play a part as well. A few survivors of a plague may repopulate, causing the entire population to overwhelmingly share from a smaller pool of different genes. Viking raids may in part explain why Scandinavian countries have a high percentage of blond(e)s.
That's only talking about features we can observe. As far as actual genetic comparisons, 2/3 of human history has been spent in Africa. There are groups in Africa that are genetically closer to everyone outside Africa than they are to other groups on the continent. | 24 | 28 |
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ELI5: What exactly is the difference between a nation, a country, and a state? | They all refer to land and people under some form of administration, usually with centralized control, that operates largely independently of other lands and peoples. State often either refers to the operations of a nation or a constituent territory of that nation, though, and does not often refer to a wholly independent region. Country and nation refer to regions that act independently of one another. Country is often used to describe the geopolitical region - that is, the borders. Nation is often used interchangeably, but refers more to the sociopolitical region - that is, the people.
The question of what lands *are* independent entities is hard to define, since there is no one organization responsible for them all, though the United Nations tries to fill that role. That's why the UN recognizes a different number of countries than the USA does. Roughly speaking, there are about 200 countries. | 21 | 24 |
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[Star Wars] how would planets without flora like Tatooine and Hoth have breathable air? | Admittedly I don't know much about this sort of thing but I thought that without plant life, there wouldn't be enough oxygen to support animals. | Most oxygen production comes from single celled organisms like algae. There is probably a desert algae that uses a brown pigment to collect sunlight. If moisture vaporators are economical, no doubt single celled organisms have figured out how to extract the required water from the air, or maybe even break down sand to extract the required components. | 112 | 85 |
ELI5 why it matters in which currency crude oil is traded. | I mean, we give oil a certain value that can be easily expressed in each local currency. So why should it matter if we trade it in, say South Korean Won? | When you sell a product internationally, you want to use a currency that is easy to exchange, and that will hold its value well. That means dollars, euros, yen, pounds, and maybe Swiss francs.
If you are Venezuela and just sold a billion dollars with of oil and took won for it, you are going to have a problem. No one in Venezuela wants won, and even if you showed up in Seoul money in hand, exchanging that much won at once is going to shift the market and give you a bad rate.
With the other currencies, there are plenty of people locally who want them, and the economies are large enough to absorb as much as you want to exchange. And since they are so widely accepted, you may not have to exchange them at all, and just use them to buy something else. | 12 | 45 |
CMV: Golf courses are incredibly wasteful and inefficient considering the amount of resources required for upkeep | In the United States, 470 billion gallons of water is used annually to keep courses green. Grass in general can be very difficult upkeep, on the grass on courses especially so. I imagine more than any other Sport since the quality of the grass really determines the quality of the game
The average golf course is 150 acres, with roughly 2 million acres. This is all land that is cultivated with the aforementioned watering plus the mowing and fertilizing. All of that land could be used for other resources that are more efficient (yes that can be said about any sport as it’s not technically a necessity, but still that is so much land dedicated to relatively few people). Even if that were turf instead of grass that is still in an enormous area dedicated to the single sport.
I do think most sporting events are wasteful as far as their usage of space, so referencing that other sports waste resources too isn’t the point, unless any other sport is more wasteful, especially considering per person.
I’m not certain if this view is particularly controversial, or if people does argue against it for the sake of arguing. But I am curious of people genuinely disagree with this | Some things to consider...
...the vast majority of the acreage of most courses is not cultivated and often not watered
...the water usually is from ponds on the course which capture rainwater and runoff eliminating the treatment
...if the land wasn’t a golf course what would it be...a housing development? A park? A factory?
...if the golfers weren’t golfing, what would they be doing...boating? Going on car trips? Sleeping?
We need to not micro-analyze each and every human activity through a particular prism. | 156 | 502 |
ELI5: Limited Slip Differential | How would one describe this and the advantages it brings? | A differential is used to allow the wheels on a car to turn at different speeds. A basic differential goes from no difference (both wheels moving at the same speed) to maximum difference (wheels spinning in opposite directions).
The problem with a basic differential is that it requires both wheels to have traction. If one slips, then all the power from the drive train will go to that wheel. If you jack a car with a differential up on one side, and then run the engine, then the lifted wheel will spin in the air, while the car stays in place. This is bad in muddy or snowy environments where it's easy to lose traction on one wheel and get stuck.
A limited slip differential limits the difference between in speed between the wheels. This allows the wheels to move at different speeds as required by the turning radius of the car, but does not allow one wheel to spin freely while the other wheel stays still if one wheel loses traction. | 10 | 24 |
ELI5: why does the skin used on grafts for burns look different to normal skin and will technology be able to improve this? | Usually the skin used for skin grafts has been meshed---cut into a sort of honeycomb pattern using a machine. This allows a smaller skin graft to cover a large area of skin, and curve to fit the shape of the body. The problem is, that the lines of the mesh will show up in the healed skin.
There are two ways around this. One is not to do the meshing. The problem with this, is that more skin is needed for the graft, leading to more scaring and pain at the donor site. The other is to use a different type of graft: new technology is allowing skin to be "grown" in the lab, using the patient's skin cells. This takes more time, as the cells need to be taken to a lab and grown up, so it's not helpful for emergency surgeries, but is used in other cases. | 3,064 | 6,036 |
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ELIF: I’m watching a TV show and romans are wearing white robes. How did the Greeks and Romans keep clothes white? | Aged urine and sulfur fumes were the laundry and bleaching methods of the Romans according to the wiki.
"Basic laundering and fulling techniques were simple, and labour-intensive. Garments were placed in large tubs containing aged urine, then well trodden by bare-footed workers. They were well-rinsed, manually or mechanically wrung, and spread over wicker frames to dry. Whites could be further brightened by bleaching with sulphur fumes. Some colours could be restored to brightness by "polishing" or "refinishing" with Cimolian earth. Others were less colour-fast, and would have required separate laundering. In the best-equipped establishments, garments were further smoothed under pressure, using screw-presses. Laundering and fulling were punishingly harsh to fabrics, but purity and cleanliness of clothing was in itself a mark of status." | 21 | 21 |
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ELI5: Why is it a reaction to "shake off" our hands after we slam or jam our fingers? | One: Distraction - adding stimuli and movement helps to reduce the feeling of pain.
Two: Protection - the cause of the pain isn't exactly understood by your brain, so it starts an immediate reaction to deal with it. Some painful stimuli (hot liquids, acids, biting insects) can be flung away.
Three: Adrenaline - pain stimulates adrenaline, which gets your body wanting to move.
Four: Blood flow - Injuries can cause blood to pool, shaking your hands will help with blood flow and stop some of the pooling which can cause secondary damage. | 354 | 251 |
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ELI5: Why do U.S. judges repeatedly have to declare "Same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional" | Why do U.S. judges repeatedly have to declare "Same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional"? Do the different states expect their state to get a different result than other states on this? | They are federal district judges, and they have certain areas that their decisions are enforced over, those are their "jurisdictions".
If a federal judge in one district rules one way that doesn't mean a federal judge in another district can't rule differently.
> Do the different states expect their state to get a different result than other states on this?
Well the appeals court judge that covers ohio ruled in favor of the state bans, so yeah.
The fact that there are conflicting rulings at the district court level is the reason the supreme court is going to make a final decision on the issue this summer. | 36 | 52 |
CMV:In a clinical setting only Medical Doctors should be called Doctor. | I am a Chiropractic student as of moment and I firmly believe that only Medical Doctors should hold the title of doctor to reduce confusion to as what the practitioner can treat.
This extends to anyone with a doctorate in the medical profession though. A doctor of physical therapy, anyone with a doctorate in nursing or pharmacy or anything else for that matter. If you haven't gone to medical school and graduated with a M.D. you shouldn't be referred to as doctor in a clinical setting.
This reduces confusion to as what everyone does and firmly implants in the patients mind what your specialty is and your scope of practice instead of ambiguously being called doctor.
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | I don't know how it would really reduce confusion over what the practitioner can treat. Sure, you'd get chiropractors, dentists, podiatrists, etc. out of the mix, but it still wouldn't help you differentiate between a psychiatrist and a vascular surgeon. MD encompasses an enormous amount of vastly different specializations, and it's not like the title "doctor" is ever going to be a very specific label. Therefore, you might as well show due respect to anyone who has put in the work to obtain a doctorate in any field, whether its an MD or not. | 12 | 19 |
Chemically speaking, why can't an element like Silicon be used as a replacement for Carbon? | When it comes to understanding how molecules bond together, one must look at the outer electron shell.
In this case, Carbon has its 4 electrons in the 2nd energy level, while Silicon has its 4 electrons in the 3rd energy level. This means that the bonds that silicon forms are going to be quite weaker than the ones carbon can form. In fact, a Si-Si bond is nearly 1/2 the strength of a C-C bond. This makes it far easier for long chains of carbon atoms to string together, while in nature, it is exceedingly rare to find a string of more than 3 Si atoms chained together.
Also, Silicon dioxide (the corollary to carbon dioxide) bonds strongly to oxygen and is difficult to split, meaning it could not play a role in the photosynthesis we know today, and it is not gaseous except in high (2000 C) temperatures. It forms quartz and is not water-soluble the way CO2 is. | 25 | 19 |
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CMV: Liberals need to divest themselves from the assumption that men and women are innately psychologically the same. | To start with, there is a lot of research that suggests that men and women have biological dissimilarities in their psychologies (here is a great review of the issue by experts in the field: [https://heterodoxacademy.org/the-most-authoritative-review-paper-on-gender-differences/](https://heterodoxacademy.org/the-most-authoritative-review-paper-on-gender-differences/)) . I don't think many psychologists that study the matter would say that there are NO innate differences. The debate seems to be about how big those differences are, and how much they actually influence real world phenomena (like the gender disparity in STEM fields for example).
I here don't take any strong position on that debate. That is a scientific debate better left to the scientists. Here I am simply making the claim that liberals also SHOULD NOT take such a hard position on that debate.
It seems like many people on the left are absolutely committed to men and women having the same psychology.
This comes out very clearly when we try to explain why there isn't a 50/50 split in some areas of life. Women are under-represented in tech (for example). To many people, the simple fact of difference in representation, ***implies*** discrimination. But there is only an implication here if we assume that women and men are equally interested and qualified for those jobs (basically the assumption that men and women have the same psychology relevant to tech work).
I see it this way. Leftists want people to be treated fairly. And they see stereotypes about women as excuses to discriminate against them. The stereotype "Women are very emotional" can very often lead to not considering women for jobs where you can't let emotion get in your way. That's clearly a problem. But liberals have over-corrected. They try to say that in fact there are NO biological differences between men and women (that matter at least). And in fact, to even imply that men and women are naturally different, is seen as either (at best) dangerous, or (at worst) evil. They seem to think that to be able to treat each other fairly, we MUST believe men and women are essentially the same.
That is very dangerous. The left should not have a dubious scientific claim underpinning their morality. Because if the science comes out against this assumption, they have to either deny the science (which sucks), or their argument completely fails.
The other danger is that assuming the difference in biology between men and women DOES actually affect the real world (which certainly seems at least possible based on the research done), trying to force a 50/50 split in everything would require unjust over corrections.
And the thing is, it is perfectly consistent to both fight for equal treatment of men and women, while acknowledging that there may be differences in their psychology. It may be trickier practically, but it is quite consistent.
So, in numbered argument form:
Claim1:Men and women have essentially the same psychology, and that any differences that exist are either very small, or masked by environmental factors and thus don't really matter
1. Many liberals believe that (Claim1).
2. (Claim1) could very well turn out to be factually false. There is still some scientific debate.
3. Liberals don't need to believe (Claim1) to get what they want in terms of discrimination and fairness.
4. It hurts Liberals to have a dubious scientific claim as a foundation for their arguments
Therefore:Liberals shouldn't build their arguments on top of (Claim1)
EDIT:
Well, this has all been a bit frustrating . It seems like I have not been clear enough. The large majority of this discussion has completely missed the point.
As far as I can tell, these are the only people that really get what I'm saying: [https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/d7zwnr/cmv\_liberals\_need\_to\_divest\_themselves\_from\_the/f16hy1m?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/d7zwnr/cmv_liberals_need_to_divest_themselves_from_the/f16hy1m?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/d7zwnr/cmv\_liberals\_need\_to\_divest\_themselves\_from\_the/f179tri?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/d7zwnr/cmv_liberals_need_to_divest_themselves_from_the/f179tri?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)
Both of those comments don't really present any argument though. They just plainly claim that I am wrong.
this person:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/d7zwnr/cmv\_liberals\_need\_to\_divest\_themselves\_from\_the/f16953c?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/d7zwnr/cmv_liberals_need_to_divest_themselves_from_the/f16953c?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)
Might understand what I'm trying to say, but I can't tell, because they haven't said anything about it. They just say I have presented a "straw man" argument, without explaining why it's a straw man. "Go read academics and come back" is not really a great explanation in my mind. | > Women are under-represented in tech (for example). To many people, the simple fact of difference in representation, implies discrimination. But there is only an implication here if we assume that women and men are equally interested and qualified for those jobs (basically the assumption that men and women have the same psychology relevant to tech work).
Why is tech such an outlier here? Women have increasing participation rates in basically every other STEM field, but not tech. Women were increasing their participation in computing at essentially the same rate as other STEM fields right up until the mid-1980s, when they started abandoning the tech industry.
Why? If women are naturally disinclined to work in STEM, why is their participation rate in other STEM fields increasing, but their participation rate in tech is decreasing?
The most sensible, most likely explanation for this anomaly is some form of discrimination in the tech industry, either intentional or unintentional. Computer Science isn't uniquely disinteresting to women on a biological level compared to all the other STEM fields. | 26 | 19 |
If differences in human phenotypes such as skin colour, hair colour, etc. are due to clinal adaptation, what clines lead to the development of East-Asian slanted eyes? | Since there is good evidence to suggest we radiated from Africa, I presume that primitive humans did not have slanted eyes, but I guess a possibility is that primitive humans did in fact have slanted eyes, and the change to non-slanted eyes is actually an adaptation. In either case, why/how did this happen?
EDIT: Also, I'm running on the assumption that eye shape is a product of clinal adaptation, when it may very well not be. However, I would expect that it is based on the fact that we have many forms of slanted and non-slanted eyes as you move East-West, and this smooth variation is expected with clines. | The explantation for epicanthus is that Central Asian steppes, the area where proto-Mongoloids origated, were very dusty with common dust storms and the epicanthus helped them to protect their vision. But it's also possible that it was a random mutation and an example of the founder effect.
Because epicanthus doesn't occur only in Mongoloid-descended populations, but also in some tribes in Africa, like the Sudanese Dinkas and some Bushmen. But the Malagasy people on Madagascar have it from Mongoloids, since the first settlers there were Austronesians who originally came from Taiwan. | 33 | 52 |
If a laser is shot in space and it doesn't hit it's target, what happens to the laser? | I'm thinking of like Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars, all space movies/tv shows in which they go to battle and shoot lasers at the enemies. Sometimes they miss. Does the laser keep going until it hits something? For how long? | Lasers have a certain amount of divergence, which will cause the spot size of the targeted laser to increase over distance/time, leading to reduction of the power density at whatever is hit. A rough estimate is that most laser tech humanity currently has / could build, would have a functional maximum range of our own solar system.
Edit: This applies even in a perfect vacuum, with no dust or other particles. | 1,023 | 1,349 |
Is the human immune system basically the same as other mammals, or does it have any adaptations unique to us? | All metabolic organisms on earth share the common innate immune system. The exact compounds and mechanisms can vary a lot, such as antifungal peptides, antibiotics, membrane disrupting compounds, and DNA targeting enzymes. Many organisms either share these, or can reasonably be shown to have evolved their own variants from a common ancestor. It is believed this evolved in the first organism(s) and, therefore, all innate immunity derives from a single or small group of common ancestors.
All vertebrates have what's called an adaptive immune system. There are specialized cells that perform specialized immune functions that can adapt to specific pathogens, and even create long term templates for antibodies that can attack that pathogen at a future time. Many vertebrates likely share this through descent from a common ancestor, though, as another comment pointed out, some vertebrates generate unique types of small antibodies, but the underlying mechanisms of the immune system are still ultimately the same.
Those organisms also produce what can be thought of as conventional antibodies, and have specialized cells that derive from stem cell lines and perform the same basic functions as analogous immune cells in other vertebrates. It's pretty clear that these unique smaller antibodies are derived from the more conventional antibodies as they are made of exactly the same building blocks, but only use one type of building block, what's known as "heavy chains," where conventional antibodies are made of a combination of heavy and light chains. The main advantage of these smaller antibodies is they can fit into tighter pockets in target molecules.
Humans have a pretty run of the mill vertebrate immune system. Of course, all species have variation in the specifics of immune function, but overall there's not really anything unique about human immunity when compared to other vertebrates. In fact, because vertebrate immune systems are so similar, it's a common medical practice to use other vertebrates, typically mammals, to produce antibodies which are then harvested and used in treatments, though the most modern techniques attempt to produce antibodies using immortalized cell lines rather than relying on harvesting from animals. Antibodies are still commonly produced this way for biotech and research needs. That said, there are large variations in specific details even between individual humans because the immune system is so mind-bogglingly complex and relies on very specific "lock and key" mechanisms. Genetic variation plays a huge role here.
TLDR: Overall, the human immune system is very similar to that of other mammals and even to other vertebrates in general, but it's notable that there can be large variations even between humans, and some vertebrates produce unique types of antibodies derived from the more ubiquitous type of antibodies. | 1,413 | 3,973 |
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ELI5: Why don't trickle down economics work? | It just seems to work so well in theory, and family members swear it's the only thing that will help our current economy. Why is trickle down, or Reaganomics widely considered to be a non-working, economic fallacy?
| When wealthier people get more money, they don't necessarily have much incentive to spend more since they already have their needs met, especially, if there isn't increased demand and they can easily use it to buy products overseas or expand there. Cutting taxes and social safety-nets hasn't really worked historically.
If you subsidize less wealthy individuals, they are far more likely to spend, and spend locally. If they've been making due with a bad appliance or lack some new piece of technology and get an influx of cash, they'll go out and buy something. This increases demand, putting money into company pockets, and encouraging them to expand and hire more people since people will buy more products. | 326 | 259 |
I believe that The United States has no right to claim that it's the greatest country in the world. CMV | I believe that this countries very foundation was based on violating human rights (western expansion and manifest destiny) and we continue to do so to this very day. I believe there was small window during WW2 where we were all united and prosperous but since that time has passed we've begun degenerating as a country and I fear that Americans pigheadedness and constant 'murrica circlejerk is going to blind us to the very real condition of our country where wall street robs the little man blind and a tiny majority of the populous controls a vast majority of the wealth.
The average duration of unemployment in this country is at an all time high of 39 weeks, while 5.5 million Americans are unemployed and NOT receiving any benefits. Low income jobs account for 41% of all jobs in the US and a good majority of manufacturing jobs are being shipped away to foreign countries.
Our education system is abysmal, tuition for higher education is going no where but up, driving many students deep into debt that they fear might never get payed off, delaying the big life events such as marriage, children and owning a home. In primary education, our country is ranked 25th in Math performance, 21st in Science, and 15th overall.
This is among just a fraction of issues we face as Americans, to say that we're the greatest country on earth is arrogant and ignorant. CMV. | Depends on what you consider the term to mean. Hate to break it to you but the term great, when used to describe nations historically usually means who has the 1. Strongest economy, 2. The strongest military 3. The most influence amount other nations. In the end those three things are what really determine how great a civilization is and the US is far in the lead in all those categories. | 47 | 65 |
AITA for having a different coding "style" from our senior? | Our team: two junior (me and my mate), one senior engineer.
Project is a backend in java for a web application in a IT company of 20 people. We are based in a medium size city, so not a big tech place.
My mate loves clean code rules, he avoids creating long methods and instead breaks down the code in smaller methods with suggestive names. I became a fan because its easier to understand.
I like to use lambdas instead of passing an anonymous class as a parameter to a method.
Our senior hates our approach because, in his opinion, breaks code consistency.
We are designing new endpoints and usually the senior's handler only has a single method of 200+ lines. He also doesn't use lambdas.
We feel that we aren't breaking code consistency and that he is being to uptight and protective of his code but since we have little work experience, we aren't sure if we are reading the situation correctly.
Are we assholes for not wanting to comply with his rules?
Edit: to the people down voting - please also leave a comment, I'm eager to read your reasoning and learn from it. | When working on an existing project, it is customary to follow whatever style the project uses.
In some cases it's fine to change some things, especially when the language as evolved. In your case, writing smaller methods and using lambdas doesn't seem too bad, but the final decision is always in the hand of whoever manages the code-base. | 43 | 20 |
Does DNA change over time? | Does the human DNA genome change as a person ages? By this I mean could you test the DNA of a child and get an exact full profile match to the same person when they have reached old age? | Every cell division can result in random mutations. Also DNA of single cells can mutate due to radiation and other events. So you would not get a 100% match in a DNA test, wenn you sequence a single cell. Certain cell types also change their DNA permanently (B and T lymphocytes to be able to produce the same antibodies permanently). However, when you sequence a sample of a lot of cells these mutations won't be visible in the results because it would be just noise. So overall, the result should be close to 100% but there will always be sequencing errors as well.. And there are telomers sequences, which get shorter every cell division. So these will be different as well.
On the other hand when you look at tumor/cancer the DNA can be very different. But this is a topic for itself.
I hope this helped! | 216 | 271 |
ELI5: Why are toilet seats in public restrooms different than the ones in your house? | The International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials' Uniform Plumbing Code, section 409.2.2, requires that "all water closet seats, except those within dwelling units or for private use, shall be of the open front type". There is an exception for toilets with an automatic toilet-seat cover dispenser. The code has no legal force, but because it is followed by many public authorities, many public toilets feature open front toilet seats (also called "split seats").[4]
The purpose for this seat design is to allow women to wipe the perineal area after using the toilet without contacting the seat. It also omits an area of the seat that could be contaminated with urine, and avoids contact between the seat and the user's genitals.[4] | 15 | 19 |
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ELI5: how does canning/preserving stop a substance from “aging?” | Is it mostly a matter of just depriving the contents of oxygen? Why does that work? | What destroys food is mainly microbes like bacteria
The goal of food preservation is to make that food as unpalatable to bacteria as possible.
Storing cooked food in vinegar (pickling) for example makes an environment that microbes can't survive in.
Sealed cans prevent bacteria from getting in, and the food inside is cooked and pasteurized to kill off any microbes inside.
Flour, rice, pasta, etc uses another technique which is drying. The water content of that food is so low that microbes can't survive. | 86 | 30 |
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