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daughart

405 karma · joined June 7, 2013

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daughart··on Names that decreased in popularity from 2020 to 2021
All seems sensical to me.
daughart··on Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch
The RM UP-01 is thinner. "This new ultra-thin timepiece is a mere 1.75mm in thickness beating out Bulgari by a walloping 0.05mm."

Source: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/richard-mille-sets-a-new-r...

daughart··on SARS-CoV-2 contains part of a patented genetic sequence
Federal patent law defines patent infringement as “mak[ing], us[ing], offer[ing] to sell, or sell[ing]” a patented invention. Not an attorney, but seems like it would be quite a stretch to argue that becoming infected with a virus would fall under one of those categories.
daughart··on Wokeademia (2020)
Ideology has been and will always be a guiding force in science. Western genetics was heavily influenced by capitalism. Many concepts in Soviet genetics ended up being closer to correct than competing Western theories, although it took a while for this to be appreciated (e.g., epigenetics).

Philosophers of science Collins and Pinch have an excellent entry-level book on this called "The Golem" that I would strongly recommend to anyone interested. Very accessible and not overly philosophical/jargon-y.

daughart··on Joe Rogan, confined to Spotify, is losing influence
Just like Howard Stern (note, SiriusXM also owns Spotify). They traded a broader audience and greater influence for stability and gigantic paychecks. E.g., in Howard's case, even though his personal influence shrunk, his importance to Sirius/Spotify grew as a fraction of the subscriber base is dedicated to one talent and would otherwise unsubscribe. Howard's deal has been renewed a number of times now. I can't blame anyone involved.
daughart··on CNN Fires Three Employees for Coming into the Office Unvaccinated
Your first two citations merely suggest there would be limited benefits to previously infected getting the jab. Other research disagrees with this.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01609-4

daughart··on CNN Fires Three Employees for Coming into the Office Unvaccinated
You know that all US parents are published, after approximately 1 year, in publicly searchable databases, right? I’m sure NIAID had better things to do… like fighting a pandemic.

The real question is why you are so afraid of the vaccine, so as to promote FUD? Or is it just displaced fear from a virus demonstrating that you’re not quite as in charge of your life as you thought?

daughart··on CNN Fires Three Employees for Coming into the Office Unvaccinated
Why take the time to argue a point that's easily disproven?

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/12/jerome-cor...

Fauci isn't an inventor or owner of any COVID vaccine patents.

Even if Fauci was an inventor on them, his patents would be owned by the Federal Government. By Federal Law, inventors of government patents are entitled to a maximum royalty of $150k/year.

daughart··on CNN Fires Three Employees for Coming into the Office Unvaccinated
Why in the hell would big Pharma pay any media to promote the vaccines? Most of the revenue is already booked from state actors, and they're literally selling the cure to a global pandemic. They don't need to juice demand - such a ploy could only hurt them. Frankly, continuation of the pandemic via poor adoption of the vaccine would increase future business in the form of boosters, etc.
daughart··on Ivermectin (Still) Lacks Scientific Support as a Covid-19 Drug
The thing I don't understand is some people's implied or sometimes explicitly expressed belief that medical researchers are suppressing promising COVID treatments for some reason.

Clinical trial research is perhaps the most complex and challenging type of research to get right. It's necessary to be critical of clinical research and meta-analyses, so pointing out serious research flaws doesn't mean someone is rooting against a safe, effective, cheap COVID treatment. The VAST majority of candidate drugs don't work well even for the intended indication, let alone have serendipitous effect in a different disease.

daughart··on Lab Cultures: An Interview with an Anonymous Biologist (2019)
Unless I missed where the article revealed the scientist's gender, the interviewee may not be male. I agree it was an enjoyable read, though!
daughart··on The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins
And the villagers were the ones to blame in "the boy who cried wolf".
daughart··on [dead]
This is a debatable point. Mullis definitely patented PCR, but there's a legitimate argument Har Gobind Khorana (another Nobel winner, for separate contributions to biology) actually invented PCR almost two decades prior. According to the oral history of the Khorana lab, the PCR method was used routinely going back to 1970, but they didn't consider it important enough to publish separately as a method. However, they did describe the method clearly in a 1971 publication.

“The principles for extensive synthesis of the duplexed tRNA genes which emerge from the present work are the following. The DNA duplex would be denatured to form single strands. This denaturation step would be carried out in the presence of a sufficiently large excess of the two appropriate primers. Upon cooling, one would hope to obtain two structures, each containing the full length of the template strand appropriately complexed with the primer. DNA polymerase will be added to complete the process of repair replication. Two molecules of the original duplex should result. The whole cycle could be repeated, there being added every time a fresh dose of the enzyme.” - Kleppe, K., E. Ohtsuka, R. Kleppe, I. Molineux, and H. G. Khorana. "Studies on polynucleotides: XCVI. Repair replication of short synthetic DNA's as catalyzed by DNA polymerases." Journal of molecular biology 56, no. 2 (1971): 341-361.

The use of thermostable polymerase (Taq) was a separate innovation, which Mullis also didn't invent.

Relevant quote from Henry Erlich, who led the Cetus PCR group:

“On the one hand I was delighted to see that PCR as a technology was recognized by the Nobel Committee, but I was frustrated that awarding the prize to Mullis alone certified an account which Kary had created which was not true.

Mullis had a great idea, which he followed up with years of misrepresentation and self-promotion. Rewriting history was more productive than writing papers. He never really got it to work. It would have been appropriate to include others on the award.”

daughart··on Countries Using Hydroxychloroquine Have Lower Covid-19 Fatality Rates
No citation for the illustration of the mechanism of action, maybe JAMA or NEJM?
daughart··on When evolution's path leads to a dead end
What makes you think sexual selection led to increased intelligence in humans? In the grand scheme of things, I'm not sure humans are even that sexually dimorphic TBH, I believe the size dimorphism is actually pretty small compared to other mammals.
daughart··on Cells Talk and Help One Another via Tiny Tube Networks
Maybe something you're missing is the concept of "evolvability". You can see the book "Resolving Darwin's Dilemma" (review here: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/56/9/772/263015). An important concept in the evolution of novelty (creating new, advanced functions out of "random" mutations) is that all the living systems we observe today are highly evolvable. Evolvability is an emergent property of some evolving systems, and it enables surprising leaps in functionality.
daughart··on New York Times Editorial Board Thinks Uber Is Too Popular, Demands Price Floors
The article assumes Uber can go on offering cheaper rides forever, but every piece of serious analysis I've read comes to the conclusion that Uber must eventually raise its prices to sustain its business. Nothing in the NYT article attacks dynamic pricing, to the contrary it reads to me as endorsing the idea of dynamic pricing. The whole blog post is flimsy.
daughart··on iPhone X
$40 Amazon Fire tablet.
daughart··on Geneticists pan paper that claims to predict a person's face from their DNA
Anonymous participants in genome research have been re-identified in the past [0]. In one of these examples, people were re-identified merely using zip code, date of birth and gender. Everyone should assume that they can be identified once they have revealed even a few personal datapoints. The genome contains millions of datapoints.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/04/25/harvard-p...

daughart··on Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O
Especially given the reporting about him offending his classmates at Harvard.
daughart··on The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science
Your position is scientifically illiterate but I suppose it's worth pointing out why: It would require basically one gene to control these complex behavioral traits, which is implausible. Moreover, such a strong, population-specific, selective force on the human genome does not exist, which we know from population genomics studies. Therefore, what you are arguing here is factually wrong.
daughart··on The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science
I insinuated no such thing. Bluster is an appropriate username for you.
daughart··on The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science
Why could it plausibly explain the differences? Seems like a huge leap to me. Basically there is some evidence that men and women are different, on average, to some extent, at the neuropsychological level. There is no evidence linking sex-related neurological traits to being good at or enjoying writing software.

On the other hand, there is evidence that cultural biases specifically discourage women from entering, and push women out of, STEM careers.

daughart··on The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science
I think it's perfectly reasonable to fire someone for expressing personal opinions counter to company policies. How is this not a classic example of culture fit?
daughart··on The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science
Both of those statements, even if true, say absolutely nothing about the relative abilities of men and women to write software.
daughart··on The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science
The fact that you equate a few studies with "clinical fact" shows you do not understand how science works.

http://retractionwatch.com

daughart··on The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science
It would truly be strange if genetic divergence over approximately 100,000 years (between these populations) ended up affecting a behavioral trait that has only been important for about 100 years in one of these populations. Well, it might not be strange if humans had the same generation time as insects. But for a species with generation time of 20 years, this is a very unlikely hypothesis IMO.
daughart··on The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science
You should read a little about the history and sociology of science.
daughart··on The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science
As said elsewhere in this thread:

Anyone who wants to use "science" in this way needs to read "The Golem" by prominent sociologists of science Collins and Pinch. It's a short, enjoyable read. One of the things you'll learn is that science can only ask the questions humans want to ask, and science often says exactly what people want it to say.

https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Should-About-Science-Classics/d...; online link: http://cstpr.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/collins_the_gol...

daughart··on The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science
Anyone who wants to use "science" in this way needs to read "The Golem" by prominent sociologists of science Collins and Pinch. It's a short, enjoyable read. One of the things you'll learn is that science can only ask the questions humans want to ask, and science often says exactly what people want it to say.

https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Should-About-Science-Classics/d...; online link: http://cstpr.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/collins_the_gol...

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