Last week I took my son to the Shedd aquarium. It was part of his weeklong, 21st birthday celebration. We both love the aquarium. I tend to be one of those annoying people who slow down the natural flow of visitors streaming by the exhibits because I stop to read all of the educational signage. Sorry about that.
Sep 29, 2022·edited Sep 29, 2022Liked by Frederick R Prete
Thank you for saying this! I find it even more frustrating when someone twists the truth in order to make a point I agree with because it takes away from credibility in a major way. For example, .yesterday I read this article talking about transgender surgeries.
The author quite rightly talks about the horrors of such surgeries. At some point he says "Device loss at 9 months was 21% overall."
And then the he makes a statement :
"If the device “loss” was 20% at nine months, that appears to imply that the failure rate within five years is 100%!"
Um... No, if the event rate is 20% a year you will not end up with 100% in 5 years. It's just a mathematically incorrect conclusion which surprised me coming from an experienced researcher.
Such statement can make an observant reader suspicious of everything else in the paper , which is a shame because gender surgeries are awful and need to stop.
Really enjoying your posts! Please don't mistake my comments for negativity.
Are you also doing a little cultural gaslighting when you attach Shark's Fin Soup to "hipsters" instead of its actual origin? A good percentage of hipsters are vegetarian or vegan, so it's an unlikely menu item. I live in a heavily hipster AND Asian region, and everyone knows that this is squarely (triangularly?) a Chinese dish. Even your link makes clear that it's Chinese in origin and in reality. Are you avoiding political incorrectness; or you're just not a "foodie"?
I loved the truncated conversation with the huffy feminist neurobiologist. (I'm ex-left and itinerant Second Wave feminist.)
Loved the essay, the ending is especially exquisite. But I have to guess you know this: There are some good reasons to believe sharks at least sometimes mistake humans on surfboards for seals.
Bravo!!!
"But sharks aren’t really nice and you shouldn’t kill them for soup.
Male and female brains aren’t biologically identical, and you shouldn’t be a domineering chauvinist."
Exactly - it should be easy to understand. It is as if Hume's old instruction that one should distinguish between 'is' and 'ought' is being forgotten.
Science cannot bear to give up that distinction - we are not born into the Garden of Eden - we live on Earth.
I find it sad and serious that in recent years also science has taken on a role as moral educators of the people.
Thank you for saying this! I find it even more frustrating when someone twists the truth in order to make a point I agree with because it takes away from credibility in a major way. For example, .yesterday I read this article talking about transgender surgeries.
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/transgender-surgery-common-sense
The author quite rightly talks about the horrors of such surgeries. At some point he says "Device loss at 9 months was 21% overall."
And then the he makes a statement :
"If the device “loss” was 20% at nine months, that appears to imply that the failure rate within five years is 100%!"
Um... No, if the event rate is 20% a year you will not end up with 100% in 5 years. It's just a mathematically incorrect conclusion which surprised me coming from an experienced researcher.
Such statement can make an observant reader suspicious of everything else in the paper , which is a shame because gender surgeries are awful and need to stop.
Really enjoying your posts! Please don't mistake my comments for negativity.
Are you also doing a little cultural gaslighting when you attach Shark's Fin Soup to "hipsters" instead of its actual origin? A good percentage of hipsters are vegetarian or vegan, so it's an unlikely menu item. I live in a heavily hipster AND Asian region, and everyone knows that this is squarely (triangularly?) a Chinese dish. Even your link makes clear that it's Chinese in origin and in reality. Are you avoiding political incorrectness; or you're just not a "foodie"?
I loved the truncated conversation with the huffy feminist neurobiologist. (I'm ex-left and itinerant Second Wave feminist.)
Loved the essay, the ending is especially exquisite. But I have to guess you know this: There are some good reasons to believe sharks at least sometimes mistake humans on surfboards for seals.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/doi/10.1098/rsif.2021.0533.
This doesn't invalidate the great points in your essay, but the aquarium's statement about "may mistake..." doesn't seem completely wrong either.