meta user
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| bio | website | |
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| location | ||
| age | ||
| visits | member for | 2 years, 2 months |
| seen | Feb 2 at 0:02 | |
| stats | profile views | 35 |
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Jan 9 |
comment |
Is there a link between mercury poisoning and attention deficits in children? Good finds. I would expect any confirming papers to be published several years before that - assuming her biography is chronological, 2002 and earlier. |
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Jan 8 |
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Is there a link between mercury poisoning and attention deficits in children? Not really. Mercury is the proposed (and debunked) mechanism by which vaccines were said to cause autism. But mercury is actually a poison, and it is actually found in unhealthy concentrations in seafood. Debunking "vaccination causes autism" means you should get vaccinated. Debunking "mercury-heavy fish causes ADHD-I" doesn't mean you should start eating mercury-heavy fish. |
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Jan 8 |
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Is homosexuality innate? -1 because the question isn't disputing that non-human animals have preferences; these preferences can be genetic or environmental or incidental; they can be strong or mild; they can be reinforced or discouraged though various conditioning methods with various long- and short-term consequences. The question is which kind of preference is homosexuality?, not do animals have varied sexual preferences? |
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Jan 8 |
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Is homosexuality innate? -1 because the question isn't disputing that non-human animals have preferences; these preferences can be genetic or environmental or incidental; they can be strong or mild; they can be reinforced or discouraged though various conditioning methods with various long- and short-term consequences. The question is which kind of preference is homosexuality?, not do animals have varied sexual preferences? |
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Jan 8 |
asked | Is there a link between mercury poisoning and attention deficits in children? |
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Dec 13 |
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Are fat people happier? Being happy is not the opposite of being clinically depressed. |
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Dec 8 |
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Can the current trends in 'mommy social culture' be tied to an increase in alcohol abuse? Alcohol abuse is any continued use of alcohol despite negative consequences; the quantity does not matter. If one glass of wine is enough to give you a hangover, and you feel the psychological need to drink a glass of wine a day, then that's alcohol abuse. The term for imbibing massive quantities of alcohol is binge drinking, and that's not even alcohol abuse, if it happens in isolation. (Medical alcoholism is something else entirely as well.) |
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Dec 8 |
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Can the current trends in 'mommy social culture' be tied to an increase in alcohol abuse? Are you looking for an increase in alcohol abuse in mothers over time (i.e. more mothers relative to the general population are alcoholics now than in 1960), or for alcohol abuse correlating with becoming a mother (i.e. alcoholism jumps X% within a year of having a child)? |
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Dec 5 |
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Do 50% of self reported homosexual teens no longer self report as homosexual by their twenties? I too would like the name of the expert, but I think the claim is clear enough (except maybe for "sometime in their twenties"). People who self-reported one thing self-report another, later. |
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Nov 28 |
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Can “hypno programming” force someone to kill someone else? @Christian: With my skeptic's hat on I am a strict functionalist, and the difference between igniting a strong desire and forcing someone is a difference of (relatively small) degree. I am not interested in whether it was part of "unconscious" vs. "conscious awareness" - either one can implant such behavioral tendencies, or one cannot. The precise mental state of the victim doesn't figure into my question. |
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Nov 27 |
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Can “hypno programming” force someone to kill someone else? All you can conclude from that is that they are bad at hypnosis. |
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Nov 27 |
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Can “hypno programming” force someone to kill someone else? I don't see how you'd debunk this without effort far outside the modus operandi on Mythbusters. |
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Nov 27 |
awarded | Citizen Patrol |
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Nov 27 |
revised |
Can “hypno programming” force someone to kill someone else? deleted 3 characters in body |
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Nov 27 |
asked | Can “hypno programming” force someone to kill someone else? |
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Nov 25 |
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Is the “dancing squid” odori-don dead? Whether or not the brain is there is somewhat irrelevant to determining whether it's dead. Organisms as complex as starfish do not have brains but are still alive. On the other hand, I suspect most animals keep their brains more or less attached long after death. And even for organisms that normally have brains, most of it can be removed while the remainder of the biological systems continue working normally, a state most people would identify as "alive." |
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Nov 11 |
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Did Steve Jobs fall prey to alternative medicine? @matt_black: You can be a "naive or credulous prisoner of some alternative medical belief" even if the belief originates in yourself. |
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Nov 6 |
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Is it unsafe to swim during a lightning storm? I'm not buying #2. The damage would be a wider area when it strikes water because water conducts more easily than dirt, but it seems to me lightning should be striking water proportionately less than non-water if anything, because water is the lowest possible point. |
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Nov 4 |
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Is it illegal in the U.S. for legal professionals to answer legal questions on public Internet forums? There might be some confusion with the prohibition that exists on people who are not legal professionals (have not passed the bar, usually) giving legal advice, which is genuinely illegal in some US jurisdictions. It is considered practicing law without a license; additionally you do not have attorney-client privilege, and may end up becoming an accomplice or obstructor if a crime has been committed. "Legal advice" is not all advice about laws, but it's broader than most people think. |
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Oct 31 |
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Is vinegar & baking soda an effective agent for disinfecting bacteria and mold? You've posted at least two things I'd call reliable sources (UoF's report, and Good Housekeeping's report) saying it does work. Major cleaning products (e.g. Windex) have vinegar-based product lines. What further evidence will convince you? |
