The worst part is that someone somewhere is going to use this false data to push their agenda
What the fuck, no way this can be real.
If this is real then I’m gonna take a guess and say the person who made it isn’t in a STEM field either. Because no one with a shred of education in science or math would think this is acceptable.
Oh honey. Let me explain to you a little thing called set point. The set point is the theory that our bodies weight is predetermined at birth by outside factors. Such as our genetics and environment. When your body becomes accustom to a certain weight it will do everything in it’s power to stay at that weight. Like changing your hormone levels to increase appetite. Not everyone is meant to be a size 2, an that’s ok. Instead of us forcing others to conform to our social standards by shaming them, lets learn to embrace everyone’s differences and understand them.
Notice how you said theory, as in not proven. Chris pratt was fat as fuck and turned ripped. Dont give me the “waaahhh i just gain it back” shit. Try.
I was gonna ignore this but I have to step in and say that neither of you is using the word “theory” correctly here.
If we’re talking about biology, OP, then you should probably have used the scientific meaning for the word “theory” rather than its everyday meaning. Unless you have study upon study supporting this idea completely, and nothing that shows it to be invalid, this should be called a hypothesis. And yes, there’s a big difference. Evolution is a theory. As in there is literally so much evidence in support of it that until we find evidence otherwise it’s how we will assume things to work.
Here’s Wikipedia’s definition, which puts it pretty clearly:
“
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation.”
If it has not been tested with valid scientific means, then you can’t just talk about something like it’s 100% fact. There’s a reason scientists have to be able to reproduce the procedure of a study, because otherwise it can’t be repeated and thus the results can’t be verified.
I see this problem on the internet a lot, especially with psychology-related stuff, where ONE study will show somewhat conclusive results about a subject and people make huge implications about the results as though they’re facts. And that’s not how it works. This is how false information gets spread and becomes impossible to get rid of.
No, it doesn’t. If you really think that, you’re an idiot, Do you know how many scientists are/were religious? Like George Washington Carver, or Isaac Newton. And there are LIVING scientists that are religious, too. Like Francis Collins.
And there all sorts of papers, studies, articles, etcetera, if you want to look them up. Or you can go back to bowing to your Richard Dawkins shrine. Whatever floats your fancy.
The belief (often inherent and subconscious) that humans are the most significant species on earth; that humans and human experience is best, more important, of higher value, and more moral than that of animals; assessment of reality through a human-centric lens.
ANTHROPOMORPHISM
The act of attributing human experience (e.g., mental state, emotions, conscious choice, logical thought) to non-human animals.
BIOPHILIA
The inherent human tendency to want to connect in an empathetic manner with non-human living things.
SENTIENCE
“The ability of a living thing to feel, perceive, and experience subjectively.” (Source) This can include but is not limited to nor does not necessarily contain: emotions, self-awareness, logical and procedural reasoning, conscious thought.
SAPIENCE
In humans, often defined as “wisdom, or the ability (…) to act with appropriate judgement, (…) may be considered an additional faculty, apart from intelligence, with its own properties.” (Source).
In animals, the conference of ‘personhood’ to a nonhuman; accompanied by the implicit assumption of anthropocentric worldview; experiences of the non-human animal assumed to be analogous to those of humans under the same stimuli.
Training / Behavior Modification Terms:
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING = Developing an association between initially neutral stimuli and biologically important stimuli (google Pavlov’s dogs). E.g. Dogs salivating in anticipation of food.
OPERANT CONDITIONING = An animal’s behavior operates on the environment to produce a good, bad, or neutral result. Animal learns from successes and failures. E.g. Positive and negative reinforcement.
HABITUATION = Getting used to a stimulus that once elicited a greater response by the animal.E.g. A horse becoming less fearful of traffic noises after it has been turned out in a field next to a road.
SENSITIZATION = Becoming more responsive to a once neutral stimulus. E.g. A horse becoming fearful of traffic after a negative experience with it.
POSITIVE (X): Adding something to increase or decrease a behavior.
NEGATIVE (X): Removing something to increase or decrease a behavior.
POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT = A stimulus is added to reward a desired behavior. Encourages that behavior to happen more frequently. This is the basis of clicker training. E.g. dog sits on command, receives a treat.
NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT = A stimulus is removed to reward a desired behavior. Encourages that behavior to happen more frequently. Often used in terms of scary thing going way or an unpleasant stimulus stopping. E.g. squeezing a horse forward, stop squeezing once it is moving OR backing away from an animal that is allowing you to be close even though it is uncomfortable.
POSITIVE PUNISHMENT = A stimulus is added as a consequence for a behavior. Encourages the behavior to happen less frequently. Often used to “discipline” animals for “doing something wrong.” E.g. using the whip on a horse as a punishment for bucking.
NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT = A stimulus is removed as a consequence for a behavior. Encourages the behavior to happen less frequently. Is not necessarily “bad” – often represents “natural consequences”. E.g. removing yourself from play when a dog is being too rough.
(behavior and training terms partially sourced from @operationvet).
A first draft of the “tree of life” for the roughly 2.3 million named species of animals, plants, fungi and microbes – from platypuses to puffballs – has been released.
A collaborative effort among eleven institutions, the tree depicts the relationships among living things as they diverged from one another over time, tracing back to the beginning of life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago.
Tens of thousands of smaller trees have been published over the years for select branches of the tree of life – some containing upwards of 100,000 species – but this is the first time those results have been combined into a single tree that encompasses all of life. The end result is a digital resource that available free online for anyone to use or edit, much like a “Wikipedia” for evolutionary trees.
“This is the first real attempt to connect the dots and put it all together,” said principal investigator Karen Cranston of Duke University. “Think of it as Version 1.0.”
The current version of the tree – along with the underlying data and source code – is available to browse and download at https://tree.opentreeoflife.org.
It is also described in an article appearing Sept. 18 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Anodization in action. This is how we safely change the colour of your jewellery, no paints, sprays or coatings – just electrical voltage. For you nerds out there the eltrical voltage is changing the thickness of the oxide layer, which causes it to refract light at different spectrum levels, thus giving the appearance of different colour. Anodizing is completely safe for fresh and healed piercings and for long term wear. You can also change the colour of your already anodized jewellery to a different one further down the spectrum and have faded jewellery re-anodised. At @thepiercingurge we provide this service free of charge so you can look that extra rad without breaking the bank.
The arm was designed and built just for Isabella by Team Unlimbited volunteer Stephen Davies. On average, prosthetics cost more than $10,000. However, an e-Nable limb ranges from $50 to $150 in price, which means more people can get prosthetic devices!
Upworthy carried a story summarizing an experiment demonstrating that rats exhibit empathy. Why do I care about this? Because the graphics showing the experiment on Upworthy made me smile, and smiling is good. Here’s the link in case you want to watch the video embedded in the story.
Some scientists ran an experiment to demonstrate that. Here’s how it worked:
The scientists put a rat in water (which rats hate). Not enough to hurt the rat, but enough to annoy it.
Then they put another rat in a safer, dry area with a door it could open to save the first rat.
When the dry rat heard the damp, miserable rat get upset, she came to the rescue.
Still not satisfied with the result, the scientists ran a more complex test.
What if you bribe the dry rat with food? Will she ignore it to rescue the wet rat in the next chamber?
Scientists presumed it would be easier for the not-in-peril rat to take the obvious selfless route when it was given only one choice. But what if they gave her a delicious bribe (chocolate cereal) and then let her choose between saving her friend and a buffet?
The rats, by a significant margin, still usually saved their friend before getting their delicious bribe. What does that mean?
Rats might care more about each other than things like food, and that prioritization might be encoded in their DNA.
Why should we care about super-thoughtful rats?
It is often argued that humans are inherently selfish — that without guidance, we would all default to killing and stealing and an “every person for themselves” mentality. That we only help others if it helps us. That evolution can’t make us selfless; it’s something we have to force ourselves to do.
But if rats show human-like qualities (they laugh like us, they dream like us, they like to have selfless lovers) like altruism, that means it isn’t a human-learned behavior. It could be encoded in our DNA. It means humans could be empathetic and kind by default.
It also means that rats and humans have more in common than we think.
An adorable rat not spreading the plague and hugging a tiny teddy bear. Much empathy.
PiraticOctopus 