Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Quote from: tekla on July 01, 2009, 06:18:46 PM
OK, that's one vote for Soilent Green then. Although I guess that's organic in the end.  I'm not betting on a huge demand for synthetic food anytime soon - Pringles and Kraft Cheese Whiz aside.

Once it's cheaper to artificially synthesize the components of foods than to get them from agricultural sources, the kinds of foodstuffs that they can be used in would become dominant in the market by sheer dint of them having a smaller price-tag. Things like cheese, juice, beer, perhaps even packaged meats could be overtaken entirely by artificially synthesized foodstuffs that offer the same sensations and same nutritinal value. It's not hinged nearly as much on where it comes from as who can give the best taste for the lowest price.

Frankly, I think that this should be encouraged. The nanotech age is here. There is no reason that we shouldn't be able to derive absolutely everything we need from precisely the same air that we breathe. You can even find important minerals like cobalt floating around. Once our techniques were sufficiently advanced, we would no longer have to rely upon agriculture at all for our survival. In time, we'd see it as a relatively crude and dirty means of producing food. It's already crude, dirty, and primitive, and one thing that we are being very slow to realize is that it doesn't have to stay this way. We don't have to grub in the dirt for our survival forever.

As much as I like natural, single-origin foods, I think the planet would be better off if we got most of our foodstuffs from non-agricultural sources.


To keep it topical, this also affects transsexuals who are concerned about this issue. Even alternatives to Premarin such as Estrofem are synthesized from animal cholesterol. On the other hand, if we could synthesize estradiol from totally non-animal and, in time, non-agricultural sources, then vegan ->-bleeped-<-s could still go through transition in perfectly good conscience. On top of that, it would be less money in the pockets of Rural America, which is the main source of opposition to transgendered rights.

But would it taste as good?

I don't agree with you. Biological compounds and structures are incredibly complicated things and our digestive system is designed to process them. Perhaps there is potential to create synthetic food stuffs that meet our nutritional needs, but I suspect this still would not be sufficient to maintain good health in a human.

Grubbing in the dirt is a fantastic thing and I think you undervalue it, it is a highly advanced process distilled over hundreds of thousands of years. It is our birth right, our heratige as biological creatures. We are part of a ecological system. We are as primative as the plants and animals. I would much rather eat the dirty primative tomatos from my garden, the garden I dug with my own hands and nurtured, than your shiny synthetic souless tomato substitute.

When is the last time you grubbed in the dirt for your food or slaughtered your own animals? Chances are you already don't need to do this for your survival and if you did you would realise what a highly skilled and advanced process it was.

I think the planet would be worse off. What would limit our expansion if food was no longer a limiting factor?

Read " Doubt is the Product" Not any of the processed foods are good for your health and long life. The U.S. has let food manufactures put industrial waste in our food so long that we are the most obese and sick people in the world. Natural food without pesticides and chemical fertilizers is much more healthy for you than synthetics.

Read "The Omnivore's Dilemma"

"The Omnivore's Dilemma"

I'll second that choice, very interesting points.

Quote from: NickyGrubbing in the dirt is a fantastic thing and I think you undervalue it

I raise most of my own herbs, including a few that you can't find at most supermarkets. When I've got land, I'm going to start rearing free-range chickens for eggs. Most of my diet, though, is ramen noodles. Why? It's cheap, and it's nourishing. You can put in salads, you can put in soups, and I bet you could even make a dessert with it. You can serve it with clams, oysters, shrimp...ramen noodles are a miracle. But you got the wrong girl. I come from a long line of independent farmers. We all became engineers and accountants. We do this junk for fun now, and that's how I prefer to keep it. We've got some cherry tomatoes growing at the back door. They taste like a real tomato should taste: crisp, round, and sweeter than honey. Growing enough food to feed yourself is really easier than falling off a log. We've only been doing it for ten thousand years, and we probably exercised an uncoordinated form of it when we were swinging from the trees by purposely littering the ground below us with half-gnawed pieces of fruit and proceding to fertilize it with our own warm, wet turds. If we hadn't been busy trying to kill each other, we would have been bored stiff.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 01, 2009, 08:17:00 PMRead " Doubt is the Product" Not any of the processed foods are good for your health and long life.

The body cannot tell the difference between bacterially synthesized casein and casein that comes from cow's milk if it is literally the same molecule. In time, though, perhaps we can go a step above our reliance upon natural bacteria and learn to synthesize organisms from near-scratch specifically for the purpose of producing certain proteins. We don't even need an actual "living" organism. We would need just enough of a structure that it could successfully produce what we need from it. This would be less risky than dealing with self-replicating organisms that could potentially become pathogenic, see?

QuoteNatural food without pesticides and chemical fertilizers is much more healthy for you than synthetics.

Then you come down with botulism, and you die.

http://www.nutraingredients.com/Regulation/Organic-food-trend-increases-pathogen-risk (http://www.nutraingredients.com/Regulation/Organic-food-trend-increases-pathogen-risk)

Larger pathogen risk. The so-called benefits of "natural foods" are dubious and mostly mythology. On the other hand, our food would be a lot safer if we could develop pesticides/fungicides/etc. that are less likely to cause harm to the human body or, for that matter, the overall environment.

By the way, if you want to feel healthy and lose a ton of weight, eat a lot of rice and seafood. A LOT of it, and make it up spicy enough to ionize your entire palate. Capsaicin's awesome for your health, so throw those Thai peppers on there, BAM! Throw in some cinnamon; it's undervalued in savory foods, and it's fabulous for your health. Oh, and drink coffee. Coffee is very very good for you. Drink it stiff and black, regular and not decaf. Besides that, eat chocolate, and be merry. Huzzah!

I don't have any problem with the idea of synthetic food in principle, although I agree that there's a huge problem with processing and application.

To address the specific point of food synthesis, the satisfaction of taste is a huge issue.  Nobody wants to chow down on a fistful of vitamin & protein pills washed down with a thimble of lipids.

While it sounds nice to shovel grass into the nanotech molecular alchemy chamber and have a nice slab of steak come out the other side, it's not going to work like that.  However, the work being done on artificial pork is closer to how it would probably end up being...

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/06/71201 (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/06/71201)

You've started a topic that fits perfectly into my most recent grocery shopping find.

Here's what i want you to do- go to the grocery store and buy Hagen Daas' vanilla ice cream and the vanilla from their Just Five line.  Taste them.  Which one is significantly more delicious?  The one without the synthetic ->-bleeped-<-.

>>>>>>> lost the idea right after synthetic beer was pitched. 

Part of the problem is science does not know and has not figured out the quantum mechanics of the biological effects of life both food and humans. So no processed molecule is the same as the natural one it is only the surface that we understand.

The more processed, and more artificial, a foodstuff gets, the worse effect it appears to have on our general health.
The current foods may be "crude and dirty" in origin, but that's just what the human body is and needs to survive.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 02, 2009, 09:48:39 AM
Part of the problem is science does not know and has not figured out the quantum mechanics of the biological effects of life both food and humans.

Ok I'll bite :)  What sort of hypothetical "quantum mechanical biological effects" do you imagine there might be?

Perhaps you can know how fast the "chicken" nugget is travelling through your duodenal tract, or you can know how heavy it is...but you can't know both at the same time?  Or is it more to do with strangeness, spin and flavour?

Quote
So no processed molecule is the same as the natural one it is only the surface that we understand.

What is the difference between a natural molecule of H2O and one made in the lab at either the macro or quantum mechanical level?

I'm not defending processed food here just railing against pseudoscientific gobbledegook :)

QuoteOk I'll bite   What sort of hypothetical "quantum mechanical biological effects" do you imagine there might be?

How far can you trace the origin of thought? The brain creates thought below the level of the water molecule.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 02, 2009, 11:51:40 AM
How far can you trace the origin of thought? The brain creates thought below the level of the water molecule.

Does it really?  What evidence to you have to support that conclusion?  Oh and "you can't prove it doesn't" is *not* evidence.  That's a logical fallacy known as the "argument from ignorance" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance).  Not that this has anything to do with substantiating your earlier statement on quantum mechanical biological effects, by the way.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to pick a fight and certainly I'm not trying to have a pop at you personally. The synthetic/processed food issue can be emotive and there's enough FUD thrown about already (from both sides of the debate).

Let's try and uncover the facts, then draw conclusions from them - rather than start with a conclusion and try to find the facts to support it.

The fact is that there is not any evidence that synthetic food made from synthetic molecules has equal effect on the body. So far many synthetic foods that have been approved for lack of evidence have shown 20 years later that they are health risks. Not because they know the cause but because they has the statistics showing it. Many things science does not know including quantum mechanics which might hold answers.

When these questions are asked some respond with because God made it that way. Facts are sometimes hard to come buy but when health is concerned it is better to error on the safe side than go with things you do not have absolute evidence. The fact that the made made H2O molecule looks like a duck, but does it always act like a duck is still in doubt.

There's no such thing as absolute evidence.  Many scientific theories have been experimentally verified countless times but they are still called theories because there's always a finite possibility that they could be wrong and the exception hasn't been found yet.

I completely agree that we should be open to all possibilities and indeed it may be that an apparent pattern of adverse effects could demand further research etc..

However, even though there is a mathematical uncertainty, that doesn't mean it's sensible to seriously entertain every crackpot theory out there unless there's at least some amount of empirical evidence to warrant further analysis.

After all, I cannot prove that Bertrand Russell's teapot does not exist.  There's a vanishingly small but finite possibility that there really is a teapot orbiting the Earth.  It's obviously silly to assume it is there, just because it might be.  Now, if someone looking out the window of the ISS spots something teapot shaped drifting by, well...we will have to re-evaluate the teapot hypothesis.

Similarly, one could assert that there is some quantum mechanical oddity with synthetic food but it's highly unlikely.   It's far more probable that any adverse side effects are caused by something at the much larger biological scale.  Talking about QM in the current unqualified context seems, to me, to be a complete non-sequitur.  Reminds me a bit of Star Trek pseudoscience..."let's confine the molecules in an annular containment field and saturate it with 500 isorads by bleeding some antimatter from the engines" etc..

QM is extremely complex, full of uncertainties and isn't fully understood by even the best experts in the field.  Most of the time it gets mentioned, it's accompanied by the rich, funky aroma of bovine excrement...because it's only ever used as a bamboozling smoke-screen for woo.

Quoteit's accompanied by the rich, funky aroma of bovine excrement...because it's only ever used as a bamboozling smoke-screen for woo.

It sounds like the food industry.

Quote from: Sigma Prime on July 01, 2009, 09:11:38 PM
I raise most of my own herbs, including a few that you can't find at most supermarkets. When I've got land, I'm going to start rearing free-range chickens for eggs. Most of my diet, though, is ramen noodles. Why? It's cheap, and it's nourishing. You can put in salads, you can put in soups, and I bet you could even make a dessert with it. You can serve it with clams, oysters, shrimp...ramen noodles are a miracle. But you got the wrong girl. I come from a long line of independent farmers. We all became engineers and accountants. We do this junk for fun now, and that's how I prefer to keep it. We've got some cherry tomatoes growing at the back door. They taste like a real tomato should taste: crisp, round, and sweeter than honey. Growing enough food to feed yourself is really easier than falling off a log. We've only been doing it for ten thousand years, and we probably exercised an uncoordinated form of it when we were swinging from the trees by purposely littering the ground below us with half-gnawed pieces of fruit and proceding to fertilize it with our own warm, wet turds. If we hadn't been busy trying to kill each other, we would have been bored stiff.

I think we agree here. I was meaning the actual process of plants and animals growing and interacting was something that was not a primative thing. I don't think being part of that is a crude thing either.

Ever thought of keeping bees? Bee keeping is awsome.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 02, 2009, 02:28:08 PM
The fact is

Just speaking from personal experience, I find that the sort of people who use this phrasing have a propensity for exercising a highly consequentialist philosophy regarding what actually constitutes honorable behavior.

Quotethere is not any evidence that synthetic food made from synthetic molecules has equal effect on the body.

If you are uninclined to believe that two identical molecules will be metabolized identically by the human body, based simply upon their origin, then I doubt you have any inclination to reconsider your views under any circumstances whatsoever, no matter the quantity or quality of compelling evidence you were actually confronted with.

QuoteSo far many synthetic foods that have been approved for lack of evidence have shown 20 years later that they are health risks.

I take it you believe that we can resolve this issue by spending less money on the testing and development of these products. In fact, I don't think that you are likely to approve of anything that wasn't grown from a pile of manure, no matter how thoroughly it has been tested.

QuoteMany things science does not know including quantum mechanics which might hold answers.

Pseudoscience. How...obscene. I am disgusted beyond measure.

Well, no sense in throwing good money after bad. Where magical thinking appears, it's time to resort to the loud, braying horse-laugh advised by Mencken. Syllogisms are wasted under the circumstances, and I will not waste any energy on them. Lisa, you are being ridiculous. Please, unless you actually have a solid premise for bringing quantum physics into the discussion, which I doubt you do, then please refrain from attempting to use this subject matter as a part of your arguments. I doubt you are even aware, without referencing the subject, of how most synthetic proteins are actually made.

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Quote from: lisagurl on July 02, 2009, 11:51:40 AM
How far can you trace the origin of thought? The brain creates thought below the level of the water molecule.

Okay, this is probably the most utterly ludicrous statement that I have ever seen on a forum.

This includes various statements that I have heard from pro-lifers, who ritualistically attempt to prove that a fetus has thoughts in its head at the exact moment of conception using sketchy evidence that certain parts of its brain tend to light up at around the same period of development at which it is theoretically possible to remove it from the uterus and sustain it for the remainder of its prenatal development using sophisticated life support.

I have actually studied the human the brain very extensively, Lisa. The brain is essentially a binary machine. That is to say, either a synapse actually fires, or it does not. It is literally all or nothing. The only sense in which the brain is not a binary machine rests in the internal state of any given neuron. A neuron, my dear, is a sophisticated organism in its own right. In fact, every single one of the 100 billion neurons in your brain is at least subtly unique. For this particularly obvious reason, it would be a complete waste of time to actually reconstruct the human brain as a computer program. Nonetheless, the human brain is essentially a binary machine, just like any information system that we have ever constructed. Thought does not occur at this level at all, though. A single coherent thought requires a number of rather messy and often cumbersome interactions between quite a few million neurons. In fact, the workings of the human brain are quite impressively inexact.

QuoteThe brain is essentially a binary machine

Read " Out of our Heads" by Alva Noe     Perhaps the philosophy that we are machines does not take in account we and our brains are part of our environment. That we think outside our heads. Perhaps all the fMRI and scans are not telling the whole story. What we do not know can and will hurt us.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 08, 2009, 10:02:44 AM
Read " Out of our Heads" by Alva Noe

Umm, no. For one thing, he tends to state that the human brain is considered in modern neuroscience to be a calculating machine, which is an outright lie. I bet he couldn't tell you what the nucleus accumbens does without pulling out a reference book.

QuotePerhaps the philosophy that we are machines does not take in account we and our brains are part of our environment.

Incorrect. In fact, you are lying, but I already expected that. Mechanistic notions of human thought necessarily regard our unique personalities as the impact of environmental stimuli upon the development of mind. In fact, it is almost universally accepted in modern neuroscience that the human mind does not appear a priori. Next.

QuotePerhaps all the fMRI and scans are not telling the whole story.

Neither are you! In fact, you're telling nothing but a story! I think I'll stick to PubMed, thanks. It's actually intended to be informative.

QuoteWhat we do not know can and will hurt us.

Fear-mongering. Yeah, Lisa. This makes you more believable. Riiiiiiiiiight.

Although it is not the kind of "truth" you had in mind, there actually is a great deal of truth in this statement. What we don't know can hurt us. More funding is needed in the area of scientific research that studies the actual effects that the foods we consume can have on our bodies. In the future, hopefully we'll have foods that are not as hard on the body as proteins like casein. Incompletely metabolized casein, which is found in curd derived from cow's milk, can result in so-called "casomorphins," which are opiate-like compounds which may agitate conditions related to autism. They may also be responsible for fast-food addiction, but this is presently unclear. Frankly, I think that we should begin making our cheeses from a protein that is easier for our bodies to metabolize, and perhaps we should do away with casein entirely once we have discovered a viable substitute that doesn't taste like boiled woodpulp.

Gluten, which is the main protein found in wheat (there are varying types of this protein), can be even worse in this respect. It's also capable of breaking down into opiate-like compounds, but it also has the effect of increasing appetite. It's possible that gluten, especially the type found in wheat, is one of the major culprits in human obesity. Gluten is also responsible for various inflammatory conditions, including coeliac disease. Perhaps wheat should be the first thing that we strike out of our diet and replace with a viable synthetic.

It would be better for our health in the long-run to rely on proteins that have been tailored to rest easy in our digestive system and to metabolize as completely as possible. This would help us avoid these kinds of problems. The kinds of foods that we have been using as dietary staples for centuries may be subtly poisoning us due to our over-reliance on them in modern times, and we could pave a better way.

The fact is that people like easy food. Things like protein bars and energy drinks are selling, and they are selling well. People are in a hurry, and they're often not really keen on taking the time to choose a "diverse" or "healthy" diet. The only sensible approach is to follow the natural course of human behavior: when they reach for something like a protein supplement or a power shake, let's try to make it a little bit more likely that they are nourishing themselves rather than slowly poisoning their bodies. Besides, this sort of behavior is ironically a lot more natural to human behavior: we are apes. Our behavior is adapted for an arboreal existence in which we prefer to keep our food within easy reach, where we can consume it as our appetites demand. The snack machine diet and the fast-food diet may be killing us, but this is a more comfortable mode of behavior for us for a reason. We can't permanently alter the natural course of our behavior, but we can try to put more beneficial things in those places where we seek easy, satisfying, quickly attainable food.

Before coming to Berkeley in 2003, Alva taught in the department of philosophy at UC Santa Cruz. He received a PhD in philosophy from Harvard University in 1995; he has a BA from Columbia (1986) and a BPhil from Oxford Universiy (1986). He has been a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2007-2008). He is a research associate of the CNRS laboratory Institut Jean-Nicod in Paris. In the spring of 2003 he was a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience and in the 1995-1996 academic year he was a research fellow of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.

QuoteIn fact, it is almost universally accepted in modern neuroscience that the human mind does not appear a priori. Next.

.
Perhaps they are on the wrong track as that is why they do not have the answers. Remember the world is flat.

So quantum mechanics implies that consciousness may play a crucial role in the formation and evolution of the universe as we know it  But most researches in psychology an brain science regard consciousness as nothing more than an emergent property of the brain, with no significance for the universe at large. The fundamental assumptions about the nature of the mind according to modern science are largely rooted in the mechanistic worldview of classical physics that dominated the late nineteenth century. And even today students are not required to study 20 th century physics.

Many scientific studies indicate that mental phenomena influence brain function. However  subjectively experienced mental phenomena lack any physical characteristics and cannot be detected with any of the physical instruments of technology, even though many specific brain functions have been identified that causally contribute to the generation of mental processes.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 08, 2009, 02:59:28 PM
[...]
So quantum mechanics implies that consciousness may play a crucial role in the formation and evolution of the universe as we know it  But most researches in psychology an brain science regard consciousness as nothing more than an emergent property of the brain, with no significance for the universe at large. The fundamental assumptions about the nature of the mind according to modern science are largely rooted in the mechanistic worldview of classical physics that dominated the late nineteenth century. And even today students are not required to study 20 th century physics.

No, quantum mechanics implies no such thing (feel free to cite a peer reviewed paper that does, in case I've missed one).  You are completely correct that there are a number of dualist, materialist, neutral monist (etc.) theories of consciousness out there and yes, many materialists do lean towards emergence.   There are some (optimistic) theories that suggest QM might help with the explanatory gap but there's no credible theory of anything more.

Quote
Many scientific studies indicate that mental phenomena influence brain function.

No they don't - for precisely the same reasons you (and I) have just given which is that we haven't confidently proven whether consciousness is or is not simply a brain function.  There are theories, yes - but very little evidence so far.  Part of the problem is, as you say:

Quote
However  subjectively experienced mental phenomena lack any physical characteristics and cannot be detected with any of the physical instruments of technology, even though many specific brain functions have been identified that causally contribute to the generation of mental processes.

The problem, as dualists love to point out, is the epistemological gap that is inherent when dealing with purely subjective phenomena (see Chalmers (http://cognet.mit.edu/posters/TUCSON3/Chalmers.Intro.html)).  Materialism cannot completely explain the subjective phenomena because, like all science, it's based on evidential, objective study.  The contradiction is obvious and some philosophers claim this makes a materialist explanation impossible.

However, dualism has a similar explanatory gap, because it assumes properties that are non-physical (by definition, if they are outside a physicalist explanation) yet none of these theories can give a rational explanation of origin.  Personally I suspect that this is another example of the human tendency to plug gaps in knowledge with fantasy (see religion, conspiracy theories, etc.) but of course that's nothing more than my opinion :)

Pretty much every idea you can think of gets aired over the Journal of Consciousness Science mailing list (sometimes with some very credible, well researched suggestions) - if you really want to throw your hat into this knotty debate, subscribe!  :)  You're welcome to have a browse through my articles on consciousness (http://www.jimmo.org/mind/?cat=3) too, if you fancy a chewy debate :D

Quote from: lisagurl on July 08, 2009, 02:59:28 PM
Before coming to Berkeley in 2003, Alva taught...

He's a philosopher, not a scientist.

QuotePerhaps they are on the wrong track as that is why they do not have the answers.

Oh, so yours must be the "right" one. Scientific advancement is slow, but it gets results. Your philosopher seems to like talking about dancing. By the way, I just recently spent three straight days breakdancing at the state's Independence Day festivities. It was quite a thrill.

QuoteRemember the world is flat.

The world, if you are referring to the planet Earth, seems to be an oblate spheroid.

QuoteThe fundamental assumptions about the nature of the mind according to modern science are largely rooted in the mechanistic worldview of classical physics that dominated the late nineteenth century.

Umm...you haven't studied this subject very deeply, have you?

Quotegap that is inherent when dealing with purely subjective phenomena

All objective science was created by subjective phenomena.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 08, 2009, 05:35:54 PM
All objective science was created by subjective phenomena.

*plonk*

Quote from: lisagurl on July 08, 2009, 05:35:54 PM
All objective science was created by subjective phenomena.

You don't even know how to apply phenomenology. Quit being pretentious, and stick to the subject.

I kinda think that Lisa is right, the original notion of what is, or is not, worth noting or studying is, in fact, subjective.

Quote from: heatherrose on July 09, 2009, 01:00:30 AM
Why does that phase bring to mind a news story from a while back,
about Japanese scientist who had developed a process to recycle food,
ya I said recycle.

Is that recycling food that's been discarded (i.e. plate scrapings) or food that's already been through somebodies intestines? :)

Empirical measurement only measures the objective physical world. Things like the placebo effect tells us there is more to life than just empirical measurement. Perhaps science should should look at the effect of synthetic food on subjective mental thought.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

Donald Rumsfeld

Guess you're not going up to the space station, 'cause guess what the source for their fresh water now is?

Quote from: lisagurl on July 09, 2009, 10:30:12 AM
Empirical measurement only measures the objective physical world.

Yeah, we have the objective, physical world, and we have this magical fantasy world that you made up for the benefit of your political agenda. Can your pretentious gobbledy-gook, and stick to the point. You are being deliberately evasive. You are dishonorable.

QuoteThings like the placebo effect...

...have been studied empirically, and this effect in particular is actually fairly well-understood.

At this point, Lisa, you are, to quote our President, "making stuff up." You are a fraud, Lisa. Own up.

Knowing something, like the placebo effect, is not the same as understanding - and though we might know and understand enough to get it to work at times, that is still not knowing how it really works on a mechanical level, which we don't understand. 

QuoteAt this point, Lisa, you are, to quote our President, "making stuff up." You are a fraud, Lisa. Own up.

When I said the world is flat I was referring to the lack of looking to the future and answers that are not in the majority's belief. Every new step comes from stepping into the unknown. If you do what you always done you get what you always got. You can call me names and mock critical thinking but it will not get you any further in understanding . I propose ideas and thoughts to think about. I will eat as little synthetic food as possible and continue to research and think about issues that are not clear and absolute.

I am past having to have a career or worry about working. My education was questioned by me which has put me in a unique place in this mass society of mass beliefs. Follow your path that is well worn, but the best of life is off the path.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 09, 2009, 10:30:12 AM
Empirical measurement only measures the objective physical world. Things like the placebo effect tells us there is more to life than just empirical measurement. Perhaps science should should look at the effect of synthetic food on subjective mental thought.

The problem with going down the path of things outside the physical world affecting things in the physical world is the explanatory gap of interaction - don't forget that non-physical doesn't mean intangible, a magnetic field is still part of the physical world.  Non-physical means *outside physics*  so a credible dualist theory of things being outside the physical world and still having an effect has got one huge explanatory gap.

What I personally cannot fathom is why, if there is something we don't fully understand (and the placebo effect is just one of a great many), some people seem to positively gallop into the supernatural with absolutely nothing more than a fantasy to go on.  This is really just a god of the gaps argument in a different guise - "science cannot explain 'x' ergo god/gaia/woo/whatever did it".

There's nothing wrong with not knowing something and striving to figure it out - that seems a far more rational approach than making utterly groundless assertions of the supernatural.

:icon_chuckel:

Quote from: heatherrose on July 09, 2009, 12:13:22 PM
They won't give me my deposit back
[...]

Sure they will, with onion gravy and mashed potato by the sounds of it :)

Nice tasty "deposit" anyone? hehe

Quote from: finewine on July 09, 2009, 12:24:45 PM
Sure they will, with onion gravy and mashed potato by the sounds of it :)

Nice tasty "deposit" anyone? hehe

is this your personal theory on the origin of salsbury steak?

Quote from: Mister on July 09, 2009, 12:52:38 PM
is this your personal theory on the origin of salsbury steak?

LOL!  You made me gargle on my demi-sec, dear boy! :D

Military issue MREs are almost synthetic. Meals Ready to Eat. The salisbury steak is nearly fit for human consumption. Does anyone remember the movie Soylent Green with Charleton Heston? Soylent Green are protein wafers made of recycled people.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 09, 2009, 11:35:08 AMWhen I said the world is flat I was referring to the lack of looking to the future and answers that are not in the majority's belief.

Lisa, you do hold the majority's belief. Every working-class citizen and his/her pet dog thinks that there is something special about "natural" or "organic" foods. They seem to think it's more "pure" somehow, therefore it must be "better" for them. Practically everybody in the USA holds this belief on some level. They are just flat-out wrong. The only difference organic food makes to your health is that it increases your risk of becoming infected with botulism or some other horrible disease. If you are really worried about your health, eat a bunch of hot peppers. They are amazingly good for your health.

QuoteThey are amazingly good for your health.

My health is amazingly good anyway, but I do on occasion eat very spicy food. I do cook every meal with as much things from my neighbors and farmers market I can get. No I do not eat fast foods and only during travel eat at a restaurant. We make our own bread and grind our own flour.

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Post Merge: July 09, 2009, 02:08:45 PM

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QuoteThe only difference organic food makes to your health is that it increases your risk of becoming infected with botulism or some other horrible disease

I am one that thinks things being too clean and antiseptic leads to reduced antibodies, so when you are exposed you have no defense.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 09, 2009, 02:07:06 PM
My health is amazingly good anyway, but I do on occasion eat very spicy food.

Mine, too. I am one of those perverts who enjoy sweating.

QuoteWe make our own bread and grind our own flour.

Investigate wheat alternatives. Wheat is the devil. Oats are acceptable: they contain a different form of gluten.

Quote

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Post Merge: July 09, 2009, 01:08:45 PM

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I am one that thinks things being too clean and antiseptic leads to reduced antibodies, so when you are exposed you have no defense.

That is the strangest belief I have ever heard of.

I am one that thinks things being too clean and antiseptic leads to reduced antibodies, so when you are exposed you have no defense.

I'm down with Lisa here.  I know several others that are too.  Often when I get simple cuts I don't treat it, preferring to let it get a bit (but not too much) infected, so that the body can fight it.

QuoteInvestigate wheat alternatives. Wheat is the devil. Oats are acceptable: they contain a different form of gluten.

We grind many things.

Quote from: tekla on July 09, 2009, 02:25:47 PMI'm down with Lisa here.  I know several others that are too.  Often when I get simple cuts I don't treat it, preferring to let it get a bit (but not too much) infected, so that the body can fight it.

You mean you don't cook your food? Tekla, it is not even necessary to raise the temperature of your food to the point at which water boils to reduce the number of viable pathogens in it to just about nil. You are not getting sufficient pathogens in your food to really count for anything if you are actually cooking your food before you eat it. It seems to be immaterial whether you are using acid or heat. For example, you are perfectly safe eating ceviche. I honestly don't think there is anything to this belief.

Most of the food I eat is either from craft services or from catering - I'm not sure how they prepare it, but it covers the waterfront I'm sure. A lot of stuff can be eaten raw, and that's often the best way though.  Not so much with meat, but almost always with fruit and veggies you lose nutrition by cooking.

QuoteWhile Triclosan is generally — but not universally — regarded as safe, numerous studies have questioned its necessity. A 2007 research project by the University of Oregon School of Public Health concluded that plain soap and water are as effective in removing bacteria from the hands, and additional research questions whether the indiscriminate use of Triclosan might contribute to the development of hardier bacteria.

I agree with earlier comments about over-sterilization and natural resistance.  My stomach is pretty cast iron after so much time spent in Asia - yet I see folks get sick almost the moment they walk off the plane because they're used to irradiated, sterilized food.  Even a live yoghurt gives them the squits.

Quote from: finewine on July 09, 2009, 02:57:22 PM
I agree with earlier comments about over-sterilization and natural resistance.  My stomach is pretty cast iron after so much time spent in Asia - yet I see folks get sick almost the moment they walk off the plane because they're used to irradiated, sterilized food.  Even a live yoghurt gives them the squits.

I have really never heard of that, but perhaps this is the reason I can't handle eating a lot of red meat. You see, I switched to a diet of mostly white meat and fish, completely out of personal taste. I got a better taste sensation from the chicken, so I never even looked at anything that had beef in it. Well, I stopped eating chicken for a while, and I was mostly on seafood for a while, mostly shrimp. Well, for some reason, suddenly I'd always get this terrible taste in mouth after eating a lot of chicken, and I couldn't wash it out at all. So...what do you think? Is it the meat itself that causes this, or is it some kind of pathogen that lives in the meat that I've simply lost my resistance to?

Or perhaps the growth hormones that chicken is full of these days.

Quote from: Sigma Prime on July 09, 2009, 03:04:34 PM
I have really never heard of that, but perhaps this is the reason I can't handle eating a lot of red meat.

In the previous example, the probable cause was that the natural flora of the gut had adjusted to the food pattern (and a fair amount of antibiotic misuse).  The pattern is so pronounced that I actually recommend eating live yoghurts to folks before they make their trip out.  In the case of meat,  my sister is like you - she stopped eating it mostly due to personal taste and now she finds red meat too heavy and too rich, which unsettles her stomach.

QuoteWell, for some reason, suddenly I'd always get this terrible taste in mouth after eating a lot of chicken, and I couldn't wash it out at all. So...what do you think? Is it the meat itself that causes this, or is it some kind of pathogen that lives in the meat that I've simply lost my resistance to?

I honestly don't know but I suspect it's more likely to be an intolerance to the proteins in the meat - in particular the composition of saliva can change with diet, which is most probably why there's such a profound taste reaction in your case.  The following quote comes from a paper on this very topic¹:

Quote
The specific activity of saliva of man shows wide variations in different individuals. In one group there is a prevalence of zoolytic activity, in another phytolytic, while in certain persons both activities are equal. The data that were obtained are considered to be an adaptive mechanism of the enzymatic activity to the quality of food. The adaptive mechanisms not only common to the same species were revealed but, likewise, those which appear with the change of the diet.

As an aside, there is a rather nasty practice where crooks bleach chicken that's been condemned to pet food (or worse) to mask the aroma and give it a pale, fresh look.

---

1. "Amylolytic adaptational changes in mammalian saliva" A. M. Ugolev
    Laboratory of General Physiology of the Institute of Normal and Pathological Physiology,
    Academy of Medical Sciences, USSR.

Okay, this makes sense. I also have a "profound" reaction to the tannins that are present in certain teas. That is, they make me violently throw up, and this sort of experience is very unusual and puzzling for a sort of freakazoid, pescephile otter-girl who can get away with inhaling a whole plateful of kippers, bones and fins included, without even having the decency to pause for breath. Red wines cause a similar but slightly less dramatic reaction. My boyfriend called me a "cheap date" because of this until he saw me take down a half-bottle of tequila one time, and now I'm forbidden to come within three meters of the liquor cabinet without adult supervision. Now, is this likely to be a permanent, built-in intolerance, or do you think it possible to build up a tolerance for tea tannins by consuming them in smaller quantities for a while? Why? Why not?

However, I am very skeptical about the notion of eating meat that may contain food-borne pathogens. E. Coli or certain species of Salmonella can kill you, and I do not see how it could be beneficial to put yourself at risk of these kinds of pathogens. It's not that I'm particularly fastidious regarding my fare. My dietary choices are generally pretty catholic, and I tend to be more adventurous than not. I just...don't really understand the idea of intentionally putting oneself in harm's way. There must be something about this that I am not understanding.

It's easy to talk about how genetically modified and synthesized food is bad, when you have plenty of food on your own plate.

Quote from: Miniar on July 09, 2009, 06:43:50 PM
It's easy to talk about how genetically modified and synthesized food is bad, when you have plenty of food on your own plate.

Well the more food that is on people's plates the more babies they have ended in people without food on their plate.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 09, 2009, 06:55:54 PM
Well the more food that is on people's plates the more babies they have ended in people without food on their plate.

Okay, do point to one single example of poverty and widespread food-shortages resulting in a decline in birth rates. In fact, societies that rely heavily upon primitive forms of agriculture, Lisa, have a propensity for having incredibly high birth rates and rather low rates of female literacy. Female literacy is really one of the biggest factors, here. An economy that is not accessible to women is inevitably going to result in higher birth rates, eventually resulting in the population ascending into the gusty reaches far beyond carrying capacity. The technocrats have been right from the get-go. A high-tech economy that is heavily reliant upon an educated labor force is just better in the long-run.

AND THIS INCLUDES JAPAN, WHERE YOU EVEN GET YOUR PANTIES OUT OF A VENDING MACHINE!

Quote from: lisagurl
I am one that thinks things being too clean and antiseptic leads to reduced antibodies, so when you are exposed you have no defense.

As a microbiologist, I sort of agree with this.  It's actually the overuse of antiseptic sprays/antibiotics/pesticides, etc. that cause problems because you get drug resistant bacteria as a result of using antibacterial handsoap when just regular old soap would do just fine in 99.999% of the cases.  The 99% thing came out of my a$$ in case anyone's keeping score, but seriously, how many times in your life have you REALLY needed an antibacterial handsoap?  I stopped using it a year or two ago, and I haven't had any noticeable problems. 

Quote from: Sigma Prime on July 09, 2009, 03:04:34 PM
I have really never heard of that, but perhaps this is the reason I can't handle eating a lot of red meat.

Almost certainly.  I work with more than a couple vegetarians or non-red-meat-eaters, and every single one of them has reported the same thing at one point or another, like if they get a dish at a restaurant that has meat in it instead of fish/tofu it just about kills them.  Actually, just happened to one of my co-workers today because she grabbed a slice of non-veggie pizza on accident. 
Oops. 

As to the original topic--
I think synthetic food is a little too complicated for us.  Nanotech age and all aside, we just don't have that kind of technology.  Part of the problem is no one investing in it.  Think of all the farmers/etc. that might go out of business if food no longer had to be grown.  It wouldn't surprise me to find out that there's an agriculture lobby trying to keep things like synthetic food from ever being developed, just like the oil lobby is reputed to have been working against hybrid/electric cars for the past 20+ years.  I'm sure it'll happen eventually (synthetic food I mean, not hybrid cars), it'll just take longer. 

Then again, I also sort of like conspiracy theories, so maybe I'm being overly paranoid.  Maybe no one's really looked into it yet, because the US isn't in crisis mode wrt food supplies.  That other parts of the world are seems to not be of much concern to most of our government, or even corporate mucky-mucks who could conceivably make a lot of money with synthetic food if they were available to sell to a starving nation.  Maybe there's just not enough money in it yet?  When the rich people are willing to pay for synthetic food, then I think you'll start seeing a big surge in that one. 

--Other catching up type comments:

I'm not sure what exactly Lisa was talking about wrt quantum mechanics, but I might guess that she was trying to get at the concept of phosphodiester bonds that hold energy for the cell in the form of ATP.  We understand quite a bit about the processes that make and hydrolyze ATP, but I don't believe we have sufficient synthetic mechanisms to actually manufacture it.  There's still a lot we don't understand about certain processes that we think we understand quite well.  Of course I have no idea if Lisa was actually trying to say anything like this, but I feel like being charitable and giving the benefit of the doubt today. 

About replacing living cells as machinery for protein manufacture, or even other biological molecules, including things like HRT:  I do a lot of DNA-based work, like PCRs, and that particular process is complicated (and expensive) enough.  The components necessary to do something like protein manufacture would be very complicated, and you would still need to couple the process to some kind of ribsomal production system, and you would also need the mRNA transcript to serve as the protein's blueprint. 

OTOH, if you could figure out how to synthesize a protein without a ribosome, you could probably win a Nobel prize.  You would just need to figure out the right way to control the kinetics of the synthesis reaction.  It's one of the things that makes Kary Mullis invention of PCR so awesome.  It decouples some of the biological processes and makes them controllable using something simple like temperature changes. 

Also, I forget who mentioned it at this point, but IIRC, there is a type of bio-identical estrogen available that is derived from plants and converted to something that is active in humans.  Not sure if it's vegan safe, but it's gotta be better than premarin. 

Quote from: lisagurl on July 09, 2009, 06:55:54 PM
Well the more food that is on people's plates the more babies they have ended in people without food on their plate.

That's a complete logical fallacy. The wealthy elite, people who can afford to eat whatever they want, whenever they want, aren't the people having 13 babies.
Heck, the middle ranged folks, those that own their own homes, two cars and a labrador. Those people aren't having 13 babies either.
It is more common for women in societies and classes within societies that have the least amount of resources are the ones that end up having the highest number of babies.
Try some facts next time.

QuoteOkay, do point to one single example of poverty and widespread food-shortages resulting in a decline in birth rates.

How about Rwanda. Each family had an a small plot to grow their food. As the families got larger and the children divided the land the area was smaller meaning less food, add a drought and you have 100 thousands killing each other for lack of resources.

Then there is Russia the collective farms have destroyed much of there growing areas the birth rate is declining. China imposed a birth limit to slow down the millions that are starving they have more population then there land can support.
Then in India farmers are committing suicide because they can not raise enough food to support a family.
How about North Korea starving people reduce birth rate.

AND THIS INCLUDES JAPAN, WHERE YOU EVEN GET YOUR PANTIES OUT OF A VENDING MACHINE!

Used even, but that's not what your advocating is it?

A high-tech economy that is heavily reliant upon an educated labor force is just better in the long-run.

Oh, I see what the problem is now.  That's OK, McDonald's will always be still be putting people on the crew, even if its people like you.

Many have challenged the way India measures poverty.

QuoteThe government Planning Commission estimates that 27.5 percent of the country's population lives below the poverty line, which is calculated based on how much it would cost to buy 2,400 calories a day in rural areas and 2,100 in urban areas. (City dwellers are thought to exert less energy, so they should need to consume less.)

Quote from: Jessica L. on July 09, 2009, 07:23:43 PMhow many times in your life have you REALLY needed an antibacterial handsoap?

All I really use outside the shower is a cheap hand sanitizer on a good day.

QuoteI think synthetic food is a little too complicated for us.  Nanotech age and all aside, we just don't have that kind of technology.

Well, this is a logistical problem, and I think it's one that can be resolved.

QuotePart of the problem is no one investing in it.

PRECISELY!!! The food industry has no short-term reason whatsoever to invest in this kind of technology. It just isn't rational for them to waste their money on it. That's why I think the government should invest in it. You see, I am heavily progressive, and I am a firm believer in the idea that one of the benefits of the state is that the state can think in the extreme long-term. This doesn't necessarily mean that any given long-term goal set by the state is going to eventually pay off, and it doesn't necessarily mean that the state is always going to approach it in a meaningful, productive way. However, there are some areas of science that our culture could gain a great deal from exploring, and the state, in spite of its flaws, is one good instrument for investigating ideas that are unlikely to reap benefits within the career of any senior executive. The thing is, when do finally sort out this problem and find a way to produce synthetic amino acids and proteins extremely cheaply, on a truly massive scale, then it would completely transform our entire culture.

QuoteThink of all the farmers/etc. that might go out of business if food no longer had to be grown.

Oh, you mean those wonderful people who reliably cast their vote against the idea that I have the same rights in this country as they do? Well, as pleasurable as it would be to see these guys hung out to dry, truly sythentic proteins would follow the same route that green energy is today: it would take decades for the costs to come down enough to even be truly competitive with conventional agriculture. It probably wouldn't even be cost-effective within our lifetimes.

Quotejust like the oil lobby is reputed to have been working against hybrid/electric cars for the past 20+ years.

I actually have respect for some of the more reputable oil companies. BP and Shell have been pretty proactive in paving the way to transition. I think a senior-exec from BP actually came out with some kind of statement regarding greenhouse gases or something like that.

QuoteMaybe there's just not enough money in it yet?

Precisely.

QuoteI'm not sure what exactly Lisa was talking about wrt quantum mechanics,

Pure magical thinking. She's been exhorting the virtues of this philosopher up in Berkeley. Now, I'm not going to hate on that guy in particular. Perhaps he's selling BS, but he isn't as pretensious or twisted as some people I've heard of. If I weren't so upset about the circumstances under which I heard about the guy, I might even find the guy's BS relaxing to listen to; he's got a good voice. No, the real issue is that Lisa, here, thinks that we should throw away all of our science textbooks and just let this goof tell us how, "the mind is a dance." I'm not trying to sell philosophy short or anything, but it's really no replacement for valid science.

A lot of people don't realize that truly organized scientific research is really pretty grueling. You spend a lot more of your time studying really dessicated and boring details than making outstanding discoveries, and, most of the time you are doing that, you are either up to your eye-sockets in muck or at dire risk of contracting some kind of weird cancer. If you are working with dangerous chemicals, which you would be in the area of nanotech, you've got chemical burns to worry about. I have studied in the empirical sciences. I decided it wasn't something I wanted to do because I felt it vampirically leeching out my soul, and I decided that I would rather devote my life to hearing about the millions of imaginative ways that people can become completely broken. It's a lot less depressing. Philosophy may have its niche, but this what's-his-name probably hasn't studied the subject matter he's attempting to address with anywhere near the kind of depth that an actual scientist does.

QuoteAlso, I forget who mentioned it at this point, but IIRC, there is a type of bio-identical estrogen available that is derived from plants and converted to something that is active in humans.  Not sure if it's vegan safe, but it's gotta be better than premarin.

Mine comes from cholesterol!

You are full of ->-bleeped-<-.  Really.  I have spend years and years studying the history of science and you could not be more wrong.  But, of course, you conclusions pretty much prove that.

Quote from: tekla on July 09, 2009, 08:45:06 PM
You are full of ->-bleeped-<-.  Really.  I have spend years and years studying the history of science and you could not be more wrong.  But, of course, you conclusions pretty much prove that.

Fine, Tekla. You try getting into nanotech. Let's see how long you last.

QuoteLisa, here, thinks that we should throw away all of our science textbooks and just let this goof tell us how,

I did not say that. I have worked with research people and sat on funding boards as I listened to their proposals. I was an Engineer with a degree in Science. Empirical measurement works great for 19 century physical laws. But today we are beyond just looking at just the physical side of life. A whole lot more benefits can come from new ways of looking at things. Those new ways are thinking out side the box.

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Post Merge: July 09, 2009, 08:54:41 PM

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QuoteFine, Tekla. You try getting into nanotech. Let's see how long you last.

Well lets see what effect the nano machines have on the human body as you will be the first to volunteer?

Of course Lisa, when the finance types started thinking outside the box is pretty much the exact moment when the economy went into the dumper.  Just saying.

In my work, we never think outside the box, but we do it in the time honored way that keeps everyone safe - even if it costs more money.  The lawyers force us to is our reply, but in truth, we like it that way too.

I've sat on funding boards too, and sat in on major DoE decisions too.  What wins is what works.  Simple at best, but simple in the end too.  Tragically, simple seems to work.

And I have worked on some of those issues - perhaps long before old SP ever heard of them, and we are close, but not there.  And even still... people pay more for beer that is made by hand, and with awesome ingredients.  As long as people eat, real food will sell for more, for a reason, and its a damn good reason.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 09, 2009, 08:51:30 PM
I did not say that. I have worked with research people and sat on funding boards as I listened to their proposals. I was an Engineer

You mean a civil engineer!? A target-designer!? Do you seriously think that that equates to working in modern nanotech, Lisa? Or brain science?

Even standard chemistry classes go deeper than what they teach to engineers, and it's a lot harder! In an advanced chemistry class, you are expected to remember chemical reactions that take up multiple pages in your text-book while some weird acid you can't even remember the name of is burning a hole into your flesh! They dab it on you deliberately to, and they don't let you wash it off until you've spit out the correct answer. If you give up, there are people from various parts of Asia, Africa, and Central Europe lined up out the door, waiting to take your place, and most of them have a lot more right to be there than you do. And no few of them speak better English than most people you even know.

Have you really studied anything remotely related to the subject matter we are discussing here?

QuoteQuoteOf course Lisa, when the finance types started thinking outside the box is pretty much the exact moment when the economy went into the dumper.  Just saying

Thinking outside the box and applying those ideas to established living conditions are two different things. It takes years of study and testing to understand things. Then it takes centuries to see the effect on life. We are just now seeing the effect of the telescope invention. I do not just means seeing the heavens but the concept of extending the senses.

You really think your going to some major university - in some grad school capacity - that doesn't have a law school?  What, Bob's College of Engineering, Bible Studies and Oil Changes?  Really.  I want to see your undergraduate transcript, and your grad school creds may not hurt either.

QuoteHave you really studied anything remotely related to the subject matter we are discussing here

Engineering Sciences. Everything from the material science, to growth of trees, to making of chips, to Magnetohydrodynamics, etc.

It has been awhile but we dated moon rocks with the mass-spectrometer for Carl Sagan, he also was my professor.

Quote from: tekla on July 09, 2009, 09:12:05 PMYou really think your going to some major university - in some grad school capacity - that doesn't have a law school?

Major? Well, it's a branch of the state system. It's okay.

QuoteWhat, Bob's College of Engineering, Bible Studies and Oil Changes?

Okay, is this a place that actually exists?

QuoteReally.  I want to see your undergraduate transcript, and your grad school creds may not hurt either.

No.

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Post Merge: July 09, 2009, 09:39:04 PM

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Quote from: lisagurl on July 09, 2009, 09:15:53 PM
Engineering Sciences. Everything from the material science, to growth of trees, to making of chips, to Magnetohydrodynamics, etc.

You have never studied anything remotely related to brain science or molecular chemistry, have you? From the sound of it, Lisa, you were a civil engineer.

Oh come on, I'll show you mine, if you show me yours. 

(of course, my transcripts though my PhD show a 4.9somthing GPA, in a wide range of subject. Most of which were science, technology and history at a major school of science and technology - of course I did do a few writing courses, but my teacher in writing won a Pulitzer Prize, so those are not a toss off either.) [and hell, she always told me I was wasting my time in history I should be a writer, but I told her I didn't have the stories to tell, but I do now, so perhaps...]

So you studied history, Tekla. You studied history, and Lisa was an engineer. For that matter, she once had Carl Sagan, a physicist, as an instructor. It does not sound like either of you have any background in molecular chemistry. Or neuroscience, for that matter.

Nah, we did real science and engineering.  I worked for a little construction company called Bechtel for a few years, before doing nuclear weapons tech for the DoE, before I did history, which was before I was a union stagehand.  Lisa worked at a real (not fiction, or 'could happen sometime in the future') nuclear power plant.  So sorry we have real experience.

Quote from: tekla on July 09, 2009, 09:52:54 PM
Nah, we did real science and engineering.  I worked for a little construction company called Bechtel for a few years, before doing nuclear weapons tech for the DoE

"Real science." Nuclear weapons. My grandfather was a nuclear physicist, and he spent most of his adult life working for the power company. He was a little bit autistic. He didn't know much about molecular chemistry or neuroscience, either. Oh, I think that he could understand axons in principle, but try getting him to understand why the NMDA receptor requires two different ligands in order to function. Try teaching him to read a Fisher projection. It would be a complete waste of your time because he is dead.

QuoteSo sorry we have real experience.

Yet, for all of her experience, Lisa has produced, as far as this subject is concerned, meaningless, misleading psycho-babble. You, Tekla, have produced a few highly imaginative barbs. You really should be a writer, Tekla. However, you do not seem to have any meaningful experience in the subject of molecular chemistry.

and, happy to say, neither do you until you prove otherwise. Though I can prove my creds, from working tour with the Grateful Dead to working building a city in Saudi Arabia with Bechtel, and doing weapons research - which by the way - autistic or not - is pretty much the reason you get to spout this crap in English, and not like, say, German.

Quote from: tekla on July 09, 2009, 10:24:12 PM
and, happy to say, neither do you until you prove otherwise.

"Happy," you say. Well, at least we're generally on the same page, now, instead of making really stupid attempts at appeal to authority.

Quotewhich by the way - autistic or not - is pretty much the reason you get to spout this crap in English, and not like, say, German.

Or Russian, which I am actually studying for exactly that reason. A lot of theoretical mathematics still haven't been translated from Russian to English. No telling why.

Although I have been diagnosed autistic, all it really means in my case is that I keep losing and dropping things, and I have extreme difficulty understanding speech under very weirdly specific circumstances. It's really not all that impressive or interesting. I don't even get any kind of synaesthesia that I am aware of. In fact, high-functioning autism is the most dull illness that you can possibly have. In my case, it resulted in me suffering from a series of nervous breakdowns due to intrusive noise while I was living in a residence hall. This is one of the reasons that I would rather learn about the many wonderful ways that a person can become completely broken than study in the empirical sciences. It is much less stressful.

Quote from: Sigma Prime on July 09, 2009, 04:44:42 PM
[...]
However, I am very skeptical about the notion of eating meat that may contain food-borne pathogens. E. Coli or certain species of Salmonella can kill you, and I do not see how it could be beneficial to put yourself at risk of these kinds of pathogens. It's not that I'm particularly fastidious regarding my fare. My dietary choices are generally pretty catholic, and I tend to be more adventurous than not. I just...don't really understand the idea of intentionally putting oneself in harm's way. There must be something about this that I am not understanding.

Speaking for myself, I am not talking about eating raw meats, just non-irradiated foods.  No way should anyone expose themselves deliberately to e-coli or salmonella - I was only suggesting that people can become unaccustomed to otherwise harmless bacteria through a constant lack of exposure.  For example, my friends in India are normal human beings who can eat the local food without getting an upset stomach yet some visitors cannot do this.  It's clearly not e-coli, salmonella or something that severe because (a) the locals aren't immune and (b) the symptoms of the visitors would be far more major.

It's more likely that their digestive systems are accustomed to the normally non-harmful naturally occurring bacterial flora found both in food and the environment (the only anti-bacterial processing their food has undergone is cooking) but a western stomach that is used to not just cooked but virtually sterile foods may not.  Hence the live yoghurt trick, which doesn't contain any harmful bacteria either - it's just a way to help whitey's stomach get used to food with live bacteria in it before getting it in spades on his/her travels :)

On my longer visits to the US, I've noticed that many foods, including milk, seem to have an unnaturally long shelf life compared to equivalent products in most other countries (and this is not synthetic food). Hehe...I remember the first time I shopped in the Safeway at Mountain View, CA. There were rows of milk with all sorts of stuff added.  I asked a shop assistant where the plain, simple, unadulterated (save for pasteurized) milk was...there wasn't any.  Closest was "vitamin-D" milk.   Huh?  Just gimme cow-juice dammit!

Now, that is what I want - good, honest, unadulterated food.

It has not been translated ---- that you know of.  My guess, it has.  All that stuff is way beyond your pay grade, or mine.  But my guess, and it's not a bad guess, is that it has been translated.  It was just not worth publishing, or that, most likely - publishing it would have revealed our intelligence sources.  So....

And Russia - called the USSR in them days - was not much of a threat to us, it was just convenient to both sides to pretend so.

Although I have been diagnosed autistic,  Hard science requires much more than just random attentive behavior.

Quotehave never studied anything remotely related to brain science or molecular chemistry, have you?

Learning does not stop at school. Working requires your to keep up continuous education. Add another 40 years of classes, seminars, experience and self education, then come back and talk to me.

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Post Merge: July 10, 2009, 09:41:41 AM

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QuoteAlthough I have been diagnosed autistic

I am sorry that you have a problem. It will be difficult to develop to your full potential without people skills.

Quote from: finewine on July 09, 2009, 11:32:51 PM
Speaking for myself, I am not talking about eating raw meats, just non-irradiated foods.  No way should anyone expose themselves deliberately to e-coli or salmonella - I was only suggesting that people can become unaccustomed to otherwise harmless bacteria through a constant lack of exposure.  For example, my friends in India are normal human beings who can eat the local food without getting an upset stomach yet some visitors cannot do this.  It's clearly not e-coli, salmonella or something that severe because (a) the locals aren't immune and (b) the symptoms of the visitors would be far more major.

It's more likely that their digestive systems are accustomed to the normally non-harmful naturally occurring bacterial flora found both in food and the environment (the only anti-bacterial processing their food has undergone is cooking) but a western stomach that is used to not just cooked but virtually sterile foods may not.  Hence the live yoghurt trick, which doesn't contain any harmful bacteria either - it's just a way to help whitey's stomach get used to food with live bacteria in it before getting it in spades on his/her travels :)

Oh...now that makes more sense.

QuoteOn my longer visits to the US, I've noticed that many foods, including milk, seem to have an unnaturally long shelf life compared to equivalent products in most other countries (and this is not synthetic food). Hehe...I remember the first time I shopped in the Safeway at Mountain View, CA. There were rows of milk with all sorts of stuff added.  I asked a shop assistant where the plain, simple, unadulterated (save for pasteurized) milk was...there wasn't any.  Closest was "vitamin-D" milk.   Huh?  Just gimme cow-juice dammit!

Now that sounds like it goes in a novel.

QuoteNow, that is what I want - good, honest, unadulterated food.

Like raw oysters! There is a lot to be said for a type of food that you have to slice your fingers to ribbons on before you are allowed to eat it. If that were the only type of food around, then we would all be skinny.

Ooh I never liked raw oysters.  Tried them once on a dinner date with a Japanese girl (she ordered them).  I hated them - exactly what I imagine slurping someone else's cold phlegm from a teaspoon would be like.  :)

Quote from: finewine on July 10, 2009, 10:17:33 AM
Ooh I never liked raw oysters.  Tried them once on a dinner date with a Japanese girl (she ordered them).  I hated them - exactly what I imagine slurping someone else's cold phlegm from a teaspoon would be like.  :)

A very accurate description.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 10, 2009, 09:36:34 AMLearning does not stop at school.

It doesn't. In fact, you can learn a lot more laying in the aisles where they keep the bound periodicals than you can in a lecture hall if you are manically obsessed with some particular subject. It's still no replacement for a formal education, but it is quite rewarding, even though people do stare at you for being curled up on the floor like a housecat with all of your limbs bent into weird positions because of the incredibly large drop in your blood pressure that results from spending ten straight hours laying in the same exact spot.

QuoteAdd another 40 years of classes, seminars, experience and self education, then come back and talk to me.

No. Lisa, even if you could demonstrate yourself to be an authority on this subject, I can't trust anything you say without having to ask myself whether you're actually trying to be informative or making the truth subservient to your ideology. You haven't been entirely straightforward with us for this entire thread or anywhere on this forum, Lisa. That really diminishes the worth of anything you have to say.

And your credentials, Lisa, you haven't even shared with me a single shred of evidence that you have any authority at all to speak on the subject of molecular chemistry or neuroscience (which YOU hauled into the discussion, by the way). Being taught by Carl Sagan and examining moon rocks, Lisa, Lisa, Lisa, how does that even CONNECT with the subject of this discussion at all? My boyfriend, who is a lot older than me, did some pretty cool things himself during his college days, but he doesn't pretend to have authoritative knowledge on molecular biochemistry or neuroscience.

Come on, on neuroscience, do you even know how a receptor for a neurotransmitter even works? For example, name three neurotransmitters that couple with a G-protein-coupled receptor, just THREE, without looking into a reference book. Name one excitory dopamine receptor, and one inhibitory dopamine receptor. Or how about, why is it possible for acetylcholine to have both excitory and inhibitory effects. You've been educated for forty-something years on ALL KINDS of subject matter, so surely you must know. The GABA-B receptor's action on potassium channels through G-protein-coupled intermediates hyperpolarizes the neuron: how is this going to affect the neuron's action potential?

Look, genius, the manner in which your proteins were synthesized is not going to affect your thought processes. Didn't you know that your body has about a bajillion different ways of synthesizing ATP and just about anything you FIND floating around in your body? Your body doesn't use just one, limited way to make things, so why in the HELL do you think it's going to harm you to consume something that was created without a biological intermediate? It's NOT! Your body has had like a billion years to learn how to be ADAPTABLE! You could almost completely replace carbs in your diet with oils, and your body would still be able to sustain itself. I'm surprised we can't live on pure gasoline...wait...

If it's attached to glycerol, WE CAN!!! THAT IS WHAT DIETARY OILS ARE! Fats are nothing but gasoline with glycerol caps! The hydrocarbon chains found in even the lightest dietary oils may be a lot longer than, say, hexane, but it's really the same principle. If you wanted to, you could cut your carbohydrate consumption down to very close to nil and drink capfuls of oil instead, and you could actually live on that kind of diet. It's almost exactly like feeding yourself kerosene, but we can do it. It may not be as good for you as a more diversified diet, but you could live on it for a pretty long time. So, when YOU pamper and baby your body with so-called "organic" foods, then YOU are going against nature! It is in our nature, Lisa, to be unreasonably omnivorous. It is in our nature to be capable of surviving, come-what-will. You aren't going to break yourself by putting something artificial into you.

QuoteI am sorry that you have a problem. It will be difficult to develop to your full potential without people skills.

Err...that's not the real issue in my case. Look, if you really want to gain some understanding for autism, volunteer one day to work with autistic children for a while. There are plenty of opportunities out there, and it can be very rewarding. You learn pretty quickly that it's not about social skills. It's really a lot more...messy. You see, I was going to say "subtle," but I figured that "messy" would be a lot more accurate.

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Post Merge: July 10, 2009, 07:55:07 AM

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Quote from: finewine on July 10, 2009, 10:17:33 AM
Ooh I never liked raw oysters.  Tried them once on a dinner date with a Japanese girl (she ordered them).  I hated them - exactly what I imagine slurping someone else's cold phlegm from a teaspoon would be like.  :)

I am part-otter, therefore I think the Nihonjin are culinary geniuses.

Otter Chaos (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=310128468072066622)

^Me on a slow day. However, I am capable of higher levels of destruction.

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Post Merge: July 11, 2009, 11:15:37 AM

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Okay, Lisa, I'll help you out. A certain dopamine receptor, DRD4, is found to be impaired in children who suffer from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Now, is this more likely to be an inhibitory or excitory receptor for dopamine?

If you're still stumped, I'll give you an even easier one: what family of monoamines does dopamine fall into? This is one of the most basic ideas in biochemistry, period.

The G-Protein coupled to the dopamine receptor D1 stimulates adenyl cyclase, activating cAMP-dependent protein kinase. What is cAMP? What is a protein kinase? Try telling me what adenyl cyclase actually does just by looking over what I've already written in the past few sentences. Hint: "cAMP-dependent protein kinase."

If you can't even figure out the answer to a cellular biochemistry-related question that I have all but handed to you, where are you coming from trying to claim that you are more qualified than I am to speak on the subject of biochemistry? You probably can't even remember what a protein kinase actually does.

You were trying to pull authority on me based on profoundly shaky premises, Lisa. Your argument that you have better credentials than I do on this subject just doesn't hold water.

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Post Merge: July 11, 2009, 09:04:39 PM

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Lisa!!!! Get back here, prey!!! I'm not finished with you yet!!