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A bit of a weird question: Can modern medicine be a threat to humanity long-term by greatly reducing effects of natural selection?
  • Natural selection and evolution happen because genetic traits in some individuals are more beneficial than in other individuals. It has nothing to do with increasing future life expectancy for most or all of the species. If a doctor is helping non-relatives far more than relatives, his contribution is not selected for.

  • A bit of a weird question: Can modern medicine be a threat to humanity long-term by greatly reducing effects of natural selection?
  • Hardy-Weinberg isn't appropriate here. If all alleles were neutral, they'd get slowly lost or move toward fixation at a rate proportional to the mutation rate by genetic drift. In the absence of negative selection, new variants that are deleterious without modern medicine would do a random walk in allele frequency, meaning some would become prevalent. But the population is so large they would take far too long to be completely fixed.

    Hardy-Weinberg is a model that makes by true assumptions (like zero mutation rate and infinite, isolated populations).

  • A bit of a weird question: Can modern medicine be a threat to humanity long-term by greatly reducing effects of natural selection?
  • OG Luci is right, though. There are far more people due to modern medicine. So if we suddenly lose it, there will be a lot of death. But there is more population and diversity to draw from the survivors. So I don't think it's a threat to the species.

  • High levels of weedkiller (glyphosate/e.g. Roundup) found in more than half of sperm samples, study finds
  • "Fertility rates" is used one way in the news article and another way in the journal article it is representing. The news article linked out to the wrong kind of fertility rate. See my parallel comment or follow the link yourself.

    As to why you don't know that "fertility rates" can mean the rate of births divided by the population? I think it was simple ignorance. There's nothing wrong with that as long as you aren't a dick to others out of said ignorance.

  • Sticky trick: new glue spray kills plant pests without chemicals
  • Hard disagree. Science reporting has to summarize and simplify, but it should strive to remain accurate and not "dumb down." By making "chemicals" the Boogeyman it misleads people. Certain chemicals are dangerous and others are just fine. Natural chemicals, oxidized or not, can be very toxic. Lab made chemicals can be mostly inert.

  • High levels of weedkiller (glyphosate/e.g. Roundup) found in more than half of sperm samples, study finds
  • The news article should report accurately. They directly linked out "global fertility rates are dropping" to a lancet article which looked only at demographics of how many children are born to different age groups. I followed that link to confirm it wasn't about people unable to have children before commenting.

    The drop in global fertility has fuck-all to do with glyphosate.

  • Sticky trick: new glue spray kills plant pests without chemicals
  • You don't serve the greater good by misusing words. A new sticky substance as an alternative to chemicals? If you want to educate people through your reporting, then you try to make it accurate and choose words carefully.

    It doesn't invalidate the whole article, fair enough. But it does make a "wise" person question what else they got wrong.

  • Israel recovers bodies of three hostages taken by Hamas, including Shani Louk
  • No, Hamas actually did kill people inside Israel on Nov 7, and not everything can be explained away as Israeli lies and propaganda.

    The message is supposed to be that what Hamas did was horrific. It wasn't "justified" by years of Israeli occupation. And now Israel has gone much too far in their counterattack by killing tens of thousands and putting many more at risk of starvation and lack of medicine.

    A reasonable person can hold both views at the same time. These escalations are unfortunately taking us farther away from a stable and lasting peace.

  • Louisiana becomes 1st state to require the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms
  • The next four Commandments to round out the top five are foundational to our legal system, although none of these prohibitions is actually enshrined in any of our laws:

    1. You shall not make idols.
    2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
    3. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
    4. Honour your father and your mother.
  • Louisiana becomes 1st state to require the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms
  • Ah, yes. Very foundational to our legal system. The First Commandment (using the version usually touted by evangelicals):

    You shall have no other gods.

    That's why we didn't pass the Bill of Rights with the US Constitution. Because the First Amendment there states people shall have freedom of religion, and that would contradict the First Commandment.

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