Either the prayer is answered, or not, so the odds must be 50%, right? :)
MC_Escherichia
To rephrase komponisto’s reply to this in a simpler manner, and minus the controversial bit:
I wish everyone would extend to the unattractive people of the world, of either sex, our right to feel bitter. This does not make us rapists. Thank you for your attention.
- 12 Sep 2010 10:46 UTC; 19 points) 's comment on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA by (
I wonder if Eliezer has or should read this review of Ender’s Game (a book I never read myself, but the reviewer seems to provide a useful warning to authors).
being convinced you deserve something that it’s totally unreasonable (socially) for you to be granted
There’s some sort of ambiguity in the word “deserve”. I would say that every harmless person deserves to be loved, or deserves an enjoyable job, but that doesn’t mean anyone owes anyone anything. The world is the way it is.
No, nobody would ever say that.
won’t have the problem of being acyclic
Should that be “cyclic”? I take it from Richard’s post that “acyclic” is what we want.
Yes, that seems reasonable. There are four biologically possible scenarios I can think of to explain the numbers:
It’s developmental noise.
Mutations that cause hermaphroditism arise at a certain rate and are eliminated by natural (or artificial) selection at a certain rate; this is mutation-selection balance.
Multiple genes at different loci are required to produce a hermaphrodite (this is epistasis); natural selection doesn’t act against these genes since it is rare for them to be found in the same invididual, and they may produce some benefit when apart.
Hermaphrodites have reasonable fitness and are held at an equilibrium frequency in the population.
Four seems far and away the least likely; I’d be suspicious of an equilibrium that’s so low, not only in our species but all our mammalian relatives. Perhaps there are answers in the literature; I don’t have the time.
If the null hypothesis was true, the probability that we would get 3 heads or less is 0.08
Is the idea that the coin will land heads 90% of the time really something that can be called the “null hypothesis”?
I’m not following you.
Imagine this scenario happens 10000 times, with different formulae.
In 9900 of those cases, the calculator says , and Omega asks what the answer is if the calculator says .
In 100 of those cases, the calculator says , and Omega asks what the answer is if the calculator says .
So you are more likely to be in the first scenario.
That you are given three of the four letters for “lake” in correct, consecutive order.
Could you direct me to the comparative analysis of Mammalian reproductive systems that discusses hermaphrodites in other species?
What I meant was that we can think about other mammals ourselves, and note that no other mammal species has hermaphrodites at significant frequencies. I had no specific research in mind.
there would be a decent size population of hermaphrodites able to develop a stable social station; if there were a stable hermaphrodite community their genes would spread
This depends both on a genetic cause, and also on hermaphrodites having equal fitness to males and females.
I think the intentional elimination of hermaphrodites has made a huge impact on the demographic of humanity, do you disagree?
Yes, I disagree, for the reasons I’ve stated. Other mammals have had no “intentional elimination”, yet hermaphrodites remain at very low levels. So “intentional elimination” isn’t the reason for the very low levels.
Also I don’t think you can use the fact other gonochronistic mammals have not developed more sexes as a reason why humans would not.
Of course I can; humans aren’t particularly special, at least not in relevant ways.
The enemy of the enemy of my enemy is my enemy.
What I was saying is that humans are the only living member of the Homo family
So was the claim “Humans are the only single species mammal” simply a claim that humans are the only mammal with their own genus? That’s certainly not true, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Monotypic_mammal_genera
The reproductive isolation can be genetic, or it can be simply geographical or habitual.
This is probably not relevant to our point, but Futuyma (2005) Evolution p356 defines reproductive isolation as “reduction or prevention of gene flow between populations by genetically determined differences between them”—i.e. it’s not enough that they are geographically separated.
homo sapiens exist in one giant gene pool
This just seems to be a claim that the population size of our species is quite large. There are other species of mammal with large populations. Again, the relevance of any of this to sex-determination is rather doubtful.
I don’t think there’s a prejudice against replying to old posts around here...
intentional out breeding [elimination] of more sexes
A comparative analysis of Mammalia shows this to be extremely doubtful, unless you think that only humans have these extra sexes. In all mammals the vast bulk of individuals can be cleanly assigned to male or female without ambiguity, and no such intentional elimination was required. [Note “outbreeding” means something else.]
You have to look at quite distantly related species before hermaphrodites show up at interesting frequencies. Certainly some fish can be hermaphrodite.
“Overcoming” doesn’t really work as an adjective.
Are the words “women” and “men” reversed in your opening sentence?
That’s also interesting… I think the two ways of looking at it are equivalent, i.e. any pattern that satisfies one should also satisfy the other. (Only because the XOR pattern works both vertically and horizontally.)
What book?
As an aside; the use of “Org” (i.e. Rationality Org) seems really unusual and immediately makes me think of Scientology (Sea Org); am I unusual in having this reaction?