A marker of a severe case of dumbness? The naturality argument

[Tigranes]

Err...how do you get from the mass of the interaction boson to the strength of the force? Especially, when it is not even clear whether such a thing exists for gravity? And how is the mass of the proton related to that? That statement makes no sense at all.

Notice that I say "say". In reality weak force is a factor of 10^33 times stronger than the gravity, not 10^2. As for discussing proton and W boson -- I simply mentioned 2 most famous particles which can be commonly associated with mass (and then weight) and weak interactions. In the context of making point about gravity making more sense than weak force in our everyday life that was enough.

Obviously, if one wants to show off under pretext of being more accurate, in attributing a relative strength to the four fundamental forces, it has proved useful to quote the strength in terms of a dimensionless coupling constants:


Strong 1
Electromagnetic 1/137
Weak 10^-6
Gravity 10^-39

 

[Tigranes]

What good do these equations do, if you cannot solve them? And what is the reason for those equations, anyway? The more you understand in natural sciences the more questions arise.

Exactly. But if the nature were a mere senseless mess -- no one would even bother asking questions (and then getting some answers, as the history of science proves). And “sometimes attaining the deepest familiarity with a question is our best substitute for actually having the answer” -- to quote Brian Greene. Things are the way they are in our universe because if they weren't, we wouldn't be here to notice.

 

[uppi]

Notice that I say "say". In reality weak force is a factor of 10^33 times stronger than the gravity, not 10^2. As for discussing proton and W boson -- I simply mentioned 2 most famous particles which can be commonly associated with mass (and then weight) and weak interactions. In the context of making point about gravity making more sense than weak force in our everyday life that was enough.

Obviously, if one wants to show off under pretext of being more accurate, in attributing a relative strength to the four fundamental forces, it has proved useful to quote the strength in terms of a dimensionless coupling constants:


Strong 1
Electromagnetic 1/137
Weak 10^-6
Gravity 10^-39

Then why include these totally irrelevant masses in your statement instead of making your point?

Note that despite their name, these coupling constants are not constants, calculating a coupling constant for gravity is dubious at best, and saying that the weak force is 10^33 stronger than gravity is quite misleading.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Man is an omnivore. It is really just that simple.

That is not to say I see anything wrong with vegans. They can eat whatever they please.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

One question: Do you believe in human nature?

I believe the most obvious - that it is not up to random chance how humans interact with their environment and themselves, and hence it must be influenced by certain human traits (note: not determined). I also believe that the idea of human nature can be a useful heuristic to give those traits a conceptional frame. I also believe that many do it wrong.

 

[Farm Boy]

I don't think that tracks. Many people in the pre-modern era lived 80 years or so. The average life expectancy was lower because infant mortality was massive, and many people died of infections. Not because of diets.

Diet impacts that though. It impacts health of muscle, health of bone, health of immune system. Heck, specific nutrient deficiencies make for interesting neurological disorders if I remember correctly. One of the very first things people seek to acquire when they catch some material wealth is variety and richness of diet. It's also not simply a quantity of life issue, it's a quality of life issue.

 

[Flying Pig]

Plenty of people still lived to what would today be called a ripe old age - eighties and nineties - so I'm sceptical that we really need modern foods or dietary advice to stay healthy. As Cutlass says, by the time you eliminate infant mortality, death from bad healthcare and so on, I doubt that life expectancy would be markedly different in (say) Roman or Tudor times than it would be today. In fact, I think we're rapidly moving to a point where it will start to decline - children brought up eating rubbish, not exercising, in cities with the air full of lead and heavy metals, will probably start to die sooner than many of their ancestors who made it to twenty.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

On life expectancy moving towards a decline - science seems to be agreeing with you. At least there has been a warning by some EU official / EU institution that those who are in their 30s or something now may live on average actually shorter lives than those who are old now.
Also, I am missing stress in your post. Which, as it appears, is going nowhere but up in our societies.

 

[Farm Boy]

Those are confounding factors to diet and life expectancy. Nasty to sort out, it is.

 

[uppi]

Plenty of people still lived to what would today be called a ripe old age - eighties and nineties - so I'm sceptical that we really need modern foods or dietary advice to stay healthy. As Cutlass says, by the time you eliminate infant mortality, death from bad healthcare and so on, I doubt that life expectancy would be markedly different in (say) Roman or Tudor times than it would be today. In fact, I think we're rapidly moving to a point where it will start to decline - children brought up eating rubbish, not exercising, in cities with the air full of lead and heavy metals, will probably start to die sooner than many of their ancestors who made it to twenty.

Wikipedia has this to say about life expectancy in ancient Rome:

If a child survived to age 10, life expectancy was an additional 37.5 years, a total of 47.5 years

That is still quite a difference to lie expectancy today. You can blame it on bad healthcare, but i doubt that explains everything.

There might also be a bit of reporting bias if we think about Roman people getting old: Those we know about were most likely more wealthy and had a better diet than those we know nothing about. The diet of a Roman emperor was probably not much worse than what we have today.

 

[Rashiminos]

Not really. The stress in common sense is on sense, not on common. Plenty of people lack common sense, so it's not that common in practice. But in theory it could be very common. If you catch my drift.

If someone wants to stress the base noun they can do so without the adjective (or use a different adjective ). Referring to a factually uncommon "sense" as "common sense" is oxymoronic (although it's typically used to mean "these people should think like me...").

 

[gay_Aleks]

Bah, if that "common sense" was so smart, would it have been called "common"?

 

[Flying Pig]

Wikipedia has this to say about life expectancy in ancient Rome:


That is still quite a difference to lie expectancy today. You can blame it on bad healthcare, but i doubt that explains everything.

There might also be a bit of reporting bias if we think about Roman people getting old: Those we know about were most likely more wealthy and had a better diet than those we know nothing about. The diet of a Roman emperor was probably not much worse than what we have today.

There were certainly a fair few Romans who lived into their eighties and nineties - that might have been the equivalent of somebody living past 100 today, but I doubt it was the equivalent of living to 120. Diseases would have killed off quite a lot of not-that elderly people, and healthcare (although excellent by the standards of the day in the military) simply wasn't good enough to deal with most ailments in anything like a scientific way. They understood the general principles of stopping things bleeding, keeping them clean and removing horribly infected matter, but most medicine fundamentally rested on allowing the patient's own immune system to get them better. Once you're pushing seventy, it often needs some help.

 

[warpus]

"If you're so into naturality or whatever the hell you want to call it, why don't you go find a mate the same way animals do? Oh yeah, that's right, because that would make you a rapist."

 

[Farm Boy]

We could go with the coyote model instead?

 

[gay_Aleks]

Coyotes! Literally steaks on four legs (provided you have guns and the knowledge to use them)!

 

[Flying Pig]

Isn't the meat of carnivores usually quite bad for you? Something to do with vitamin A - as well as bio-magnification of anything nasty in the environment.

 

[Farm Boy]

Wouldn't that make fish quite bad for you as well?