This is just a section with
an assortment of Usenet postings of mine that I felt you readers might be
interested in.As of October 2003, you’d
better wear heavy protective clothing here, cuz this section is under massive
construction.
As a rule, I don’t like to
include the names and/or Email addresses of other people who’ve posted their
messages to Usenet.While they’re aware
that their messages will be archived by Google Groups (which took over Deja’s
old Usenet archive), they never signed up to be archived by me, and in honor of
their privacy, I’ve blotted out the names of other people in the posts, whether
I concur with them or not.Just a tenet
that I feel I have to follow.
En Francais
Usenet can be a useful place to practice composition skills
in a foreign tongue, applying the language to real-world issues. For someone in the sciences it can also help
to hone one’s ability to engage in technical discussions with others for whom
English is not a first language.Here’s
a post in French (in response to a student’s question) discussing the logarithmic
growth characteristics of bacteria in Luria-Bertani medium, and a similar
post (also quite technical) on algal
growth factors and taxonomic classification (as an autotroph or
heterotroph).On a very different note, here is a post in regard to the use of Greek
in the ancient Roman empire with a more generalized
discussion of the language situation and the retention of Vulgar Latin after
the 5th century (which I also cover in my Language
section).
The coercive “one-child” policy (OCP) has drawn substantial
attention, but its defenders try to support it by claiming that, at the very
least, it’s helped to curb rapid population growth in the Asian colossus.It hasn’t—not in the slightest.While China’s
pop. growth has subsided, it is an illusion to attribute this to the OCP.The diminution of growth has far more to do
with increased urbanization and voluntary family planning—programs that were
implemented and supported in the 1970s, before
the OCP went into effect in China, as noted in a perspicacious essay by Peter
Zhang, which I cite here.The OCP has
proven to be simply unenforceable in practice, and many examples are cited
here; in fact, if anything, it may have paradoxically increased the pop. growth rate over what it would have been in the
absence of OCP.It’s just not possible
to enforce a state power on such a personal decision of couples from the top
down; to curb runaway pop. growth, it’s best to provide for the health and
long-term welfare of the people, esp. in rural areas—through vaccines, improved
education, urban job opportunities, and social safety nets for the elderly.
The publication of work by researchers in 2003 who had
assembled polio from scratch caused a major stir, though the feat in actuality
was quite difficult and likely inapplicable in practice.In any case, the event naturally attracted
discussion on Usenet, and I responded to a post on some of the technical
details with a discussion of some polio “comparative virology,” contrasting the
nucleic acid vector, size, and structure of several virus families.Concise technical post if that’s what you’re
looking for.
An all-too common problem, when an intriguing scientific
discovery is colossally misinterpreted and misreported in the media, with its
context lost and (because of political or pop-psychology notions) its
significance often construed to be the opposite of what it actually said.In April-May of 2004, researchers in Japan
managed to generate a so-called “parthenote” mouse via parthenogenesis, in
which an oocyte (egg) from a mother mouse was prodded to become an offspring
without fertilization by sperm.In
typical idiot’s echo chamber fashion, the media (most of whom probably never
read the Nature paper in which it
was published) pounced on the story, sometimes tongue-in-cheek (though often
not) to suggest the discovery as proof of the supposed superfluous nature of
the male gamete.The paper actually was
not saying this at all—in fact, the practical unfeasibility of the technique
demonstrated precisely why the spermatozoa are needed in nature, since they are
necessary to overcome the restrictions of imprinting (which, in turn, likely
evolved to allow for the evolutionary advantages of biodiversity offered by
sexual reproduction).Many in the media
tried to claim that the barrier was simply technological, that is was merely
more efficient methods that were needed to overcome the imprinting block and
the procedure’s inefficiency to, in effect, render the male gamete unnecessary.But as I noted in the post, if technology
were to advance to that point, it would merely be one more simple, easily
achievable technological step to make both the male and female gametes “unnecessary”
(a la Aldous Huxley), by de-differentiating adult somatic cells for example and
raising the new “zygotoid” in an incubation chamber with amniotic fluid.Who knows whether these things are feasible
in general—the point is to discredit and burst the bubble of those trying to
argue for social engineering based on technological capacities, which are quite
malleable and rapidly changing in any case.On a similar note, this topic should help us to understand why
biological weapons targeting specific subgroups of people must be absolutely,
unequivocally forbidden, with the harshest penalties for infractions.Any such bioweapon that selectively targeted
a subpopulation based on a unique characteristic—say, a gene responsible for a
cardinal physical characteristic in a given “race” (imperfectly defined, of
course)—could just as easily be altered to target the perpetrator as well as
the initial group of victims.Whether
red, yellow, black, white, male, female, North American or North African, short
or tall— any vile fools who attempted to design a bioweapon against a given
group could soon encounter an equally lethal bioweapon directed against their
own.IMHO this common vulnerability,
more than anything else, should discourage even the most bitter foes from
blundering down the path of biological weapons development, testing, and
application.
Progressive Aspects in the Muslim World
Most majority-Muslim countries in the 21st
century are sadly beset by a host of difficult-to-surmount obstacles which are
miring their peoples in poverty and frustration to an alarming degree, and
subjecting them to the whims of arbitrary and corrupt plutocratic ruling
classes gorged, in many cases, on the ill-begotten wealth of petroleum.However, the Muslim world historically,
particularly during the medieval period, was more advanced technologically than
the Western world and, in many respects, was more culturally developed and even
progressive.The Abbasid and Andalusian
(Moorish Spain) civilizations of the Middle Ages boasted especially high rates
of literacy and economic productivity, and their advances in empirical medicine,
mathematics, astronomy, technology, engineering, and chemistry filtered into
Europe, helping to ignite the Italian Renaissance and provide Europe with the
tools and foundations for the seminal scientific advances of the 1600s.For most of those centuries, the Jewish
populations in Muslim realms were far better protected from persecution than in
Christian lands (where expulsions and severe pogroms were a regular
occurrence), and early medieval Islam provided rights to women and the
impoverished to an extent that was unusual for the times and far exceeded what
was available in Europe.Although the status
of women in many modern Muslim countries is lamentable to say the least,
nonetheless Islamic society in general, perhaps surprisingly has a greater
proportion of female political leaders than any other in the world, with Turkey,
Pakistan, Bangladesh,
and Indonesia
boasting powerful women leaders during the 1990s and after 2000.
On a similar note, in this section I’ve debunked a
not-widely-held but particularly preposterous and even dangerous historical
myth that deserves to be shredded at every opportunity.Many aspects of recorded history in different
societies are permeated by myths that are in obvious contradiction to facts,
and most of these are interesting and relatively harmless.However, some myths are so vitriolic and
volatile in their nature that they have the capacity to provoke wars.One of these concerns the death of the
Prophet Muhammad (Mohammed), founder (and Messenger, in Muslim belief) of the
Islamic faith and the Arab empire of the 7th century that would have
such colossal and immeasurable historical consequences.The circumstances of Muhammad’s death are
well-depicted in the historical hadith:After an extraordinarily vigorous few years
(especially for a person in his 60s in the harsh conditions of the Arabian
desert) of diplomacy, warfare, and statecraft, Muhammad contracted
an acute infectious disease and died, rather suddenly and unexpectedly.(In fact the unanticipated nature of his
death would foster serious problems and factional strife for the embryonic
Muslim state in the next few decades, since he was not able to designate a
successor.)Several years prior to the
frenzied activity and diplomacy of the year 631 A.D., Muhammad had waged the
Battle of Khaybar in 628 A.D., after which the widow of one of the deceased chiefs
in the opposing army poisoned a lamb with a neurotoxin and attempted to serve
it to Muhammad and his colleagues at a feast.What transpired at the feast is generally reported and assented upon by
the otherwise divergent hadith—Muhammad
was generally later to consume his repast than his guests (whether out of
hospitality or suspicion), he noticed his friend Bishr reacting with
convulsions to the lamb, detected an unusual smell and taste, and immediately
spat his piece of lamb out, avoiding consumption of the poison (and undertaking
a “subclavian bleed” of himself and his dinnermates as a protective
measure).He obviously consumed a
minimal amount, if any, of the neurotoxin.He was not, in any way, even slightly harmed by the poison, and both a
basic knowledge of the actions of neurotoxins as well as simple common sense—his
manner of death from acute and unexpected infections disease, his unusual
stamina at such an advanced age, his extraordinary degree of activity in his
later years, the similar vigor of his friend Abu Bakr who apparently did
consume some of the lamb—all demonstrate the obvious and incontrovertible fact
that he was not affected by the poison.This is pretty basic, 3rd-grade analysis here, yet some
incompetent accounts relate that Muhammad was injured from (or even perished
from) the poison, a laughably ridiculous conclusion.
Why, then, is the myth harmful
per se?Because the Battle of Khaybar
occurred between Muhammad’s nascent Muslim following and Jewish opponents in
the Arabian Peninsula, in a conflict that greatly
differs from the modern Arab-Jewish conflict yet it often grossly interpreted
and superimposed out of context.The
widow who attempted to poison the dinner guests was Zainab (Zaynab), the wife
of Harith, who had fallen in battle.Muhammad seems to have been disinclined initially to invoke capital
punishment, but when Bishr died he had Zainab executed.Arguing the preposterous claim that the
neurotoxin killed Muhammad, as some proffer, leads to an analogous blood libel—“the
Jews killed the Prophet”—as the one that caused so much misery and so many
pogroms in Europe, and perhaps unsurprisingly the poisoning myth has been
vouched for by a very small number of extremists on both sides.Rabid anti-Semites and rabid anti-Muslim in
both camps tend to use the story to whip up their rabble for a big bloody war
of hatred.As suggested above, many
people, understandably prejudiced by the seemingly immutable animosity on both
sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, blithely assume that the Battle of
Khaybar was merely the first manifestation of the longstanding Arab-Israeli conflict.This false assumption masks the fact that
Muhammad’s relations with the Jews of Arabia were unusually complex, involving
conflict at times but substantial cooperation in other instances, including in Medina
where Jewish support was critical for Muhammad in gaining his first foothold on
political power.Furthermore, as “People
of the Book” (and as a fellow Semitic people for that matter), Jews in Islamic
lands generally received far more generous treatment and tolerance than in Europe
until the middle 20th-century.Not ideal, of course, but far preferable to the regular massacres,
pogroms, and nationwide expulsions that were standard fare in European
nations.It is cause enough to deride,
debunk, and disparage this foolish myth for the simple fact that, apart from
being dangerous, it is outrageously, preposterously incorrect, as even the most
cursory examination of the historical record and basic common sense
demonstrate.The fact that the hadith arose from separate oral
traditions and still agree on this
topic (in addition to basic medical details, Muhammad’s actions after 628 A.D.,
and rather obvious conclusions) make the foolishness of this myth even more
patent.Muhammad was not a perfect
person and one may fairly raise many objections to him and his character, but such
tramplings on history as the myth of the poisoning are reprehensible and must
be dismissed out of hand.I discuss this
in detail here.
A useful discussion on this thread about the factors behind Spain’s
imperial decline in the late 17th century.I customarily delete the names of other
posters from the archive here for reasons discussed above, but in this case I’ve
left it in because the poster is clearly a scholar with a solid grounding in
this topic and insightful information.Fundamentally, Spain’s
decline occurred not because of military challenges but economic blunders, in
particular the repeated failure of its banks, official corruption and
widespread graft, and the inability to control runaway inflation spawned by Spain’s
precious metals shipments.The Spanish
Armada itself had little effect, in part because (as is not widely understood)
Spain quickly recovered from the Armada setback and achieved several naval
victories against England in the 1590s, while better securing its gold and
silver shipments with a cleverly designed and implemented convoy system.For my own accompanying essay on the Spanish
Armada in my history section, click here.
bravenet.com