(no subject)

[jinian]

I had a bubble bath yesterday afternoon and my hair still smells of Bathos. Guess that means I might want to wash again before encountering snout. We could experiment, though. There's no lavender in this one.

Why had I never heard of the OTA? I guess I was fairly young. Anyway, it looks like the legislature may be realizing that they should know something about science, so that would be very good. I find it pretty disturbing that so many people dislike all science. (Specializing is fine; I've never taken a physics course, and I don't actually think they should have let me out of high school without one, but lots of adults know so little science and think it's not applicable...)

Whoa. Check out Captain Tootsie. I have nothing more to say.

Some really bad stuff going on in our lovely gigantic corporations, according to this article from the Multinational Monitor. My favorite line: "Sara Lee had a big hot dog contract with the Department of Defense."

I actually don't think it's such a bad idea for some restaurants to ban minors in favor of smokers. The problem is to make sure that people know what's up (which is why it sounds like everyone's pissed off) and that it's still possible for kids to get into some places (which doesn't sound like it's really a problem, but the precedent isn't so great). It's an inventive solution, at least, which is probably why I have warmed to it. The government could probably solve the problem by selling smoking licenses like they do liquor licenses; then it'd cost money to run a smoking establishment. Added bonus to me: there'd probably be more smoke-free bars.

It's interesting that the feral children listed were largely indifferent to sex. I remember hearing that sexual response was conditioned very early, so if they didn't have any humans to learn that from, it makes sense to me that they wouldn't be interested. One thing about the case summaries, though, is that I don't really feel they're reliable. I don't buy that Victor was "incapable of distinguishing hot from cold", though it seems likely that he wasn't a wimp about such things. And what does it mean that someone can't distinguish right from wrong? Oh, well, more research, poor me.

I haven't even started exploring Terrorism, Nonlinearity & Complex Adaptive Systems, but I have to share. Wow.

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I'm ok with liquid BATHOS so my guess was it was maybe
something in the powdery stuff?

I seem to have slept through the 'Rico Suave' thing though
enough people have sung it to me (and like, tossed off
references to it) that it's almost as if I was actually
present for the original cultural moment.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I still think it's the lavender. I know you are usually a tapir, but perhaps you could see your way clear to being a guinea pig for a short time at some point. :)

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

NO NO NO NO INSTA-MIGRAINE BAD FOR ALL ANIMULES

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Kylee, you are a never ending source of the most fascinating URL's...

The Office of Technology Assessment was a very good thing, and its loss was a loss to us all. I remain convinced that it was targeted for elimination because of its staunch opposition to SDIO/BMDO aka Star Wars. I hope it gets reinstituted.

As far as Captain Tootsie goes, cartoons like that were fairly common when I was a little boy. They seemed really stupid then too.

Can't comment on several of your other links, but I had to laugh at CNA grouping Terrorism with Nonlinearity and Complex Adaptive Systems. As a former military operations analyst, I understand why they did it, but it's still funny. (CNA stands for Center for Naval Analysis, in case anyone is wondering.)

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I harvest the URLs from all over. It's fun. The herd has usually been culled by several people by the time each link reaches my faithful readers, so you're actually getting distilled essence of bloggery.

That is kinda funny, isn't it? I looked at it askance too.

Smoke free bars

[krow.livejournal.com]

I would so love to see more smoke free bars. I go to San Fran at least three times a year and its so nice to be able to go there and not deal with smokers and enjoy music.
I have pretty much resorted to not going to live shows anymore because of this. It just ruins it for me so I don't bother.

Re: Smoke free bars

[jinian.livejournal.com]

(Damn, looks like my original response to this got lost.)

I can go to live shows at the Paradox or other theaters, but it'd be really nice if there were more places where I could get food and drink at the same time. Having never been to SF, I didn't realize it was better there. I'll have to go.

Re: Feral children

[rivka.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of problems with so-called feral child studies. Case historians tend to assume that these are children who, if brought up in a normal environment, would have developed normally - that the only difference between them and ordinary children is their lack of social contact. But there's typically no evidence about their pre-abandonment characteristics.

It's likely that many of these children were abandoned in the woods (or whatever) because there was something wrong with them in the first place - for example, because they were mentally retarded or showing signs of grossly abnormal development. You can't really know, and that makes it impossible to interpret their subsequent limitations. (Particularly their inability to learn certain types of new information after rescue.)

The article you link to also makes some weird assumptions - like the assumption that human children who grow up having no contact with other humans are somehow analogous to animals. But it's not normal for any mammals I can think of - human or nonhuman - to grow up in complete isolation from social contact with their own kind. Social interaction is hugely important for most animals. Monkeys reared apart from other monkeys have the same kinds of social abnormalities as humans reared apart from other humans. These kids aren't "like animals," they're "like completely unsocialized animals." There's a big difference.

And finally, there's the weird assumption that feral children provide evidence about which behaviors and abilities are genetic and which are environmental. Genes only express themselves in environments; just about all aspects of an organism involve the interaction of genetic and environmental factors.

To pick one simple example: the structures of the eye and the visual cortex are encoded in DNA. In all ordinary environments, visual ability develops according to that genetic code. But if you raise kittens in total darkness for the first six months or so, and only then expose them to light, they never develop normal visual abilities - regardless of their genetic perfection. Does that mean that vision is "caused" by the environment? No, it means that in this case the presence of an extreme and bizarre condition (total darkness) overwhelmed the course of visual development, nearly shutting out the importance of genetic factors. The same is going to be true for the extreme and bizarre conditions in which feral children develop. Not to even mention (as I said before) the likelihood that some of them weren't genetically normal in the first place.

I'm sorry. I'm totally rambling and taking over your comments page. I'll stop now.

Re: Feral children

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Yay for rambling. Do it any time, that was great. :) Excellent points.

[resolute.livejournal.com]

"Gosh-a-mighty goodness"???

Oh my.