Quickies
Quickies: Spiderman, scientific literacy, sorority sisters, and Binding of Isaac
- What would Spiderman have to eat for breakfast in order to swing around New York? – “In order for a spider’s body to produce silk, it needs protein; so Lorch figured Spider-Man would operate in much the same way.”
- Aiming too high or too low when communicating science – What happens when you ask a group of scientists questions from outside their field? How much explanation does it take for them to understand the correct answers?
- University of Virginia sorority sisters ordered to stay home Saturday night for their own safety – “Sorority sisters at the University of Virginia were ordered by their national chapters to avoid fraternity events this weekend — a mandate that many of the women said was irrational, sexist and contrary to the school’s culture.”
- A defense of Binding of Isaac from a former fundamentalist Christian – Really interesting read on how the themes of the game mirror the author’s experiences of growing up as a fundamentalist.
- Cute Animal Friday! From Eric, kittens dressed as sci-fi and fantasy characters. And from Criticaldragon1177, cats and dogs vs. balloons.
I’ve noticed lately that the biggest indicator of the power of the Patriarchy is that even when our dehumanizing stereotypes are about men, it’s everybody else that has to change their behavior to accommodate us. If we thought Sorority sisters were uncontrollably violent and unable to control their sexual desires, we wouldn’t punish Fraternities by keeping them away. If the frats are so dangerous, maybe they’re the ones that have to be locked up at night.
I got all on the literacy question except 6. My answer was different than the one from #1 and (IMO) my answer was better than his. My answer is that race lines, as we draw them, do not reflect our actual ancestry that we can now prove with molecular analysis.
Specific example: people from the Middle East are often classified in the same group as Europeans or at least as a closely related race. However, Europeans are roughly 2/3rd central Asian (areas that are now places like Turkmenistan, whose Y chromosome haplotypes are in the European “R” group) and 1/3rd northwest African. Middle Eastern haplotypes and Y chromosomes are ancestrally farther from most Europeans than central Asian people (often grouped with the east Asian “race”) or north African Berber people (often grouped with the sub-Saharan African “race”).
Why I don’t like his answer: even racists often recognize the intermixing of the races. Also, recent common ancestors does not exclude wide divergence or even speciation. Modern humans seem to be about ten thousand generations old. There is plenty of time for divergence with even mild selection or genetic drift alone.
Given the threat, the Fraternities should be shut down on Saturday. Apparently NON-sorority members are fair game?