"A collective traumatic experience."
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Stating that there are genetic differences should not translate into affirming that we must also create policies based on these differences, at an almost eugenic level, or that it encourages racism, machismo and other isms.
This knowledge is just that, knowledge. If anything, if there are differences that produce deep inequalities, knowing these differences should allow us to correct these inequalities, not accentuate them.
Know to legislate better
If someone has a genetic propensity to do something bad (let's imagine that is possible), we should not excuse them, but rather create even more coercive measures to prevent them from becoming a victim of their own genetic determinism. Mutatis mutandis, finding that a race is genetically inferior at an intellectual level (for example) does not automatically mean being racist.
On the contrary: by identifying a basic problem we can combat it better, as the cognitive psychologist argues. Steven Pinker in his book The blank slate: precisely identifying a genetic tendency can be the stimulus to monitor it more vigorously from a moral and legal point of view.
There is no reason to think that it is more difficult to fight against a genetic tendency than an environmental one, just as I explain in That wasn't in my genetics book.:
Knowing whether a particular group of people, whether black, women, or any other politically sensitive division, is less capable of something than the rest also allows us to correct it more effectively. For example: girls seem less interested than boys in mathematics. Do they have less mathematical intelligence? Is it something genetic? Or maybe it has to do with culture? Or maybe it's a mix of both?
That Wasn't In My Genetics Book (Scientific Dissemination)
Another thing, of course, is that scientifically it is correct or incorrect to affirm that there are substantial differences between human groups, or that there is something similar to races (no, it doesn't exist: there is more genetic diversity between two black inhabitants of Africa than between an African and a European; we are all amazingly mixed).
Furthermore, it is difficult to isolate genes from the environment: we are facing an indisocial jungle that results in a phenotypic variance that is altered depending on as many dimensions as we are able to measure. There is always genetic influence, there is always environmental influence, and both genetic and environmental influence feed off each other in ways that we are not yet able to distinguish.
There is no embracing genetic determinism, but neither is there any escape from it. Nor should we do that with environmental determinism: the criticism of poorly understood genetic determinism involves the assumption of an environmental determinism so inflexible that, if true, tIt would also turn us into puppets.
If you want to go deeper into this and other things, you can do so in this interview about the aforementioned book:
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The news
The fact that there are genetic differences does not mean that we must also discriminate based on these differences.
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
Iconic new images obtained by space missions such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes have been translated into sounds so we can enjoy it in another way.
The data sonification project is led by the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) as part from the Universe of Learning program (UoL) from NASA.
Universe of Learning
Next, an image of the Bullet Cluster, which provided the first direct evidence of dark matter. Chandra X-rays (pink) show where hot gas is located in two merging galaxy clusters.
Data showing dark matter are represented by the lowest frequencies, while X-rays are assigned to the highest frequencies.
The Crab Nebula, meanwhile, has been studied by people since it first appeared in Earth's sky in 1054 AD
To translate this data into sound, which also moves from left to right, each wavelength of light has been paired with a different family of instruments. Chandra's
On February 24, 1987, observers in the southern hemisphere saw a new object in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
One of the brightest supernova explosions in centuries and soon became known as Supernova 1987A (SN 87A). This time lapse shows a series of observations from Chandra (blue) and Hubble (orange and red) taken between 1999 and 2013.
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The news
Now you can listen to iconic images from space that NASA has translated into sounds
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
No, jade amulets cannot protect you from COVID-19, although that is what a recent study which, fortunately, has already been withdrawn.
The controversial study suggesting that COVID-19 has become deadly due to un change in Earth's geomagnetic field.
Retraction
A study, published in Science of the Total Environment, is titled: “Can Traditional Chinese Medicine Provide Information on Controlling the COVID-19 Pandemic?”
Naturally, its publication has provoked outrage and criticism in the scientific community and has forced the authors at the University of Pittsburgh to request a retraction.
The co-authors of a paper that claimed jade amulets might prevent COVID-19 have tried to distance themselves from the work.https://t.co/Ek3UG0KtS7 pic.twitter.com/Q7AIqBgHwT
— Retraction Watch (@RetractionWatch) November 22, 2020
The lead author of the study, Moses Bility, is an assistant professor of infectious diseases and microbiology at the University of Pittsburgh. Which adds even more ridicule to this situation, in which a ridiculous study has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
The study, which is no longer available online, explored the idea that the new coronavirus is not new, but rather a virus that has been hidden in DNA and had been activated by a change in the planet's geomagnetic field.
The paper claimed that jade, with its own geomagnetic properties, can prevent the virus from making you sick.
It's true that strong magnetic fields can influence chemical reactions, but the long-wavelength anomalies in this rat study are nowhere near what would be required to have such an effect. Also erroneous is the idea that jade can stop the symptoms of COVID-19, a theory based on records of practices in ancient China during a period of similar geomagnetic conditions.
We are facing a serious situation. This is not the first time that poorly reviewed studies have been published that they claim real atrocities, How do vaccines cause autism?.
And it is serious because, even if the studies are withdrawn, people are slow to forget statements like this: that vaccines can cause autism; which in turn reinforces conspiracy theories that may lead the public to circumvent actual scientific or safety measures. Because we have enough to face the scientific ignorance of our politicians to also add that propagated by the scientific auditors in whom we must trust:
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The news
The controversial study that indicates that jade amulets can protect against COVID-19
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
It's not as shady as you think.
This could have been a huge problem.
Good news for a change!
«I nearly fell off my chair when I saw these results.»