The Harm Done By Religion

[jmccr8]

40 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

Like I said, you are unusual for a human  being Most require answers to their questions, and if there aren't any then they make up ones which keep them happy. 

Hi Walker

Even though I have a full head of hair, with a trim physique and not so bad looking that people run away screaming or throwing bricks kinda rugged handsome with scars kind of guy I think I am pretty much a regular dude.

47 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

I've explained why i speak most  about Christianity. It is for the same reason that almost every one here (with e exception of marwon) is  discussing Christianity ie because its the only religion the y are really familiar with, and in which they have a positive or negative investment.

You've challenged me, so its up to you to prove that I only claim that  Christianity is a faith which can heal and add  years to a life 

I didn't ask you to explain anything, I asked you to show me an equal amount of post defending each religion or it's attributes which is not a challenge but a request instead. You know that you are one of my favorite disillusionist in the forum.

52 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

In fact I've always said the opposite. ie that ANY positive faith or religious observance brings   a longer and healthier life. 

Yeah and what? The point is it doesn't matter how much I tell you how wonderful being sober is all the time when I'm obviously drunk ( I don't tell people to be sober I ask them to be responsible when they aren't sober ). Yet you presume to tell others all the benefits of a religion without making a commitment or denying that you have made a commitment what a wonderful world it is. So really how wonderful is it if you don't want to be there?

I would think that most would think the same think about the validity of a claim or are you a paid actor for some commercial.

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

There is less data available from  other religions, but its all consistent  Eg  religious jews in Israel have  higher reemission and recovery from  cancers than non religious ones. 

Try Bing you might get different links

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

and lastly,

Be honest there is no lastly unless I quit talking to you.

[jmccr8]

49 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

No, I never said that. I said it would HAVE rights, because it would be a self  aware being.  I can't give it rights or take them away.  A clone is not my possession.

But yes, a clone with my mind imprinted on its brain  would originally be identical to me, at the time of imprinting.

  While it might evolve its own values etc over time, I suspect they would not alter much. Mine have not changed markedly over the last 50 years  

And no, mind melding would be an individual choice. I would like to do it, and I suspect all the clones would also, but if the y didn't want to, that is  their choice.

It is not robbing anyone of anything.

Indeed, it is adding to every mind, the memories, knowledge, experiences etc. gained by each individual, so the y can be shared by all.

You would remember every book " you" had read, every meal you had eaten  as if you  had read it or eaten it,  and every thing you had made created etc., as if you  had made it 

Ps I suspect this technogly will be used in the latter half of this century not just for cloning but for commercial educational and recreational purposes. 

I think we will have to get over the ancient idea that our minds are  only accessible to  us,  and can be kept private. 

Hi Walker

Start a thread and will be glad to take this up with you.

[+Nuclear Wessel]

1 hour ago, jmccr8 said:

Be honest there is no lastly unless I quit talking to you.

[eight bits]

15 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

You say you will give it rights because you have an expectation that it will want to live life

 

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

I said it would HAVE rights, because it would be a self  aware being.  I can't give it rights or take them away.  A clone is not my possession.

It?

I is woke. I haz a vision:

"Hello. My name is Mr Walker. I am copy number 714. My pronouns are he, him, his."

[Mr Walker]

28 minutes ago, eight bits said:

 

It?

I is woke. I haz a vision:

"Hello. My name is Mr Walker. I am copy number 714. My pronouns are he, him, his."

IMO ( and according to some modern laws and protocols ) any being with human level  self aware consciousness is given/granted  human level rights  just as an adult human is. 

It is not up to me to give them, or take them away.   As much as any human being does, a clone or an artificial intelligence intrinsically HAS  those rights 

" It" is gender neutral and an acceptable personal pronoun in modern language.  Indeed some are arguing to do away with gender specific pronouns, and use ones like they or their  as individual pronouns 

There is an "old fashioned"  prejudice of language that a human should not be referred to as it, but that is changing  

There are also artificial new constructs which are constructed to be gender neutral eg  zie or ve.

So there is both historical and  modern  precedent for using "it"  as a gender neutral pronoun for a person  (or  a clone or artificial intelligence)  Some trans gender people don't like it although it is used in the gay community  and so it is polite to ask what  pronoun a person prefers .

quote 

It as a gender-neutral pronoun[edit]

Further information: It (pronoun)

Old English had grammatical gender, and thus commonly used "it" for people, even where they were clearly male or female. For instance, cild (the ancestor of "child", pronounced "chilled") is grammatically neuter, as are wæpnedcild and wifcild, literally "male-child" and "female-child". So all three took "it" (hit). Wif (meaning "female", modern "wife") was also neuter, and took "it", while wifmann (literally "female-person", modern "woman") was semantically female but grammatically masculine, and thus took "he".[25] The language gradually developed the natural gender (gender based on semantic meaning) which is common in Modern English.[26]

A 1985 grammar (Quirk et al.) states that whereas "he" and "she" are used for entities treated as people (including any entities that are being anthropomorphized), the pronoun "it" is normally used for entities not regarded as persons, though the pronoun "it" can be used of children in some circumstances, for instance when the sex is indefinite or when the writer has no emotional connection to the child, as in a scientific context, for instance:[27]

A child learns to speak the language of its environment.

— Quirk et al., A comprehensive grammar of the English language (1985), p. 316–317, 342

According to The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing (1995), it is sometimes the "obvious" choice for children.[28] Examples given include:

To society, a baby's sex is second in importance to its health.

— Miller & Swift, The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing (1995), p. 58.

but also the more colloquial

When the new baby comes, it's going to sleep in Lil's room.

— Miller & Swift, The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing (1995), p. 58.

"It" may even be used when the child's sex is known. In the following story, the characters refer to the boy-child at the center of the narrative as a "he", but then the narrator refers to it as an "it":

"He looks like nobody but himself," said Mrs. Owens, firmly. ... It was then that ... the child opened its eyes wide in wakefulness. It stared around it ...

— Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book (2008), p. 25.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages_with_gendered_third-person_pronouns#:~:text=The other English pronouns (the,%2C they are gender-neutral.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Mr Walker

[eight bits]

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

"It" is gender neutral and an acceptable personal pronoun in modern language.

[original comment deleted]

On second thought, if you can't take a joke...

Edited November 14, 2021 by eight bits

[+Pettytalk]

52 minutes ago, eight bits said:

[original comment deleted]

On second thought, if you can't take a joke...

It, doesn't matter? It is no match for Mr. Walker.

[+Liquid Gardens]

6 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Eg  religious jews in Israel have  higher reemission and recovery from  cancers than non religious ones. 

(actually Walker said the above).  So this is something I've semi-recently learned something about, although I've noticed it before with some of the data spreadsheets I've done for work, and I'll admit it is tenuously connected to the OP.  It has more to do with statistics I think, but in a way is germane to the topic as it goes to sometimes the evaluation of 'harm', and I think I've been thinking about this more because I'm pretty sure I've committed this fallacy, at least in my thinking.  Anyone who knows something about this please comment of course, but I'll call out that I think I've seen @eight bits mention maybe at least one of these terms before.

I recently came across an article about Simpson's Paradox, which I'll slaughter the definition of as how a trend seen in data can disappear or reverse when you break the data up into subgroups, and this is the part that I have noticed before in data analysis I've done at work. Here's a simple example:

"Derek Jeter has a worse batting average every season, but somehow has a better batting average overall!"

So this is a cool paradox and I understand it somewhat, it has to do with the subgroup sizes. I many times warn some of the more management/non-IT people I work with to be careful about how they state things when they do things like take averages of averages in a spreadsheet, but I don't know the specifics other than 'it can be complicated'.

I believe then that this is actually a cousin of what I have heard of before, the ecological fallacy, which I think 8's maybe mentioned before and I saw referenced in some discussions concerning covid :

"The basic idea of the fallacy is this: you cannot directly infer the properties of individuals from the average of a group. Sounds complicated, but what that means is that if you measure something about lots of people — say, height — you can’t take the average measurement as an indication of any particular person’s status."   

"It commonly pops up in nutritional epidemiology — if we do a study and find that people who eat vegetarian diets are more likely to be depressed, it actually tells us very little about an individual vegetarian and their risk of depression. Similarly, even though people who eat more red meat tend to be less healthy, we can’t necessarily say that at an individual level eating more red meat is a good or bad thing."

The blog author above does clarify in his link concerning red meat that interpretation is a significant part of this:

"Without going too deeply into the findings — you can read the full recommendations here — the argument from the researchers was fairly simple: there is currently no good evidence that red meat is harmful to health, so the most evidence-based guideline is not to tell people to eat either more or less red meat. There is some evidence that red meat consumption might be harmful, but it’s not strong enough to justify telling people to change their dietary habits.

So the main difference comes from interpretation, rather than the evidence itself. The new studies argue that, since the evidence we have is relatively sparse, we can’t tell people what to do based on the research. Previous studies have instead said that we have enough evidence to know that red meat — particularly if it’s processed — probably causes harm, and since there are definitely alternatives that don’t carry the same risks we should tell people to switch to those instead.

It’s a very subtle point — no one is saying that red meat is definitely harmless, and they’re certainly not saying that it’s good for your health. The argument really boils down to how confident we can be when we say that red meat is bad for your health."

And especially significant I thought: "Nutrition science is fiendishly complicated, and we’ll probably never know definitively whether red meat is good or bad for your health."

Red meat is obviously just an example, but as I read through that it seems like I must have committed the ecological fallacy many times, I'm sure just here I've posted 'X% of A are B" lots of times as evidence of something.  Which bringing it back to the OP, makes me wonder about the opportunities for this fallacy to be present in statements like, " religious jews in Israel have  higher reemission and recovery from cancers than non religious ones.".  I've always thought that the main issue with a lot of religion-health comparisons are the presence of confounders (people who are not healthy are more likely to not physically attend church as often, duh), but it seems like this fallacy could be present in a lot of areas, and I'm not sure how easy it is to casually determine if it applies with any particular stat.

[+Sherapy]

7 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Walker

Even though I have a full head of hair, with a trim physique and not so bad looking that people run away screaming or throwing bricks kinda rugged handsome with scars kind of guy I think I am pretty much a regular dude.

I didn't ask you to explain anything, I asked you to show me an equal amount of post defending each religion or it's attributes which is not a challenge but a request instead. You know that you are one of my favorite disillusionist in the forum.

Yeah and what? The point is it doesn't matter how much I tell you how wonderful being sober is all the time when I'm obviously drunk ( I don't tell people to be sober I ask them to be responsible when they aren't sober ). Yet you presume to tell others all the benefits of a religion without making a commitment or denying that you have made a commitment what a wonderful world it is. So really how wonderful is it if you don't want to be there?

I would think that most would think the same think about the validity of a claim or are you a paid actor for some commercial.

Try Bing you might get different links

Be honest there is no lastly unless I quit talking to you..  

MW, has an interesting approach to life.

 

 

 

[SHaYap]

A pal of mine puts it this way... 

" She's very patriotic and loves America, that's why she wants everyone else to die for her country... "

Quote

~

 

[Crazy Horse]

22 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I don't understand.  You said that it was unfortunate that you still have an ego, yet I'm having trouble thinking of a reason why you would request the above that is not ego-driven ultimately.  Why would you like or dislike someone else's assumptions about you except for the sake of your 'self'?

Its really not that difficult to understand.

"Unfortunately I still have an ego..." Is an admission that I still say and think stupid stuff...

 

 

[+joc]

On 11/13/2021 at 11:38 AM, The_Phantom_Stranger said:

Another one of God's curses he put on Israel. I think about this in places like Detroit where people lost their homes. They are selling these homes for extremely cheap, way less than what they were originally worth, but the people who lived there cannot buy them back. This is happening in other places and a lot of times these homes just sit empty on the market.

Isaiah 5

⁸ Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!

⁹ In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.

¹⁰ Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.

There are no curses, there are no blessings.  There is just life.  And life is full of laughter and danger and everything in between.  That the ancients had no clue as to much of anything and as a result of not understanding, they created in their own minds entities that never existed, couldn't exist, and gave them names and sought to please them.

The Bible is a treasure to many.  But treasure or not, it is full of contradictions and lies.  You are no different than Will Due posting scripture from The Uranatian.   pun intended 

Edited November 15, 2021 by joc

[Mr Walker]

13 hours ago, eight bits said:

[original comment deleted]

On second thought, if you can't take a joke...

I can take them if I can recognise them  

I thought you were serious. 

Gender and pronoun usage is a serious issue for many. 

Likewise, what pronouns to use for non human sentient beings is an issue being widely discussed. 

Should an autonomous sentient android be called "it"  or defined by "gender"  or should a new word be constructed ?  

If another primate  gained human level self awareness should we still call it, it ? 

If it was a fully slef aware  GLBTIQ gorilla, what should we call it ?  

it is interesting that "it"  is most commonly used for children, and that it is not used much for adults. 

[Mr Walker]

12 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

(actually Walker said the above).  So this is something I've semi-recently learned something about, although I've noticed it before with some of the data spreadsheets I've done for work, and I'll admit it is tenuously connected to the OP.  It has more to do with statistics I think, but in a way is germane to the topic as it goes to sometimes the evaluation of 'harm', and I think I've been thinking about this more because I'm pretty sure I've committed this fallacy, at least in my thinking.  Anyone who knows something about this please comment of course, but I'll call out that I think I've seen @eight bits mention maybe at least one of these terms before.

I recently came across an article about Simpson's Paradox, which I'll slaughter the definition of as how a trend seen in data can disappear or reverse when you break the data up into subgroups, and this is the part that I have noticed before in data analysis I've done at work. Here's a simple example:

"Derek Jeter has a worse batting average every season, but somehow has a better batting average overall!"

So this is a cool paradox and I understand it somewhat, it has to do with the subgroup sizes. I many times warn some of the more management/non-IT people I work with to be careful about how they state things when they do things like take averages of averages in a spreadsheet, but I don't know the specifics other than 'it can be complicated'.

I believe then that this is actually a cousin of what I have heard of before, the ecological fallacy, which I think 8's maybe mentioned before and I saw referenced in some discussions concerning covid :

"The basic idea of the fallacy is this: you cannot directly infer the properties of individuals from the average of a group. Sounds complicated, but what that means is that if you measure something about lots of people — say, height — you can’t take the average measurement as an indication of any particular person’s status."   

"It commonly pops up in nutritional epidemiology — if we do a study and find that people who eat vegetarian diets are more likely to be depressed, it actually tells us very little about an individual vegetarian and their risk of depression. Similarly, even though people who eat more red meat tend to be less healthy, we can’t necessarily say that at an individual level eating more red meat is a good or bad thing."

The blog author above does clarify in his link concerning red meat that interpretation is a significant part of this:

"Without going too deeply into the findings — you can read the full recommendations here — the argument from the researchers was fairly simple: there is currently no good evidence that red meat is harmful to health, so the most evidence-based guideline is not to tell people to eat either more or less red meat. There is some evidence that red meat consumption might be harmful, but it’s not strong enough to justify telling people to change their dietary habits.

So the main difference comes from interpretation, rather than the evidence itself. The new studies argue that, since the evidence we have is relatively sparse, we can’t tell people what to do based on the research. Previous studies have instead said that we have enough evidence to know that red meat — particularly if it’s processed — probably causes harm, and since there are definitely alternatives that don’t carry the same risks we should tell people to switch to those instead.

It’s a very subtle point — no one is saying that red meat is definitely harmless, and they’re certainly not saying that it’s good for your health. The argument really boils down to how confident we can be when we say that red meat is bad for your health."

And especially significant I thought: "Nutrition science is fiendishly complicated, and we’ll probably never know definitively whether red meat is good or bad for your health."

Red meat is obviously just an example, but as I read through that it seems like I must have committed the ecological fallacy many times, I'm sure just here I've posted 'X% of A are B" lots of times as evidence of something.  Which bringing it back to the OP, makes me wonder about the opportunities for this fallacy to be present in statements like, " religious jews in Israel have  higher reemission and recovery from cancers than non religious ones.".  I've always thought that the main issue with a lot of religion-health comparisons are the presence of confounders (people who are not healthy are more likely to not physically attend church as often, duh), but it seems like this fallacy could be present in a lot of areas, and I'm not sure how easy it is to casually determine if it applies with any particular stat.

Of course there is possibly NO fallacy at all.

The statistics may simply  represent the truth, over a substantial sample. 

Correlation doesn't  prove causation but it strongly  suggests it given a high enough correlation

You can find smokers who live to be 100, but one third of smokers die from the effects of smoking, if the y do not give it up  

Even if you  didn't know the causal links, you   would be very wise to give up smoking  based on the statistics .

Of course, people have competing likes, influences,  addictions, and desires, but a person would also be wise to give up or substantially  reduce consumption of alcohol  and red meat, (especially processed meat)  and living in a  polluted atmosphere  Ps there is direct proof tha t processed meats cause cancer There is also some proof that red meat causes cancer 

The medical reasons for this are increasingly understood

quote 2018

Did you know that eating more than 700 grams (raw weight) of red meat a week increases your risk of bowel cancer? Or that the risk of developing bowel cancer goes up 1.18 times for every 50 grams of processed meat eaten per day?

The World Health Organization has classified processed meats including ham, bacon, salami and frankfurts as a Group 1 carcinogen (known to cause cancer) which means that there’s strong evidence that processed meats cause cancer. Eating processed meat increases your risk of bowel and stomach cancer. Red meat, such as beef, lamb and pork, has been classified as a Group 2A carcinogen which means it probably causes cancer.

 

 Current research shows that there are certain chemicals in red and processed meats – both added and naturally occurring – that cause these foods to be carcinogenic. For example, when a chemical in red meat called haem is broken down in the gut, N-nitroso chemicals are formed and these have been found to damage the cells that line the bowel, which can lead to bowel cancer. These same chemicals also form when processed meat is digested. In addition, the nitrite and nitrate preservatives used to preserve processed meat produce these N-nitroso chemicals and can lead to bowel cancer

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.cancercouncil.com.au/1in3cancers/lifestyle-choices-and-cancer/red-meat-processed-meat-and-cancer/#:~:text=Current research shows that there are certain naturally-occuring chemicals,can lead to bowel cancer. 

quote 2008

The best evidence comes from a pair of large 2005 studies, one from Europe, the other from the United States. The European research tracked 478,000 men and women who were free of cancer when the study began. During nearly five years of follow-up, 1,329 people were diagnosed with colon cancer. The people who ate the most red meat (about 5 ounces a day or more) were about a third more likely to develop colon cancer than those who ate the least red meat (less than an ounce a day on average). Their consumption of chicken did not influence risk one way or the other, but a high consumption of fish appeared to reduce the risk of colon cancer by about a third. The effects of red meat and fish held up after the results were adjusted for other potential colon cancer risk factors, including body weight, caloric consumption, alcohol consumption, smoking, physical exercise, dietary fiber, and vitamins.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/red-meat-and-colon-cancer

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by Mr Walker

[+Nuclear Wessel]

7 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Of course there is possibly NO fallacy at all.

The statistics may simply  represent the truth, over a substantial sample. 

Correlation doesn't  prove causation but it strongly  suggests it given a high enough correlation

You can find smokers who live to be 100, but one third of smokers die from the effects of smoking, if the y do not give it up  

Even if you  didn't know the causal links, you   would be very wise to give up smoking  based on the statistics .

Of course, people have competing likes, influences,  addictions, and desires, but a person would also be wise to give up or substantially  reduce consumption of alcohol  and red meat, (especially processed meat)  and living in a  polluted atmosphere  Ps there is direct proof tha t processed meats cause cancer There is also some proof that red meat causes cancer 

The medical reasons for this are increasingly understood

quote 2018

Did you know that eating more than 700 grams (raw weight) of red meat a week increases your risk of bowel cancer? Or that the risk of developing bowel cancer goes up 1.18 times for every 50 grams of processed meat eaten per day?

The World Health Organization has classified processed meats including ham, bacon, salami and frankfurts as a Group 1 carcinogen (known to cause cancer) which means that there’s strong evidence that processed meats cause cancer. Eating processed meat increases your risk of bowel and stomach cancer. Red meat, such as beef, lamb and pork, has been classified as a Group 2A carcinogen which means it probably causes cancer.

 

 Current research shows that there are certain chemicals in red and processed meats – both added and naturally occurring – that cause these foods to be carcinogenic. For example, when a chemical in red meat called haem is broken down in the gut, N-nitroso chemicals are formed and these have been found to damage the cells that line the bowel, which can lead to bowel cancer. These same chemicals also form when processed meat is digested. In addition, the nitrite and nitrate preservatives used to preserve processed meat produce these N-nitroso chemicals and can lead to bowel cancer

https://www.cancercouncil.com.au/1in3cancers/lifestyle-choices-and-cancer/red-meat-processed-meat-and-cancer/#:~:text=Current research shows that there are certain naturally-occuring chemicals,can lead to bowel cancer. 

quote 2008

The best evidence comes from a pair of large 2005 studies, one from Europe, the other from the United States. The European research tracked 478,000 men and women who were free of cancer when the study began. During nearly five years of follow-up, 1,329 people were diagnosed with colon cancer. The people who ate the most red meat (about 5 ounces a day or more) were about a third more likely to develop colon cancer than those who ate the least red meat (less than an ounce a day on average). Their consumption of chicken did not influence risk one way or the other, but a high consumption of fish appeared to reduce the risk of colon cancer by about a third. The effects of red meat and fish held up after the results were adjusted for other potential colon cancer risk factors, including body weight, caloric consumption, alcohol consumption, smoking, physical exercise, dietary fiber, and vitamins.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/red-meat-and-colon-cancer

 

While your copy and paste is admirable, I would be interested in seeing your assessment of Simpson's Paradox in your own words, and how it is applicable/not applicable to Simpsons’ claims on red meat/your own claims/cited studies on red meat, and why.

You also made the claim that there is some proof that it causes cancer, yet in the very source you linked it indicates that red meat is a Group 2A carcinogen which means: “This designation is applied when there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans as well as sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. In some cases, an agent may be classified in this group when there is inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity in humans along with sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals and strong evidence that the carcinogenesis is mediated by a mechanism that also operates in humans.” (Wikipedia)

That is not proof (well, maybe in the Walker definition of "proof" it is) of being carcinogenic to humans—there is limited evidence available to suggest a possible link. 

Edited November 15, 2021 by Nuclear Wessel

[Crazy Horse]

On 11/13/2021 at 11:17 AM, Will Due said:

 

Enlightenment isn't the thing. Desire is though.

 

"The law of the spirit which decrees that to him who has shall be given so that he shall have an abundance; but from him who has not shall be taken away even that which he has. Therefore will I henceforth speak to the people much in parables to the end that our friends and those who desire to know the truth may find that which they seek, while our enemies and those who love not the truth may hear without understanding. Many of these people follow not in the way of the truth. The prophet did, indeed, describe all such undiscerning souls when he said: ‘For this people’s heart has waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed lest they should discern the truth and understand it in their hearts.'

 

 

Hi Will.

Desire is a funny thing within spirituality and religion. It has a lot of bad press at the moment, but I see it as essential, at least for the first part of ones journey back Home.

It seems reasonable to say that with-out the desire to at least explore these ideas for oneself, then to have this conscious connection to THAT, we call GOD, then, save for Divine Intervention, its going to be impossible.

With-out this desire for knowledge and wisdom, compassion and kindness, then its going to get very tough, with karma and those hard knocks getting progressively more painful.

But, for one who really, really desire to know GOD, consciously, actively, and without fault, then even desire must be dropped.

Take it easy mate.

Peace.

 

[+Liquid Gardens]

6 hours ago, Nuclear Wessel said:

While your copy and paste is admirable, I would be interested in seeing your assessment of Simpson's Paradox in your own words, and how it is applicable/not applicable to Simpsons’ claims on red meat/your own claims/cited studies on red meat, and why.

Yea, sorry my fault, knew that would happen; I was ultimately again wondering about spirituality-health stats but should have known better that instead we'd get a post about how 'wise' it is to eat red meat.

The more I read about the ecological fallacy the more I'm thinking that despite how straightforward its definition is, I still think my main suspicion is correct as far as taking it much further:  it can be complicated.  In my post I had contrasted confounders in spirituality-health studies with the ecological fallacy, but it appears that it is because of these confounders that sometimes this fallacy emerges so they are/can be related.  I think its opportunity for applicability changes based on what general field we are talking about, I see several links to sociology as well as many to epidemiology/nutrition science mainly, which would seem to potentially have some parallels with spirituality's relationship with health.

In addition to the motivation of trying to avoid my making mistakes in my reasoning, I find it interesting too as it highlights relationships between semantics and statistics that can be very subtle, and how very slight changes in how something is stated can change the results.  To me some of them are 'brain teaser'-esque, for example, from https://www3.nd.edu/~rwilliam/stats1/appendices/Monty-Cecil.pdf :

• There is a card in a hat. It is either the ace of spades or the king of spades, with equal probability. You take another identical ace of spades and throw it into the hat. You then choose a card at random from the hat. You see it is an ace. What are the odds the original card in the hat was an ace? (Answer: 2/3.)

• There is a family with two children. You have been told this family has a daughter. What are the odds they also have a son, assuming the biological odds of having a male or female child are equal? (Answer: 2/3.)

At first reading these conflict with my intuition, as it seems like the odds are 1/2 in both cases, mostly in the second one, as I'm failing to take into account how the new information has affected my initial probability estimate.  I have to concentrate a little to understand the actual 2/3 answer.  And then things like this throw me for a temporary loop:

"Granted the question is subtle. Consider: we are to be visited by the two kids just described, at least one of which is a girl. It's a matter of chance who arrives first. The first child enters--a girl. The second knocks. What are the odds it's a boy? Answer: 1 in 2. Paradoxical but true."

If I slow it down and parse it, or best of all read an explanation of it, I usually understand why these probabilities are the way they are.  Focusing on how exactly things are phrased seems very important, which I think is very interesting but isn't something that I could do at the pace a normal conversation goes.  I wonder too if maybe I have an inordinate inability to easily grasp these, although I guess there is a reason these specific examples are called 'brain teasers'.  I don't trust though that an error similar to these would necessarily even raise a red flag in my mind because of my handy but sometimes misleading intuition.

 

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by Liquid Gardens

[+Sherapy]

19 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Of course there is possibly NO fallacy at all.

The statistics may simply  represent the truth, over a substantial sample. 

Correlation doesn't  prove causation but it strongly  suggests it given a high enough correlation

You can find smokers who live to be 100, but one third of smokers die from the effects of smoking, if the y do not give it up  

Even if you  didn't know the causal links, you   would be very wise to give up smoking  based on the statistics .

Of course, people have competing likes, influences,  addictions, and desires, but a person would also be wise to give up or substantially  reduce consumption of alcohol  and red meat, (especially processed meat)  and living in a  polluted atmosphere  Ps there is direct proof tha t processed meats cause cancer There is also some proof that red meat causes cancer 

The medical reasons for this are increasingly understood

quote 2018

Did you know that eating more than 700 grams (raw weight) of red meat a week increases your risk of bowel cancer? Or that the risk of developing bowel cancer goes up 1.18 times for every 50 grams of processed meat eaten per day?

The World Health Organization has classified processed meats including ham, bacon, salami and frankfurts as a Group 1 carcinogen (known to cause cancer) which means that there’s strong evidence that processed meats cause cancer. Eating processed meat increases your risk of bowel and stomach cancer. Red meat, such as beef, lamb and pork, has been classified as a Group 2A carcinogen which means it probably causes cancer.

 

 Current research shows that there are certain chemicals in red and processed meats – both added and naturally occurring – that cause these foods to be carcinogenic. For example, when a chemical in red meat called haem is broken down in the gut, N-nitroso chemicals are formed and these have been found to damage the cells that line the bowel, which can lead to bowel cancer. These same chemicals also form when processed meat is digested. In addition, the nitrite and nitrate preservatives used to preserve processed meat produce these N-nitroso chemicals and can lead to bowel cancer

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.cancercouncil.com.au/1in3cancers/lifestyle-choices-and-cancer/red-meat-processed-meat-and-cancer/#:~:text=Current research shows that there are certain naturally-occuring chemicals,can lead to bowel cancer. 

quote 2008

The best evidence comes from a pair of large 2005 studies, one from Europe, the other from the United States. The European research tracked 478,000 men and women who were free of cancer when the study began. During nearly five years of follow-up, 1,329 people were diagnosed with colon cancer. The people who ate the most red meat (about 5 ounces a day or more) were about a third more likely to develop colon cancer than those who ate the least red meat (less than an ounce a day on average). Their consumption of chicken did not influence risk one way or the other, but a high consumption of fish appeared to reduce the risk of colon cancer by about a third. The effects of red meat and fish held up after the results were adjusted for other potential colon cancer risk factors, including body weight, caloric consumption, alcohol consumption, smoking, physical exercise, dietary fiber, and vitamins.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/red-meat-and-colon-cancer

 

Possibly, for you, due to your health concerns perhaps eating any red meat is off the table. The average person in good health is not gonna have the same requirements. 

‘It was for my ex husband because he had cardiovascular disease, he didn’t follow the advice of his doctors anyway and eventually it killed him. of course It was his choice, he was told at 30 years old after his first stroke that he needed to make some big changes, lose weight, exercise, quit smoking, and get a handle on his stress, and get enough sleep he refused, he insisted his Dr was a quack. He even quit taking his heart medication suffered a horrible stroke lost his vision in his right eye, never regained the use of his paralyzed left hand and yet, he maintained that he was so sure “god” had his back. Well 3 massive strokes later he died at 62. He literally could have changed his behaviors, his sons, and ex- wife tried to get him to take care of himself too. 
 

  The harm of religion is that folks do not follow medical recommendations because they come to believe that their fantasies are actuality, one losses sight that taking something on faith literally means there is no evidence for it. 



 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by Sherapy

[jmccr8]

Cancer has been around for a long, long time maybe just more of it now because of population density.

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-basics/history-of-cancer/what-is-cancer.html

Understanding What Cancer Is: Ancient Times to Present

 

 

Oldest descriptions of cancer

Human beings and other animals have had cancer throughout recorded history. So it’s no surprise that from the dawn of history people have written about cancer. Some of the earliest evidence of cancer is found among fossilized bone tumors, human mummies in ancient Egypt, and ancient manuscripts. Growths suggestive of the bone cancer called osteosarcoma have been seen in mummies. Bony skull destruction as seen in cancer of the head and neck has been found, too.

 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/oldest-human-cancer-disease-origins-tumor-fossil-science

Earliest Human Cancer Found in 1.7-Million-Year-Old Bone

The ancient toe from a human relative in South Africa could have important implications for modern medical research.

[+Sherapy]

12 hours ago, Crazy Horse said:

Hi Will.

Desire is a funny thing within spirituality and religion. It has a lot of bad press at the moment, but I see it as essential, at least for the first part of ones journey back Home.

It seems reasonable to say that with-out the desire to at least explore these ideas for oneself, then to have this conscious connection to THAT, we call GOD, then, save for Divine Intervention, its going to be impossible.

With-out this desire for knowledge and wisdom, compassion and kindness, then its going to get very tough, with karma and those hard knocks getting progressively more painful.

But, for one who really, really desire to know GOD, consciously, actively, and without fault, then even desire must be dropped.

Take it easy mate.

Peace.

 

Desire is on par with an expectation or a personal preference, one doesn’t need to have a god fantasy to nurture kindness or compassion, if one wants more knowledge they can continue learning.  And, CH life has challenges at times, To me, it sounds like you are trying to create a fantasy or believe nonsense that you can live a life free of growth and challenges. 

 

Your post is a good example of how some expressions of religion or spirituality can be harmful.
 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by Sherapy

[+Hammerclaw]

"What is a youth? Impetuous fire.

What is a maid? Ice and desire.

The world wags on.

A rose will bloom; it then will fade.

So does a youth; so does the fairest maid."

From the Movie    Romeo and Juliet.

[SHaYap]

Quote

[00.02:46]

...

~

~

Stole the movie poster from the theater, well... Took actually, told the fella working the tickets I wanted it and he said "if you can take it, it's yours..."

I took it off the board... Much to his surprise... I was about fourteen, or twelve... Don't quite remember...

Olivia Hussey... Oh how she tormented my youthful nights ...

~

 

 

[Mr Walker]

19 hours ago, Nuclear Wessel said:

While your copy and paste is admirable, I would be interested in seeing your assessment of Simpson's Paradox in your own words, and how it is applicable/not applicable to Simpsons’ claims on red meat/your own claims/cited studies on red meat, and why.

You also made the claim that there is some proof that it causes cancer, yet in the very source you linked it indicates that red meat is a Group 2A carcinogen which means: “This designation is applied when there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans as well as sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. In some cases, an agent may be classified in this group when there is inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity in humans along with sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals and strong evidence that the carcinogenesis is mediated by a mechanism that also operates in humans.” (Wikipedia)

That is not proof (well, maybe in the Walker definition of "proof" it is) of being carcinogenic to humans—there is limited evidence available to suggest a possible link. 

The copy and paste just proves the point I have been making 

Did you read my post 

I said that processed meats are  proven to cause cancer  (and supplied a source from  the cancer council confirming this) Red meats have a strong  correlation to cancer but the causal links aren't proven Ie you would be wise not to eat  too much red meat, given the results of very wide  sampling.

  and pf course the results with processed meat ARE proof   to scientific authorities and health groups

You may be seeking a level of proof which cannot be attained.

But you would be foolish to use that to believe that processed meats and too much red meat are not harmful    

some people   still  argue that there is not  sufficient proof that smoking causes cancer to prevent them from  smoking  

And can you think of any reason a t all why something which causes cancer in other mammals would NOT cause it in humans ? 

Its very hard to ethically test this causation  on humans, and so we use other  animals  which is why the proofs come first  from  animal testing  and sampling  I'll lust repeat the bit i bolded and underlined in case you missed it or didn't understand it 

quote

The World Health Organization has classified processed meats including ham, bacon, salami and frankfurts as a Group 1 carcinogen (known to cause cancer) which means that there’s strong evidence that processed meats cause cancer. Eating processed meat increases your risk of bowel and stomach cancer. Red meat, such as beef, lamb and pork, has been classified as a Group 2A carcinogen which means it probably causes cancer.

 

The first is proven absolutely, the second is proven to the port of probability Ie enough reason see it as probable, and  to act upon it.

  To use your own quote for red meats

when there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans as well as sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals.

Limited evidence means there is some evidence    in humans, and  there is proven  carcinogenicity  in other animals 

 

Simpsons paradox may have no relevance here 

However it may be caused by comparing different cohorts rather  than sampling similar cohorts 

The paradox is simply that across many studies one result many be consistent but across another set of studies the results may be different Eg hypothetically  increased exposure to sunshine may be shown to increase skin cancer. BUT if white skinned people are compared to dark skinned peole different results will be found Its not really a pardox its simply tha t not enough consideration was taken in establishing baselines for a cohort   

The paradox is found when variations in cohorts are investigated 

It doesn't  exist when samples are studied from a similar cohort, no mater how large that cohort may be. 

This is made clear in ALL the examples provided in the wiki article  on the paradox 

 

Because  humans are biologically (mainly )  one cohort , it is extremely unlikely that you would find processed meats causing cancer in one population but not in another.

BUT, for example, eating a lot of fish is known to reduce the rates of colon cancer, and might counter balance consumption of red meat 

You'd have to ask an expert 

Nonetheless, even if you ate a lot of fish, you'd be more likely to get colon cancer if you  ALSO ate a lot of processed meat 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by Mr Walker

[Mr Walker]

also

13 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Yea, sorry my fault, knew that would happen; I was ultimately again wondering about spirituality-health stats but should have known better that instead we'd get a post about how 'wise' it is to eat red meat.

The more I read about the ecological fallacy the more I'm thinking that despite how straightforward its definition is, I still think my main suspicion is correct as far as taking it much further:  it can be complicated.  In my post I had contrasted confounders in spirituality-health studies with the ecological fallacy, but it appears that it is because of these confounders that sometimes this fallacy emerges so they are/can be related.  I think its opportunity for applicability changes based on what general field we are talking about, I see several links to sociology as well as many to epidemiology/nutrition science mainly, which would seem to potentially have some parallels with spirituality's relationship with health.

In addition to the motivation of trying to avoid my making mistakes in my reasoning, I find it interesting too as it highlights relationships between semantics and statistics that can be very subtle, and how very slight changes in how something is stated can change the results.  To me some of them are 'brain teaser'-esque, for example, from https://www3.nd.edu/~rwilliam/stats1/appendices/Monty-Cecil.pdf :

• There is a card in a hat. It is either the ace of spades or the king of spades, with equal probability. You take another identical ace of spades and throw it into the hat. You then choose a card at random from the hat. You see it is an ace. What are the odds the original card in the hat was an ace? (Answer: 2/3.)

• There is a family with two children. You have been told this family has a daughter. What are the odds they also have a son, assuming the biological odds of having a male or female child are equal? (Answer: 2/3.)

At first reading these conflict with my intuition, as it seems like the odds are 1/2 in both cases, mostly in the second one, as I'm failing to take into account how the new information has affected my initial probability estimate.  I have to concentrate a little to understand the actual 2/3 answer.  And then things like this throw me for a temporary loop:

"Granted the question is subtle. Consider: we are to be visited by the two kids just described, at least one of which is a girl. It's a matter of chance who arrives first. The first child enters--a girl. The second knocks. What are the odds it's a boy? Answer: 1 in 2. Paradoxical but true."

If I slow it down and parse it, or best of all read an explanation of it, I usually understand why these probabilities are the way they are.  Focusing on how exactly things are phrased seems very important, which I think is very interesting but isn't something that I could do at the pace a normal conversation goes.  I wonder too if maybe I have an inordinate inability to easily grasp these, although I guess there is a reason these specific examples are called 'brain teasers'.  I don't trust though that an error similar to these would necessarily even raise a red flag in my mind because of my handy but sometimes misleading intuition.

 

 

No, the paradox doesn't work like this.

It is simply an initially surprising difference  in observed outcomes 

When the parameters of a cohort are studied, the apparent paradox is resolved and shown not to actually be a real paradox it is caused by comparing apples with oranges or different cohorts  

 

eg

s 

UC Berkeley gender bias[edit]

One of the best-known examples of Simpson's paradox comes from a study of gender bias among graduate school admissions to University of California, Berkeley. The admission figures for the fall of 1973 showed that men applying were more likely than women to be admitted, and the difference was so large that it was unlikely to be due to chance.^[13][14]

	All		Men		Women
	Applicants	Admitted	Applicants	Admitted	Applicants	Admitted
Total	12,763	41%	8442	44%	4321	35%

However, when examining the individual departments, it appeared that 6 out of 85 departments were significantly biased against men, while 4 were significantly biased against women. In total, the pooled and corrected data showed a "small but statistically significant bias in favor of women".^[14] The data from the six largest departments are listed below, the top two departments by number of applicants for each gender italicised.

Department	All		Men		Women
	Applicants	Admitted	Applicants	Admitted	Applicants	Admitted
A	933	64%	825	62%	108	82%
B	585	63%	560	63%	25	68%
C	918	35%	325	37%	593	34%
D	792	34%	417	33%	375	35%
E	584	25%	191	28%	393	24%
F	714	6%	373	6%	341	7%
Total	4526	39%	2691	45%	1835	30%

The research paper by Bickel et al. concluded that women tended to apply to more competitive departments with lower rates of admission, even among qualified applicants (such as in the English department), whereas men tended to apply to less competitive departments with higher rates of admission (such as in the engineering department).^[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox

Thus, results which appeared paradoxical were shown not to be once the differences in/between  each cohort  were understood and accounted for 

[+Nuclear Wessel]

46 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

Red meats have a strong  correlation to cancer but the causal links aren't proven

... is a contradiction of the following claim you made here:

On 11/14/2021 at 11:23 PM, Mr Walker said:

There is also some proof that red meat causes cancer 

 

49 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

and pf course the results with processed meat ARE proof   to scientific authorities and health groups

I'm not speaking about processed meat. If you cared to internalize what I was writing (maybe you just didn't understand it) you would see that I am strictly discussing your claims regarding red meat, not processed meat.

51 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

But you would be foolish to use that to believe that processed meats and too much red meat are not harmful    

I'm not disputing whether or not they are harmful, specifically; my post was actually specifically addressing your claim on red meat, and how there is no proof that red meat is a carcinogen in humans, rather there is limited evidence to suggest that it might be. The evidence is insufficient to substantiate a classification of Group 1, thus it is Group 2A. 

55 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

And can you think of any reason a t all why something which causes cancer in other mammals would NOT cause it in humans ? 

Different physiological makeup? Different digestive mechanisms? Surely you're aware of the facial tumour disease that affects tasmanian devils? That doesn't affect humans. Just because something can cause cancer in one model that does not necessarily mean that it will be able to cause cancer in a different model. Any scientist worth their salt would never say that it has been proven that red meat causes cancer based on potential causal links in other models, with only limited evidence in humans.

As I highlighted above, there is a reason that it is in one group and NOT the other.

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

Its very hard to ethically test this causation  on humans, and so we use other  animals  which is why the proofs come first  from  animal testing  and sampling

You're confusing proof with evidence, firstly--there is a distinction between the two. Proof represents a conclusion; an attempt would never be made to make a conclusion about human models based on findings in an a completely different species. We may have evidence, but a sufficient conclusion might not necessarily be drawn from it.

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

or didn't understand it 

I did. You didn't, and that's why we're having this discussion.

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

Limited evidence means there is some evidence    in humans, and  there is proven  carcinogenicity  in other animals 

But that's not the same as saying that it is a proven carcinogen within humans.