Letters to the Editor
firefly82
Published Letters: 288 Editor's Choice: 30
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@ shannonr--scientists and leaders
[Read the article: Let's have a presidential debate on science]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I really like your Truman and Churchill accents. :) Made me laugh.
With regards to the specific science, I can agree with you up to a point. With good reason, we don't expect our leaders to be scientists. The level of detail involved in learning all the material would certainly preclude their exercising their stronger skills (hopefully diplomacy, compromise, rhetorical strength, etc.)
But I'm just talking about a basic grasp of what's going on. For instance, in the ongoing debate of how stem cell research will be funded. I certainly do think it's important for a leader involved in funding decisions to have at least a surface understanding of the fact that we can now create stem cells from different sources: fetal tissue or skin cells--and what some of the advantages and disadvantages are of each, and what the implications might be for their usefulness. Of course they're being briefed on that info by their scientists, not doing the legwork on that themselves.
As for Truman...I don't know if it's the case or not...but I would hope that yes, he understood what an atom was and why the bombs were expected to be as destructive as they were. Not an in-depth understanding. Not a nuclear scientist's understanding. But a surface grasp of the principles and consequences involved.
Consider a leader who does or doesn't have the ability to understand the ways that birth control has and has not been shown to be a risk to women's health.
But beyond specific science, I'm talking about intellectual curiosity and problem-solving. Systematic problem-solving in any area works much the same way as the scientific method. Ask a question about a problem. Gather data to clarify the problem. Suggest an answer. Try it. Did it work? If not, gather data on why not. Try something else that takes the previous attempt's lessons into account.
And above all, skepticism. The ability to not just believe what you're told, but to ask "how do we know that? What is the evidence?" And what *makes* it evidence.
Truman and Churchill, I'm guessing, probably dealt with a lot of arguments and evidence, not necessarily about scientific issues, but about even larger ones. And the basic critical thinking skills are very similar.
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Anonymous--regarding fat people
[Read the article: Lose pounds, pad your paycheck?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"If you eat enough to maintain 50 pounds of extra fat on you you are pig, period"
No, not necessarily.
This is anecdotal, and I don't claim to know what makes all fat people fat. I have a (white female) friend who's seriously obese.
One fall break, I spent a long weekend with her and her parents. Both of her parents are also seriously fat. Practically round. So it's not in a genetic vaccuum that she ended up fat.
We cooked several meals together...one I remember was a slim salmon fillet, asparagus, and corn bread. I was barely even full. In fact, I was hungry nearly the entire 4-day weekend. They just didn't eat that much. *Nowhere* near enough to sustain me for any extended length of time. And I've always been thin--at the time, I was on the low end of normal weight for my height.
Obviously I don't know the whole family's health history and genetic profile, but it's sure not how they eat that makes them fat.
There are plenty of fat people who got that way by being unwilling to control their eating. But it is *far* from true for everyone--it's unfair and unfounded to insult and accuse people whose health background you're really in no position to know.
I'm sorry that you've been so maltreated by people whose obesity was clearly a matter of serious dysfunction. But what you experienced doesn't make what you think true for everyone.
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Water
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Holy cow, AKA Smith...I'm a first class know-it-all with a nurse for a mother, and I didn't know that one.
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@ brightstar, for the last time
[Read the article: Saudi king spares rape victim]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"I love women, it has nothing to do with wanting equal justice for both sexes under the law."
I don't think you love women. You want to sleep with them. It's not the same thing.
And given several of the things you've said about them, I'm not even sure why you want to sleep with them. I for one don't usually want to sleep with people I don't like very much.
And with that, adieu. I'm going to stick to arguing with people capable of doing so civilly and on-topic.
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Parenting style is not the be all, end all of parental influence or behavior
[Read the article: Childhood obesity: All daddy's fault?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First, whoever's writing the headlines...I really think the tactic of raising an alarmist and misandrist strawman (Is it all their dads' fault?) only to say, "oh, no, look, there's some ambiguity at the end of the tunnel...") is not only unnecessarily sensationalist...but is probably inviting a lot of the scorn in the letters section that probably wouldn't have been directed at the substance of the posting, except for the headline.
Second, just because the mothers' general "parenting styles" weren't shown to have an effect, does not mean that other aspects of their behavior don't have effects. Other studies (including one more recent than this, but I couldn't find it) have indeed shown links between mothers' dieting behavior and their daughters' ideas about their bodies:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0887/is_11_19/ai_76284033
It's interesting that fathers' parenting styles have greater effects on actual weight--truthfully, it's not what I would've guessed. But it's a long way from concluding what the headline makes us anticipate Carol's going to say. And it's that snazzy headline that gets remembered, not the rest of the article.
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And this is a strange statement...
[Read the article: Childhood obesity: All daddy's fault?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"So I can't help brightening up when a study finds that fathers' parenting styles actually influence their children more than mothers' do."
Really? Why? I'm certainly heartened at the finding that fathers' parenting has substantial and measurable effects. But it's not a freakin' contest between parents over who has to take less responsibility for how the kids turn out.
Where would that leave the kids?