Comments On: On Spontaneous Abortions by Charles Mudede http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/05/03/on-spontaneous-abortions Comments On: On Spontaneous Abortions by Charles Mudede en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Thu, 23 May 2013 03:30:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]>
@35: Finally someone clued me in! Thankf Fnarf. Still studying for my Slog forum history exam.
Posted by Theodore Gorath]]> Fri, 04 May 2012 06:51:06 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> Posted by Fnarf]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 14:59:51 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> Posted by tdonut]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 14:49:27 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]>
And you're absolutely right about death being an easy thing for people to glom onto and lose sight of the bigger picture, if they ever saw the bigger picture to begin with.

I agree wholeheartedly with you on the "survival of the fittest" issue, as well. I've actually seen a person be swayed from a non-belief in evolution to a belief when the actual meaning of "survival of the fittest" was properly explained to him. It was during a dinner and discussion - the discussion provided by a theoretical physicist who is also a devout christian - who explained how he reconciled his faith with his knowledge of the world, the universe and its workings. A pastor asked him to explain then how he reconciled being a christian and believing we're made in the image and likeness of God with "survival of the fittest" and its inherent brutality. The conversation was a beautiful thing to see, as was the light in the eyes of the pastor as he finally grasped evolution.
Posted by moosefan]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 14:28:30 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]>
And my point is that while death before breeding age is infallible, it is by no means the most powerful actor.

Imagining death gets people a lot more emotionally excited than imagining the difference between repeated generations having 2.0 or 2.05 children per female. Non-experts tend to get so focused on the former that they typically ignore the later, thus missing a huge part of the picture. To my mind, it's worth regularly turning people away from the death example in hopes of greater understanding of the topic as a whole.

Similarly, popular use of the term "survival of the fittest" has misled public discussion of evolution by encouraging people to think first of violent struggles between individuals, when cooperation at many different group size levels can be a huge component of fitness.

I'm convinced that a sizable proportion of those who "don't believe in evolution" don't believe, in part, because they think that means swearing allegiance to beating the tar out of each other on a regular basis. Talking about the wider range of subtler but powerful forces in play might help. (And yes, I know people are gonna continually beat the tar out of each other, but that's quite different than dedicating yourself to it.)
Posted by tdonut]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 14:16:55 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]>
And I know about sickle cell and why it's advantegous to be a carrier in areas where malaria is common. My point about sickle cell is that if you up the percentage of people who are carriers you then up the risk of two carriers breeding and therefore up the risk of having a greater number of people with full blown sickle cell. Death due to sickle cell helped to keep the number of carriers down. I'm not suggesting it's a bad thing to keep sickle cell sufferers alive, or that sickle cell should be eliminated from the gene pool. I'm also not suggesting that keeping sickle cell sufferers alive makes much of a dent in the overall makeup of the genetic population. I was simply making the point that death is infallible in its ability to produce unequal breeding outcomes. I used sickle cell as an example because it's hard to survive into adulthood untreated as opposed to, say, breast cancer which tends to strike later in life and may not have an effect on an individual's breeding success.
Posted by moosefan]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 13:48:49 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]>
When most people talk about "evolution", they're talking about their fantasies of what is "natural" and "good" and not about the actual math and science of what happens.

Sickle cell is a poor example. It is now believed that being heterozygous (one sickle cell gene copy, one normal) protects against malaria. Thus there is "selection pressure" to keep copies of the gene present in populations where there is malaria -- heterozygous individuals have greater breeding success (due to not dying of malaria) than those with two "good" copies. Treating the sick (two sickle cell gene copies) does indeed increase the number of sickle cell trait genes around, but the effect is transient -- if the cures are abandoned, the frequencies will slowly revert to a proportion that is correlated to the rate of malaria in the area.

Worrying about interventional activities distorting the gene frequencies of "bad" genes is like worrying about spilling salt in a sandstorm.
Posted by tdonut]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 13:32:58 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> The Bruce effect, or pregnancy block, refers to the tendency for female rodents to terminate their pregnancies following exposure to the scent of an unfamiliar male. The effect has primarily been studied in laboratory mice (Mus musculus), but is also observed in deer-mice, meadow voles, and collared lemmings.

The Bruce Effect has also been observed in geladas and it has also been proposed, but not confirmed, in non-rodent species such as the lion. In mice, pregnancy can only be terminated prior to embryo implantation, but other species will interrupt even a late-term pregnancy. The Bruce Effect was first noted in 1959 by Hilda M. Bruce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_effec…

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 13:23:23 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> Since we have so few generations to observe, it's far too soon to say. I myself am delighted to be an abject failure, from the point of view of my genes.
Posted by Aurora Erratic]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 13:12:31 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> The advances in treatment for sickle cell allow people with full blown sickle cell - I'm not talking about carriers here - to live through childhood and into adulthood. Having made it to adulthood they can now pass on their genes and so pass on sickle cell. This up the percentage of people with sickle cell. When everyone who had fullblown sickle cell died in infancy or early childhood the population rate of sickle cell was kept down by death.
So, yes, unequal breeding success is the ultimate in "selection's machine". However, death is its infallible hand. The mastery of death therefore retards the machine and clogs its mechanisms.
Posted by moosefan]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 13:11:17 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> @25

Some females abort or resorb their own young while they are still in development after a new male takes over; this is known as the Bruce effect.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide…


Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 13:08:44 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]>
Also, I do not think the lions are "abusing" the cubs, I believe they fucking eat them. A bit different, since they have no real choice in the matter, but I digress.

And why does everyone here call you Bailo?
Posted by Theodore Gorath]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 13:04:16 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> Posted by tdonut]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 12:49:42 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]>
In humans, its very common in remarriages for the step children of the previous parent to be abused. The new couple would want to favor its own progeny.

As such the lions are doing the same thing.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 12:33:13 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> Posted by Fnarf]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 12:29:28 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> Posted by giffy]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 12:23:43 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]>
Posted by lark]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 12:10:20 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> Posted by Charles Mudede]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 12:00:45 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]>
Do you think Lionesses are bending coat hangers and visiting clinics? They are not purposefully aborting fetuses, natural processes are "blindly" doing so.

And why does everyone call you Bailo?
Posted by Theodore Gorath]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 12:00:35 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> Posted by Charles Mudede]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 11:59:09 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> I think the 25% is a rough guess by medical professionals because most spontaneous abortions happen in the first few weeks of pregnancy and are not noted by women as miscarriages/spontaneous abortions because the women themselves didn't know they were pregnant. Also, the longer a pregnancy lasts the less likely it is to end in a spontaneous abortion. This is largely why women wait until they are out of their first trimester to tell: the risk of spontaneous abortion drops off precipitously after about week 14.
Furthermore since the source Charles quoted is quoting a WHO report those numbers are taken out of context. The very low number of spontaneous abortions in the control group makes me think they may have been looking at late term spontaneous abortions and not overall spontaneous abortions.
Posted by moosefan]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 11:52:46 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> You mentioned "In fact, choice is precisely what makes humans exceptional." That said and here's a loaded question to you, "Do you believe there is free will?"

I know it's heavy but I just had to ask.
Posted by lark]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 11:51:46 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> Abortion is not "uniquely human".

Lion society is made up of a pride of females and cubs and a set of males who have access.

Groups of rogue males can challenge existing males and force them off the pride.

At that point, the females will abort existing fetuses from the prior dominant males.


Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 11:51:14 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]>
"According to Independent Media Center in India, "24% of pregnant women exposed to isocyanide Bhopal explosion had spontaneous abortions.""

Would not that imply the chemicals had no real effect since the rate of the exposed group was roughly the same, a bit lower even, than one would naturally expect?
Posted by giffy]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 11:44:34 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: On Spontaneous Abortions]]> Posted by floater]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 11:42:11 -0700 The Stranger