jjw1414

Which group are you in?

If I turn the volume down to the point that I only hear the cadence/rhythm of the voices, but can no longer make out the words, it sounds like any, “This Week in…” podcast.

In this case, the User deliberately changed the text of a fairly well-known riddle in order to “fool” the LLM. What you really are looking for is the right question: “A man and a son get into a car accident. They are rushed to the hospital and the boy requires surgery. The surgeon looks at the boy and says "I cannot perform surgery on him, he’s my son!". Why is this the case?”. In this corrected version, there is no statement that the man is a surgeon. If you read this correct version of the riddle, ChatGPT’s answer makes sense. The LLM was tricked because the majority of the text for the User prompt (modified riddle) is very close to the correct version which is prevalent across the internet (search the web for, “I can’t operate on him, he’s my son” and you’ll receive many hits with the full text of the correct riddle). I admit that when I first read the modified version of the riddle, I assumed it was the original after having seen it so many times before.

As an aside, this riddle is commonly used to demonstrate that people assume all doctors are male based on a stereotype. However, I think the reason many people stumble on the answer is related to the exceedingly low probability that a boy in a car accident would be rushed to a hospital where his own mother (or father) is the ER surgeon. The riddle also adds in the seemingly unnecessary statement by the doctor that she can’t operate on the boy because he is her son. Why not? Possibly she would not be in the right frame of mind due to the emotional attachment, but my expectation is that her fight-or-flight would kick in and she would perform the surgery to save her son’s life. It’s a red-herring in my opinion.

It's important to distinguish between the types of stem cells when referring to pluripotency (i.e., the ability for a cell to differentiate into almost any cell type in the body). Embryonic stem cells are considered pluripotent. Adult stem cells are more correctly referred to as "multipotent" in that they can be coaxed into differentiating into other cell types, but typically into cell types close to their own lineage.

I completely agree that neglect, indifference and lack of involvement can only result in negative outcomes for a child (e.g., sense of insecurity, lower feelings of self-worth, delayed development in certain areas due to lack of stimulation). I’m just curious what definition of “success” you are using in your final sentence. Not being snarky here - I’m honestly interested. There can be no question that having financial stability as an adult can be considered a form of success in that it provides security, shelter, access to a healthy lifestyle. Being raised by parents who have significant monetary wealth likely increases the chances that the child will have similar opportunities for financial gain as they become independent. I just wonder if parental involvement is at least equally important by teaching proper social interaction skills that can lead to favorable relationships later in life (i.e., the “it’s not what you know but who you know” effect).

Yes, Lamarck is alive and well. I frequently hear colleagues in biology with years of experience making lazy statements such as, "Humans evolved to walk because..." as if evolution is a conscious act. In many cases, these people are using the term evolution as shorthand for, "Random mutations gave rise to new gene variants (alleles), and over numerous generations, natural selection leads to an increase in the prevalence of beneficial variants, specifically those that provide a reproductive advantage. The genetic variants that combined to enable bipedal locomotion provided such an advantage to the human population". Evolution is a passive, natural process driven by genetic variation, environmental changes, and the differential reproductive success of individuals with advantageous traits. This in turn results in population changes. Evolution doesn't involve a conscious choice or direction. Evolution is the result of the cumulative effects of these factors over long periods of time.

Upvote for the solid relationship advice, technology aside.

“Do you know that books smell like nutmeg or some spice from a foreign land? I loved to smell them when I was a boy. Lord, there were a lot of lovely books once, before we let them go”. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451. After reading this as a kid, I always found this to be true. In particular, the public library pulp paperbacks on those rotating wire racks back in the 1980s.

You were not alone.

I'm a biologist who purchases reagents from Bio-Rad. I received this email last night: December 10, 2019

"Bio-Rad Dear Valued Customers:

At approximately 5:30 PM (Pacific Standard Time) on December 5, Bio‑Rad detected a ransomware attack on our global network. We immediately took certain systems offline as part of the company’s comprehensive response to contain the activity, which means there may be a delay in fulfilling your orders.

Work is ongoing to restore full system functionality as quickly as possible. Our top priority is taking care of you, our customers, so you can place orders and receive products as quickly as possible."

Good article, and I agree that Kennedy's speeches are generally associated with the push for the Apollo program ("We choose to go to the Moon..."), but I would hardly say that LBJ's role was "unsung". They did rename the Manned Space Center in Houston to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in 1973. All flight control of the Apollo, Space Shuttle, and ISS operations have been, and continue to be conducted there. Kennedy's tragic assassination (56 years ago, yesterday) increased the public focus on "fulfilling Kennedy's dream", a glimmer of hope the American people needed after such a terrible event. True, LBJ isn't the individual most people first associate with the Moon landings, but for Apollo-geeks like me, Johnson's name and role are quite evident.